The October Country Report #13: Lew Anders’ The Raven

In the October Country, a pallid bust of Pallas perpetually perches above every chamber door, and the incessant cawing and tapping at your window lattice is something you just learn to ignore. Tonight we see Lugosi and Karloff team up for another spectacularly loose Poe adaptation: The Raven!

The October Country Report #12: Edgar Ulmer’s The Black Cat

The October Country is full of grief, fear, and tragedy, but also of peace, revenge, and justice. What is lost may be found, even if it’s love beyond the grave. Tonight we have a special one: The Black Cat!

The October Country Report #11: Robert Florey’s Murders in the Rue Morgue

We’ve been long absent from the October Country, what with one thing and another, but now the air is truly cold, the hard cider flows like regular cider, and even in gay Paris, notes of the sombre and sinister emerge. Yes, even Paris, with its jolly gothic architecture and legendary underground labyrinth of skull-lined catacombs, can occasionally be a little macabre. Which brings us to today’s film: Murders in the Rue Morgue!

The October Country Report #10: Son of Frankenstein (Part One)

The sleep of reason produces monsters. In the October Country, science inevitably descends into madness, and that madness can stain a bloodline like an eternal curse. Tonight we turn our gaze towards a triumphant rebirth: Son of Frankenstein!

The October Country Report #9: Dracula’s Daughter

In the world of living flesh, the central driving impulse underlying all things is the overwhelming urge to beget, and to pass our inheritances on down to our descendants. In the other world, the shadow world of unseen forces, spirits, and death, why should things be any different? Tonight in the October Country we see our first generational transition: Dracula’s Daughter!

The October Country Report #8: Werewolf of London

In the October Country, the moon is perpetually full, enormous, and often partially obscured by sinister clouds and stark grasping tree branches. This has no effect on the majority of the lycanthropic population, but it does provide a beautiful ambience as we turn our attention to Universal’s first werewolf film, and indeed the first surviving werewolf talkie: Werewolf of London!

The October Country Report #7: The Bride of Frankenstein

In the October Country, nothing dies forever. Men, women, beasts, franchises, all must eventually rise from the grave. Tonight we hit an exciting milestone, as we sit down with our first true Universal sequel: James Whale’s masterpiece, The Bride of Frankenstein!

The October Country Report #6: The Invisible Man

The seen and unseen worlds surround us, intermingling. In darkness, everything is invisible. By daylight, though, it’s only Claude Rains who cannot be seen. Tonight we have an exciting installment, the first of these films I haven’t previously seen: The Invisible Man!

The October Country Report #5: Karl Freund’s The Mummy

Just thinking out loud here, but maybe if you didn’t bury your beloved sister alive, and ignore the fact that she was alive for days, she wouldn’t rise up from her crypt to murder you and forever extinguish your decayed bloodline. Here in the October Country this sort of thing comes up more often than you might think. Join us tonight as we crack the seal of another burial vault, to unearth The Mummy!

The October Country Report #4: James Whale’s Frankenstein

Over the fog-shrouded moors comes the somber muffled tone of a distant church bell, ringing out the witching hour. Closer at hand, we can hear the creaking of the gallows as something swings at the end of a rope. Someone’s coming to harvest what’s there, and use it to do the bad kind of science. We’re still deep in the October country, and today we’re sitting down to watch the other foundational Universal film, the birthplace of multiple legends: Frankenstein!