Day 3: Faust (1926)
Posted in2016 31 Days of Horror Classics

Day 3: Faust (1926)

Okay, readers. I confessed to you yesterday that silent films usually aren't my thing. TODAY, however, I'm going to make a little amendment to that statement. I find silent dramas pretty hard to sit through in general, but I actually, surprisingly loved this movie. F.W. Murnau's Faust is, as you might have guessed via remembrances of your high school English class, an adaptation of Christopher Marlowe's Elizabethan tragedy play, Doctor Faustus. I'll be honest: prior to watching this movie, I didn't remember much about Doctor Faustus. I could recall that it involved a pact with the devil, and that there was a questionable exchange of youth/beauty for…
Day 2: The Monster (1925)
Posted in2016 31 Days of Horror Classics

Day 2: The Monster (1925)

For my first contribution to ItsJustAwesome's 31 Days of Horror series, I was tasked with watching 1925's silent classic, The Monster. In the interest of full disclosure, I'll admit that I am not typically the most enthusiastic watcher of silent films. I'm more of a 1930s and 1940s gal, as you may have gathered from previous, non-horror reviews (or listening to me sing the many praises of Barbara Stanwyck in The Good, The Bad, and The Podcast). I think it has a lot to do with my love of witty banter and well-crafted dialogue. When you're limited to what can…
Day 1: Häxan (1922)
Posted in2016 31 Days of Horror Classics

Day 1: Häxan (1922)

We're officially starting this year's 31 Days of Horror with Häxan, which is a silent horror film from writer / director Benjamin Christensen. It's an interesting movie because it's sort of an enigma by seemingly being all things at once. It's a documentary and history lesson about witchcraft but it's also a fictional horror narrative with "reenactments" of the torture methods used on those found guilty of being witches. It's both very tame and approachable, yet it also could never have been released in the US at the time it was made due to the sexuality, violence and nudity on…