Even a man who is pure in heart
And says his prayers by night
May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.
This “ancient poem” was actually written in 1941 in Hollywood by Curt Siodmak for his screenplay The Wolf Manfor Universal Studios. This is how ancient legends are born.
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The Wolf Man [George Waggner, 1941]
The Wolf Man (Lon Chaney, Jr.) about to pounce on unsuspecting Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers).
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I Was a Teenage Werewolf [Gene Fowler, Jr., 1957]
A troubled teen is exploited by an evil scientist. As we were told in school, this is where masturbation can lead. Not to mention rock‘n’roll!
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Ghosts and zombies
A ghost is the spirit or soul of someone who has died that manifests itself to the living. A zombie is one of the “living dead,” meaning that a zombie is a reanimated corpse, someone who has died but whose cadaver is still walking around. I’ve often wondered if a zombie has a soul? Or once you have killed a zombie (often by shooting him or her in the head), does the re-dead zombie beget a ghost zombie?
The entire concept of ghosts develops from our natural longing to remain in contact with a loved one once they have died. Death is the ultimate unknown, and that means man needs to create all kinds of reasons that the dead are not really dead. When a person has passed away, people want to believe they have “gone to a better place.” Or at the very least, someplace. The idea that once you die you no longer exist is just too disturbing for most of us. Hence we find tales of ghosts and zombies returning from the dead in every culture around the world.
Ghosts can be malevolent or vengeful, but sometimes they are lonely and sad. Ghosts are perhaps the most difficult of fantastic beings to show on screen and retain their reality. In two of the most frightening ghost movies ever made, The Innocents[Jack Clayton, 1961] and The Haunting[Robert Wise, 1963], no ghosts are ever seen!
The director George A. Romero is rightly crowned as the King of the Zombie Movies for his remarkable series of zombie pictures that began with the classic Night of the Living Dead[1968]. George’s “blue collar” zombies have become the standard for the living dead ever since. They stagger around in the clothing they were wearing when they died, as opposed to the funeral suits they were buried in. With glazed eyes, torn flesh, and bloody faces, Romero’s zombies are in nightgowns, dresses, jeans, T-shirts, shorts, and uniforms—the costumes of the real world. Romero has used his zombies for scathing political commentary all through his series of zombie pictures.
Voodoo used to be the main resource for zombies in movies, from White Zombie[Victor Halperin, 1932], to The Serpent and the Rainbow[Wes Craven, 1988]. In more recent films, atomic radiation or bizarre diseases create zombies. When unforeseen consequences to scientific research in radiation or germ warfare results in an outburst of the living dead, you can bet the government is doing the dastardly experimentation. The zombie has grown to be one of the most popular types of monster. All of us are going to die one day. Ghosts and zombies somehow reassure us that even death can be overcome.
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White Zombie [Victor Halperin, 1932]
Béla Lugosi as Murder Legendre, a white voodoo master on Haiti, who uses zombies as labor in his sugar cane mill. A rich plantation owner enlists Legendre’s aid to help him with a sexual conquest. This is considered to be the first feature-length zombie movie.
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The Serpent and the Rainbow [Wes Craven, 1988]
Wes went to Haiti to shoot this adaptation of the book by Wade Davis. Here, Bill Pullman suffers from chemically-induced hallucinations. The movie deals with Voodoo and zombies at their source— African and Christian rituals mixed with drugs.
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Giant monsters
The word monster can also mean big. As in REALLY BIG. Monstrous apes, lizards, insects, robots, aliens, men, women, and even children have stomped their way down the streets of our cities. Creatures of every description come in Large, Extra Large, even King-Sized.
King Kong[Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933] is the prototype of the big monster creating havoc in an urban setting. And even before Kong was abducted from Skull Island and brought in chains to the island of Manhattan, the silent film version of The Lost World[Harry O. Hoyt, 1925] ended with a brontosaurus causing mayhem in London before swimming away down the Thames. Thirty-six years later another great dinosaur-like beast was brought to London, Gorgo[Eugène Lourié, 1961], only to have his mother come to rescue him and show us what BIG really means. The whole movie, Gorgo is a pretty large beast, but he is dwarfed by the enormous size of his mom. She towers over him as they make their way back down the River Thames together to go back to the sea. The truly colossal monster alien that comes from outer space to trash New York in Cloverfield[Matt Reeves, 2008] is so large that it strides through the city, taller than the tallest skyscrapers.
The advertising campaign for the American remake of Godzilla[Roland Emmerich, 1998] proclaimed “SIZE MATTERS.” The iconic poster for Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman[Nathan H. Juran, 1958] is a clear demonstration of why this statement is true.
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Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman [Nathan H. Juran, 1958]
One of the most iconic movie posters of the 1950s—Allison Hayes on the rampage in Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman.
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King Kong [Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933]
The original and still the greatest giant ape movie ever made. Here is ad art from the first of its many theatrical releases.
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An excellent shot of Kong carrying Fay Wray up to his mountain lair.
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Also given here is a close-up of Kong.
“Oh no, it wasn’t the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast!”
Carl Denham (Jack Armstrong), King Kong[1933]
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