Hooptober Big List 2024

When the naval construction designer Oliver Reed (Kent Smith) meets the Serbian Irena Dubrovna Reed (Simone Simon) in the zoo, he flirts with her and they sooner fall in love and marry each other. However, Irena is afraid of an ancient course of her town that women can not be touched by a man, otherwise she will transform in a panther, and the couple does not consummate their marriage. Irena is sent for treatment with the psychiatrist Dr. Louis Judd (Tom Conway), while Oliver looks for "consolation" with his colleague Alice Moore (Jane Randolph). When Irena sees that she is losing Oliver to Alice, she becomes jealous and hateful, leading to a tragic end.

Larry Talbot chips Frankenstein's monster out of a block of ice. When Talbot changes to the Wolf Man, the two creatures do battle.

A young Canadian nurse (Betsy) comes to the West Indies to care for Jessica, the wife of a plantation manager (Paul Holland). Jessica seems to be suffering from a kind of mental paralysis as a result of fever. When she falls in love with Paul, Betsy determines to cure Jessica even if she needs to use a voodoo ceremony, to give Paul what she thinks he wants.

Is it man, beast or both behind a string of savage maulings and murders in The Leopard Man? An escaped leopard provides the catalyst for a foray into fear in which castanets clack wildly, a cemetery is a rendezvous for death and love, and a closed door heightens rather than hides the horror of a young girl's fate. It's the third and final teaming of producer Val Lewton and director Jacques (Cat People) Tourneur.
This is usually considered one of the lesser Lewton horror flicks as well as a lesser entry in Tourneur's oeuvre. I think this is unfair, because aside from the rather pedestrian solution to the "mystery" and the lack of resources available to the filmmakers to more faithfully create the New Mexico setting and Hispanic characters, The Leopard Man is to this day a quite tense and frightening film.
This rip includes a commentary by director William Friedken (The Exorcist) and while he is obviously fond of the film and the filmmakers, he has never been the most interesting commentator. Still, it's worth a listen for the little gems that pop up now and then.

Following a tragic accident that leaves him disfigured, crazed composer Erique Claudin transformed into a masked phantom who schemes to make beautiful young soprano Christine Dubois the star of the opera and wreak revenge on those who stole his music.

Carpathian Count Alucard is invited to the U.S. by a young heiress. Her boyfriend and local officials are suspicious of the newcomer, who is interested in the "virile" soil of the new world.

In 1918, an English family is terrorized by a vampire, until they learn how to deal with it. They think their troubles are over, but German bombs in WWII free the monster. He reclaims the soul of his wolfman ex-servant, and assuming the identity of a scientist who has just escaped from a concentration camp, he starts out on a plan to get revenge upon the family.

A brother and sister move into an old seaside house that has been abandoned for many years on the Cornwellian coast. They soon discover that it is haunted by the ghost of the mother of their neighbor's granddaughter, with whom the brother has fallen in love.

The young, friendless daughter of Oliver and Alice Reed befriends her father's dead first wife and an aging, reclusive actress.

A fugitive, dangerous madman reaches an English village where he confronts his former partner who left him for dead in the jungle after their discovery of a diamond mine. When the former partner also claims to have since lost the mine and all its wealth, which he took all for himself, and though the partner is still living in a state of luxury , the madman takes up an offer from a crazed scientist to make him invisible, something the scientist has already done with experimental animals, so that he can take revenge.

An Egyptian high priest travels to America to reclaim the bodies of ancient Egyptian princess Ananka and her living guardian mummy Kharis. Learning that Ananka's spirit has been reincarnated into another body, he kidnaps a young woman of Egyptian descent with a mysterious resemblance to the princess. However, the high priest's greedy desires cause him to lose control of the mummy...

Deranged scientist, Gustav Niemann, escapes from prison and overtakes the director of a traveling chamber of horrors, soon reviving the infamous Count Dracula, the frozen Frankenstein Monster, and the Wolf Man.

After being buried in quicksand for the past 25 years, Kharis is set free to roam the rural bayous of Louisiana, as is the soul of his beloved Princess Ananka, still housed in the body of Amina Mansouri, who seeks help and protection at a swamp draining project.

Edinburgh, 1831. Among those who undertake the illegal trade of grave robbery is Gray, ostensibly a cab driver. Formerly a medical student convicted of grave robbery, Gray holds a grudge against Dr. MacFarlane who had escaped detection and punishment.

Posing for a portrait, Dorian Gray talks with Lord Henry Wotton, who says that men should pursue their sensual longings, but laments that only the young get to do so. Taken with the idea, Dorian imagines a scenario in which the painting will age as he stays youthful. His wish comes true, and his boyish looks aid him as he indulges his every whim. But when a stunning revelation forces him to see what he's become, Dorian faces some very dangerous questions.

Architect Walter Craig, seeking the possibility of some work at a country farmhouse, soon finds himself once again stuck in his recurring nightmare. Dreading the end of the dream that he knows is coming, he must first listen to all the assembled guests' own bizarre tales.

A scientist working on cures for rare afflictions, such as a bone softening agent made from molds to allow him to correct the spinal deformity of his nurse, finds the physical causes of lycanthropy in wolf-man Larry Talbot and of vampirism in Count Dracula, but himself becomes afflicted with homicidal madness while exchanging blood with Dracula.

In 1916, beautiful young mute Helen is a domestic worker for elderly, ailing Mrs. Warren. Mrs. Warren's two adult sons, Albert (a professor) and womanizing impudent Steven, also live in the Warren mansion. Mrs. Warren becomes concerned for Helen's safety when a rash of murders involving 'women with afflictions' hits the neighborhood. She implores her physician, Dr. Parry, to take Helen away for her own safety. When another murder occurs inside the Warren mansion, it becomes obvious that Helen is in danger.

London, 1761. St. Mary's of Bethlehem, a sinister madhouse, is visited by wealthy people who enjoy watching the patients confined there as if they were caged animals. Nell Bowen, one of the visitors, is horrified by the deplorable living conditions of the unfortunate inhabitants of this godforsaken place, better known as Bedlam.

A young heiress finds evidence suggesting that at night she acts under the influence of a family curse and has begun committing ghastly murders in a nearby park.