united kingdom, 1958, englishI guess you could say that professor really outsmarted himself. I’ll see myself out.
ARTHUR CRABTREE
Fiend Without a Face
What I find most amusing about this schlocky fun horror film, is the idea that all they need to do to shut down a nuclear power plant successfully is to blow up the control room with dynamite. This after they have already discussed control rods and temperature. Such was the absolute lack of understanding of atomic power in the late 1950s, coupled with the fear it engendered. It’s really quite something.
What else is there to say about this one really? I was in the mood for a silly old thing, like The Blob, and I got exactly that. I went to the dentist the other day, and my hygienist proceeded to describe in detail a modern horror film she had recently seen about someone in her profession. The main detail she told me still lingers in my brain, much to my dismay.
I don’t like modern horror films at all. I am somewhat fascinated by them certainly. I will read the Wikipedia entry for a Barbarian for example. But I will absolutely not watch it, mainly because I just have zero desire to have those images available to my conscious mind, or subconscious for that matter. The ROI on that seems extremely poor, to say the least.
I do find the modern fascination with horror, especially by women, to be extremely interesting. Something about watching a very scary thing that isn’t real, that lets people deal with the very scary things that are real, that happen all the time. I can honestly kind of relate. I’ve been obsessed with the Titanic lately, even rewatching A Night to Remember, because it is helping me process my own family trauma in a way that feels much safer than confronting it directly.