What are the odds that I ended up watching back-to-back films with panther women? I blame Criterion, clearly, they have a weird fetish. I just don’t want people to think this is THAT KIND OF BLOG. But don’t let the title fool you, Cat People isn’t a cheap B-flick. Well, it was cheap and it was a B-flick but trust me, Cat People is a classy production. You can thank one Vladimir Leventon for that, known more famously as Val Lewton.
120 years ago, some nerd wrote a book about a guy trapped on an island of furries. In the ‘70s they made a movie about it with a bunch of hippies. In the ‘90s, they made another movie starring a fat guy with an ice bucket on his head. Before both of those they made the terrifying, disturbing, and bone-rattling—I can keep going—film that is The Island of Lost Souls. Directed by Erle C. Kenton and adapted for the screen by Waldemar Young and noted pulp sci-fi author Phillip Wylie, Island of the Souls is a disturbing exploration of what it means to be human both physically and mentally.
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only.
Where an Eidolon, named Night,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.
Behold it but through darkened glass, it’s…. SHOCKTOBER!
Yes, we’re gettin’ classical with this year’s edition of Shocktober with 31 days of Criterion Collection Horror movies.
I love Criterion’s horror catalog. Not because they are the best films of the genre or even close to the scariest. I love them because most of them are films you’d otherwise be hard pressed to find. Lost and forgotten films, eclectic, bizarre, and always intriguing.
Along with my fellow Mildly Pleased contributors, Sean Lemme and Colin Wessman, we’ll dive into classics from Cronenberg, De Palma, explore Japanese ghost stories, Czechoslovakian surrealism and pay a little visit to our good friend the Blob with lots of other surprises in store.
So enjoy, and remember, all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. Shout out to the OG spook master Mr. Edgar Allan Poe.
