Wow, what a great movie from 1933!! Directly after he finished shooting THE MUMMY, Boris went back to England and worked on this very shocking and creepy horror classic!! Lost for years, like NIGHT OF THE GHOULS and HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND, a pristine print was recently found and is now available on DVD!! Photography and art direction are by two German expressionists, art director was Alfred Junge.We got this print online, which is very good, and, now know why we never saw it on TV back in the day! But, we had stills in FM and the other monster mags.
The music is by Louis Levy and Leighton Lucas (that's a lot of L's!) and was used in a more modernistic way by being intergral with the imagery, most music was more passive at this period in time.Lil' Dungeon pet Piff the Gnat has the honors of smashing into the big red 'GO' button to start today's really big shooo.... Get ready for THE GHOUL!
Mahmoud has a special way of greeting his friends, a knife blade at the back of the neck!
Boris is on his death bed, but has a secret plan for eternal life...
This movie's almost a mix of FRANKENSTEIN, with the use of heavy make-up, and THE MUMMY, with it's Eqyptian overtones.
Ernest Thesiger as the not-so-smart butler, Laing, is classic!
The story has some undercurrents and back-stabbings to keep things lively, what else when it involves Egyptian politics!
Bewitching compositions never end, most of the time it looks like it's lit by a flickering fireplace!
Laing places a magic stone in the hand of Boris at his burial in a sarcophagus, enabling him to reanimate...
Didn't make him look any better, that's for sure!
Here's a close up of Boris' make-up job... Pretty damn gruesome, even by today's standards! 
Nice creepy series of stills show Boris bending bars to get at his faithful servant, Laing.
He's loose in the house, and he's looking for more necks to get his hands around.
Ah ha!.. He finds his next victim!!
In the end, Boris fails to appease the Eqyptian god and pays the ultimate price, disintegration!
The kids watch in bewilderment. Check out that composition!!
Check this movie out for free online, or buy the MGM restorated DVD for your collection! You'll be glad you did...
1 comment:
the bit where he carves the ankh into his chest is pretty rough, too. excellent choice of grabs!
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