1920s Silent Horror Movie Remake Proves Too Cheap a ‘Bargain’

A film preservationist who works for the Library of Congress, Stephen C. Leggett, has put together a list of silent movies that have been lost to history. This document is evolving — the last complete go-round was completed five years ago — and indefatigable work it is, given that anywhere from 70-90% of silent films are gone. The perishing of those ten thousand or so entertainments can be attributed, in part, to having been preserved on nitrate, an unstable and flammable material. Mostly, however, studio bosses of the time considered moving pictures a disposable idiom and didn’t think twice about discarding them. The holy grail of lost movies is listed, a Lon Chaney feature directed by Tod Browning, “London After Midnight” (1927). But it’s not the only missing film that featured the Man of A Thousand Faces.Chaney played two roles in Wallace O.Worsley’s “A Blind Bargain” (1922): Dr. Arthur Lamb, a scientist given to questionable pursuits, and a victim of Lamb’s experiments, “the Ape Man.” No special points for guessing that the plot is a variation on the exploits of Drs. Frankenstein and Moreau, though the source material for the Worsley picture is Barry Pain’s 1897 novel “The Octave of Claudius.” From all reports, the film’s premiere elicited a standing ovation. Critics sang the praises of Chaney’s performance.The last remaining copy of the film burnt to a crisp in 1965 when a fire engulfed a storage unit at MGM Studios. Cineastes with a fondness for horror films say their prayers at night in the hopes that a stray copy of “A Blind Bargain” will turn up in a garage sale in Encino or some place equally exotic. An underwhelming A.I. reconstruction cobbled together from press materials can be found online. Now comes a remake of “A Blind Bargain” by writer, director and Bob Hope aficionado Paul Bunnell. If the last chit on his C.V. doesn’t provide a clue to Mr. Bunnell’s aesthetic, the movie’s accompanying press release cites that his “sci-fi musical comedy ‘The Ghastly Love of Johnny X’ . . . has the dubious honor of being the lowest grossing theatrical film of 2012.” The auteur’s ambition to re-envision “A Blind Bargain” as an episode of Rod Serling’s TV series, “The Twilight Zone,” places him in esteemed company of wannabes like Steven Spielberg, Jordan Peele, and the Grateful Dead, who wrote the theme song to ABC’s largely forgotten 1985 reboot.Taking inspiration from historical precedent is one thing; nostalgia is another. “A Blind Bargain” is a mess of contradictions. Working from a story by Bing Bailey, Mr. Bunnell and his co-screenwriter, John Edward Falotico, may have predicated their endeavor on an early twentieth-century artifact, but the film’s gestalt is pure 1970s, albeit filtered through a compass that includes low-budget avatars like Ed Wood, Herschell Gordon Lewis, and John Waters. A nod-and-a-wink done in polyester and shag.The title bargain is struck between a Vietnam-vet on the skids, Dominic Fontaine (Jake Horowitz) and an unctuous physician, Dr. Gruder (Crispin Glover, yes, that Crispin Glover). Dominic’s mother, a former silent screen starlet by the name of Joy Fontaine (Amy Wright), possesses a rare strain of blood that is pivotal to the doctor’s experiments in offsetting the effects of aging. Given that Dominic owes a bundle of money to a barrel-chested drug dealer, Vincent (Rob Mayes), he has little compunction in having mom kidnapped for the sake of science. It helps that Dr. Gruder’s henchwoman is the fetching Ellie Bannister (Lucy Loken). It helps, too, that the medication manages to return Joy to her slinky twenty-something self (Annalisa Cochrane). But, of course, you know how things go with these miracle drugs . . .We’ve got a trend afoot, ladies and gentlemen, with age and identity-blurring horror movies. Coralie Fargeat’s Best Picture nominee, “The Substance” (2024), is the most notable; Emilie Blichfeldt’s “The Ugly Stepsister” (2025), the most lucid. Amy Wang’s passing-for-white satire, “Slanted” (2026), came-and-went with nary a blip, as will, I suppose, Mr. Bunnell’s not quite funny enough homage to all that he holds dear. But please leave room to recognize Frida Olivia’s production design, wherein she acknowledges schlock without condescending to it. Would that the rest of the picture upheld that noble feat.

1920s Silent Horror Movie Remake Proves Too Cheap a ‘Bargain’

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