The Pit and the Pendulum (1913)
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Set during the height of Spanish Inquisition. The beautiful and kind-hearted Maria is arrested as a witch when she inadvertently cries out in horror at the public whipping of a child. As Mariaâs husband Antonio tries to save her, Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor, determines to punish Maria with torture for the desire she inflames in him. Loosely based on Edgar Allen Poe's classic short story.
Francis Barnard goes to Spain, when he hears his sister Elizabeth has died. Her husband Nicholas Medina, the son of the most brutal torturer of the Spanish Inquisition, tells him she has died of a blood disease, but Francis finds this hard to believe. After some investigating he finds out that it was extreme fear that was fatal to his sister and that she may have been buried alive!
Seven students answer an advertisement to participate in an experiment to explore how the sensation of pain can be eliminated. Arriving at a secluded institute, they are welcomed by mysterious scientist JB Divay. Initially, JB's fascination with hypnosis, clocks and cactus plants are dismissed by the group as mere eccentricities. But as the students begin to disappear one by one, they begin to question JB's true intentions.
In this version of the golem legend, the golem, a clay statue brought to life by Rabbi Loew in 16th century Prague to save the Jews from the ongoing brutal persecution by the city's rulers, is found in the rubble of an old synagogue in the 20th century. Brought to life by an antique dealer, the golem is used as a menial servant. Eventually falling in love with the dealer's wife, it goes on a murderous rampage when its love for her goes unanswered. This mostly lost film (please check your attic) is often confused with director Paul Wegener second and readily available interpretation of the legend; Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam (1920).
In the Olden Tymes, Count Regula is drawn and quartered for killing twelve virgins in his dungeon torture chamber. Thirty-five years later, he comes back to seek revenge on the daughter of his intended thirteenth victim and the son of his prosecutor in order to attain immortal life.
A collection of 4 Poe stories narrated by Vincent Price: 1) The Telltale Heart, 2) Pit and the Pendulum, 3) The Sphinx, and 4) The Cask of Amantillado.
The Raven (1935) is a horror film directed by Lew Landers. It revolves around Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem, featuring Béla Lugosi as a Poe-obsessed mad surgeon with a torture chamber in his basement and Boris Karloff as a fugitive murderer desperately on the run from the police.
Following up the successful "P.O.E.: Poetry of Eerie", some of the original filmmakers regrouped for this newest experiment which aims to bring the tales of Edgar Allen Poe to life through the distinct lens of Italian horror with spoken English. While the original film's focus was the poetic and macabre dimension of the infamous Boston author, this sequel focuses instead on the bloody, violent and disturbing. Stories include 'The Pit and the Pendulum', 'Solo', 'Loss of Breath', 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue', 'The Tell-Tale Heart', 'The System of Dr. Tar and Prof. Feather', and 'The Premature Burial'... Like you've never seen before!
Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen's legendary film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients. But the film itself is far from serious-- instead it's a witches' brew of the scary, gross, and darkly humorous.
A ballet rendition of Bram Stoker's gothic novel DRACULA, presented in a style reminiscent of the silent expressionistic cinema of the early 20th Century. This work employs the subtle and sometimes bold use of color to emphasize its themes, but mainly is presented in black-and-white, or tinted in monochrome. No spoken dialogue can be heard, and the story of a sinister but intriguing immigrant who preys upon young English women unfolds through dance, pantomime and subtitles.
A 17th century Hungarian countess embarks on a murderous undertaking, with the belief that bathing in the blood of virgins will preserve her beauty.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a 1920 horror silent film based upon Robert Louis Stevenson's novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and starring actor John Barrymore.
An ambitious anthology film featuring segments directed by over two dozen of the world's leading talents in contemporary genre film. Inspired by children's educational ABC books, the motion picture is comprised of 26 individual chapters, each helmed by a different director assigned a letter of the alphabet. The directors were then given free reign in choosing a word to create a story involving death. Provocative, shocking, funny and ultimately confrontational; THE ABC's OF DEATH is the definitive snapshot of the diversity of modern horror.
An eerie German silent film from 1920. This classic expressionistic film is known as a landmark in film history becoming famous worldwide from itâs exceptional new wave style of well built and painted grotesque scenery with contrasted lighting along with the painted effect of light and shadows. The film tells a surrealistic story with an unusual end that was the subject of controversy.
Professor David Ash exposes false spiritulists and mediums. He is invited to Edbrook to resolve the fears and torments within its secretive family. Soon after arriving Ash begins to doubt his own senses, and watching the strange behaviour of its residents does not make his task any easier. In time, he finds there's more to Edbrook than even he can debunk.
A girl called Hannah goes back to her hometown (Gatlin) to find out who her mother but on the way she picks up a strange man who fore-shadows her life with a passage from the bible. When she gets there she wakes up Isaac from a coma he has been in for 19 years. Isaac is awake and wants to fulfill the final prophecy.
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Ten stories from horror's top directors. Ghosts, ghouls, monsters, and the devil delight in terrorizing unsuspecting residents of a suburban neighborhood on Halloween night. This creepy anthology combines classic Halloween tales with the stuff of nightmares.
Based on the novel by Dean R. Koontz, this action packed thriller features Bruce Greenwood as a private detective hired to protect a little boy from a fanatical religious cult that believe he is the antichrist fortold in the book of Revelations.
In 15th century France, a gypsy girl is framed for murder by the infatuated Chief Justice, and only the deformed bellringer of Notre Dame Cathedral can save her.
God and Satan war over earth; to settle things, they wager on the soul of Faust, a learned and prayerful alchemist.
A shower of meteorites produces a rare night time spectacle that blinds anyone that looks at it. As it was such a beautiful sight, most people were watching, and as a consequence, 99% of the World's population go completely blind. In the original novel, this chaos results in the escape of Triffids: farmed plants harvested for their oils, which are capable of moving themselves around and are carnivorous. In this film version, however, the Triffids are not indigenous plants. Instead they are space aliens whose spores have arrived in this and an earlier meteor shower. Derided by the original novel's author, John Wyndham, for straying so far away from the source material.
Just as Fritz Langâs Metropolis (1927) is testimony to German silent film art, The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) symbolises both the birth of the Australian film industry and the emergence of an Australian identity. Even more significantly it heralds the emergence of the feature film format. The Story of the Kelly Gang, directed by Charles Tait in 1906, is the first full-length narrative feature film produced anywhere in the world. Only fragments of the original production of more than one hour are known to exist and are preserved at the National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra. (unesco.org)
Chronicles the six-decade career of the U.S. film industry's most diverse, dogged and resourceful low-budget producer-director-entrepeneur, painting the soft-spoken Roger Corman as an indie cinema trailbrazer as well as an extraordinary conduit for new talent.
Le Dernier tournant (aka The Last Turning) is a 1939 French drama film directed by Pierre Chenal, written by Charles Spaak and Henri Torrès, based on novel "The Postman Always Rings Twice" by James M. Cain.
Hollywood, 1927: As silent movie star George Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, he sparks with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break.
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Il Fornaretto di Venezia (US TV title: The Scapegoat) is a 1963 Italian film directed by Duccio Tessari who co-wrote screenplay with Marcello Fondato, based on novel by Francesco Dall'Ongaro. It tells the story of 16th century's Venice where a young worker is sentenced to death on the suspicion of attacking a noble.
A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent-film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.
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This lovely, 1991 adaptation of Elizabeth Von Arnim's novel has a superb cast and a tone so mellow you can feel your pulse get slower. Josie Lawrence and Miranda Richardson play a pair of unhappily married women who rent an Italian villa for a month, sharing the rent with a crusty Englishwoman (Joan Plowright) and a lonely aristocrat (Polly Walker). Sun, rest, sinking into the green grass for long naps--they all have a soulful effect on the quartet, and then on the men in their lives who make a surprise visit. Mike Newell (Into the West) directs with seeming effortlessness, and it is impossible not to be swayed by the promise of restoration for these burdened characters--or for anyone alive. Wonderful performances all around, including a particularly sensitive one by Alfred Molina and a very funny one by Jim Broadbent.
Aspiring filmmakers Mel Funn, Marty Eggs and Dom Bell go to a financially troubled studio with an idea for a silent movie. In an effort to make the movie more marketable, they attempt to recruit a number of big name stars to appear, while the studio's creditors attempt to thwart them. The film contains only one word of dialogue, spoken by an unlikely source.
This documentary about Henri-Georges Clouzotâs unfinished 1964 psycho-thriller LâEnfer is as tantalizing as it is frustrating. Despite remaining one of the most masterful of French directors, Cluozot inexplicably seems to have lost control on the big-budget production of LâEnfer. The long-lost raw footage is intriguing and dazzling, infused with swirling lights and blue-lipped, cigarette-puffing fantasy temptresses. Although directors Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Mederea have managed to speak to numerous members of the original crew, this behind-the-scenes investigation has so little to say about the reasons behind Clouzotâs failure to complete the film. In spite of this, the undiminished power of Clouzotâs extraordinary images makes the documentary a fascinating watch.
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Adapted from a 1964 novel of the same name, the film follows a day in the life of George Falconer (Colin Firth), a British college professor reeling with the recent and sudden loss of his longtime parter. This traumatic event makes George challenge his own will to live as he seeks the console of close friend Charley (Juliane Moore) who is struggling with her own questions about life.
An account of the rise and fall of a silent film comic, Billy Bright. The movie begins with his funeral, as he speaks from beyond the grave in a bitter tone about his fate, and takes us through his fame, as he ruins it with womanizing and drink, and his fall, as a lonely, bitter old man unable to reconcile his life's disappointments. The movie is based loosely on the life of Buster Keaton.
Examines the public scandal and private tragedy which led to legendary director Roman Polanski's sudden flight from the United States.
â[Tsuru Aoki's] work for Haworth, for instance, included a role opposite Hayakawa in The Courageous Coward (1919), in which she played a Japanese woman who tries to transform herself into a modern American girl in the mistaken belief that this is what her American suitor desires. Widâs Weekly advertising copy for the film proclaimed that she was âdelightful in her efforts to imitate her western sisters in everything from high heels to powder puffsââ (https://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/)
A fictionalized account of the last days of Edgar Allan Poe's life, in which the poet is in pursuit of a serial killer whose murders mirror those in the writer's stories.
One of the most famous musical films and the first film from Hollywood to use color. Young Dorothy finds herself in a magical world where she makes friends with a lion, a scarecrow and a tin man as they make their way along the yellow brick road to talk with the Wizard and ask for the things they miss most in their lives. The Wicked Witch of the West is the only thing that could stop them.
The Kiss is a 1929 drama film directed by Jacques Feyder and starring Greta Garbo, Conrad Nagel and Lew Ayres in his first feature film. This film is known for being both MGM's and Greta Garbo's last silent film.
Monsieur Cinema, a hundred years old, lives alone in a large villa. His memories fade away, so he engages a young woman to tell him stories about all the movies ever made. Also a line of movie stars comes to visit him giving him back the pleasure of life - but amongst them there are also some young students only striving after his money for the realization of their film projects. The two stories - Monsieur Cinema's and the young people's life - are told in parallel until they come together in the end when the old man plays a role in the film made by the students.
Based on Michael Chabon's novel, the film chronicles the defining summer of a recent college graduate who crosses his gangster father and explores love, sexuality, and the enigmas surrounding his life and his city.
While silent-film star Charlie Chaplin may have charmed American audiences with the onscreen antics of his lovable "Tramp" character, the actor's private life was marred by a series of public scandals that eventually pushed him into exile. In addition to his penchant for much younger women, Chaplin was unjustly hounded by Senator Joe McCarthy's notorious anti-Communist witch hunts, for which the U.S. revoked his visa in 1952. A bitter and disenchanted Chaplin responded by moving his family to Switzerland, where he remained until his death in 1977. This documentary chronicles Chaplin's life and career during those so-called "forgotten years" (during which he became a prolific and highly respected film-score composer) through previously unreleased archival footage and intimate interviews with his friends and family, including his children Geraldine, Michael, and Eugene.
Corky, a tough female ex con and her lover Violet concoct a scheme to steal millions of stashed mob money and pin the blame on Violet's crooked boyfriend Caeser.
Disgrace is the story of a South African professor of English who loses everything: his reputation, his job, his peace of mind, his good looks, his dreams of artistic success, and finally even his ability to protect his cherished daughter. After having an affair with a student, he moves to the Eastern Cape, where he gets caught up in a mess of post-apartheid politics.
A young Austrian prince finds love in Old Heidelberg in this silent film
Daredevils of the West is a lightning-fast-paced Western cliffhanger serial released by Republic Pictures in 1943 starring Allan Lane and Kay Aldridge. The plot involves a gang of land-grabbers who try to prevent safe passage of the Foster Stage Company through frontier territory, however, the story of the serial is merely a framework for the setup of numerous elaborate stunt action sequences, cliff-hanging perils and fiery deathtraps which the hero and heroine must fight to survive. As was the case with other Republic serials released during wartime such as King of the Mounties and The Masked Marvel, a rapid, even frantic pace is evident throughout, which has made the serial a favorite among fans.
Kitty Bellairs, a flirtatious young woman of 18th Century England, cuts a swath of broken hearts and romantic conquests as she visits a resort with her sister.
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A trainer attempts to retrain a vicious dog that's been raised to kill black people.
The Man with the Crooked Eyes is a unfinished 1918 Portuguese silent film made for Lusitânia Film and directed by José Leitão de Barros, starring Filipe Melo. This was restored and edited together in 2007 using all existing raw footage.
Documentary about legendary Paramount producer Robert Evans (the film shares the same name as Evans's famous 1994 autobiography).
Gerald is a smart, young, high-flying American banker. Everything is great until his wife finds another woman's underwear in their bedroom and subsequently throws him out. He finds lodgings with Monica, a recently divorced 50-year old housewife, who is smitten with Gerald. But after their first night of love, Gerald avoids her. Monica feels used and betrayed until Gerald confesses he likes to dress up as a woman. Monica learns to accept and eventually support Geraldine, Gerald's alter ego. Based on the novel by Monica Jay.
A documentary about the early years of silent films made in Britain. Showing that it wasn't just a few, easily dismissed comedies, but many high quality films including some very popular comedies and some fine dramas. Matthew Sweet shows through examples how the art and even the language of film was developed by some of these pioneers working in Britain.
Hannah is a young woman who lives on her own. She starts to get this feeling that she is being watched. The phone starts ringing at night and when she answers, no one is there. Is she imagining everything or is it for real?
When the Boogey Man causes Grim to lose his powers, rank, and title in the Underworld Court for misusing his powers, he plots to seek out Horror's Hand and take over the world. It's up to Billy, Mandy, Irwin, and Grim to get to Horror's Hand before the Boogey Man does.
Ebeneezer Scrooge (Alastair Sim) contentedly meanders through his life as a cruel miser until one fateful Christmas Eve when he is visited by three ghosts. The spirits show him how his behavior over the years has made him a lonely, bitter old man, and how his heart has grown colder. Using events from Scrooge's idealistic past, dreary present and dismal future, the apparitions try their best to melt his steely soul. Tightfisted Ebeneezer Scrooge learns the error of his ways through the intervention of the ghost of his former partner and of the three spirits and, just in time for the holidays, manages to make everyone's lives a little brighter, his included!
The story revolves around a Spring, a hitman from mainland China who is on a mission in Hong Kong with his partner Setting Sun. However, Spring falls ill and comes under the care of a screenwriter by the name of Soya and they find themselves developing into a tight and everlasting friendship.
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