Interviews with various vampires

Never been much of a fan of movie monsters.   In fact, I'm not a fan of horror movies of any kind, even the good ones.   Which is too bad.

It's not as big a loss as not liking foreign films, or gangster movies, or westerns, or mysteries, or films starring Robin Williams---and I know people who won't go to one or the other of those, on principle---but I'm still missing out on some fun times at the multiplex or on the couch late at night while tuned in to TCM or Home Box Office.

By the way, I don't count the torture and slasher films that have dominated the genre since the original Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  Those are to true horror movies what pornography is to An Affair to Remember.

Not counting those, however, cuts way back on the junk I'd have to wade through to get to the potentially decent movies I'm missing because of my prejudice, but even so, I can't bring myself to try to find the gems among the paste and plastic.  Too much ugly costume jewelry out there.

Figure it this way.  Against your better judgment, you've been persuaded to watch the entire filmography of Robin Williams only the first six movies you watch turn out to be Hook, Patch Adams, License to Wed, Bicentennial Man, Jakob the Liar, Father's Day, and Death to Smoochy.  Think you're going to bother to move on to The Fisher King and Dead Poets Society?

I suppose I could stick to the classics.

But...

Mummies, werewolves, blobs, creatures from lagoons of any color, oversized insects, snakes, and women, even ones who wear bikinis, and zombies, especially zombies, bore me.

The only exception is Dracula.

When I say Dracula, I mean Dracula.  Vlad the Impaler of of Transylvania.  Accept no substitutes.  No other vampires need apply.

The Lost Boys can stay lost.  I wouldn't cross the street to interview the Vampire Lestat, either in his literary form or in the flickering, camped-up shape of Tom Cruise.

Female vampires I'm only interested in at Halloween parties and only if they go easy on the make-up and all out on the cleavage and diaphanous gown.

Nope.  It's Dracula or it's Count Chocula, as far as I'm concerned.

And Dracula better be Dracula.  With all the trimmings.  Ghost ship arriving in England; crazed, insect-gobbling servant; red satin-lined opera cape; "I don't drink...wine."

And he has to be a bad guy.  Charming, seductive, compelling, sure.  We can see his side of things, allow ourselves a sneaking rooting interest.  But we can never forget for a second that he's evil. Eee-VEEL!  Evil enough to inspire cheering when the stake goes through the heart or the sun breaks through or the holy water splashes.  We should feel no sympathy at that point, and no pity.  Coppola wasted what seemed like hours in his otherwise decent film trying to force us to care about the Count's broken heart.  Nobody went to that movie to see Gary Oldman looking soulfully into Winona Ryder's eyes.  On top of that, Oldman couldn't manage a convincing soulful.  Still can't.  The creepiest moments in the Harry Potter movies to date have been the ones in which Oldman's Sirius Black attempts to look "fondly" on Harry.

While we're on the subject of the Harry Potter movies, will someone please cast Alan Rickman as Dracula before he gets too old.  Judging by the reactions Rickman's name elicits from women I know, he'd be exactly what Dracula needs to be, the kind of villain women chase down to offer their bared necks and more.  Rickman's Dracula wouldn't have to waste a second looking soulful.  Which is good, because Dracula is...well...soul-less.

Funny thing.  As much of a sucker as I am for Dracula stories (Editor's note: Ha ha, Lance.  You are so funny.), I've never been overly impressed with any one Dracula movie.  I've watched them all in order to create the perfect Dracula movie in my imagination out of the best bits from each one.  Coppola's film is ok.  Frank Langella's was better.  The Bela Legosi version is good for its day but it's hard to watch with a straight face.  It's haunted by all the parodies of itself that have come along since, and I defy anyone to look at Legosi and not think of Abbot and Costello or Ed Wood.

Actually, the movie version I've enjoyed most is the Spanish version that was made at the same time as the Legosi Dracula.  And by the same time, I mean that when the American cast and crew shut down for the day, another cast and crew moved in and shot their version's scenes at night, using the same sets and costumes, for a movie aimed at audiences south of the border.  That movie's director treated his camera as though it was moveable so the whole movie is more visually alive than the Hollywood version, which for the most part looks like a filmed stage play.  And because it wasn't meant for easily outraged Americans, there is no sexual subtext to the hypnosis and neck-biting.  It's all text.  Its Dracula is younger, more athletic, more exciting, more genuinely sexy and seductive, and the leading ladies don't know the meaning of the word chaste.  When they get bitten, you can tell they're aware of exactly what's really happening to them.

My perfect imaginary Dracula movie has that sensibility.

Weirdly, as my Van Helsing it stars not Anthony Hopkins, not Laurence Olivier, but Mel Brooks.

So that's it for me.  Dracula or nothing.  Besides which, all these other movie vampires aren't real vampires.  If they can go out in daylight, look with a cool eye on a crucifix, bathe in holy water, and survive wooden stakes, silver bullets, and being buried at a crossroads at midnight with their severed heads in the laps, they aren't vampires.  They're just run of the mill supervillains or, another sad sign of our decadent times, superheroes.

And all of this is a long way to go to say I'm surprised then to find myself intrigued by Twilight, both the movie and the novels by Stephenie Meyer it's based on.

Can't tell you why.

Just am.

I'm not likely to see the movie, though, not in the theaters, at any rate.  The blonde doesn't want to go.  I've told the Mannion guys I'll be glad to take them, but they've just shrugged me off.  And I was hoping one of them would get interested in the novels so I'd have an excuse to read them, but the teenager says they're for a younger crowd and twelve-year old Oliver Mannion says that the only friends of his that read them are girls.

Guess I'll just have to sneak a read in at Barnes and Noble one of these days.

Although...

Maybe I should listen to the Old Hag, who as far as I know is neither old nor a hag, she's the writer and critic Lizzie Skurnick.  She's seen the movie and read the whole series of books and to her surprise kind of liked the movie, which she felt improved greatly on the novels:

There are three ways to take a book to the big screen: ruin the book completely, follow it to a fault, or fix it. The screenwriters of The Devil Wears Prada did it one better by adding some humility, redemption, and Emily Blunt. No such cutwork is needed on Twilight, which is merely better suited to the large screen than the large print, where within its 600 pages it was at worst, plodding, and at best, tendentious. On-screen, the director is free to pare the plot down to its best scenes, then shoot them in glorious, cheesy abandon, releasing a butterfly from the swaddling cocoon of text.

Read the rest of her post here.

And under her real name, the Hag/Skurnick has reviewed Meyer's series for the Chicago Tribune.

__________________

I lied up above.  There is a set of vampires besides Dracula I like.  The vampires of Discworld, particularly one Otto Chriek, the photographer for the Ankh-Morpork Times.  Introduced in The Truth, Chriek (pronounced shriek) is very enthusiastic about his art, and his enthusiasm sometimes causes him to be careless about the use of a flash.  He has the unfortunate habit of immolating himself when he uses too much light to get a shot.  Note, in Discworld, a photographer---iconographer---squeezes the fire out of a salamander for a flash:

"Good mornink," said Otto.  "Do not movink, please, you are making a good pattern of light and shade."  He kicked out the legs of the tripodl, peered into the iconograph, and raised a salamander in its cage.

"Looking this way, please---"

Click.

WHOOMPH!

"---oh, shee-yut!"

Dust floated to the floor.  In the midst of it, a twist of black ribbon spiraled down.

There was a moment of shocked silence.  Then Vimes said, "What the hell happened just then?"

"Too much flash, I think," said William.  He reached down with a trembling hand and retrieved a small square of cardboard that was sticking out of the little gray cone of the late Otto Chriek.

"DO NOT BE ALARMED," he read.  "The former bearer of this card has suffered a minor accident.  You vill need a drop of blood from any species, and a dustpan and brush."

"Well, the kitchens are that way," said Vimes.  "Sort him out.  I don't want my men treading him in all over the damn place."

Save a blogger from begging.  Buy stuff: The Truth and most of the other Discworld novels are available through my aStore.

Comments

[Jennifer]

I still have fond memories of The Fearless Vampire Killers... of course, I was 10 when I first saw it...

I'll take Alan Rickman in just about anything.

The eldest lamblet started the Twilight series last year, but does not want to see the movie. She said the author was too specific with descriptions and from what she can tell from the previews, the leads look nothing like she expected. She said she prefers them in her imagination.

I'm now imagining Alan Rickman. He's just as appealing there...

[Bill Altreuter]

You forgot "What Dreams May Come" on your list of terrible Robin Williams movies. Or maybe you were just trying to be representative.

[Sherri]

I made my almost 14 year old daughter very happy by taking her to see Twilight, along with another friend and her mom. The teens had read all the books, the other mom and I had not, though we were aware of the cultural phenomenon. The girls loved the movie, every bit of it. The moms, having more experience in the romance department, rolled their eyes a lot. I think of the movie as sort of equivalent to teenage bubble gum pop music - there's just enough of a hint of vague danger to make it sort of appealing without being at all scary. The eye-rolling came from all the declarations of "don't ever leave me" and Bella's desire to become a vampire so she'd always be with this guy she just met but is desperately in love with.

Now, Alan Rickman, there's more than a hint of vague danger there! I'd definitely go see a movie with Rickman as Dracula.

[CJColucci]

George Hamilton?

[Claire]

Jennifer! You beat me to Fearless Vampire Killers! It's the movie where Roman Polanski meets Sharon Tate. (My brother went through a Polanski phase while we lived together a couple of years ago.)

And Guy Maddin has a ballet version of Dracula that I remember vaguely, but found entertaining.

From what I understand of the Twilight books, the heroine bothers me. I'm of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer generation and really don't want to watch or read about a helpless, passive girl.

And please, someone should listen to you about Alan Rickman.

[Eric k]

No love for Christopher Lee?

[Eric k]

No Love for Christopher Lee?

[Apostate]

Joining the chorus re Mr. Rickman.

And I'm with you, Lance, on the horror genre. But I don't watch them because I'm a scaredy-cat.

[Ellie]

OK Louis, I trusted you about Naked City and curbed a really bad jones for Mad Men. And I think you. You need to trust me and go see "let the right ones in". Best vampire movie ever. Yes. Better than Dracula. It's basically about the relationships between the Vampire and their Renfields. See it and let me know what you think. You may not find it better,....but I'll bet you find it ... not boring.

[Campaspe]

Lance, you should try Carmilla by J. Sheridan LeFanu. Available online. He was a better writer than Stoker and the novella is wildly sexy in that Victorian way. And I believe she does wear a diaphanous gown at some point.

[Geoduck]

I agree that _Love At First Bite_ is George Hamilton's finest hour (who'd have thought?) but it's not in any way shape or form a horror movie. If you want a truly scary and loathsome monster-Dracula, check out the original _Nosferatu_.

And it's amusing to note that in Stoker's original novel, Dracula is quite capable of walking around in the daylight, and ends up being killed not by a stake but two large knives.

[Simstim]

No love for Count Duckula?

[M.A.Peel]

Ah, Stoker. If I may, I wrote a post about the oddity that the Protestant civil servant of Dublin who meets Henry Irving and becomes the business manager of his theater is the mainstream genesis for our Count, in Dracula-Go-Bragh

[Tom Hilton]

No love for Nosferatu? Either version?

I agree with you completely about torture/slasher porn. No interest at all. A couple of genuinely excellent 'horror' movies I would recommend are Espinazo del Diablo and Orfanato, both of which are about a lot more than just being scary.

[Bluegrass Poet]

I love Christopher Lee. Though I don't find him sexy, I do find him menacing.

Also I'll join the choruse for "Fearless Vampire Killers."

[MaryRC]

I don't get the Rickman thing. Even when he was younger (as in Truly, Madly, Deeply) he seemed ... droopy. Droopy eyes, droopy chin, droopy ass, droopy everything. In Sense and Sensibility Marianne was much more convincing when she was all "eww, get this droopy old guy away from me" than when she finally settled for him.

Or Ralph Fiennes either. He looks like a rat.

[burritoboy]

As usual, you need to turn over your netflix to me.

program these:

Cat People, Jacques Tourneur, 1942
The Seventh Victim, Mark Robson, 1943
Onibaba, Kaneto Shindo, 1964
Vampyr, Carl Dreyer, 1932
Repulsion, Roman Polanski, 1965
Night Tide, Curtis Harrington, 1961
La chute de la maison Usher, Jean Epstein, 1928
Le Vampire, Jean Painleve, 1945
Kairo, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001
"Afterwards" from the Granada TV series "Shades of Darkness"
"The Demon Lover" from the Granada TV series "Shades of Darkness"

[Tom Hilton]

Second the recs for Vampyr, and for the Val Lewton movies. Seventh Victim in particular is just supremely beautiful and creepy and disturbing.

[Ronzoni Rigatoni]

Prolly the best Dracula I have ever seen was played by Gabe Dell on the old Steve Allan Show.

Steve: (laffing hysterically) "How do you DO that?"

Dell (looking up in surprise): "Do VAT,... Steve."

Well, it brought down the house back then.

[actor212]

I can't believe no one mentioned Underworld.

I'm shocked. OK, it's shlock, but come on, Kate Beckinsale in leather tighter than a conservative's purse at Christmas???

[Campaspe]

Alex, Onibaba was indeed fantastic and genuinely scary. (Of course there's a lot to like on that list but that one always jumps out at me. My kind of horror movie.)

[Uncle Merlin]

I loved the Lestat series, wasn't crazy about the movie, Tom Cruise's Lestat was not how I pictured him. We've all had that expreience reading the book before the movie.
I will have to try that Netflix list I didn't know Vampire movies went back so far.

My favorite all time Vampire was Barnabas on Dark Shadows, all the women wanted him to take their blood! He never could because "Julia You Know I MUST have an Unwilling Victim for the blood to work for me" Terrific line!
I used race home from school or get my Mom to record it on the tape recorder so we could listen to it, (yes VCR's weren't invented yet!)

I can tell you I've had tried and tried to get Lance to go to a scare fest with me and he has avoided it for years so I am very surprised he admits here an interest in Vampires! Couldn't get him to go to Aracnaphobia, etc. I was really surprised when he told me he went to "Hell Boy" and that I should see it.

I am enjoying "Supernatural" Dean & Sam two "Thunder-Butts" fighting pure hell-evil every week, and those Angels, mark my words THEY aren't what they say they are!!

Vampires! Who would have guessed!

[Howard Chaykin]

Despite the awful cop out ending, NEAR DARK is a terrific vampire picture, a genre I couldn't really give a damn about, despite my own professional output. I'm not a horror fan in general.

Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, Adrian Pasdar star in this vampire remake of THEY LIVE BY NIGHT, itself a version of THIEVES LIKE US.

It's terrific.

[burritoboy]

Ah, well, there's a number of perhaps somewhat less-known others:

Jiri Svoboda's Prokleti domu Hajnu (1988)

Kaneto Shindo's Kuroneko (1968)

George Romero's Martin (1977)

Piers Haggard's Blood on Satan's Claw (1971)

Juraj Herz's The Cremator (1969)

Jerzy Kawalerowicz's Mother Joan of the Angels (1961)

Jong-chan Yun's Sorum (2001)

Sidney Hayers' Night of the Eagle (1962)

[Ken Houghton]

"Actually, the movie version I've enjoyed most is the Spanish version that was made at the same time as the Legosi Dracula....That movie's director treated his camera as though it was moveable so the whole movie is more visually alive than the Hollywood version, which for the most part looks like a filmed stage play."

Being "a better director than Tod Browning" isn't exactly a bar that's difficult to jump, but it would have been nice if you had actually mentioned a title or even put in an IMDB link.

Thirding or fourthing the 1922 Nosferatu, which wasn't a horror film, if you saw it in Prospect Park several years ago.

[Lance]

Ken,

The Spanish version is called...Dracula. I added a link to the Wikipedia article above. Sorry I left it out originally. I didn't think anybody actually followed my links.

[Ken Houghton]

Thank you. Didn't you know by now that we always follow your links?

(Strangely, I searched IMDB for "Dracula" and didn't find anything else in 1931. Apparently, the accent mark--difficult to duplicate without using ASCII in a search--threw the search engine off.)

[julia]

Oh, gracious. Twilight?

I have a member of the target demographic here, and I've read them. They're only in the most nominal way about vampires. What they're actually about is how if you wait for marriage (but not too long - the fate of non-teen single geezers is frequently discussed) and you're lucky enough to find a man who's too good for you and way older than you are, you can lose your virginity without going to hell.

There's also a seriously creepy storyline about werewolves helping to raise the girl children they get engaged to at birth but it's OK because they're really nice werewolves, and women whose lives were blighted because they didn't have children until it was too late.

It's basically Mary Sue gets married, only Mary Sue shares the author's crippling self esteem problems and she's unbelievably dull.