And Do I Dream Again...

I will be blunt in saying that I was raised in a musical home. For as long as I can remember my Mom had some form of music playing somewhere in the house. At the age of seven I picked up this habit, and have yet to drop it (I doubt I ever will). In theory this lead to me liking movie musicals. My favorite of these is Les Miserables (the music, there are no words to describe it), but we already have too many posts about that particular film. Therefore I shall blog about one of my runner up favorites, "The Phantom of the Opera".

I was first introduced to this movie probably around the time I turned thirteen. Story wise I had no patience for the romantic plot, but I loved anything and everything that had to do with the Phantom. I found his character utterly fascinating. He desired to create beauty to spite his physical ugliness, so he wrote music, played music, composed operas, and he even gave Christine singing lessons (admittedly he was obsessed with her, but he didn't have to help her with her singing career).  But his darker aspects were just terrifying once you think about them long enough.

He was a murderer, it's hinted at in act 1 of the movie and by act 2 you see him choke someone to death. He was also obsessed with Christine Diaae, and the more he was denied his obsession (or when he saw other competitors for he attention) he caused chaos (holding the state opera hostage, vocally poisoning the Prima Donna, ect).

But aside from the awesome character of the Phantom, it was the music that made me love this movie. While it doesn't have the emotional umph of Les Mis, certain songs captivate the imagination. The first among these is "The Phantom of the Opera", which is where you really get a feel for the relationship between Christine and the Phantom. Another is probably "Wishing you Were Somehow Here Again". Which is basically the emotions of everyone who has lost a loved one put to words.

Universal's Classic Monster Movies

Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year. I love the atmosphere, the scares, but most importantly I love the movies. I love scary movies; the only sad part is, there really aren't that many that I actually enjoy around this time anymore. All the movies that come out nowadays are really just the same movie over and over again, that all have the same cheap scares again and again. I can't remember the last time I saw a horror movie that I actually thoroughly enjoyed. However, if there are a bunch that I will always love, it's Universal's classic monster movies.

I'm talking about Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), The Wolf Man (1941) and many others. Now these movies are by no means scary, at least in this day and age. I would imagine that back when they were released they were absolutely terrifying, but even so that doesn't take away the magic and charm of these movies. Since there are quite a few of these films I'm only gonna talk about a couple of them, but this shouldn't stop you from watching all of them, especially because a majority of them are on Netflix.

I'm of course going to start out with Dracula, the one that started it all. Now although there were Universal monster movies before this such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925), I would consider Dracula to be the most influential and the first of the monster movies to still have such a big impact in today's society.

Bela Lugosi stars as Count Dracula, giving an iconic performance that actors today still try to replicate. He was the one that gave us the hypnotizing Dracula stare, the hungarian accent, the subtleties of his movements and so forth. He was the first to make Dracula not only terrifying but also mysterious and enchanting. The technical aspects of the movie are also great even by todays standards. The atmosphere and lighting are still fantastic and it really helps pull you into the movie. Dracula is a movie that is still imitated to this day and it holds up extremely well still. Any movie fan should check it out.

The next movie I'm going to talk about is none other than Frankenstein. Having very little to do with Mary Shelly's novel, this is a movie that focuses more on the creature in a sympathetic sense. It's a movie that's about crossing the line between life and death but also one that asks what happens when that line does get crossed. The Monster (who is played by Boris Karloff in what is arguably his most iconic performance) is a creature just trying to belong but not knowing how. He can't speak or communicate in any normal way so to everyone around him he seems like a dangerous beast. The whole movie leads up to what might be one of the most iconic climax's of all time and it's one that shouldn't be missed. I should also point out that the make-up in this movie is top notch and that alone is worth seeing.

The final movie I'm going to talk about is The Wolf Man starring Lon Chaney Jr. His father Lon Chaney Sr was known as "The Man With 1,000 Faces", starring in such movies as the above mentioned Phantom of the Opera and Hunchback of Notre Dame, so his son had some shoes to fill. Luckily for him though, he filled them pretty well, giving us another famous monster; the werewolf. Although not as iconic as Dracula or the Monster he's still worth mentioning. Bela Lugosi gave us all of Dracula's mannerisms that are still used today and Boris Karloff gave us the famous "monster walk" but Lon Chaney Jr gave us a normal guy trapped in a very unfortunate situation. While the other two monsters started off that way, Chaney starts off as a normal guy who one night gets bitten by a werewolf, from that point forward, his life is never the same. It's the story of a man trying to cope with this terrible thing that has happened to him and he does a great job doing it. Also the technical features should be noted about this movie. The atmosphere and lighting effects are absolutely fantastic. The woods are all foggy and mysterious, the night time scenes are perfectly shadowed so it gives us an uncomfortable feeling at all times and of course the make-up is fantastic. All of this together makes this movie an absolute treat to watch.

I would highly recommend watching these movies along with all the others in the collection. Such as The Mummy, Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), The Invisible Man (1935) and Phantom of the Opera (1943). I would also highly recommend Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein because it is a wonderful homage to all of these movies and it's a very funny movie as well.