Honestly, most of us are just grown children, even Award-winning directors. On a recent episode of The Town podcast, Dune: Part Two director Denis Villeneuve allows his intrusive thoughts to win when he explains how his childhood disappointment in Return of the Jedi is still preventing him from ever directing a Star…
Hammer Films was founded in 1934, but it took an eleven year hiatus on the way to the ‘50s, the decade when the company entered the era it’s best known for. In 1955, the sci-fi horror film The Quatermass Xperiment became their first major international success, inspiring Hammer to start building toward becoming one of the most popular genre companies of all time. Since this year marks the 90th anniversary of Hammer Films, we decided it was time to put together a list of some of The Best Hammer Horror Movies. Here we go:
Sure, this is yet another adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula; a re-telling of the story that any horror watcher will see roughly fifty versions of over the course of their fandom. But director Terence Fisher and screenwriter Jimmy Sangster brought some twists to this one that are not present in others and shuffled some of the characters. As usual, it begins with a young man named Jonathan Harker coming to Count Dracula’s castle on business – but then we get the twist that Harker is actually a vampire hunter, in league with professional vampire killer Doctor Van Helsing. He knows what Count Dracula is and has come to destroy him. Of course, that doesn’t work very well for him, and Van Helsing has to spend the rest of the movie trying to stop Dracula, who has his evil sights set on Harker’s fiancée. Horror of Dracula is a thrilling reimagining of Stoker’s story that moves along at a surprisingly fast pace, telling its story in a brisk 81 minutes. Since it’s so great, it’s no shock that it spawned a franchise. Movie-goers couldn’t get enough of Christopher Lee’s performance as Dracula, and he came back for six sequels (Dracula: Prince of Darkness, Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, Taste the Blood of Dracula, Scars of Dracula, Dracula A.D. 1972, and The Satanic Rites of Dracula). Peter Cushing, the coolest Van Helsing ever, came back to share the screen with Lee in a couple of those sequels, and also returned for two adventures without Lee (The Brides of Dracula and The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, a martial arts / horror mash-up that saw Hammer collaborating with Shaw Brothers Studios) – which are actually more entertaining than some of the Lee Dracula sequels.
Hammer’s Quatermass trilogy is the rare franchise that gets better with each installment. The first film, The Quatermass Xperiment (a.k.a. The Creeping Unknown) is a fine story about an astronaut who’s a bit different when he returns from a trip into space. Turns out, he has been taken over by an alien entity and is mutating. Quatermass 2 (a.k.a. Enemy from Space) has more going on, dealing with a village that has fallen under the control of aliens, and has elements reminiscent of Halloween III: Season of the Witch – which makes sense since these stories originate from the same person, Nigel Kneale. Directed by Roy Ward Baker and scripted by Kneale, Quatermass and the Pit begins when workers extending the London Underground unearth a strange skull and a mysterious metal. Investigating the situation, the character at the center of this series, Professor Bernard Quatermass (played in this film by Andrew Keir and in the previous films by Brian Donlevy) finds himself dealing with Martians that resemble the Devil, may be responsible for rumors of a haunting in the area, and have deadly telekinetic abilities. You can see reflections of Quatermass and the Pit in some of John Carpenter’s work, especially Prince of Darkness.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about the detective character Sherlock Holmes and his friend / biographer Dr. John H. Watson in four novels and fifty-six short stories – but as a horror fan, the one I have always been drawn to is The Hound of the Baskervilles. And, of course, this story that involves a curse and a demonic beast was also the one that most appealed to Hammer Films. They had director Terence Fisher bring it to the screen with Peter Cushing as Sherlock Holmes and Christopher Lee as the man who could be the latest victim of the curse. This isn’t exactly a horror story; it’s a mystery that happens to have some weird, creepy stuff going on in it, and fun scenes involving the man-eating hound, a deadly tarantula, and a trip into an old mine. It’s an entertaining movie that left me wishing Hammer had made more Sherlock Holmes movies with Cushing in the lead. Cushing would go on to play the character again (and Lee would play him as well), but not for Hammer.
A Hammer film that was written by author Richard Matheson but based on the work of a different another (a novel by Dennis Wheatley, in this case), The Devil Rides Out is one of the many classics that were directed by Terence Fisher. Christopher Lee is the hero this time around, bringing to life Nicholas, Duc de Richleau, a character Wheatley wrote about many times. The Duc is out to bring down a devil-worshipping cult headed up by Lee’s fellow Bond movie villain Charles Gray, an endeavor that takes a lot of effort. The film moves along at a quick pace and has plenty of creepy action, including possession, black magic attacks, a giant spider, the conjuring of the Angel of Death, and an appearance by Satan himself in the form of the Goat of Mendes. If only Hammer had made more Duc de Richleau movies with Lee as the character… They made a lot of franchises, but they also left plenty of promising opportunities on the table.
One franchise opportunity they did not fail to pursue was the chance to make a series of Frankenstein movies – in fact, they made nearly as many Frankenstein movies as Universal did back in the day! It begins with The Curse of Frankenstein, a director Terence Fisher / writer Jimmy Sangster collaboration that tells a variation on the classic Mary Shelley story, this time with Peter Cushing as Baron Victor Frankenstein and Christopher Lee as his monstrous creation. It’s a great take on the very familiar tale and opened the door to multiple sequels, with Cushing returning for monster-making, brain-swapping, and soul-transferring adventures in The Revenge of Frankenstein, The Evil of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Created Woman, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell. In the midst of this, Hammer also produced a tongue-in-cheek remake of The Curse of Frankenstein called The Horror of Frankenstein, which starred Ralph Bates as Victor Frankenstein. But the people wanted more Cushing, so Hammer gave them more Cushing.
Hammer dealt with some of the same characters as Universal’s classic monster movies, but their Dracula and Frankenstein films have nothing to do with the ones Universal made about those characters. The Mummy is a different situation. For this one, they secured the remake rights from Universal and proceeded to cherry-pick elements from the studio’s entire Mummy franchise, mixing together ideas, characters, and scenes from all of the movies (except Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy). Directed by Terence Fisher and written by Jimmy Sangster, The Mummy 1959 has Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee facing off again, this time with Lee as the silent, bandage-wrapped, mud-caked title character and Cushing as archaeologist John Banning… whose wife has a strong resemblance to the great love the mummy lost in ancient Egypt. Blending bits and pieces of all the Universal Mummy stories worked well, resulting in an excellent film. This also sparked a franchise and was followed by The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb, The Mummy’s Shroud, and Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb, all of which are stand-alone mummy stories.
Night Creatures, a.k.a. Captain Clegg, is an odd one, because this a movie I would never think to call a horror movie if not for the fact that it’s traditionally considered a horror movie. For the most part, it’s a sort of adventure film / drama, with Royal Navy soldiers coming to the small village of Dymchurch to investigate reports of an alcohol smuggling operation. Peter Cushing stars as local parson Dr. Blyss, who may have some connection to the legendary pirate captain Nathaniel Clegg, a man who was supposedly hanged for his crimes. The locals are indeed smuggling alcohol, and we watch how they try to avoid getting caught. Horror elements only enter the picture in a couple of scenes that involve the Marsh Phantoms; men on horseback, wearing glow-in-the-dark skeleton costumes. I don’t really think those moments are enough to make this a horror flick, but it’s a good movie nonetheless.
This one is also known as Fanatic, but Die! Die! My Darling! is a much better and more attention-grabbing title. Directed by Silvio Narizzano from a screenplay written by legendary author Richard Matheson and based on the novel Nightmare by Anne Blaisdell, the film manages to be a captivating, engaging thriller despite the fact that the lead character is one of the most pathetic, ineffectual heroines you would ever hope not to see; the stereotypical damsel in distress. Played by Stefanie Powers, that character is Patricia Carroll, an American woman who decides to meet with the mother of her late British fiancé during a trip to England – and finds that her almost-mother-in-law, played by Tallulah Bankhead in her final screen role, is a religious fanatic with some extreme beliefs. So extreme that she locks Patricia in the attic of her home so she can try to save the girl’s soul. Die! Die! My Darling is one of several great psycho-thrillers that were made by Hammer. Other standouts include Fear in the Night, The Nanny, The Snorkel, and Nightmare (which had nothing to do with Anne Blaisdell’s novel).
Following in the footsteps of Universal again, Hammer sent their own take on the Gaston Leroux novel The Phantom of the Opera out into the world in 1962 – and this is a fun version of the story, if you can tolerate the amount of opera singing that director Terence Fisher included in its 84 minute running time. Herbert Lom plays the Phantom that lurks around the opera house, abducting chorus girl Christine (Heather Sears) and taking her down into his sewer lair with the help of his dwarf assistant (Ian Wilson). Edward de Souza is Christine’s love interest Harry – and there’s some confusion as to whether the role of the Phantom or Harry was originally intended for Cary Grant, who had expressed interest in working on a Hammer horror movie. Grant didn’t end up playing either character… but the movie would have been even better if he had. As it is, it’s still a good time.
Here we have a two-for-one special, as director Terence Fisher’s The Gorgon and director John Gilling’s The Reptile are two similar movies that are both well worth checking out. The Gorgon is set in a village that has been the site of several strange murders in recent years, with victims having been turned to stone. This all links back to ancient mythology, the stories of Medusa and her sisters, and it’s up to Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee to put a stop to all of this. In The Reptile, residents of a village are falling victim to a mysterious ailment referred to as the Black Death… and it turns out that one of the local people transforms into a reptile creature with a fatal bite. These are fun monster movies that can be paired for an entertaining double feature.
What do you think of this list of The Best Hammer Horror Movies? How would you rank the films, and where would you place some of their other classics, like The Curse of the Werewolf, The Plague of the Zombies, or Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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In the new family comedy Nutcrackers, Ben Stiller plays a man forced to check in on four rambunctious brothers. It’s occasionally crude, a little heartbreaking, and it uses humor to tell a very sad tale with a bit of hope. Also starring Linda Cardellini, the film’s focus is on the Janson brothers, Homer, Ulysses “Uli,” Atlas, and Arlo. Having been family friends to writer/director David Gordon Green, the film offers a very personal touch amid the on-screen antics. And it’s nice to see Ben Stiller return to a more mature version of the roles he was known for early on in his career.
Sitting down for the interviews was a real treat. In fact, it made me appreciate what they had achieved with the Hulu comedy even more. We spoke to both Ben Stiller and Linda Cardellini, as well as the four brothers, and it was charming as hell. They talked about living in a large house with multiple animals. What an interesting production it must have been.
And next, I sat down with David Gordon Green. He talked about doing a taking on a more personal project, and what it was about this story that drove him to it. Nutcrackers has what you’d expect from a comedy, it also offers a bit of a true story examining the reality of the Janson Brothers unusual life. You can tell this was a project that means quite a bit to the filmmaker.
Nutcrackers is currently available on Hulu, if you need a laugh, you may wanna check it out. Read our review HERE!
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As much as cancer tried to break Dolph Lundgren, the man himself is putting it down for the count, revealing that he is officially cancer-free.
Posting a video on social media ahead of the holiday weekend, Dolph Lundgren – who was actually making the video while in the hospital – stated, “Here I am at UCLA. About to go in and get rid of that last dead tumor. Since there are no cancer cells in my body anymore, then I guess I’ll be cancer-free, so I’m looking forward to this procedure… It’s been a rough ride and really taught me how to live in the moment and enjoy every moment of life. It’s the only way to go.” The caption on the video: “Health update – finally cancer free with gratefulness and excitement for a bright future. Thanks for all your support always.“
Dolph Lundgren first revealed he had cancer just last year, saying he was actually diagnosed back in 2015. Lundgren has initially diagnosed with lung cancer, which, while it did go into temporary remission, came back with a punch – and tumors in his kidneys, spine and liver – that prompted doctors to give Lundgren only a few years to live. But we all know Dolph Lundgren isn’t going to go down that easy, especially with the level of determination he continued to show on social media through workouts and on-set footage. As such, we here at JoBlo.com couldn’t be happier that Lundgren had the news to share.
Expectedly, Dolph Lundgren has been receiving a wave of support throughout his cancer battle. Responding to the video, some notable names – including Expendables co-stars Chuck Norris, Scott Adkins and Terry Crews – shared positive vibes and expressed their happiness and relief at the news.
Emerging at just the right time for over-the-top action flicks, Dolph Lundgren quickly cemented himself as an essential presence on both the big screen and small, later working primarily in the direct-to-video market. After landing the role of Gunner Jensen in The Expendables franchise, we were all reminded just what made Lundgren so much fun to watch. And while we may never get that Ivan Drago spin-off, we’re more than happy with what Lundgren has accomplished so far.
Send your positive vibes to the great Dolph Lundgren in the comments section below.
The post Dolph Lundgren reveals he is free of cancer after 9-year battle appeared first on JoBlo.
As much as cancer tried to break Dolph Lundgren, the man himself is putting it down for the count, revealing that he is officially cancer-free.
Posting a video on social media ahead of the holiday weekend, Dolph Lundgren – who was actually making the video while in the hospital – stated, “Here I am at UCLA. About to go in and get rid of that last dead tumor. Since there are no cancer cells in my body anymore, then I guess I’ll be cancer-free, so I’m looking forward to this procedure…It’s been a rough ride and really taught me how to live in the moment and enjoy every moment of life. It’s the only way to go.”
Dolph Lundgren first revealed he had cancer just last year, saying he was actually diagnosed back in 2015. Lundgren has initially diagnosed with lung cancer, which, while it did go into temporary remission, came back with a punch – and tumors in his kidneys, spine and liver – that prompted doctors to give Lundgren only a few years to live. But we all know Dolph Lundgren isn’t going to go down that easy, especially with the level of determination he continued to show on social media through workouts and on-set footage. As such, we here at JoBlo.com couldn’t be happier that Lundgren had the news to share.
Expectedly, Dolph Lundgren has been receiving a wave of support throughout his cancer battle. Responding to the video, some notable names – including Expendables co-stars Chuck Norris, Scott Adkins and Terry Crews – shared positive vibes and expressed their happiness and relief at the news.
Emerging at just the right time for over-the-top action flicks, Dolph Lundgren quickly cemented himself as an essential presence on both the big screen and small, later working primarily in the direct-to-video market. After landing the role of Gunner Jensen in The Expendables franchise, we were all reminded just what made Lundgren so much fun to watch. And while we may never get that Ivan Drago spin-off, we’re more than happy with what Lundgren has accomplished so far.
Send your positive vibes to the great Dolph Lundgren in the comments section below.
The post Dolph Lundgren reveals he is free of cancer after 9-year battle appeared first on JoBlo.
You’ve probably heard the story behind the name of “Seven Bucks Productions”, and even if you haven’t, it’s a good one. After injury derailed his NFL chances, and he failed to latch on in the CFL, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, with not much else besides the $7 in his pocket. He returned home where, despite his father’s storied wrestling career, there was little more on offer than his loving family. Dwayne’s father reluctantly taught him the family trade, and while there was a period of wrestling shows for $40 a night, his meteoric ascendency in the world of pro wrestling as “The Rock” is nigh unparalleled.
Though he maintains tremendous gratitude and deference toward the art of pro wrestling, Dwayne Johnson has never been one to limit himself to doing just one thing, and he parlayed the fame he gained from that platform into featured roles on television, mostly playing himself or someone closely approximating himself. His magnetic charisma and natural screen presence quickly caught Hollywood’s attention.
His film debut was as The Scorpion King in the second installment of the beloved, adored, and heralded Mummy franchise.The producers were so excited by his presence and performance that they started production on a solo vehicle for him before The Mummy Returns even released. His background in choreographed combat served him well in these roles, and he says the transition from steel chairs to steel swords was a natural one for him.
The captivating presence and physicality that he honed while wrestling paired with the charming and comedic aspects of his character work therein informed his approach to the seriously underrated buddy action comedy The Rundown. His performance and the movie as a whole were better-liked by critics than by underwhelmingly low-numbering audiences. This contrasts with the narrative that would follow him for most of the rest of his career, to this point, arguably starting with Walking Tall the next year, as he’s been looked on favorably by and certainly has drawn audiences, while the movies he’s appeared in are mostly critically panned.
It’s tough to pin down exactly how Dwayne Johnson has become such a beloved movie star, even having starred in a LOT of movies that were poorly received by critics. Perhaps his inexhaustible work ethic and renown gregariousness are a double-edged sword. Maybe that’s what leads to him being less discerning about the projects he chooses to be a part of than he could otherwise be. Some of those risks are understandable and even admirable, like the sardonic take on a stranger-than-fiction story for Michael Bay’s Pain and Gain. Others are baffling missteps, like Doom or Baywatch.
Parallels with the world of professional wrestling are apt to describe Dwayne Johnson’s acting career. Wrestling programs characteristically will ride a hot concept into the ground, taking an “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” mentality until a story or character overstays its welcome with audiences. Performers will play the same character for literal decades. This mirrors the prevailing criticism that Johnson seems largely unwilling or perhaps even incapable of straying from still playing minor variations on the same character in his movies. After all, it’s part of what made the Fast and Furious series and Jumanji reboot so successful. It can be said that he, as well as the movies themselves, lean into their strengths and excel rather than overextend. And, of course, it’s easy to be typecast, when you have the distinct look and persona that he does, but there are also examples of breaking that mold, even one as proximate as fellow wrestler-turned-actor Dave Bautista. Rumors abound that Dwayne Johnson’s hands-on controlling approach, as contrasted with the deferential humility of actors like Bautista, has historically dissuaded directors from giving him a chance on more nuanced roles.
Wrestling shows are also prone to overcorrecting when something doesn’t land with audiences as they expect it to. The same approach can be seen in Dwayne Johnson’s portrayal of Black Adam. One of the core issues with the film is his wooden, one-note sullen performance. Modern superhero movies endear themselves to audiences by humanizing their larger-than-life characters, but the Black Adam portrayal seems too preoccupied with making the titular character look impressive to actually make him worth seeing. Obviously Johnson’s star power and look was the selling point, but why do you cast a guy who smirked and swaggered his way into the public consciousness, weaponizing a charisma so infectious it became a cultural contagion, and then muzzle that charm behind the sullen silence of Teth-Adam?
Overpromising and underdelivering is common in the wrestling world, as well, whether in the form over overblown promotion of an event or a character who talks shit right before getting punched in the mouth. This is a lot like when Dwayne Johnson promised that Black Adam would “change the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe”. A more recent example is him convincing Amazon MGM studios to delay the release and balloon the budget of Red One, after being blown away by seeing Oppenheimer in IMAX. Johnson texted director Jake Kasdan, who endeared himself to audiences with Walk Hard and the Jumanji reboot, and said that Red One on IMAX “could be game over”.
He was right, in a way, as the holiday feature, originally intended for release straight to streaming on Prime, does nothing to take advantage of the larger format, with cheap, uninspired visual effects, unmotivated flat color palette on the primary setting, and bland sound design. These elements and the somehow both shallow and overstaying storyline translate to what I think critics are referring to when they say the movie lacks “magic” and “spirit”. The going public that have actually seen it seem to enjoy it, but there likely won’t be nearly enough of them to sniff recouping the reported $250m production budget.
It seems more and more like this is a cycle and pattern that Dwayne Johnson will be stuck in, until he decides to hang up his boots. It evokes the question of what makes a great actor. Just like he did in wrestling, Dwayne Johnson ascended to unprecedented heights as an actor, and his legendary work ethic brought him from $7 in his pocket to hundreds of millions in his bank. By measure of conventional financial success, we haven’t seen his like, and maybe never will. But I think a lot of us would like to see him flex his acting muscles, instead of just flexing his muscles while acting. Johnson’s best shot at that may be in A24’s 2025 film The Smashing Machine, which chronicles the oft-troubled life of pioneering MMA fighter Mark Kerr. It’s written and directed by Benny Safdie, who also wrote and directed one of Adam Sandler’s better dramatic turns in 2017’s Uncut Gems. Dwayne Johnson’s story is far from over, and he will have every opportunity to shape the narrative. At the end of it all, perhaps he’ll have naught to say but “You’re Welcome”.
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It’s always interesting to see big time directors go against type and into a genre we don’t necessarily associate them with. We have Mount Rushmore type horror directors like John Carpenter and Wes Craven giving us thoughtful entries into their catalogues like Starman and Music of the Heart. On the flip side of that, what happens when a director known for Oscar worthy drama, gangster, and period piece movies goes all in on a scary movie? How did that movie miss out on any major awards nominations even with it being considered prestige horror? How many different adaptations of Denis Lehane’s novel would we get? Take the boat over before the storm hits as we find out what happened to Shutter Island.
Denis Lehane is an American author who began writing in the early 1990s. While he had success with a series of novels with repeating characters early, he really hit it big in 2001 with his novel Mystic River. This would be adapted by Brian Helgeland for Clint Eastwood and not only be a massive success making 156 million on its 30-million-dollar budget, but it would also win 2 of the 6 academy awards it was nominated for. While Columbia Pictures would jump on and buy the rights to his next novel Shutter Island, the rights would lapse before a movie could be made and revert back to the author. Gone Baby Gone would come out when Shutter Island failed to materialize and would again get an Academy Award nomination. Lehane would get his rights sold again, this time to Phoenix Pictures who would commission writer Laeta Kalogridis to come up with a screenplay. Kalogridis was big at the time for her work on Nightwatch and Oliver Stone’s Alexander. She would later go on to write Alita: Battle Angel and Terminator: Genisys before creating the hit Netflix show Altered Carbon.
Two directors that were considered for the movie were David Fincher who was no stranger to dark themed movies and adaptations, and Wolfgang Peterson. The script for Peterson was much slower and more personal and would later be changed to give it the blockbuster thriller feel. The script also attracted the attention of Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio who had already made 3 very successful movies together. At the time, the pair were working on making a movie that would eventually come out in 2013, The Wolf of Wall Street, but were unable to get the proper funding for that and instead opted for Shutter Island. While DiCaprio had made horror and thrillers before like Critters 3 and The Beach, the closest Martin Scorsese had gotten to the genre was with his remake of the classic thriller Cape Fear. While you can argue that the movie itself isn’t a horror movie per se, there are horrific themes, a dread inducing score, and even multiple jump scares throughout the runtime.
Casting the rest of the movie would be easy as everyone wanted to work with both DiCaprio and Scorsese. With Leo in the lead role of Teddy Daniels, the rest of the cast would be filled with Academy Award nominees and winners like Max Von Sydow, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Jackie Earle Haley, Patricia Clarkson, and Mark Ruffalo. Smaller roles would be filled by reliable and fun character actors like Emily Mortimer, John Carrol Lynch, Ted Levine, and Elias Koteas. Ruffalo was cast for his part after sending a fan letter to Scorsese saying how much he liked his work and wanted to work with him. Before that letter though, DiCaprio and Scorsese kicked the tires on both Josh Brolin and Robert Downey Jr.
The movie is a very faithful adaptation of the book with DiCaprio playing Teddy Daniels, a Federal Marshal who is visiting Shutter Island with his new partner Chuck on a disappearance case. Shutter Island has particular interest to Daniels as an inmate named Andrew Laeddis is purportedly housed there and he was responsible for the death of Teddy’s wife. The patient that disappeared is Rachel Solando who was incarcerated for drowning her 3 children. We see Teddy get bad migraines and flashbacks to his time during WWII, specifically at the liberation of Dachau where he and his fellow soldiers find the horrors of war and eventually execute all of the remaining Nazi guards. Teddy gets lots of signs to not trust his new partner and is even told as much by some before separating with him in the forbidden C ward where the most dangerous inmates are kept.
Teddy eventually thinks that the doctors and staff have taken Chuck away to silence him but when he breaks into the lighthouse, he is confronted by both the head physician and his partner Chuck, who is actually Dr. Lester Sheehan. Sheehan is Teddy’s doctor, and Teddy isn’t Teddy at all. Everything we have seen during the movie was an elaborate treatment to get Teddy, really Andrew, to come to grips with the fact that his wife killed their three children. Andrew ignored the signs and when he returned from a trip, he found his children dead and killed his wife. While initially it seems that the therapy worked, Andrew slips back into Teddy and is taken away to be lobotomized, but not before giving signs to Dr. Sheehan that maybe he knows what’s going on and doesn’t want to live with it anymore.
Shutter Island was filmed over 4 months in Massachusetts with various parts of the state being used for parts of the island, the hospital, and the flashbacks to Dachau. The now abandoned Medfield State Hospital was used for multiple locations and the production crew utilized tricks to make everything look different on film. They shone lights in from the outside to simulate daylight and painted over brick to make it look like plywood and that helped to also block the general production from the outside world. Lehane wrote the story with an idea of it feeling like a pulp novel, a B-Movie, and an old Gothic picture all rolled into one. The hospital setting itself was based off one in Long Island that he visited with his family during a snowstorm in the late 70s.
Scorsese was in the right mindset for the feel of the movie and how Lehane wrote the book as he envisioned Shutter Island with the same vibe that the old Val Lewton productions of the 1940s had like Cat People or I Walked with a Zombie. To that end, he screened two movies for the entire cast: Out of the Past from 1947 and Vertigo from 1958. He even saw the main character of Teddy as a version of Detective Mark McPherson, played by Dana Andrews from the film Laura. Some critics felt the movie was very similar plot wise to both The Ninth Configuration and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. One outlet considered it a wonderful mix of Film Noir, Horror, and Fantasy. The ending sparked debate similar to another Leo movie from 2010, Inception. In the Christopher Nolan movie, the audience eagerly watches the top spin to see if it will fall or not and signify if what is on screen is reality or the dream world. In Shutter Island, the ending suggests that Andrew has fallen back into his Teddy persona but there is a look, a suggestion that maybe he knows what he is doing.
The line “which would be worse – to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?” does not come directly from the book and Professor James Gilligan, who was the psychiatric advisor for the film, certainly feels that Andrew/Teddy fully accepted what happens and just doesn’t want to live with that knowledge anymore. Lehane has another take on it however, believing Teddy to have a momentary flash of sanity before going back into the character he chooses to be.
The movie was a huge success. It opened #1 in February of 2010 and would go on to make 294 million on its 80-million-dollar budget. That 294 million would also be the most money that a Martin Scorsese film would make until… Wolf of Wall Street, the movie the pair was planning on making when they ended up doing Shutter Island. While it was also liked by critics and loved by fans (it sits at #138 on IMDB’s top 250, for what that’s worth), it would be the only movie collaboration between DiCaprio and Scorsese to not receive any Oscars. This could be due to the film being released in early February. While some movies can overcome that, A24’s Everything Everywhere All at Once was released early in the year and went on to win a ton of major awards, this isn’t often the case. Most studio Oscar hopefuls are released towards the back half of the year to garner the most attention before nominees and this was the plan for Shutter Island, to be released at the end of 2009.
Paramount had planned for the prestige release window but ran into a couple problems. First, it couldn’t come up with the proper budget to push for awards season, something that would have cost the studio upwards of 60 million, and second, its star was unavailable at that time to promote it. While the studio hoped that a February release would pique the interest of movie goers during a month that traditionally lacked heavy hitters, it didn’t see how that would handicap its awards run. While financially the move worked, it may have also killed its Oscar buzz before it even began.
A blockbuster movie wasn’t the only adaptation the novel got either. Shutter Island was turned into a graphic novel from Tokyo Pop and William Morrow and also somehow turned into a forgotten video game. Shutter Island: The Adventure Game was released on PC and Mac the same week as the movie to try and cash in but is utterly forgotten. It did so poorly that a planned Nintendo DS port was canceled and is now abandon ware that you can get easily from just a quick search. It was marketed as a point and click adventure game in the same vein as Maniac Mansion or Kings Quest but its actually one of the thousands of hidden object games that you can still buy on CD-ROM at Target.
Shutter Island is the first, and to date last, horror flick that mega director Martin Scorsese has made. Even if he never visits the genre again, Shutter Island will continue to be a fan favorite of the director’s catalogue. While Teddy may never fully understand the mystery he set out to solve, at least we know what happened to Shutter Island.
A couple of the previous episodes of What Happened to This Horror Movie? can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
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The 1983 horror film The Keep was a box office bomb and critical failure that director Michael Mann is not pleased with due to various issues – the script wasn’t ready when filming began, there were financial issues, a key visual effects designer passed away during post-production, the studio cut the film down from 2 hours to 96 minutes, etc. But we’ve given it a lot of positive coverage here on JoBlo, with a Black Sheep article, a Best Movie You Never Saw article, and a Best Horror Movie You Never Saw video (which is embedded above). So we know there are fans out there who will be very happy to hear that The Keep has gotten a 4K UHD release, courtesy of Vinegar Syndrome – and copies are available for purchase at THIS LINK!
Based on a novel by F. Paul Wilson, The Keep has the following synopsis: This superb gothic thriller will grip you with its combination of horror, romance and the supernatural. It is World War II in German-occupied Romania. Nazi soldiers have been sent to garrison a mysterious fortress, but a nightmarish discovery is soon made. The Keep was not built to keep anything out. The massive structure was, in fact built to keep something in… Scott Glenn portrays the stranger who alone must battle the supernatural force whose evil power is dwelling within. Ian McKellen is the medieval historian, Cuza, dragged to The Keep to unravel the mystery behind its gruesome killings. Alberta Watson stars as Cuza’s devoted daughter, Eva, who falls in love with the handsome, heroic stranger.
As the synopsis notes, the film stars Scott Glenn, Ian McKellen, and Alberta Watson. They are joined in the cast by Jürgen Prochnow, Robert Prosky, and Gabriel Byrne. McKellen has called the film his worst moviemaking experience. “Michael Mann said to me, ‘You’re playing this Romanian.’ So I went to Romania to scout it out, and I learned how to speak with a Romanian accent. Then on the first day of shooting, Michael told me he wanted me to speak with a Chicago accent. Well, I couldn’t do that, and it got worse from there.“
Vinegar Syndrome brings The Keep to 4K UHD in “a special limited edition 2-disc 4K UHD/Blu-ray set that comes with a spot gloss hard slipcase + slipcover combo (designed by Edward Kinsella), includes a 40-page perfect bound book, and is limited to 12,000 units. It is only available on their website and at select indie retailers. Absolutely no major retailers will be stocking them.” Here’s the info: – 2-disc Set: 4K Ultra HD / Region A Blu-ray – 4K UHD presented in Dolby Vision High-Dynamic-Range – Newly scanned & restored in 4K from its 35mm original camera negative – Commentary track with Film Historian Matthew Aspery Gear – “Out of the Darkness” (7 min): an interview with producer Gene Kirkwood – “Something Is Murdering My Men” (24 min): an interview with The Keep author F. Paul Wilson – “What He Left Unfinished” (6 min): an interview with VFX producer Peter Kuran – “An Evil Most Ancient” (24 min): an interview with make-up effects designer Nick Maley – “Other Sounds for Other Worlds” (11 min): an interview with co-composer Johannes Schmoelling – “I, Molasar” (25 min): an interview with actor Michael Carter – Still gallery – Original trailer – TV spot – Reversible sleeve artwork – English SDH subtitles
Will you be buying the 4K UHD release of The Keep? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
The post Michael Mann’s The Keep gets a 4K UHD release from Vinegar Syndrome appeared first on JoBlo.
After getting stale for a bit too long for a launch month, Pokémon TCG Pocket has finally launched a new event into its rather echoey corridors—the Venusaur Drop Event. And oh wow, it comes with a winnable card that’ll go straight to the top of your binder.
After getting stale for a bit too long for a launch month, Pokémon TCG Pocket has finally launched a new event into its rather echoey corridors—the Venusaur Drop Event. And oh wow, it comes with a winnable card that’ll go straight to the top of your binder.