This is a little embarrassing for me, but here we go. When Christopher Lee died a few years ago, I declared it to be the end of an era for horror movies. What I didn't know at the time was that Ricou Browning was still alive.
That is no longer the case, and now it really *is* the end of an era for horror movies. If you don't know who he was, he was the last living actor to play a classic Universal monster. He was one of two actors playing the Gill-man from The Creature from the Black Lagoon trilogy. He was the guy who was in the suit for the underwater work. He passed away today at the age of 93.
That's a hell of a run. The gill-man was the last of the classic monsters, as the first movie was released in the 'Fifties, so it's not too shocking that he would have made it this long in life. But with his passing, it really is a new age of gods and monsters. Sadly this age is more known for studios and producers who make horror movies than the actors in them.
And the age after Lee's generation are looking kind of long in the, uh, fang. I don't imagine it will be very long before the horror monsters I grew up watching follow their predecessors. Robert Englund, Doug Bradley, Tony Todd, Brad Dourif, all the guys who played Jason and Michael Myers. It's a sobering thought because I really can't think of a newer generation with actors known primarily for their work in horror. But, as the Chuck Berry song goes, "Even this shall pass away," and when that happens it really will be the end of an era.
PS: Cocaine Bear is technically a Universal monster now. I don't see us getting many sequels, but still. That's worth knowing, I think.
No comments:
Post a Comment