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.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Kraus took the literary world by storm back in 2023 with the release of his hit novel Whalefall. A terrifying yet intimate survival thriller with mythological undertones, the book was almost immediately bombarded with offers from movie studios wanting to adapt its claustrophobic imagery to the big screen.
Fast forward to June of 2026, and we finally got our first glimpse at Brian Duffield’s long-awaited adaptation of Whalefall, starring Austin Abrams as our unfortunate lead who gets swallowed alive by a sperm whale. While this two-and-a-half-minute teaser only covers the beginning of the story, it’s already been making waves online (and in-person at select 4DX promotional screenings) as one of the most stressful cinematic experiences of the year.
In fact, my own wife had to cover her eyes and exclaim, “You’re definitely not dragging me to watch this one” when we saw the whale’s jaws begin to close in on Abrams, with this incident alone already leaving me convinced that this will likely be one of the biggest genre hits of the year. With that in mind, I’d like to invite you to take a closer look at the teaser in order to break down interesting details and get a better idea of what’s in store for genre fans when the movie finally comes out this October.
Of course, as usual, don’t forget to comment below if you noticed something we didn’t!
Now, without further ado, here are five things we learned from the Whalefall trailer!
5. Austin Abrams Performed Many of His Own Stunts
Much like in his previous film, No One Will Save You, Duffield insisted that this visceral experience should be grounded by our main character’s believable reactions, regardless of the plot’s effects-heavy setup. That’s why the camera always makes sure to linger on Abrams through his diving mask, so we know that it’s really him going through this ordeal alongside the audience.
While plenty of CGI was used in order to bring this larger-than-life story to the big screen without killing our leading man, Abrams apparently insisted on performing many of his underwater stunts himself (several of which are visible in the trailer) – much to the chagrin of a worried Duffield and the flick’s stunt coordinator, Shauna Duggins.
4. The Film Seamlessly Transitions Between the California Coast and Underwater Sets
Duffield obviously wasn’t about to drag his crew out to the middle of the ocean and shoot inside a real sperm whale, but it’s reassuring to see the filmmaker blend on-location footage with the underwater tank segments and the literal belly of the whale set.
There may be plenty of CGI stitching these elements together, but the trailer shows us that only the truly impossible shots are completely digital, meaning that the filmmakers didn’t take the easy way out when it came to adapting this unique story.
3. The Whale is Only Part of the Story
Book adaptations tend to leave out inner monologues and the occasional flashback in order to streamline the narrative (which is one reason why it’s so difficult to translate Stephen King novels to the big screen), but a claustrophobic parable like Kraus’ Whalefall would get a bit dull after a while if the whole thing was entirely set within the creature’s stomach.
That’s why it’s such a relief that the trailer hints at how Duffield will also be adapting many of the book’s introspective moments chronicling our protagonist’s harsh upbringing under his troubled father. Not only do these inclusions give the audience some much-appreciated breathing room, but they also give Josh Brolin a chance to shine as a truly complicated character.
2. The Movie is Keeping the Book’s Scientific Accuracy…
While Kraus’ novel was inspired by a viral video of kayakers nearly being swallowed by a humpback whale, the writer ended up consulting with marine biologists about exactly what kind of situation might lead to a whale actually eating a human being alive.
The answer was surprisingly specific, as cetaceans are almost universally known to be friendly towards humans. However, even a gentle giant can make mistakes, and as we see in the trailer, Abrams’ unpleasant fate is more of an accident than anything else – with the massive sperm whale only trapping the poor diver in the first (and thankfully acid-free) chamber of its stomach due to a mix-up involving a giant squid.
Fortunately for the film’s special effects artists, they can now reference the first-ever footage of a real-life sperm whale chowing down on one such squid, as this freaky recording was released late last year.
1. …With a Catch!
Duffield may be doing his best to recreate the grounded (or is it submerged?) thrills of Kraus’ novel, but there are limits to what can be depicted onscreen while still guaranteeing an entertaining movie. That’s why it’s no surprise that Whalefall will take advantage of certain cinematic parlor tricks as the director tests the limits of both physics and biology so we can actually watch his movie.
For starters, the innards of the whale itself have been greatly exaggerated so there’s enough space to make out the action, and in the spirit of movies like Neil Marshall’s The Descent, there also seems to be plenty of non-diegetic lighting meant to show us what’s going on even if Abram’s character wouldn’t necessarily be able to see anything.
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