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Selma Blair has signed on to star in the supernatural thriller Silent, Variety reports.

Doron & Yoaz Paz are directing from a script by Stephen Herman (Black Box).

Blair will play Skylar, a sound designer hired anonymously to create the audio for a rare silent film. Disturbed by its contents, Skylar is nonetheless increasingly obsessed with her work, and unwittingly finds herself caught up in a dark ritual that unlocks an ancient evil, threatening to consume her and her young daughter.

Production is set to begin in Vancouver this summer from Roundtable Entertainment and Templeheart Films for an expected 2026 release.

“We’re thrilled to be collaborating with Selma Blair on this unique project. We believe the best horror emerges from remarkable character building. That’s why Selma is perfect for this movie. You care about her and her journey. When you care about the characters, the frightening moments hit much harder,...

It’s the holiday season which means tons of free time by the fire. If you’re looking to fill your time with horror, Vizio has left you a Pandora’s Box under the tree filled with all the most terrifying Free titles sure to keep your heart racing this December!

WatchFree+ will fill your season with shrieks of delight as you enjoy the chills of 13 horror classics, including Screambox’s #Amfad: All My Friends Are Dead and Santastein!

Also streaming for free are The Lake, Open Water, The Golem, The Crazies, Cube, Lake Placid, Stir of Echoes, An American Werewolf in London, Silent Hill: Revelation, and cult classic Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

WatchFree+ has thousands of free premium movies and shows that can be streamed on demand on Vizio TVs, or Anyone can enjoy titles like these and more using the Vizio mobile app! All you need is a free...

Lord Moran is an ineffectual villain in Sherlock, functioning more as a narrative device than a true antagonist. Dr. Bob Frankland is a boring villain in Sherlock, lacking the depth and grandeur of his creation, the hallucinated hounds. However, his murder plot is well-produced. Jonathan Small, the Mayfly Man, is an underdeveloped character in Sherlock, but he displays cruelty and cunning in one of the show's best mysteries.

Sherlock features a diverse range of villains, varying from brilliant to bizarre. The BBC adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's eponymous detective, Sherlock depicts many creepy criminals over its four seasons. Some of these villains are highly memorable, while others are less so.

Sherlock stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr. John Watson, but impressive guest stars also bolster the modernized adaptation. Many bring Conan Doyle's infamous rogue's gallery to life, capturing the villains with varying degrees of success.

Horror fans may be familiar with the name Jason Paul Collum. He has written, directed, produced, and/or acted in multiple films over the last thirty years, including Safe Inside, October Moon, November Son, and the documentaries Something to Scream About, Sleepless Nights: Revisiting the Slumber Party Massacres, and Screaming in High Heels: The Rise & Fall of the Scream Queen Era. He has also written the book Assault of the Killer Bs: Interviews With 20 Cult Film Actresses – and this month, a new Jason Paul Collum book has been published. It’s called They Made How Many?! (Mostly) American Horror Franchises of the 20th Century, and it’s a 654 page look at the many horror sequels that were made in the 1900s. Copies can be purchased at This Link.

They Made How Many?! (Mostly) American Horror Franchises of the 20th Century has the following description: The Howling 8. Children of the Corn 9. Witchcraft 16. Amityville 41 (legally?...

Receiving one coveted 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes is a massive achievement in itself, with two actors being tied for having the most entries in the 100% club. Unsurprisingly, due to their influence on cinema, many of the films on Rotten Tomatoes with a Fresh 100% rating are considered classics, which means most of the actors with the highest number of 100% critic scores were at their height in the golden age of Hollywood. Many actors whose movies boast multiple 100% Rotten Tomatoes scores are also Oscar winners, suggesting their screen presence influences the films’ continued acclaim.

Beginning with 1920’s The Golem as the oldest movie with a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score, an increasing number of films have joined the desired list over the years, with the prospect of achieving a 100% score shockingly being easier to attain than a 0% score. Hollywood legends like Humphrey Bogart, Judy Garland, Henry Fonda, and James Stewart boast between nine and 11 Fresh 100% scores each,...

Film prequels have a long history in Hollywood, where they hold a unique place. Some are used to reboot a franchise. We already know that any film with even the most moderate success is likely to breed sequels. But when the sequel well runs dry? Start from before the beginning, like 2018's Bumblebee. Some prequels build a backstory for a beloved film and/or characters in it: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them or the upcoming The Hunger Games prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. And others restore a filmmaker's original vision, which brings us to the oft-overlooked 1920 horror classic The Golem: How He Came Into the World, the first prequel ever.

No film of the Hays Code era revels in its own perversity quite like Mad Love (1935). Mad science, body horror, insanity, obsession, executions, gaslighting, sadomasochism—it’s all here and presented with unparalleled excellence of craft. Though it may seem tame compared to pre-Code fare like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), Freaks, and Island of Lost Souls (both 1932), it manages to just barely sneak its lurid subject matter by the censors under a layer of dark humor, exceptional cinematography, and a masterful performance by Peter Lorre in his first American film.

After Dracula proved to be a huge success for Universal, other Hollywood studios became eager to get in on the horror game, though many of these studios felt the genre was beneath them. Metro Goldwyn Mayer was considered the most prestigious of the golden-age studios, famous for its big budget musicals, epic spectaculars, and boasting “more stars than there are in the heavens.

We’ve always liked to watch humanity face off against beasts at the movies, from the early silent monster films like The Golem and The Lost World to our continued interest in monsters like Godzilla and King Kong, decades after their introductions. Hell, Leonardo DiCaprio didn't even get an Oscar until he fought a grizzly bear. There’s something fascinating to us about watching a person clash with a beast and seeing who ends up the victor, as if watching these films is the closest thing we can get to revisiting our brutish origins as a species. It’s this base excitement that director Baltasar Kormákur embraces with Beast, but with characters this dumb, it’s a surprise humans ever made it this far.

Spanish thesp Luis Tosar has joined the cast of sci-fi comedy “Golem,” produced by Spain’s top indie house Aquí y Allí Films.

Directed by Juan González and Fernando Martínez (a.k.a. Burnin’ Percebes), the project toplines Brays Efe, star of Netflix hit series “Paquita Salas,” Goya Award winner Bruna Cusí (“Summer 1993”) and Javier Botet.

Aquí y Allí Films’ Pedro Hernández and Elamedia’s Roberto Butragueño produce the film, scheduled to roll in Madrid from August.

Elamedia will distribute in Spain.

Aquí y Allí is one of the five Spanish companies selected by Spain’s trade promotion board Icex and the Icaa film institute to pitch their production slates at Cannes’ Producers Network.

Burnin’ Percebes earned a reputation as a cult indie film pair with previous features “Searching for Meritxell,” “Ikea 2” and “The Lizard Queen.”

“Golem” narrates the story of two friends, Juan and David, who after an...

2021 poster for The Golem: How He Came into the World. Art by Johan Brosow.This gorgeous new poster for the 101 year old German expressionist silent film The Golem is the product of a lovely new endeavor by the Swedish distribution company NonStop Entertainment. In 2015 NonStop, perhaps the premier arthouse distributor in the Nordic region, launched a sister label, NonStop Timeless, to release their hundreds of repertory classics ranging from Dreyer to Lanthimos. Last year, in the early days of the pandemic, they decided to commission some of Sweden’s foremost artists, photographers, and designers to do their own take on a classic of their choice from the NonStop Timeless collection. The six artists selected chose seven films between them. The posters were printed in limited quantities on non-glossy paper in the Swedish cinema poster format of 70 x 100cm (very close to the US 27" x 40" standard) and were unveiled last week...

Based out of the U.S. and Spain, 34T Sales has taken international rights to surrealist romcom “The Queen of Lizards,” directed by Nando Martínez and Juan González, who go by the name of Burnin’ Percebes.

The feature is produced by Pedro Hernández at Madrid-based Aquí y Allí Films which first caught notice with “Here and There,” the debut feature of Antonio Méndez Esparza, which won Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prize in 2012. Carlos Vermut’s “Magical Girl” scooped San Sebastian’s Golden Shell in 2016, while another Aqua y all production, Méndez Esparza’s “Life and Nothing More,” was proclaimed an “essential film2 of 2017 by Variety.

The Spanish producer has proven to have a keen eye for discovering young original talent working on stories deeply rooted in memorable characters.

Martínez and González broke out with their first feature, 2014’s “Searching for Meritxell,” then made “Ikea 2,” two low-cost indie features which confronted classic scenarios,...

The worldwide trailer for Holocaust revenge film “Plan A” has been revealed, with Variety given an exclusive first look. The English-language drama, based on a true story, stars August Diehl, Sylvia Hoeks, Nikolai Kinski (“The Barbarians”) and Michael Aloni (“Shitsel”).

The film, by Israeli helmers Yoav and Doron Paz, will be released by Menemsha Films in North America, Signature in the U.K., Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, New Select in Japan, Twelve Oaks Pictures in Spain, Nos Lusomundo in Portugal, Danal Entertainment in Korea, and CaiChang in Taiwan. Further territory sales, negotiated by Global Screen, are to be announced soon.

Set in Germany in 1945, the film centers on Max (Diehl), a Holocaust survivor, who meets a group of Jewish vigilantes. Together they develop a plan to take monstrous revenge against the German people for the Holocaust: to poison the water system in Germany, and kill 6 million Germans. The film...

The ‘kaiju’ film – the Japanese giant monster movie – includes such classic screen icons as mutated sea monster Godzilla, flying caterpillar deity Mothra and towering turtle Gamera. Among the multitude of magnificent monsters was Daimajin, inspired by the ancient Golem story where a large stone-carved being comes to life. The Daimajin Trilogy has been brought back to life by Arrow Video in a Limited Edition 3-disc collection that comes with postcards, a 100-page book, and beautiful restorations of the three classic 1960’s kaiju films. To celebrate the release, here’s a look at the magnificent seven key players on the monster movie scene.

1. King Kong

The success of the 1931 Hollywood epic King Kong would not only kickstart the ‘creature feature’ genre, but also became a staple part of Japanese kaiju film. Rko, who owned the rights, licensed Kong to the famous Toho film studio in Japan – resulting in King Kong v...

Co-Presented by Hong Kong Arts Centre and Goethe-Institut Hongkong

Machines Like Us: Desires and Technology in German Cinema

18 – 21/4/2021

Louis Koo Cinema, Hong Kong Arts Centre

Tickets are available at Hong Kong Movie now.

Co-Presented by Hong Kong Arts Centre and Goethe-Institut Hongkong, moving image programme Machines Like Us: Desires and Technology in German Cinema takes place at the Louis Koo Cinema, Hong Kong Arts Centre from 18 to 21 April 2021. Since the invention of the first stone tools nearly two million years ago up to the present digital era, technology has always been the means that humans use to fulfill desires, obtain resources, modify the world and explore possibilities. Film is also one of the means – by cinematically realising imaginations and establishing human connections.

Co-presented by Goethe-Institut Hongkong and the Hong Kong Arts Centre, this film showcase serves as an introduction to German science fiction films from the 1920s up till now,...

Hong Kong Arts Centre has long sought to complement this industry by delivering a diverse range of alternative and non-mainstream cinema, thereby promoting appreciation of the richness and range of the moving image practice to the public through presentation. With an in-house cinema, it organises thematic screening programmes ranging from film classics, cutting edge works, short film, documentary to the best in foreign and independent cinema. As a film and media arts hub in Asia, it also serves as an incubator for artists who work with the moving image.

Here are the programmes and screenings scheduled for the months of March and April:

Bangkok Nites

New Cinema Collective: The Emerging Power Of Asian Cinema

Venue: Louis Koo Cinema, Hong Kong Arts Centre

Date: 2021.03.14 – 2021.03.25

Organised by New Cinema Collective, The Emerging Power of Asian Cinema aims to bring Hong Kong young filmmakers new inspiration and insight. Through case studies of Asian...

The 11th edition of Ukraine’s biggest film event will run from 25 September-3 October. The 11th edition of the Odesa International Film Festival (Oiff) is due to unspool its digital edition at a completely different time to its usual mid-July dates on the coast of the Black Sea, as this year it will run from 25 September-3 October. Despite the new format, Oiff will retain its traditional open-air performance, which will take place in its “physical” location at the Potemkin Stairs, where the silent horror film The Golem: How He Came into the World by Carl Boese and Paul Wegener will be screened, marking the 100th anniversary of the early German Expressionist oeuvre. The screening of the film on 2 October will be accompanied by a chamber orchestra, which will perform a soundtrack written by Israeli composer Betty Olivero. On the first day of the festival, the political comedy The...

"The Furniture" is our series on Production Design. Click on the images to see them in magnified detail.

by Daniel Walber

The story goes that Paul Wegener first heard of the Golem while shooting The Student of Prague (1913). Though he was clearly caught by the story, Wegener may also have been entranced by a glimpse of the old Josefov, Prague’s Jewish ghetto. Dating back to the Middle Ages, the neighborhood was almost entirely demolished between 1893 and 1913 to make room for Paris-style boulevards. Inspired, Wegener made two (now-lost) Golem movies during World War One - though not in Prague.

By the time he started on The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920), the world had changed. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was gone. Prague was the capital of brand-new Czechoslovakia, a Czechoslovak-speaking nation - which would be complicated for its mostly German-speaking Jews. Frankly, Wegener could have set his Golem movie in 1920 if he wanted.

This article is presented by NordVPN.

Fear is the universal language. Terror is, as we have sadly seen so often, a global phenomenon. And monsters inhabit every crevice of this small world, from the deepest recesses of the South Pacific to the most remote peaks of the North Pole. So it should hardly be a surprise that horror films are and have been a component of cinema in just about every country that embraced the art form. Along with love, fear is the most profound human emotion, and any art — especially filmmaking — is the way in which we express those feelings to the rest of the world.

While the U.S., Canada and the U.K. (along with other primarily English-language nations like Australia and New Zealand) have produced healthy shares of the world’s catalog of horror movies, there is a vast, deep, diverse library of genre output that...

A top movie monster is back from filmic perdition, restored to his full might and power. Rabbi Lowe’s answer to the persecution of the ghetto is a mysterious unthinking automaton capable of terrible destruction. Paul Wegener’s indelible clay statue stands as a core myth in Jewish lore. But he’s still here, usually in allegories about mankind losing control of its own creations. With its imposing architecture and impressive special effects, this early expressionist masterpiece is one of the design highlights of silent cinema.

The Golem

Blu-ray

Kino Classics

1920 / B&w with tints / 1:33 silent ap. / 76 min. / Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam / Street Date April 14, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Paul Wegener, Albert Steinrück, Lyda Salmonova, Ernst Deutsch, Lothar Müthel, Fritz Feld.

Cinematography: Karl Freund, Guido Seeber

Art Direction and design: Hans Poelzig, Kurt Richter, Edgar G. Ulmer

New Music scores: Stephen Horne, Admir Shkurtai,...

We’ve been talking about The Golem, our first Dread Central Presents Original, for a while and now we are incredibly excited to bring you the full trailer for this supernatural period horror/thriller! The film comes from the Paz Brothers, the duo behind the found footage hit Jeruzalem. The film will be playing at this year’s […] The post Dread Central Presents: Behold The Terrifying Power of The Golem appeared first on Dread Central.

Burning it down in The Golem

Rewatching The Golem after what happened in Pittsburgh recently, it’s hard not to feel the additional weight of a film that explores anti-Semitism in a historical context, showing a woman creating a creature to defend her people. The woman has lost a child; she’s also frustrated at the lack of power she has because of attitudes to her gender, in a situation where her community needs all the skill and intelligence it can find – but there’s a warning here, too, about what can happen when responding to violence with violence, and about the difficulty of maintaining control once such forces are unleashed. This is the Paz brothers’ third feature and the second to reach international audiences, after the breakout success of Jeruzalem in 2015. They’re touring with the film but Doron Paz nevertheless found the time to connect and share his thoughts.

Starring Barbara Crampton (read Jonathan James' recent interview with the horror icon here), Dead Night is coming to DVD this September from Dark Sky Films. Also in today's Horror Highlights: Rlje Films acquires the sci-fi film Beyond the Sky for North American distribution, and we have a look at a new trailer and key art for The Golem, the latest horror movie from Jeruzalem directors Doron and Yoav Paz.

Dead Night Coming to DVD: Press Release: "James and his wife Casey load up their teenage kids and head to a remote cabin in Oregon for a weekend trip. When James ventures into the dark, snowy forest in search of firewood, he encounters a woman hidden in the frozen terrain and barely alive. James brings her back to the cabin for help, but the family has no way of knowing that the woman's presence will be the catalyst for a series...

Earlier this year, we were thrilled to announce that Doron and Yoav Paz’s The Golem would be the first original title in the Dread Central Presents library. Today, we’re giving you just as much reason to be excited by revealing the first teaser trailer and poster! “The Golem follows a woman’s tight-knit Jewish community that […]

The post Dread Central Presents: Teaser Trailer and Poster Breathe Life Into The Golem appeared first on Dread Central.

Exclusive: Shaked Berenson, co-founder with Patrick Ewald of indie producer-financier-distributor Epic Pictures, is exiting the company. Berenson had produced and executive produced more than 30 films in the tie-up since it was founded in 2007.

Epic confirmed Berenson’s departure, which comes as the company recently launched Dread Central Presents, its new horror label, following the acquisition of horror news and lifestyle site Dread Central Media. Its first production there is Middle East horror pic The Golem, from Doron and Yoav Paz; Epic showed footage to buyers at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The company in the fall celebrated its 10-year anniversary with a party at the American Film Market.

“Just over a decade ago, I co-founded Epic Pictures with the goal of creating a home for filmmakers to bring their vision to reality from inception to distribution under one roof,” Berenson told Deadline. “During that time, I had the pleasure...

The goth, romantic feature "Mary Shelley" (Elle Fanning), directed by Haifaa al-Mansour, focuses on the young writer who fell in love with poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, inspiring her to write the novel "Frankenstein", opening July 6, 2018:

"...'Mary' (Fanning) is a wayward teen spending more time reading scary literature than helping out with chores back at home. She clashes with stepmother 'Mary Jane' (Froggatt) but shares a warm relationship with stepsister 'Claire' (Powley) and father 'William Godwin' (Stephen Dillane), a renowned political philosopher and novelist.

"She also shares a strident streak with her late mother, the forward-thinking feminist 'Mary Wollstonecraft'.

"When Mary encounters handsome and rebellious poet 'Percy Shelley' (Douglas Booth), her life takes a dramatic turn that takes her across Europe...

"...encountering love, betrayal, tragedy and ultimately inspiration to write the classic horror novel "Frankenstein" aka "The Modern Prometheus"...

"...inspired by the Jewish folklore legend 'The Golem'...

Click...

Since we recently announced that Dread Central Presents acquired our first original feature film, The Golem, directed by Doron and Yoav Paz (JeruZalem), it seemed like the perfect opportunity to delve into this obscure and complicated manifestation. No, a Golem isn’t a relative of Gollum, aka Sméagol, the pitiable villain from The Lord of […]

The post What Exactly Is a Golem? Beast of Jewish Folklore Getting Feature Film Reboot After 100 Years appeared first on Dread Central.

The goth, romantic feature "Mary Shelley" is directed by Haifaa al-Mansour, focusing on the young writer who fell in love with poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, inspiring her to write the novel "Frankenstein", starring Elle Fanning, Maisie Williams, Douglas Booth, Bel Powley and Ben Hardy, opening July 6, 2018:

"...'Mary' (Fanning) is a wayward teen spending more time reading scary literature than helping out with chores back at home. She clashes with stepmother 'Mary Jane' (Froggatt) but shares a warm relationship with stepsister 'Claire' (Powley) and father 'William Godwin' (Stephen Dillane), a renowned political philosopher and novelist.

"She also shares a strident streak with her late mother, the forward-thinking feminist 'Mary Wollstonecraft'. When Mary encounters handsome and rebellious poet 'Percy Shelley' (Douglas Booth), her life takes a dramatic turn that takes her across Europe...

"...encountering love, betrayal, tragedy and ultimately inspiration to write the classic horror novel "Frankenstein" aka "The...

In the digital era of Wacoms and Photoshop, it is refreshing to see an artist who works nearly exclusively with the unforgiving medium of ink on paper. Coming out of Madrid, Spain, Mörtuus’ creative and original drawings have graced the covers of various zines, websites, and bands all across the globe. Speaking with Daily Dead, Mörtuus gives us a quick look into the macabre mind of the man behind some of the most horrific atmospheric artworks that have ever been put to page.

“I regard myself as a self-taught drawer. I probably learnt more from drawing comics when I was a teen than receiving artistic classes,” Mörtuus reflects. In terms of his artistic influences, he notes “[I was inspired by] the almighty ink masters like Frazetta, Corben, Mignola, Graham Ingels, Michael Whelan, and the Monster Bernie Wrightson, too many to mention, really! [I was also influenced by] the horror gothic novels from Lovecraft (God), Poe, Le Fanu, Mark Riddick,...

Review by Roger Carpenter

Germany’s Weimar Republic era roughly coincided with America’s Roaring Twenties period. Beginning shortly after the end of Wwi, spanning the decade of the 1920’s, and extending into the early 1930’s Germany’s Weimar era was one of prosperity, decadence, and escapism. And just as American’s prosperous, libidinous decade would end in tragedy with Black Friday’s stock market crash and the beginning of The Great Depression, the Germans would see a tragedy of even more monumental proportions with the rise of Hitler and Nazism which would bring a screeching halt to the Weimar ideology.

The development of early German cinema corresponded with the Weimar era. With the return from the war of men who would pioneer German cinema, the decade is perhaps arguably the most creative and innovative in the history of world cinema. 1920’s German films are essentially synonymous with expressionism and...

The goth, romantic feature "Mary Shelley" is directed by Haifaa al-Mansour, focusing on the young writer who fell in love with poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, inspiring her to write the novel "Frankenstein", starring Elle Fanning, Maisie Williams, Douglas Booth, Bel Powley and Ben Hardy, opening July 6, 2018:

"...'Mary' (Fanning) is a wayward teen spending more time reading scary literature than helping out with chores back at home. She clashes with stepmother 'Mary Jane' (Froggatt) but shares a warm relationship with stepsister 'Claire' (Powley) and father 'William Godwin' (Stephen Dillane), a renowned political philosopher and novelist.

"She also shares a strident streak with her late mother, the forward-thinking feminist 'Mary Wollstonecraft'. When Mary encounters handsome and rebellious poet 'Percy Shelley' (Douglas Booth), her life takes a dramatic turn that takes her across Europe...

"...encountering love, betrayal, tragedy and ultimately inspiration to write the classic horror novel "Frankenstein" aka "The...

He's back and more diabolically ruthless than ever! Berlin cowers under the influence of a gambler-mastermind, the secret architect of an 'Empire of Crime.' Restored to near its full length (4.5 hours!), Fritz Lang's monumental pulp masterpiece is a Euro-classic lover's delight. Dr. Mabuse The Gambler Blu-ray Kino Lorber Classics 1922 / B&W / 1:33 flat Full Frame / 270 min. / Street Date September 13, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Alfred Abel, Aud Egede Nissen, Gertrude Welcker, Bernhard Goetzke, Robert Forster-Larrinaga, Paul Richter Cinematography Carl Hoffmann Art Direction Otto Hunte, Erich Kettelhut, Karl Stahl-Urach, Karl Vollbrecht Writing credits Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou & Norbert Jacques from the novel by Norbert Jacques Produced by Erich Pommer Directed by Fritz Lang

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Fritz Lang really upped his game, directing-wise, between his 1921 fantasy epic Destiny and his next thriller extravaganza Dr. Mabuse The Gambler. Transcending contemporary notions of a popular release, the...

Review by Adrian Smith

When I Love Lucy debuted on American television in 1951, nobody could have suspected that it would become one of the most beloved shows of all time. Across six seasons Lucille Ball and her real-life husband, Cuban band leader Desi Arnaz, shared their lives with millions. At the time it was the most watched show in the United States, and undoubtedly helped fuel TV set sales during the decade. It has also been repeated constantly since, and sold around the world. Now, almost sixty years since the final episode, it is possible to go back and view it all from the beginning.

Keeping their own names helped further blur the line between the show and reality in the minds of the audience, and watching Desi and Lucy every week felt like you were spending time with real friends. For the most part the situations played out in...

By 1934 Boris Karloff was certainly no stranger to great movie entrances. In 1931, under the direction of James Whale, he seared his image, and that of the monstrous creation of Dr. Henry Frankenstein, into the collective consciousness by shuffling on screen and staring down his creator, and of course the terrified audience, embodying and fulfilling unspeakable nightmares. Frankenstein, an instant phenomenon, was one of 16 pictures Karloff made that were released in 1931.

And in the following year, 1932, in addition of Howard Hawks’ Scarface, Whale’s The Old Dark House and Charles Brabin’s The Mask of Fu Manchu, Karloff had another terrifying entrance in cinematographer-turned-director Karl Freund’s horror landmark The Mummy. As the title fiend, Imhotep, Karloff is first glimpsed in full bandage, sarcophagus laid open behind an unfortunate archaeologist who, engrossed in the parchments he’s discovered, doesn’t notice the mummy’s arm slide down from its bound position.

11 years ago today, “Saw” opened in theaters, shocking audiences with its grotesque violence and securing director James Wan's place in the Splat Pack. The Halloween season theatrical release followed a January 2004 premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. Starring Cary Elwes (“The Princess Bride”), the film was a game-changer, opening up the elevator floodgates to gallons of blood that would pour out from a new level of extremely gory horror movies. A huge box office success, “Saw” has made over $103 million off of a reported $1.2 million budget. Six sequels continued the legacy of the sadistic madman Jigsaw. “Saw” was Wan's feature directorial debut. The Australian filmmaker went on to direct “Insidious,” “The Conjuring” and “Furious 7.” He’s also directing the 2018 movie based on the DC Comics character Aquaman. “Saw,” “Insidious” and “The Conjuring” all are on the Top 200 in HitFix’s Ultimate Horror Poll, for which we polled over...

There's one ironclad rule for mad scientist movies:  if you show a monstrous caged ape-creature in the first act, that ape-creature must absolutely break loose and wreak havoc before the end of Act III.  Just ask George Zucco or John Carradine, they'll tell you. It makes no difference if the film is being made on Gower Gulch, or at Germany's prestigious UfA Studios. Alraune Region 2 Pal (Germany) DVD Arthaus 1952 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 87 min. / Unnatural, Mandragore, Vengeance / Street Date July 6, 2007 / Available at Amazon.de / Eur 16,90 Starring Hildegard Knef, Erich von Stroheim, Karlheinz Böhm, Harry Meyen, Rolf Henniger, Harry Halm, Hans Cossy, Gardy Brombacher, Trude Hesterberg, Julia Koschka, Denise Vernac. Cinematography Friedl Behn-Grund Film Editor Doris Zeitman Costume Designer Herbert Pioberger Original Music Werner R. Heymann Written by Kurt Heuser from the novel by Hanns Heinz Ewers Produced by Günther Stapenhorst Directed by Arthur Maria Rabenault

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson...

No, German Angst is not a Uwe Boll biopic, although that would seem pretty damned appropriate. What we have here, kids, is a new anthology film featuring the works of Jorg Buttgereit (Nekromantik, Der Todesking), Andreas Marchall (Tears of Kali, Masks), and Michael Kosakowoski (Zero Killed).

In 1920 Germany became the most influential production location for fantastic films. Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s Nosferatu, Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Hands of Orlac, Paul Wegener’s The Golem earned the German cinema the label The Demonic Screen (Lotte H. Eisner). German filmmakers told stories of the underworld beneath urban life, about the invasion of the subconscious. The frontiers between reality and dreams blurred and the fear of dark eros emerged. These masterpieces of German Expressionist cinema are the ancestors of the contemporary fantastic genre. Their influence is still felt in almost every modern film. With the Nazi dictatorship...

From Nosferatu to Twilight, gothic films have explored what frightens us – and why we are willing victims of our fear. A few days before Halloween, and as the BFI begins a nationwide season, Michael Newton is seduced by horror, sex and satanism

Beyond high castle walls, the wolves howl. The Count intones: "Listen to them! The children of the night! What music they make!" And those words usher you into a faintly ludicrous cosiness, the comfortable darkness of gothic. For gothic properties are altogether snug, as familiar as Halloween costumes – a Boris Karloff mask, the Bela Lugosi cape, an Elsa Lanchester wig. So it is that many of us first come to the form through its parodies; I knew Carry On Screaming! by heart before I saw my first Hammer film. And yet, within the homely restfulness, something genuinely disturbing lurks; an authentic dread. And watching these films again, we...

The hit sound film The Jazz Singer (1927), starring Al Jolson and directed by Alan Crosland, fueled the mainstream appetite for newfangled "talkies"... and brought on the death throes of the ol' fashioned silent film. Over the next few years, silent motion picture production around the world slowed, withered, and died. Before this era came to a close, however, the horror genre took root, clawed its way into mainstream popularity, and spawned a wealth of atmospheric and unsettling thrillers. These films built the foundation upon which a century of horror movies would be constructed. The art of film was still in its infancy, and this silent era of experimentation gave rise to some of the most striking and fascinating horror movies ever made. While Germany would soon rise to dominate horror of the silent era, Italy helped get the ball rolling with their first feature length film, Dante's Inferno (1911), directed by Giuseppe de Liguoro.

From the narrow streets of medieval Prague to the rubbish dumps of Rio De Janeiro, here are five of the best ghettos featured in films

This week's clip joint is from Claire Adas - check out more of her writing on her blog here. If you have an idea for a future clip joint, email adam.boult@guardian.co.uk

Every city has its shantytowns, tenements, projects and favelas; ghettoes in which people are thrown together, joined by race, religion or, most frequently, poverty. Theses spaces form a teeming world of their own within the larger macrocosm of the city, connected but self-contained. Life is stacked upon life in a confined area, making the situation rife for story telling; a perfect stage setting of tension and drama.

The term "ghetto" has expanded somewhat from its original use in the 11th century, when it specifically described the part of a city where Jews could live.

The authors wish to acknowledge with gratitude the venues in which some version of this article previously appeared: Cinema Scope 24 (Fall, 2005), Trafic 62 (Summer, 2006), and the late and twice-lamented The New-York Ghost (Dec. 26, 2006).

In the Place of No Place

Every movie contains its alternates, phantom films conjured variously by excess or dearth: textures and movements that carry on their own play apart from the main line of the narrative, an obtruding performance or scene, an unexplained ellipsis or sudden character reversal, the chunk life of an object seizing the frame in an insert whose plastic beauty transcends its context.

Though the extremes of pure narrative economy (in which each detail exists purely for transmission of plot) or utter dispersal (in which no piece connects to any other) can never exist, we can tentatively use the concepts as limit-cases to differentiate films which make room for their phantoms (or, in the worst case,...

Our daily countdown continues with part 14 out of 30, in our list of the 300 Greatest Films Ever Made. These are numbers 170-161.

 

170) Way Out West (1937) James Horne USA

 

169) Topper (1937) Norman McCleod USA

 

168) Giant (1958) George Stevens USA

 

167) The Golem (1920) Paul Waggoner German Silent

 

166) Little Caesar (1930) Mervyn LeRoy USA

 

165) The Mummy (1932) Karl Freund USA

 

164) The Man Who Would Be King (1975) John Houston USA

 

163) Gigi (1958) Vincent Minnelli USA

 

162) Goldfinger (1964) Guy Hamilton USA

 

161) The Caine Mutiny (1954) Edward Dmyrky USA

 Numbers 160-151 coming next.

film cultureClassicslist300...

Unheimliche Geschichten (Uncanny Tales) is a remake... except it isn't. And it's an anthology film... except it isn't. Richard Oswald, Austrian movie master, made a film of that title in 1919, a horror film which blended stories by Poe, Stevenson and others into a single overarching narrative with Conrad Veidt as central character.

In 1932, four years before the Jewish Oswald was forced to flee the country, he made another Unheimliche Geschichten, a comic compendium that used some of the same source stories, including Poe's The Black Cat and Stevenson's The Suicide Club, but added a new one and used a different overall story to tie it all together. The film was intended as a parody of the whole German expressionist horror school, and if it lacks somewhat in the laughter department, it is nonetheless a fascinating summation of German silent cinema in the early sound era.

Oswald alternated between comedy and sometimes horror-tinged melodrama,...

In the 1920s those seeds planted the decade before took hold, and there are notable examples of early horror on both sides of the Atlantic. The most significant of these, and perhaps the most famous, is F.W. Murnau’s masterpiece, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror. It is the first of countless adaptations of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, though famously made without the permission of the Bram Stoker estate. Although included amongst the Expressionist movement, what’s startling today is the movie’s lyrical use of natural light and exterior shots (of running water, animals etc.); visually it is in stark contrast to Caligari’s jagged mindscapes. They both create otherworldliness in different ways, one by giving us distorted images we can relate to, and the other by alienating us with carefully employed images of nature.

The best vampire movies from this to Let the Right One In (2008) take the myth seriously,...

Horror has had a rough year in 2011, both in cinemas and on our DVD shelves. As late into the year as October (the month in which horror is god) the only effective genre films have been those that merged together horror with comedy (Attack the Block and Tucker & Dale versus Evil for instance). Everything else has been shown on the festival circuit, which means they won’t see the light of public consumption until 2012. Failing that the peak of horror has potentially been saved for the final months of the year. Now instead of picking fault with the poor films that have been released thus far this year, let us travel back to the origins of the genre and to Germany where three select films were made that proved to be intrinsic in the development of the genre. Those three films are Robert Weine’s The Cabinet of Dr Caligari,...

Many genres that Hollywood used to rely on for lots of hits have long since fallen by the wayside. Zoe finds out what happened to them…

Hollywood, the world's entertainment factory, has, for the past one hundred years, been producing films that have been enjoyed by audiences around the world. And in that time, a lot has changed, society, technology, fashions, tastes, and lifestyles, all of which Hollywood has continued to accommodate.

It's come a long way from its humble beginnings in the days of melodramatic, black and white, silent films with somewhat crude production methods. Hollywood has evolved into something more sophisticated and streamlined. But with so much change in such a fast paced industry, have some genres fallen behind? Or is it the case that these too have simply evolved into something more sophisticated and subtle?

Musical

The musical is arguably the most uplifting and escapist genre to...

They’re sometimes furry, sometimes scary, and always angry. Here’s our list of cinema’s 10 most underrated monsters…

King Kong. Godzilla. The terrifying creature out of Alien. They’re all household names. They’re the superstars of the monster world, hogging the limelight while their less charismatic brethren languish in obscurity.

To redress the balance a little, we’ve compiled a list of a few cinematic monsters that deserve more attention. And given that movie monsters are always being shot, stabbed and set on fire by square jawed heroes, it’s fair to say that even the rubberiest, most shambling ones deserve a little bit of love, so if there are any you think we’ve forgotten, feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments.

Q: The Winged Serpent

Larry Cohen’s largely forgotten 1982 creature feature is a genuine trash classic, with some great stop-motion effects and memorable performances from Michael Moriarty,...

We delve deep into the mists of time to discover the origins of the sequel, and come up with an unusual prime suspect…

If you want to blame somebody in particular for the rise and lingering popularity of movie sequels, you may want to point an accusatory finger at Johannes Gutenberg. Several hundred years before the first moving image was projected onto a wall somewhere in the late Victorian era, it was with the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg and his contemporaries that the concept of the sequel almost certainly began.

The first book to go into mass publication was the Bible, which was hardly the kind of book you'd dare to attempt to follow up with a sequel (though Jerry Bruckheimer may have tried, had he been a 15th century publisher). It was the modern novel, an invention that properly came into being in the 1700s, that...

Netflix has revolutionized the home movie experience for fans of film with its instant streaming technology. Netflix Nuggets is my way of spreading the word about independent, classic and foreign films made available by Netflix for instant streaming.

This Week’s New Instant Releases…

Promised Lands (1974)

Streaming Available: 04/19/2011

Cast: Documentary

Director: Susan Sontag

Synopsis: Set in Israel during the final days of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, this powerful documentary — initially barred by Israel authorities — from writer-director Susan Sontag examines divergent perceptions of the enduring Arab-Israeli clash. Weighing in on matters related to socialism, anti-Semitism, nation sovereignty and American materialism are The Last Jew writer Yoram Kaniuk and military physicist Yuval Ne’eman.

Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen (2009)

Streaming Available: 04/19/2011

Cast: Barbara Sukowa, Heino Ferch, Hannah Herzsprung, Gerald Alexander Held, Lena Stolze, Sunnyi Melles

Synopsis: Directed by longtime star of independent German cinema Margarethe von Trotta, this reverent...

Fellow monster fans, there’s a disturbing fact we must face around the same time each year: Few gift buyers immediately associate the post-Halloween holidays with horror movies! The everyday shopper can therefore be forgiven for not realizing that you’d be especially thrilled to receive one of your favorite chiller classics (past or present) in your stocking, or that mega-size gift set under the tree.

So, in the spirit of the holidays, I’m here to help you out and provide a service to relatives, longtime companions, and any other colleagues, best pals, or associates eager to please their beast fiends. If you don’t already own at least one of the following 10 fright-acular films, you may feel free to forward this post to all those concerned.

I’m going to endeavor to avoid some of most obvious of gift items. We all know that the Alien Quadrilogy has...

Francis Ford Coppola wasn’t around to give writer W. Somerset Maugham his father’s famous advice about “stealing” from the best to create your own art, but mystic Aleister Crowley accused the British author of doing just that after he read Maugham’s 1908 novel, The Magician. Maybe it was just sour grapes—seeing as how Maugham’s fantasy-terror tale was said to be inspired in part by Crowley’s life—but in Maugham’s story of a mad medical student who dabbles in the occult secrets of creating life (not to mention unnecessary surgery), Crowley saw elements he felt were directly lifted variously from Rosenroth’s Kabbalah Unveiled, as well as a book about 16th-century physician/alchemist Paracelsus and H.G. Wells’ man-beast classic The Island of Dr. Moreau.

Sounds like that could be a great movie? Not only has the obscure 1926 silent thriller made from Maugham’s book, produced and directed by Rex Ingram,...