Aahz Wrote:How old are your kids? I've had ZERO luck getting my 12 year old daughter to watch the classic B&W horror films. She likes horror, even enjoyed the original Psycho, but the Universal films bore her to death.
My oldest son is 12, middle is 8, youngest is 6. They all initially objected to B&W, but quickly fell victim to the beautiful photography, easy-to-follow storylines, special effects that still hold up well, and totally bitchin' monsters. My eldest now says he actually prefers the old B&W horror films. The acorn doesn't fall from the tree.
It helps that they are all into analyzing whether silver works against vampires, what would happen if you cut off a werewolf's head with a non-silver sword, and which monster could beat which monster in a cage fight. So they were in rapture while watching "Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman."
It also helps that those movies had so many damn good actors in them - Boris Karloff ("Hey! That guy sounds like the Grinch!", said my 8-year old), Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr., Dwight Frye, Elsa Lanchester, George Zucco, Lionel Atwill, Basil Rathbone, John Carradine, Ernest Thesiger, Una O'Connor, Maria Ouspenskaya, Christopher Lee ("Count Dooku!"), Peter Cushing ("Grand Moff Tarkin!"), Michael Gough ("Alfred!"), Vincent Price, all at the top of their games...
Horror movies now don't have the star quality of movies back then, they rely too much on gore and SFX. Back then you had real ACTORS in horror movies. Nowadays, who? Christopher Walken is the only guy with that larger-than-life quality.