#Scary alien murderer cat man antics

[altocat]

May I ask for more Sephiroth interacting with children content/headcanons for father's day, please? 🥹🤲

Sephiroth visiting the local Midgar orphanage, letting the kiddos climb over him like a jungle gym.

They braid his hair, sit on his lap, prodding and tugging at him while he keeps perfectly still, not budging, keeping his movements gentle.

They keep asking for war stories. He sanitizes them as best he can do as not to disturb them.

One girl holds up her doll and tells Sephiroth all about how it's her baby. The doll is very worn and dirty. Sephiroth makes a mental note to order in new clothes for the doll in the future.

Several rowdier children engage in a mock ambush on the great war hero. Sephiroth lays as still as a statue and insists they are too strong for him. He could not hope to defeat them.

Masamune gets the VERY TOP SHELF of the orphanage out of reach because like hell is Sephiroth letting them play with it.

Sephiroth orders everyone a very fine meal afterwards, inquiring on the orphanage's financial situation later behind closed doors. He increases his yearly contribution, leaving a special bonus so that the kids can enjoy some extra toys in time for the holidays.

[peanutdracolich]

Peanut Dracolich watches Horror: Frankenstein (1931)

A classic monster film that I had never before yesterday (when I actually watched it) seen. I have also reverted to stream of thought while watching so... erm enjoy.

I like the little opening bit where they give you the warning about how scary the film is. It's charming somehow. As for the actual start. The opening credits has creepy eyes and creepy music, with creepy Count Orlaf style face in the background. Nice and creepy... unfortunately you're making me expect a very different movie monster.

And then there's a funeral, with our Doctor and his hunchbacked assistant watching it. I feel sorry for the gravedigger who puts that work (shown in part) into burying the dead gentleman, when these two knaves are just going to undo it. Bad knaves.

"His leg is broken. His brain is useless. We must find another brain!" The acting is... different from in modern films, not bad, not better, but it just feels different; in many ways more attention grabbing with  certain element of the unreal to it.

We get some comedy antics from the hunchback... who drops the normal brain when he hits something and makes a noise that scares him (he is stealing a brain from a medical college being frightened is acceptable) and grabs the abnormal brain instead. This is... This worries me. Not because I find it horror inducing, but because it misses much of the beauty of the book.

We meet Elizabeth and... Victor? Victor isn't Frankenstein? What? They're consolidating book elements, speeding up the timeline. This is an acceptable divergence, but I instinctively don't like this Victor as a change. I will try, and in fact am actively already trying, not to let 'they changed it now it sucks' color things too much, but... Thing after thing is setting it off. This is making me think as much of the Reanimator, itself a retelling of Frankenstein, as Frankenstein. It's not really an adaptation of the book so much as another story inspired by it. And I must watch and judge it as such.

Still it is a charming film, despite these things I've stated. It is... slower paced (despite shorter length) and less hectic than I am used to, leaving it a bit less gripping than say Covenant or Alien, but simultaneously I am enjoying it even as I allow myself to be in part pulled out by writing this.

We see the covered face of Frankenstein's monster and he begins to talk about the glory of the brain of a dead man living again in the body that he has made... and it makes me want a very different story about body disphoria, and the feelings of one who has been brought back in a different, new body. I'm sure there are such stories now.

Still it doesn't feel like this is intended as a horror movie. While there is a certain grim and horrifying aesthetic, there is no sense of building fear, even as the storm builds (which should in a way be in and of itself a building fear). I'm going to say part of the blame falls on me both in the writing of this, and the familiarity with the story (even having never seen the film).

Even so as they gather in Henry Frankenstein's lab there is a certain suspense. Apparently X-Rays, or maybe Gamma Rays, bring life to the dead. Good to know. I will accept this as science fiction because it was the 1930s, I would laugh at this as absurd in something made now.

I actually go silent as the body is raised into the storm. Lightning produces this ray that gives life? Wait, what? I shut off that part of my brain. Because Frankenstein's rejoicing is gripping... even if one might say it was melodramatic, over the top, and hammy, I like it.

Henry's smugness is shattered when his old teacher tells him that it was the criminal's brain that was stolen. It's a beautiful moment as his face changes. And you get a bit of horror as the monster approaches, the sound of footsteps, the look on Henry's face, the way they turn out the light to keep the monster in darkness and then the Monster's face. It's very well done.

We get a nice little bit with the monster being treated like it was mentally stunted and we see that like an inconsiderate college roommate, the monster does not like lights out... Well it doesn't but really we see that fire freaks it the hell out. And what horror we had has been lost for now.

The monster is in the dungeon and Fritz wants to whip it and threaten it with fire. Fritz is a cruel person and the monster is like some child unable to communicate with the humans around him and mistreated by his cruel older brother. I pity the monster. Of course as I write "I pity the monster" he is in the process of killing Fritz off screen and tries to attack Frankenstein and his old teacher when they investigate. Given how Fritz treated him I can't blame the monster. Fritz deserved it.

The old professor wants to murder the monster. Frankenstein lacks the spine to stand on his principles. They open the door armed with a torch and a syringe. It braves the torch but is stabbed cruely from behind, and fights off those who would kill it in an act of instinctual self defense, Henry's life saved when the syringe takes its effect upon the creature.

Victor... WHY IS HE NAMED VICTOR AND FRANKENSTEIN IS NAMED HENRY? Victor arrive ahead of Elizabeth and Henry's father, and the three hide the body. The Baron Frankenstein comes off as almost comedic here.

Henry is unwell. I don't call him Frankenstein because he is Henry, Henry is not Frankenstein. His professor promises to dispose of the monster and Elizabeth, the Baron, and Victor von Imposter take him home.

As the professor writes a note that he is going to perform a disection, the creature begins to stir in his 'death'. The professor even checks for signs of life and as he's listening for (or to?) its heartbeat it reaches upwards and grasps him by the back of his neck and with brute strength ends his life. Then it is time for the creature to skulk about the windmill till it can escape.

Henry and Elizabeth in the sun in a scene that calls to mind the book's nightmarish nautre. Of course the movie lacks that nature. You've not tasted of Victor von Frankenstein's feverish dreams. You've not felt his madness touch you to the bones. But knowing it you can feel some echoes of it, knowing how the story ought to go... THEY CHANGED IT AND NOW... actually while it feels like a bit of a 'dirty trick' it's a good effect and a scene that otherwise would be weak can borrow some effect from the book. It's actually sort of impressive.

Of course the effect islost in the later wedding scenes, but they are by no means bad scenes. There is a charmingness to them.

Is that a real cat? There is a little girl with a cat. I have lived my entire life surrouned by cats. Sometimes it looks real. Sometimes it looks horribly drugged, mouth hanging wildly open as if it was possessed by some dark force. Maria's cat is the most unsettling thing thus far in the moive. Though in general, even ignoring the cat, the scene with Maria is scary. You don't know when or if the monster is going to do something to the dear little girl who thinks nothing of approaching this massive man who does not talk, and has open wounds, and a deathly pallor.

Without malice he throws the girl into the lake to see her float, not understanding her cries that she is being hurt. It is a tragedy and makes the creature a tragic figure; as he was in the book. Yet in the book the tragedy was because he was an intelligent being, a being perhaps as smart as his creator, he was Adam to a hateful God. Cast out by God, and hated by mankind, he raged against God, and turned to wickedness to avenge himself. He was tragic in and for his intelligence. Here the creature is tragic for it might be like unto a man, but is a danger in its stupidity, it's mind underdeveloped and unable to exist in the world lest it destroy without even realization that it does so.

Boris Karloff has a good presence to him, his shambling approach, which in many ways ought to be more comical given how slow it is and the comedy routine of Elizabeth barely missing seeing it, manages to have a certain terror to it. It would be easy to take it as comical, just a little decision to ignore the menace of the man beneath the make up.

Henry's decision that a wedding is impossible while the monster lives is... a little off. The monster isn't truly after him or his family, it's just a lost wanderer. The lynch mob is called to ready with no indication that they know who the he they're looking for is. Though they have dogs to guide them so they're working off his scent? I don't know. Maybe some spirit caller talked to Maria's spirit for a description? Seriously the question as to 'is this a lynch mob for the creature or just anyone who is a stranger' is bothering me. I could accept the former, he's a child murderer even if one that is mentally incapable, but the latter is just sort of... guys... are you that backwater that there couldn't be more than one traveler in the region?

At the same time, the creature has hung someone to death or after kill them. And when it kills Henry it knows enough to hide the body, though is spotted in the process. It's mentally rather cunning in its own way. Though obviously didn't know what it was doing when it killed the girl from its reaction... The fact that no it's not hiding the body of Henry, but bringing him to the reanimation machine merely unconscious is a sign of greater intelligence than I gave him credit for. Knows enough to toss the body of Henry off the windmill as a threat to the mob too... I mean it just gets the windmill lit on fire but...

The Good: Boris Karloff - He's got presence even without words, much more in fact than Christopher Lee's portrayal of the creature.

The Bad: THEY CHANGED IT AND NOW IT SUCKS - It's not a movie of the book at all, and the book is a vastly richer and more fulfilling story.

The Ugly: Victor: This character does nothing except allow Elizabeth someone to talk to in one scene. WHY DID YOU GIVE HIM THE MAIN CHARACTER'S NAME? WHY? WHY?

Also the film could be read as a pretty unflattering presentation of the mentally handicapped. I'm not even going to touch on that, but there's that itching feeling throughout.

The Final Summation: It's not scary. As a horror film this must be judged. While it has tense moments, and the creature's first appearance has that tingle, it's not scary. It is a charming film, a nice little story that can be watched in 70 minutes if you aren't highly sensitive to unfortunate implications that were fairly common in the period (I notice more than I normally would because I kept having trouble not referring to the creature as mentally disabled). It is from an older day of film making and I feel like I could have gotten up and gotten something premade to eat or something to drink and not completely ruined my appreciation, while at the same time not feeling any scene had no purpose except to pad time. There are scenes that one wouldn't want to miss, and there are scenes that are 'less important', but it was a nice... relaxed film you could say. Even typing out like this I didn't feel like I was missing something in the frantic mess, and yet it was engaging enough to keep me entertained. It was refreshingly different in that regard even if not necessarily my preference. Still I do intend to watch more Universal studio monster films this month, and it was better than I expected due to my love of the book and knowledge that THEY CHANGED IT AND NOW IT SUCKS. That said the book is the better story with more grip upon the heart and mind of the reader, and much more ability to stir thought and wonder with the touch of the dreadful sublimity of the nature of life and death and the power of Creation and what it means to have it placed in the hands of man. If you have not read the book it is a classic of Science Fiction and Horror, and one that is worth the time even if not necessarily for all. If you have not watched the film... take it or leave it; it was an enjoyable enough film if you let it be but having seen it due to its part in the building of 'horror' movies I do not find it essential viewing as a horror film unless you seek an understanding of their history and evolution.