Horror Show

[Scorpio]

Wes Craven 's ' The serpent and the rainbow ' is a good movie about the original Zombie of Voodoo lore. Romero's movies turned the Zombie into a flesh eating Ghoul.A satire of consumer society.

[kensei]

I have just watched "The Vulture," a 1967 horror film (same year I was born) starring Broderick Crawford I first saw on t.v. at about the age of ten 35 years ago, for only the second time, after searching for it for years and finally finding an affordable copy on VHS on Amazon.com. I want to stress that when I first saw this as a child it filled me with a foreboding and traumatic horror that I carried with me for weeks, so much so that I never forgot it and I've always wanted to see it again to see if it would seem much downplayed to my adult self as other movies have that I remember from my youth. I have to say though, the way I remembered it, "The Vulture" has always been the gold standard in my mind. It made me SO SCARED, with memories of a half man-half bird creature descending with thumping wingbeats to snatch its victims away with sharp talons.

The verdict: "The Vulture" is not that scary. It's a good flick, but what has me absolutely amazed right now is how the scenes that so traumatized me as a child comprise just literally mere seconds of the movie. Those talons, coming down from above and clamping down on people's shoulders to whisk them away to a horible fate. Very little blood and gore, hardly any really. And the creature turns out not to be supernatural, but a crazy old man who used weird science to transform himself. He is dispatched with a couple of bullets and then dumped in the ocean and forgotten. Seriously, I would say that the man in man-bird creature form makes up no more than two minutes of this movie. It was those "victims being snatched away scenes" that haunted me, and I can't believe how brief they were, and made me think I was seeing the scariest movie I'd ever seen or would ever see. My adult self had no memory of 90% of the movie, only the 10% that scared me. I guess that's a fascinating psychological study.

Afterthought: The movie takes place in Cornwall, with lots of lovely coastline scenery, and I've been there so I really enjoyed that. One really weird thing, though- in the mid-1970s a creature called the Owlman was reported seen in Cornwall, no fantasy but the real thing. This movie predates that. Hmmmm...

[RivkahChaya]

There was a tv special a couple of years ago entitled "The Real Wolfman," which was a study of the Beast of Gevaudan in France.... what about the question of whether a holy blessing placed on a silver bullet that wouldn't ordinarily fly straight might miraculously make it fly straight and true? They didn't even address that.

I've seen that. They were trying to stay away from all supernatural explanations, including religious ones.

Also, while I'm inclined to think that most silver bullet stories are, to put it politely, theoretical, a silver, or silver-clad bullet probably wouldn't have flown straight because it wouldn't have been as soft as a lead bullet, and wouldn't have picked up rifling from the barrel. I wonder (and I'm plenty open to correction) if a silver bullet wouldn't have been frangible, and if it did happen to hit its mark, a one-shot-kill bullet.

I think the modern vampire image from Stoker onward is one big fetish; it would account for its popularity and longevity.

The book is quite a bit different from any movie. Even though the men are trying to save "their" women from the beast, there isn't really anything sexy about it. Stoker deliberately borrowed the physical description of Dracula from descriptions of the atavistic "born criminal" type.

I don't take Stoker to task for romance, or fetishism people have stuck on to his story.

At this point, if someone tried to make a true-to-novel version of the book (even Herzog's wonderful 1979 film ended up making Isabelle Adjani the POV character), people probably wouldn't like it because they wouldn't recognize it.

[kensei]

I believe Francis Ford Coppola's film "Bram Stoker's Dracula" from 1992 followed the book more closely than any other Dracula film, though there were still radical departures, primarily the whole romantic theme that had Dracula genuinely in love with Mina and believing her to be the reincarnation of his former wife. In the book there was no romance, if there was love it was definitely a selfish kind, and he was more like a rapist than a lover. But the similarities were many.

The way the book is entirely in the form of diary entires, newspaper articles, etc. is reproduced.

Jonathan Harker's time in the castle and his interactions with Dracula and the three vampire brides is quite faithful, as is the depiction of Renfield in the asylum. Famous lines from the book are used, such as Dracula's musing about the wolves howling- "The children of the night, what sweet music they make."

Dracula appears looking both young and old, depending on how much he has fed, as in the book.

The ravishing of Lucy over time, and her slow decline into death and vampirism, is very faithful right down to the inclusion of the white wolf escaped from the zoo. Dracula and the wolf actually seem to merge into one. One difference- in the book, Lucy's mother is with her when the wolf enters to kill her and the mother isn't featured in the movie at all. The graveyard scene where the men dispatch the vampire Lucy in her tomb is faithful and one of the best scenes in the film.

In the book, Dracula is killed not with a wooden stake but with two knives- Harker's Gurka Kukri to the throat, and Quincy Morris' Bowie knife to the heart. This is reproduced literally, right down to the type of knives. This makes Quincy quite an important character, but I don't think any other film has even featured him. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) He dies after being wounded in a fight with Dracula's gypsy guards, which is also from the book and was never featured in any other film. In the book it's a very quick skirmish though, and in the film it's an extended chase and gunfight. The film embellishes Dracula's death into a melodramatic last kiss with Mina, rather than his instant disintegration from the book.

Van Helsing. Forget any notion of Hugh Jackman's young action hero. In the book he is an old man but still very driven, and the way he protects Mina at the castle and then in the morning enters it to conduct the butchery required to slay the three brides (which takes a considerable toll on him both physically and mentally) is rendered very faithfully. The film portrays him as being a good deal more zany in his behavior than the book, but that provides some good comic relief.

All in all, by far my favorite Dracula film of all time with solid performances by Gary Oldman as Dracula, Winona Ryder as Mina, Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing, Keanu Reeves as Harker, Sadie Frost as Lucy, Tom Waits as Renfield, and Cary Elwes as Arthur Holmwood.

[Scorpio]

There is a 1979 version of Dracula with one really good scene in it.
Van and the gang encounter a vampire in an abandoned mine working.
Its supposed to be Yorkshire; It's probably a coal mine.

[RivkahChaya]

There is a 1979 version of Dracula with one really good scene in it.
Van and the gang encounter a vampire in an abandoned mine working.
Its supposed to be Yorkshire; It's probably a coal mine.

The scene where she had gone down through the bottom of her casket into this underground maze? I remember seeing the film in 1979, and I had no idea it was supposed to be a coal mine. After I realized it was, I though "Who buries bodies over an area where the ground is hollowed out for a mine?" Does that really happen in Yorkshire.

I thought the Coppola version was awful, sorry. Just pulling a few specific details from the book doesn't make it "faithful." It didn't remind me of the book at all. It was tedious, and just not terribly scary, or even suspenseful. The usually great Gary Oldman is just awful.

I thought that the 1979 Nosferatu by Herzog captured the beginning very well, the part where Harker was trapped in Dracula's castle. The rest of the film was fantastic, as a film, but you cannot say it was faithful to the book.

[Scorpio]

The scene where she had gone down through the bottom of her casket into this underground maze? I remember seeing the film in 1979, and I had no idea it was supposed to be a coal mine. After I realized it was, I though "Who buries bodies over an area where the ground is hollowed out for a mine?" Does that really happen in Yorkshire.

I thought the Coppola version was awful, sorry. Just pulling a few specific details from the book doesn't make it "faithful." It didn't remind me of the book at all. It was tedious, and just not terribly scary, or even suspenseful. The usually great Gary Oldman is just awful.

I thought that the 1979 Nosferatu by Herzog captured the beginning very well, the part where Harker was trapped in Dracula's castle. The rest of the film was fantastic, as a film, but you cannot say it was faithful to the book.

I think that some of Yorkshires coal mines date from the early Industrial revolution and records of there exact location are not terribly accurate.

[kensei]

With the 1979 version are we talking about the one starring Frank Langella? I read a commentary on it once by Langella in which he said it amused him how people would tell him how frightened they were when they saw him bare his fangs, as he did not actually wear fangs. However, didn't that movie interchange the characters of Mina and Lucy and end with Dracula dying in the sunlight while hanging from a hook from the mast of a ship? I'd have to see it again. Parts may have been faithful to the book but others definitely weren't.

The Coppola version- I know it has its detractors. It has a lot of garish color in it, American actors faking British accents, Dracula's hair when he is in old man form looks completely bizarre, and other things that turned many people off. But I saw it at a time in my life that was very formative to me and I've always returned to it. Its detractions from Stoker's novel were many, but the number of things that stuck to the book implicitly were, I still think, more than any other movie has ever done. And there are lines of clever and darkly amusing dialogue I've always been able to quote from memory, such as when Van Helsing and Dr. Seward are debating how Lucy is losing so much blood without it ever being found on the bedclothes.

VAN HELSING: Where did the blood go?!
SEWARD (exasperated): Something just went up there, sucked it out of her and flew away I suppose?
VAN HELSING (after an ominous pause): Ya, why not?

Or those same two men, after Lucy dies and everyone is in mourning.

VAN HELSING: I know how much you loved her. That is why you must trust me and believe.
SEWARD: Believe? How can I believe?
VAN HELSING: I want you to bring me before nightfall a set of post mortem knives.
SEWARD: An autopsy? On Lucy?
VAN HELSING: No, no, no, I just want to cut off her head and take out her heart.

And I definitely didn't think Oldman's performance was terrible. He went through a LOT of elaborate changes visually throughout the film and wore extremely heavy makeup for parts of it, but I found nothing wrong with his acting. And the bit where he caught Mina's tears in his hand and turned them into diamonds was pretty cool. The way he could be that charming and romantic, but then so quickly turn vicious and pure evil to the point of physically transforming the moment things didn't go his way, I found frightening.

[RivkahChaya]

With the 1979 version are we talking about the one starring Frank Langella? I read a commentary on it once by Langella in which he said it amused him how people would tell him how frightened they were when they saw him bare his fangs, as he did not actually wear fangs. However, didn't that movie interchange the characters of Mina and Lucy and end with Dracula dying in the sunlight while hanging from a hook from the mast of a ship? I'd have to see it again. Parts may have been faithful to the book but others definitely weren't.

Yes. The Lucy/Mina name switch goes back to the stage play. I'm not sure why, but Hamilton Deane, who wrote the play in 1924, for the London stage, kept Mina Harker, and eliminated Lucy as a character altogether, but changed Quinc[e]y Morris to a woman; the New York version dropped the Quincey character, and renamed Mina Harker Lucy Harker. The 1931 Universal film, which was based on the play restored both Mina and Lucy, with Mina as the first victim of the two. However, in subsequent treatments, screenwriters have maintained the swap, including the 1979 film, which was also Universal. Maybe because more people have seen at least one version of the film, or the play, than have actually read the book, or maybe because the name "Mina" somehow sounds more vulnerable, and Lucy is a stronger name, [SPOILER]: it somehow "feels" better for the woman who actively battles Dracula. I don't know. Even the 1979 Nosferatu has a Lucy.

Langella does have fangs in one scene, but most of the time, he manages to speak so that none of his teeth are visible. It's very good. It looks like he's trying to hide his fangs.

[Scorpio]

The scariest screen vampires belong to the F.W Murnau 1922 ' Nosferatu '
tradition. The ' Penus with teeth ' portrayed by Max Schreck would influence the 1979 ' Nosferatu the vampyre ' portrayed by Klaus Kinski,and the Salems Lot TV movie with Reggie Nalder.

[kensei]

The scariest screen vampires belong to the F.W Murnau 1922 ' Nosferatu '
tradition. The ' Penus with teeth ' portrayed by Max Schreck would influence the 1979 ' Nosferatu the vampyre ' portrayed by Klaus Kinski,and the Salems Lot TV movie with Reggie Nalder.

Agreed. Though I enjoyed Gary Oldman as Dracula and the wide range of expressions he had to pull off, there is nothing in vampire fiction that provokes quite the pure primal terror as the look of Schreck's Count Orlock in "Nosferatu." Oldman was scary in how he could completely pull you in with his charming guise but then turn on a dime into the monster, but Schreck was always the monster, a monster you knew at first look you never wanted to come withing a hundred miles of. Yet wasn't he still pretending to be human? A real vampire from folklore (if there has ever been such a thing) is never doing that. They don't pretend. They are reanimated corpses who come out at night to prey on the living, with no soul, no memory of who they were in life, no personality and certainly no charm. They are horribly frightening and completely disgusting creatures who rarely even speak. They are wearing whatever clothes they were buried in, which is the only reason a vampire might appear well dressed. That traditional folkloric vampire has NEVER been portrayed in a movie as far as I know, and I think if it was and was done well it could be the scariest vampire film ever.

That said, I do admit to a guilty pleasure in "The Lost Boys" from the 80s. Those vampires, led by a young Keifer Sutherland, posed as the juvenile delinquents they'd been in life but in their true guise were brutal violent predators who hung upside down from rafters like bats while dormant and would burn if touched by sunlight. There was a lot of comedy in that one, but it blended perfectly with the horror and that horror was pretty dark.

[kensei]

As a companion to vampires, how about werewolves? They're one of my very favorite movie monsters. Which films does everyone think has done them the most justice?

Lon Cheney Jr.'s "The Wolf Man" was a classic, and I enjoyed it but I thought it was odd that though he had sharp teeth and claws he tended to not use them and just strangled his victims instead. The recent remake with Benicio Del Toro did not have such scruples and was soaked in blood and gore. I liked that very much too. Del Toro was very similar to Cheney, dark haired and a big burly guy who could easily embody the monster. Solid performances by Anthony Hopkins as a surprise second werewolf and Emily Blunt as an absolutely heartbreaking damsel who ends up having to fire a fateful silver bullet.

Other favorites-

"An American Werewolf in London." What a blending of elements! Drama, comedy, horror, music. The use of locations around London was fascinating. I visited the London Zoo in 2004. Had to pull up the movie when I got back to see if the scene where the central character wakes up there after his first night as a werewolf was really filmed there. It was. There is an exhibit of American bears there with the bears climbing across an artificial cliff face that is seen in the movie. The climax shot in Picadilly Circus is also a treat. The werewolf is on four legs, as they tended to be in folklore, not a bipedal "Wolf Man."

Then there was "The Howling," which produced several very bad sequels. But the first one, involving a pack of werewolves living in a secret society, was the very last time I ever allowed a movie to scare the hell out of me to the point of real primal fear. It was this film, along with American in London, that brought werewolf transformation special effects into the modern age. These wolves were something new- they were bipedal, but they looked like giant regular wolves standing up on their hind legs, seven feet tall and hideously frightening.

Then there was the tv show "Werewolf" on the FOX network when it first premiered. Veteran actor Chuck Connors played the villain werewolf, and sorry but I don't remember the clean-cut pretty boy's name who played the hero werewolf. I remember enjoying it very much and I'm sure there were some cheesy elements to it but overall I think it was very well done. These wolves were ambidextrous- they could go about on all fours or stand upright, and were quite well designed by FX master Stan Winston if I recall correctly. As the villain, Connors pulled off something never seen before- when he transformed he would open his mouth, pull back the skin of his face, and his wolf self would emerge from out of his mouth. Yikes!

[Scorpio]

Agreed. Though I enjoyed Gary Oldman as Dracula and the wide range of expressions he had to pull off, there is nothing in vampire fiction that provokes quite the pure primal terror as the look of Schreck's Count Orlock in "Nosferatu." Oldman was scary in how he could completely pull you in with his charming guise but then turn on a dime into the monster, but Schreck was always the monster, a monster you knew at first look you never wanted to come withing a hundred miles of. Yet wasn't he still pretending to be human? A real vampire from folklore (if there has ever been such a thing) is never doing that. They don't pretend. They are reanimated corpses who come out at night to prey on the living, with no soul, no memory of who they were in life, no personality and certainly no charm. They are horribly frightening and completely disgusting creatures who rarely even speak. They are wearing whatever clothes they were buried in, which is the only reason a vampire might appear well dressed. That traditional folkloric vampire has NEVER been portrayed in a movie as far as I know, and I think if it was and was done well it could be the scariest vampire film ever.

That said, I do admit to a guilty pleasure in "The Lost Boys" from the 80s. Those vampires, led by a young Keifer Sutherland, posed as the juvenile delinquents they'd been in life but in their true guise were brutal violent predators who hung upside down from rafters like bats while dormant and would burn if touched by sunlight. There was a lot of comedy in that one, but it blended perfectly with the horror and that horror was pretty dark.

Filmaker and author Guillermo del Toro claims that vampires have been ' Mormonized ' by modern culture.

[RivkahChaya]

Filmaker and author Guillermo del Toro claims that vampires have been ' Mormonized ' by modern culture.

What does "Mormonized" mean? I can't figure how a fetishized, sexualized, romanticized vampire is something that can be chalked up to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I mean, I am in no way or shape an LDS fan, and the LDS is one reason I was terrified of a Romney presidency, but I did a cursory reading of the Book of Mormon about 22 years ago, because I was interpreting at an LDS adult education meeting on a regular basis, and I don't remember vampires being mentioned.

I also can't figure out what Guillermo del Toro would know about Mormons.

Now, if this is some kind of slander against the Mormons, I guess I can see how someone could trump up their strange and true Mormon idea of a woman needing to be married in order to get into heaven (ie, be immortal in the way Christianity conceptualizes it), which was how they justified polygamy, and some other strange ideas they have about death, such as baptizing the living in the name of the dead, so that people who were not Mormons in their lifetimes, could get into heaven after death, by some kind of posthumous conversion (which if I understand it, the baptism merely creates the opportunity for, it doesn't just whisk them away), into Mormon elders being figures who grant immortality, sort of like the "head" vampire in films like The Lost Boys.

But if someone has drawn those parallels, that sounds like anti-Mormon rhetoric, and not anything the Mormons would have people believe about them.

If you ask me, you don't need to slander the Mormons. You can just point out what they actually do believe, and let it speak for itself; you don't need to work in vampire crap. In fact, please don't. You might accidentally make Mormonism sound attractive to some Goth 13-year-olds.

[Scorpio]

I think that he means that the vampire has been sanitized. He also feels that vampires have become the victims of romantic fiction: All Vampires have been demoted to the role of Heathcliffe,the bad boy beloved of chick flicks.