October Movie Reviews: The Lestat Movies

Double Feature weekend!

I watched, for the first time "Queen of the Damned" and rewatched after a long time "Interview with a Vampire". Both based on the first three books of Anne Rice's Vampire series.
I watched them in the same order I originally read the books way back when. I read "The Vampire Lestat" first then "Interview with a Vampire" next. It gave me a very different point of view of Lestat than others reading the same books at the time.
Let's be 100% honest here. If it was not for Anne Rice we would not have had "Vampire the Masquerade" and certainly she gave birth to the latest modern trend in vampires. More so that "Sookie Stackhouse", "Buffy" and even "Twilight". While Rice's vampires are appealing they are also monsters. Sometimes they struggle with that. So we have her to thank (or blame) for the Agnsty Emo Vampire in whole or in part.

Queen of the Damned (2002)

This film combines and shortens the tale found in the books "The Vampire Lestat" and "Queen of the Damned". Lestat (Stuart Townsend this time) comes back after his self imposed exile/sleep to be a rock star (who sounds an awful lot like Korn). Hey in the books it worked. It comes off a bit rushed in the movie though. His songs, especially about the really old vampires wakes Akasha, Queen of the Vampires (played by the late Aaliyah).  Wackieness ensues. Vampires that don't want to be outted try to kill Lestat, Akasha wants to keep him alive.  Marius shows up.  The ancient vampires fight to stop Akasha.

To start out with, this is not an exact sequel to "IwaV", more of a separate interpretation of the same universe.  That being said lets look at the good and the bad.
Good.  The vampires here are very cool.  Their powers have a nice affect on screen and they are still bloodthirsty killers.  The movie itself is better than I had been lead to believe all these years, but if one compares it to the book then it fails.  Lestat does not come off as a spoiled brat in this one as he did in "IwaV" and the books.  More like a vampire that kinda wishes he was still human.  Which of course was NOT Lestat in the books.
Bad. The script is kind of a mess.  They are trying ram two very dense books into a movie footprint and don't do so well.  Granted, Rice's later books needed pruning, but that is the fine skill of an editor, this was the work of a guy with a chainsaw.  Characters have disappeared, entire plots lost and the resolution does not have the same impact in the film as it does in the books.

In the end I enjoyed the movie, but only as a vampire flick, not as something that I know belongs in a larger universe.

Interview with a Vampire (1994)

Everyone had such high hopes for this one.  On the tail of Bram Stoker's Dracula this was supposed to open up a new era of vampire films.  Maybe it did.  But the movie was a disappointment.
Based on the book of the same name, this one has an all star cast.  I mean really.  Brad Pitt as Louis, Tom Cruise as Lestat, Kristen Dunst as Claudia (long before she would kiss Spider-Man), Christian Slater (filling in for the recently late River Phoenix) as Daniel and Antonio Bandaras as Arman.  I mean wow.  Look at that.
Visually the movie is very appealing.  Pretty (and petty) vampires feeding on humans while Louis frets and mourns his lost humanity.  Yeah agnsty emo vamps.
Tom Cruise was great as Lestat, but in some ways not as good as Townsend.  Now, I'll be honest, I don't like Tom Cruise I think he is a nut-job with a lot of issues and belongs to a wacky cult.  But so do a lot of people.  But he certainly made me believe he was Lestat here.  I am going to come back to why in a bit.  Now Brad Pitt I do like, after his bit in "12 Monkeys" and "True Romance" he convinced me he was not some pretty boy actor.  Watching him "Snatch" confirmed that.  But here he is the pretty boy vampire and frankly the best line in the movie was Lestat's "Oh shut up Louis."
I really liked this movie when it came out, but now almost 10 years later I seen the cracks in the veneerer, the flaws.

Basically I have the EXACT same issue I have with the books.  I can't stand Lestat in "Interview" (book or movie) and I liked him in the Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned.

Anne Rice's vampires are creatures of their times.  Not meaning when they were turned, but when the books and movies were made.  Since then the entire sub-genre of Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy has grown up in the soil she tilled.  Vampires are no longer monsters, they are potential date/S.O. material. To be fair, Rice's vampires are monsters.  They just whine about being monsters.

I am glad though I got to watch them both back to back like this.

The Dragon and the Phoenix: Episode 8

Episode 8: Silent Lucidity

Tara: Wow. Who knew Miss Kitty could quote Shakespeare?
Willow: I am still having trouble getting past “Who knew Ms. Kitty could talk.”
- Willow and Tara: The Dragon and the Phoenix, Episode 8 "Silent Lucidity"

Episode 8: Silent Lucidity by ~WebWarlock on deviantART

March 24, 2003. 
Monday

Dawn’s emergent psychic powers traps the cast in her nightmare.
More than a week later and things have cooled down, a but only a little. At least everyone is agreeing to watch a movie together. It’s a Japanese-monster horror film and Xander has to remind Buffy that it is not a training video. Dawn begins to emerge as a powerful telepath and psychic, but not before she traps the cast and herself in the Dreamlands. The Cast must work through there own subconscious issues before they can escape. Willow and Tara’s issues with each other (loss and power), Buffy and Spike’s issues (trust and obsession) and Anya and Xander’s (fears of commitment and rejection). Dawn is dealing with the issues of constantly worried that she nothing more than Buffy’s shadow or even less. All the while Glory taunts her in her dreams.
Story Arc elements: Dawn focused, but also focused on the interplay of the cast.
Game Design elements: Non-magic psychic powers, rules for play in the Dreamlands, Bast for Cinematic games. Introduce Miss Kitty Fantastico II as a Bast. Have the Vampire Chicas come back to town. While the Cast is “sleeping” Dawn’s friend is killed and Faith dies in the hospital.

Notes and Comments:
Given that I was going to college in the 80’s and 90’s I am allowed to name one adventure ever my entire life after a Queensrÿche song. This is it.  I am also allowed to do one "dream" episode.  This is also it.

Ok. So. I killed Faith here.

Of course I have her appear in Buffy’s dreams and up the bi-sexual attraction she has for her. Mind you YEARS before it ever showed up in any comic. But I was careful not to repeat the cliché of a girl showing interest in another girl and have end her up dead (see “The Celluloid Closet” and the "Evil/Dead Lesbian Cliché"). I have Dawn watching all of this in her dreams, but unable to hear anything. She is taunted in her dream by Glory (really just the manifestation of her own fear) with the fact that she is no more real than Kara was and it is only a matter of time before Willow screws up something and undoes the magic holding her together.
I’ll be honest here, I liked Dawn. I always did. So she gets a chance here to shine (figuratively and literally) in the next few episodes.  We had built up her power slowly over the course of the season and this was the episode we let it cut loose.
This episode was very interpersonal. Very little in the way of combat. Most of the creature in the dream lands were Bast (which you have seen some of those in the past here). For the others I used some creatures that later would go on to be in Ghosts of Albion.  I used my old copy of Call of Cthulhu for ideas, but we never really ran into any mythos creatures other than seeing them in background or "through the veil of other dreams".

For the confrontations in the dreams, the cast were paired of (though I was still having trouble getting and keeping a regular Anya player) to deal with their issues.   For Willow and Tara's case, Willow agreed to basically "re-learn" magic from Tara.  If this had been earlier in the season then I would have dropped her back down to Sorcery/Magic 0 and work back up. But we didn't have that benefit.  Plus the next episode I needed a magically potent, if wounded, Willow.  Tara forgave Willow for her dabbling in "dark magics" and agreed that learning magic together would be the best for them both.

The cast finds out Faith died while they were sleeping.  I have a cut scene at the end where a coroner played by Zach Galifianakis performs Faith’s autopsy while Angel waits. Thought it was appropriate if morbid.

The cover of this does not quite represent the agnst of the episode, but my mandate was Willow and Tara on every cover and this was the one I liked the best.


Next up: The New Marvel Girl

October Movie Reviews: Count Dracula (1977)

For my October Reviews I am back on Dracula.

Count Dracula (1977, BBC)

I am half-tempted to count this one as two movies.  It does come in two-parts and it was rather long.

Ok let's start with the good.
This is closer to the book than any other movie so far.
There are some differences though.  Minor are Lucy and Mina are sisters here.  Arthur Holmwood and Quincy Morris have been combined to a single character, Quincy Holmwood, but he is still American.  An aside, I love it when English actors do American accents.  Quincy is so stereotypically Texan that it comes off more endearing than comedic or even bad.  The actor is very earnest about his role.

Louis Jourdan is a fantastic Dracula.
Susan Penhaligon as Lucy does remind me quite a bit of Sadie Frost, who played Lucy in the 1992 movie.  One gets the feeling that Francis Ford Coppola watched this movie to get ideas.

Judi Bowker (who would later earn her geek cred playing Andromeda in the original Clash of the Titans) plays a wonderful Mina here.  She has the sweet innocence that one needs in Mina in the early part of the tale.  She was the best Lucy up that time and rivals that of Kate Nelligan in the Hollywood film of 1979.

The bad. Though it is not really that bad.

The effects are Doctor Who-in-the-70's quality, but this should not be a surprise given it was in the 70s on BBC.  Missing Holmwood is not that big of an issue.  When you are doing this on stage fewer actors are better, but as we would later see in the FFC Dracula (1992) that it can be done.


It suffers from some of the same issues as the book.  Long and drawn out in places.

All in all a great movie, tribute to the BBC.  I am glad I finally got a chance to watch it.

Dracula: Ghosts of Albion

Something I have always wanted to do is bring Dracula into Ghosts of Albion.  I could imagine a plot similar to Dracula's Guest, only with the Cast.  The cast come to castle Dracula and meet up with the Count, in his old form from the the beginning of the book.  I'd like some sort of mystery.  Maybe a murder, but the Count wants to find out who did it just as much as the Cast.  I'd like to pit the Count against the cast, but not in a physical or combative way; I need him "alive" at the end of the tale.
I'd use the maps from Castle Ravenloft, since they are supposed to be like Dracula's castle anyway.

But the issue is, and has been, I can't quite come up with something interesting enough for the Cast to do with Dracula.  I figure if I am pulling out the big gun here, it needs to be nothing short of awesome.

If I come up with something you all will be the firsts to know.

Count Dracula of Transylvania

Name: Count Dracula
Motivation: To leave Transylvania and see new lands
Creature Type: Vampire, Protector

Attributes: Strength 9, Dexterity 6, Constitution 7, Intelligence 5, Perception 5, Willpower 7
Life Points: 98
Drama Points: 10

Qualities
Acute Senses
Age 4
Animal Communication (limited to bats, rats and wolves)
Charisma
Cloak of Beasts (bat, rat, and wolf)
Control Weather
Hard to Kill 8
Hypnosis 3
Nerves of Steel 2
Magic 4
Mesmerize
Protector of Transylvania
Resources 7
Scale Walls
Soldier, Officer (Retired)
Status, Noble
Sunlight Immunity (limited, unable to change form or use his magical powers except at noon)
Vampire

Drawbacks
Adversary (monster hunters, rival vampires, some gypsies, people with the last name Van Helsing) 8
Anti-Social Impulses (violent)
Archaic 1
Attractive -1  (remember, this is Old Dracula with the bad breath, very thin, hairy palms, and long mustache)
Covetous (Lechery, 2)
Cruel 3 (deranged)
Home Soil
Honorable 1
Love, Tragic (sure, why not.  He believes so at least)
Natural Barrier (running water)
Obsession (leaving Transylvania) 2
Obsession (find a bride) 1
Secret 3 (many)

Skills
Armed Mayhem 7
Art 2
Athletics 6
Crime 5
Doctor 1
Drive/Ride 5 (Coaches)
Engineering 2
Fisticuffs 6
Influence 5
Knowledge 8 (he has done nothing for the last few centuries but read)
Languages 9 (he speaks many languages including English with no noticeable accent)
Marksmanship 3
Notice 10
Occultism 9
Science 4

Combat Maneuvers
Name Score Damage
Punch 12 18 Bash
Break neck 16 36 Special
Sword 13 36 Slash/stab

Bite (vampire)14 22 Must Grapple first; no defense action
Dodge 13 -- Defense action
Grapple 15 -- Resisted by Dodge

Bat 20 -- +8 to hiding
Bite (bat) 14 8 Slash/stab

Wolf 20 -- Double movement; +3 to Crime at night
Bite (wolf) 14 15 Slash/stab
Claws (wolf) 14 15 Slash/stab

Magic 20 Varies By spell
Deflect 20 90° spell deflection (Innate Magic)
Hold 19 Holds spell in place for SL rounds
Dispel 17 Cancels Spell
Volley 14 Returns spell to originator

This is Dracula in 1839. He has not left Transylvania in years and is now planning his moving to England. Of course there are the Protectors of Albion yet to deal with.

Think the old man that greats Harker in the beginning of the book; Old, not very attractive, but charismatic. Here is also the Protector of Transylvania. Though you might want to rule that in your games he looses the benefit of those powers when he leaves his lands.

October Movie Reviews: Dracula 1992

For my October Reviews I am continuing my Dracula reviews.

Dracula (1992)
Also know as "Bram Stoker's Dracula".
Depending on your point of view this is either the best cinematic Dracula, or the worst. But before that lets take the movie at face value.

What I like the most of about this one is it is beyond a doubt one of the better cinematic adaptations of Stoker's book.  All the characters are here, including the oft missed Quincey Morris and Arthur Holmwood.  There are tons of little details that I love.  Dracula's shadow in the early scenes at Castle Dracula are great and invoke the classic Nosferatu.  The newspapers, Draucla's map of London, even a sandwich board advertising the Lyceum Theater are nice touches.  The sets are masterful, this may be the best Castle Dracula since Lugosi.  Of course watch for Dracula's shadow in his castle.  Nosferatu anyone?  The three brides, always hinted at, are revealed in their full gory glory here.  This might also be one of the first film roles for Monica Bellucci. The use of real Romanian is a nice treat, even if it isn't perfect (it's modern Romanian through out, even when medieval Romanian should have been used).

Though the movie is not without some serious problems.  The whole Mina and Dracula love affair thing is just another example of the Dracula/Vampire fetish. And don't get me started on the whole absinthe scene.  As much as I like Wynnona Ryder I felt her Mina was very flat.  Yes, and there is Keeanu Reeves as Harker, but I like Reeves and didn't mind this, though I kept thinking he was going to say "No way Van Helsing!" ala Ted.  Sadie Frost was a bit overtly sexual as Lucy, but I preferred her performance over that of Jan Francis' portrayal of the similar character in the 1979 film.

We have a little joke among my friends, if you can't figure out an actor to play a roll, get Gary Oldman, he can do anything.  He is convincing as Dracula, both old and young, the suave seducer and terrible monster.  But sometimes here he is a bit over the top.

This movie, more so than even the Jack Palance one, makes the connection between Dracula, the vampire, and Dracula aka Vlad the Impaler more explicit.  It also bridges that important gap of how one man became the monster.  At the time of the movie I liked that, but after just re-watching I am less convinced.  Oh it still is a good bit of storytelling, but it is another factor of the whole Dracula loves Mina sub-plot that gets on my nerves.

In terms of the other characters, well they are all there. Arthur Holmwood, Quincy Morris, Dr. Seward are all great in their respective points in the story played very well by Cary Elwes, Bill Campbell and Richard E. Grant respectively.  Anthony Hopkins plays a much crazier Van Helsing than those before him.  Taking that "we are all God's madmen" line a little too literal I think. Hopkins is great of course, he is Sir-Anthony-fucking-Hopkins after all, but some things about his portrayal bugged me.  The whole "the foe I have been searching for all my life" thing bugged me too.  Was this a metaphorical foe as in "all evil" or "Dracula" in particular?  I got the impression that they meant Dracula himself.

I do have this copy of the script that is full of production notes, stills from the movie, images from the various Dracula publications over the years and Victorian era photos/pictures.   It is sitting in-between my copy of Ghosts of Albion and Victoriana on my "Horror RPG" shelf.

The next full outing of Dracula will have to do better than this one in order to be remembered. And we are about due for one.

Dracula: True 20

I like True20. I do.  It suffers from some issues though.  If you like generic games, then it is great, but it still has classes and levels.  Plus the only way to really do a character properly is a load of multiclassing.

Here is Dracula in his True 20 form. Warrior is obvious, as is expert to some degree.  Adept really is there to cover his powers.

Count Dracula, True 20

Type: 16th level Undead (Adept 2/Expert 1/Warrior 13)
Size: Medium
Speed: 30 ft

Abilities: Str +8, Dex +7, Con -, Int +3, Wis +1, Cha +3

Skills: Acrobatics 19 (+26), Bluff 8 (+11), Climb 8 (+16), Concentration 7 (+8), Diplomacy 11 (+14), Disable Device 2 (+5), Disguise 2 (+5), Escape Artist 2 (+9), Gather Info. 7 (+10), Handle Animal 2 (+5), Intimidate 14 (+17), Jump 2 (+10), Languages 5 (+5), Medicine 4 (+5), Notice 3 (+4), Ride 6 (+13), Search 5 (+8), Sense Motive 3 (+4), Sleight of Hand 3 (+10), Stealth 6 (+13), Survival 8 (+9), Swim 0 (+8), Knowledge (History) 2 (+5), Knowledge (Supernatural) 2 (+5), Knowledge (Religion) 2 (+5)

Feats: Iron Will, Menacing, Leadership, Armor Training (Heavy), Armor Training (Light), Weapon Training, Armor Training (Heavy), Weapon Training (Long Sword), All-out Attack, Canny Dodge, Attack Focus (Long Sword), Defensive Attack, Diplomatic, Improved Strike, Dedicated, Influential, Night Vision, Uncanny Dodge, Rage, Smite Opponent, Greater Attack Focus, Accurate Attack, Power (Weather Shaping), Power (Mind Touch), Master Plan

Traits: Determination, No Constitution, Dark Vision (60ft), Proficiency (Natural Weapons), Immunity (Mind Influencing Effects), Immunity (Sleep, Poison, Paralysis, Stunning), Immunity (Critical Hits, Fatigue), Immunity (Fortitude Saves), Unhealing, Healed by Harm (Harmed by Heal)

Powers: Suggestion 5 (+8) DC 14, Wind Shaping 5 (+8) DC 14

Combat: Unarmed +21, Damage +8 (20/+3), Longsword +21, Damage +11 (19/+3), Defense +21/+22, Initiative +7

Saving Throws: Toughness +8, Fortitude +8, Reflex +11, Will +8

October Movie Reviews: Dracula 1979

For my October Reviews I am continuing my Dracula reviews.

Dracula (1979)
The John Badham film was one of the first Dracula films I saw in the theaters.  Well, actually I think I saw it at a Drive-In. If you don't remember those then I can't help you.

This movie is a visual master-piece and Frank Langella dominates every scene he is in and he is in quite a number of them.  Dracula in the book doesn't get a lot of "screen time", but this one cleaves closer to the screen-play.  Like Lugosi before him, Langella played the character on stage first.
This is another one of the tales that reverses the roles of Mina and Lucy.  Normally it is Mina who loves Jonathan Harker and who is later seduced by Dracula and Lucy who is the friend who dies by Dracula.
Kate Nelligan is a great Lucy (in the Mina role) and Lawerence Oliver is great as the aged Van Helsing.  Donald Plesasence as Seward though left a little to be desired. I guess they decided to drop Seward's morphine addiction and swapped it with eating.  Seward is eating in nearly every scene he is in. Watch close and you will see a younger pre-Doctor Sylvester McCoy.

For some odd reason this movie is set in the Edwardian age (1913 to be exact) rather than the more traditional late Victorian.  It almost plays out as a sequel to the book, if you can come up with a good reason why Van Helsing and Seward don't remember Dracula from before, and deal with the issue that Van Helsing's wife was an invalid in the book.  Maybe she died and he got remarried and had a daughter that he named Mina (after Mina Harker) and Seward got married and had a daughter named Lucy (after Lucy Westerna).  Figure John Harker in this tale is really John Quincey Harker, the son of John and Mina Harker and "Milo" Reinfield is the son of R. M. Reinfield from the book.  At least that is how I have viewed the film for years.

This is an interesting film for a number of reasons.  First it has another great score by John Williams that is so sweeping in it's construction that you can feel that the sort of languid dream quality of the Dracula/Lucy scenes.  Also it was the first Dracula film that many people my age recall seeing.  I had seen the older Hammer and Universal ones yes, but I had been much younger.  I was 9 when this came out and the scene where Mina comes back to her grave scared the crap out of me.  Plus it was at a point in my life when I had not yet read the book, but knew of it's existence.
Langella's Dracula is a sexual predator.  He takes Mina and then Lucy because he can.  There is no "lost love here" like what we will see in the Francis Ford Coppola outing of 1992.

Langella does something here that few Draculas manage.  He acts like royalty.  Christopher Lee comes close and Oldman does capture the warrior-lord well, but Langella acts like a Count or a Prince. Like I said, he dominates every scene he is in and even when not the focus, his presence is felt.  That's some good acting.

This was my favorite Dracula, but almost 13 years later a new one would challenge that title.