We may be showing an abundance of Creepy Cinema all throughout October on TCM, but it is Halloween day when all the chills, thrills, and frights are going to be released for a 48-hour Terror-thon! 31 films with the most fear inducing stories and characters you can imagine.
One of the best things about the horror genre is that there isn’t any limit to the range of characters and situations that can be depicted on screen.
The early 1930s was indeed a golden age of great horror and monster movies. Universal founder Carl Laemmle, along with his son, struck gold for his struggling studio by adapting classic Victorian novels into cheaply made, but enormously popular horror films. One of the first and best was the original Frankenstein (1931). Colin Clive plays Dr. Henry Frankenstein, the mad scientist obsessed with bringing people back from the dead. He manages to assemble a being made entirely of human body parts who then comes to life as a homicidal maniac set on killing his creator. The ensuing sequences are as terrifying today as they were over 90 years ago. Boris Karloff gives one of the most chilling performances in all of film as the manmade monster, a role he would recreate in two equally frightening sequels, The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and House of Frankenstein (1944). Both film sequels took material from the original 1818 Mary Shelley novel, “Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus.”
Another classic novel which was made into several successful film versions was Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” about a scientist who develops a potion which transforms him into an animalistic madman. This dual role is an over-actor’s delight and many of cinema’s greatest have taken it on beginning with John Barrymore in 1920. This silent version is probably the most minimalistic. Several of the Jekyll-Hyde transformations were achieved just by filming the contortions of Barrymore’s face. The 1931 version made a major star out of Frederic March, who won an Oscar for his performance. Before this film, March was mostly known as a romantic lead. Director Rouben Mamoulian chose the matinee idol over several other actors. 10 years later, MGM purchased the film-rights to Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel from Paramount. Their glossy film version was fashioned as a vehicle for Spencer Tracy in 1941 opposite Ingrid Bergman and Lana Turner. All three actors would later express displeasure with how the film turned out.
Another British Victorian classic about a mad chemist was H.G. Wells “The Invisible Man.” Filmed in 1933, in an impressive film debut, Claude Raines plays Dr Jack Griffin who develops a potion which causes invisibility. This extraordinary power pushes the brilliant scientist into madness - killing several trusted friends and powerful men hoping to steal his brilliant experiment. Gloria Stuart plays the young woman who is the madman’s only secret.
As its title suggests, Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932) is like nothing else you’ve ever seen. This peculiar film tells the story of a group of sideshow performers in a seedy carnival. Olga Baclanova plays a scheming trapeze artist set on stealing a small inheritance from one of the little people performers, played by Harry Earles of the famous Dancing Dolls. It was actually Earles who introduced Tod Browning to the short story on which the film is based. Browning, who also served as producer on the picture, was very enthusiastic about the project and drew on his own personal experiences as a carnival barker and circus performer in the late 19th Century. He made the wise, though risky decision of casting the film with real side show performers; people with real physical disabilities, including little people, conjoined twins and amputees. Such a bizarre and gritty film sounds like material that would come from the horror factory of Universal or the stark realism of Warner Bros. However, the film was actually released by MGM, the same studio that was producing such glossy star-filled classics as Grand Hotel (1932) and Dinner at Eight (1933). That the film was made by any studio at the time is a real testament to the creative eye and determination of director/producer Tod Browning.
Where the monster movies of the 1930s and 40s helped bring to life our wildest nightmares, it was the suspenseful thrillers of the 60s and 70s which showed us some of the frightening things we thought could happen to us. In When a Stranger Calls (1979), a young Carol Kane plays the stereotypical babysitter left alone at night and receiving tormenting phone calls from a mysterious stranger. “Have you checked the children?” the voice on the other line asks. Charles Durning is the detective trying to find who this dangerous man on the other line is. This story by Fred Walton and Steve Feke originally started as a short film titled The Sitter (1977). The short did so well on the festival circuit that it was commissioned to be expanded into a studio backed feature film. This device of a helpless woman being tormented over the phone was originally perfected in the film noir days. In Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), Barbara Stanwyck plays a bedridden woman who accidentally enters a phone call and overhears two men plotting a murder. Stanwyck’s bedroom scenes were shot over the course of an intense two weeks. The actress received her fourth and final Oscar nomination for Best Actress.
Nothing can put us in the mood for the scariest night of the year better than a classic movie terror-thon.
