100 Years of Horror

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the birth of horror and how it has grown up to 1996. Listening to the actors like Vincent Price, Robert De Niro and Brinke Stevens, directors like Herschell Gordon Lewis, companies like Hammer Films, and others involved in the business was entertaining and informative.

It was fascinating to see how well known characters like Frankenstein changes over the years. I didn't even know that Robert De Niro did the character in 1994. From Frankenstein and the Wolf-man, we move to Hellraiser and Michael Myers, discovering along the way how some films were meant to be a one-time deal and ended up a franchise, and why we are so fascinated with demons. And, then there are dinosaurs, from 1 Million Years BC to Jurrasic park. I love a good Godzilla movie!

Christopher Lee does a great job of narrating.

Just saw the DVD, which only contains the two general episodes of this series and enjoyed it immensely. And since I'm a HUGE Abbott&Costello fan I was pleasantly surprised to see some outtakes from 'Abbott&Costello meets Frankenstein', one of their best films for sure.

But aside from that, Lee guides us through the history of horror movies using the trailers of the movies themselves. Not bad, all the exciting shots are there, but also the the very misplaced music and captions that accompanies the trailers. Silencing the music and removing the captions would have earned this otherwise wellmade documentary a 8/10, but now I think a 7 will be quite enough.

I only watched a third of these before giving up, so I will do a blanket comment.

This is many hours of stuff stretched out possibly three times as long as it deserved. Interviews are reused in multiple weeks. There is lots of footage from the films they are talking about, but almost exclusively from trailers. The host is a nitwit who blathers on, partly in character. The people interviewed have almost nothing to say.

But its such a rich topic with so many, many opportunities for reward that I kept hoping.

Their definition of horror excludes Giallo. There's no mention of sleaze horror. Omitting these is like not mentioning whiskey in a history of the US. There's an episode on girl monsters and another on scream queen victims, but no mention of sex. No discussion of redheads.

There's no examination of racially based horror. How could that be?

The omissions are not as crazy as the way things are grouped. There's an episode about freaks. Now there are enough of those to fill a couple episodes. But they are crammed in with the maimed and scarred. Does anyone on the planet believe these work the same way?

I found only one mildly interesting thing: the episode on sorcerers has some pretty good background on Crowley and the actor who played Caligari's ghoul (who in turn influenced Christopher Lee). And then talks about Svengali. This seems to have been written by someone who knew the history and knew how the device is used: evil hypnotizes.

But other than that (episode 19), you really should look at any horror film closely. You'll get more than you'll get here.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

I would have to say that this is a very good video. They really made this right. The only thing is that where is George Romero? They should have had him on because he was the one who gave a zombies a new name (well thats what I think). Anyway it is overall excellent.

Ted Newson made a wonderful, lengthy documentary on the horror film with this 13 volume set narrated by the great Christopher Lee. The videos are basically divided into sub-genres within the horror film such as witches, ghosts, dinosaurs, Frankenstein, vampires, etc... In each video, the ever urbane and deadpan Lee narrates the evolution of that particular horror strand from its roots to modern times. Without a doubt the series is dedicated to older horror films from the silent era, the Universal era, the Hammer era, and the huge field of B pictures(which for some reason garnered more attention than all the others it seems). We get glimpses of old interviews with deceased stars such as Karloff, Lugosi, Chaney Jr., John Carradine, and Vincent Price, as well as interviews with living legends such as Lee himself, John Carpenter, Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, and many others. An obvious flaw with the series is that it definitely seems to be under budgetary constraints. Most of the clips, if not all, come from movie trailers rather than the films themselves. Although there are 13 tapes, many of them are barely 45 minutes in length. And Lee himself uses the same catch-phrases throughout the series, thus letting us know that the producers had only a certain time with his services. This is not really a complaint, as I am glad the project was done....just an observation. There are some obvious films missing in the series(probably because they didn't have the trailers) and they are only mentioned in passing. The two that really stand out are Psycho and Night of the Living Dead. But again, overall this is a must-see for the student of the horror film and a very entertaining series as well. I can't remember ever seeing Mr. Lee so funny before as he talks about some of the films he made. One in particular line I found very amusing was when he mentioned that his only brush with film lycanthropy was The Howling II...and then he said in a very Jack Benny manner.."The less said about that the better."