BS: Favorite 50's horror film...

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite 50's horror film...
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 18 Dec 05 - 03:19 AM

There was one about a giant eye with tentacles that attacked and killed. Why didn't someone just poke it? Or challenge it to a stare-out contest?

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite 50's horror film...
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 18 Dec 05 - 11:11 AM

The French original of "Diabolique". It was filmed in very murky black and white; the ending could literally cause a heart attack.

BTW, someone mentioned "War of the Worlds" as being a black and white movie. The 1950s version with Gene Barry was in color and scary mostly because of how loud it was. I saw that movie at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles; it was weird sitting a couple of miles from City Hall watching it be 'destroyed'.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite 50's horror film...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Dec 05 - 12:13 PM

The best way to do War of the Worlds would be this: put it back in the historical time period that Wells originally wrote it in. THAT would be a good movie. Too bad it was just done again, or Peter Jackson could take it on.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite 50's horror film...
From: Peace
Date: 18 Dec 05 - 01:42 PM

"BTW, someone mentioned "War of the Worlds" as being a black and white movie."

That was me, John. I have been trying to remember--it must have been in colour. Maybe the world has become more black and white as I've aged. Huh. If I knew where my memory went . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite 50's horror film...
From: GLoux
Date: 18 Dec 05 - 02:21 PM

Chanteyranger writes:

"The Amazing Colossal Man." Saw this long ago. I think it's exposure to radiation that sends this guy's pituitary gland into deep overdrive, as he grows to about 100 feet high. Anyone remember that?


Thank you!!! I couldn't remember the name of this, but as a kid I saw it with friends in Phoenixville, PA at the Colonial Theatre, which is where they filmed a great scene in The Blob. I seem to recall they were doing some nuclear bomb testing and he was exposed.

-Greg

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite 50's horror film...
From: GLoux
Date: 18 Dec 05 - 02:24 PM

Remember Hitchcock's "The Birds"???

-Greg

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite 50's horror film...
From: Peter T.
Date: 19 Dec 05 - 08:23 AM

My favourite one was the one with the tree that dragged people to their doom. Can't remember the name ("It Came From Beyond" or something), but what was so great about it was that the tree moved really slowly (sort of like the mummy only slower) and so the only way that it could capture people was if they ran into it. So for the whole movie people run around a lot for no reason so that they can bump into the tree. At the end of the movie, the heroine falls into quicksand, and the tree saves her at the sacrifice of its own life -- the last thing you see is its branches waving over the mud.

I am not making this up.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite 50's horror film...
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 19 Dec 05 - 08:36 AM

Hitchcock's "The Birds" was frightening, BUT not as frightening as the real prospect of a bird-flu pandemic!

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite 50's horror film...
From: RangerSteve
Date: 19 Dec 05 - 09:56 AM

The Man with the X-Ray Eyes. Not particularly scarey, but it sure illustrates the idea of "be careful what you wish for".

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite 50's horror film...
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 19 Dec 05 - 11:44 AM

There was a 50s zombie flick that had a climax where the hero and heroine were trapped in the Zombie Cave, and suddenly the mysterious goo that turns you into a zombie starts dripping down the walls of the cave. It was so obviously soap suds that, even at the age of eight, I couldn't stop laughing. This movie also contained an awful but very catchy Calypso song about zombies. I have always wondered what the name of the movie was. Anybody?

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite 50's horror film...
From: robomatic
Date: 19 Dec 05 - 05:08 PM

The Goons did a great spoof of Quatermass and the Pit called: "Quatermass O.B.E."
Guard: "I tried to stop'm but 'e got through by puttin' money in me 'and."
Seagoon:"What paper do you represent?"
Bluebottle: "BROWN paper!"

Also don't forget that 80's American tabloid classic: "Killer Klownz From Outer Space."

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite 50's horror film...
From: GUEST,william
Date: 19 Dec 05 - 05:18 PM

Lonesome EJ; heck yeah. And then Milland goes ape on the crew (his wife included, right) who conspire to actually bury him alive. Molly Malone eh? yeech. Still kind of gives me the creeps.

More of a sci-fi, but does anyone remember "The Incredible Shrinking Man"? This guy goes through some weird fog and then just starts shrinking. Eventually he's about mouse size and the cat chases him to where he falls down the basement stairs. And it's gradual, so he carves out a life for himself down there, having to fight over scaps of food with this spider which looks huge by comparison. And the guy just keeps shrinking ... w

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite 50's horror film...
From: SINSULL
Date: 19 Dec 05 - 05:39 PM

For really creepy, The Servant with Dirk somebody. Benedict? Pure evil natched with obscene weakness equals total depravity.

But of course the worst horror film of all time is "Lobsteroids" featuring our own Captain Kendall Morse as narrator. Ironically, the music crucial to the plot is all loud rock.It ends suitably with a lobster boil on the beach. heh heh

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite 50's horror film...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Dec 05 - 08:06 PM

I saw the one about the tree, Peter, when I was pretty young. It was an astonishingly bad premise for a film. But, hey, the tree gave its life up to save the girl...just like Kong was trying to do. How noble! What is it about girls anyway? From where do they derive this mysterious power to summon up chivalric impulses in men, monsters, and even plants? Someone ought to write a big book about it and get to the bottom of this mystery.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite 50's horror film...
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 19 Dec 05 - 10:22 PM

As most of us who lived through the 50s know, monsters, zombies, vampires and their ilk were highly attracted to young, buxom, attractive women with torn clothing. Witness the many posters of the era which depicted these bloodthirsty creatures lugging away these helpless beauties. Where were they taking them? What ungodly wickedness were they planning to inflict on them? And didn't it make being a horrible monster somehow desireable for a pimply 12 year old who couldn't get a woman like this to even look at him, much less let him attempt to carry her off in his spindly chigger-bitten arms?

Maybe that's why I collected Monster Magazine with a close-up of The Wolfman on the cover! In those pre-rock star days, wasn't a werewolf about as close to Gene Simmons as you were going to find? In fact, judging by the get-up he later adopted, maybe Gene Simmons had a little Monster Jones of his own going back to those days.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite 50's horror film...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Dec 05 - 10:34 PM

Good analyis, LEJ. I think you are onto something. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite 50's horror film...
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 19 Dec 05 - 10:38 PM

"THE THING" The theme song of which made #1 on Your Hit Parade.

                                                SOL ZELLER

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite 50's horror film...
From: Cluin
Date: 20 Dec 05 - 03:07 PM

What ungodly wickedness were they planning to inflict on them?

The same as we regular guys would've liked to.
The monsters were basically competitors and our competitors never fare too well.


Watched Vincent Price in "The Last Man on Earth" last night. A movie which was later remade into "The Omega Man" with Charlton Heston. Both were pretty cheesy (especially the first one), but there were things I liked about both. But neither one was as good as the original novel "I Am Legend". I guess they're going to remake it again, this time with Will Smith.

I'm not hopeful.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite 50's horror film...
From: robomatic
Date: 20 Dec 05 - 08:59 PM

Kinda sci-fi horror, but "Donovan's Brain" or anything with a living head on a table under glass had a thrilling feel of horror to it.

And we're getting damn close to the real thing.