Watching old, old movies part 5

It's taken me longer this time. Mostly because the movies have seemed boring to me. Nothing to really look forward to. But on the other hand it did take me forever to actually sit down and watch Les Yeux Sans Visage and that movie was awesome :)

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

13. Island of Lost Souls (1932)
This one was weird, and I don't think it would work today. A scientist is making experiments upon animals at an island. His goal is to push evolution to go faster during his experiments. These evolution experiments turn animals into people (what?), but after a while they always start to regress into animals; physically and mentally. After a completely unbelieavable plot the animal-people turn on the scientist and kill him. Why it wouldn't work today? Firstly, why would evolution cause animals to turn into people? Why wouldn't they become something else? As if mankind is the pinnacle of evolution. Secondly, it's so friggin 1930's that all the people the animals turn into are white. Everything about white people are mutations. White skin, blue eyes, fair hair... All of it are mutations. Evolution, sure, but still mutations. If the animals turned into people those people would logically be black, since that's where we started as people and that's where they would start as people. Thirdly, they have no idea how DNA works. When was DNA even discovered? *googles* "DNA was first isolated in 1869. It's molecular structure was identified in 1953." So basically they have no idea. This movie hasn't aged well, because the science doesn't hold up. If this movie were to be re-made I think they'd have to set the premise in an alternate universe or maybe even in a fantasy or sci-fi world. It wouldn't work in the real world. Bela Lugosi had a minor role in it, so that made it so very slightly better.

14. Peeping Tom (1960)
A man who was abused in childhood by his photographer father, is now a photographer himself. He's obsessed with expressions of fear and thus goes around killing women in slow ways so as to have time to capture their final horrific expressions on film. Ironically his hobby is revealed by his blind soon-to-be mother-in-law. And that's it. That's the whole movie. I guess that from a psychological stand-point this movie was very interesting and I know it caused an outrage when it was released, but to me it was very boring (probably because this psychological view point has been done over and over again in fiction). I kept tapping the screen to see how much was left, and that's always a bad sign. The main character was played by a German actor (Karlheinz Böhm) and his accent was very noticeable, but they explained it in-movie as a kind of pathological speech-pattern in relation to the abuse he suffered as a child. The only thing I actually enjoyed watching was when the actress, who was going to be his next victim, was dancing around warming-up for a scene.

15. The Haunting (1963)
I haven't seen the 1999 remake in years, but I remember that I really liked it. I was hoping I'd like this one too. But just as was the way with Hill House, they couldn't just let a haunted house be haunted. They had to rationalise it and explain it, and thereby completely ruin it. This time it was explained with the main character losing her mind. I liked the characters (I can see why they cast as they did in 1999) and I liked the premise, the setting, and the storytelling. This movie would have been amazing if they could just have let the haunted house be haunted. Honestly smh.