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With Valentine’s Day arriving next week, we here at Arrow in the Head decided that this was a good time to put together a list of some of the Best Horror Movies to Watch on Valentine’s Day. The movies listed below all deal with love, romance, or infatuation in some way, ranging from stories of love-hungry killers to films with lead characters who are in sweet, wholesome relationships. Check it out, and let us know if you have any suggestions for movies to watch on Valentine’s Day!

The Mummy (1932)

While future entries in Universal’s Mummy franchise would (until the more recent reboots) present the character as a bandage-wrapped monster that likes to strangle people and carry women around, Karl Freund’s 1932 version of The Mummy allowed the legendary Boris Karloff to give more of a performance in the title role. Ditching his bandages after being released from his tomb,...

Following the release of Frankenstein, Boris Karloff, at nearly 45 years of age and having spent twenty years as a professional actor, became an overnight sensation. As the film was still raking in its rewards, Universal signed him to a star contract and immediately began searching for a property for him. As it turned out it took nearly a year, between his outstanding commitments to other studios and Universal’s inability to find a suitable script, for Karloff to appear in his first starring role for the studio. The film was a decidedly different, but no less remarkable, from Frankenstein. Instead of being quickly paced and sensationalistic, The Mummy was deliberately plotted with a slowly unfolding story, but its restrained direction and masterful performances made it a unique entry in Universal’s growing library of horror cinema of the early 1930s.

Writer and journalist Nina Wilcox Putnam was tasked by Universal...

This January, NBCUniversal is offering fans the chance to dive into some of Universal Pictures’ most gruesome classic films ever made on one of the world’s biggest horror YouTube channels, ‘Fear: The Home of Horror.’

Starting January 15th 2021 horror fans will have the opportunity to scare away the January blues and take a step back in time to watch an incredible array of classic re-mastered cult films for Free including Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), The Wolf Man (1941), Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).

Each film will premiere individually and be available to watch for seven days on the Fear: The Home of Horror YouTube channel. Additionally, during each film’s premiere week, fans will have the opportunity to add these films to their digital collection at a discounted price, allowing them to watch whenever they want, for as many times as they want!

Hoo-haw, as they say… but the hot reputation of this pre-Code slice of censor bait begins and ends with its astonishing original poster. The movie itself isn’t daring in sex, smut or violence, but is instead a highly cinematic art-piece about a woman taking on the sins of men and society. Director Phil Goldstone fashions a labyrinth of flashbacks, flash-forwards and scenes set in a psychological limbo. The woman under pressure is the sensual Zita Johann; she’s falling in a fatalistic tailspin as bleak as any future loser-Noir heroine. UCLA’s 4k restoration comes from the original camera negative.

The Sin of Nora Moran

Blu-ray

The Film Detective

1933 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 65 min. / Street Date July 29, 2020 / 24.99

Starring: Zita Johann, John Miljan, Alan Dinehart, Paul Cavanagh, Sarah Padden, Henry B. Walthall, Cora Sue Collins.

Cinematography: Ira H. Morgan

Film Editor: Otis Garrett

Original Music: [Heinz Roemheld]

Written by Frances Hyland...

Out this week from The Film Detective comes The Sin of Nora Moran, a 1933 pre-Code, Poverty Row film directed by Phil Goldstone. The Sin of Nora Moran is one of those "fallen women" stories that Old Hollywood was once known so well for, featuring an unmarried lady, who, by no fault of her own, attempts to be self-sufficient and obtain gainful employment. She finds a job after much difficulty, as well as romance, but at an extreme cost. Starring Zita Johann as Nora Moran, the film at first opens on an upset woman, Edith Crawford who's found love letters...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

” Oh, come on now, Edith. Please, please, let’s be honest with ourselves. You weren’t thinking any more of Dick than i was. “

Film Detective (Tfd), a leading classic media streaming network and film archive that restores and distributes classic films for today’s cord-cutters, is proud to announce The Sin Of Nora Moran (1933) will be available to audiences this summer on DVD and in a special, limited-edition Blu-ray collectible.

The Sin Of Nora Moran will be available for purchase July 29 on DVD ($19.99) and in a collectible limited-edition Blu-ray ($24.99). With only 1,500 Blu-ray editions available, fans can reserve a copy by pre-ordering now at: https://www.thefilmdetective.com/the-sin-of-nora-moran

The Poverty Row, Pre-Code marvel that stunned audiences when released in 1933 stars Zita Johann as Nora Moran, a young woman sentenced to death for a murder she did not commit. Awaiting her sentence, Nora explores the patterns of her life in a dream-like haze,...

Talk about a worthy title for restoration — somebody up there likes us. Digital tools and film preservation expertise have advanced far enough to revive this marvelous pre-Code comedy-shocker in a form that showcases its wild designs and stylized 2-color Technicolor sheen. Director Michael Curtiz’s adept direction highlights Glenda Farrell’s racy dialogue delivery as well as the spooky, expressionist horrors in Lionel Atwill’s haunted ‘waxitorium.’ To top it off we have fabulous Fay Wray, the talkies’ original scream queen, shrieking her way into the horror hall of fame in the tradition of The Phantom of the Opera. Plus — for once the Warner Archive adds some fine new added value extras.

Mystery of the Wax Museum

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1933 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 77 min. / Street Date May 12, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Glenda Farrell, Frank McHugh, Allen Vincent, Gavin Gordon, Arthur Edmund Carewe.

Cinematography: Ray Rennahan...

The critical consensus about Howard Hawks' themes and talents strikes me as bang on. The Cahiers critics identified him as a classic auteur, continually exploring characters and situations he had an affinity for, and in a consistent style. The surprise is it took so long for style and characters to come together to form the Hawks we know: his best early films are outliers, and only gradually did he come to explore the kind of group dynamics, sexual sparring and codes of professionalism with which he's now justly associated.Early 1930s Hawks just isn't quite all there yet, but you can see lots of Hawksian characters and themes struggling to come together and be their ideal selves.This one has Edward G. Robinson as a "Portagee" fisherman with a Chico Marx accent and an earring. For some reason, Hawks didn't really connect effectively with the urban tough guy actors until Bogart came his way,...

The 2016 blu ray release of the Frankenstein and Wolf Man Legacy Collections was a moment of celebration for movie and monster lovers everywhere, bringing together all the golden age appearances of Frankenstein’s misbegotten creation and Larry Talbot’s hairy alter-ego. Universal Studios treated those dusty creature features to luminous restorations; from Bride of Frankenstein to She Wolf of London, these essential artifacts never looked less than impeccable and, at times, even ravishing. Colin Clive’s frenzied declaration, “It’s Alive!”, never felt more appropriate.

Now Universal has turned their attention to their other legendary franchise players, Dracula, the sharp-dressed but undead ladies’ man and Im-ho-tep, the cursed Egyptian priest who loved not wisely but too well.

Dracula: Complete Legacy Collection

Blu-ray

Universal Studios Home Entertainment

1931, ’36, ’43, ’44, ’45, ’48 / 449 min. / B&W / 1:33 / Street Date May 16, 2017

Starring: Actors: Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr. , Boris Karloff, Bud Abbott, Lou Costello

Cinematography: Karl Freund,...

Our series on remakes continues and since Universal Studios has announced a new version of the Mummy, set for a 2017 release, it seemed like a good time to dissect the previous attempt to redo this story. This week, Cinelinx looks at The Mummy (1999).

It’s hard to really compare the original Universal Studios version of the Mummy (1932) to the more whimsical remake (1999) because the two are so immensely different. The new version takes the seed of the first film and transforms it into something almost unrecognizable. The 1999 version meets one of the two criteria of making a good remake…Keep the spirit of the original but make it into something new and special. Well, this remake does successfully make the concept of the Mummy into something quite different, but it totally loses the spirit of the 1932 original.

The original is one of the seminal horror classics, creating one of the...

Top 100 horror movies of all time: Chicago Film Critics' choices (photo: Sigourney Weaver and Alien creature show us that life is less horrific if you don't hold grudges) See previous post: A look at the Chicago Film Critics Association's Scariest Movies Ever Made. Below is the list of the Chicago Film Critics's Top 100 Horror Movies of All Time, including their directors and key cast members. Note: this list was first published in October 2006. (See also: Fay Wray, Lee Patrick, and Mary Philbin among the "Top Ten Scream Queens.") 1. Psycho (1960) Alfred Hitchcock; with Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam. 2. The Exorcist (1973) William Friedkin; with Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Jason Miller, Max von Sydow (and the voice of Mercedes McCambridge). 3. Halloween (1978) John Carpenter; with Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Tony Moran. 4. Alien (1979) Ridley Scott; with Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt. 5. Night of the Living Dead (1968) George A. Romero; with Marilyn Eastman,...

“Anck-es-en-Amon, my love has lasted longer than the temples of our gods. No man ever suffered as I did for you”

Boris Karloff, who had a way of making evil sound so darn reasonable, played the mysterious Ardeth Bay/Imhotep in the original 1932 version of The Mummy. The movie was directed by Karl Freund - his first directing gig after serving as cinematographer on Dracula and Metroplis. The Mummy tells what happens when ancient Egyptian priest, Imhotep, is brought back to life by a tomb-exploring archeologist. He kills the archaeologist and his crew, and runs amok in Cairo looking to reincarnate the soul of his ancient lover.

The pace of The Mummy is perfect – slow and deliberate, with rich and suggestive atmosphere, and the film provides many memorable moments. The first is the young scientist at the opening going insane in shock and horror. His reactions to the very subtle...

In addition to screening The Wolf Man, Beyond Fest also screened a 35 mm print of another of Universal’s classics, The Mummy. Despite perhaps being its most profitable overall, thanks to the Hammer sequels and the Brendan Fraser franchise that followed it in the 90′s/00′s, The Mummy might be one of the more overlooked tenets of horror, as Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolf Man, and Creature normally supersede it in discussions of everyone’s favorites.

I tend to agree with that sentiment, as the cheesy love-at-first-kidnapping romance between David Whemple and Helen Grosvener (Zita Johann) is more than a little distracting. But the opening scenes, with Bramwell Fletcher’s Ralph Norton going crazy at the sight of the Mummy reborn… is Almost as manic and crazy as Colin Clive’s “It’s Alive!” moment in Frankenstein. The film is still as wonderful and inspiring as the first time you watched it,...

Universal Pictures is reviving its "Mummy" movie franchise, with writer Jon Spaihts ("Prometheus") drafting a re-booted screenplay, that may well connect to 'ancient astronauts'.

Spaihts intends to go back to the franchise's roots of 'dark, scary source material'.

Universal originally released "The Mummy", starring Boris Karloff in 1932, followed by sequels "The Mummy's Hand', "The Mummy's Tomb", "The Mummy's Ghost", "The Mummy's Curse" and "Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy".

In 1999, the source material was re-imagined by director Stephen Sommers with "The Mummy", "The Mummy Returns" in 2001 and "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" in 2008.

"The Mummy" 1932 horror feature was directed by Karl Freund, starring Karloff as ancient Egyptian priest 'Imhotep', who is revived when an archaeological expedition finds his 'mummy'.

One of the archaeologists, despite a warning, recklessly reads aloud an ancient life-giving spell.

Imhotep escapes from the archaeologists, taking the 'Scroll of Thoth' and prowling Cairo,...

The most important part of marketing a film is its poster as that is what sells the concept and the package of the movie to the majority of it’s audience. It’s truly a tricky thing to boil down everything you want to say about a film into one precise image but it’s crucial as it could end up being the defining factor for what attracts an audience to the film or turn them away completely. Some are incredibly eerie, some totally insane and others down right atrocious, but no matter what they are there’s no denying that horror film posters are some of the most memorable out there.

So as part of our second 31 Days of Horror series, What Culture! have compiled the 10 most memorable horror posters in cinema history…

10. Drag Me To Hell (2009)

Why It’S So Memorable: Whatever your opinions on the film itself,...

Netflix has revolutionized the home viewing market for movies with their instant streaming service. Netflix Nuggets is my way of spreading the word about films of all genres worth holding a spot on your Netflix instant viewing queue. Release dates are subject to change.

Winter’S Bone (2010)

Streaming Available: 07/30/2011

Synopsis: In director Debra Granik’s unflinching noir drama set deep in the Ozarks, resilient teen Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) goes on the trail of her missing, drug-dealing father when his absence jeopardizes the family’s safety. Her deadbeat dad has a key court date pending, and Ree is determined that he show up — despite the objections of the insular Dolly clan. The film earned Oscar and Independent Spirit Award nods for Best Picture and for Lawrence.

Average Netflix Rating: 3.6

Pitch Black (2000)

Streaming Available: 07/31/2011

Synopsis: In director Debra Granik’s unflinching noir drama set deep in the Ozarks, resilient teen Ree...

Craig from Dark Eye Socket here with Take Three. Today: Boris Karloff

Take One: The Mummy (1931)

Always the consummate character actor, Karloff gave us the most splendidly memorable characters. Famously one of the world’s biggest and best horror icons (along with Lugosi, Chaney Jr., Price and Lee, the frightful five), he played his beasts, ghouls and undead wanderers in exemplary fashion. Take his Imhotep/Ardath Bey, the titular bandaged one in director-cinematographer Karl Freund’s 1931 classic The Mummy. Ten years after being awakened by a group of foolhardy archaeologists Imhotep intends to revive his ancient Egyptian love Princess Ankh-es-en-amon with the help of reluctant modern-day babe Zita Johann.

Museum-based murder and an ancient parchment (the Scroll of Thoth!) cause all the the mummified mysticism. Karloff even has his own Pool of Fate (essentially a steamy bath/psychic porthole), into which he can see anyone and anything, anywhere; and via...

For the last week or so, FanGirlTastic has been going "Back to Basics," examining movies from horror's past to discern what relevance they have in the present. So far, we've looked at Dracula and Frankenstein, the first two major films from the golden age of Universal Studios.

These movies not only helped form the foundation of modern horror, they also feature two of the most enduring horror icons. Coincidentally, both of these flicks are also based on novels that are classics of the genre. That The Mummy managed to join Dracula and Frankenstein in that vaunted horror hierarchy is something of a mystery, because The Mummy is easily the weakest film of this diabolical trinity of terror.

When all the sand has cleared, I suppose the staying power of The Mummy is most likely explained by the haunting dual performance of Boris Karloff, who plays Imhotep, a lovelorn ancient Egyptian...

Throughout history there have been tales, legends, what-have-you about beautiful women and their effect on creatures considered unworthy or dangerous or abominations. The “love of a good woman” scenario carried to an extreme as these women do indeed usually fall in love with their hideous “captors”. Many of these stories go way back in oral history: fairy tales such as Beauty and the Beast, several Greek myths - Persephone and the God of the Underworld. But it is in horror films that we see this phenomenon the most. All the way back to Lon Chaney and his Phantom of the Opera – although it could easily be argued that Christine was none too pleased when she de-masked her captor. But there are other horror (horrible?) couples that have endured in the genre:

1. King Kong and his Ann Darrow (Fay Wray in 1933, Naomi Watts in 2005) – King Kong is the film that gave...

Here's what the 1932 horror film The Mummy has in common with its five sequels (The Mummy's Hand, etc.), and later remakes: They all feature mummies. Even there, the original Mummy parts ways with the films it inspired. Star Boris Karloff appears as a shambling, linen-shrouded undead creature in the film's opening sequence, terrifying an unwitting British explorer into insanity, then disappearing. When next seen, he's wrinkled, but still distinctly human, and more concerned with reuniting with a long-lost love than terrorizing anyone. It's a monster movie that all but forgets the monster. What's left is an eerie, weirdly moving film about loneliness and the persistence of history. After waking up and spending a few years blending in with the locals, Karloff fixates on the comely Zita Johann, whom he believes to be the reincarnation of the Egyptian princess he loved many years before. Beguiling her with hypnotic stares...