An ISLAND Not on the Chart

Some Backstory: in the winter of 2002, I was on a classic horror kick. Thanks to the recommendations of my brother and my friend Barry, I’d seen Ulmer’s THE BLACK CAT, Whale’s THE OLD DARK HOUSE, and – most eye-popping of all – as many Val Lewton-produced films as I could get my hands on. Searching for the latter among the hallowed stacks of old VHS in Santa Monica’s Vidiots, I grabbed Erle C. Kenton’s THE ISLAND OF LOST SOULS, mistaking it for my intended rental, the Lewton/Mark Robson/Karloff effort, ISLE OF THE DEAD.*

It was a happy accident.

Death is Not the End

I very much wanted to (and still might) do another one of my illustrated blog posts indexing the awesome imagery that gives Victor Sjostrom's 1921 PHANTOM CARRIAGE its spiritual/visceral resonance. Instead, we'll all* have to settle for the review I wrote for GreenCine.

* That is, all two of us that read this blog (hi wife!).

I've delivered sermons to the sea.

Victor Sjostrom in WILD STRAWBERRIES (Bergman, 1957)