Whenever I get a collection of movies in a set, I tend to watch them randomly instead of the order they're presented, depending on my mood (and also runtimes; an 80 minute movie is more likely to get picked than a 90 minute one). Of course, since I am basing my viewing order on personal preference, that means the set might peak early for me, and be a slog to finish up as all that will be left is a title that sounded the least appealing. However, in the case of Scream Factory's newest collection of old Universal films, the exact opposite happened - each movie was better than the one before it, so what started as a somewhat lackluster entry in this ongoing series of collections ended up producing one of my favorite of the 24 movies it's brought into my life since it began last year.
Or, in some cases, brought BACK into my life. The first one I watched was The Thing That Couldn't Die, which I had sort of already seen thanks to Mystery Science Theater 3000. Of course, as is often the case, my memory of the film is much murkier than my memory of certain quips levied at it; I couldn't remember much of the plot beyond something about a head, but I can probably rattle off a dozen lines if asked ("He might as well turn it into a den!" is a particular fave, in response to a character digging a hole that was shown to be a perfect cubed hollow). As it turns out, I kind of missed Mike and the 'bots, as the movie is kind of a snooze despite only being 69 (don't) minutes long. The "greed destroys everyone" plot that you can find in any number of Coen Brothers movies (or even better, their buddy Sam Raimi's underrated Simple Plan) doesn't quite blend well with a horror film involving possession, as it's hard to tell who has been put under the influence of the disembodied head that serves as the "monster" and who is simply just an asshole.
Plus, the heroine (Carolyn Kearney) spends half the movie with a divining rod, which is an even more ridiculous concept than the aforementioned villain and is in no way interesting to watch play out on screen. The most interesting character is a conniving ranch hand who wants the treasure they find, assuming it has gold or something (anything but a living head, I imagine), so naturally he's killed off by the halfway point, leaving just the dull folks and a lengthy, confusing flashback about how the villain came to be separated from his body in the first place. It's got a handful of fun moments, but for the most part, stick with the MST3k version.
Things picked up a bit with my next pick, The Black Castle, which was from 1952 - the oldest film on the set (which is, overall, the "newest" of the sets so far, as the other ones focused on '30s and '40s fare). So old that its flash forward intro actually works for a change; I tend to hate this device, but here it sets up an interesting scenario (a guy is believed to be dead but is merely paralyzed and about to be buried - very Short Night of Glass Dolls!) instead of merely telling us who will be left alive at the end. The guy is Ronald Burton, whose friends were seemingly killed by a count (Stephen McNally). He wants revenge, and thus he does what anyone would do - makes up a fake name and gets himself on the list to join the count's annual hunt (of a panther, no less) so that he can snoop around the grounds and also take down the count.
He also ends up falling in love with the count's wife, the scoundrel, so that adds a wrinkle to the proceedings. The plot machinations are fun enough, but the attempts to sell this as a horror movie are misguided, to say the least. It's a straight revenge drama, with the only horror elements (besides the panther fight, which lasts about 19 seconds) coming from a few establishing shots of the castle and some brief turns by Karloff (as the count's doctor, who may be an ally for Burton) and Lon Chaney Jr as Gargon, a sort of early model Hodor who does the grunt work for the count. Apparently this was his last film for Universal; it's hardly a great one to go out on but it's not without its charms, and in today's world where the haves treat the have nots like shit, I quite enjoyed that Burton is constantly looking out for working people - he insists his page ride in the warm coach with him during the ride to the castle, arranges for their driver to enjoy a hot meal with them, etc. We need more guys like this in the real world! And if they steal some asshole's wife in the process, so be it.
I then moved on to The Shadow of the Cat, which was way more my speed from the getgo as it featured a meanspirited murder in its first few minutes. As is usually the case, the person was murdered by folks after her inheritance, but what they didn't count on was her cat witnessing it and taking revenge. The conspirators wrangle in some family members to help them murder the cat, but one by one it manages to cause the deaths of the guilty ones. Yes, it's goofy, but I found it delightful, and the cat itself was pretty cute, which was nice since many of them in these kind of things are hissing/ugly jerks.
What's even more interesting about this one is that it's actually an uncredited Hammer production, which historian Bruce G. Hallenbeck explains on his commentary track. Funnily enough, I suspected something was "off" about it right away, as it just didn't have that typical Universal feel, though when I saw Andre Morrell (as the murderous patriarch) and Barbara Shelley (as the only person the cat likes) in the cast I actually thought "did I miss a Hammer credit?", so it was fun to have Hallenbeck confirm that (because of various rights/producer nonsense that's too boring to explain here) the Hammer name didn't appear even though it was clearly one of their productions, in the vein of Scream of Fear or Paranoiac, albeit coming about a decade earlier.
And then finally I reached Cult of the Cobra, which sounded like the sort of thing I'd barely be able to focus on, but as you might have guessed from the intro paragraph, turned out to be what might be my personal favorite film in any of these sets so far. It's basically a Cat People knockoff, except with (big surprise incoming) a lady who can turn into a cobra instead of a panther and - more importantly, at least to me - working under the basic template of a revenge slasher! In 1955! At the beginning of the film, set in "Asia" (that's as specific as it gets! Way to narrow it down), a group of six GI's about to be shipped back home decide to infiltrate a cult meeting because they want one last spectacle before returning to the States. When one of them takes a picture (complete with flash, even though they were told not to take pictures - way to be discreet, jackass) and causes chaos, the cult leader puts a curse on them - one by one they will all die!
Shockingly, they come close to finishing the job (spoilers for 65 year old movie ahead!). Only two of the guys are left at the end - a 66% success rate is nothing to scoff at in these days, when body counts tended to be low. Also, because of its Cat People-y ways, the ending is a real bummer, as our hero - who already lost his girlfriend to the only other GI to live - had fallen in love with the lady, and is now alone again now that she's dead. Most old horror movies end with the monster perishing ("The End" coming up over a shot of the burning castle or whatever) or the hero couple embracing, but this ends on the poor heartbroken sod walking off, alone once again. Such a bummer, and not at all what I would expect from this kind of movie from this era. I kinda loved it?
Tom Weaver provides commentaries on all of the movies (save Cat, covered by Hallenbeck), and he's occasionally joined by others who will talk about the music or something (none seem to be actually WITH him - just brief monologues that were edited in) to break up his usual dad jokes and fulfillment of his historian duties (listing production dates, locations, etc). As always, I find these things more fun when they're with someone instead of the solo tracks, but his dedication to tracking down things like early casting choices (John Saxon was up for a role in Cult of the Cobra!) and where now long-gone locations were is second to none, and on The Thing That Couldn't Die's case he thankfully doesn't try to sell it as anything more than what it is, so that's refreshing.
I'm going to start celebrating the Halloween season a bit early this year, because I'm miserable and stuck inside so I'm hoping it will offer a much needed spirit boost, and I definitely plan to revisit some of these (actually I never finished volume 3, so I can start there) and mix them up with the more traditional classics (Drac, Frank, Wolfie, etc) and Vincent Price stuff that Scream Factory also covered a while back. Now that I don't have to go to work and won't be going to any festivals, I'll certainly have the time to rewatch more than I have in years' past, and these sets make for an excellent option since the films have that old school spooky charm I associate with the holiday. Some folks love to watch the scariest/bloodiest movies for the occasion, but not me - I want lighter fare like this!
What say you?
