Double Feature: Vampitheatre and Vampegeddon

Ok, so I have a new rule: no movies with portmanteau words in their title, like Vampegddon or Vampitheatre. These are bad, bad movies and to be avoided. I've taken the bullet for you, don't make my sacrifice be in vain.

Vampegeddon is about a goth girl who, in an attempt to do something to get out of her small town calls up the spirit of a vampire. The vampire looks like Uncle Fester and was killed by an Englishman in the Old West. Honestly, the Old West portion of the movie was like a LARP gone wrong.
How bad is it? It's so bad that someone who worked on it says "don't buy". Really- right here (actually, the behind the scenes essay is better than the movie, and much, much shorter.)



Vampitheatre is about a goth bad that's ACTUALLY vampires. It's not a bad premise but the acting kills it. Well, that and the sets and costumes and ... I suppose if I was still wearing too much black and smoking cloves, I'd find this... amusing. As it was, it was merely tedious.

The one two positive things I could say about watching these movies are: 1) that's two out of the way toward the total, and 2) after watching Nadja, I'd be a harsher critic with good movies, this way I'm directing my venom toward movies that really deserve it.

Nadja

I'm not sure how I missed this, but Nadja is amazing.
For all intents and purposes, it's a remake of the 1936 movie Dracula's Daughter.
Filmed in black and white, it's a slow dreamy thing, like a vampire film by David Lynch, which isn't surprising as Lynch is a producer and has a cameo as a morgue attendant.

Nadja, Dracula's daughter, lives in New York and is lonely. She's having to deal with the death of her father at the hands of Van Helsing.

Elina Lowensohn is haunting as Nadja, while Peter Fonda is delightfully manic as Van Helsing.

Aside from the black and white, it's got footage filmed with the Fisher Price pixel-cam, adding another layer of dreamy-ness to it, capped off with the use of My Bloody Valentine on the soundtrack.

A nice touch for Universal fans is the use of Bela Lugosi from White Zombie in a cameo as Dracula.

I think I'm going to try and pick this up for my permanent collection- it's the perfect movie to watch while sipping bitter, licorice flavored, green liqueurs.

Dracula

BBC. Dracula. I've seen the production from the seventies starring Louis Jourdan that the BBC did, and it was good, especially considering how well it aged.
So when I heard there was a new, I was excited. David Suchet (Poirot) as Van Helsing? Marc Warren as Dracula? I'd seen Warren in the adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Hogfather as the assassin Mr Teatime and I was impressed. And as the new Doctor Who as the yardstick of what the BBC could do with special effects, well... Dracula should be just awesome.
Really.

It should be.

It wasn't.

I'll try and do this quick beause it hurts to think about it. First, the focus shifts from Mina and Jonathan to Lucy and Arthur Holmwood. Lucy want's to marry Arthur, but Arthur has syphilis, passed on from his mother at birth.

Arthur doesn't want to infect Lucy, so he... he contacts a cult that brings Dracula to London to help cure the VD.

Yes, really.

Things go wrong. I'd like to say "Things go wrong from there," but really, they go wrong from the moment the dvd starts playing.

Other than as something for Poirot fans to watch between seasons, I'd say avoid this version. It's well acted and the sets and costumes are nice, but the story is as dumb as a bowl of hair.

Hellboy: Blood & Iron

I'm a big fan of the Hellboy comic book, and I enjoyed the movie, so when a Hellboy movie showed up on the vampire sort on Netflix, I knew I needed to see it.
Hellboy: Blood & Iron is probably the closest thing to a Hammer Studios cartoon we'll ever see.
It's nicely layered, taking place in the present and in 1939, where an adviser of Hellboy, the Professor, is much younger and hunting a vampire in Eastern Europe. In the present, Hellboy, his team, and the elderly professor are having to face a plan to resurrect the vampire on Long Island.

What impressed me the most were two things: the flashbacks are told in reverse order- the killing of the vampire, then the trek to her castle, the arrival in the village- for some reason this sort of structure worked for me here, and the fact that the vampire is named Erzsebet Ondrushko, a take off on Elizabeth Bathory, as seen in Hammer's Countess Dracula.
It's such a terrific homage that her rejuvenation scene might as well have been in a Hammer movie- she's returned from dust, but still weak and shriveled. In this mode, she's gray and misshapen so it doesn't really matter that she isn't wearing anything. When she regains her youth, she's still unclothed, but she'd bathed in a bathtub of blood, so she's strategically crimson all over. An elegant and plot effective solution to a problem which might have put an R-rating on this cartoon.

Shadow of the Vampire

Shadow of the Vampire has one of the best "What if" premises I've seen on a vampire movie- what if Max Schreck, star of the original Nosferatu, was a vampire? And what if director FW Murnau knew, but didn't care?

It's a lark sort of movie. Willem Dafoe as Schreck gets to over act, you can almost see the kid playing dress up gleam in his eye- but still manages to bring out a sense of melancholy out of this lonely creature, willing to do the movie as a respite from it's sad existence.

John Malkovich captures the obsessive fire that Murnau needed to bring his vision to life- at whatever the cost.

It's a pretty film, not as pretty as Bram Stoker's Dracula, but the 1920's period costumes and setting are great to look at.

I was a little confused when the movie came out, back in 2000- pre-wikipedia, mind you- because I'd read a novel back back in 1998 called Nosferatu that dealt with a similar scenario. It wasn't until I watched Shadow of the Vampire again for this did I realize that they were unrelated, just one of those odd creative coincidences.

Bram Stoker's Dracula

Bram Stoker's Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppola has a lot of critics, mostly for the idea of Winnona Ryder and Keanu Reeves as Victorian Londoners.

But aside from that, it's a snazzy little movie. It's artsy but accessible- the costumes by Eiko Ishioka won one of the three Ocars awarded to the film.

It's a standard Dracula as romance story, with Gary Oldman as the vampire, fallen for Mina, as played by Ryder. Reeves plays Harker with what could be imagined a Victorian uptightness- it just seems wooden to me. That's ok, though, since Anthony Hopkins, as Van Helsing, and singer Tom Waits, as Renfield.

I think it's one of my favorite Dracula productions, simply because it's such a lush movie to watch- it makes for an excellent bedtime movie.

As enjoyable as the movie was, I've got a warmer spot in my heart for the short story Coppola's Dracula. It's part of Kim Newman's Anno Dracula cycle- where the events in Stoker's novel play out differently to the degree that Dracula ends up married to Queen Victoria- lifting characters left and right from movies, literature and history. In Coppola's Dracula, Francis Ford Coppola is filming Dracula in a world where he never made Apocalypse Now, but still suffered through the same hellish conditions he dealt with for Apocalypse Now with the added wrinkles of it being in Romania, instead of the Philippines, and there are vampires to deal with. There's more to it than that, just click the above link, you'll see.

30 Days of Night: Dark Days

Well, amazingly, I haven't burnt out on direct to dvd movies yet, though I think tonight's movie, 30 Days of Night: Dark Days, might be the last for a while.

Having really enjoyed the the first 30 Days of Night (and it seems, I'm going to re-watch since I can't find the blogpost for it), and having read the graphic novels, I was enthusiastic about 3DoN:DD more than I usually am about a direct to dvd sequel, and surprisingly, I wasn't too disappointed.

Stella Olsen, one of the survivors from 30DoN, has taken her story public as a book in memory of her husband, Eben, the sheriff of Barrow who gave his life to stop the vampires. She meets up with some vampires hunters, carnage ensues.

It's a little annoying in the direct to dvd things when the cast changes, as Stella was played by Kiele Sanchez here and Melissa George in the first installment, as does Eben, played by Josh Hartnett in the original and Stephen Huszar here.

There are a lot of liberties taken in the transition from graphic novel to film, especially then ending, but there's a scene where Stella rents a hall to promote her book and proceeds to out the vampires to the general public with UV lights that comes across excellently.

All in all, 30 Days of Night: Dark Days was better than the From Dusk to Dawn movies- as there are several graphic novels in the 30DoN series, I'd love to see them give another on an adaptation.

From Dusk to Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter

Well, tonight I decided "To Hell with it" and watched the third movie in the From Dusk to Dawn franchise, FDtD 3: The Hangman's Daughter.

Well, it gets points for involving Ambrose Bierce, although one looking a bit sprier than the 71 years of age that really went to Mexico in 1913, who manages to get involved in a Weird West adventure involving vampires, setting up the stage for the previous movies.

It wasn't very good, actually, even with an actress as amazing as Sonia Braga taking a small, but important role. A nice bit of continuity between the other movies in the series is Danny Trejo's bartender at the saloon.

Yep, really, that's all I really got out of it- Sonia Braga and Danny Trejo. But I've finished the trilogy and never, ever need to see any of them, ever again.
That's an accomplishment.

From Dusk to Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money

I'm finding myself on a bit of a Miramax/Dimension kick
lately, since they churned out a lot of stuff the went direct to video, it's like a B-movie bonanza.
Then they went bankrupt. It's one of those odd things, after several Academy Award winning movies, how could a studio like that go under?
Movies like From Dusk to Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money, perhaps?
I'm just a fan, I don't know too much about the movie industry- just enough to be a little dangerous-but I have to question the wisdom of filming a movie set in Mexico in South Africa. I mean, really?
So- the movie. It's not as much as sequel to From Dusk to Dawn as it's just a Vampire movie set in Mexico with criminals as the protagonists. This time, they're robbing a bank- if there weren't vampires, this would be a caper movie. But as it is, a quintet of gringos going to rob a bank funded by narco-barons, throw in vampires, it's a blood bath.
Literally, at one point.
The director is a pal of Quentin Tarantino, and it comes through in some of the over indulgent camera pov work- the hood of a car and an oscillating fan are just two examples.

After Perfect Creature, I'm a little jaded- I didn't enjoy this as much as I might have had I been watching lesser movies. I'll still watch the third From Dusk... installment, though, just to complete the set.

Perfect Creature

Movies like Perfect Creature are why I do this.
I had no idea what it was about, all I knew, thanks to netflix's tags, was that it was a vampire movie.
In fact, I wasn't sure about it, so I'd put off watching it a couple of days after receiving the dvd.

I wish I'd watched it sooner.

It's set in an alternate world where vampires are the Brotherhood, a religious/scientific order, living integrated into human society. It's a dieselpunk world where cars share the streets with horse drawn carriages, with zeppelins in the sky.

Silas is a Brother tasked to track down his biological brother, Edgar, also a Brother, who has gone on a killing spree endangering the relationship between the Brothers and humans. Lily is a police officer investigating thee killings as well.

Like Underworld: Rise of the Lycans was an excellent use of vampires in the Fantasy genre, Perfect Creature crosses the lines between sci-fi and serial killer thriller. Visually, it's like some sort of film noir, set in a neverwhen reminiscent of the rock and roll fable Streets of Fire.

Perfect Creature is an unexpected genre bending treat, a nice diversion from the cliches of the tradition.

Dracula 2000

So, what did Captain Von Trapp do after The Sound of Music? He went on to be a fearless vampire killer.
At least, that's what my brain kept telling me as I watched Christopher Plummer play a descendant of Van Helsing in Dracula 2000.

Van Helsing has an antique store where one of his employees plans to rob his secret treasure vault with a group of her friends.
Unfortunately, there's nothing in the vault but a big ol' locked coffin.

Yeah, they steal it.
Yeah, it does have Dracula inside.

Turns out Van Helsing is the REAL Van Helsing, kept young-ish all these decades by shooting up Dracula's blood.

He's got an estranged daughter living in New Orleans, which is where the coffin ends up, with Dracula seeking the daughter out because she's got a part vampire heritage because her father was shooting up the Dracula blood when she was conceived.

I know. It's like they could have worked this into a soap opera or something.

The poster says "Wes Craven presents", really it's a Miramax/Dimension movie in the wake of first Scream Trilogy, but with a mostly twenty-something cast it's like some bizarre offspring of Dracula and the Scream movies.

Best Part: the casting surprises- a pre-300's Leonodias, pre- Phantom of the Opera Gerard Butler as Dracula and Star Trek Voyager's Jeri (Seven of Nine) Ryan as a reporter doomed to become one of Dracula's brides.

The Thirst

A lot of films deal with the idea of vampires as junkies, but The Thirst is the first one I know of that deals with people in recovery as vampires.

Maxx and Lisa are in a twelve step program to deal with their drug addiction when Lisa develops terminal illness. Vampires seek her out as a potential vampire to save and she accepts their offer.

When she does, it's in the classical manner, where she dies and comes back three days later.

It's really a down beat premise, switching one addiction for another, but Matt Keeslar and Clare Kramer manage to pull of young junkies in love pretty good. Jeremy Sisto and Adam Baldwin play vampires that have drawn them into the undead existance.

It's a low budget little movie, but with good enough actors and production values to be reminiscent of Miramax/Dimension movies during the Scream era.

Scream Blacula Scream

As awesome as Blacula was it was missing a couple of things... Voodoo and Pam Grier.
Thankfully, Samuel Z. Arkoff saw how well Blacula did and figuered the best way to fix that problem was to do a sequel- and cleverly addressing the Return problem.

Prince Mamuwalde was dispatched at the end of Blacula in a classic manner, but his bones are used in a Voodoo ritual at the beginning of Scream Blacula Scream by Willis, a practicioner, to take revenge on the cult that rejected his leadership.

Since leadership in the cult had to go to someone, it goes to Lisa, played by Pam Grier, who, despite that fact that Mamuwalde's reincarnated love died at the end of the last movie, is the reincarnation of his bride.

Lucky for her she's involved with Justin, a police officer with an interest in ancient African artifacts.

Again, William Marshall bring so much to the role- the tormented gentleman, revolted by what he was to do to survive. There weren't enough seventies Blaxploitation horror films, but the Blacula films are at the top of the list- even making more contemporary films like Vampire in Brooklyn pale in comparison.

Martin

I remember seeing the ad for Martin in the newspaper when I was a kid, the razor made a big impression on me.

Then back in 1985, when we were preparing for Hurricane Gloria to hit, my dad and I went on a battery/water/candles run to a nearby drugstore and for some unknown reason, they had a copy of the novelization. I snagged it and fell asleep reading it- so soundly that I missed the winds and everything hitting when Gloria came to town.

I finally got around to seeing it in 1997 when Anchor Bay released it remastered on VHS, watching it on netflix DVD for this project.


For a movie released in 1977, it holds up pretty well in terms of story- Martin is sent to live with relatives outside of Pittsburgh. From the very beginning, it's clear he's got... issues. Like drugging women to drink their blood- while viewing the world in a black and white late-movie haze, a romantic contrast to his real world, a small rustbelt town in the middle of a crappy economy.

In fact, that's the part of Martin I enjoyed the most, the little time capsule to the Carter administration. The fact that it's written and directed by George (Night of the Living Dead) Romero is just icing on the cake.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

One thing I need to grasp about many of these movies I'm watching:

they're not all horror.

Which is a pretty counter-intuitive comment until you notice how many comedies I've see, how many action/adventure movies I've sat through over the past six or so months.

Fantasy is a genre that vampires world well in also, like tonight's prequeal to Underworld, Underworld Rise of the Lycans.

Set in a swords and armor medieval once-upon-a-time, we get to see how the Lycans- Werewolves- were bred as a slave race for the Vampires.

And of course, "slave race" is always a bad idea, in fantasy as history, and the Werewolves revolt.

Since this is an Underworld movie, the leader of the revolution loves the daughter of leader of the Vampires.

No, it doesn't end well. It can't otherwise we'd not have gotten the conflict that lead to the other Underworld movies.

It's an oddly beautiful movie, filmed with a heavy blue, cold palatte, the warmer colors for the most part appearing as fire.

I didn't mean to watch this until I'd seen Underworld2, but it's well enough constructed that I wasn't lost- heck, I could have never even seen Underworld and it would have still worked.

The Fearless Vampire Killers

I'm not sure why I haven't seen The Fearless Vampire Killers before now. I'm sure that if I had, I might have enjoyed it, but now...there's always something weird about watching someone in a movie when you know the actor or actress is dead, but when you see Sharon Tate in this movie, knowing her ultimate fate as a victim of Charles Manson's followers, or knowing that director Roman Polanski would later be involved in a statutory rape incident... it's like this weird Greek tragedy vibe going one.

That said, TFVK is like some kind of ... parody is too harsh a word, evoking a sense of the vulgar sort of productions of today like Scary Movie, it's more like a light hearted appreciation of Hammer Studios' Dracula films.

Though I'm being a real nerd about the fact that my favorite thing about the whole movie is the Frank Frazetta poster- I love his art.

Double Feature: Blade and Underworld

So, it's a black leather kind of night.

We started off with Blade, the first of the Wesley Snipes trilogy.
I've already watched one of the movies in the series, and I'd seen this in the theater- it still holds up.
Wesley Snipes plays a vampire hunter affected by a vampires bite in utero- an attack against his mother. As such, he's got all the strengths of a vampire but none of the weaknesses.
Armed with a pair of awesome sunglasses and a samurai sword, Blade takes on the the forces of Deacon Frost, an ambitious vampire looking to rise in the vampire heirarchy.
It's a fun action movie with perhaps one of the best openings sequences in not just any vampire movie, but action movies as well- check it out here.


Underworld. It's one of those movies I'm sort of annoyed at liking. It is, for all intents and purposes, Romeo and Juliet with Vampires and Werewolves.

And Kate Beckinsdale in body hugging battle-fetish leather as a Death Dealer for her vampire clan, an enforcer tasked to kill Werewolves due to a centuries old rivalry. She falls for a guy who's the last of the werewolf bloodline without the abilities- until he's bit by one. Lots of kickass.

Both movies are more action than horror, highly stylized action, which made for a terrifically escapist few hours. If you've got netflix, queue them up to arrive at the same time- best time's a friday night. Trust me on this.

The Shiver of the Vampires

So, tonight's movie was another Jean Rollin movie, The Shiver of the Vampires.

Maybe it's just my provincial little American brain, but I don't get it. I mean, I sort of get it- it's about style, mood and tone rather than plot. I can handle that.
I'm no stranger to subtitles, so that's no problem. And I love films from the early seventies, so I've got that set. There's just something... foreign about the combination that makes me want to watch it after a couple of shots of Nyquil.

The Shiver of the Vampires is like that. A newlywed couple visits the home of the bride's cousins.

Yes, the cousins are vampires.
Yes, there's some girl/girl stuff.

Of course there is, it's that sort of movie.

I swear, I 've got to start watching these movies earlier if I'm going to survive the Euro-Erotic-Artsy ones.

Vampire in Brooklyn

I skipped on Vampire in Brooklyn in the theaters back in 1995 because it had Eddie Murphy in it. He's funny, but not what I consider lead in a vampire movie potential.

I picked up a copy of the movie today and my suspicions were confirmed. It's not a bad movie exactly.

It's directed by Wes Craven, so the pacing and suspense is there- sort of. Unfortunately, it's diluted by the humor necessary to an Eddie Murphy movie.

Angela Bassett plays a cop who's a daughter of a vampire, unaware of her heritage. Bassett is one of the selling points of the movie. I'd watch footage of her read a laundry list.

Eddie Murphy is Maximillian, the title character, come to find another of his bloodline to prolong his immortality. As such, he's over the top as a sauve badass. But the entire time, I'm thinking "oh look, Eddie Murphy is wearing fangs.".

Because Murphy is the star, a lot of the film is played lightly. I think Vampire in Brooklyn had the potential to be a better film, a scarier film with another actor in the lead (kind of the reverse of Beverly Hills Cop where Mickey Rourke and Sylvester Stallone were considered for the role Murphy eventually made his own, but they would have certainly made BHC a different kind of movie.)

I wish Vampire in Brooklyn were better. There aren't enough African American vampire movies. Fortunately, when I do want to see a good one, William Marshall's Blacula movies are available on demand from netflix.

The Satanic Rites of Dracula aka Count Dracula and His Vampire Brides

First, let's just clear up the fact that Dracula doesn't actually have a vampire bride in this movie, and shee is most definitely NOT the queen of the zombies as claimed on the poster.

Next, for some odd reason, this movie is in a copyright gray area, so I've actually embedded a version someone's posted on youtube. Don't watch it a work- it is a Hammer film, and not five minutes into the movie there's a nekkid woman. Under the 74 ratings standards, it was an R. Now, it's more like pg-16.

As the last "real" Dracula movie from Hammer Studios (Satanic Rites was followed by the Legend of the Seven Gold Vampires, with Peter Cushing as Van Helsing, but without Christopher Lee as Dracula), The Satanic Rites of Dracula has more of a feel of a thriller than a horror film.

Satanists, upper class Devil Worshippers, are part of a plot involving biological terrorism.

The British intelligence investigating the them is stuffy, stuffy, stuffy, like something out of a John LeCarre novel, having to disavow the investigation into the cult because of politics, so they send in a detective from Scotland Yard with help from Peter Cushing's Van Helsing, the descendant of Van Helsing from the period Dracula films.

Christopher Lee as Dracula doesn't even show up until and hour into the movie, the big reveal kind of spoiled by, well, the opening credits.

A pleasant surprise is a very young Joanna Lumley as Van Helsing's neice.

A fun bit is the panorama shots of London, groovy London of the early seventies.

I had planned on watching the Hammer movies in order, but I've decided to just watch them when the mood hits me.

Vampire Wars Battle for the Universe (aka Bloodsuckers)

I picked up Vampire Wars Battle for the Universe at the local used media store in order to burn some of the credit I accumulated while clearing off my bookshelves. Essentially, it was free.

So I guess it was worth what I paid for it.

Turns out it was a SciFi channel original, original being one of those loaded terms.

It felt like someone at SciFi had watched Firefly a couple of times and thought "Yeah, that was good, but you know what it needs? Vampires."

There are vampires out there in space, and the V-San (vampire Sanitation) teams are tasked with hunting them down. There's got the paint by numbers crew, handsome captain, loyal teammates, enigmatic special team member-half vampire half human hunter, and a bad guy who's EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEvil, played by Michael Ironside.

Despite the made for tv pedigree, it does suffer some budget constraints- most notably daytime filming. Not oldschool day for night filter filming, but actualy sun's shining but these are SciFi vampires so they can go out during the day.

A good way to kill a couple of hours if you don't have to pay too much for it.

God Of Vampires

Well, God of Vampires was a nifty change of pace. It's an American movie with a mostly Asian American cast, with the vampires taken not from Central European folklore, but Chinese Mythology.

Frank Ng, played by Dharma Lim, is an assassin. Olympic level killer, taking down a warehouse full of drug runners in the precredits sequence, while talking to his brother's school about the boy's truancy. Killer with a heart of gold.

He take's an assignment that goes horribly wrong- the target turns out to be a Chinese vampire and in revenge for the attempt, the vampire goes after anyone Frank is in contact with- his informer, his agent, and his brother among them.

Carnage ensues.

God Of Vampires is pretty good- it's totally a low budget indie film, but it rises above the direct to video ghetto with passible acting, a good script, and pretty good direction.

While trying to find a poster for it- I snagged this image from Amazon- I encountered the backstory for the movie here, apparently it took them six years to finish the it... and you know what? It shows. Not the lag time in production, but the passion that cast and crew brought to the project. This is what keeps it from being just another vampire movie.

From Dusk To Dawn

Of all the "stripper vampires" movies I've seen so far, next to Vamp, From Dusk To Dawn is probably the best- and I'm only favoring Vamp because I saw it in the theatre.
FDtD has a better script- Quentin Tarentino, also pulling acting duty-a cooler director- Robert Rodriguez- and an awesome cast- George Clooney, Harvey Keitel, Juliette Lewis,Fred Williamson, John Saxon, Cheech Marin, and Salma Hayek.
Clooney and Tarentino play two criminal brothers, the Geckos, on a rampage across Texas headed to a safe haven in Mexico. They encounter a family traveling by RV- Harvey Keitel as the father, a former minister who's lost his faith and Juliette Lewis as his daughter- and kidnap them.
They end up at a strip bar run by vampires. Hilarity ensues. Well, a bloodbath really. Lots of crimson.
It's a fun movie, Hollywood having a little fun- Rodriguez and Tarentino are just indulging a some creative playtime with a big budget drive in movie, with exploitation film regulars Williamson (Hell Up In Harlem, and the original The Inglorious Bastards), Saxon (Black Christmas and Cannibal Apocalypse), and Savini (the special effects mastermind behind the original Dawn of the Dead) as a wonderful present to fans of grindhouse/b-movies.

Razor Blade Smile

Wayback last century, I took a course on Structuralism in literature. It didn't work for me, my youthful mental gears just didn't get "from a structuralist standpoint, The Color Purple is a comedy." I heard The Color Purple=comedy and I couldn't make the mental click.
I'm saying this because I saw the craziest James Bond movie tonight- Razor Blade Smile.
It's a low budget, b-grade vampire movie that's a James Bond film with a female protagonist and an absence of the glorious Bond gadgets.
But from a structuralist viewpoint, it's a Bond movie- pre-credit teaser sequence, a sexy siloutte credit sequence, and hit the ground running action.
Lilith Silver is a vampire assassin, wearing a latex catsuit five years before Kate Beckinsdale did in Underworld. For fun she hangs out at a goth club (playing Bela Lugosi's Dead in the background, naturally)

A treat for horror fans is a cameo by David Warbeck, from Lucio Fulci's The Beyond

Once Bitten

Oh, the eighties have SO much to answer for...
Once Bitten is a teen sex comedy pretending to be a vampire film.
Jim Carey, yes that Jim Carey, plays Mark, a teeneaged virgin wanting desperately to do it with his girlfriend, Robin, who's saving herself.
Luckily for him, he encounters The Countess, an immortal vampire queen who needs to feed on the blood of a virgin three times before Halloween to survive.
Luckily for her, she's found one.
With two feedings- she's saving the third for Halloween proper- Mark starts wearing black and acting odd. At his school Halloween dance- where The Countess and Robin have a dance-off competition for Mark's affections- he wins best costume as "vampire" while he keeps insisting he's not wearing a costume.

This must have been the only school in the world without a goth kid.

Carey's 1985 performance as a boy-next-door character foreshadows his everyman character in The Truman Show.
Lauren Hutton's Countess is less a femme fatale and more of a proto-cougar, but you can tell she's having fun with the role.
Both are eclipsed by Clevon Little as her fabulously bitchy butler/Renfield Sebastian- complete with a running gag of him spending time in the Countess' closet- she's constantly telling him to come out of it, to which he tells her he hasn't been in in years.

Once Bitten was enjoyable, but forgettable after viewing- my problem is that my bar on teen-sex-comedies is pretty high ( Porky's has a special charm of it's own that makes it difficult for me to objectively view TSCs. Yes Porky's. It's got little touches that make it better than the average TSC- for example, Kitty Wells playing on the jukebox of a bar) and I'm especially critical of vampire comedies, since so very few of them are actually funny. That said, Once Bitten wouldn't be out of place in a vampire marathon as some kind of palate cleanser between two especially violent or dark movies.

The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire

I asked some friends for their reccomendations and someone siad The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire- a Sherlock Holmes movie with a vampire twist; it even has Matt (Max Headroom) Frewer as Holmes.

Holmes is summoned to investigate the murder of monks in a Whitechapel monestary, deaths one of the brothers attributes to vampires.

I was at a disadvantage to this movie- I expected too much. First, I'm a BIG Sherlock Holmes fan. Secondly, Max Headroom is one of my favorite television show- I watch the entire (too, too short run) probably once a year.

Well. I expected a little too much. With the memory of Granada TV's Jeremy Brett in mind (THE classic Sherlock Holmes, in my opinion), Matt Frewer... pales in comparison. His "British accent" is unconvincing, but he does bring a good manic twitch to the part.

It's entertaining enough- a television movie from Hallmark Entertainment, so I knew I wasn't getting something by David Fincher, but rather the "literary adaptation" equivalent of a SyFy original film.

Now, I think in the wake of the recent Sherlock Holmes film, now would be a good time for someone in Hollywood to pay attention to Loren Estleman's novel The Case of the Sanguinary Count or the graphic novel Scarlet in Gaslight, both pitting the Detective against Dracula.

Now I need to find the Brett adaptation of the short story The Case of the Sussex Vampire, The Last Vampyre, featuring one of my favourite lines from the Sherlockian Canon- when questioned about his faith in the supernatural, Holmes tells Watson: "The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply."

The Nude Vampire.

The Nude Vampire.... well, there's a title there that doesn't promise much. I do like the French poster though, reminiscent of something by Mucha. (image snagged from moviepostershop.com)

So, there's these scientists, doing experiments at the Eyes Wide Shut club. Things involving naked women and hoods and animal masks... the son of one of the scientists becomes concerned as to what might being going on. I think.

There's not much dialogue.

The score is... I don't know how to properly describe it, but it's rather like watching a sex scene in a movie set to Kronos Quartet's Black Angels.

Really, the whole thing feels like some freaky symbolist piece.

There's more dialogue later in the film, an attempt at exposition, but it doesn't help, not really. The Nude Vampire is something that works best on a visual level, stylish in the sort of way that a minor character is wearing seventies Pucci (I'm annoyed with myself that I was able to identify that, actually).

Now that I think about it, this is the sort of film that would work best while fighting a fever and drinking some high proof liquor like Chartreuse.

Van Helsing

When I saw Van Helsing at the movie theater, I hated it.

It's good to know it's just as good on dvd.

It's a sort of tribute to the classic Universal Horror movies, directed by Stephen Sommers, the fellow who did The Mummy movies. It has Dracula, Frankenstein's Creature, The Wolfman, and the Hunchbacked assistant, like the classics House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula.

Of course, the House movies didn't have superninja Van Helsing with ubercool steampunk weapons played by Hugh Jackman.

Nor did they have Kate Beckinsdale, playing Transylvanian battle vixen Anna. (Van Helsing and Underworld seem to have made her action-chick, which is disconcerting for me since I learned to love her during multiple cinema viewings of The Last Days of Disco.)

But Richard Roxburgh has a heckuva time playing Count Dracula- playing it over the top, since he is an undead prince of darkness.

Frankenstein's Creature is probably the most sympathetic here than in many productions in recent memory- in fact the opening sequence of the birth of the Creature and the angry villagers at a burning windmill is the best part of the whole movie, filmed in black and white, the sets reminiscent of the James Whale Frankenstein movies for Universal.

There's a nice tip of the hat to serious horror fans with the town undertaker, with his top hat, scraggly and feral teeth, he's reminiscent of Lon Chaney Sr in London After Midnight.

I think my main problem with Van Helsing is that it's a summer blockbuster- lots of fight scenes and explosions and plot holes you can drive a tank through (how many nights of the full moon does this story have?). I think I'd have liked it if it were a little tighter a story that wasn't so caught up on the special effects.

That said, Perry's glad I've finally found something that isn't totally annoying- he's actaully enjoying it.

Vampiro

So, I'm trying all sorts of movies during this project, giving movies a try I'd usually just ignore.

Vampiro was one of these.

Casanova is a half vampire, half human who... well, lives on a boat with a twelve year old vampire leprosy victim. He's kind of like a mix of Blade and Angel. But not in a good way.

He's a supersexy Hispanic guy who's suave as hell- of course he's named Casanova.

He falls for a white girl named Blanca.

Really.

There's a convoluted story involving Casanova killing his father, and his father's men trying to kill him, and Blanca's girlfriend becoming a vampire. It's one of those movies where someone needed to tell the writer "less complicated."

Its biggest flaw- for me- is that there are several flashbacks that are filmed in a manner that doesn't differentiate from contemporary events. I think it's more of a budget constraint than a stylistic choice, that could have been addressed more effectively somehow.

Lifeforce

The director of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Tobe Hooper, working with a script from the man who wrote Alien, Dan O'Bannon, with Captain Picard in a supporting role... how is that not awesome?

That's the kind of crazy Lifeforce is, based on the Colin Wilson novel Space Vampires.

The Churchill, a British/American space exploration vessel, is investigating Halley's Comet when they discover another ship in the comet's coma.

Of course they investigate. Inside, there's lots of corpses of bat-things and three nude humans, two men and a woman, in glass coffins.

Of course they bring them back.

But something goes wrong... the Churchill never makes it home; they send in the Columbia to investigate the derelict shuttle. There was a fire on the Churchill, killing all the crew, the glass coffins are brought back to London. The sole survivor from the Churchill ejected in a escape-pod and is brought to London as well.

The survivor is played by Steve Railsback, a favorite of mine from his appearance on the X-Files as Duane Barry (s 2.5 & 2.6) as well as his particularly chilling performance as Charles Manson in the 1976 mini-series.

The girl wakes up and feeding on the life force of people, draining them dry- literally desiccating them. The bodies she feeds upon re-animate and begin to feed as well.

Chaos ensues.

Railsback's character is effective as a Renfield to the aliens, while Patrick Stewart plays a doctor who becomes possessed by the girl alien in a particularly surreal piece.

The effects are pretty good.. the desiccated corpses looking as realistic as such things could; the light show at the end, when the aliens create a circuit built made up of the re-animated bodies and their lifeforces, is pretty magnificent.

I like the fact that Lifeforce works the bat iconography into the aliens- their true forms- and takes them from the world of magic and superstition into the realm of science fiction.

Rockula

If I should suggest you see Rockula, you should know that you've some how crossed me and I've developed a grudge. Seeing this movie would be my curse to you.

Yes, it's that bad.

Stanley is a vampire. His one true love reincarnates every twenty-two years, just for him to see her killed again by a pirates curse.

There's big hair.

There's eighties music, including Toni Basil and Thomas Dolby.

That does not save it.

After watching this, I felt it necessary to watch Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus just to bring my IQ up some of the points I lost during Rockula.

Bitten

So, Jerry Lewis has this movie, The Day The Clown Cried.

He plays ... um... a clown. In a concentration camp.

Yeah.

The movie didn't get finished and it looks like it's never going to get released because of the whole WTF? factor- like the idea of the original Nutty Professor in a Holocaust movie.

Where am I going with this? Oh, yeah, tonight's movie: Bitten.

Jason Mewes plays a paramedic who becomes involved with a vampire.

Jason Mewes as in Jay of Silent Bob and Jay from the Kevin Smith movies. So try as he does to seem all acting and stuff, I'm hearing a long haired junkie yelling Snoochie Boochie.

Him trying to do anything other than that, to me, is like Jerry Lewis in a Holocaust movie.

At least the clown movie has the dignity not to be released. Bitten's... bad.

I don't know if it's Mewes' impact, or not- maybe this movie would have been crap with another actor in the lead; there's an annoying thread about Mewes' character's interactions with people of non-European descent- he's abused by the local Indian convenience store clerk and harassed by his Asian landlady.

Alien Blood

I knew as soon as the Troma logo I was in for something... different.

First, for the first 25 or so minutes, there's little to no dialogue.

It's an indy artsy sci-fi horror film. A pregnant alien woman and her child are on the run.

There's a hitsquad after her. There's some martial arts action.

There's a scene with a fire-eater practicing.

A completely gratuitous naked girls scene. A sex scene.

Bagpipes! (The musical instrument, not some euphemism.)

It's like 35 minutes in... where are my vampires?

Oh, the nekkid girls are vampires.

The vampires are having an eve of the Millennium party, and it's rather like a contemporary country house mystery set up- Lord of the manor, his wife and mistress, assorted friends. Their party clothes are nice.

The alien woman shows up looking for shelter.

The hitsquad comes looking for the alien.

The vampires end up defending their house against the hitsquad.

According to the Troma guy who introduced the movie, it was Great Britain's first independent sci-fi movie. Which is funny, because British movies are good, and indy movies are good but this wasn't good. It wasn't bad, it was just... too artsy for it's own good.

Oddly, it's better than if it were an American production-there's a quality to it I have a hard time putting my finger on, maybe its utter absence of California-ness.

edit: AH! I realized what the odd quality was- it's the fact that the vampires hardly do anything vampiry, lots of "hissing" but that's about it.

I want more from my vampire films.

another edit:

Ok, the fact that the aliens speak French is pretty funny.

Nosferatu the Vampyre

I've seen a lot of movies, but Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre practically left me speechless.

Herzog remade the Muranu movie in the late seventies and it still holds up wonderfully.

First, it's a beautiful film. Composition, lighting, sets, costumes, it's just a joy to look at. It's like the Merchant/Ivory horror film- seriously, even a die hard horror hater that lives to re-watch Room With a View could watch this movie and love it.

Secondly, the acting is superb. Klaus Kinski brings enough melancholy to the role that even with the make up you almost feel sorry for him. It is a little distracting... that sometimes... he sounds... like Peter Lorrie.

Bruno Ganz plays Harker. Watching this made me realize, I don't think I've ever really enjoyed a portrayal of Harker in the movies. He's just... there. He gets the plot moving then it's on to the back burner with him.

Isabelle Adjani, however, I think is probably one of the best Mina's I've seen- even if she's called Lucy in this production. Despite being fragile in the first part of the movie- to the degree that she faints when her husband returns home and doesn't recognize her- she finds her strength in defending her husband and city against Dracula. There's a clip here that just blew me away- Lucy confronting Dracula.

And they do call him Dracula, officially, in this version, filmed long enough after Dracula had become public domain that Herzog avoided the problems of the earlier version.

What I don't understand is why I took so long to watch this. It's always been on my radar- my favorite reference is from John Skipp and Craig Spector's novel The Light at the End, where a vampire is preying upon New York City and a couple of movie fans realize what's happening during a showing of Nosferatu at a Times Square movie house.

Normally, I try not to include clips in my posts- it just seems like padding to me, but I want to share with you the movie gold that this thing is, so here's a clip- the ship bringing Dracula to Wismar, silently coming into port, piloted by a dead man:

Dracula (1931 Spanish)

Universal was very, very clever back in the day. They would save money by filming foreign language versions of their movies using the same sets and scripts. Probably the most famous of these is Dracula, starring Carlos Villarias as the Count.

I wasn't sure what to think the first time I saw this movie.

I'd seen the Lugosi version several times, so I was familiar with the sets and script, but this movie stands pretty well on its own merits.

Pablo Alvarez Rubio doesn't bring the same degree of pathos to Renfield as much as Dwight Frye does, but he's certainly crazier.

Lupita Tovar is Eva, the "Mina" for this production, is much sexier than Helen Chandler.

And Carlos Villarias. He reminds me slightly of Steve Carrell. Which makes him all the more menacing. He's kind of dashing as well. At least for me, he lacks the sense of otherness Lugosi as Dracula, speaking accented English, surrounded by native speakers, has, since Villarias is speaking Spanish to Spanish speakers.

Director George Melford was lucky enough to watch the daily footage of Tod Browning's Dracula and was able to use what suited him while changing things as well. He's got a much more dynamic use of camera than Browning.

Of course, my favorite thing about the movie is how the film faded into obscurity until David Skal's 1990 book Hollywood Gothic brought it back on to the cultural radar, Skal travelling to Cuba in 1989 to see the best print available. 1992 saw the movie show in revival in Hollywood.

In fact, when Skal revised Hollywood Gothic for a later edition, the chapter on the Spanish Dracula is considerably longer.

Graveyard Shift

Yes, I know the picture says "Central Park Drifter", but my vhs tape box say Graveyard Shift. It's one of those movies that has more than one title.

That should have given me a clue as to what to expect.

So. In the first twenty minutes, we get some vampire sex, some music video fishnet stocking sex, and a stripper.

It's from 1987 and it's filmed on video tape and both factors haven't held up well.

The premise is pretty good: Stephen is a vampire who drives a cab in Toronto New York City, preying on those who are lonely or despondent. Of course, this means he's also making more vampires and one of them's a killer.

I dug this out of the vhs stack when I couldn't get the Wii to work. If I recall correctly, the last time I watched this was pre-1998. I had to re-wind it tonight to watch it, which means I didn't re-wind after watching it before- I just wanted to hit the eject button, put the tape in the box and forget about it. It's like a really long, really bad episode of The Hitch-hiker.

Mad Monster Party.

When I was a kid, every Christmas, we'd watch the Rankin/Bass stop motion animated specials on CBS, Rudolph and Frosty and Heat Miser and Cold Miser and Santa. Even Easter had a Peter Rabbit special.

But they didn't seem to have a Halloween special*. Little did I know that they went beyond television for that- that they'd created a feature length piece- Mad Monster Party- that fit the bill.

Doctor Frankenstein - voiced by Boris Karloff!- is retiring so he summons all his monster friends- Dracula, The Mummy, The Werewolf, Frankenstein and his Bride (voiced by Phyllis Diller), The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Invisible Man, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Doctor Jekyll /Mister Hyde. All but Jekyll/Hyde are patterned after the Universal Monsters, while Jekyll/Hyde is inspired by the Frederic March portrayal.

Frankenstein is going to leave his position of leader of the monsters to his nephew Felix, and the monsters, led by Dracula, don't take kindly to it.

That Felix has a voice that sounds like Jimmy Stewart is kind of odd. He's voiced by Allen Swift, who did voices on Underdog.

Mad Monster Party is good retro fun, probably the only thing I've watched so far that's really kid friendly.





*Apparently, they did a cartoon called Mad Mad Mad Monsters as a Halloween treat, but somehow it didn't show up on my radar like the Christmas ones did. Anybody remember it?

Baron Blood

The thing about people in movies: they're stupid. Like Peter in Baron Blood.

He's along with Elke Sommer (in the early seventies) in an Austrian castle, and what does he want to do? Read an incantation in his ancestor's torture chamber.

Stupid right?

I mean, of ALL the things one could get involved with Elke Sommer (in the early seventies), incantations would be the last thing on the list.

But they do read it, and bring the old guy back from the dead- hungry for blood.

It's a... vivid movie. Very seventies Euro horror, which makes sense, considering it's directed by Mario Bava, one of the Italian masters of horror- I saw his Planet of Blood back in January, and I'm glad to say I enjoyed this one more.

Planet seemed to be all about style, and since it was set in outer space, it was filmed largely on a soundstage, while Baron Blood has style and a greater visual depth, thanks to it being filmed on location in Austria.

Lost Boys: The Tribe

You know, I'm sure there's a guy in a suit in the Warner Brothers offices in LA who sits in an office, looking at "properties" trying to figure out how to bleed all the creative potential out of them.

He saw a poster for Lost Boys and thought- "hey, Twilight is hot right now, let's revive the brand."
Twenty-one years after the original. That's not too long a time between movies. I mean, there was a 16 year gap between the Space Odyssey movies and Chinatown and The Two Jakes. And eleven years between Screams 3 and 4.
Um yeah, it might be a while there.

So.
Siblings come to VampireCity, CA to live with their aunt after the death of their parents. They get mixed up with vampires. But instead of the punk vampires of the first Lost Boys movie, these guys are SURFER vampires.

In a (possibly too, too) clever bit of casting, lead vampire is Angus Sutherland- brother of lead vampire from the first Lost Boys, Keifer Sutherland.

Corey Feldman is back as Edgar Frog, vampire hunter, looking older than he did in Bordello of Blood, but not quite as burnt out as he did in Lost Boys: The Thirst.

Of course, what made the film for me was the appearance of Tom Savini in the opening sequence. After that, it was pretty much downhill.

Downhill being a relative term- on a movie like this it's still a helluva lot better than Beverly Hills Vamp.

The Vampire Bat

In Klienschloss, there are several deaths under strange circumstances- exsanguination. Obviously, it's the work of The Vampire Bat.

It's a 1933 movie from Majestic Pictures filmed on the Universal lot- sets from James Whale's Frankenstein (the German Village) and The Old Dark House.

And it's got a troupe of classic Horror actors- Fay Wray before King Kong but after The Most Dangerous Game, Lionel Atwill years before his Frankenstein movies from Universal, and Dwight Frye- THE Renfield actor from Universal's Dracula.

Wray and Atwill had previously acted together in Mystery of the Wax Museum, but The Vampire Bat was rushed into production by Majestic to cash in on it, releasing that TVB before MotWM.

It's a nice little movie from a little studio with a big studio feel to it, proving cheap doesn't have to be bad- unlike so many of the awful recent movies I've suffered through.

Some numbers:
Right now, I have 88 movie posts up. I have 11 posts in draft form. That's 99 movies total.

At the beginning of May, I should have seen 120 movies, placing me roughly 1/3 of the way through.

That's 21 more movies I need to see to be where I should be.

I can do this.

I'm probably not going to be where I should be at the end of April, but I think come New Year's Eve, I'll have this done right.

Then I probably won't want to see another damn vampire movie for quite a while.

Tales from the Crypt: Bordello of Blood

Coming down off the high of last night's movie, I needed something a little lighter (dumber)- Tales from The Crypt: Bordello of Blood was exactly what I needed.

Vampires in a brothel. It's like a smarter, classier version of Beverly Hills Vamp.

There's a phrase I didn't ever think I'd type.

Here's another: Corey Feldman isn't too bad in this one. He's the McGuffin victim that starts the story- he's a badboy and his church secretary sister hires Dennis Miller (back when he was an actor and not a pundit) to find him.

The trail leads to a funeral home where - I love Hollywood- vampire prostitutes are working out of, diverting the funds from the business to the ministry the sister works for, run by Chris Sarandon playing a delightfully sleazy minister.

It's a hodgepodge of stuff from other movies- Beverly Hills Vamp, Vamp, and supersoakers filled with holy water from Lost Boys. But it works, because within the context of Tales from the Crypt, it isn't something you take too seriously.

I think the only thing this movie needed was popcorn.

Let Me In

"Because Americans can't be bothered to read subtitles..."
When I heard they were doing an American version of Let The Right On In, that was my first thought.

Then I heard that Let Me In was going to be one of the first films from the newly revived Hammer Studios. That sold me on the idea actually- who better to do a vampire movie, right?

But watching it... it's a theory versus practice thing.

And in practice, it didn't work out. It was a well made movie, though it was a faint echo of the Swedish movie.

The changes they made from LTR1I and Let Me In weren't too jarring, in fact, Let Me In is a pretty good movie. I can under stand the shift from Oskar and Eli to Owen and Abbey. There were some scenes that were shot for shot reshoots from the original.
That's where the problem lies for me: Let The Right One In was just such a darn good movie that Let Me In seems like just an ok movie in comparison.

Despite that, Let Me In is still superior to many of the movies I've watched so far for the project.

Twilight

Well. I had to see it eventually, so sooner than later, right?

I mean:
1) it is a vampire movie.
2) the director of the second movie, Chris Weitz, is the grandson of the Mina from the Spanish 1932 Dracula, Lupita Tovar
3) the fourth movie(s) is being directed by Bill Condon, of Gods and Monsters and Chicago.

Twilight was everything I expected from it: a teenage vampire romance. New girl in school Bella falls for Byronic vampire classmate Edward. Her father's the sheriff and something's out there killing people. Hilarity ensues.

In terms of mechanics, it's a great movie. Score, cinematography, direction... all the nuts and bolts stuff work.

In terms of a movie aimed at teenaged girls, it's perfect. Moody prettyboy. Average everygirl- the perfect stand in for the target audience.

It isn't a BAD movie.
It was just terribly, terribly overhyped. Like Titanic.

There are worse ways to spend two hours.

The Lost Boys: The Thirst

Working my way through what's left in the On Demand section of netflix for Vampire movies.

Tonight's movie was the second sequel to The Lost Boys- Lost Boys: The Thirst. Despite this, I'm still going to try and see the first one.

Corey Feldman is Edgar Frog again, reprising the character he created in 1987. Not having seen LB2, so I have no idea what he's like in that... but in LB The Thirst, Feldman is just kind of sad. He's like the guy who peaked in high school and never did anything else and kept reliving past glories while being kind of a burn out.

The bad guy's a ... rave DJ. Goes by the name of DJ X.

Really.

He uses his raves to comvert kids in to vampires by slipping them ampules of tainted blood as party drugs. Which would have been kind of a cool idea if I hadn't seen Vampires: Out for Blood.

The movie does get the opportunity to skewer both Stephanie Meyer and Laurel K. Hamilton, so on that note it worked for me.

Dracula vs Frankenstein

So- two of the cast members of Universal's House of Frankenstein- J. Carrol Naish and Lon Chaney, Jr- plus Forrest J. Ackerman doing a bit part. How can it go wrong?
Fairly well, actually.
Dracula vs Frankenstein is pretty bad, but bad in a grindhouse good kind of way.
Naish plays the descendant of Frankenstein, still playing his ancestor's games of life and death in Venice, California, with the assistance of Groton, Chaney in his last role. Dracula has possession of the original Frankenstein's Monster and has need of the Doctor. Groton's out chopping people up for the Doctor's latest project.

Meanwhile, a happening chick who's a headliner in Vegas has come to town to find her sister- one of Groton's victims. She runs afoul of Rico, a gang leader played by Russ Tamblyn.
This subplot seems almost like something out of another movie, but the director/writer Al Adamson handle it well, even though he's someone I think of more for his murder than his movies. He even got a E! True Hollywood Story: Al Adamson- Murder of a B Movie King.

Let The Right One In

Ok... this is what I've been doing this blog for. I knew that somewhere in all the crap I've been watching there'd be a diamond, and Let the Right One In is it.

It's a Swedish film, a cold quiet thing, about Oskar, a bullied boy living with his mother, and Eli, a mysterious girl who moves in next door with an older man.
Of course Eli's a vampire.

It's not just a vampire story. It's about Oskar growing up.
And Eli killing people.

But there's a haunting tenderness to Let the Right One In that's rarely seen in movies of the genre. Oskar gets Eli to come into his apartment uninvited, still skeptical about what Eli is, to see what happens if a vampire comes in without an invitation. The result is heartbreaking.

Let The Right One In isn't just a good vampire movie, it's a great movie in general. My only regret is that it's actually taken me this long to see it.

Vampires in Havana

Sometimes, I come upon a movie that I'm not sure what to make of it. Vampires in Havana is one of those.

It's pre-revolutionary Cuba.
Pepe is a musician, interested in playing his trumpet and having sex. He's also part of an underground trying to take down a corrupt general.
He's ALSO Dracula's grandson. His uncle, a vampire created a serum to allow vampires to exist during the day.

This serum becomes part of a power struggle between the North American and European factions of the vampire world.

Oh, yeah... it's animated too. The image on the dvd cover is Pepe vamped out. As someone who's used to the sophisticated animation of Japanese cartoons, and even the not as sophisticated but still pretty good animation of American cartoons, the animation style was... different. Primative, even for 1985 (point of reference: The Transformers: the Movie came out in 1986), it's got an almost European feel.

Vampires in Havana isn't for everyone, but if you're an fan of international animation, it's something worth checking out.

Vampyros Lesbos

I've watched several vampire films with girl/girl content during this project, some subtle, some arty, some cheesy. But Vampyros Lesbos cuts through all the subtext crap and puts it right there in the title.

It's... there's... oh, come on- it's not something most people watch for a plot (though there's a bit of one), but for the writhing naked ladies- it's an exploitation flick pure and simple from Jess Franco. This is the first of Franco's movies I've seen- but knowing he's directed a women in prison movie gives me some context.

Vampyros Lesbos has a seventies score and the sets- including a great spiral staircase with silver foil wall paper- are textbook examples of seventies design.
Really.
That's one of those things that helps me get through movies like this.

Three months down, nine more to go!