THE RATTLE OF THE CASTANETS: Horror movie notes. In the order I saw them.

Soylent Green: Should be remembered as the great Edward G. Robinson’s last movie, since not only is he the only standout in the cast but his death scene is the only genuinely poignant and frightening moment in the film.

Admittedly, this is one where pop culture may have ruined it for me. And there are some powerful images of overcrowding–casually jumping down the staircase packed with bodies, for example, or the fight scene in the dormitory. [eta: Also liked the creepily dissociated priest.] But I loved Charlton Heston in Branagh’s Hamlet (as the Player King–he was the star of that movie as far as I’m concerned), and hated him here, overblown and ripe with cliche. Robinson is terrific as always–especially impressive considering that he was almost completely deaf by this time, and had to time his lines from memory rather than by ear.

White Zombie: Well, I may be learning that I prefer really old-school horror, and especially old-school zombies, to the new brain-eating kind. I did like this, and found it frightening (the shot of the zombies marching across the top of a hill is terrifying), despite its melodrama. It’s a less-good version of the phenomenal and far more iconic I Walked with a Zombie, I think; or you could say, what I think is the same thing, that it’s a magic-and-science version of the religion-drenched IWWAZ. It has fairy-tale elements (why do white women on filmic Haitian plantations always dress as medieval houris?) and creepy postcolonial horror-of-dehumanization.

The Leopard Man. This Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur flick may have been my favorite of the lot, largely due to the charismatic women at its center: a local New Mexican cheapie flamenco dancer named Clo-Clo, an exotic Chicago import named Kiki, and a sweet, nicely underplayed fortuneteller. All three actresses elevate the movie–Clo-Clo’s introductory scene is kind of static (I may be totally weird, but I found her flamenco… strained, insufficiently sinuous), but after that, she becomes incredibly fun to watch and listen to; Kiki is a brassy Rosalind Russell knockoff; and the fortuneteller is played for empathy rather than exoticism. The movie really revolves around women, and not only women as victims of the Leopard Man.

It’s a well-paced mix of horror and suspense: The plot is more suspense, while the imagery (including the soundtrack) is more horror.

The Ghost Ship: More Lewton-as-producer. More misleading Lewton titles! I know it’s the studio’s fault really, but I love ghost-ship movies, and this… isn’t one. It’s an overdone petty-dictator thrillerish thing, long on melodramatic invocations of “authority!… authority!” and short on thrills. I’m guessing they didn’t have the budget to do any frightening shots of the restless, formless, anti-rational sea, but those shots might be what I like best in ghost-ship movies, and to be trapped on a thoroughly static shipboard set felt forced and gimcrack rather than effectively claustrophobic. The only Lewtonish thing I’ve actively disliked so far.

If you want shipboard authority drama combined with the uncanny, read The Secret Sharer; if you want a ghost-ship movie, you might check out two movies from 2002: the psychologically interesting but not quite addictive-enough Below and (my cliched but addictive preference) Ghost Ship. (If you know of genuinely good, rather than merely satisfying, ghost-ship movies, please email me, since I crave them and have found none!!)