Thread by @pjgoodman

Got my booze, got my snacks, I'm ready for the #CellarClub! I've seen this film twice before. The 1st time, I expected too much and was disappointed; the 2nd time I set my expectations at rock bottom and realised it had its merits. 3rd time for the happy medium? #TheFilmCrowd

https://twitter.com/thefilmcrowd/status/1481560380895813635

See, these opening shots are fab! Monkey to Lee establishes fears about evolution, degeneracy, the beast within. Two-headed child in the jar establishes split personalities. There is plenty of thought and detail here. Just somehow less than the sum of its parts. #TheFilmCrowd

Then this conversation in the gentleman's club makes what the visuals were hinting at fully explicit, right down to a direct reference to Freud! #CellarClub #TheFilmCrowd

Some beautiful Lee finger-work in the way he's handling those beakers and test-tubes. He was such a great hand actor. (As was Cushing, of course.) #CellarClub #TheFilmCrowd

Oh no, not the kitty! #CellarClub #TheFilmCrowd

That was narratively important, though. He killed that cat without having yet injected himself with the solution, showing us his own latent brutal tendencies which the solution will merely unlock. #CellarClub #TheFilmCrowd

And of course the contents of that drawer show some more suppressed tendencies... #CellarClub #TheFilmCrowd

Has Marlowe sought ethical approval for testing out this drug on his patients, eh? #CellarClub #TheFilmCrowd

This business about how the drug has different effects on different patients (and animals) is one of the things which has puzzled me on previous viewings, and I don't think it's ever fully resolved. It gets lost as the story focuses on Marlowe's own transformations. #TheFilmCrowd

So here, we're getting a direct explanation of the ego, the super-ego and the id. Marlowe theorises that the drug is doing the same thing in all subjects - destroying all but one of them. #CellarClub #TheFilmCrowd

But, given the different results we've seen, surely it isn't destroying the same ones in all subjects? So it's not 'the same thing' in all of them at all. #CellarClub #TheFilmCrowd

One of the definite strengths of this film are its sets - interiors and exteriors. They're easy to take for granted by modern standards, but for British horror movies of this time they are pretty high-grade, and generally nicely-lit too (though this print is dark). #TheFilmCrowd

And another is the subtlety of the gradual transformations we are seeing in Lee. Just another notch more depraved each time he shoots up, and a lot of it in the early stages conveyed by his expressions and gait rather than prosthetics. #CellarClub #TheFilmCrowd

Peter Cushing is starting to get suss! #CellarClub #TheFilmCrowd

Interestingly, I think that as well as the actual transformations getting more grotesque each time, Lee's face as Marlowe has also deliberately been made slightly more haggard by this stage in the film, as the guilt and horror starts to tell on him. #CellarClub #TheFilmCrowd

Hehe, that scene of Cushing comparing Marlowe and Blake's signatures reminded me of this. Subtler, though. #CellarClub #TheFilmCrowd

That shadow-transformation was an excellent touch! Pity it seems to have been a bit much for the elderly man-servant. #CellarClub #TheFilmCrowd

Also, I'm beginning to wonder why Mike Raven had such high billing in this film, appearing third on the poster after Cushing and Lee with his name the same size as theirs. He doesn't actually seem to be in it all that much? #CellarClub #TheFilmCrowd en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Monste…

A bit of direct contrast being established here, I think. Cushing's scarlet smoking jacket is very similar to one Lee was wearing earlier in the film, but Cushing's character is kind to his kitty. #CellarClub #TheFilmCrowd

Lee's transformation in death from gruesome to handsome there a nice contrast with his usual disintegration as Dracula, too. Got to have been a deliberate inversion, right? #CellarClub #TheFilmCrowd

Anyway, there we go! It's been a blast, and I agree more with how I felt when I saw this the second time than the first. It's not perfect, but it's really a pretty good film all told. #CellarClub #TheFilmCrowd