The Ultimate Halloween Party Movie: House of Frankenstein
House of Frankenstein (1944)
Directed by Erle C. Kenton. Starring Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, J. Carrol Naish, Glenn Strange, Anne Gwynne, Elena Verdugo, George Zucco, Lionel Atwill.
I was working in the lab, late one night…
Ah, October. My favorite month. No other time is so ideal for exploring dark fantasy, the Gothic, the classic ghost story … and of course, Universal horror films. The monsters of Universal’s 1930s and ‘40s films have given the Halloween season its mascots, creatures as closely identified with the holiday as Santa Claus is with Christmas. So there’s no better Halloween party flick than the wall-to-wall monster epic that was the original “The Monster Mash”…
In seventy-one minutes, House of Frankenstein brings you:
- Dracula
- The Wolf Man
- Frankenstein’s Monster
- A mad scientist
- A hunchback
- A torch-wielding mob of angry villagers
- A laboratory full of Kenneth Strickfaden-influenced sizzling equipment
- Brain transplants!
All this, plus the hat trick of Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr., and John Carradine in the same film; roles for classic supporting actors Lionel Atwill and George Zucco; and sexy Anne Gwynne. Now how much would you pay?
I paid $8.99 for my DVD, and I got Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man on the same disc!
Fans of Tom Waits are often divided into two camps: those who favor the early boozy Kerouac, be-bop inspired crooner of life’s derelicts and losers up until he transmogrified beginning with the “Heartattack and Vine” album and “crossed over” into Kurt Weill cacaphonous orator of the absurd; fans of the later period sometimes disdain the earlier, and vice versa, despite the obvious connections. Me, I’m in the third camp as a huge admirer of both milieus. (I suppose there’s a further quarter of people who can’t stand Waits at all, but, much like the folks who still tiresomely maintain Dylan hasn’t done anything since his protest days, aren’t worth serious attention.)
Before he became a regular artist for Black Gate, Bernie Mireault was already something of a Renaissance man in the comics industry. He’s been a writer, artist, letterer, and highly acclaimed colorist, and worked with Matt Wagner (Grendel), Joe Matt, Mike Allred, and many others. His comics include Dr. Robot, Bug-eyed Monster, The Blair Witch Chronicles, and his masterpiece, The Jam.
I say “first meeting that we know of” because Bernie and I were born in the exact same (and very small) place — a Canadian Air Force base in Marville, France — only a few years apart in the early 60s. Did we pass briefly as toddlers in the officer’s mess, and maybe compare our love for cartoons and comics while our fathers saluted each other over trays of french bread and beans? Probably not. But hey, man. It’s possible.
I was commenting the other day on the surplus number of wonderful S&S anthologies I’ve stumbled on since a friend and I began a collaborative shared world writing project a few weeks ago, both writing stories set in a fantasy/medieval city with a history and a river and neighborhoods and taverns and all the usual trappings. His background in world building (via D&D or whatever) is less than mine, and mine is quite scant, so our efforts have grown in odd bits and pieces: first the tavern, then the name of the city, then a mountain backed up against it, and so on.
The place is here, the time is now, and the journey into the shadows that we’re about to watch could be our journey.
I read an interesting post the other day by a thoughtful blogster whose name I cannot now remember and whose post I cannot locate again, who professed his surprise at all the fans of Conan (and Sword & Sorcery in general) who were returning to the fold now, after falling away in the 1980s, after the last Big S&S Boom.