THE MONSTER (1925): SILENT HORROR FILM

Halloween month continues at Balladeer’s Blog with this look at a neglected silent horror film.

Lon Chaney as the mad scientist Dr Ziska in The Monster.

THE MONSTER (1925) – The incomparable Lon Chaney, “the man of a thousand faces” starred as the mad scientist Dr Ziska in this horror film that is often neglected because of its annoyingly heavy use of comic relief moments. Dr Ziska is in the habit of engineering car accidents for various innocent motorists and their Model T’s. Then his lackeys abduct them and take them to the mad doctor’s sanitarium which is far removed from the nearest town or city.

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Once there Ziska uses his victims as human guinea pigs in his macabre experiments. Chaney’s Dr Ziska is an elegant baddie in the mold that Vincent Price would later perfect. His lackeys are the mute, hideous brute Caliban, the undead Rigo, who dresses in a Grim Reaper cowl, and Madman Dan, who is the uncontrollably crazy wild card. Based on a stage play by Crane Wilbur, who would go on to write the 1950’s filmHouse of Wax.

FOR ADDITIONAL SILENT HORROR FILMS CLICK HERE: https://glitternight.com/2012/10/29/the-best-silent-horror-films-part-three-1916-1928/

FOR MORE HALLOWEEN ITEMS CLICK HERE: https://glitternight.com/category/halloween-season/           

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