Mark of the Vampire (1935)

In a loose sound adaptation of the silent London After Midnight (1927), Tod Browning remakes his own film. Anyone with knowledge of the original's plot can surmise this film's twist, but vampires are to blame for a murder in an indeterminate Scandinavian land. With an original runtime around 80 minutes, studio meddling left it at a mere 60. The result is a less than coherent story. Character motives are foggy, supporting roles are abbreviated, and extreme jumps in tone occur between scenes. On repeat viewings one will easily notice massive plot holes. The film must be taken at face value: a slightly parodied take on the vampire superstition. MotV does however include enough hypnotizing scenes of creepy-crawlies, Bela Lugosi's trademark glare, and one brief but truly haunting vision of a vampire's aerial descent to be considered a memorable horror classic.

3 bat horns out of 5

GLEN OR GLENDA [1953]

Ed Wood's Glen or Glenda is a highly unusual film that is difficult to stop watching once you start falling down the hallucinatory rabbit hole.
It follows a story about a man who secretly enjoys wearing woman's clothing and another man who undergoes a sex change, all surrounded by a drugged out Bela Lugosi tripping through "narrative" dialogues of mumbo jumbo.
There's an extended dream sequence that gets a little rapey, creepy devils, haunted houses and the obligatory transexual film staple: a buffalo stampede.  It feels like it was intended to be a forward thinking documentary but I guess Wood forgot and headed in fantasy-driven directions that only made sense to him.  The inconsistencies are nothing short of hilarious and make it all the more entertaining for the truckloads of whathtefuckery.

2½ big green dragons that sit on your doorstep out of 5

EXTRAORDINARY TALES [2013]

Director Raul Garcia, known mostly for his animation work on Disney's The Lion King & Aladdin, brings us Extraordinary Tales, a gorgeously animated anthology of five Edgar Allan Poe stories.
Stitched together by a ho-hum original framing story of Poe, in the form of a crow (shouldn't it be a raven?), in a deep conversation with Death about his destiny or whatever it maybe.  Apart from some interesting looking visuals, which wears out pretty fast, the framing story is pretty lifeless and very unnecessary.  Thankfully the five animated shorts are all gorgeous to look at, wonderfully narrated by horror heavy-weights like Christopher Lee and Guillermo del Toro and beautifully brought to creepy life by Sergio de la Puente's magnificent score.  The adaptations aren't always faithful, and occasionally threaten to derail but the stylish visuals and very evident enthusiasm make up for it's mildly frustrating shortcomings.

3½ filmy vulture eyes out of 5

PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE [1959]

Vampire zombies.  Flying saucers on strings.  Wobbly gravestones.  A single scene turns from night to day 9 times.  An actor is clearly replaced by someone else.  It can only be Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space.
An alien race, who tried to conquer Earth eight times before, decide to resurrect only 3 corpses to take over the world and make it a better place.
It's been called "the worst movie ever made" and with good reason.  It's one of those films where I'm thinking "good it's almost over" only to find I just reached the half-way mark...and it's only 78 minutes long!  However, part of it's charm is where director Ed Wood genuinely believed he was making a good film and not purposely shoveling shit at the viewer to sell their own stupidity back to them (I'm looking at you Sharknado).  If you're going to watch really bad films for the laughs, then go for the real deal because Plan 9 is a gold-mine of cinematic crap.

1 alien grave robber out of 5

The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)

Lon Chaney takes over the role as monster in this sequel that deals with the aftermath of the earlier films. It took them three movies to realize to give him a new brain! Superior to the previous (he gains back a bit of a will of his own), but still growing wearisome by this fourth entry.
This is the last of the solo Universal pictures, but there is much more to the series; it branches off into crossovers, team-ups, the Hammer Films “reboot,” sequels, modern remakes and endless spin-offs. I think I've had enough for one night...I'm in the mood for some lighter fare now.

3 Monsters love little girls out of 5

Son of Frankenstein (1939)

Boris Karloff reprises his role as the big guy in this second sequel to Frankenstein. Features the first appearance of Ygor (as portrayed by Bela Lugosi). The Monster is even duller and more devoid of personality here than in the earlier installments and is reduced to being Ygor’s lackey. This feels like a step in the wrong direction, and of course both the movie and monster suffer for it.

2.5 let the poor bastard die already out of 5