October Diary: My Spooky Season Favorites

by Nick Taylor

Hello, ghosts and ghoulies of The Film Experience! Did y’all have a good October? I did! Much like many film-obsessives, I used this month as an excuse to seek out horror films I've had lounging on my to-watch list from across all corners of the genre. With Halloween soon approaching, I figured it would be fun to share five of the best from my diary while my roommates and I try to trick the host of an upcoming Halloween party into putting on Troll 2. Without further ado, let us begin! More after the jump... 

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Universal Horror: Ranking the Classic Monsters

by Cláudio Alves

Halloween may be (technically over) but the spooky season continues (if you'd like) via various streaming services. The Criterion Channel programmed a selection of titles from Universals' Horror canon from the 1930s through the 1950s. Universalhelped typify the American horror genre while also creating screen monsters whose iconography prevails. Six creatures stand above the others – Frankenstein's monster, Dracula, the mummy, the invisible man, the wolfman, and the gill man. That sextet is represented in this Criterion Channel collection, so it's an excellent opportunity to delve into those horrific franchises. Consequently, I spent the better part of October watching all the movies in each of those classic monster's series, seeing every feature they starred in from 1931 to 1956. In the end, since everyone loves lists, I decided to rank the creatures…

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Buzz Linkyear

• Interview here's a dream pairing Interview has Ben Whishaw and Andrew Scott in conversation on sexuality, chemistry and imagination
• Letterboxd Edgar Wright is programming a series at Alamo Drafthouse for next week. Wild thrilling Technicolor masterpiece Black Narcisssus is among the movies so you can see it on the big screen where it belongs!
• Variety How's this for a strange story? That Joan Rivers miniseries which was to have starred Kathryn Hahn has already been cancelled because they hadn't secured the life rights from Melissa Rivers (D'oh!)

More after the jump including Ryan Gosling's next project, Trainspotting, Last Night in Soho, Eternals, and a movie about Toy Story's Buzz Lightyear...

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Showbiz History: Noni shoplifts and Jennifer Connelly & Regina Hall are born

10 (gulp) random things that happened on this day, December 12th, in showbiz history...

1917 Father Edward Flanagan founds Boys Town in Nebraska, a home for at-risk kids. Twenty-one years later the movie version will arrive winning Spencer Tracy an Oscar as Father Flanagan. We talked about this movie quite a bit this summer. 

1941 Universal's horror picture The Wolf Man opens in movie theaters with early giants like Lon Chaney Jr in furry face plus Claude Raines, Bela Lugosi, Ralph Bellamy, and Maria Ouspenskaya in support.

Star Trek, Winona Ryder shoplifting, Jennifer Connelly, Regina Hall, and more after the jump...

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75th Anniversary: The Wolf Man

by Tim Brayton

This weekend marks the 75th anniversary of one of the most special of all horror classics: it was on December 9, 1941 that Universal Pictures released The Wolf Man. And in so doing, the studio that did so much to invent American horror cinema made one of its most lasting contributions to popular culture.

The Wolf Man was not the first werewolf movie (though it can be easily argued that, at the time it was released, it was the best), but its success did more to pave the way for future werewolves in film and literature than any other individual work of art...

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