Vampire Blog-a-Thon
‘Down’ with The Count, or:
Pardon me, but your blog is in my neck
I couldn’t bring myself to pound away on one specific film or the genre as a whole, as horror films are, more often than not, pretty bad, with vampire movies occasionally treading in the gamy realm of gothic romance. Plus, there’s also the ageing factor to consider: back in 1970, I felt that House of Dark Shadows, a theatrical release derived from the TV serial Dark Shadows, was a fairly decent chiller. A recent broadcast on TCM, my first viewing of it in 35 years, sobered me to reality. It’s truly a piece of shit.
Movies made after Star Wars (my proximity marker for the mainstream’s demise) generally emphasize glib surprise over psychological horror, and often employ a steady stream of hollow helter-skelter imagery awaiting the spectator’s narcissistic readings for meaning. Plus, the age of AIDS has lent a stultifying nihilism to the genre, making the contemporary vampire pictures seem less concerned with simple-minded escapism than harrowing and incurable diseases.
In any case I submit the following, in no particular order:
The Night Stalker (1972) Producer Dan Curtis was a major advocate of horror in the 1970s, mostly through television where this aired on ABC’s ‘Movie of the Week.’ Curtis directed the aforementioned House of Dark Shadows, so we should consider ourselves fortunate that he entrusted The Night Stalker to veteran hack John Llewellyn Moxey (who also made the effective Horror Hotel in 1960). This marked the first appearance of future series character Carl Kolchak, played by the inimitable Darren McGavin, a footloose hedonist and newspaper reporter on the trail of one Janos Skorzeny (Barry Atwater), a prospective vampire. Set in contemporary (albeit pre-Disneyfied) Vegas, there were rumors that the tale was based on an actual event experienced by writer Jeff Rice.
The Vampire (1957) Pat Fielder’s screenplay takes an unusually honest approach to drug addiction, as a suburban doctor (played by John Beal) pops pills that turn him into a mad, hairy killer — Bigger Than Life meets Meteor Monster. Second-billed is one of my old lust issues, Coleen Gray (Molly in Nightmare Alley, Sterling Hayden’s girlfriend in The Killing) as the woman who can see The Good in her man, no matter how unkempt or deranged he may be.
Horror of Dracula (1958) Although it tends to bog down in the occasional foray of straight drama, this has the first and best appearance of the great Christopher Lee as Dracula. Produced in England by Hammer Films, it led to a sporadic series (featuring a bevy of buxom femme fatales) that ran for nearly twenty years. A deliberate and planned moment, the shock cut to him hissing with blood dripping on his chin (see photo above) is still a pip. Cool music too, by James Bernard.
House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula (both 1945) Universal Pictures was Hollywood’s leading purveyor of horror in the 1930s and ‘40s. They released the classic Dracula with Bela Lugosi in 1931, but that film, despite its glowing reputation, crawls to tedium after a lively and creepy opening. By the end of WWII their product had diminished in quality, if not quantity, and both House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula were last-ditch attempts to sell 19th Century monsters to a world entering the atomic age. The reason I single out these two House… films is for their inspired casting of John Carradine as Dracula. Lugosi has his legions of defenders, but I’ll take Carradine as The Count any day. He played Dracula only one more time, but to far less advantage, in William ‘One Shot’ Beaudine’s risible Billy the Kid Versus Dracula (1966). Also of interest from Universal: Dracula’s Daughter (1936), with Gloria Holden and a whiff of lesbianism; and Robert Siodmak’s Son of Dracula (1943) which, given the topsy-turveyism of a Count named Alucard and the film’s deceptively ambivalent design, may owe more to Jean-Paul Sartre than Bram Stoker.
The Return of Dracula (1958) Strictly a guilty pleasure, this ran a lot on local television in the mid-1960s, and I must’ve seen it five or ten times on Chiller Theatre and Creature Features. Purists will tell you that this movie is rather terrible, and they’re probably correct. But I have a soft spot in my heart for the story of Cousin Bellac (Francis Lederer) visiting from Transylvania to the sleepy California town where he mesmerizes young Rachel (Norma Eberhardt) in a plot not far removed from Hitchcock’s and Thornton Wilder’s Shadow of a Doubt.
House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula (both 1945) Universal Pictures was Hollywood’s leading purveyor of horror in the 1930s and ‘40s. They released the classic Dracula with Bela Lugosi in 1931, but that film, despite its glowing reputation, crawls to tedium after a lively and creepy opening. By the end of WWII their product had diminished in quality, if not quantity, and both House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula were last-ditch attempts to sell 19th Century monsters to a world entering the atomic age. The reason I single out these two House… films is for their inspired casting of John Carradine as Dracula. Lugosi has his legions of defenders, but I’ll take Carradine as The Count any day. He played Dracula only one more time, but to far less advantage, in William ‘One Shot’ Beaudine’s risible Billy the Kid Versus Dracula (1966). Also of interest from Universal: Dracula’s Daughter (1936), with Gloria Holden and a whiff of lesbianism; and Robert Siodmak’s Son of Dracula (1943) which, given the topsy-turveyism of a Count named Alucard and the film’s deceptively ambivalent design, may owe more to Jean-Paul Sartre than Bram Stoker.
The Return of Dracula (1958) Strictly a guilty pleasure, this ran a lot on local television in the mid-1960s, and I must’ve seen it five or ten times on Chiller Theatre and Creature Features. Purists will tell you that this movie is rather terrible, and they’re probably correct. But I have a soft spot in my heart for the story of Cousin Bellac (Francis Lederer) visiting from Transylvania to the sleepy California town where he mesmerizes young Rachel (Norma Eberhardt) in a plot not far removed from Hitchcock’s and Thornton Wilder’s Shadow of a Doubt.
The Vampire Blog-a-Thon
Joining in the festivities:
More links to be added throughout the day!
posted by Ray Young at
5:28 AM
6 Comments:
You Star Wars point is ridiculous. As if a) everybody saw it at once and moderated their films accordingly, and instantaneously and b) a film can't be made outside of it's sphere of influence.
Surely cinema would be in a pretty sorry state even if you were only half-right.
And, NO, cinema isn't in a pretty sorry state.
I have always thought that the interesting thing about Christopher Lee's Dracula is that he is so inconsistent as the character. One has the feeling that Lee never understood the role, or perhaps wasn't happy being cast in the part.
I know that one of the great evils in the British film industry is typecasting. Peter Cushing used to discuss this in interviews. Once a person is a horror star, then he or she is forever cast in that role.
So perhaps the inconsistencies of Lee's Dracular reflects is unhappiness with this facet of his career.
I interviewed Lee many years ago for a magazine piece I was working on. After sparring with him over politics (Lee considers himself aligned with conservative Republicans...at least he did in the eighties), discussed how happy he was with America and the opportunities he had in the US. At the time, he talked about one of the Airport movies and his role as Scaramanga in "The Man With The Golden Gun".
I thought about that interview while watching him in the Star Wars series and the Lord of the Rings, and I thought to myself that he looked at ease, that at last he was getting those roles he felt he deserved.
I just post some vampire photos
i'ma add some of these to my netflix queue. how is it that I've missed most of these?
interesting that Shadow of a Doubt is mentioned in another entry too
oh, and Devil's Night is serious business mister ;)
If you're looking for a new vampire series check out ETERNAL VIGILANCE by Gabrielle S. Faust! :)
Fascinating post. I now have a whole new list of movies to add to my "must watch" list. There is something so endearingly fascinating with vampires, isn't there?
Emily
Check out our spoof vampire news show at iheartvampires.net
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