Editorials
Horror Retrospective: 1935 (Editorial)
THE YEAR: 1935
Greetings, friends. I started this column for Bloody Disgusting last fall and wrote about horror films from 1931-1934. My duties as an adjunct English instructor prohibited me from continuing the column until now, but I’m pleased to revive the column (with 1935) for one main reason: Bride of Frankenstein. As far as sequels go, it’s one the best that you can find. Universal significantly increased director James Whale’s budget, and Boris Karloff’s performance as the monster is even more touching than it was in 1931’s Frankenstein. It must be said, however, that 1935 was a pretty lean year as far as horror is concerned. As mentioned in the 1934 editorial, the Hays Code was in full swing, and – for the most part – studios weren’t budgeting for horror movies. Nonetheless, there are several low budget gems worth your consideration. Boris Karloff, aside from reprising his role of the monster in Bride of Frankenstein, shared the screen again with Bela Lugosi in a (loose) adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven; Karloff also starred in a strange film about the psychological connection of twins in The Black Room; Karl Freund (who directed Karloff in The Mummy (1932)) directed his final film, Mad Love, before he became – almost exclusively – a cinematographer; and Henry Hull starred in the thought-provoking Werewolf of London. So sit back, relax, and let me pique your interest in the five best horror films of 1935.
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BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN
(D) James Whale
(W) William Hurlbut
(S) Boris Karloff, Elsa Lanchester, Colin Clive, and Valerie Hobson
You would be hard-pressed to find a better sequel than Bride of Frankenstein. Many of the same people from Frankenstein (1931) – both in front of and behind the camera – are involved, and this film benefits greatly from that consistency. Initially, we get a bit of back story, including the origin of the legend (which has also been detailed in Ken Russell’s GOTHIC (1986) and Ivan Passer’s Haunted Summer 1988)), in which Mary Shelley (Lanchester, who also plays the Bride) conjures up the idea for her novel, Frankenstein, after sharing ghost stories with her husband, Percy Shelley (Douglas Walton) and Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon). Afterwards (in a bit of contrivance), Dr. Henry Frankenstein (Clive, reprising his role from the original) and his monster (Karloff), are discovered to be alive! Dr. Frankenstein’s mentor, Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger) – in a great scene – proceeds to show him several small creatures that have been re-animated. Pretorius suggests to Henry that they should create a mate for Henry’s initial creation. Of course, things don’t go as planned. Check out this sequel for the excellent acting and heart-breaking performances from Karloff and Lanchester.
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THE RAVEN
(D) Louis Friedlander (a.k.a. Lew Landers)
(W) David Boehm
(S) Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Lester Matthews, and Irene Ware
Once again, as they had in The Black Cat (1934), horror legends Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi share the screen in Friedlander’s The Raven, and the results are – at times – electric. Lugosi plays Dr. Vollin, a retired neurosurgeon who is obsessed with Edgar Allan Poe; he even has his very own torture chamber in his basement, which harkens particularly to The Pit and the Pendulum. Vollin is solicited by Judge Thatcher (Samuel Hinds) and Jerry Halden (Matthews) to bring a severely injured Jean Thatcher (Ware) back to health. Vollin falls in love with Jean, prompting the judge and Halden to try to tear Jean away. In order to keep Judge Thatcher and Halden at bay, Vollin enlists the help of Edmond Bateman (Karloff) a murderer on the lam. The scenes that Lugosi and Karloff share are wonderful and help to alleviate sporadic poor acting from some of their counterparts and some slow pacing. Poe fans will notice many “easter eggs” to his various works throughout the film.
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THE BLACK ROOM
(D) R. William Neill
(W) Arthur Strawn and Henry Myers
(S) Boris Karloff, Marian Marsh, and Robert Allen
Boris Karloff, the busiest man in Hollywood horror cinema, stars as both Baron Gregor and his twin brother, Anton, in The Black Room. Baron Gregor is a despotic ruler who likes to kill women; enter Anton, who is incredulous of his brother’s actions. The townspeople wind up admiring Anton (especially in light of his brother’s exploits), so Gregor abandons his position. All’s well that ends well, right? Not so fast. Gregor, jealous of Anton, lures him to the titular room and kills his twin. After this deed, Gregor takes over his twin brother’s life and prepares to marry Anton’s betrothed, Thea (the lovely Marian Marsh). In an interesting twist – and one that’s sure to please dog lovers – Anton’s mastiff suspects Gregor’s deception, and the dog, along with the townspeople, reveal Gregor’s true identity. Let’s just say things don’t turn out as Gregor planned in this chilling psychological thriller.
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MAD LOVE
(D) Karl Freund
(W) P.J. Wolfson and John L. Balderston
(S) Peter Lorre, Frances Drake, Colin Clive, and Sara Haden
Mad Love is another adaptation of the novel Les Mains d’Orlac (The Hands of Orlac) by Maurice Renard. If you’ve never seen the original The Hands of Orlac (1924), directed by Robert Weine and starring Conrad Veidt (both from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)), do yourself a favor and give it a watch. Horror icon Peter Lorre plays Dr. Gogol, who lusts after Yvonne Orlac (Drake). Gogol’s obsession with Yvonne is so absolute that he orders a full size wax figure of her so that he can keep her in his home. Meanwhile, Dr. Orlac (Clive), is returning to Paris when he is involved in a gruesome train accident that mangles his hands. Yvonne, aware of Gogol’s surgical talents, beseeches him to fix her husband’s hands; however, (in a Frankenstein-esque twist) Gogol replaces Orlac’s hands with those of a murderer. The transplant causes Orlac to exhibit strange behavior, and that’s only the beginning of the crazy plot. Watch this as a double bill with the aforementioned The Hands of Orlac for a complete experience.
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WEREWOLF OF LONDON
(D) Stuart Walker
(W) John Colton
(S) Henry Hull, Warner Oland, and Valerie Hobson
Released a full six years before the seminal The Wolf Man (1941), Werewolf of London earns a spot on this list for the excellent make-up provided by Jack Pierce. You are probably familiar with the story, and this version doesn’t stray too far from the versions you’re more familiar with. Wilfred Glendon (Hull) is an English botanist who travels to Tibet in search of the mariphasa plant, which has eluded botanists for years. While in Tibet, Glendon becomes the victim of a werewolf’s bite, and we all know what that means. Coincidentally, the mariphasa plant is revealed to be an antidote for the lycanthropic disease that Glendon has contracted. Glendon uses mariphasa to successfully quell his first transformation, but he is unable to suppress his subsequent ones. There is an interesting plot twist (that seasoned horror vets will probably see coming), but Werewolf of London is largely successful because of the excellent make-up, eerie settings, and uniformly strong acting.
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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