I received an e-mail a while ago from Sam Harding of Invaluable.com asking if I could write an article about my favorite movie prop/props. It took me a bit of time to come up with one.  But each time I thought of one, another cool one would come to mind... so, I decided I'd write up a quick list of my top five horror movie props. So, there they are in chronological movie order: 1.  " Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror " (1922)- Count Orlok's Coat. While technically not a prop, I would absolutely love to have the coat worn by Count Orlok in " Nosferatu ". This item was such a simple thing that added so much to the character, and the mood of the film.  The dark contrast of the coat with the paleness of Count Orlok's skin, when combined with the shadowy lighting- made you feel as if he was coming out of the shadow physically. It also turned a rather hideous looking creature into a solid, strong looking figure of menace, and added a touch of ...

  After all the black and white films I've watched over the past month or so as I worked my way through horror films from the 1920 to the present, I finally hit 1968- and a colour film.  It was a welcome change of pace- as was the story. Seperated from his regiment in 1806, Andre Duvalier stumbles across the castle of Baron von Leppe, and a mysterious woman whom the Baron claims has been dead for the past 20 years- because he killed her and her lover.  Determined to discover the truth behind the dark past of the castle, Duvalier soon finds himself confronting a deadly mix of guilt, revenge, and madness... " The Terror " was filmed on sets used in two other Roger Corman films- " The Raven ," and " The Haunted Palace ".  The tree in the final scene is from " The Haunted Palace " where it was the sight of Vincent Price being tied up and burnt.  In addition to re-using sets, this movie is notable for the number of directors it had: Roger Corma...

I'm going to go back in time for my first movie... all the way back to when Francis Ford Coppola was just starting out... back to 1963... Producer Roger Corman hired Coppola to direct "Dementia 13" right after shooting the movie "The Young Racers," with a budget of $22,000.00, and his friends acting in it for about $600.00.  The script was written in about three days, and shows in the slight stiffness of the dialogue.  When it was released in theatres, Corman insisted on having a William Castle-like "prologue", where a "professional psychiatrist" discusses the D-13 test handed out to the audience... in order to see if they were mentally fit to watch the movie. For me, this is one of my favorite horror movies.  True, the dialogue is stiff and awkward, and the storyline is a little confusing and disjointed, but under that roughness created by the short span of time used to write and film the movie, you can see the potential sparkle of a tru...