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Frank La Loggia

Yikes, Keelsetter:
I honestly had a hard time looking at any of the pictures in your list, much less the movies listed, though I loved Arachnophobia (1990), but not because of the chills, (it’s the last movie I watched that made me look away). The appeal was due to the showcase it gave one of my favorite actors on the planet, John Goodman. Mr. G. also shone in a great little homage to the William Castle-like show biz charlatan in Joe Dante’s entertaining slice of cold war nostalgia, Matinee (1993). This one would be a great addition to TCM’s more recent movies, if programmed back to back with something cheesy like “The Tingler” or splendid like the original “The Thing From Another World”.

Oh, Medusa:
The Rapture is a very imaginative choice for your list. I would definitely categorize that as a brilliant, if scary look at religious belief as “the sleep of reason.” I’d forgotten all about The Hypnotic Eye, thankfully.;-) Isn’t that the one that begins…at the stove?

Hey Suzi:
I saw The Last Wave recently for the first time and was very impressed with the mounting sense of dread expressed about a doomed modern Australian culture in an invisible ancient world. I haven’t seen Picnic at Hanging Rock in over ten years, but will have to see it again soon. Both films are pretty unforgettable, (and not overtly gory). Glad to hear that I’m not the only one who’s afraid to look sometimes.

Hi Brainchild:
Your warning about the actual painting of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by American artist Ivan Albright comes too late. The Metropolitan Museum in NY had an exhibit of his powerful brand of Magic Realism about a decade ago with that example of his artistry as part of the display. The talented guy could paint work that might make Goya, Georg Grosz and Reginald Marsh look lighthearted, but he was a fine, if disquieting painter. But isn’t that one of the points of art?

Hi YancySkancy:
I know what you mean about Shadow of the Vampire (and the brilliant if irksome John Malkovich). I wouldn’t want to have been stuck on a remote location with any of those characters, but I did find it quite funny.

One other “Behind the Scenes with the Monster Maker” movie that I almost chose was Bill Condon’s Gods and Monsters (1998) with its brilliant work by Ian McKellen as director James Whale in retirement and Brendan Fraser as a sweet-spirited monster-yard man. It blends so many of the poetic and disturbing elements of Whale‘s movies beautifully. It also made me want to see all of Whale’s films. So far, I haven’t been able to track down The Road Back or Journey’s End, but it has been enriching seeing more than Frankenstein, The Invisible Man and Bride of Frankenstein–even though they are movies that continue to show me something new at each viewing.

Medusa: Nice to see a mention of Wrong Turn, one of the few recent horror films that made me jump. Very intense.

We have similar tastes in being scared, if that makes sense. I almost put THE WOLF MAN on my list; I should have put THE LADY IN WHITE but I didn’t think of it;and I included PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK by Peter Weir, who did THE LAST WAVE.

Very cool.

KONGO is Moira’s pick but it’s a must-see for those unfamiliar with it. I actually like the Lon Chaney version, West of Zanzibar (1928), directed by Tod Browning, even better. But both are, “remarkably depraved” (as Moira would say).

I just saw “Dead of Night” last night on TCM, it was terrific. I absolutely adored the ending, and Redgrave’s performance is still giving me goosebumps.

“The Haunting” is one of my favorite films, as is “Quatermass and the Pit”. QatP is sadly out of print in the U.S. and, strangely enough, it’s cheaper to buy a region-free DVD player and get the U.K. version than to get a U.S. copy nowadays. People are selling their copies for US$100. That’s if you don’t stumble across a DVD copy of it in a bargain bin somewhere, of course. In short, movies make us insane.