Chilling. Brilliant surgeon Dr. Gogol is infatuated with Horror Theatre star Yvonne Orlac. After meeting her in person and realising that she only has eyes for her husband, the renowned pianist Stephen Orlac, he buys a life size mannequin of her and dreams of doing what Pygmalion did with Galatea. When Stephen is involved in an horrific train crash and has both his hands crushed beyond healing, Yvonne pleads with Gogol to help save his well being, he does, by amputating the crushed hands and grafting on the hands of a recently executed murderer, a murderer whose speciality was knives! Mad Love is one of those amazingly old classics that is a hybrid of genre staples. At times it's surrealist and at others it's operating via a Grand Guginol pulse, whilst knowingly it laces the story with an uneasy comedic bent. Boasting camera work from Gregg Toland and Chester Lyons and directed by the impressive Karl Freund, this adaptation of Maurice Renard's novel is a chillingly memorable piece of work. Working off a plot that sees the bad Doctor driven by lustations rather than out and out insanity, Freund revels in slowly winding the coil until the spring that is Peter Lorre (Gogol) explodes (implodes), cloaking various scenes in telling shadows that themselves become integral to the plot. Peter Lorre is of course in his element, demented yet sympathetic, it's real hard to take your eyes away from his magnetic weirdness. Colin Clive as Stephen Orlac also puts in a performance of note, all twitchy nervousness and believable emotional torment, whilst Frances Drake more than adequately brings vulnerability to the centrifugal importance of Yvonne's emotional turmoil. Weird and gorgeous, and incredibly well written, Mad Love holds up very well today as a horror/romance film of vast influential worth. So see it in the dark and marvel at its various moments of cinematic excellence. 8.5/10
When larcenous real estate clerk Marion Crane goes on the lam with a wad of cash and hopes of starting a new life, she ends up at the notorious Bates Motel, where manager Norman Bates cares for his housebound mother.
For Ted, prom night went about as bad as it’s possible for any night to go. Thirteen years later, he finally gets another chance with his old prom date, only to run up against other suitors including the sleazy detective he hired to find her.
When the seaside community of Amity finds itself under attack by a dangerous great white shark, the town's chief of police, a young marine biologist, and a grizzled hunter embark on a desperate quest to destroy the beast before it strikes again.
A rare book dealer finds himself at the heart of a string of paranormal events when he is hired to find the last two copies of a text, The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, capable of summoning the Devil.
A vampire relates his epic life story of love, betrayal, loneliness, and dark hunger to an over-curious reporter.
In a chaotic 19th-century Paris teeming with aristocrats, thieves, psychics, and courtesans, theater mime Baptiste is in love with the mysterious actress Garance. But Garance, in turn, is loved by three other men: pretentious actor Frederick, conniving thief Lacenaire, and Count Edouard of Montray.
In this enchantingly cracked fairy tale, the beautiful Princess Buttercup and the dashing Westley must overcome staggering odds to find happiness amid six-fingered swordsmen, murderous princes, Sicilians and rodents of unusual size. But even death can't stop these true lovebirds from triumphing.
Bored with the limited and tedious nature of provincial life in 19th-century France, the fierce and sensual Emma Bovary finds herself in calamitous debt and pursues scandalous sexual liaisons with absolute abandon. However, when her volatile lifestyle catches up to her, the lives of everyone around her are endangered.
Reporter John Klein is plunged into a world of impossible terror and unthinkable chaos when fate draws him to a sleepy West Virginia town whose residents are being visited by a great winged shape that sows hideous nightmares and fevered visions.
This deceptively simple tale of a bored English couple travelling to Italy to find a buyer for a house inherited from an uncle is transformed by Roberto Rossellini into a passionate story of cruelty and cynicism as their marriage disintegrates around them.
Robert Tisdall finds on the beach the corpse of a woman he knew. Others wrongly conclude that he is the murderer. Fleeing, he desperately attempts to prove that he is not the killer. A young woman becomes embroiled in the effort.