October Movie Challenge: Let the Challenge Begin

Once again I am going to participate in the October Movie Challenge from Krell Laboratories
This time you can also follow the goings on at Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/groups/173610362715851/

Tonight's bit of cinema is "The Unamable" (1988), based on the H.P. Lovecraft short story.  Already you know this is going to go one of two ways.  Bad or really bad.  I have yet to see a movie faithful to H.P. Lovecraft's work.  "From Beyond" and "Re-Animator" are different since they transcended their source material into something new.

What can I say about this?  The creature looks kinda cool, but the rest is kinda bad.  The "Randolph Carter" character causally reads his copy of the Necronomicon and gleefully trying out spells while his friends die.  We get most of the 80s cliche's in movies including the "first to die" teens as the ones making out.

It was sorta fun, sorta stupid.

This is 1 down.  I thought it was a new one, but I realized I a little bit into it I had already seen it.

Oh Angelique

I look forward to our next meeting.

Dark Shadows coming on May 11, 2012.

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/09/22/johnny-depps-true-dark-shadows-vampire/

Juxtaposition Blogathon: Mina Harker

For my participation in the Juxtaposition Blogathon at Pussy Goes GRRR I though I would take a look at the various Dracula movies over the years.  But since I had gone over them in detail last year, I figure I'll focus on the heroine of our tale, Mina Murray Harker.

Now to be clear, so we are talking about the same character.  Mina is the character in the novel Dracula that married Johnathon Harker and is bit by Dracula, but does not die.

In many ways Mina is prototypical "Last Girl" of horror films, she could even be considered the first.  While she is still wrapped int he tropes of the female needing saving of the Gothic horror tradition, her growth in Dracula sets her apart.  Mina in the novel is a modern woman.  In the films...well let's have a look.

Nosferatu (1922)
We meet screen-Mina for the first time here, but her name is Ellen.  Mina/Ellen is very much the victim here.  In fact despite having just seen this movie the only scene I can recall with her in it is when Orlock (Dracula) is feeding on her bedroom.   She does hold the old vampire in the sunlight and kills him, but she dies herself.
Now Nosferatu had to deviate quite a bit from the source material in order to get made (and even that was iffy), but Lucy went from a integral part of the story to the roll of the victim, and purely the victim here.

Dracula (1931)
This is famous Bela Lugosi version and this movie is full of Hollywood glam.  Mina and Lucy (Lucy is now brought into picture) are depicted in their Hollywood finest.  Not too bad for a secretary and her idle rich friend.  Again, as with Ellen above, Mina is more victim here.  While this movie is closer to the stage play than the novel we do get to see some of Mina's character.  Now another change here is Mina is the daughter of Dr. Seward, a bit of an odd choice, but one that comes up again (and again, due to the stage play).   As in the book it is Mina that gives our would be vampire hunters the insight they need.  Also interestingly enough this is the genesis of the "Mina loves Dracula" sub-plot that we get in later movies, but is absent in the book entirely.  In the end we end up with Mina back with Johnathon and Lucy dead.

Dracula (1958)
The first of the Christopher Lee/Peter Cushing Dracula films for Hammer.  The roll of Mina/Lucy and the other women is reduced even more than the 1931 outing. The focus here is the Dracula/Van Helsing relationship.   This time Harker is engaged to "Lucy" and Holmwood is married to Mina.  Lucy is killed and Mina is now the focus of the count's obsessions. Again, Mina here is a victim, but she is a "preferred victim" now.  We see the attachment of Mina to Dracula that was hinted in the Lugosi version and made more manifest here.  Dracula is not just a predator, he is after our wives!  Mina displays some of the cool intelligence we see in the book, but this character is not really the same woman.

Dracula (1979)
The famous John Badham film with Frank Langella oozed atmosphere and sensuality.  Here "Lucy" is a wholly modern woman.  She has her own opinions on things and is at the heart closer to Mina in the books than the other portrayals.     Here is the fiancee of Harker, but is also the daughter of Dr. Seward.   "Mina" plays the Lucy role and is Van Helsing's daughter.  Odd changes, but again these are due to the stage play (which gave both Lugosi and Langella their careers.)
Lucy in this movie is viewed as Dracula's equal, or at least a partner he would elevate above the others.  Again there is the "love story" between the two that did not exist in the book.
Lucy is less of a victim here in the sense of the victim's role.  She at times is a co-conspirator of Dracula and even in the end when all seems well, Johnathon turns away from her and she watches Dracula's cloak like she expects him to come back to her.

Dracula (1992)
The last on screen outing of Dracula and Mina is movie that was supposed to be the best adaptation of the book.  In many ways FFC's "Bram Stoker's Dracula" does get it right.  Mina is strong, courageous and a modern woman.  This contrasted with the "weaker" Lucy who is still very much part of the past.   This is the closest to the Novel Mina we have gotten.  And yet we still get the "Love Never Dies" story line inserted.   Mina is Dracula's equal here and this is shown in the movie with her delivering the killing blow (as opposed to Johnathon and Holmwwod doing it in the book). In this Mina is less the victim and even less the co-conspirator of Dracula, though she does sometimes forget herself.

In both the 1958 version and this one Mina is burned on the forehead with a holy item.  The ways in which these scenes play out I think is telling in how the director of each movie viewed Mina.  The 58 Hammer film the burn is nearly gratuitous.  A big burned on cross on the actress' face.  In the 92 FFC movie the burn is a partial circle from the host, it looks like a bad blister is all.  In both scenes we get the same message, Mina has been tainted by Dracula's evil, but in one she is disfigured and the other simply marked.

Growth
Mina is a reflection of the Modern Woman in the novel while Lucy is more the reflection of the Woman of the Past.  Mina is the one that finds everything and uses the latest technologies (typewriter and even Seward's phonograph).  I find it interesting that Mina in the novel is more forward thinking and modern than the movies that came after the fact. In fact it would be another 100 years till we ended up with a Mina, in the form of Winona Ryder, that came close to the book.  Sure Kate Nelligan is great and very modern, but she comes up a little short.  Or rather, the director and script do not allow her character to reach it's fullest potential.

Last Girl
Does Mina qualify as the "Last Girl". Yes. In book she is the prototype of the Last Girl, she confronts the evil and lives to tell the tale.  In fact it is Mina that discovers all the connections in the various tales of the other characters.  In the movies, well she survives, most of the times, but she also confronts the evil of Dracula.

Want to read more movie Juxtapostions?  Head on over to Pussy Goes GRRR!

Monster Mash Blogathon: The Screaming Skull

The 50's Monster Mash at Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear.
http://forgottenclassicsofyesteryear.blogspot.com/

You have to love any movie where the producers take the time to warn you away from their film at the beginning and guarantee you a free coffin if you happen to die of fright while watching the movie.  It is the kind of kitchy thing I associate with the 50s; horror before what would be the heyday of Hammer films.

The Screaming Skull is one such movie.  Though I can imagine the fine print on that "guarantee" does not cover dying of boredom.

I watching this film because a.) I was doing research on Screaming Skulls and b.) I had it on DVD with a collection of other Horror films.  Turns out the DVDs I have won't play in my computer so I ended up watching it on You Tube.  I guess the copyright has lapsed.

Newly married couple Eric (John Hudson) and Jenni (Peggy Weber) have come home to Eric's house.  Well it is not really his house. It is his late wife's.  Seems she had all the money and then died when she slipped and hit her head.    There are not a lot characters in this drama (which might actually make a descent high school play); the reverend and his wife and the creepy gardener Mickey.
Jenni almost immediately begins to fret when she discovers a painting of Eric's first wife.
There are many scenes of walking.  Walking to the pond. Walking to the house. Walking all over the place.
We finally get to something when Jenni discovers an old human skull.  She freaks out and tosses it out the window.  Later no one can find the skull and we learn that Jenni spent time in an asylum for hearing voices.
The skull pops up again and Jenni screams. We hear other screaming too, but Eric is quick to point out the peacocks outside.  Eric blames the somewhat mentally challenged gardener on all of this, Jenni thinks she is going crazy.  They decide to burn the painting and when it is reduced to ash there is the skull again.  Jenni screams and Eric claims he can't see it.  After she faints Eric hides the skull back in the pond.  Case closed right? Eric is trying to drive her crazy.  Well now the skull is after Eric, it flies up and attacks him, he runs, it manifests as a ghost and he throws a chair at it.  He tries to strangle Jenni, but in the end he drowned in the pool where he had been hiding the skull.  Leaving us to wonder was it a ghost or did Eric snap as well.
In the end we see the gardener talking to the skull telling it everyone is gone and everything will be fine now.

Again, I watched this for the Forgotten Classics blog, but this doesn't really qualify as a classic.  It was not bad, it just wasn't good or interesting enough.  Yes the central mystery of the skull was interesting on paper but the I am not sure the movie did such a great job of selling it to me. We should be able to watch Jenni's descent into madness more.  Eric's duplicity and Mickey's...well he was creepy in a way, but he only really just took up space. Coming back to Eric, the problem is we suspect him right away.  His first rich wife is dead and now his new rich wife might be going crazy.  The only mystery here is why can't the rest of the cast see it?

Of course there is not much here to connect to the myths of the screaming skulls unless you tie it in with the house more.  Marion, Eric's first wife and owner of the house, is like a screaming skull in that she wants everyone out of the house, but if she is in fact a ghost her desire is to murder Eric.

I would like to say more about this film, but there really isn't much to say.  Delete the scenes of people walking and tighten up other fluff you might an hour long movie.   I think a remake has the potential to be very scary.  Husband trying to drive his new wife crazy so he can get her money too and a potential real ghost in the mix, has the elements of a suspenseful movie, this one just isn't.  It's not good enough to give it a strong review and it is not bad enough to make fun of.  The acting is not bad and this group of actors went on to do other things. I suppose I should point out that Alex Nicol was both Mickey and the Director, but even that is not really enough.  Unlike some of the other choices for today it is not a classic either in a good sense or a bad one.

In the end you might have more fun with the MST3k version, but it was fun to watch this film for the the Blogathon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screaming_Skull
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052169/

These Dwarves...

Look freaking awesome.

I am glad they don't look like D&D dwarves or Rankin/Bass dwarves or even the ones I pictured in my head when I read the Hobbit the first time.

I am so looking forward to this movie and I have every faith in Peter Jackson's vision.

Monster Mash Movie Blogathon

I am joining the ranks of the Monster Movie Blogathon over at Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear.

For my participation I'll be watching the 1958 classic "The Screaming Skull".  It's for research.  I promise.

15 Movies

Found this 15 Movies thing at The Girl with the White Parasol and at Defiant Success.
I watch a lot of movies so I figured what the heck.

Movie you love with a passion.
Hmm.  Raiders of the Lost Ark is near perfect in my mind.  But I also love the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Movie you vow to never watch.
I doubt I will ever watch Human Centipede. Not because it looks stupid (it does) I don't want to do anything that might encourage this sort of "money shot" film making.  Basically this entire movie was built around one scene.  I refuse to be a part of that.

Movie that literally left you speechless.
Monster-a-Go Go.  It was just so monumentally stupid I couldn't say anything.

Movie you always recommend.
Anything by Hayao Miyazaki.

Actor/actress you always watch, no matter how crappy the movie.
Actor: I'll admit it. Nick Cage.  He plays the same character in every movie, but that is ok.
Actress: Linda Fiorentino. I even watched Jade.  Twice.

Actor/actress you don't get the appeal for.
Actor: John Travolta. I really just can't stand this guy.
Actress: Julia Ormond.  Have no idea what people see in her. She bores me to tears.

Actor/actress, living or dead, you'd love to meet.
Christopher Lee.  I bet he is just a font of knowledge.

Sexiest actor/actress you've seen. (Picture required!)
Wow.  So many really.  I am rather fond of Anne Hathaway.

Dream cast.
Another tough one.
Dream casts are tough since so much depends on the script.  Sometime you get an Oceans 11 and sometimes you get an Oceans 13. ;)

Favorite actor pairing.
I was always a big fan of Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder.  I also like anything with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.

Favorite movie setting.
Anything horror.  But I really like Victorian.

Favorite decade for movies.
Comedy/Coming of Age: 80's
Classic Horror: 50's and 70's

Chick flick or action movie?
Horror.

Hero, villain or anti-hero?
Depends on my mood.

Black and white or color?
Love old horror in black and white, but I see in color

The Lesbian Vampire: Villain or Victim? Part 2

I am participating in the Queer Film Blogathon over at Garbo Laughs.

Today I want to continue the topic of the lesbian vampire trope in film.  Why this trope and say not the homosexual vampire in general?  Well the easiest answer is of course I am most familiar with this one.  While there are examples of male homosexual vampires in film, using the same sub-text as the lesbian vampires, and both sub-genres do have a history of literature behind it, the lesbian vampire seems more prevalent.

The obvious reason is that male film makers tended to see women more as victims and a vampire has a sexual element to their predation.  Also the vampire is the ultimate other, someone so far outside that they are nolonger alive, no longer a person.  This the same history that many gays and lesbians (and African-Americans and Jews and Hispanics and....just pick an era) have also felt.  Naturally the two have become related.

The male homosexual vampire though can also be summed up in one name; Lestat.  Watch the movies, read the books and then come back.   That is all great and everything, but Lestat does not have the presence in film history as Dracula or Carmilla.  Though as the 70's wore on and Hammer was feeling the pressure to do more and more we got a new set of lesbian vampires.

Daughters of Darkness (1971)
I spent a week back in 2009 talking about Elizabeth Bathory. Now I will contend, just based on the reports as we know them, that Bathory was not a lesbian but rather a sexual sadist that happened to have targeted young girls.

That all being said, she is most often represented in movies, like she was here, as a lesbian and one that does not care much at all for men.  Of course credit goes to Delphine Seyrig and her portrayal of the immortal Countess.  This movie presents Elizabeth along with her companion Ilona (Andrea Rau).  Elizabeth begins to prey on new bride Valerie while sending Ilona out to tempt her new husband Stephan.
There is nothing really subtle here.  Stephan is portrayed as a useless thing that later can only consumate his marriage by beating Valerie.  When he kills Ilona in an accident in the shower he is portrayed as incompetent and something to be discarded.  All the while Elizabeth holds court and seduces Valerie away.  The ending is jarring,  more "Celluloid Closet" style vengeance maybe? Valerie, with Elizabeth's voice is now off picking up a new couple to continue her immortality with.  
There are traces of we will later see in The Hunger here.  The cool, sophisticated, European, woman. She might have some royal blood in her somewhere (pardon the bad metaphor) and she is certainly worldly.  She has companions, maybe male and female, but it is in her female companions she lavishes the most attention on even if I dare say it, the most love.    This is not the rampaging monster of Dracula or even Orlock. Carmilla, Bathory and later Miriam Blaylock are exotic creatures almost unique to themselves.

Of course there is still the issue of sex.

Vampyres (1975)

I also spent a week with this movie last year.  Vampyres is everything I have been talking about turned up to 11.  There are two beautiful women who spend most of the movie in some state of undress or in bed with each other or someone else.   They are obviously lovers and were killed in the midst of their lovemaking to come back as vampires.  They kill men, mostly, till another woman discovers them.  They then run off together in the end rather than get killed.

This movie could very well be prime example of this troupe and cliché in action. Innocent women are killed by an unknown gunman to come back from the dead to kill others.  It is almost textbook Dead/Evil Lesbian Cliché. Almost. While it certainly falls into cliché it also subverts it just a little. From the movie you get the feeling that Fran would rather not kill these men. Miriam of course only cares for Fran.  The novelization of this film makes this clearer, but we should go by what we have on screen.
Despite my enjoyment of this film and the material it has given me for my various games it is not a great film and as a film about lesbian vampires it is no Carmilla to be sure.   While I felt sorry for these women and felt they were trapped in an existence they never chose for themselves, I am not sure that is the intent of the film maker. I see two tragic figures.  José Larraz saw two pretty girls that he got to film naked. Now to be fair there is some good in this movie.  The actresses, while not great, certainly have enthusiasm for their roles and they can pull of the tortured vampires well.  It is a cult classic for a good reason and I still enjoy watching it.

The Hunger (1983)
Ah the Hunger. I swear this movie is just as responsible for the whole "Vampire sub-culture" as Vampire:TM and Lestat.   Bauhaus, David Bowie, Catherine Denueve. No wonder Poppy Z. Brite once described this as "the mandated first date movie of lesbian goths".   Based on the book by Whitney Strieber (when he wasn't writing about aliens) this is a very interesting tale.  First. The word vampire is never said (that I recall) in the movie.  It is also never said in the book, but I could be wrong on both counts.

Instead of a full review let's look into what is going on here.  Miriam Blaylock (Deneuve looking FANTASTIC) is a millennias old vampire that needs a companion to stay alive.  They feed on blood together (the scene in the beginning of the film where they pick up the couple while Peter Murphy sings is almost iconic) to stay alive, but only Miriam has eternal youth.  Her companion John (David Bowie) is showing the first signs of his aging process. Miriam soon has her eyes on lovely Dr. Sarah (Susan Sarandon) as his replacement.
David's years catch up to him and Miriam sets about to turn Sarah.  The scene where Miriam plays Sous le dôme épais might very well be one of the best seduction scenes in any movie, let alone a horror movie and never mind that is also between two women.  Sarah is introduced into a new world after her sexual encounter with Miriam.  Death later follows, Sarah's boyfriend Tom is the first to feed Sarah's new hunger and then Sarah herself.   The ending of the movie is not the same as the book and frankly I never quite "got it".  So let focus on Miriam and Sarah.
It is easy to feel Miriam's loneliness here. A scene in flashback of Miriam in Egyptian dress feeding in what must be the first time, gives us an idea of the passage of years and the number of former lovers she keeps in her attic.  The Hunger's lesbian overtones have been talked about at length by Susan Sarandon in the DVD commentary and in the movie The Celluloid Closet.  The Hunger does owe a lot to both Carmilla and Vampyros Lesbos in terms of visual style and how they wished to portray the characters. The question is now is Miriam sympathetic enough to avoid falling into a cliche where she needs to kill, however slowly, her lovers?  The novel handles this better by making Miriam a seperate species. She is looking for a cure that might help her and her future lovers and thinks Sarah is the one that will discover it.  It is not particularly a feminist movie or statement, but more about loneliness felt by one person that happens to also be female and bisexual and able to kill anyone she needs.

The Clichés
One thing we need to look at seriously is the potential of clichés in these movies.
In nearly every case the story is this.  "A female vampire seduces a younger, more innocent female victim in order to bring her into a life of vampirism like herself." Now replace the word vampire with lesbian and read it again.  Are we seeing a subversion of an ugly stereotype or a reaffirmation of one?  Can be both.

The Female Vampire as The Other
The female lesbian vampire is the ultimate Other.  Outside of life, outside of "male normality" and outside of conformity.  Zalenska, Carmilla, Bathory and Miriam Blaylock are all European royalty,  they do not have to conform to society.  Their victims are more common place women, each with (largely ineffectual) men in their lives, but are seduced away.  Away into what?  Well that is what we should ask ourselves. Is this a subconscious reaction to the fear of The Other?  Or from my point of view are the film-makers purposefully making us feel for these character because they have no choices?  Is that just as bad? I don't hate you because you are a monster, I feel bad for you.   Frankly I'd rather be hated than pitied.
Jumping across the race and gender divide let's look (breifly) at Blacula. I have mentioned before that Prince Mamuwalde is a sympathetic character. He was destroyed by Dracula only share in his curse.  Here despite being a Prince himself, he is reduced in status by Dracula because of his skin color.  Plus Blacula is such a sympathetic character probably in no small part due the acting ability of William Marshal who got this role from playing Othello.

Which leads us to the oddest conclusion.  Vampyres, from José Larraz (who admits all he wanted to do was make a vampire film with pretty girls in it) might be the most "feminist" movie in the lot.  The girls, Fran and Miriam are already together and in love then they are killed to come back a enact some vengeance.  There is no seducer and victim between them they began and ended as equals to each other.

The Dead/Evil Lesbian Cliché
Are these movies part of the dead/evil lesbian cliché?  By definition any vampire is dead. And if they have to kill to live on for themselves then they are also by definition evil.
Details of this cliché are listed here: http://thekittenboard.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2539

At some level they are all guilty of this.  Again, Vampyres takes a different route by showing yes the women were murdered because they were together, but they came back to get revenge on their murderer.  This puts it closer to The Crow and other revenge movies.  Dracula's Daughter and in some cases Carmilla and The Hunger show that our vampire is conflicted, even feeling she has no choice or is trapped in this life/unlife.  The lines start getting a bit blurry.  In the end I give them a barest of passes only because of the times in which they were made and the fact that most of these are B movies.  I would naturally expect better from any movie coming out now.

For a good example of what we can get now, even though it is not a vampire, we have Madame Vastra (a Silurian) and Jenny (her human lover) from Doctor Who.

Come back later as I wrap this up and bring it back around to RPGs.

The Lesbian Vampire: Villain or Victim? Part 1

I am participating in the Queer Film Blogathon over at Garbo Laughs.
The entire list of participants will be posted here: http://garbolaughs.wordpress.com/2011/06/27/queer-blogathon/

I want to explore the meme/trope of the Lesbian Vampire in horror films as the ultimate outsider and compare how she is more often portrayed as a tragic figure than that of a monster.  This can be extended to the Homosexual Vampire too (Lestat, or any of Rice's vamps) and even due to race (Blackula).   This of course will necessitate a discussion on the Evil or Dead Lesbian Cliché and whether or not even a sympathetic vampire still qualifies.

Why this trope?  Well if nothing else I need to blame Carmilla.  Long ago I had heard of this notorious film called "Blood and Roses" and I really wanted to watch it.  I had to be high school or younger.  I had already had a stead diet of vampire movies, mostly Dracula clones, under my belt and I wanted something new.  Plus my dad had this book that included a still from the movie that really was not something that ever scream horror to me.

Looking at this picture you can't tell who is the victim and who is the vampire.

I never found a copy of Blood and Roses.  But I did learn it had been based on a book and that book was at my library.  I got a copy of Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla and read it all in one night.  I was dragging the next day, but at the end the story I felt bad for Carmilla.  To me she had grown up in this family of evil and all she ever really wanted was someone to love.  It happened to be a female someone, but really that is all she wanted.  She had been cursed against her will to become something that society could not accept; at least that is how it occurred to my teenage mind then.  Still though, I mourn for Carmilla and what she lost.

I learned soon after there were other movies like this, and it was not long before a pattern emerged.

Let be honest and upfront here, what is the primary motivation for including a lesbian vampire in a horror flick?  Simple to get her in a position with the heroine/last girl and fill theatre seats.  Frankly it is no different than what you might find in most Women in Prison movies.  But I content that due to source material, namely Carmilla and some movies, the Lesbian Vampire trope evolved into much more of  a tragic figure.

It make more sense to do this all chronologically rather than when I saw them.  And depending on the size I might need to split this up into multiple posts.

Dracula's Daughter (1936)
I reviewed this movie at length back in the October Horror blogathon, but I want to get to the salient bits here. Marya Zaleska is the eponymous daughter of the Count. At some point he cursed her with vampirism and now she must also drink the blood of humans.  First thing we have here in our trope building is a woman forced into her new unlife by a man.  I am not trying to make any messages here, but I do have a point I want to get to.  Secondly this existence is not something they want.  While Drac is gladly nibbling on the necks of any young lass that happens by, Zaleska is much more tortured about it.  Like the literary Carmilla she is part of her family's curse.  Like Carmilla, what attracts Zaleska's interest is the lovely Janet.
Universal played up the implied lesbian vampire subtext here, even with original promotional material claiming "save your women from Dracula's Daughter!".  I think in a lesser actress' hand Zaleska would have been seen as an evil predator, but Gloria Holden was not a lesser actress.  The effect again is one of profound saddness for this character.  She does not want to be like she is.  The question is though are supposed to assume that is also true for her attractions to other women?  This movie is unclear, since, in true Celluloid Closet tradition Zaleska is killed and Janet is saved by her man.  In fact this movie is one of the subjects in the movie version of the Celluloid Closet.
It would be years before we get another good portrayal.

Blood and Roses (Et mourir de plaisir) (1961)
I can't properly review this one because to this day I still have not seen it.  But I have seen a number of Vadim's films and read a lot of commentary on the movie itself.
There is less connection to the novel Carmilla than later attempts, and the Carmilla of this tale is less sympathetic than say future versions, though the relationship between the two girls is more deeply developed.

The Vampire Lovers (1970)
This movie is like a perfect storm for the Other Side.  Based on the original novel, it is Hammer, has Ingrid Pitt, Peter Cushing, Kata O'Mara, Pippa Steele and Madeline Smith, there is even a Faux Dracula there.
Honestly I am a bit surprised I have gone into this movie deeper than I have here.  The tale of the Karnstein's would be perfect for Ghosts of Albion or Buffy.  But I digress.
Ingrid Pitt's Carmilla is a tragic figure here, manipulated by forces beyond her control, either by her "mother" the Countess or the mysterious figure that lurks in the background (always assumed to be Dracula, played by John Forbes-Robertson who played D in the Seven Golden Vampires) and her own bloodlust.  Now here there is no doubt that Carmilla is supposed to be evil.  She casually uses and tosses away Mdme. Perrodot (Kate O'Mara) and she did kill Laura (Pippa Steele) but yet to me there is something underneath all of this.  Carmilla is still a tragic figure.  She was damned, but maybe the least of the damned.  Not as much as in the novella, but it is there.
Vampire Lovers goes into areas only hinted at in Dracula's Daughter and Blood and Roses.  The look that Carmilla gives Mdme. Perrodot can not be confused with anything else other than pure lust.

Vampyros Lesbos (1971)

One can not talk about this trope and not bring up Jesus Franco's Vampyros Lesbos and the haunting performance of Soledad Miranda. And haunting is the right word.  Soledad brought not only an ethereal quality to the roll, but she was also killed in a car crash after filming, but before the film was released in America.

Based on Dracula (which Franco and Miranda also did a version of with Christopher Lee) though with the gender's of Dracula and Harker switched.  Which changes the whole dynamic.  There is a languid quality about this tale.  Unlike Count Dracula, which attempts use what he can of Harker and then tosses him aside, Condesa Oskudar makes attempts to push away Linda because she knows there is an end to their tale.

This is a surreal film really.  And again one can't help but feel that the character of Condesa Oskudar is a sympathetic one. Had she not been a blood sucking vampire, albeit one that likes to sunbathe, then this movie might have been more like a Room in Rome.

There is a lot of sexploitation in these movies. Let's not pretend otherwise. But that doesn't mean that the stories themselves have to be.   Tomorrow I'll bring up some more movies that take this trope much further and we still need to answer the question here are we seeing these women as subtle examples of the alienation they must feel or are these examples of the Evil/Dead Lesbian Cliché, or are they both?

Come back tomorrow for Part 2.

Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows, Part 2

This is going to be great.
The scenes where knights come to defend the school is exactly how I imagined it would be.




And there is this,  http://www.youtube.com/JKRowlingAnnounces

End of an Era

We are coming up on the end of an era.

The last Harry Potter movie will be hitting theaters next month and it has been a fun 10 year ride.
Regardless of your thoughts on the books, or the movies or any of the hype there are a few things I think are very true.

1. It has been a worldwide phenomena, not just in terms of the "World of Harry Potter" but something that got kids to READ!

2. It has been a wonder watching these young actors grow up.

The books have been fantastic. The movies wonderful. I am for one sad to see them go, but all good things right.

Here is a really cool video.

Ingrid Pitt, First Lady of Hammer Horror, dead at 73

Just saw this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11823418

Having gone on a Hammer bender here just recently I saw a lot of Ingrid Pitt movies.

Of course she did more than Hammer films, but that is what she will be best remembered for.

You can see her filmography here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingrid_Pitt and here, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0685839/.

Her website, http://www.pittofhorror.com/

She will be missed.

October Movie Reviews: Final Tally

Here we go!



31 movies with 20 new, never before seen.

Not too bad.

October Movie Reviews: Lovecraft Film Fest

Last ones. This last round are some Lovecraft movies.  Pity poor Lovecraft, his books are so good and so scary; but the movie adaptations are usually so bad.  There are some exceptions.

Dagon (2001)
Loosely based on "The Shadows Over Insmouth" it moves the action to Spain.  Here the EoD is slicing up  humans to make "costumes" for the fish mutants.  It has gore, it has sub-par acting and most of the story is preserved but the overall effect is a bit sub-par.  It was an enjoyable little flick, but certainly more of the Lovecraft frame of mind (ie. how many and who survives) than what you normally see in Hollywood films.  It has it's problems to be sure, but it is one of the better adaptations.

Beyond The Dunwich Horror (2008)
This direct to Sci-Fi Channel movie (with an unrated version out there) is Dean Stockwell's second chance at doing The Dunwich Horror (the first was 1970).  This one is more Hollywood and it shows.  In a bad way.  Only barley recognizable as Lovecraft's tale it does have some nice special effects, Yog-Sothoth looks pretty cool.  But there is this whole drug-dream sequences with Abdul Alhazred and his harem of naked girls (I am not 100% sure that Lovecraft ever actually had any women in his stories).  There is a starting scene that is more "Exorcist" or even the movie version of "Constantine" than Lovecraft.  In the end this is weak movie, despite Dean Stockwell playing Henry Armitage and Lovecraft regular Jeffry Combs playing Wilbur Whateley. In fact both are completely misused here to let some D-List actors have all the screen time.  I guess that is how they paid for those special effects.

I'll tally up my movies later.

October Movie Reviews: Round up

Rounding up some more movies I saw over the last week or so.  The biggest issue is not watching the movies, but finding the time to blog about them.  I also I like to watch a lot of the Halloween related Discovery and History channels shows and I didn't do that this much this year.

The Plague of the Zombies (1965)
Hammer does zombies.  Interesting take really.  The zombies are sorta incidental.  The big bad here is our voodoo master raising up the corpses of the dead to ... go to work mining.  Sure, it actually makes sense really.  Perfect workers, they don't need to be paid, they will work overtime and if poisonous gas hits the mine they keep on going.
And he would have gotten away with it to if it weren't for those meddling kids-err adults.
Entertaining flick but something that I have long suspected hit me.  I am not a big fan of zombie flicks.  Sure I like Romero and the Dead movies.  But as a whole zombies are not really a sub-genre of horror I care much about.

The Covenant (2006)
Saw this cheap at Target, so I picked it up.  Not bad, not good either.  Think "The Craft" only with dudes.  Five families with magic have lived in this town since Puritan times now the next gen is ready for their powers (even if using magic ages them rapidly).  Of the five only four families are left till new guy comes to town.  Wanna guess who he is and what he wants?  The movie had some good chances to break cliché and many times it looks like it will, but instead it just goes right into it.  Well at least it was cheap.

Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)

My expectations for this one had been pretty low.  I had re-watched Hammer's Frankenstien recently (but didn't review it since I had seen it before) and it was ok.   This movie was something altogether different.  Dr. Baron Von Frankenstein is at it again and again in the form of Peter Cushing.  This time he revives a young woman who committed suicide.  And just because he can, he put the soul of her wrongfully murdered fiancée into her body.  The new woman then goes on a killing spree, killing the men that wrongfully accused her, er him, and got him executed in the first place.
Interesting flick because of the whole metaphysical aspects.   Plus Cushing was fantastic in this, I got so used to seeing him as one Van Helsing or another that seeing this side of his acting really was great.  And lets be honest here, if you are going to go through the effort to create a woman out of the materials you have at hand, you can do a lot worse than Susan Denberg.

Will have to see what I can catch tonight.

Not sure where my count is now.  Will have to add them up later.

October Movie Reviews: The Haunting in Connecticut

Switch of pace tonight.

The Haunting in Connecticut (2009)

I am not really sure what to say about this one.  Typical haunted house centered around some kid movie that was better when it was called "Poltergeist" or "Ammityville Horror".  Based on a True Story no less.
Honestly I had high hopes for this one, but fought falling asleep to it all night.  Might mine it for a Ghosts of Albion episode.  Or see if I can sell it back to Half-Priced Books tomorrow without making my wife upset (she got it for me for my birthday last year).  You all won't tell her right?

Instead of another flick tonight I watched The Haunted History of Halloween on the History Channel. Not bad, I knew 90% of it already though.  Beat. Gotta go to bed.  Guy Fawkes was scarier than the Haunting movie.

October Movie Reviews: Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires

Back to Hammer for this one in the LAST true Dracula films from the House of Hammer.

Though there is not a lot of Dracula in it and no Christopher Lee.

Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires (1974)

Dracula is visited by a Chinese monk who needs him to resurrect the Seven Golden Vampires, the most powerful vampires in China.  Dracula initially refuses, but decides he needs to get out of his castle for a bit. We learn here that Dracula can speak Chinese/Mandarin or at least understand it.  This scene featured Dracula rising from his coffin in one motion that we would later see in "Fright Night" and "Bram Stoker's Dracula".   Dracula takes over the body of the monk and heads off to China.

There Prof. Lawrence Van Helsing (unknown if it is the same Lawrence Van Helsing from Dracula AD 1972, but it is safe to assume it is) is lecturing to a Chinese university about vampires.  His son, Leyland is also there.  The other professors scoff at him, but one student takes him seriously.  He is the grandson of the man that killed one of the seven Golden Vampires and want's Van Helsing's help to kill the others.  They travel along with his son, another woman paying for everything, and the seven siblings (6 brothers and 1 sister).  Of course the Chinese siblings are all Kung-Fu masters.

There are lots of kung-fu fights which is as unexpected as it gets in a Hammer film and then there is the final confrontation with the last of the Golden Vampires and Dracula himself.

All in all a very interesting tale.  I like how even Van Helsing was stumped on the differences between West and East vampires.  He even postulates, given China's rich history of the supernatural, that the vampire my have originated there and moved west.
This is a period piece to be sure.  Not the 1804 period from the movies, but rather the mid 70's.  Kung-fu was where the money was.
It was not a great movie, and for the last Dracula film, pretty lacking in the Dracula department.  It features John Forbes-Robertson as Dracula looking exactly like he did in Hammer's "Vampire Lovers" (where he was supposed to be Dracula, sort of), but he is only seen at the beginning and end and he dies like punk.

Enjoyable as a Kung-fu movie with Vampires, but lacking as a Hammer film or a Dracula one.

October Movie Reviews: Quick Round Up

Round-up of a bunch of movies I saw over the last couple of weeks that I have not had the time for full write-ups on.  All of these are new views.

.

Daughters of Satan (1972)
Tom Selleck is an art dealer who finds a bad painting of some witches being burned at the stake.  The center witch looks just like his wife.  His wife become possessed with the spirit of the dead witch and the other two show up.  Selleck is the reincarnation of the man that set them on fire.  Murder and mayhem ensues.  OR something like that.  I nearly fell asleep while watching.

The Uninvited (2009)
A pretty cool film about a girl that is sent to a mental hospital for 10 months following the accidental death of her mother.  The girl has blocks in her memory and is certain that her fathers new girl friend is some how to blame.  It is a remake of a 2003 Korean film.  While more psychological thriller than actual horror, it has all the trappings of a horror film.  I won't say more because I don't want to spoil the ending.

Sharktopus (2010)
Half shark, half octopus.  Yeah.   You know how sometimes a movie can be so bad it is actually good?  Of course you do.  Well this one went past that point to where it is just bad again.  I have this love-hate relationship with Roger Corman.  While he is only the Producer here (and has some screen time) this is clearly in his realm.  Sometimes Corman can be campy fun, other times you get, well Sharktopus.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)
I also struggled with whether or not this was horror enough.  Yes there is a mystery and there are very horrific things going on in this movie.   I choose to include it because of those horrific elements (murder, torture, rapes, all multiple times) and because the movie was so good.  If you don't know the story yet, well you were not one of the millions of people that read the book.  Basically a man on his way to prison for perjury gets a case where he must investigate a missing woman from 40 years ago.  The case is very cold and all he has to go on is a few scribbled notes and a few old photos.  He gets help from a hacker Lisabeth (who also has issues of her own like being brutally raped by her guardian) who discovers the notes are bible references.  The case then explodes to something much larger than one missing girl.  Again, no spoilers.

The Others (2001)
I also have a love/hate relationship with Nicole Kidman.  She is a fantastic actress, but she can grate on my nerves.  And I am no fan of her (former? present?) goof-ball religion.
But the Others is a fantastic little ghost story set after WWI involving a woman and her children and their haunted house.  There is a mystery here of course, and mists.  It is in fact very much a Ravenloft-esque story. I also don't want to spoil the ending of this one either.  But I have to admit, I really liked this one; Very spooky and moody.

Don't know where this puts me on the roster yet.  23 by my quick count, or 24 if you let me count the BBC Count Dracula as two.  Puts me about 2 behind schedule.  I have two with me now.  So that should be good.

October Movie Reviews: Countess Dracula

Stuck in the 70's with another one of the Hammer Films.

This time we are getting into what would be fertile ground for Hammer, beautiful young women killing other beautiful young women.


Countess Dracula (1970/1971)
This one is a bit mis-titled, and a bit of different one for Hammer.  It is the story of Countess Elizabeth Bathory, but the twist is here the blood she drains and bathes actually does make her young again in the form of Scream Queen Ingrid Pitt.

The story is not a bad one, but not memorable.  Bathory kills girls, dupes dumb men into being her pawns, finally gets caught in the end.  We are missing some of the characters from Bathory's history, but that is fine really.

The one ups the blood and gore (too be expected) and the sex and nudity (also to be expected).
It is not quite as good as Daughters of Darkness that came out a year later. But it has more of supernatural feel to it and more of a Hammer feel to it if that makes any sense.   Ingrid Pitt also stared as another famous vampire, Carmilla, in the Vampire Lovers.  Female vampires became very lucrative for Hammer in the end, but not enough to save them it seems.

I had forgotten I had seen this one till I got into it.  So I watched it with the audio comentary on instead.  Very interesting insights to Hamer in the 70's to be sure.  Makes me want to go back and listen to the audio comentary tracks on the all the other Hammer films I have watched.

October Movie Reviews: To the Devil a Daughter

Back to the 70's with one of the last Hammer Films produced till the present day.

To the Devil a Daughter (1976)

This one has an all star cast, which in a horror flick usually means bad news.
Richard Widmark, Christopher Lee, Honor Blackman, Denholm Elliott and introducing a young Nastassja Kinski. Really it should not get much better than this.

I mentioned this one in the past. It was less of the Gothic horror tradition and more into the supernatural horror. It was the time in the 70's, movies like The Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby were big hits.  The Devil had never been more popular.
The story involves an excommunicated priest (Lee) and an occult investigator (Widmark). Lee is secretly a worshiper of Astaroth and hopes to use a young nun (Kinski) as the vessel of his lord.

The script is actually rather well researched and certainly is a better portrayal of what real occult practices were like.  Widmark even repeats something I have repeated myself many times about how most "satanists" out there are really just perverts looking for some kinky sex.  It it the other ones you have to worry about.  Lee is great in this role, as usual. Widmark seems bored and Blackman utterly underused here.  There are some places in the script that left me scratching my head about why one thing or another was done.  But all in all it was a fun, if not all that great, movie.

Of course the movie is rather infamous for it scenes of full-frontal nudity from a then 15 year old Nastassja Kinski.   The DVD version I have has those scenes intact as well as the Satanic orgy often cut from most American versions of the movie.  They are pretty risqué for our time, so imagine what they were like in 76.

What I liked best about this DVD though were the interviews.  Christopher is always great to watch in interviews. He reads part of the original book that this was based on and left me with wanting to hear him read all of it.  

I guess in the end I just wanted this to be more than it was.