Editorials
Horror Retrospective: 1933 (Editorial)
THE YEAR: 1933
The horror genre continued to be a powerful force in Hollywood in 1933. If there is one thing we as horror fans know, it’s that people enjoy the thrill of a good scare, especially in the contained environment of their favorite movie theater. So break out your popcorn, settle in, and scream with Fay Wray at the awesome sight of King Kong; “see” The Invisible Man; try to solve the Mystery of the Wax Museum; survive a Night of Terror; and witness the Supernatural.
KING KONG
(D) Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack
(W) James Creelman and Ruth Rose
(S) Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, and Bruce Cabot
Fay Wray was everywhere in 1933 – from The Vampire Bat to Mystery of the Wax Museum to this, the grandest of all giant ape films, King Kong – and for good reason; wait until you hear her scream! The lovely Wray plays Ann Darrow, a struggling young actress who is recruited by film director Carl Denham (Armstrong). Denham, though not necessarily a bad guy, has delusions of grandeur, and he thinks that he has found the perfect location to film his next masterpiece: the exotic Skull Island. What could possibly go wrong? It turns out that the natives on Skull Island feel the occasional need to offer a sacrifice to Kong – a giant gorilla that terrorizes the island’s inhabitants. You have one guess as to who the sacrifice will be. The fantastic special effects by Harry Redmond Sr. and Jr. and the incredible stop-motion animation by Willis O’Brien are enough to highly recommend this film, and the cherry on top is that the story is complex, terrifying, and, ultimately, touching.
THE INVISIBLE MAN
(D) James Whale
(W) R.C. Sherriff
(S) Claude Rains, Gloria Stuart, and William Harrigan
Based on the novel by H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man is another outstanding horror film from director James Whale. Claude Rains stars asJack Griffin, an amiable and soft-spoken scientist who works in a laboratory owned by Dr. Cranley (Henry Travers). In a Dr. Jekyll-esque moment, Griffin uses himself as a guinea pig for a fictitious – and dangerous – drug called monocaine. Cranley’s daughter, Flora (Stuart) becomes concerned after she fails to hear from Griffin and he neglects to return to the laboratory. It turns out that monocaine has turned Griffin not only invisible but it’s made him mentally unhinged as well. A harrowing chase for Griffin ensues that involves Flora, Dr. Arthur Kemp (Harrigan), and the local police. Rains is perfectly cast as Griffin – he spends most of the film with his face wrapped in bandages or corporeally invisible, relying on his commanding and nuanced voice to convey his complex emotions. Come for Rains’ performance, and stay for the excellent special effects by John P. Fulton.
MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM
(D) Michael Curtiz
(W) Don Mullaly and Carl Erikson
(S) Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, and Glenda Farrell
Mystery of the Wax Museum is an early film from a director you may have heard of: Michael Curtiz of Casablanca fame. The film features excellent performances from Lionel Atwill as Ivan Igor, who considers his wax creations his “children”; Fay Wray as Charlotte Duncan, who slowly uncovers Ivan’s psychotic impulses; and Glenda Farrell as Florence Dempsey, Charlotte’s roommate and a feisty news reporter. After being badly burned in his London wax museum, Ivan opens up a new museum in New York – just in time for people to start dropping dead. One of the best moments of the film occurs when Charlotte confronts Ivan at his wax museum and tears off his false visage, revealing his hideously deformed face. Mystery of the Wax Museum is a follow up of sorts to the previous year’s Doctor X, which – though it didn’t make my 1932 list – is certainly worth a watch, too.
NIGHT OF TERROR
(D) Ben Stoloff
(W) William Jacobs and Beatrice Van
(S) Bela Lugosi, Wallace Ford, and Sally Blane
Night of Terror is easily the oddest (and cheesiest) film on this list, and – surprise, surprise – it stars Bela Lugosi. Actually, while Lugosi is in the film, his role as Degar, a Hindu (!?) butler for the wealthy Rinehart family, is a minor one. The plot of the film goes something like this: Arthur Hornsby (George Meeker) is a scientist who claims to have invented a serum that can sustain life in a subject deprived of oxygen. To prove his point, Arthur will be buried alive while the entire Rinehart family watches. However, before this macabre event happens, Richard Rinehart (Tully Marshall), Arthur’s uncle, is murdered by a Maniac (Edwin Maxwell). Upon Richard’s death, the other members of the family, including the servants, are set to inherit his vast wealth, so, naturally, they die off one by one. Is the Maniac to blame, or is there a more sinister villain in the family’s midst? You’ll have to watch this fun little film to find out!
SUPERNATURAL
(D) Victor Halperin
(W) Brian Marlow and Harvey Thew
(S) Carole Lombard, Alan Dinehart, and Vivienne Osborne
Many modern day horror films owe a debt of gratitude to Supernatural, an interesting and early film about soul transference. A black-widow killer named Ruth Rogen (Osborne) is sentenced to death for her crimes, but she still has her most recent husband left to kill. What is a woman to do? Enter Roma Courtenay (Lombard), a young woman who has become wealthy due to her brother’s recent death. Seeing an opportunity to swindle some of her money, Paul Bavian (Alan Dinehart) dupes Roma by claiming that he can hold a séance to summon her brother’s spirit so that they can find out how he died. After she leaves Bavian’s rigged séance, a bewildered Roma is possessed by the malevolent spirit of Ruth. For the remainder of the film, Roma’s boyfriend, Grant Wilson (Randolph Scott), tries desperately to free her from Ruth’s terrible grasp. This film can be a tough one to find, but it’s well worth seeking out.
A new breed of creature-features was unleashed in the 1990s and continued well into the next decade. Shaking off the ecological messaging of the past, these monsters existed for the sake of pure mayhem. Just to name a few: Tremors, The Relic, Anaconda, Godzilla, Deep Rising and Lake Placid all showcased this trend of irreverent creature chaos. Reptiles and other scaly beasts proved to be a popular source of inspiration for these films, but for that extra crawly experience, bugs were the best and quickest route. Spiders, in particular, led some of the worst infestations on screen in the early 2000s. And on the underbelly of this creeping new wave — specifically the direct-to-video sector — hangs an overlooked offering of spider horror: Arachnid.
In 2000, Brian Yuzna and Julio Fernández launched the Spanish production company Fantastic Factory. The Filmax banner’s objective was to create modestly budgeted genre films for international distribution. And while they achieved their goal — a total of nine English-language films were produced and shipped all across the globe — Fantastic Factory ultimately closed up shop after only five years. Arachnid, directed by Jack Sholder (Alone in the Dark, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, The Hidden) and based on a script by Mark Sevi, was the second project from the short-lived genre house. Yuzna was drawn to the concept largely because of its universal appeal; a monster was marketable in any region, regardless of cultural preferences or restrictions. There was also the fact that spiders give everyone a case of the heebie-jeebies.
By having extraterrestrial forces be the cause of the spiders’ mutism and immensity as well as other urgent problems within the story, Arachnid incidentally pays respect to Hollywood’s golden age of schlock filmmaking. The opening sequence indeed shows a stealth plane’s pilot (Jesús Cabrero) trailing a UFO and its translucent passenger to an island in the South Pacific, but the alien business is kept to a minimum going forward. There is no time to process this seismic revelation of life beyond Earth before moving on to the film’s central plot.
Pictured: Alex Reid, Chris Potter and Neus Asensi’s characters get trapped in the spider’s web in Arachnid.
Several months since the E.T. was last sighted — and after being snuffed out by one of its own accidental creations — a medical team from Guam heads to Celebes (better known as Sulawesi nowadays), in search of whatever is behind a new illness. The doctors (played by José Sancho and Neus Asensi) already suspected a spider bite, although they failed to consider the biter could be the size of a tank. With The Descent’s Alex Reid as the snarky pilot of this doomed expedition, one who has ulterior motives for accepting the job, the film’s core characters go off in search of a spider and, hopefully, a cure.
The title makes it seem as if there is only the one arachnid in the story, but once Chris Potter and Reid’s characters plus their team step foot on the island, they encounter other altered arthropods. Yuzna felt Sevi’s script needed more creatures along the way, especially before the spider showed up in full view. The bug horror commences as one gunsman succumbs to a burrowing breed of crab-sized ticks, and random characters fend off a horrific centipede with reptilian qualities. These are just the appetizers before the greatest arachnid of them all arrives. The late Ravil Isyanov, here playing a zealous but sympathetic arachnologist, becomes a human Lunchable for the spider’s eggs. And one of the doctors gets a face full of corrosive spider spew. So, there is no shortage of grisly predation in the film, with a few bits of the monsters’ handiwork possessing a haunting quality to them.
Shot quickly and cheaply, Arachnid is fast-food horror. It’s convenient and designed for immediate consumption, and will likely not linger on the palate. Usually there is not a lot worth remembering with these slapdash genre productions, however, this is one case of spider horror where the extra effort made a difference. Apart from the egregious use of digital imagery in the outset, Jack Sholder’s film primarily employs practical effects. And these are not rubber spiders dangling from strings or being flung at the actors, either. Fantastic Factory aimed much higher by securing DDTSFX (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy II: The Golden Army) and creature designer and makeup artist Steve Johnson (Species, Blade II).
Pictured: One of the spider’s web-covered victims in Arachnid.
Arachnid, while far from flawless, somewhat redeems itself by having chosen practical effects and animatronics over CGI, which had become the new normal in these kinds of films. And this class of creature-feature was definitely not getting the sort of advanced VFX found in the likes of Eight Legged Freaks. Steve Johnson’s spider was not the easiest prop to work with, and it lacks the movement and versatility of a digital depiction. However, there is no beating that sense of weight and occupation of space that makes a tangible monster more intimidating. Viewers will have trouble recalling the human characters long after watching Arachnid, yet the humongous headliner remains the stuff of nightmares.
Over the years, the director has spoken critically of the film. He originally held off on agreeing to the offer to direct in hopes that another project, a Steven Seagal picture, would finally manifest. No such luck, and Sholder accepted Arachnid only on account of his needing the work. He said of the film: “I thought I could […] make it halfway decent, but I discovered there wasn’t a whole lot I could do.” Nevertheless, Sholder’s experience as a director of not exactly high-brow yet still rather entertaining horror is evident in what he has since called a “dud.” While there is no denying the reality and outcome of Arachnid, even the most mediocre films have their strokes of brilliance, small as they may be.
Pictured: The poster for Arachnid.
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