Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and Watson (Nigel Bruce) are back for their tenth outing together in The House of Fear. Based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Five Orange Pips, this one leans into using the Universal Monsters sets and, consequently has a very gothic feel to it. When a gathering of gentlemen, known as the…
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The Invisible Man Returns (1940) – Joe May
It’s more time well spent with the Universal Monsters as I dive into the first sequel to 1933’s The Invisible Man. Vincent Price in one of his earliest performances is Geoffrey Radcliffe, a man imprisoned for a murder he didn’t commit. His beloved Helen Manson (Nan Grey) is stunned and refuses to believe he’s guilty….
London Has Fallen (2016) – Babak Najafi
Secret Service Agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is preparing to tender his resignation and see to his about-to-grow family with an expecting Leah (Radha Mitchell) when the world interferes again. This time, he and the president, Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) are off to London to attend a funeral; the British Prime Minister suffered a heart…
Partners in Crime (1929) – Agatha Christie
Tommy and Tuppence, who quickly became one of my favourite creations of Agatha Christie, first introduced in The Secret Adversary, are back in this collection of short stories, that are interconnected, as the married couple take on a number of cases. A Fairy in the Flat opens the book and reveals that Tommy is working…
Poirot Investigates (1924) – Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie’s first collection of short stories, first published in 1924, sets forth a number of mysteries before her Belgian creation, Hercule Poirot, his little grey cells and his good friend Captain Hastings. While still capturing some of the humour of her novels, the short form of the stories doesn’t allow for a lot of…
The Secret of Chimneys (1925) – Agatha Christie
Christie’s fifth novel is a bit of a romp filled with double identities, a murder, political issues, an empty throne, a renowned criminal, a love story, a missing diamond, and a week away at a manor known as Chimneys. We are introduced to Anthony Cade when he is working as a travel guide in Africa,…
The X-Files (1993) – Eve, and Fire
Eve continues to deliver on the exemplary episodes we’ve come to expect from The X-Files. Written by Kenneth Biller and Chris Brancato, this episode debuted on 10 December, 1993. Mulder (David Duchovny) pulls Scully (Gillian Adnerson) in on a case that he believes is UFO related, when a body is discovered exsanguinated (a word I…
The Undying Monster (1942) – John Brahm
The Undying Monster, the next werewolf title recommended by DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies book by legendary directory John Landis is suitably moody, dark, gothic, and set in England – despite the fact that most of them speak with American accents. There’s an ancestral home, a curse, a pair of Scotland Yard investigators with…
Dracula’s Daughter (1936) – Lambert Hillyer
John Landis Monsters in the Movies, available from DK Canada, keeps the fangs coming with this next title from the Vampire section of his book. This 1936 film is supposed to pick up shortly after the close of 1931’s Dracula (despite the fact that it was set in the 19th century, and this film is…
Doctor Who (David Tennant) – The Unicorn and The Wasp, and Silence in the Library
Gareth Roberts writes the script for The Unicorn and The Wasp which first aired on 17 May, 2008, and sees the Doctor (Tennant) and Donna (Catherine Tate) arriving in 1926 England. They invite themselves along to a party and find amongst the guests, one Agatha Christie (Fenella Woolgar). When a guest ends up dead, the…
The Mind Reels 