Okay, as far as I understand it several bloggers decided to blog for the entire month about vampires mostly about the movies, tv  shows, and about classic books.  If you were to include all vampire books, well then there would be a Vampire Awareness Year.  LOL

Hmmm.  This tickles me.  Vampire Awareness Month–perhaps the idea was really planted by a vampire.  They say they want to maintain their privacy, but they enjoy the limelight where they can show off.   So I’m going to take this further.

Those dedicated to Vampire Awareness will do the following to respect their privacy:
1. Eat pizza — a lot — with garlic.
2. Avoid nightclubs, for that matter all music venues where they like to hang out.
3. Wear silver –Oh, excuse me.  I’ve just been informed by a reliable source that silver does absolutely nothing.
4. Cover cuts with bandages.  I’ve been informed by that same reliable source again that you’re too tempting otherwise.
5.  Watch True Blood.  That’s what I’ll be doing on Sunday night.

Apparently Vampire David Hilliard is back from his vacation, and the Vampires in Manhattan are planning a party.  I asked him if it really was Vampire Awareness Month.  He laughed and said, “Hell of a great reason to celebrate!”

Party on, everyone!  See I told you it was a great week.

–Susan
Susan Hanniford Crowley, author of the Vampires in Manhattan series
P.S.  If you missed the wonderful crocheted dolls of the characters from True Blood, just scroll down.

Ok, well, I guess I must have imagined that.

Anyway, when I started watching this, I figured out that I pretty much didn’t remember anything about it. This turned out to be a good thing, because I was about to see an amazing movie!

How precisely did every awesome actor ever manage to be in this movie? I mean I guess it happens now and again, but geez! Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise were really at the tops at this point in their careers. Add to that Christian Slater, Antonio Bandaras, Kirsten Dunst and damn, huge crew. The acting is absolutely the best in this movie, but thats not hard to imagine given what we have here.

So the real question is… does this movie stack up against all the other vampire movies of all time?

Interview v Twilight 1, 2, & 3
Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve never seen any of them. I did read the first half of the first book once. It’s actually a funny story…

I got the great idea once to read twilight. I was all like “i’m gonna read this before I watch the movie (for a change). You see, person-who-i’m-talking-to, I usually watch the movie first, then read the book, thus leaving me appreciating the movie more. I figured i’d give this book a chance by comparison.” Little did I know what I was in store for.

I read and I read. I hated every single thing I was reading, but I tried. I pushed forward. Then, at one point Bella goes out to the forest with Edward IN THE GODDAMN DAY TIME and the sun came out AND HE FUCKING SPARKLED! The goddamn vampires in this story SPARKLE! This is the moment I threw my twilight book out the window of a moving vehicle.

Now, the thing is, Interview is a fairly girly, feelings filled version of a vampire movie, I’ll give it that, but at least it has some badass moments. Actually, screw that! This movie had all sorts of badass moments and I’m not going to let them be forgotten just because its about 2 hollywood “hunks” gallavanting around and Brad Pitt being as broody as a 15 year old goth. These dudes do all SORTS of killing. There are all sorts of crazy ass things that happen in this movie. People die all sorts of crazy ass ways. Oh… and most importantly…

THE VAMPIRES DIE WHEN THEY’RE EXPOSED TO SUNLIGHT! THATS THE BASIC DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC OF VAMPIRES, DAMMIT!

Check it out at IMDB or Queue it up at Netflix

Wolverine (X-Men)- You wouldn’t think Hugh Jackman would be older than Patrick Stewart, but in the superhero universe anything is possible.  As Wolverine, he slices and dices through countless enemies (in a very PG-13 way, of course).  It’ll  come in handy when he needs to wait in line to sign up for Social Security.

Aragorn (Lord of the Rings)- Although it wasn’t revealed in the theatrical version of the films, the extended edition of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers lets the audience who missed the books know that this limber Ranger From the North is actually over 80 years old.  Though Gandalf is several thousand years old, you can believe it when you see his beard.  The fact that a human made it to 80 and is just approaching his midlife crisis is pretty impressive.

Esther (The Orphan)- If you haven’t seen this movie and intend to, stop reading.  The Orphan‘s big reveal is that this isn’t a kid that’s terrorizing these poor, innocent parents, it’s a dwarf prostitute.  Yeah, a dwarf prostitute.  It’s campy, just like the movie and its entertainingly ghoulish thrills, which is why it (kind of) works.

John Malkovich (Being John Malkovich)-  Although this one is on a technicality, it’s still pretty amusing.  At the end of Charlie Kaufman and Spkie Jonze’s brilliant Being John Malkovich a group of elderly people need to enter the portal into John Malkovich’s mind in order to continue living.  If you’ve seen the movie, that probably makes sense to you.  This means that at the end of the movie, Malkovich has 500+ years under his belt.  Oddly enough, it makes him happier at the end of the movie, but only because it isn’t him inside his body anymore.

Vampires (Twilight, Let the Right One In)- Although it’s presented as a big reveal in movies like Twilight, we know vampires are old.  The attractive, Cullen-era vamp means that the protagonists will be more surprised than they were in the age of Nosferatu and Dracula, though.  If movies like Let the Right One In and its American remake weren’t marketed as vampire movies, this might come as more of a shock to the audience that that twelve-year-old has been twelve for a really long time.

The film opens with a prologue that recounts the story of a 16th century alchemist who has spent his life working on a device that would grant immortality.  He obviously succeeded, as he died in 20th-century Mexico, in a bank-vault collapse.  A police investigation follows his death, introducing us to his vampiric ways.  The scene then shifts to the life of an old man (Jesus Gris, portrayed by Federico Luppi) and his granddaughter (Aurora, portrayed by an eternally silent Tamara Shanath).  He owns an antique store that just happens to receive a mysterious statue owned by the late alchemist.  The immortality device (called the Cronos device) is eventually discovered–and Jesus also has the misfortune to inadvertently use it on himself.  The story is set in motion.

The villains are also introduced in these early scenes–a dying old man and his nephew who are also in search of the device (Dieter de la Guardia and Angel de la Guardia, played by Claudio Brooks and Ron Perlman respectively).  They eventually track the device to Jesus and begin to put pressure on him to give it up.

The device essentially makes the user into a vampire.  It is a large golden bug that releases its legs when wound, and clamps onto the victim, eventually releasing a stinger that takes blood from the victim.  Inside are a lot of gears that run the device, and one mysterious (living) insect.  The user becomes addicted to the device (Jesus feels the need to use it constantly), causes a craving for blood, and produces a near immortality.  Predictably, there are limitations–piercing the heart causes death.

The film may seem to be little more than a vampire story with new causes, but it is handled differently than you might expect.  The old man never becomes a monster, nor does he necessarily take the path of tragic hero (that so many “good” vampires seem to take these days).  He remains an ordinary human being in many respects (a bit of decomposition is only an external change).  Blood is a strange new desire for him–he finds himself suddenly, unaccountably attracted to it.  The film lets us understand this new desire–the bloody meat in the refrigerator exerts a strange call, and the blood pouring from a random man’s nosebleed is irresistible.  At one point, he becomes consumed enough to lick blood off the bathroom floor (clearly a low point for any fledging vampire).  He never attacks anyone; the film mostly has him trying to understand his new condition.  He retains the sympathies of his granddaughter (who witnesses his transformation from the beginning, and never grows to fear or hate him), but even more amazingly, his love for her is never really compromised.  He is a fascinating character due to the continually uncertain nature of his condition, and he remains a sympathetic figure in the midst of a story that grows even more absurd as it progresses.  I should say that this vampire story has no problem piling on bits of macabre humor (the mortuary scene) and parodying conventions of vampire movies (you have probably never thought of a vampire sleeping on a pile of toys, nor seen one ominously rise out of a toy box).

The film keeps the secrets of the device from the main character, further destroying his ability to figure out his condition, and to a great extent, keeping the audience in the dark as well.  The audience may be aware of the vampiric symptoms caused by the device due to the film’s prologue, but the character does not know–this dramatic irony works well enough at the beginning, but may become a bit tiresome as the film progresses.  Exact explanations are never given.  Most of them might seem too obvious to explain in great detail–and not giving away all the secrets does ensure that even the audience can wonder a little towards the end–but perhaps I grew tired of being tantalized with answers that were never quite given.  The Cronos device is a unique invention–might the film have worked a bit better if I could have known more about it?  The device is a unique presence in the film, and I have debated whether the scarce explanations of its powers helped or hurt the film.

I enjoyed watching the relationship between the grandfather and granddaughter–this sort of loving relationship was the last thing I expected in a vampire movie.  The granddaughter reacts to events around her, but she does not talk.  She becomes the grandfather’s unexpected helper, and plays this role throughout the film.  The grandfather continues to care for her (and of course has to protect her from harm in a few instances).  This relationship is well-developed in the film–and it comes across as natural, thanks to a few early scenes that establish their close relationship, and a few transitional scenes that show Aurora is not remotely afraid as her grandfather’s new condition takes hold.  There is still something slightly absurd about this loving relationship in the midst of this horror movie story, but I think that works for the benefit of the film.  It both gives the film heart and sets it apart from a more grisly vampire story.

The villains did not work as well for me.   The uncle and nephew team are introduced early on as the group seeking the device, later as people who might go to any lengths to recover it.  They are set up to be antagonists, but the film never allowed me to feel as great a connection to them.  Perhaps this also benefits the film (not all films can handle antagonists with which you can identify), but it could be a flaw in the writing.  Both are unlikable, but more quirky than villanous.  The uncle falls into the creepier side of this description–he keeps his tumors in jars, and generally speaks and acts like a traditional villain (he is not particularly nice or appreciative, and he does terrible things); the nephew is more of a comic character.  Most of his lines are in English (I wondered if this was significant), and he stumbles around after the device, never quite knowing what he is after, and his nose is broken on several occasions (it seems he already wants to alter it through plastic surgery, so imagine how much greater the insult becomes).  He is a bumbling villain that remains fun to watch throughout the film.  Both are larger than life personalities with lofty (if slightly unlikable) intentions, so they function well enough as villains.  Both perhaps seem distinctive as villains, but they seem a weaker element within the film.  Their motivations do not always work.  The uncle’s seem understandable enough–he is trying to prevent death through any means possible–but the nephew is a different story.  I might question his motivations as the film progresses towards the climax.  I can see why he agrees to go after the device, and I can understand why he reacted as he did in one scene before the climatic scene begins, but why follow through with the rest of his actions in the scene?  Did he have a great motivation, or is he simply required to do so because of his role as villain?  I think it is the latter.

The screenplay is the simplest I have seen so far from Guillermo del Toro (who later wrote the far more complex films,  The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth).  It mostly sets up its characters, puts its story in motion, and follows through with what has been started.  What really makes this film great is the content, not its writing–this is a unique vampire story full of macabre humor, bits of pathos (at least with the main character), and a wonderfully absurd take on a few elements of the conventions of the genre.  I might ordinarily have complained about its mostly flat villains, the simple structure of the film, and the fact that it builds up to an action-based climax, but the story impressed me enough to ignore these few complaints.  I am also unsure as to how many elements are there only for genre purposes (whose intentions del Toro seems intent on subverting in a few instances), or how many are simply a part of the film’s absurd humor.  It does not make sense to complain about something that may have been intentional.

I debated what score I should give this film.  I settled on 8, as the film’s story felt unique and its little world and characters seemed alive while I was watching it.  I was drawn to this film because I read about it in Roger Ebert’s Great Movies entry on Pan’s Labyrinth (where it is mentioned in the context of del Toro’s past works and New Mexican Cinema).  This particular article inspired me to track down the rest of del Toro’s major films, along with the films of Alfonso Cuaron (I have seen all but his very first film), and Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu (who is next on the list, whenever I get back to it).  I really don’t have the experience to greatly comment on the artistic merit of these films, but I can say I have enjoyed all that I have seen, and that Cronos definitely stands along with them.  It is a strange, unique film that somehow functions (you might think its strangeness would cause it to fall apart, but, instead, it is what makes the film distinctive, and keeps it moving).  This film might play well to serious horror movie fans (who want stories, rather than cheap thrills) or to those who love revisionist takes on old genres.  I imagine I fall into the latter group–I have never seen a film quite like this, and that is one of the main reasons I recommend it.

Ok so Sucker Punch is an obviously commercial action movie (although I don’t think it’s done very well at the box office). Let’s take other action movies. What’s coming out now? The Fast and the Furious 5, otherwise known as Fast Five? Is there any guy in that movie that doesn’t have a six-pack? Is there any guy in that movie that doesn’t show his six-pack? To be honest I haven’t seen it and I doubt I’m going to but c’mon. Are those men not objectified? Are you gonna tell me that Vin Diesel and Paul Walker have these amazing acting skills that I just didn’t notice?

Oh and btw any vampire or werewolf or superhero movie lately that doesn’t feature shirtless men? What am I saying lately… Any vampire movie or story or whatever that doesn’t feature Count Dracula that doesn’t have tons of shirtless basically sculpted men?

And one action movie that stars hot girls wearing tight clothes among all the action movies that star hot men wearing tight clothes and it’s misogynistic. Lovely. Has anyone thought it’s part of the medium?

30 DAYS OF NIGHT was one of my favorite horror movies from 2007, so when I heard about the sequel, I was happy. Now, I know sequels in general aren’t very good, but I figured, how bad could 30 DAYS OF NIGHT: DARK DAYS (2010) be?

Silly, silly me. It was very bad.

The movie begins where the original left off, as we see Eben Oleson dying in the arms of his wife Stella, as his vampire flesh burns into ash and floats away into the sunlight. 30 DAYS OF NIGHT: DARK DAYS continues the story of Stella, now played by Kiele Sanchez, taking over the role from Melissa George, who played her in the original.

Stella says in an opening voice-over reminiscent of Linda Hamilton in the TERMINATOR movies “I didn’t want a war,” but— you know, when the vampires just won’t go away, someone’s got to do something about it, and Stella sees herself as this person. She travels around the country giving speaking engagements, trying to convince people that vampires exist, so that the townspeople of her small Alaskan town who were all wiped out by vampires wouldn’t have died in vain. I kept thinking, however, who in their right mind would pay her to speak about the existence of vampires?

One of the best lines in the movie— come to think of it, it’s the only good line in the movie— takes place at one of these speaking engagements where Stella is trying to convince her audience that vampires are real. As she’s speaking, a guy stands up in the audience, playing the wise ass, and says, “Yep, I’m a vampire,” and the entire place breaks out in laughter.

I guess you had to be there.

Anyway, Stella is receiving messages from someone named Dane (Ben Cotton), and Dane informs her in a letter (what, no email or Facebook?) that the vampires are now in Los Angeles. Stella packs her things and heads to LA to confront the vampires. This is one of the weakest parts of the movie: the setting. One of the strengths of the original 30 DAYS OF NIGHT was that it took place in an isolated town in Alaska where the sun set for 30 days straight. It was a great gimmick, and really added to the suspense of the story. Here, the action takes place in sunny Los Angeles. It just doesn’t have the same effect. Why even call the movie 30 DAYS OF NIGHT: DARK DAYS? What dark days? They’re in LA. It’s sunny all the time!

Stella is particularly interested in this group of vampires because they are led by an evil queen vampire named Lilith (Mia Kirshner) who supposedly was responsible for the slaughter of her family and friends in Alaska, though this is news to me, since I don’t remember her at all in the original movie.

In Los Angeles, Stella meets a group of vampire hunters who have all suffered losses at the fangs—er, hands—of vampires, and like Stella, they are motivated by revenge and actively hunt down and destroy vampires. They also work for Dane, the mysterious person who’d been sending messages to Stella. They take Stella to Dane, and she discovers that he’s a vampire. Obviously, she tries to kill him, but the vampire hunters stop her because Dane is a good vampire. Yep, it seems that when he was bitten by a vampire, he only received a superficial wound and thus even though he became a vampire, he still has control of his mental faculties, which means he’s still a good guy. O—kaay. We’re starting to enter TWILIGHT territory here.

Anyway, Stella and the vampire hunters head off in pursuit of Lilith and her evil vampires, and what I found amazing about all this was how boring it all was. On paper, it doesn’t sound like that bad of a movie, but in reality, it was a disaster. The acting was blah, the script was poor, and the story put me to sleep.

I thought the dialogue was horrible. The screenplay was written by Steve Niles and Ben Ketai, who also directed. Niles wrote the screenplay for the original 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, which I find hard to believe. Not only was that one a superior movie in every way, but its story was much, much stronger, as was its dialogue. Here, the dialogue was full of clichés, and the characters were anything but memorable. The vampire hunters are all interchangeable, and nobody stands out. Dane is one of the most boring vampires around— he’d make a good friend for the TWILIGHT crew. Lilith is a weak villain, nowhere near as scary as Danny Huston’s vampire in the original, and Stella isn’t much of a heroine either.

Director Ketai, in spite of having strong source material at his fingertips, fails to create even one memorable scene in this one. The vampires do look scary running at humans, and there’s lots of shooting as our heroes are all heavily armed with big bad assault rifles, because bullets slow down vampires in this movie, but in spite of all the macho weaponry, few vampires are actually taken down. A simple crucifix and wooden stake would have been much more effective.

The acting was so-so. Kiele Sanchez looks good as Stella, but she didn’t really make me believe she was at war with the vampires. The vampire hunters were all forgettable. Rhys Coiro plays Paul who becomes a love interest for Stella, but they share absolutely no chemistry. One of the vampire hunters was played by Harold Perrineau who played Michael on the TV show LOST. Perrineau was much better on LOST.

And as Lilith, the evil queen vampire, Mia Kirshner fails to impress. She reminded me somewhat of the vampire girl in the wild and crazy vampire-space movie LIFEFORCE (1985), which if you haven’t seen you need to, just to see how wildly ambitious the film is—its story flies all over the place. Anyway, Lilith reminded me a little bit of that vampire woman, except Lilith keeps her clothes on, and the vampire woman in LIFEFORCE spends the majority of the movie walking around in the nude, and since she’s purdy good looking, it’s another reason to check out LIFEFORCE!

Unfortunately, this review is not about LIFEFORCE.

It’s about 30 DAYS OF NIGHT: DARK DAYS, an extremely weak vampire movie, and a terrible sequel to one of the best vampire movies ever, 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, and that’s a shame, because the original deserved a better follow-up. It’s no surprise that this sequel went directly to DVD.

If you really need a 30 DAYS OF NIGHT fix, read the comics instead.

—END—

© Copyright 2011 by Michael Arruda

IN THE SPOOKLIGHT: MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935)
By Michael Arruda

Made four years after DRACULA (1931), by the same director, Tod Browning, and with Bela Lugosi again cast as the vampire, MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935) appears at times to be DRACULA II.

But it’s not.

I wish it had been a genuine sequel to DRACULA.  But even more so, I wish it had been a genuine vampire movie.

Generally heralded by critics as a classic of the genre, MARK OF THE VAMPIRE, thanks to the talents of director Tod Browning, and a strong cast that included Lionel Barrymore, Bela Lugosi, and Lionel Atwill, is a well-made horror movie that does rival DRACULA.  However, its plot is largely disappointing.

You see, MARK OF THE VAMPIRE is a remake of the silent lost classic LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT (1927), also directed by Browning, starring Lon Chaney Sr., in which Chaney plays a police inspector [SPOILER ALERT!!!] who dons the disguise of a vampire in order to catch a criminal.  In short, although MARK OF THE VAMPIRE is so rich in atmosphere you can almost taste the bed of vampire earth on your tongue, the vampire elements in this movie are false.  This is almost as bad as playing the “it was just a dream” card, which is too bad, because MARK OF THE VAMPIRE is one of the best-looking vampire movies ever made.

Sir Karell Borotyn (Holmes Herbert) is murdered, apparently by a vampire, in a village where everyone believes in vampires and lives in mortal fear of them, or would that be immortal fear?  Anyway, Inspector Neumann (Lionel Atwill) calls in Professor Zelen (Lionel Barrymore) to help dispel the vampire rumors, but the professor only adds fuel to the fire because he believes in vampires too.

Things get worse for the Inspector and his efforts to prove that Borotyn was murdered by an ordinary human being when members of Borotyn’s household begin seeing the suspected village vampire Count Mora (Bela Lugosi) and his daughter Luna (Caroll Borland) lurking around the house.  Borotyn’s daughter Irena (Elizabeth Allan) and her fiancé are also attacked by a vampire, and suddenly the entire household is terrified.

Of course, it turns out that the vampires are really actors, and the entire scheme has been part of a ploy by Inspector Neumann to smoke out the real killer.  This plot point does not work for me at all.

Still, there is an awful lot to like about MARK OF THE VAMPIRE.  Director Browning seems to pick up right where he left off with DRACULA. The scenes in Count Mora’s castle are reminiscent of the scenes in Dracula’s castle, complete with spider webs and scurrying creatures and critters.  Lugosi looks terrific as Count Mora in a mostly mute role, as he gets to lurk around dark corners and windows, and Caroll Borland is even more vampiric as Mora’s daughter Luna.

Lionel Atwill, as he always does, turns in a solid, enjoyable performance as Inspector Neumann.  Sure, he became typecast over the years, playing police inspectors in several of the Universal monster movies, most memorably in SON OF FRANKENSTEIN (1939) but truth be told, nobody did it better than Atwill.

The lead went to Lionel Barrymore, today most remembered for his performance as the villainous Potter in Frank Capra’s Christmas classic, IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946), though his career spanned several decades.  He overacts here as Professor Zelen.  Edward Van Sloan is sorely missed!

The screenplay by Guy Endore and Bernard Schubert is very good and includes some memorable lines, but the real stars in this one are the atmospheric direction by Tod Browning, and the undead shenanigans of Bela Lugosi and Carol Borland.

With this one, they certainly left their mark, the MARK OF THE VAMPIRE!

—END—

© Copyright 2010 by Michael Arruda

Bela Lugosi and Carol Borland in MARK OF THE VAMPIRE

PART 3 (CONCLUSION)

(The Scene: Back at the Cinema Knife Fight studio.  MICHAEL ARRUDA & L.L. SOARES are seated across from each other on stools.  Behind them are movie stills featuring Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee as DRACULA, as well as photos of Count Chocula and The Count from SESAME STREET.)

MA:  Welcome back to Friday Night Knife Fights.  Tonight, L.L. and I will conclude our discussion of Bela Lugosi vs. Christopher Lee and decide which one is the ultimate movie Dracula.  Lugosi came out on top after our Round 1 discussion two weeks ago, and Lee won the second round last week, so tonight’s third and final round will decide the victor.

Time for the final question.  It’s actually several questions.

LS:  Make up your mind.

MA:  I can’t.  Anyway, here we go.  Which one is more iconic?  In other words, when people think of Dracula today, who do they picture: Lugosi or Lee?  And who do you think modern audiences prefer?

LS:  I really don’t know who people today picture when they think of Dracula. It may even be neither Lugosi or Lee, since there have been other versions since then, like Gary Oldman in Francis Ford Coppola’s take on the material: BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA (1992).

Gary Oldman caught in the act, in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

MA:  Come on!  You can’t seriously believe that anyone today would actually picture Gary Oldman as Dracula!  The guy looked like John Lennon!

LS:  Who knows what people think? What am I, a psychic? I only know what I think!

MA: I don’t think Lugosi and Lee have much competition, unless you include Count Chocula and The Count from SESAME STREET.

LS: So that’s why those photos are up. I just figured you had the mind of a child. Who knew you were going to make a point.

MA: Well, certainly not you, since you don’t know what other people are thinking!

LS:   And you do, I suppose?

MA:  I have a pretty good idea what you’re thinking right now, and I can’t say it out loud.

Anyway, people certainly aren’t going to picture Frank Langella, who played the role in the weak 1979 film version.  Who else as Dracula could they possibly imagine?

LS: Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen in the TWILIGHT movies? He’s not Dracula, but he’s certainly just as popular a vampire these days. (groans). And if he ever played Dracula, then I’m sure, for a whole generation, he’d be the definitive one. Imagine that, and be truly horrified.

But for me, Lugosi will always be my first choice. He may not have had a lot of roles that were as good as the original DRACULA (1931), but that is his shining moment, and the movie, as atmospheric and almost surreal as it is, will always be the real deal to me.

MA:  I would have to agree with you and say that Lugosi is more iconic, at least here in the United States, and that when people today think of Dracula, they most likely think of Lugosi.

The great LUGOSI, from Universal Studio's DRACULA (1931)

LS: And how do you know this? Did you take a survey?

MA:  I’m speaking in terms of Lugosi and Lee here.  If you ask someone to impersonate Dracula, chances are they’re going to do the Lugosi voice.  They’re not going to speak in a British accent like Christopher Lee.  That’s what I mean when I say that when people today think of Dracula, they most likely think of Lugosi.

It’s largely due in part to the influence of Universal Pictures.  They constantly re-package their old black and white monster movies, along with their merchandise, so that the images of the Universal monsters never seem to be out of the modern-day collective consciousness.  I think when people think of Dracula, they think of Lugosi, complete with his trademark accent.  I don’t think people today picture Christopher Lee, even though he starred in those seven Hammer DRACULA movies.

But even without Universal’s marketing department, I think people would still picture Lugosi as Dracula, which shows the power of Lugosi’s legacy.  Even after all these years, he remains in most people’s minds the definitive Dracula.

LS: I bet you there’s a whole generation who has no idea what we’re talking about, and they haven’t heard of Lugosi or Lee.

MA:  That’s why you and I write about these guys, so this doesn’t happen, so people don’t forget.  That’s why we need readers, readers, and more readers, so out there in horror movie land, if you like reading Cinema Knife Fight and this spin-off, Friday Night Knife Fights, tell your friends!  Okay, enough with the self-promotion.  Where was I?

Oh yeah.  I don’t know who modern audiences prefer.  At one time, I would have easily picked Lee as the fan favorite, but today I’m not so sure.

Christopher Lee, the star of seven DRACULA films from Hammer Films.

LS: Now you say you don’t know who modern audiences prefer? Make up your mind!!

MA: What?  Before, I said people think of Lugosi when they think of Dracula.  Now, I’ve moved on to the next question, which is, which actor do we think modern audiences prefer?  Having trouble keeping up or something?

LS:  I’m having trouble keeping up with the number of times you change your mind!

MA:  Whatever.

I have a story to share on this subject.  Several years ago, when I was teaching a movie class to eighth graders, at Halloween time I showed my classes both DRACULA and HORROR OF DRACULA (1958).  In the follow-up essays, I expected students to overwhelmingly pick HORROR OF DRACULA as their favorite film, but I was surprised that this wasn’t the case.  The majority of students went with the Lugosi version, citing Lugosi’s performance as the major reason why they liked it better.  And I think it was because Lugosi played Dracula the way the students expected Dracula to be played.

LS (snoring): Zzzzzzzzz

MA: Wake up! We’re having a debate here.

LS: Huh? Your “stories” always bore the hell out of me.

MA: I’m sorry.  I forgot you have the attention span of a gnat.

All right, we’ve reached the moment of truth.  Time for us to decide:  which one is the ultimate movie Dracula: Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee?

LS:  I hesitantly choose Lugosi. Not because I don’t feel he’s the ultimate movie Dracula—because I do— but because Lee is no slouch either. I really like Lee’s take on the character and in many ways it’s just as satisfying as Lugosi’s. But for me, Lugosi is the more iconic figure: the first (at least after the silent age) and the best.

MA:  I feel your pain. I went back and forth so many times with this, it almost made me dizzy.

So, who’s my pick for the ultimate movie Dracula, Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee?  This is such a difficult choice for me to make, and I’ve gone right down to the wire with my final decision.

LS:  Just spit it out already!

MA:  Okay, okay.

Without further hesitation, here it is:

As much as I like Christopher Lee as Dracula—and even though I think he is far scarier as Dracula—when it comes to the complete package, I can’t deny that Bela Lugosi is the ultimate movie Dracula.  For the most part, this opinion is based on the strength of Lugosi’s initial performance in DRACULA.  From the way he speaks, to his mannerisms, to his commanding presence, Lugosi is Dracula.

LS: Hell, Lugosi was even buried wearing one of the capes he wore in DRACULA. That’s dedication to a role.

MA: I love Lee as Dracula, but there’s no comparison to moments where Lugosi utters such lines as, “Listen to them, the children of the night, what music they make.”  “To die, to be really dead, that must be glorious.”  “There are far worse things, Miss Mina, awaiting man, than death.”

Bela Lugosi is the ultimate movie Dracula.

So, there you have it.  The decision is unanimous, but boy was it close!

LS: (laughs) Yeah, I’m sure everyone was sitting on the edges of their seats.

MA: That was quite the bout.  I need a drink of water.

LS:  I need a drink of blood!

MA:  Well, don’t look at me.

LS (groans):  I’ll settle for a beer.

MA:  That sounds better.  Anyway, it’s been fun.

LS: Yes it has.

MA (addresses audience) :  Thanks for joining us tonight.  We had a good time, and we hope you did too.

LS:  And don’t forget to join us every weekday for new content about your favorite movies, new and old, right here at CinemaKnifeFight.com!

MA:  This has been FRIDAY NIGHT KNIFE FIGHTS.  Good night everybody!

—-END—

© Copyright 2011 by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

(The Scene: The Cinema Knife Fight studio.  MICHAEL ARRUDA & L.L. SOARES are seated across from each other on stools.  Behind them are movie stills featuring Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee as Dracula, as well as photos of Count Chocula and The Count from Sesame Street.)

MA:  Welcome back to Friday Night Knife Fights, as L.L. and I continue our discussion of which actor, Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee, was the ultimate movie Dracula.  So far, we looked at their initial film performances as Dracula.  I thought Lugosi was slightly better than Lee.

LS:  And I thought the same thing, though as I said last time, it was a tough decision because Lee’s no slouch, and both of their initial performances were terrific.

MA:  Okay, time for the next question.

Of the two, who fared best in the sequels?  I’ll get us started by answering my own question.

I would have to say that Lee fared better in the sequels, if only because he actually appeared in sequels.  Lugosi only played Dracula in the movies twice, and the second time was in the comedy ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948).  He played a vampire in MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935) and RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE (1944), and while his performances in all of these movies were topnotch, I still give the edge to Lee, since he was actually playing Dracula in his movies.

Plus, thanks to Hammer Films’ interest in the character— and Hammer was interested in Dracula because the Christopher Lee Dracula movies consistently made the most money for the studio—Lee got to play Dracula in six sequels after HORROR OF DRACULA (1958).

Though it’s not a sequel, Lee also played Dracula in the non-Hammer movie COUNT DRACULA (1970), directed by Jess Franco, as well.

So, by sheer numbers alone, I give the edge to Lee.

Christopher Lee portrayed Dracula as a more animalistic, savage creature.

LS:  Unlike the Frankenstein monster and Mummy franchises (and later the Wolfman), Universal didn’t make any more Dracula movies (they did however, make a sequel to the original Dracula in 1936, called DRACULA’S DAUGHTER, but Lugosi is nowhere to be found except in a brief scene at the beginning, where his daughter burns his corpse).

MA:  Don’t forget SON OF DRACULA (1943) starring Lon Chaney Jr. as Count Alucard….

LS: Yeah, that’s a funny one. Count “Alucard.” It’s Dracula spelled backwards. What a clever ruse (laughs)

MA: And of course there was both HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1944) and HOUSE OF DRACULA (1945), in which John Carradine played Dracula, so Universal did in fact make more Dracula movies.

LS:  You’re right about SON OF DRACULA. It’s like Lon Chaney Jr. played every monster in the Universal cannon to see which ones he could turn into a franchise (the answers: Larry Talbot and Kharis the Mummy). As for the HOUSE movies, I always considered them almost a subgenre in themselves, since they were more concerned in packing in as many monsters as they could, rather than focusing on just one.

Besides, we’re talking about Lugosi here, and they didn’t make any more Dracula movies starring Bela, except as you said, ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, and with the exception of DRACULA’S DAUGHTER, none of these other Universal Dracula movies were direct sequels to the Lugosi original.

So, the only other time Lugosi was able to play his most famous role again was in ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, which is partly why that comedy is such a revered classic.

Lugosi’s other vampire roles tended to be disappointing. MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (a remake of Lon Chaney Sr.’s silent classic LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT from 1927) is okay, but in the end the vampires are really actors in disguise, which is always a big letdown.

MA:  It’s a REALLY big letdown.  I don’t like that part of MARK OF THE VAMPIRE at all.  It nearly ruins the movie.

Bela Lugosi portrayed Dracula on stage, as well as playing the role in the 1931 film version.

LS: Let’s face it. It’s not a great movie.

MA: Lugosi’s not in MARK OF THE VAMPIRE all that much, but when he’s in it, he’s good.  His performance here actually reminds me a little bit of Christopher Lee, since Lugosi doesn’t talk much in this one and actually gets to run around a bit, appear menacingly outside windows, and generally look scary.  But Lee does “scary” better.

LS: RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE (1944) is better, and features a werewolf in it, too, but never again did Lugosi reach the greatness he achieved in the original DRACULA, mostly because the scripts in his other movies just aren’t up to par.

MA:  Yeah, I agree, although I like RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE a lot.  Lugosi speaks lots of dialogue in this one, and he’s close to his earlier form as DRACULA, though not quite.

LS: You can’t really compare the two films. The original DRACULA was a work of art. RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE was a fun B-movie. It’s like comparing apples to oranges. Lugosi is okay in RETURN, but it’s nowhere close to his performance in the original DRACULA.

MA:  I don’t know about that.  I think Lugosi is almost if not just as good in RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE as he is in DRACULA, but you’re right about not being able to compare the two movies.  DRACULA is a much better movie than RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE, but I really enjoy Lugosi in both of them.

LS:  As for Lee, his Dracula sequels are much more satisfying. They’re not all great, but at least they have a level of quality that Lugosi’s other vampire roles did not.  So, I go with Lee in terms of who fared better in the sequels.

MA:  We’re in agreement then.  Must be a full moon or something.  Moving right along.

Next question:  who’s scarier as Dracula?  Lugosi or Lee?

LS:  Since Lee played Dracula as a much more menacing, animalistic creature, I think his version is scarier, hands down. Although Lugosi was really good at showing the duality of his character, at times charming and, at other times, almost as menacing as Lee.

MA:  I’ve always thought that Lee was way scarier than Lugosi as Dracula, but I don’t think the margin is quite as wide as I used to believe.

Lee, with his athleticism and quick cat-like movements, made for a very violent and brutal Dracula.

Lugosi, on the other hand, possessed none of the action-oriented characteristics which Lee so masterfully displayed.  Lugosi brought his Dracula to life strictly through the strength of his acting, and the fear instilled by his Dracula is much more subtle and hypnotic.

We fear Lugosi’s Dracula will cast a spell on us, put us in a trance to do his bidding, or hypnotize us into inaction while he creeps up to our bed and drinks our blood.  We fear Lee’s Dracula will leap over a table, grab us by the arm, pin us down and bite us violently on the neck, blood dripping to the floor as he drinks his fill.

They’re both scary, and while neither Lee nor Lugosi ever gave me nightmares as Dracula, if I had to pick one, I’d go with Lee.  His in-your-face style is scarier.

Okay, of the two’s various portrayals of vampires, which one has delivered the weakest performance?  And why?

LS: After the triumph of DRACULA (a role he first performed on stage), Lugosi’s career gradually went downhill. There are a few highlights, like the first two movies he made where he “teamed up” with Boris Karloff – THE BLACK CAT (1934) and THE RAVEN (1935).

MA:  I love THE BLACK CAT and THE RAVEN.

LS:  But by the late 1930s and the 40s, his career was in a bad way.

MA:  What?  You didn’t like PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE? (laughs).

LS:  The scripts just weren’t very good, horror was slowly dying out as a popular genre due to the real horrors of WWII, (although horror would be revived in the 1950s by Hammer Studios, ironically enough). It also didn’t help that Lugosi had a thick accent that made it difficult for him to avoid being typecast as foreign villains. The opportunities just weren’t there for him to have a more respectable acting career.

Lee, despite a few weak scripts, was able to maintain the quality of his vampire performances throughout his run as Dracula, and was always very effective in the role. I think he had a better time of it playing the character.

MA:  When I asked the question, I was only thinking of their performances as Dracula, or as a vampire.  I know Lugosi made a lot of notoriously awful movies, but in terms of vampire performances, do you still think Lugosi delivered the weaker performance?

LS: My answer covered all his movies, even his vampire ones. Besides, we already talked about his other vampire movies in depth. Do we really need to talk about them again?

MA: I’m just saying I asked about his vampire performances, that’s all.  Okay, good enough.  My turn to answer.

Lugosi only played Dracula once more in the movies, and to his credit, his performance as the Count in the comedy ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN doesn’t miss a beat.  He plays it straight, letting Bud Abbott and Lou Costello get the laughs.  And as we already discussed, he also delivers a fine performance in RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE and MARK OF THE VAMPIRE.

The odds are against Lee, since he played Dracula more—seven times for Hammer Films!  I don’t think Lee ever gave a weak performance as Dracula, but there were moments where he wasn’t as effective.

For example, in DRACULA-PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1966), a film I happen to like, I’ve always found Lee’s performance here a bit off, compared to his other Dracula portrayals.  His Dracula seems uncharacteristically weaker here.  One scene in particular, where Dracula battles the hero Charles in Castle Dracula, and Charles forms a cross with swords to fend off Dracula, Dracula’s response is very un-Lee like.  He jumps away in fright.

It’s also the only Hammer Dracula where Lee doesn’t speak any lines, so this doesn’t help his case.

Lee’s performance in SCARS OF DRACULA (1970) is also different, although I don’t think I’d go so far as to categorize it as weak, but it does take some getting used to.   Gone is the leaping and running around, as in this film, you never see Dracula enter or exit a room.  He’s simply there one moment, gone the next, or a character’s alone in a room, and suddenly Dracula is there with him.  I didn’t like this at first, but this and other parts of Lee’s performance have grown on me over the years.  He also is extremely violent in SCARS (which is why it’s called SCARS OF DRACULA, I guess) as he whips, burns, and stabs his victims.  Like I said, it’s not really a weaker performance, but it takes some getting used to.

LS: I love SCARS OF DRACULA. It’s one of my favorites of the series.

MA: You can make the case that his performances in the last two films in the series, DRACULA A.D. 1972 and THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA (1973) aren’t so hot, but these two films which take place in the 1970s have more problems than Christopher Lee.  Still, in DRACULA AD 1972, he seems out of place and doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself.  Plus Lee’s performance here is hammier than usual.  He’s almost a caricature of himself.

LS: He’s supposed to seem out of place in DRACULA A.D. 1972. He is an ancient aristocrat who suddenly finds himself in the world of 1972, complete with drug-taking hippies! Talk about culture shock!

MA: So, as to which one of the two delivered the weakest performance, I’d go with Lee for these moments, in DRACULA – PRINCE OF DARKNESS, and DRACULA A.D. 1972 especially.

LS: I don’t think that’s fair. I like both of those.

MA: Well, it looks as if Round 2 of our Friday Night Knife Fight has gone to Christopher Lee, and since last week’s Round 1 went to Bela Lugosi, it looks like it will come down to our final segment before we have a winner.

So don’t forget to join us next Friday for the final segment of this month’s Friday Night Knife Fight where we’ll decide once and for all which one of these two actors is the ultimate movie DRACULA.  See you then!

—END PART 2—

© Copyright 2011 by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

Valentine’s Day is Feb. 14, and when the Disc Dish editors got together to decide how we should celebrate, we thought why should the romance be just one day? Why not 14 ? And who says love stories should get all the glory? Love can be found in every movie genre.

No matter whether you’re a fan of horror, thriller, action, comedy, classic or adventure, we’ve got a category for you.

So, starting tomorrow, check this page each day until Feb. 14 for the best in romance in all genres.

Every day, we’ll reveal a new genre and list its best romance movies, chosen by the Disc Dish experts. Come Valentine’s Day, you’ll have plenty of ideas for dinner and a movie, or at least a movie.

Now, check out our list of Most Romantic… http://www.discdish.com/index.php/2011/01/31/top-movies-14-days-of-romance/

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Let Me In
Directed by: Matt Reeves
Written by: Matt Reeves (screenplay), John Ajvide Lindqvist (book)
Starring: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloe Moretz, Richard Jenkins, and Elias Koteas

Cinema purists (this one included) were dreading the inevitable day they would have to sit through an American remake to the beloved Swedish film Let the Right One In. It was the vampire movie that didn’t suck, and we’d be damned if Hollywood was going to take that away from us with a big budget redo with A-list stars. Some watchers would never let this one in; never consider the possibility that it could be good.  They’d be missing out.

As it turns out, Let Me In is a surprisingly competent remake of the excellent Swedish version.  Like so many other films, this one originated in literature, though the films are more widely known.  Matt Reeves, known mostly for Cloverfield, takes the story from Sweden to Reagan-era New Mexico.  A seemingly odd choice, but setting it in a desert during winter effectively recreates the barren Swedish landscape so vital to the mood of the original.

Despite the shaky camera you might expect from the guy behind Cloverfield, Let Me In is a beautifully shot film.  We follow Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee), a grade school kid from a divorced family.  He gets brutally bullied at school and always appears on edge.  Smit-McPhee is a gifted child actor, able to convey raw emotion without resorting to the usual screams and hollers.

When the new neighbor, Abby (Chloe Moretz), moves in next door with what appears to be her father (Richard Jenkins), Owen spies on them like he does the others in his apartment block.  It’s not until he’s quietly humming to himself in the courtyard that Abby appears behind him, and an unlikely friendship forms between them.  This earnest, aching friendship also translates well.  Moretz may not be as effective Lina Leandersson’s tormented vampire, but she’s still a young actress to watch.

Adding in more unneeded expletives and more special effects were the biggest drawbacks to this version.  It’s not necessary for a grade school bully to spout profanity to show his brutality; maybe that’s just in Sweden, though.

The special effects used to make Abby a quick-moving killer add kinetic intensity.  However, giving her a Batman-esque deep voice when she’s angry kind of takes away from the mystery and overall effect of her character.

All of this being said, the blood splatter is still made into a thing of beauty when she springs for the kill.  The haunting look on her face when she enters Owen’s apartment without permission resonates, as does the shot where she comes up behind him covered in blood and lovingly embraces him.

Reeves is at his best when he doesn’t copy shot sequences from the original, which thankfully is most of the time.  There’s a brilliantly done sequence in which Abby’s guardian/servant goes out to collect her blood.  Laying in the backseat of a car he broke into with a garbage bag masking his face, he waits for the kill.  It all seems to be going according to plan, until another person gets into the car.  Reeves brings a level of unnerving suspense.  When the killer finally makes his move, the camera stays inside the car as he makes an attempted getaway.  This sequences recalls Hitchcock as much as it does Children of Men.

Keeping this story simple was key to its success, allowing the complicated emotions to flow out of the story and collect like a pool of blood.  Burgeoning sexuality, gender identity, and the complications that arise simply by being different are handled so seamlessly by this story that you’ll be surprised how something so straight-forward can make you think.  No matter what language it’s told in, the message resonates.

Grade: B

The Un-Dead Genre: From affliction to addiction.

The vampire film has long been a staple for dedicated fans of the genre, but over the past decade there has been a notable resurgence in the number of ‘fangs and fear’ movies being released, both in mainstream cinema and on the independent circuit, as well as on television.

The earliest cinematic vampires were supernatural monsters. Landmark feature Nosferatu (1922), a German outing for Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, portrayed the vampire as demonic, shadowy and particularly creepy in an unlicensed version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (which was ultimately sued by Stoker’s estate and not seen again until 1994 when surviving prints were restored). In 1931, Bela Lugosi starred as Count Dracula for the first time in Universal’s Dracula, a portrayal of the vampire that struck a nerve so profound in its masochistic audience that it spawned a successful sub-genre of Dracula movies, all released by the same studio. This seminal vampire film also etched into our minds the image of the evil being dressed in a black cloak, floating through shadows, hissing and baring fangs before draining his victims of blood and innocence.

Fast-forward to contemporary cinema and the mythical vampire now takes many different shapes, as it has become an iconic figure representing the ills, fears and taboos of modern society.

Before breathing new life into rich fantasyland creatures in Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), mutant insects in Mimic (1997), comic book heroes and creatures in Hellboy (2004) and gun-wielding vampires in Blade II (2002), Guillermo Del Toro first explored the world of the vampire in Cronos (1993). He explained in an interview published in Contemporary Mexican Cinema (James Wood, 2006) that his feature film debut was “a story in which a young girl gives her grandfather a vampire as a pet”. Mixing a refreshing, yet uniquely surreal take on the genre with an allegory about US/Mexican relations, Cronos also delves into themes of mortality and addiction. Antique dealer Jesús Gris (‘Grey Jesus’, played by Federico Luppi) discovers an ancient mechanical beetle, while looking after his granddaughter. Unbeknownst to him, the device holds prisoner a real immortal beetle inside its casing that, in return for the host’s blood, will grant eternal life.

By the time Angel (Ron Perlman) – the American nephew of a Howard Hughes-style recluse greedy for immortality – pays Jesús a visit, the beetle has already captured its host, like a dealer snagging a new addict, “The only true mortal character in the film is the daughter, who does not care about time and is immune to the concept of death”. As the beetle draws blood and gives life, Jesús finds himself addicted to blood himself and degrades in front of our very eyes, losing the life he once loved for a longing that is never fulfilled, “By the same token I wanted to show a vampiric chain that went all the way to the insect locked in within the device. It is locked there like a living filter and is at the same time the master and the slave”.

With Cronos, Del Toro paints the vampire as sufferer as well as killer: “that’s the ultimate vampire and the ultimate victim”. The vampire in his world is not only an addict to immortality, power and hunger; he is also a reluctant figure of sadness, loss and loneliness. This portrayal is mirrored in many modern vampire movies, separating them from the classic evil monster that is out to seduce and suck young virgins dry of their blood, waging war on all that is good and pure.

It’s an increasingly common depiction in the modern vampire movie: the blood addict as our lead protagonist and not just a supernatural villain. The nightwalker is the suffering anti-hero, a tragic figure on a downward spiral unable to resist his/her urges and becoming a prisoner in their own cell.

Tomas Alfredson’s Let The Right One In (2008), is the perfect example. Essentially a tragic romance, once again the vampire, Eli, is a victim of her own affliction. It also touches on issues such as bullying, drugs, theft and murder, with the loss of innocence powerfully depicted through the child characters. Eli feeds off others both literally and metaphorically, yet she offers Oskar a new life – and without demanding a price paid in blood.

In the hugely influential Kathryn Bigelow movie, Near Dark (1987), Adrian Pasdar plays Caleb, an everyman who is seduced by a strange girl, Mae (Jenny Wright). Disguised as a love bite, Mae nips Caleb’s neck and then runs off, leaving him descending into shivers and sweats over the next 24 hours. His symptoms are that of a drug addict but, without understanding the cause, Caleb is left to die until Mae and her band of night-walkers return to welcome him into the fold. Realising his fate, Caleb reluctantly joins the blood-feeding activities of the group but refuses to kill, opting instead to survive off Mae’s blood until he is forced to decide between his real family and his new friends.

Near Dark represented a new slant on the vampire genre, a take that presented vampires forced by their urges to carry out deviant acts, shun their families, living just to get their fix. It has influenced countless movies since, inspiring an influx of creative talent and a rise in the number of movies being made. Vampire films became a platform to explore a tragic disease (this in the midst of an AIDS epidemic), grounded in bleak reality of modern society.

Even mainstream affairs like the Blade franchise, with its extremes of action, plot and character, the lead hero is a reluctant vampire carrying the weight of dependency and the desire for redemption on his broad shoulders.

More recently, Twilight (2008), directed by Catherine Hardwicke, has taken the young demographic by storm, exploring the world of the vampire through rose-tinted teenage sunglasses. Even with its tween romance, the film touches on the sexual frustration that accompanies adolescence. Adapted from novel by Stephanie Meyer, Twilight contrasts human frailties with an almost glamorous view of the darker supernatural side of vampirism, identifying that mysterious, sinister quality that defines the vampire dynamic and the danger that attracts us. But all the while Edward (Robert Pattinson) is vulnerable and misunderstood. The dilemmas explored tap into that now-familiar portrayal of the vampire as sufferer, laden with guilt and primal urges that he/she struggles to fight.

Which brings us to Night Junkies (2007), a small indie feature focusing on Vincent, a lonely reclusive figure who, having been ‘turned’ by a lady of the night, spends his time feeding his new addiction like a junkie prowling the streets for a score. He is good-hearted despite the affliction, and falls in love with a stripper named Ruby (Katia Winter), who runs away from the safety of the club where she works (there is a Jack-the-Ripper-style killer wandering the streets) in a bid to escape the ruthless owner’s attempts to push her into ‘the game’ and his psychotic right-hand-man’s obsessive advances. After a night of passion, Vincent is unable to resist his need for blood and feeds off Ruby. However, without killing her, he has turned her into an addict as well and, when Ruby’s body is crying out for something she cannot understand, she returns to the source.

Vincent and Ruby fall further in love, bonding over their loneliness and questions of morality. When Ruby refuses to live the life of a junkie and decides to go cold turkey on the blood, Vincent kills the lecherous Maxi as the couple attempt to make a new life. Maxi’s right-hand-man (never named) tracks them down, leading to a bloody finale where he is revealed to be the vampire serial killer on the streets and Ruby gives her life to allow an injured Vincent to feed one last time and save his own.

It is a tragic love story, doomed from the beginning, filled with characters that are all missing something – every character is ‘feeding’ off someone else and, similar in intention to Del Toro’s Cronos, I wanted to show a “vampiric chain” running through all the characters.

The reason behind making a modern vampire movie is to explore how, as a society, we are all vampires to some extent, and the more destructive ones are merely the ones we let in the most. Indeed, in Let The Right One In, the title refers to vampire lore, which states that the vampire can only enter your house if you invite him in, placing a portion of blame on the victims themselves.

In Night Junkies, the only character who refuses to become a parasite is Ruby, who insists on fighting her addiction. Vincent, while a sympathetic and well-meaning character who lives by his own skewed moral code when picking his victims, still feeds off the blood of others. Maxi feeds off his strip club, where the money flows like blood through his veins, and the girls being coerced into giving themselves up for the clients are his victims. Even before the right-hand man is clearly parasitic in his obsessive love for Ruby as he leers over her in a dressing room, begging threateningly for her to love him and only him.

Spending most of its time at the eye level of these characters, the film also views the bigger picture; accusing the drug industry and the illegal sex trade of also being vampiric, sucking the life out of all involved. Here, the pusher is both master and slave to the addict, much like the beetle in Cronos is master and slave to Jesús.

This reflection of society is perhaps the source of the recent resurgence in the number of vampire movies, from mainstream to indie, and television dramas, in recent years. The vampire movie once a mirror to our fear of the supernatural and religious deviance but, as religion has waned in its influence over our entertainment consumption, so the genre has had to evolve. The vampire movie was also a source of exploring sexual repression but, as we are becoming more and more liberal sexually, this has also waned as a theme in the genre.

Now, the relevance the vampire movie has for us as an audience is to hold up a mirror to society’s parasitical nature, forcing us to see and understand how, in every level of our world, we ‘feed’ off others in one form or another. And yet, by offering redemption to these dark characters that fill the modern vampire film, the audience – and society in general – is offered the same redemption. As long as we are able to look at ourselves in this unveiled way, the vampire genre will continue to thrive.

This Just In!!…

#1- “The Weekend Winner.” The final weekend of January brought chills to many moviegoers as Sir Anthony Hopkins’ The Rite took first place in the box office. As stated before, January traditionally doesn’t bring the greatest blockbuster movies to the big screen since the big focus in Hollywood is awards. March is the month to wait for!

In other box office news, True Grit and Little Fockers both released 6 weeks ago and battled for 1st place 3 weeks in a row. Currently, between the two, True Grit holds top spot at $148 million and Little Fockers at $144 million after 6 weeks! Hooray True Grit! Anyways…here are the numbers from the weekend. What movie did you see?

1. The Rite ~$14.7 million
2. No Strings Attached ~$13.4 million
3. The Mechanic ~$11.4 million
4. The Green Hornet ~$11.2 million
5. The King’s Speech ~$11.1 million
6. True Grit ~$7.5 million
7. The Dilemma ~$5.7 million
8. Black Swan ~$5.1 million
9. The Fighter ~$4.0million
10. Yogi Bear ~$3.2 million

I don’t know what possessed so many more people to see The Rite this weekend!

#2- “No Longer A World Without A Superman!” After several weeks of wondering: 1-will a new Superman movie finally be made?, 2-who would direct it?, and 3-who would play as Superman? we finally get some answers. Well, the first two questions were answered on Movie News Monday several weeks ago (1-Yes, and 2-Zack Snyder with Christopher Nolan producing). BUT, question #3 (Who would play as Superman?) has finally been answered.

Today is Kal-el Day! Congratulations to Henry Cavill who will be donning the blue and red as the Man of Steel. Cavill, known for his work in The Count of Monte Cristo and The Tudors, actually auditioned for the part when casting for Superman Returns was still open, but director Bryan Singer chose Brandon Routh instead. This time he made it!
Superman, I’m sure, he can pull off, but I will be interested in seeing how well he does Clark Kent. Also, I just recently learned that Matthew Goode (Ozymandias in Watchmen) was the runner-up to be chosen for the Last Son of Krypton! Had no idea he was even being considered!
Congratulations to Henry Cavill. It will be interesting seeing a British actor as the one who fights for ”Truth, Justice, and the American Way.”

#3- “Bardem: Bond’s Baddie??” More news surrounding the new Bond 23 flick in the works! After learning that Judi Dench will be reprising her role as M, news hit the web that Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men, Biutiful) has been offered a role in the film. His part is currently unknown, but widely rumored to be the villain, which would make sense seeing how he won an oscar for his role in No Country for Old Men.

#4- “Prometheus Possibilities.” Earlier this month it was announced that Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel would NOT be an Alien prequel, but instead was a movie entitled Prometheus. Scott was quoted as saying that the film had evolved beyond the original concept into a “new, grand mythology and universe.” This news disappointed many Aliens fans. Well, fear not. It has now been reported that Prometheus will apparently have ties with the Alien franchise and that the aliens themselves will be shown in the film. Here’s a quote as reported by reelzchannel from an exclusive source to Sky.

“They’ve built the ‘space jockey’ cockpit at Pinewood as seen in the original Alien film, so it definitely takes place in the same world as Alien. Despite that press release that seemed to indicate there were no aliens in the movie, the familiar HR Giger-style aliens do appear. Big ones apparently.”

We shall see. Prometheus, starring Michael Fassbender and Noomi Rapace, is set for a March 2012 release.

#5- “Blu-ray release for Tuesday, February 1, 2011.” Let Me In…a remake of the Swedish film Let The Right One In…tells the story of a young boy, alone, who befriends a girl with an unusual secret. The bond that they share after he lets her into his life is very unique. I enjoyed this darker tale and can’t wait to check it out again. Returning to more original lore of vampires, Let Me In will keep your interest without the need for sunglasses from the glitterized bodies of vampires from recent “would-be” vampire movies. (Hint-hint…Twilight!) haha! Click HERE for my review on Let Me In.

Well, that’s it for this round of “Movie News Monday!” Thanks for reading! Happy Watching!

-TheScarletSp1der

up next: “Time to Vote Tuesday” (be sure to vote on last week’s poll HERE! It closes tonight!) and the review for 127 Hours.

BTW: The site JUST passed 10,000 all time views!!! Thank you to all of you who stop by!

Let Me In (on DVD February 1): If you’re a fan of Twilight, beware– here is a movie about vampire love that contains actual thrills, characters with dimension, and an intelligent handling of unnerving material. There are no smoldering hunks and gratuitous dialogue where characters explain all their feelings. Instead, good young actors let us observe their behavior and put the puzzle pieces together ourselves. Let Me In is a remake of the Swedish film Let The Right One In, a movie only two years old thus rendering a remake unnecessary. Still, we should be thankful someone deemed it a worthy venture– Let Me In improves on the original (which is also very good) in several ways, focusing the plot more on the main two characters and changing a couple of instances to make them less far-fetched. Beautifully directed by Matt Reeves and scored by Michael Giacchino, Let Me In is a moody, intense, and ultimately truthful coming-of-age tale and vampire film.

Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) doesn’t have a great life. His dad has moved out, and his mother (Cara Buono) lays around and cries all day. At school, he’s threatened and beaten up constantly by Kenny (Dylan Minnette), a particularly psychotic bully. Next door, a young girl (Chloe Moretz) and her father (Richard Jenkins) move in. The girl is Abby, who has a propensity for walking in the snow barefoot and who immediately tells Owen she can’t be his friend. But they grow fond of one another– even as we see that Abby is a vampire and the old man is killing people to feed her. The relationship between Owen and Abby feels strange yet realistic: this is how kids of this age interact. Smit-McPhee is outstanding as Owen, managing a depth of expression that the star of the Swedish one never possessed. Jenkins also makes you care about the old man, as he’s the one putting his safety on the line trying to kill for Abby. I won’t detail the changes from the original (this review would be paragraphs longer), but I liked all of them– in particular, a car crash sequence stunningly shot from the inside of the car. Director Matt Reeves does a brilliant job taking the shots that work and creating bold new ones, weaving them together seamlessly. While it may have a sense of deja vu to fans of the first, it’s still absolutely worth seeing: it’s as strong a loyal remake has ever been.

Un Prophete (on Netflix Instant Watch now): If you liked The Godfather and Goodfellas, you should have seen Un Prophete already. You may think I’m creating unrealistic expectations by comparing this film to the two best crime dramas of all time. I think I’m giving you just the right amount of expectation– Un Prophete is one of the best films about gangsters I’ve ever seen. We meet Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim), a 19-year-old Arab man sent to a French prison after being in juvenile detention most of his teenage years– he has no friends, no family, no money. A Corsican mafia don named Cesar Luciani (Niels Arestrup) forces him to befriend and then kill a Muslim man who he can’t get close to. The series of scenes in which Malik prepares to go through with this and then enters the man’s room to kill him are some of the best chunks of film of the year, without question. I won’t spoil what happens, but it’s not what you expect– nothing in this movie happens as expected.

Needless to say, he meets a bunch of seedy characters, creates connections, and starts making moves outside of the prison. The entire film takes place while Malik is serving his six-year sentence, and the change we see in Malik from beginning to end is breath-taking to behold. Tahar Rahim gets our sympathy in the first half hour, and then as he grows and makes some questionable decisions, we’re still “rooting” for him– as much as you can root for a cold-blooded killer and drug dealer. The movie takes over two and a half hours to unfold, and every frame is vital: this is an epic film, examining the changes in characters, the crime world in France, the race relations in France, the prison system in France, how prison changes a man, and the ideals that a man with work ethic can control his own destiny in this world. Rahim and Arestrup in particular give unforgettable performances– their relationship can’t be easily defined by Hollywood convention. Several scenes in this movie are instant classics: Malik’s first crime, Malik’s first flight on a plane, Malik’s first gang-style execution. The whole film is essentially an instant classic. If crime dramas are your bag, I have a prophecy for you: Un Prophete may be your favorite film of 2010.

Terribly Happy (on Netflix Instant Watch now): If the Coen Brothers had been Danish, they would be Henrik Ruben Genz, director of Terribly Happy. It’s a movie about crime, greed, and how we pay for our bad decisions, but it’s told with a crisp visual style and a wry sense of humor. If you mixed The Coens’ Blood Simple and Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz, you’d get a sense of what to expect from Terribly Happy. No, it’s not quite as good as the aforementioned films, but it gets close. It’s a darkly funny, often thrilling, and always entertaining movie. We follow Robert (Jakob Cedergren), a cop who had a nervous breakdown in the city so he gets sent to be the sheriff of a small rural town. Of course, we realize quickly that things aren’t as they seem here, and early on he meets Ingerlise (Lena Maria Christensen), wife of Jorgen (Kim Bodnia), who constantly beats her and threatens people across the city. Jorgen’s power in the town makes him a problem that can’t be easily solved.

The movie is masterfully shot– individual images continue to pop out in my mind after the film is over. Certain scenes seem lifted from classic Hitchcock. Example: a key character stepping on a rug, making the blood underneath slowly seep through, as we wonder whether the character on the blood will notice. Another scene in which a character has fallen asleep on the staircase and another character must pass him without waking him– these scenes are beautifully paced, providing the maximum amount of suspense. Yet the movie never moves solely into the realm of thriller. Just as the Coens provide a certain detachment in their style, Terribly Happy gets some dark laughter out of certain visuals and montages. Cedergren is an attractive and compelling lead, and watching him unravel trying to figure out what’s wrong with this town is a real delight. Terribly Happy is the type of movie that most people have never heard of– it never got a big release in America (its widest release was 9 screens at once), and there’s not exactly a huge market for contemporary Danish cinema. This is a movie that easily crosses over into American sensibilities and tastes, and anyone who’s ever enjoyed a Coen Brothers movie (which should be everyone) would be… well, terribly happy with this flick.

This film is considered a vampire film and since the vampires don’t show up until halfway through the film-I guess it is. The first half of the film we follow brothers who are on the run with hostages until they entered a bar full of vampires. I enjoyed the first half of the film although I kept wondering where the vampires were. Even the vampire chaos storyline was entertaining. Would I watch it again? Maybe.

Here’s an odd one.

You may not know it, but way before David Chase created THE SOPRANOS for HBO, he had his early roots in the horror genre. During the one and only season of KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER (1974-1975), Chase wrote teleplays for eight episodes (!), and was a story consultant for the show, which just might be my favorite horror television series ever. In 1974, he also wrote the screenplay for a little movie called GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE, which a lot of people might not know about.

GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE is a strange tale indeed. In this one, a couple of college kids parked in a graveyard and making out in the back seat of a car are attacked by a vicious vampire named Caleb Croft (Michael Pataki). Croft breaks the guy’s back over a tombstone and drinks his blood, then he grabs the girl and throws her into an open grave, where he proceeds to rape her. Interrupted during his wave of violence, the vampire flees the scene, but not before impregnating his unfortunate victim.

Soon afterwards, we see his victim singing to her baby, who won’t drink mama’s milk. She accidentally cuts herself and the baby gets pretty damn thirsty all of a sudden when some blood drops fall on his lips, so she starts filling baby bottles with her blood.

This bloodthirsty little boy grows up to become James Eastman (William Smith, who exudes cool here), a man who knows the truth about his conception, and who has made it his personal mission to hunt down and kill Caleb Croft. His hunt takes him to a college where Croft, now called Professor Lockwood, is teaching a night class on superstition and creatures of the night. The class is full to bursting (Lockwood has to turn some students away because there aren’t enough seats).

As the movie moves towards its eventual showdown, a couple of women get in the way – roommates Anne Arthur (Lyne Peters) and Anita Jacoby (Diane Holden). James and Anne fall for each other pretty quickly, and Anita discovers the truth about Professor Lockwood and plans to blackmail him into making her a vampire like him.

Later, a séance at Professor Lockwood’s mansion home ends badly and father and son finally have their fight to the death.

GRAVE is a very low-budget film. The sets are a bit shabby and it looks like the kind of movie you would have seen on late night television back in the days before cable TV. Despite that, it has an undeniable charm to it. And the script, while not in the same league with Chase’s later work, is an interesting variation on the vampire yarn (David Chase’s script was also based on his novel “The Still Life,” although the novel is not mentioned in the credits). Director John Hayes does an okay job bringing Chase’s script to life, even if the movie does have its awkward moments.

There are no big stars here, but character actors William Smith and Michael Pataki might look pretty familiar to you anyway. Back in the 70s, they were both in tons of movies and television shows. Pataki was in everything from TV series like THE FLYING NUN and LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRARIE and was in some classic horror films like THE BABY (1973) and  DEAD AND BURIED (1981). He was even the voice of George Liquor on the old REN AND STIMPY cartoon (!).

William Smith was in everything from INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS (1973) to roles in hundreds of TV shows in the 60s, 70s and beyond, including THE MOD SQUAD, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE and the original HAWAII FIVE-O. These two guys might not be household names, but they were definitely talented professionals who make GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE a lot better than it would have been without them.

GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE was one of those low-budget genre movies pumped out in large quantities in the early 1970s. While it was available on DVD at one point, I’m not sure how easy it is to find now. But it has enough going for it to still be worth viewing now, if for no other reason than to see the early work of David Chase.

© Copyright 2010 by  L.L. Soares