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9:55 PM
For some Halloween is a candy-fueled holiday full of little kids dressed up as superheroes and princesses. And for some Halloween (Samhain in Ireland, Nos Galaen Gaeaf in Wales etc...) is a holiday to represent fall's end and the wheel of the year enters death, or rather "winter." For me, I celebrate Nos Calean Gaeaf but a few candy-infused moments throughout the day (as I finish a pack of Reeses peanut butter cups...) complete with horror movies all month long. So, in light of all the horror movies that I have watched this month, some special ones have won special awards in my mind.
Best Boris Karloff Performance
The Nominations
The Body Snatcher
Isle of the Dead
Bedlam
The Black Cat
The Raven
Although for this award, always up to debate amongst cinemaniacs, it was neck and neck between The Body Snatcher and The Black Cat, two Boris and Bela movies but one always beats out each other . As Cabman Jon Gray, this role can only be the winner because of the intensity he gives to an otherwise kind of shitty movie. Everyone he's in a scene with almost seem better, the scene where Karloff and Lugosi meet is made of legend. Bouncing off of Henry Daniell as the man who knows his torrid grave-robbing past which Daniell struggles to put behind him, Karloff becomes a haunting force of teasing Daniell's Dr. MacFarlane about what he knows, delivering sinister like no one's business. Don't believe me? Watch.
Best Bela Lugosi Performance
The Nominations
Murders of the Rue Morgue
The Black Cat
The Raven
The Invisible Ray
Hands down, the man otherwise known as Dracula with the cape in his casket with him ("You think he's still alive?" - Peter Lorre), his best role has to be actually playing a good guy -- although conflicted. As Vitus Wedergast, a man with nothing to lose, having lost both his wife and daughter to Karloff's Hjalmar Poelzig you can surprisingly understand why he goes a little crazy at the end and find yourself shocked by the ending. Lugosi, more known to play evil roles, such as in the other films in the nomination cue -- I'm not ruling out he plays bad so well, but this movie shows Bela's immaculate focus as playing a role we actually feel sorry for -- therefore taking him a little more seriously than "just Dracula." He's not just Dracula my friend, because Christopher Lee is. Duh.
Best Vincent Price Performance
The Nominations
House of Usher
The Pit and the Pendulum
The Tower of London
Laura
House of Wax
The Haunted Palace
Hands down, as another film cinemaniac's conundrum continues, Vincent Price's best has to be The Pit and the Pendulum, but not for the reasons like Bela's, like above, when you find that Nicholas Medina is tormented by the loss of his wife and the scene when you find she is not actually dead, the process of Price losing his mind is far more than any witty scene he has with another woman -- this shows that Price was a damned good actor despite the pidgeon-holing him as over the top. I can't see him as over the top considering the type of movies he did.
Best Atmospheric Film
The Nominations
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte
The Uninvited
Little Red Riding Hood
The fundamental thing about a "atmospheric film" is that it should not only have a great aesthetic of shadow and lighting contrast, but what the lighting adds to an already creepy house. Also, you will lose yourself both within the movie and into the house, that's what The Haunting ('63) does that to me. Something that tells and not shows so much. The same can be said for Robert Aldrich's Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte which seems to have a deeper darkness to it than his more popular Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. Plus, the main center isn't so much Bette Davis and Joan Crawford's 'diva-off" so to speak. Another film Aldrich hoped to get Crawford and Davis into a room together, I think the change of Craford to Olivia de Havilland to play the cousin, Miriam Deering, worked in the favor to be more of a cohesive film than into one huge "I'm better than you" back and forth game. Plus, Agnes Moorhead who was nominated for her role, is absolutely impeccable.
Best Val Lewton Production
The Nominations
Cat People
Isle of the Dead
Bedlam
The Body Snatcher
Saturday night was a Val Lewton night, and normally I would say The Body Snatcher, I do not think it was the most coheisve movie. But Cat People, on the other hand, I quite enjoyed. And after watching the documentary on Val Lewton, I enjoyed it even more for the lack of not seeing anything - nothing incredibly cryptic other than light, sound, and the descent of mindover-matter insanity. My favorite kind of movie. Plus, Simone Simon was absolutely STUNNING!
Best "This Could Almost be Replaced my top favorite The Haunting ('63)" Movie
The Nominations
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
The Pit and the Pendulum
House of Usher
The Black Cat
It was a very hard call, but as much as Rex Harrison's sexy moustached sea captain is appealing, The House of Usher seems to be the most co-heisve out of all of the movies: the colors, some of the first psychedelia, plus the phenomenal acting that only Vincent Price can provide. Even before researching this movie, really watching it, I could sense a feeling of complete perfect unity behind the camera. Don't look at me funny, it's a sixth sense I have about movies when something feels complete, without much problems except for Mark Damon's delivery. For such a short poem, Corman did it justice on fleshing it out for a hour and twenty minutes.
Hope everyone had a wonderful fall (happy halloween!)
Bette Davis is one of my favourite actors ever.
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