Less is more?

[Dr. Whom]

It is said that less is more, but some directors firmly believe that more is more and want to cram every idea they have into one movie. Take for instance Godzilla Final Wars. Lesser men might be daunted by the prospect of putting the entire Toho monster catalogue in the same movie. Not so Ryuhei Kitamura. We not only get every creature known to Toho, but also aliens, and spaceships, and mutants, and martial arts, and a bike chase, and aerial combat, and super saians.

Starcrash is another film like that, which has obviously every aspect from the old Flash Gordon series that Luigi Cozzi liked. Helsing does the same with the Universal monsters, but to a lesser degree.

Now does this produce good movies, I wonder? Starcrash is a classic, Helsing is a disaster, and Final wars just about pulls it off.

Any thoughts?

[BoyScoutKevin]

Well, I think I know who started this trend. Universal in 1944 with "House of Frankenstein," which was followd by "House of Dracula" in 1945, and then "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" in 1948.

The third is probably the best of the three, as it is regarded as being not only one of the best Abbott and Costellos, but a one of the better horror comedies as well. But, for me, what makes the film is who is in it. Besides Abbott and Costello we have Lon Chaney, jr. as the Wolfman, Bela Lugosi as Dracula, Glenn Strange as the Monster, and in a cameo Vincent Price as the Invisible Man.

The second is probably the least of the three, but it does have its rewards. Lon Chaney, jr as the Wolfman again, John Carradine as Dracula, Lionel Atwill as the police inspector, Onslow Stevens as the mad doctor this time, Glenn Strange as the Monster, and in a dream sequence clips of Boris Karloff.

As for the first . . . with a cast that includes Boris Karloff as the mad doctor, Lon Chaney, jr. as the Wolfman, John Carradine as Dracula, Lionel Atwill (did he ever play anything else) as the police inspector, Sig Ruman as the burgomeister, Glenn Strange as the Monster, J. Carrol Naish as the hunchback, and a cameo by George Zucco, this has my favorite cast of any horror movie made in the 1st half of the 20th century.

Thus, it is not so much what they try to do, but who they try to do it with.

[JaseSF]

Yes I think less is more. There's too much loss of character development when directors try and stuff all this stuff in a film just because they think it'll look cool. Sure it may well do so but why should anyone care if one doesn't understand what motivates the characters to take these "cool" actions in the first place. Some more examples are the later Spider-Man and X-Men movies and Batman and Robin where there's too many characters doing too much and not enough is explained to who some are and why they should be partaking in such action in the first place.

[the ghoul]

I'm all for having more monsters and lower budgets myself.