In all my millennia at my day job, it's easy to grow jaded in my attitude toward death, but every so often, I get to see two souls reunited in such a way that even I have to admit warms my little, black heart.
I'm talking, of course, about Nancy Reagan and Frank Sinatra. Long before she married The Gipper and later became FLOTUS, Reagan, then Nancy Davis, was an actress, mostly in westerns. She was in one horror movie, Donovan's Brain. I have a vague memory of this movie sucking, so I'm going to just say no to reviewing it. I have more important things to talk about.
Ray Tomlinson, the inventor of email passed this week. His impact on modern society was incalculable, for without him nobody would know what that a with a circle around it was supposed to mean.
Last but in no way the least, I received Beatles producer George Martin this week. Martin was one of my most prolific agents on Earth, as he introduced to the world the most influential rock 'n' roll four-piece of all time, and thus exposed teenagers to such lascivious concepts of twisting, shouting, loving each other do, and holding hands. The Beatles may not have seemed overtly satanic to the layman, but the Fab Four were significant influences on the careers of the Rolling Stones, Ozzy Osbourne and Charles Manson, all of whom have been fantastic for my PR and recruiting.
If you'd like to witness the pure hell Martin unleashed on the public consciousness, A Hard Day's Night is on Hulu Plus. That's not this week's Thursday Thriller, either.
Daylight savings time is upon us again and I couldn't be happier because that means the Earth is rolling back toward Halloween. Don't forget to get to set your clocks forward on Sunday if you still depend on a clock that isn't somehow connected to satellite technology. For most of you, whatever timepiece you've come to rely on will reset itself for you. The downside is you might find last call comes early.
This auspicious occasion is just the kind of new awakening more primitive cultures would commemorate with ritual human sacrifice, but you mortals have turned into such politically correct pussies I know it's just too much to ask -- always kowtowing to the feminists, who want to know what business is it of anybody's whether she's a virgin or not, or worse, the Christians, who insist that God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son so ritual human sacrifice isn't necessary anymore. Lemme just tell ya, that ain't the Yahweh I grew up with.
So instead I'm just going to ask that you join me on a journey through cinematic history. We're going to look all the way back to 1920 for the first feature-length horror film. Sure, Thomas Edison was just as quick to show off what his movie camera could do with an adaptation of Frankenstein as he was to use it to photograph the electrocution of an elephant as part of a smear campaign against Nikola Tesla, but those were shorts.
This week's Thursday Thriller is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
I know some of you are already saying, "Satan, what trickery is this? I've seen Portlandia and I already know this is the movie that turns you into a mailman."
To you I say, take your chances, because Caligari is a weird movie. Everything looks crazy -- the mountains, the carnival rides, the desks at the government clerk's offices. It's a silent film and even the intertitles look crazy. They're like a ransom note from a kidnapper who shows a lot of promise as an art student. The visual style of Caligari influenced not only the film movement we've come to know as German expressionism, but has been evident as recently as The Nightmare Before Christmas.
This Robert Wiene film is about a traveling carnival showman (Werner Krauss) who keeps a somnambulist (Conrad Veidt) in a cabinet. At show time Caligari wakes the sleepwalker to answer questions from the audience, like "How long do I have to live?"
The somnambulist gives the guy til dawn. Then at night, under Caligari's spell, he goes out and murders the guy, which seems like cheating, but who am I to judge the ethics of a guy who travels the country with another guy in a box?
The action is a little slow, but the first horror movie kill scene and overall atmosphere of visual strangeness make The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari worth checking out. It streams on Netflix, Shudder and YouTube.
Don't forget to change your clock.
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