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Horror in Black and White: ‘The Cat and the Canary’ (1927)

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Welcome back to another entry in “Horror in Black and White,” a weekly series celebrating the monochromatic horror that shaped the genre and still gives us chills to this day. Up this week: The Cat and the Canary (1927), our first featured silent film!

Directed by Paul Leni, based on the play by John Willard, The Cat and the Canary helped establish one of the earliest tropes in the genre as its main players gather at the home of their deceased relative to hear the reading of his will twenty years after his passing.

The opening sequence is absolutely gorgeous as a gloved hand wipes away cobwebs and dust to reveal the film’s title before the opening titles explain that the deceased, Cyrus West, spent the latter part of his life like a bird in a cage surrounded by hungry cats.

Leni’s film, which is actually more sepia-toned than black and white, uses all of the tricks in the expressionist handbook as the film gets underway superimposing images over one another to create a creeping feeling of dread in the viewer.

That dread is intensified as West’s former maid, who seems to have lived in her former employer’s house for two decades on her own after the man’s passing wanders the halls, waiting for his lawyer and family to arrive.

They do, in turn, and each seems more menacing than the last save for the comically clumsy Paul Jones (Creighton Hale) and the beautiful and innocent Annabelle West (Laura La Plante).

Annabelle (Laura La Plante) and Paul (Creighton Hale) seem to be the only nice people in the family in The Cat and the Canary

Annabelle, of course, is named the estate’s sole beneficiary, but there are requirements, not the least of which is remaining in the house and submitting to an exam by a physician to determine if she is sane.

Before long, a murder has been committed, priceless jewels have been stolen and everyone is a suspect!

Walking the tightrope of dark comedy and horror, Leni and his cast each give memorable performances as their archetypal characters.

As previously mentioned, La Plante is rather radiant as Annabelle, though she, as was and is so often the case, is given little to do other than react to the horrors going on around her, and Hale is hilarious and charming as Paul.

Meanwhile, Martha Mattox and Tully Marshall almost seem in competition for the creepiest people in the house as the maid, Mammy Pleasant, and West’s lawyer, Crosby.

Gertrude Astor, the first woman to sign a contract with Universal Studios, is glamour personified with her perfect curls and makeup as cousin Cecily opposite Flora Finch’s frumpy and matronly, though admittedly high-strung, Aunt Susan.

Just what is going on in The Cat and the Canary?

What’s so amazing about The Cat and the Canary, however, is just how influential it has been on the genre. Certainly James Whale (Frankenstein) and Tod Browning (Dracula) were inspired by the film’s imagery, but they were hardly the last.

In fact, one could almost argue that its DNA can be found in almost every film about haunted houses and treacherous family that followed including The Old Dark House and not-so-surprisingly, Scooby-Doo.

Don’t let the fact that the film is silent deter you either. The version currently available for streaming has a pitch perfect score and William Anthony’s titles do an excellent job of filling in the few points the actors are unable to convey.

When it opened in September of 1927, The Cat and the Canary was declared a box office success and lauded by critics.

In fact, the film, and the play upon which it is based, was so well-loved that it was adapted five more times in the decades that followed including the 1939 version, which brought the text’s comedy to foreground, starring Bob Hope.

The Cat and the Canary is available for rent on Amazon and FlixFling starting at $2.99, and it’s perfect for a cold winter evening with the lights down low.

Check out the a clip from the film below and for more Horror in Black and White, check out last week’s entry with The Bad Seed!

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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