Watching old, old movies part 3

(Part 1) (Part 2)

7. Nosferatu (1922)
I was really looking forward to seeing this one. Although watching a silent horror movie was sort of odd, I really liked it. Mostly because it was genuinely creepy. Well, most of the time. The thing in the beginning when the movie shows how happy everyone is before Nosferatu arrives in town made me wonder if I was watching a horror movie or an exaggerated comedy. But as soon as we get to Transylvania and later when he arrives in town, it starts to get properly creepy. It was odd, though. The previous old movies I've watched have all been with sound, except that they rarely had ambient music. This one only had music and no other sounds. The contrast was quite stark :P The only thing that actually bothers me about this movie (apart from the exaggerated beginning) is the ending. The text she finds says that "an innocent maiden must willingly give her blood" so that he'll forget about time and stay out in the sun and die from it. First of all she's somebody's wife so I really doubt she's a maiden or all that innocent. Secondly it really didn't look like she gave herself willingly. So in the end it just looks like he went "oopsie I stayed a bit too long with this one, oh well now I die". Kind of ruined the suspense. But all the iconic moments ♥

8. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
Didn't like this one at all. The director said that Hyde was inspired by Neanderthal people, but to modern me it looks like a blatantly racist make-up. Apparantly Hyde's skin was supposed to be grey, but that doesn't really come across in a black-and-white movie. What he came across as was a version of Dr. Jekyll with darker skin, broader nose, bigger lips, and hair that really looks like gel-styled African locks.

Maybe it was unintentional, but damn... Anyway Hyde isn't really dangerous in this movie imo. The main difference between Jekyll and Hyde (apart from their looks) is that Jekyll is a perfect gentleman and that Hyde acts like a pig. You know, drinking too much, being inappropriate with the ladies, and also acting slightly abusive towards the ladies (I don't know much obv, but considering the 1960's ads I've seen of a husband spanking his wife for not making him dinner on time, his behaviour towards women can't have been all that rare). It wasn't scary. Not even slightly creepy. And it was boring. And slow. So slow. Boo.

9. House on Haunted Hill (1959)
Hooray for first jumpscare! This was my first movie starring Vincent Price (who I know was a major influence for Alice Cooper's early work). I was really looking forward to a haunted house movie, hoping that it would be similar to The Haunting from 1999 that I really like. It started off properly creepy and gave me my first jumpscare of this old movie marathon very early.

But then they started explaining things. The scary woman than had given me a jumpscare was the blind wife of the custodian of the house. They left the house as agreed upon midnight. And then we find out that everything scary happening in the house is just the shenanigans of the millionaire's wife and psychiatrist trying to make one of the guests hysterical so she'll shoot the millionaire so that the wife and the psychiatrist can be together with all his money. Suddenly no ghosts. And suddenly more of a criminal investigation movie than a horror movie. I was disappointed, but the movie wasn't bad. Just not what I thought it would be.