The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari

The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari is about a man named Francis who is telling a story about what happened to his friend Alan at a carnival. There was a man named Cesare who can read the future. Alan went to Cesare and asked when he will die, and he says he will die at dawn. Alan dies at dawn, everyone thinks that Cesare killed him. The real murderer was Dr.Caligari who had mind control over Cesare.

I liked this film because it was unlike anything ive seen. There were a few things that stood out, whenever Dr.Caligari was in the frame it would be crooked. This hinted around the fact that he was the mastermind behind the murder. I alos liked how it started with a story and ended with him telling the story. It was like it was a glimpse into the past.

Rope

Alfred Hitchcock's Rope is about two men that commit a murder for the fun of it, and have a party to celebrate their murder. In Rope they have know cuts, the whole movie is in one continuous tracking shot. The movie gets better when one of the guests starts to get suspicious. The movie ends with the suspicios man calling the two other men out on what they did.

Rope is now one of my Fvaiorte movies. The tracking shot makes the movie that much better. There is only one cut in the whole movie, when the men are talking about how they lived around chickens. The man that suspcts them catches on to what they are talking about and it cuts to him. It shows that up till that point they were doing good covering everything up, but at the point is where they messed up everything. I really enjoyed watching Rope I think this is a movie I may buy.

The Testament of Dr.Mabuse

The Testament of Dr.Mabuse is about diffrent gangs that are being brain washed by a man in a hospital for mental illness. He tells the gangs to kill certain people and they do it. The way the movie starts is really good. I liked how it was silent while they are looking for the man that was watching the gang. Fritz Lang did a good job on the explosion at the end of that scene. This movie was made in 1933 and it amazed me that they could have special effects like the one in the begining. The movie was in German which was one thing that I did not like. It was not because it was in German, but because the subtitles were white. I missed alot of the dialogue. Overall I liked this movie because it really made you think about what was going on, Im still a little confused about the movie.

Shadow of the Vampire

Shadow of a Vampire revolves around the making of Nosferatu. In Shadow of a Vampire they show a crew making the movie Nosferatu. The person in Nosferatu that plays the main character Count Orlok is named Max Schreck. In filming Nosferatu the cast and crew supposedly didn’t see much of Max except when he was acting. In Shadow of a Vampire we get the impression that Max Schreck is a real vampire.

German Expressionism helped us see the main views of the director and what he was trying to get off to the audience. Shadow of a Vampire is a real good example of this because it has a movie about a movie. The director of Shadow of a Vampire worked off the director of Noseferatu, to come out with a really good film.

I enjoyed this film because it showed the director that was truly about the art.

Nasferatu

Nasferatu is a silent film, that was made in 1922, it was directed by F.W. Murnau. This film is a example of German expressionism, it's the way that the director is expressing his views on life. Nasferatu is about a man that gets an idea to go to count Orlok's castle, to try to recieve money from him. The man, Harper, gets to the town where Orlok's castle is. He is told not to leave at night, because that's when spirits come out. When Harper finally goes to the castle, he soon finds out that count Orlok is a vampire that wants to suck his blood. The movie ends when count Orlok goes into the sunlight and dies.

I did not enjoy Nasferatu as much as I thought I was going to. I thought it started good but got slow through the middle. The eerie feeling to the castle and the town itself was really intresting. I liked it when Harper said to the waiter to hurry up because he had to be at count Orlok's castle. Everyone in the resterauent stopped and looked at him like he was crazy. That part made the legend greater because, it made you know that no local would never set foot anywhere near Orlok's castle. It expressed the fact that Harper is a complete tourist to the town, and that he has no idea what he is in for. Overall the movie was okay, I think if i watch it over I would enjoy it more.

Don't Look Now

Don't Look Now is about a family that has a terrible accident when their daughter dies in a pond near their home. While coping with the lose of their young daughter, the wife meets a blind women and her sister. The blind women claims to be psychic and tells the wife, Laura Baxter, that she has seen her daughter and that she is happy.

I enjoyed what I saw of this movie but, I would have liked to see the enitre movie. I thought the movie was good in the begining but got slow through the middle. I think that towards the end the movie probably picked up alot more. In the first scene where they show a picture of a church, when the daughter is drowning, shows red ink that becomes part of the picture. The dad, John Baxter, is looking at this picture closely before running out to try to save his daughter. I think that it has something to do with being psychic, like it showed the death of his daughter before it happened. If I would have seen the ending I may have understood it better but that is what I thought of this film.

Night of the Living Dead

George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead is about the dead coming back to life and hungry for human flesh. the movie revolves around a small farm house with seven people inside that are trying to stay alive. The movie starts out in a graveyard with a girl named Barbra, and her brother visiting the grave site of their dad. They are shortly noticed by a zombie, the zombie kills Barbra's brother. Barbara runs to a nearby house where she meets Ben, a black man, that is looking for a place to go. This was a new thing that George Romero did, because the audience had never seen a black man as a main character. They board up the house and find more people that were hiding in the basement. Everyone ends up dieing except for Ben, he lives through the night. A search party is sent out to find people that are still alive and they accidently shoot Ben thinking that he is a zombie.

Night of the Living Dead is said to be the movie that started a new wave in horror films. It influenced movies like The Omen and The Exorcist because it made the humans the enemy. The humans were not murderers, but something was taking over their body to make them kill people. Night of the Living Dead started really cool because it immediately brought out the zombies. It did not have like a begining, the audience jumped right into the story. The ending was really good because it did not leave you with good thoughts about the movie. It made you sad about Ben dieing because he did not deserve to die. At the end we see Ben's body being placed among the other dead bodies, it relates to Martin Luther King dieing, because Martin Luther King did not deserve to die, Martin Luther King was placed with other dead bodies, just like Ben, but they both should not have been in that category. I really enjoyed watching Night of the Living Dead.

Bubba Ho-tep

Bubba Ho-tep is about a olf folks home that looks nice from the ouside, but from the inside it has a big secret. The two main characters are impersonators of Elvis and JFK, and they believe that something strange is going on at their old folks home. A mummy, they believe, is sucking the souls of their fellow residents in the home. They team up to kill the mummy.

Bubba Ho-tep is a cool movie that is alot of diffrent genres. We could classify it as horror, comedy,and drama. Bubba Ho-tep may be very strange and stupid, but it ultimately has a point. Bubba Ho-tep is a insane movie that shows the ends of peoples lives. The mummy is these peoples way out of life. The history behind the mummy is really intresting of how he got there. I thought this movie was okay, it was funny but somewhat stupid is some places. Bubba Ho-tep is a good movie if you look past the stupidity.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was made in 1974. It revolves around five friends going to their grandfather's old house. They are surprsied when one by one they start to be killed by Leatherface. Leatherface is a cannibal that belongs to a cannibal family. When The Texas Chain Saw Massacre first came out, it is easy to see how people could believe that they are supposed to sympathize with the five kids before the family of cannibals.

The family is only trying to protect their house by killing all of these kids. After the kids pick up the hitchhiker they go to a gas station, where they meet the cook in the family. The cook warns the kids that they should not go anywhere near other people's property. The kids pay no attention to the warning and go there anyway. Another reason of why we should sympathize with the family, after Leatherface kills Jerry he looks out his window trying to see where the people are coming from. This shows that he is confused at the situation because he does not know why all the kids are coming into his house. Leatherface seems like he does not want to kill any of the kids but is forced to because they trespass into his home.

A very intresting scene in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is when Pam, one of the kids, is stuck in the room with all of the bones. There is a rapid montage of diffrent things in the room. Throughout the montage they show many diffrent things but always revert back to a chicken stuck in a cage. This symbolizes that the girl in the room is trapped just like the chicken in the cage, they both won't get out alive. This movie is a good horror movie because it shows a real life situation that could actually happen.