The Demon Barber

(The trailer for Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd (2007) is out, and, can I say, whoa! Totally awesome; not that I 'd expect anything less from Burton, but The Corpse Bride (2005) was a bit of a disappointment.

It looks to be a devilish, delicious mix of The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) and The Phantom of the Opera (2004). And it's got Alan Rickman, patron saint of the deep, gravelly voice and Johnny Depp, patron saint of hotness...so this doesn't get much better than that.

And it's a musical! Hot damn.

See it here.

Gothic Horror & Bodice Rippers - The House of Usher (1960)

I have a shameful admission to make:

I haven't always been a horror fan. In fact, quite the opposite. It was only very recently that I got over being a scaredy-cat and could actually watch a horror movie without cringing, mostly thanks to a Gothic horror class I took in college. And Joel Schumacher's The Phantom of the Opera (2004).

One of the more fascinating aspects of the class - one of many - was the figure of the Gothic heroine, a woman who seems oppressed by a patriarchal menace, but manages to subvert that overwhelming force with her own ingenuity. At once sexually conservative and socially subversive, she is a particularly tricky and complex character.

Mary Lambert, female horror director extraordinare (Pet Semetary I & II, "Tales from the the Crypt"), discusses Gothic horror, Edgar Allen Poe, and "bodice rippers" (another guilty pleasure of mine, as well as a fixture in the Gothic) in her commentary of Roger Corman's The House of Usher (1960) over at Trailers from Hell. The first in a series of Poe-related films done by Corman for AIP, it was the first of Corman's low-budget gems to be shot in color, as Lambert says.

The House of Usher plays Friday, August 10th at 5:30pm on TCM for those who'd like to watch it's wonderfulness. I'll certainly be watching. Enjoy!