The Wolf Man Meets the Spider

Two nights ago, I worked on a smattering of projects. I began with the short film Spider (click on short films > Nash Edgerton > Spider to watch), made by Australian stuntman Nash Edgerton, who's done stunt work for the Star Wars prequels, the Matrix movies, and quite a few other big-budget action movies. His short film has been lauded by critics and won a number of awards. I won't reveal anything anything about the plot lest it ruin the movie, but it involves a heavy dose of poetic justice.

I guess my problem with this short film, as with most short films, is: why did it have to be made? They rarely seem to say anything particularly poignant, and the brevity of them (this one clocks in at 9 minutes) doesn't allow you to become invested in the characters. Or perhaps I'm just a boor.

After finishing this captioning job, I went on to work on my second Frankenstein movie: "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man." As it turns out, there are a total of eight Frankenstein movies, all part of the Universal Horror canon. This one stars Lon Chaney as the Wolf Man and Bela Lugosi as Frankenstein's monster. Lon Chaney had previously played the role of Frankenstein's monster in "The Ghost of Frankenstein" and would go on to play Count Dracula in "Son of Dracula." Bela Lugosi had become famous for playing Count Dracula in the original "Dracula" and had also played Ygor in "Son of Frankenstein" and "The Ghost of Frankenstein."

Basically, these two men had played all the same roles in these movies, switching every few movies. To complicate things further, Ygor and the Monster had switched brains in "The Ghost of Frankenstein," so who what supposed to act as what would become a very perplexing question. Ultimately, Ygor's blindness and stupidity being implanted into the Monster created the stereotypical "Frankenstein lurch" with arms raised out.

The plot of "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man" follows the Wolf Man's attempt to find death, which would be sweet relief to an otherwise-sane man who goes on killing sprees every full moon. His journey takes him to a glacier, where he unthaws Frankenstein's monster, and the two of them seek out the notes of Dr. Frankenstein's son which describe the secrets of life and death.

Overall, I found the movie enjoyable, though certainly not up to the standards of "Bride of Frankenstein." One of the better parts involves a song-and-dance number at a local festival, in which the cantor sings a sort of carpe diem song about how "life is short but death is long" and blesses Lawrence Talbot (a.k.a. the Wolf Man) with eternal life, to which he violently responds that eternal life is a curse.

Stay tuned! Next post will cover both Patrick Swayze and William Faulkner!