Author Archives: Jon Kitley

Horror History: Karl Freund

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freundKarl Freund
Born Jan. 16th, 1890 – Died May 3rd, 1969

Karl Freund was a German cinematographer that worked with some other top names in the business: Robert Wiene, F.W. Murnau, and Fritz Lang. When he finally made his way over to the states, Universal quickly put him under contract, where he would photograph several of their films, including a few horror films like Dracula (1931) and Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). He would eventually direct a few films, two of them being horror, and both of which have become classics. The first one was The Mummy (1932) starring Boris Karloff, the second one was Mad Love (1935), starring Peter Lorre. This would be his last film as a director.

Freund went back to being a cameraman, because that is what he knew best. He won an Oscar for Best Cinematography for The Good Earth (1937), nominated again for Blossoms in the Dust (1941), and was given an Oscar in 1955 in the Technical Achievement department for the design and development of a direct reading brightness meter. He eventually went to work in television, specifically on the I Love Lucy show, and helped developed the 3-camera system for filming TV shows, which is still being used today. He also developed a new way of lighting the sitcoms, making them look a lot better than what they had been.

So while he was obviously a very talented cameraman, and gave the industry some amazing technical advances, he also gave us horror fans some great movies to watch, which we still continue to do today!

Synapse Awakens Sleeping Corpses

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living-dead-at-manchester-morgue-uk-quad-poster

One of the first real over-the-top gory zombie films to be inspired by Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) was released  6 years afterwards, directed by a Spanish filmmaker, but shot in England. It is also known by more than a few titles. I can remember looking it up in Phil Hardy’s Encyclopedia of Film and trying to figure out just what the real title was! Well, we are talking about Jorge Grau’s 1974 No profanar el sueño de los Muertos, which has been announced to be released on Blu-ray by Synapse Films this September. Continue reading →

Turkey Day in May 2020 – Pandemic Style

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I started holding my Turkey Day events way back in November of 2003. In 2015, we started a second one, Turkey Day in May. Ever since these started, we have never missed holding one. The numbers for each of the events varies from time to time, but there is always a group of us enjoying some of these cinematic road bumps. And then the pandemic started. As much as I wanted to gather a group of friends and still hold our May event, it just didn’t seem like the right thing to do. Originally, I had just planned on doing it by myself, watching the movies I had planned. But then talking to Turkey Day regulars Aaron Christensen, and then Jason Coffman, they informed me of this streaming thing you can do where people just log in and can see what you’re playing on your computer. Now originally it would be nice to have video and audio of everyone attending but it really would just have been too many people, and the chatting might have interfered with the actual audio from the movie. Jason mentioned using Kast, which has a chat room feature, so at least people could still communicate, make jokes or whatever, and still be able to watch the film. So after a few trials, on May 30th, we held our first online Turkey Day event. We only got through 5 movies instead of our usual 7, but I think it turned out pretty good. Not to mentioned the fact that we had more people at this event, hitting past 20 people at times. Continue reading →

Mystery Photo 6-7

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Another Monday, another mystery photo. Hopefully these brighten  your mornings a wee bit. Before we get to this week’s pic, let’s review last week. It was from Luciano Ercoli’s 1972 giallo Death Walks at Midnight. That shot that I used is a perfect example of why I love the giallo sub-genre. When you come up with a shot like that, to be thinking of images that will be on the screen, and then how to stage and create it, that is just pure magic. Kudos to the following for sending in the correct answer: Hoby Abernathy, Dave Friedman, Kuba Haczek, Martin Meeks, Tim Palace, Michael Shields, Gavin Schmitt, William Wilson, and Greg Wojick. Well done, indeed.

So these week’s photo, we’re going back to the monsters. And this one is a doozy! Take good look (but you can use both eyes) and see what you can come up with. Just send your guess to us at jon@kitleyskrypt.com. Good Luck!

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Movie Review: Deranged (1974)

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Deranged (1974)
Directed by Jeff Gillen and Alan Ormsby.
Starring Roberts Blossom, Cosette Lee, Micki Moore, Robert Warner, Pat Orr

Of all the films based on the real life story of Ed Gein, I would say this one is the most accurate. Since I grew up in a small town in Michigan, I’ve always found this film to be very creepy, since there were a few people in my town that could easily have been another Ed Gein. In case you’re not aware of the facts, Gein was from Plainfield, Wisconsin that murdered at least 2 people, but also had dug up several people from the local graveyard, using their body parts for nefarious things, before he was caught in 1954. How something like that could have be going on, and nobody would have ever know, boggles the mind. According to author Robert Bloch, that is the one thing that he took from the whole Ed Gein affair for his book Psycho, that a small town America could be housing a terror that nobody was aware of. Tobe Hooper also took a lot of ideas from Gein for his film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), including the fact that Gein had face masks made from human skin. Continue reading →

Horror History: William Gaines

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williammgainesWilliam Gaines
Born: March 1st, 1922  Died: June 3rd, 1992

Gaines created Mad Magazine in 1955 and published and oversaw until his death in 1992. Why am I mentioning this magazine on a horror website? Because before Mad Magazine, there was E.C. Comics, which published titles like Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, Haunt of Fear, and a few more interesting titles. Gaines had taken over the company that his father started when he passed away in 1947. Gaines started to delved into more serious subject matters and into scary stories. Each issue featured murder, vampires, zombies, and other strange things. But there were messages in there and those that wrong people, always got what was coming to them. Even though he lost, the fight that Gaines gave is one that all supporters of free speech should be proud of. It ended with a ratings being developed with certain restrictions, such as not being able to use certain words in your comic titles… such as Horror, or Fear, or Terror, which pretty much put an end to Gaines horror comics. Continue reading →

Soundtrack Review: Edgar Allan Poe Suite / Horror Express

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Edgar Allan Poe Suite - Horror ExpressEdgar Allan Poe Suite / Cry of the Banshee / Horror Express
Released by Citadel
14 Tracks, with a total running time of 61:58 min.
Composed & Conducted by Les Baxter and John Cacavas

This release is a real gem and a treat for horror fans. First it has the music from a series of four different one-man stage plays starring Vincent Price, each based on a story from Poe: The Pit and the Pendulum, The Sphinx, The Cask of Amontilado, and The Tell-Tale Heart. Then it also has a suite from Cry of the Banshee that is almost 20 minutes long. These were both composed by Les Baxter, who did a lot of work for AIP and their Corman/Poe series. Then we also have the score for Horror Express by John Cacavas. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Dead & Buried (1981)

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Dead & Buried 3

Dead & Buried (1981)
Directed by Gary Sherman
Starring James Farentino, Melody Anderson, Jack Albertson, Lisa Blount, Robert Englund, Bill Quinn, Barry Corbin, Michael Pataki, Macon McCalman

I recently re-watched this film for the umpteenth time and realized that not I didn’t have a review up, but it is one that I think is highly underrated. A really good and original story, an incredible cast, and some simply amazing special effects work by Stan Winston, a few years before he would change the future with Terminator (1984). Continue reading →

Mystery Photo 6-1

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Well, we’ve made it another month and are almost halfway through the year. I’m sure a lot of us out there will be glad when its over and maybe we’ll get back to some sort of normalcy. One can only hope. In the meantime, let’s forget about reality for a second and put that brain to work. But first, let’s cover last week’s photo. It is from the highly underrated (okay, maybe for a Turkey) film She Demons (1958). Once again, you have to give these filmmakers credit for getting their picture made and out there for the world to enjoy. Or laugh at. But either way, I still find it pretty entertaining. Kudos to the following for sending in the correct answer: Hoby Abernathy, Bob Hartman, Michael Shields, Vincent Simonelli, and Alan Tromp. Well done!

Now this week’s photo might be easier to at least guess the sub-genre, but let’s see if you can figure out exactly what film it is. And whether you do or not, how about that camera shot!?!?! Just send your guess to us in an email to jon@kitleyskrypt.com. Good Luck!

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