The Earth Dies Screaming - 1964

This was another movie that ended up on my list, because it was Armageddon-looking fun.

Jeff drives into a quaint English town and finds dead bodies everywhere. Eventually, he comes across a few other survivors, and they figure out that aliens have attacked Earth with gas, and only those that were protected from the gas have survived. The aliens have slow-moving robots lurking around, so they have to be careful! Will they be able to save humanity?!

To be honest, I'm not really sure. This movie had some of the weirdest stuff in it. I don't understand why anyone would purposely walk up to one of the robots and then stand there and let it zap you. And for some reason, that enabled the aliens to reanimate the dead and use them as slaves. What?

Eventually, Jeff and the crew are able to defeat the slow robots (that should never be a threat) by downing a tower that's been transmitting orders. The thing is, what about the aliens themselves? Shouldn't they be doing something? Or they just wanted to destroy humanity with a gas and then throw out some robots for fun? What's the point? Anyway, at the end, Jeff loads up the small group of survivors onto a passenger jet and hopes others will see it and head south. Or something.

Wow, this one was bad. I thought the premise was really cool when it first started. Everyone is dead from an unknown threat. What a cool idea! And then it got real weird. FYI, no one should die from those robots. No one. I can't say this was entertaining, because it was so stupid. The threat was so nonexistent, since the aliens were not really there. It was just the stupid robots. Just another hour of my life I'm never getting back.

The Man Who Could Cheat Death - 1959

I had this on my watch list, because it looked weird, and I'm always up for that. While I was watching it, I felt like I'd seen it before, but I haven't been able to verify that.

In 1890 Paris, Dr. Bonnet has finished his statue of Margo. At the unveiling, he is reunited with Janine, a past love interest. She's currently in the company of Christopher Lee (who is sporting a questionable mustache - I'm not sure how I feel about it), but she still has a flame lit for Bonnet.

Ludwig is a fellow doctor and friend from Bonnet's past who is noticing a change in his friend. Bonnet needs an operation, or he will suddenly feel his 104 years. He also has some magic bubbling liquid in his safe that helps him stay young. When Ludwig discovers Bonnet has resorted to murder, the old man refuses to help Bonnet anymore. And then Ludwig pays the price.

And here's where Christopher Lee makes his mistakes. He tries to warn Janine about Bonnet, but she accuses him of jealousy, both of Bonnet's talents and her love for him. In other words, she's an idiot. Anyway, Lee heads over to perform the surgery (Ludwig couldn't perform it anymore due to a stroke), but when he hears Ludwig is gone, he refuses. Bonnet reveals he's holding Janine hostage, and Lee folds faster than a chair. Hmm, let this psycho loose or sacrifice a stupid woman. 

So he "performs" the surgery, and Janine finds Margo, who has gone insane in a dungeon with her bust. Let's think about this. Janine knows Margo has been trapped down in the dungeon, and Bonnet locked Janine in this place, but when Bonnet returns, she's all "Yes! I'll stay with you forever!" What?! Ugh, let her die. Unfortunately, Lee and the police find Janine, and she watches Bonnet turn old Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade style (and at one point he kinda looked like a turtle), Margo sets him and herself on fire, and the movie ends.

The font they used for the title credits for this movie were also weird, but it's a minor thing. Overall, I think if you're able to look past some of the super weird stuff, there are some interesting themes in there. When Ludwig is talking to Bonnet about whose life is more important, that was a really interesting conversation. Ludwig was, by far, my favorite was Ludwig. I feel like they weren't kind to him in the picture, but it didn't take away from the fact that he was the smartest and best character.

The Vampire Bat - 1933

This week, we watched a movie starring Lionel Atwilll. He's someone I always like to see on the screen. At first, this movie seemed familiar, but nope! There's just a lot of old vampire movies.

Dead bodies are popping up all over the village drained of blood. The locals are attributing it to a vampire, but a young man is looking to a more human explanation. Herman acts pretty weird, and he carries around a bat in his pocket, so he becomes an easy target for the torch and stick brigade. The problem is, once he's dead and another body shows up, the timeline doesn't line up!

What's really happening is Dr. Atwill is using the blood to keep alive a small sponge. He says it's advancing science, but I'm skeptical. I couldn't figure out what was so exciting about the breathing sponge, but Lionel was excited about it. He had a minion that I'm calling Emu, because I couldn't understand what his name was. Emu didn't speak for most of the movie, but then he was just a normal guy. But then he was creepily skulking across a roof and whispering under his cape at the detective/solver of the crime.

So then the weird ending happens. I'm wondering if there's a normal ending in any of these movies. And by normal, I mean one where I'm not wondering what just happened and why it happened. In this one, Emu straight up murders Lionel after switching places with the solver and then kills himself. What?! Why? And how was Lionel communicating with Emu across the expanse?

The movie was on the strange side. With the breathing sponge, the ESP, and poor Herman and his bat corpse, it was entertaining enough. But these endings are killing me with their nonsense! RIP Emu. I'm not sure why you're dead...

Requiem from the Darkness - 2003

I was scrolling through random animes on Tubi and ended up starting this one. Last night, I finished up the two-part finale. 

Momosuke is an author trying to write a book of 100 ghost stories. As he travels around Japan, he encounters a strange group of three individuals who also seem to gravitate toward the supernatural. They are the Ongyou, and they seek out and punish sinners. Momosuke pops in constantly and basically gets in the way.

A bit of background on this - the show is based on the stories of Natsuhiko Kyogoku called The Wicked and the Damned. I saw seven of those in English, and the titles matched up to episodes in the show. 

I don't know what drew me into this anime. The animation was pretty bad, and the music was worse. Momosuke annoyed me a lot of the time, because he would ask to go along with the Ongyou, but then he would get in the way purposely or accidentally. I think my favorite character was Mataichi. He was a trickster-ish man who posed as a monk and sent people to the afterlife.

Overall, I'm not sure what I think of this anime. I was entertained enough to make it through the whole thing, but it wasn't very long. Thirteen episodes isn't that much of a commitment. Most of the show was pretty disjointed until the end, and that's when a story came together to finish it out. I think that was the part I enjoyed the most. This anime will probably fade from my memory pretty quickly, but Mataichi will be one of those characters I'll remember.

The Ghoul - 1933

I've found a different list of horror movies, and I'm keeping it a secret, hoping it won't disappear like the last one. The pick for this past week was this Egyptian-influenced horror starring none other than the Grinch, Boris Karloff.

In this movie, a man is on the verge of death (it takes him a while to actually kick the bucket), and he wants to be buried in a wholly un-Christian way! He believes that the great god of the underworld, Anubis, will resurrect him since he has possession of the "Eternal Light." Little does he realize others are working against him. He will come back to exact his revenge for the betrayal!

This movie was strange in a number of ways. First, the Grinch needed some of that cream they sell for crepey skin. Even before he died, he was struggling with that and a wicked unibrow. Also, there were so many plot holes, I'm not sure how to even start describing them. The only one I will mention is Davis. He was my hero, and I imagine that after he made his phone call, he headed out for a cheeseburger and milkshake. He deserved it.

The end of the movie also didn't really resolve that much. What happened to the cousins? Or club foot man? Or even the parson man that knew how to blow stuff up? And there was a considerable lack of murdering in this movie. It took forever for any ghouling to happen, and then he wasn't killing anyone I wanted dead. I was super excited when I thought he was going to kill the super irritating woman, Miss Kaney, but no. And she really deserved it!

Overall, this one was pretty bad. I didn't like the statue of Anubis. For some reason, it seemed bustier than I remembered. I didn't like the way the Grinch wasn't really a ghoul, and the explanation was pretty stupid. Even the heirs were irritating. Pass!