Lifeboat (1944) occurs on one lifeboat. It towers as one of the greatest technical triumphs in movies. Arguably it’s dramatically superior to Rope (1948). Then again Lifeboat is edited expertly and Rope handicaps itself using those stretched shots passing ten minutes. Film needs cuts and Rope suffers most on that hill. Nevertheless Rope almost overcomes it.
Just don’t watch the sci-fi remake.
Trust me.
Why would anyone remake Hitchcock? No need to answer. It’s a rhetorical question. Sadly picking the bones of classics is preferable to devising your own scenarios. To me, greater care ought to be given to remakes not less. Making anything spoken for yours demands incredible vision and risks tried not slapping on a name and entering autopilot.
Then and now even the title is reused and that is the worst. The name recognition precludes them changing anything. Today Scream 5 is called Scream (2022). How original.
The Film Detective is bringing us The Giant Gila Monster (1959) and The Killer Shrews (1959) on September 26th. Restored from 35mm prints and turned into 4K Scans, this arrives on Blu later this year.
Is “I’m not gonna’ worry about overpopulation just yet” THE WORST line to ever end a movie, or does it merely suck? 
It’s not great, but I have to say this is one of my favorite episodes. The dogs… I mean shrews… are so cute! 
Can we assume they spent more on dog treats than on the sound?
Well, obviously, but the money spent on both dog treats and the sound combined doesn’t add up to enough to cover the bar tab.
It can’t be the worst when there’s-
There was no giant, no monster, no thing called “Douglas” to be followed. There was nothing in the tunnel but the puzzled men of courage, who suddenly found themselves alone with shadows and darkness!
Are you kidding? That’s like Leaves Of Monster by comparison! 
Yeah, but at least the last line of Killer Shrews doesn’t negate the entire movie in a way that makes absolutely no sense.
lol No it’s just the super-tasteless trope of let’s celebrate the mass death & destruction we survived just three minutes ago by talking about sex in front of your dad!
(Read in the same tone of voice you might use telling your roommate that the dishes are finally done.)
Blecchhh!!
I suppose that’s worse in moral terms, but in cinematic terms, a nonsensical piece of narration that renders the whole movie pointless would be worse. Because the Killer Shrews line at least admits the population issue they were talking about in the first half of the film might still be a problem.
I like to think of it as the verbal equivalent of using a deliberately muffed shot to try out for the Globetrotters, but not quite having the skill to get picked.
Look down at the floor. See why it’s so clean? Because the last line of Killer Shrews sucked so hard. Yeah its bad, but it definitely isn’t the worst end to a movie ever. I think that has to go to Legacy of Blood’s final line… “You thought the BUTLER did it?”
This is the worst because not only does it invalidate the entire movie as nothing but a 1.5 hour prank they were playing on audiences, but combine it with the wink and the idiotic music being played and it becomes a purposeful, deliberate insult to anyone watching it. Its like the movie tried very hard to make you take it seriously up until the last second, and then gets yoinked into the sky to fly away laughing at you and peeing on you as it goes.
“Audiences” seems generous. My theory is there was one audience one time and they started leaving even sooner and faster than the poor slobs at the Manos premier.
Well, its hard to argue against that because there’s so little information about the theatrical release of Legacy of Blood AKA Blood Legacy AKA Will To Die. Did it even actually go into movie theaters at all or was it made and then buried in a vault like The Dead Talk Back? I donno! But presumably they made it and put it out there and it had more than one showing.
The Dead Talk Back is a Christie masterwork compared to Legacy. It’s also one of my very favorite episodes.
Oh no question. Legacy of Blood would have been improved greatly if Dr. Krasker had been in it somehow.
But thinking about it … the end to The Dead Talk Back is kinda, sorta in the same jokey style. Krasker shaking his head, cutting the wire, and then calling up to his assistant while the camera pans down to “THE ENO” on the floor kind of pulls the viewer out of suspension a bit more than it should. Still … way better than the captain talking about boning the daughter in front of her father and certainly way better than Legacy of Blood hitting the viewer in the face with a pie, kicking them in the groin, and running off with their wallet.
