Sorry to hear about Bob Burns passing. I met him a few times and he always had time to chat. He had an encyclopedic memory for genre film anecdotes, history, “making of” and especially special effects. Nice guy. I hope his collection of film artifacts find good homes.
Some off-beat Japanese fantasy films.
Films with an industrial brassy riveted Victorian vibe. I’m having fun with the “Letterboxd” app.
“His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful Beautiful!-Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips.”
Every monster kid knows that silver and a few herbs are the bane to werewolves. Vampires don’t care much for silver either. I found it fascinating that Guillermo del Toro’s Victor Frankenstein was so obsessed with using pure silver for electrodes and masts that he sends some of the apparatus back for containing copper. Silver here is a key conductor in inducing electrical current into the lymphatic system (a new spin) liberating life. Period details abound in this new Frankenstein. Later, we see a syphilitic character taking elemental mercury for treatment. Of course GDT knows the mercury was used from the late 15th century until the early 20th century. Details. No Frankenstein film has looked like this one and all the GDT trappings are present. Ornate carvings, woodcuts, sculptures, odd geometric shapes, pillars, vaulted ceilings, anatomical paintings and sketches, tapestries, demons and angels.
The film features several notable performances with Australian born Jacob Elordi standing out as the creature. The makeup is extraordinary and evolves as the film progresses. Oscar Isaac plays Victor Frankenstein in a role very similar to his creator of AI in Ex Machina (2014). Christoph Waltz is perfectly cast as a financier with a secret. I knew nothing about Mia Goth, but I’ll be looking for her in the future. She plays the central love interest to three of the primary players. We see a new iteration of the old blind man sequence with David Bradley as a formative mentor to the creature. These were beautiful scenes executed in a snowy pasture opening.
The film is non-linear in construct and we see both Victor and the creature’s telling of the story. There is a sense of dread carried throughout most of the films entirety. As in the novel, much of the story culminates in an arctic encounter. GDT has crafted a brilliant film here on par with any remake I can recall. Highly recommended. I suspect an Oscar nomination for Goth, Elordi and GDT. Try and see this on the big screen before it hits streaming on NETFLIX.
Bruce Glover, a character actor best known as the assassin Mr. Wint in the 007 film Diamonds are Forever died March 12. His son is actor Crispin Glover.
Has to be a first…
monsterminions 