Monsterpiece Theater: Sir Christopher Lee as Dracula

by Rustbelt

Few actors have such long and distinguished careers as the great Christopher Lee. He starred in everything from Olivier’s Shakespearean work to B-movie schlock to major franchises including Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. But he’ll always be known best for his horror career; particularly for his depiction of the undead Transylvanian Count.

These days, many actors become identified with a particular, trademark character: Clint Eastwood as ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan; Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones; Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine; etc. However, there’s a critical difference that distinguishes Lee from all of these guys. All the characters I’ve just mentioned were original film creations. Count Dracula, on the other hand, is a literary figure who had already been successfully portrayed to mythic status by both Max Shreck and Bela Lugosi. Even today, 94 and 85 years later, their performances still hold up as standards. Yet, Lee was able to make his own mark and set new benchmarks and standards for how Bram Stoker’s ultimate villain must appear on screen.

Horror of Dracula (Hammer Films, 1958)

It’s Hammer Time! (Hey, you knew I was going to say it.) Founded in 1934, Hammer Film Productions had been ‘just another film company’ until the end of the 1950’s. The studio hadn’t found its niche yet. But that changed in 1957 with the release of The Curse of Frankenstein. I reviewed that film for Monsterpiece last year HERE. Although the script called for a pathetic version of the creature opposite Peter Cushing’s menacing Baron Frankenstein, Hammer execs liked what they saw and cast Lee as the lead in their next major feature, Horror of Dracula. What bears repeating is that Christopher Lee was hired to portray the mad scientist’s monster in Curse because he was willing to work for 2 pounds a day less pay (8 pounds) than the others -- two pounds made Christopher Lee an international star!

As is the case with most Hammer literary adaptations, Horror of Dracula takes MANY liberties with the source material. Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) arrives at Castle Dracula in Klausenberg (still in Transylvania, though not in Borgo Pass), to take up a new post as Count Dracula’s librarian. Despite cordial appearances, he reveals to the audience that he is a vampire hunter sent by Van Helsing to kill Dracula. Although he manages to kill a female vampire (Valerie Gaunt), he fails in a showdown with the Count. None of that is in the book.

Not long after, Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) arrives at the castle and finds Harker turned into a vampire. After staking Harker, he goes back to Karlstadt (Germany subs for Victorian London), to meet with Arthur Holmwood (Michael Gough) and his wife, Mina (Melissa Stribling). In this version, Harker was engaged to Lucy Holmwood, Arthur’s sister. Lucy is then attacked by Dracula because Dracula stole Harker’s picture of Lucy and Mina and is getting his revenge on all of them for the death of his bride at the castle. Lucy dies and Van Helsing gives Harker’s diary to the skeptical Holmwood. Together, the two encounter vampire Lucy in a graveyard and stake her.

Holmwood and Van Helsing then bribe an official in Ingstadt to learn the address in Karlstadt where Dracula’s coffin was taken -- it went to an undertaker. However, Dracula begins corrupting Mina and she helps him hide the coffin in her basement. When it’s discovered, the hunters chase Dracula back to Transylvania. Holmwood rescues Mina. Van Helsing corners the Count and rips open some drapes, killing Dracula with sunlight.

Dracula: Christopher Lee

Lee is neither a repulsive beast like Count Orlok in Nosferatu, or a reserved character like Lugosi’s interpretation. And despite having only 13 lines, all delivered before the film is ten minutes in, Lee is credited with adding three key ingredients to the Dracula mix. First, he had a genuine aristocratic presence. He feels like he could instantly command all attention just by walking into a room. Second, the rage came out. In the book, the sight of blood made Dracula reveal his bestial, violent hatred of humanity. Lee has that in spades, showing no mercy to anyone he’s trying to kill or who’s foolish enough to get in his way. And third, the sexual element now so closely associated with the vampire attack.

In this film, Lucy lies in bed waiting for Dracula. Mina also appears to Arthur and Van Helsing looking very satisfied after she’s attacked. Director Terrance Fisher told her to look like she’d just had the best sex of her life the previous night, all night long. The notion of vampiric sex - sex from the neck up - has been a part of the film version of the lore ever since. Of course, this isn’t safe sex, given what happens afterward (death and vampirism). But as scholar Sir Christopher Frayling put it, “you can’t have everything.”

As an aside, Lee took credit for none of this innovation. He said he was only doing what the script required and what Terrance Fisher told him to do on set.

A New Take On The Tale

Horror of Dracula has many Hammer trademarks. The film is awash in glorious color; it’s the first time we the Count with red eyes and his fangs dripping with blood. As noted, the filmmakers changed the story in several ways, but, as with other Hammer movies based on books, they made it work. (Though I still have a problem with Castle Dracula looking almost pristine, instead of the above-ground graveyard it’s supposed to be.) The film was also gory for its time, though it seems quite tame today. Interestingly, despite, the sexual element added to the tale, there’s a noticeable lack of female skin for a Hammer film. The film also pays interesting homage to both the novel and its Universal predecessor. As in the novel, modern (1890’s) technologies like a phonograph and blood transfusions are used by Van Helsing. And like the 1931 film, the cinematographer uses a tiny flick of light to illuminate Lee’s eyes; only this time before he bites Lucy.

As for the rest of the cast, Lee’s BFF Peter Cushing is tremendous as Van Helsing. Cushing feels natural in every move he makes and is completely believable. He is neither a desk-bound know-it-all or an obsessed maniac. He’s also more than willing to put himself in danger and push himself to his physical limits to stop Dracula.

We also need to note the addition of Arthur Holmwood. In the book, Arthur is Lucy’s fiancée. Here, he’s married to Mina and becomes Van Helsing’s right-hand man. Michael Gough is also great here. He has to be. Just like in the book, Dracula is only really an active character in Transylvania. After that, we mostly get just the characters’ reactions to the Count’s evil deeds. Gough is also believable as an early skeptic converted to a crusader who is terribly concerned with protecting Mina from Dracula. He perfectly compliments Cushing.

Like Cushing, Gough never got the credit he deserved. From the villain in Hammer’s Phantom of the Opera, to a harassed artist who strikes back against a bullying art critic (Lee) in Amicus’ Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, Gough showed plenty of versatility before becoming just another British actor who appeared in every movie Tim Burton ever made.

The only low point in this film is Harker, who may be the worst vampire hunter ever. First, he notes that he must wait until dawn to kill Dracula. Of course, he heads out at night and gets attacked. Then, he finds the vault with the coffins and kills the female vampire as the sun sets, leaving Dracula to escape. And finally, what vampire hunter forgets his cross and garlic? Cushing’s Van Helsing is good on his own, but he needs to improve his hiring standards.

El Conde Drácula (Count Dracula) (Fénix Films, 1970)

Oh, I really don’t want to do this one, but I’m going to for comparison. You see, if there’s one thing Christopher Lee didn’t like about Hammer’s version of Dracula (other than being blinded by the contact lenses, that is), it was the deviation from the source material. Lee was a huge fan of Stoker’s book, and tried to work in some of the author’s classic lines. But Fisher would have none of it. And despite starring in six of the film’s eight Hammer sequels, Lee always longed to star in a faithful adaptation of the story. Well, in 1970, Lee got what he wanted- or so he thought. So, without further ado, I give you director Jess Franco’s take on Dracula.

Harker (Fred Williams) heads by train and carriage to Transylvania. He meets an elderly-looking Count Dracula. After a few wink-and-you’ll-miss-‘em abridged scenes from the novel, Harker goes mad, jumps out of the castle, and wakes up in a bed in a hospital in what we’re told is London- much like the title character in The Incredible Melting Man, who passes out in a spacecraft orbiting Saturn and wakes up in a NASA hospital on Earth shortly thereafter.

Harker’s fiancée, Mina (Maria Rohm), and her friend, Lucy (Soledad Miranda), meet him there. The next half hour or so is Dracula seducing Lucy, Renfield (Klaus Kinski) yelling and screaming, and asylum director Van Helsing (Herbert Lom) and Dr. Seward (Paul Mueller) musing about what might be happening. Lucy becomes a vampire and is staked. Dracula then sets his sights on Mina. After Van Helsing suffers a stroke, it’s up to Harker and Quincy Morris (Jack Taylor) to pursue Dracula back to Transylvania. They frighten the Count’s Gypsies with some rocks and then expose Dracula to sunlight. Fin.

I watched this movie for the review and, wow, was I bored. Can you tell? Now, it gets hard to keep reviewing a series of movies all based on the same story. But up until now, each film added something to the tale. Each kept me entertained. That wasn’t the case here. I don’t how I can list everything that went wrong with this one. For starters, it moves at a glacial pace. Everything is just slow. The setting is also all wrong. Barcelona is a beautiful, medieval city. But there’s no way it can substitute for Transylvania, much less Victorian London. And this being a Spanish production, everything just feels too Spanish - the buildings, the decorations, the costumes, the ladies (well, that may actually be a plus!)... And the sets are practically barren. Every room is a set of four blank, dull-painted walls with cheap furniture stolen from a high school swim team’s haunted house fundraiser. Wait, I take that back. That’s insulting to the very entertaining haunted houses we have around here in the Pittsburgh area at this time of year.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the film started with an ominous omen. As an appetizer, I watched a Youtube clip of Harker and the Count meeting. Then, cuing in the “children of the night” quote, was a stock animal howl. I heard this sound before and it filled me with dread- the wrong kind of dread. For you see, dear article reader, the only other time I can remember hearing that sound effect was for the Master’s Pet in “Muh…Muh…Manos, the Hands of Fate!!!!!” What, you don’t believe me?! Okay, fast forward the clip in question to 5:52. Now, fast forward to 34:59 of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version. I’ll pause while you do so. [pause] Thought I was kidding, didn’t you?

To make matters worse, this film was produced by Harry Alan Towers. Yes, the immortal producer of such classics as The Castle of Fu Manchu (“Wait. Christopher Lee was Chinese?”), and Outlaw of Gor (“Look, it’s Jack Palance!” “I’ve crapped bigger than this movie.”). Oh, the pain, the pain…

All right, all right, back to the review. Now, I did find three things that were actually good. The first was obvious:

Dracula: Christopher Lee

Lee isn’t awful this time around, though he isn’t memorable, either. With the exception of two scenes where he bites Lucy and just he hisses, he’s always stoic, brooding, and walking like Rod from Birdemic. (Yeah, I went there.) Still, his presence remains commanding. Also, in a nod to the book - the reason Lee agreed to this project in the first place - the Count gets younger as he drinks blood. Not handsome, mind you. Just younger. Nice touch. Overall, it actually feels reassuring when Lee’s onscreen - something you don’t feel very often in this film.

In an interesting casting twist, Klaus Kinski plays Renfield, a character noticeably absent from the Hammer version. Though he’s given only a few lines and mostly just shouts and screams, he’s completely believable as an insane man who goes crazy whenever Dracula is nearby. The part is small, but memorable. And, we’ll be seeing Herr Kinski a little further down the road.

One other note I want to make is the Lucy character. For the most part, Lucy is just portrayed as Dracula’s first meal in London who gets a sexual thrill out of being drained to death. Soledad Miranda certainly fulfills that part in her jaw-dropping scenes with Lee. (With her giraffe-sized neck, I can see why vampires would want her so badly.)

But it’s the difference between human Lucy and vampire Lucy I want to point out. As a human, Lucy is vulnerable, innocent, and easily dominated by Dracula. As a vampire, Lucy appears alabaster, with darkened eyes and wearing a black gown. She looks like a walking corpse. She also now easily commands children to come to her so she can feed. Like in the novel, it’s a complete inversion of her human self and a mockery of female beauty. Lucy represents the terror created by the corruption Dracula leaves behind in his wake. And so far, believe it or not, this movie, IMO, has done this part the best- especially when Miss Miranda bears her fangs.

Christopher Lee never seemed to resent being associated with Dracula. In fact, he kept open the possibility of playing the Count again. In a 1996 interview with BBC host Jonathan Ross, (for the documentary, “In Search of Dracula”), Lee said that he would play the part again, but only if the movie would be a faithful adaptation of the novel, which, Lee said, has never been properly filmed. Shame on you, Franco, Shame on you.

The Setting: “The Land Beyond the Forest”

Bram Stoker never visited Transylvania during his lifetime. Everything he knew came from travel guides (such as Emily Gerard’s The Land Beyond the Forest), and history books he read in the British Museum while doing research for his novel. In his hands, the land became a hotbed of monsters that preyed upon a peasant/merchant population. Dark forests surrounded fairy-tale towns while massive packs of wolves howled throughout the night. Locals took extreme precautions- including extensive used of garlic and crucifixes- to protect themselves from vampires and other vile creatures.

The name “Transylvania” translate roughly as “the land beyond the forest” in some versions of Latin. The name dates back to at least the early Middle Ages. But the land is much older than that. In the early first century B.C., the Kingdom of Dacia appeared on the scene. With the Carpathian Mountains to the east, and the Transylvanian Alps to the south, Dacia resisted Roman invasion for nearly two hundred years. It was finally conquered in 106 A.D. by Emperor Trajan. But after the start of the barbarian invasions the third century, the land was dominated by various tribes - including the Huns and Visigoths - before being taken over by the Kingdom of Hungary roughly in 11th century and being nominally run by the same for about 500 years. (There’s some dispute over this.) After briefly being taken over by the Ottomans, Transylvania was added to the Austrian (later Austro-Hungarian) Empire in 1683 after the Battle of Vienna. This arrangement lasted until 1919, when the territory was given as a ‘gift’ to Romania for joining the Allies during World War I.

Today, Transylvania isn’t much different from the rolling fields and mountains in countries like France or Germany. There are still, however, some isolated villages where belief in vampires continues to this day. Dracula was a banned book during Romania’s fascist and communist periods. Nowadays, there’s a love/hate relationship with Bram Stoker’s work. Towns featured in the novel like Bistrita (Bistritz), take advantage of the tourism it affords. Some places, like Bran Castle (above), have even been billed as the real Castle Dracula. On the flip side, the novel paints a demonic image of the land that some residents don’t care for. The book also, they claim, defiles one of Romania’s national heroes. But that’s a subject for the next article.

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Monsterpiece Theater: Dracula

by Rustbelt

The concept of terror on the silver screen has been a touchy one from the start. What exactly is too scary? How much is too much? Is it even healthy to make and release such films? All of these questions were being asked as the cinema grew in popularity around the globe. In the United States, horror was a touchy subject and considered taboo. Carl Laemmle, Sr., the boss of Universal Studios, forbade such films, considering them something the public would never want to watch.

Expression- auf Deutsch

But that wasn’t the case in Germany. The industry in Deutschland was filled with war-weary veterans who had seen the worst of humanity on the front lines; civilians who had endured supply shortages and attempted revolutions at home; and, of course, everyone was smarting from Germany’s devastating loss. Whatever appeared on screen, they thought, could never compare with World War I.

And so, filled with images of real-life terror, these filmmakers created a genre to express their anger, fear, and confusion. What came to be known as German Expressionism was born. In the age of the silent cinema, when visuals had to overcome the lack of dialogue, this genre stood out for its use of shadows, inventive angles, tracking shots, and outlandish sets. Realism isn’t the point. Driving home the feelings of the characters and scenes is what counts. Following the release of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), wherein a hypnotist uses a sleepwalker to commit murders, the German public proved both ready and hungry for scary movies.

Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (A Symphony of Horror) (Prana Films, 1922)

Producer Albin Grau had been interested in directing a vampire movie since meeting a Serbian peasant during his wartime service who claimed that his father was a vampire. (Though I wasn’t able to find more specific details on this, it’s likely the corpse of the man’s father had not decayed quickly enough and was staked as a precaution.) Grau set up Prana Films, a studio for creating supernatural-based movies. He hired screenwriter Henrik Galeen and director F.W. Murnau to create a film based on Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula - despite not bothering to secure the film rights from Stoker’s widow. The film was shot throughout the latter half of 1921 in German towns of Wismar and Lübeck, with Slovakia standing in for the vampire’s homeland.

NOTE: Since every adaptation of Dracula uses the same basic plot, all of plot synopses will focus more the individuality of the film, what stands out, and/or what did or not work. I will also be noting deviations from the source material.

Nosferatu starts with Thomas Hutter being sent by his boss, Mr. Knock, from the fictional German town of Wisborg to the Baltic States in order to complete a property sale with a mysterious client named Count Orlok. The first notable difference between this film and the book is the names. Since they didn’t bother to purchase the rights, the filmmakers tried to skirt copyright law by changing the names of characters and locations. Hutter (the Jonathan Harker character) is attacked by Count Orlok at the castle. Orlok leaves with his coffins for Wisborg by boat, where he begins a reign of terror after arriving. Taking the role of Renfield, Knock goes mad and is committed to an asylum.

In a clever nod to folklore, the town’s doctors attributer the rise in deaths to plague brought by rats from the ship. This is interesting because vampires are historically connected with the plagues.

At the end, Hutter’s wife Ellen (the Mina Harker figure) learns that a vampire can be distracted by feeding on a beautiful woman. Ellen sacrifices herself, distracting Orlok long enough for sunlight to appear and destroy him. This scene serves as an important addition to vampire lore. In folklore and the book, vampires are only weakened by sunlight. This movie invented the idea of sunlight killing a vampire. (As was the scene of Hutter/Harker cutting his finger and the Count rushing over to lap up the blood.)

Count Orlok (Dracula): Max Shreck

Let’s face it. The character that makes this movie work is Max Shreck’s Count Orlok. He definitely isn’t the handsome stranger of later movies. Given a repulsive, folklore-style appearance, Orlok’s face is rat-like and resembles a corpse (which, after all, is what a vampire is). His expression, alternating between zombie-like and wrathful, is deeply unsettling, even today. He is what nightmares are made of.

Murnau adds to the performance with several incomparable shots of Shreck’s shadow on the walls, all straight out of the German Expressionist style. Scenes of the vampire’s shadow bending over Hutter and walking up the steps to Ellen’s room have become icons of the horror genre - not just for their sinister shape, but because they force the audience to imagine the vampire’s actions themselves. And before I forget to mention it, ‘Shreck’ means ‘terror’ in German. Now that’s just good casting.

The Film That Would Not Stay in the Grave

Nosferatu got high praise when it was first released in 1922 in Germany. But remember that copyright issue I mentioned? Well, Florence Stoker, widow of Bram, found out about the movie and sued. Mrs. Stoker eventually won her case in the German court system because simply changing names wasn’t enough to get around the copyright. Prana Films was forced to declare bankruptcy and, worst of all, the judges ordered all copies of Nosferatu to be destroyed.

How the film survived depends on which story you’ve heard. One says that a few negatives sent to foreign markets had already been copied. Another was that a handful of reels were left on a shelf and escaped the flames. Yet another states that Florence Stoker herself kept a copy that was released after her death. Whatever the truth, the fact is that the film survived. And we’re richer for it: (Full Movie Here)

Dracula (Universal, 1931)

When I was a kid, I remember thumbing through TV Guide to the back where the week’s movies were listed. I noticed that Frankenstein got four stars, but Dracula only got three. I wondered why that was. Well, here are some reasons.

By the early 1930’s, several seismic shifts were taking place in Hollywood. The most obvious was the transition from silent films to talkies. The second was the influence of German Expressionism. Filmmakers and actors were fleeing Germany for America as the power of the Nazis grew, and they brought their techniques with them. The German style had already weaved its way into gangster films, singlehandedly creating the film noir genre and launching the careers of Edward G. Robinson, Cary Grant, and Humphrey Bogart, just to name a few. Finally, the public’s tastes were changing. Perhaps the land of e pluribus unum was finally ready for films made to scare. Well, that’s what Carl Laemmle, Jr. thought, at least.

Grave Ambition (if you’ll pardon the pun)

The younger Laemmle was eager to get into the horror genre by turning Dracula into a major film. His father Carl Sr., the boss of Universal Studios, was not. He’d permitted grand productions based around deformed characters such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and Phantom of the Opera (1925), all played by his top actor Lon Chaney, (with the former produced by boy wonder Irving Thalberg before his departure for MGM), but he had his doubts about supernatural horror. Up to that point, all American movies featuring otherworldly characters had always used a safety net revealing the character to have been a disguised human, after all. (Call it the ‘Scooby Doo’ ending.) However, after seeing the continued success of the 1924 stage version of Dracula crafted by Hamilton Deane and John Balderston on Broadway, the elder Laemmle relented and gave his son the green light.

Carl Jr. assembled an all-star team of Universal contractees. Lon Chaney, the studio’s biggest star and ‘man of a thousand faces’ (his nickname owing to his makeup skills), would play Count Dracula. Tod Browning, one of the studio’s top directors and frequently the man who directed Chaney, would be in charge. Laemmle also made sure to avoid Prada’s pitfalls by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to Mrs. Stoker both for the rights to both the book and the play. (And thereby preventing a competing version from being filmed). Everything seemed to moving steadily... until...

The Horrors of Hollywood

If you watch the documentary that comes with Universal’s 2004 box set for Dracula, you’ll be told that the shortcomings of the film were due to the Great Depression. Oh, excuses. To be fair, that was a part of the problem. But it was far from the only one. Tragedy struck a few months before filming, when Chaney came down with cancer and died. Without a star and the Depression already cutting into the budget, Universal was forced to look for a cheap replacement. The then-unknown Bela Lugosi was chosen.

But problems continued. With the death of his close friend and unable to order the elaborate sets that had been planned, director Browning lost interest in the project. He casually filmed scenes in sequence. He was also uncomfortable with the film being a talkie. Unlike other silent era veterans who embraced sound – like Thalberg and Walt Disney - Browning said he thought a film only needed sound 20% of the time, leaving 80% silent, to still be successful. Things came to a head when studio bosses reviewed the footage and were intensely displeased. Cinematographer Karl Freund, a German Expressionist expert who had worked on such silent films as the sci-fi classic Metropolis (1927), practically took over.

“I Am…Dracula.”

After months of worry and re-shoots, the film finally premiered on- of all days- Valentine’s Day, 1931. (It was advertised as “the strangest love story of all.”) The film is far from what it could have been. The London scenes, supervised mostly by Browning, are largelyly master shots that look like a parent filming their kid’s school play. Little wonder why Universal’s top brass weren’t thrilled.

On the other hand, Freund’s work is superb. Freud shot the scenes in Transylvania, particularly Castle Dracula. The shots and shadows definitely create the impression of a home not meant for the living. (It almost makes you forget about the armadillos prancing around.) Freund also was responsible for the legendary shots of Lugosi in the dark and looking into the camera, with his eyes illuminated. It has been suggested that Freund did the editing, with Browning almost kicked off the project by then. (Freund’s contributions were so immense that David Manners, who played Jonathan Harker, famously quipped, “I don’t remember Tod Browning on set. I remember being directed by Karl Freund.”)

Despite this being a Pre-Code film, the scenes of Dracula attacking his victims are very Victorian and chaste. You see none of the raciness of Paramount’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, released that same year.

Ultimately, it’s the individual performances that make this picture memorable. Aside from the usual cropping of subplots and minor characters from the book, the biggest change between this film and the written version is having R.M. Renfield travel to Transylvania, (instead of Harker), and become the Count’s personal slave. Dwight Frye made the role his own, with an amazingly insane look of madness on his face and a laugh that sounds both hilarious and sinister at the same time. Likewise, Edward Van Sloan provided the early model for Professor Abraham Van Helsing. It’s a fairly straightforward performance: the wise, determined elder who never flinches. (He even reprised the role in Dracula’s Daughter). However, his interactions with Bela Lugosi, holding the vampire back with a cross have become classic clashes between good and evil. And speaking of…

Count Dracula: Bela Lugosi

Here is the man who has come to represent the Count in all his glory. He actually doesn’t look like the Count in Stoker’s novel. In print, Dracula is described as an old man with a white mustache and rather grotesque features. Lugosi made him into a dapper, dashing, handsome man who didn’t need hypnosis to get the attention of the ladies…and then their necks.

Lugosi was definitely fortunate to land the role. Despite playing the role on Broadway and lobbying for it, he wasn’t even considered before Chaney’s death. He even remained on the short list after the fact. It was only while the play was touring Los Angeles that he met with Universal executives, was tested, and got the part.

Probably the most memorable feature of Lugosi’s performance is his accent. His is considered the definitive voice despite learning his lines phonetically (Lugosi refused to learn English for years). But is it accurate? Lugosi was Hungarian and most people in the Borgo Pass area in 1897 spoke either Romanian or German, according to the guides of the time. (The languages are all from different language trees.) But it may be a moot point. In the book, Harker says Dracula speaks “excellent English, but with a strange intonation.” That leaves room for interpretation. And almost every time someone imitates Dracula today, they imitate Lugosi.

Ultimately, the movie was a financial success. It launched what we now call the Universal Monster Universe. It is rightfully a classic. However, aside from the great performances, it still leaves viewers wanting. With the right team and funds, it could have been so much more. Now I know why it only got three stars.

The Author: Bram Stoker

Abraham Stoker was born in Clontarf, just north of Dublin, Ireland, in 1847. There’s little in his schooling or professional life that would lead anyone to guess that he would write one of the greatest vampire novels of all time. He graduated from Trinity College with a degree in mathematics before starting work as a civil servant. His side job as a theater critic eventually led to a meeting with actor Sir Henry Irving (the first man awarded a knighthood for accomplishments in the arts). Irving was impressed and offered Stoker the job of acting (later, business) manager of the Lyceum theater, which Irving owned. The troupe traveled extensively. This included trips to the States, where Stoker visited the White House with his boss and met Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.

But there are signs that Stoker may have been destined to write about the undead. He was bedridden (like a vampire in the coffin), with an undetermined illness until he was seven. During that time, his mother told him frightening Irish folk tales from both the ancient days of yore and those inspired by the Potato Famine and cholera outbreak that hit the Emerald Isle a generation earlier. The macabre became common. And even when he was healthy, his circumstances remained strange: the only place for him to play as a child was the cemetery across the street.

Sir Christopher Frayling, a noted Dracula scholar, says that, according to Stoker’s notes, it was a nightmare he had in 1897 that started work on the novel. In the dream, Stoker found himself attacked by three female vampires until a ‘powerful man’ appeared, chastised them, and said “this man belongs to me!” From there, Stoker picked up bits of local folklore and visited ruined castles and cemeteries in places like Whitby and Cruden Bay. He also did immense amounts of research into vampires, superstitions, and, ultimately, Eastern Europe at the British Museum. Finally, after seven years of work, Dracula was published in 1897.

It was not a major success. In fact, Stoker saw very little money from it during his lifetime. He wrote several other books, both fiction and non-fiction (his best known at the time was the instructional tome The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland), but none achieved much fame. He passed away in April, 1912, the same week the Titanic sank. It seems it was only when Dracula hit the stage and screen that the book’s immortality was assured. Stoker, no doubt, would’ve been pleased.

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Monsterpiece Theater: The Season of the Vampire King

by Rustbelt

Welcome back to Monsterpiece Theater, my friends. Last year, we looked at several classic horror stories and their treatments on the silver screen. It was a lot of fun, but there was one book that got away. That was too bad, as it’s a personal favorite of mine and truly stands out. For in this tome, evil is bound by no particular trait.

You see, the villain in The Hound of the Baskervilles was driven by greed and was willing to do whatever it took to take over the estate. Edward Hyde was but an alter ego that allowed Henry Jekyll an outlet to indulge in his unscrupulous desires. And Victor Frankenstein’s Creature was an experiment borne of its maker’s prideful hubris- its darker nature ultimately the result of neglect and isolation.

But this year, we’re going a little further than that. We’re looking at a purely wicked monster- evil for the sake of evil itself. Now, this kind of figure is hard to create. The temptations for the writer to go either too serious or too cartoonish are bountiful. But this book contains a villain that embodies the essence of evil perfectly- a character so beyond redemption and existing solely for the chaos that he brings. He is truly a blight upon humanity.

And what better creature for this being to be than a vampire? True vampires, mind you. This is before Joss Whedon and Stephanie Meyer turned the demons of the night into self-absorbed hipsters and glittering pixie sticks.

The vampire here is the animated embodiment of death: a corpse that gains an unholy extension to its own existence by stealing the life- via blood- from the living. And afterwards, its victims are condemned to the same damnation until a courageous soul comes forward to bring the cycle of death to an end. It’s a feat few can- or will- accomplish.

This Haunting Season, evil has a name, and a face.

“The mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran down over the chin and neck. Even the deep, burning eyes seemed set amongst swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were bloated. It seemed as if the whole awful creature were simply gorged with blood. He lay like a filthy leech, exhausted with his repletion…

“…I seized a shovel which the workmen had been using to fill the cases, and lifting it high, struck, with the edge downward, at the hateful face. But as I did so the head turned, and the eyes fell upon me, with all their blaze of basilisk horror. The sight seemed to paralyze me, and the shovel turned in my hand and glanced from the face, merely making a deep gash above the forehead. The shovel fell from my hand across the box, and as I pulled it away the flange of the blade caught the edge of the lid which fell over again, and hid the horrid thing from my sight. The last glimpse I had was of the bloated face, blood-stained and fixed with a grin of malice which would have held its own in the nethermost hell.”

And that name is Dracula.

…I heard a heavy step approaching behind the great door, and saw through the chinks the gleam of a coming light. Then there was the sound of rattling chains and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back. A key was turned with the loud grating noise of long disuse, and the great door swung back.

Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere…The old man motioned me in with his right hand with a courtly gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation.

"Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own free will!" He made no motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue, as though his gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone. The instant, however, that I had stepped over the threshold, he moved impulsively forward, and holding out his hand grasped mine with a strength which made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed cold as ice, more like the hand of a dead than a living man. Again he said.

"Welcome to my house! Enter freely. Go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring.”

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Film Friday: Pete’s Dragon (2016)

Disney continues to generate live-action remakes of some of its classic and non-classic films. Some of these films have been better than others, but none have been particularly great. This time, Disney remade Pete’s Dragon, and the remake sucks pretty badly.

The original Pete’s Dragon was never a great film. It was a very representative example of the kinds of live-action films Disney was doing in the 1970s. It was fun. It was silly. It had just enough dark overtones to create some tension and make you sympathize with the characters, but otherwise it was just a zany-lite comedy with lots of sight gags.

The plot to the original involved a young orphan boy named Pete, who runs away from an abusive foster family of hillbillies and stumbles upon a small fishing town in the year 1900. The town is called Passamaquoddy and Pete arrives with an invisible cartoon dragon named Elliott he found in the woods along the way. Elliott draws the attention of a conman named Dr. Terminus, who makes phony medicine. He wants to capture Elliott and turn him into medicine. The rest of the film is a story of Pete fitting in with the new town as he and Elliott try to dodge Dr. Terminus.

As with other Disney films of the era, like The Boatniks and The Apple Dumpling Gang, these films were just meant to be fun. They weren’t classics. Disney wasn’t aiming for awards or probably even films that would be remembered. They were just putting out fun stuff to entertain kids. They excelled at this, and many of these films are fondly remembered because of it.

The remake of Pete’s Dragon is slicker. Its production qualities are higher. It has stronger actors, like Karl Urban. They spent more money on settings and their effects are far superior. Yet, it won't be remembered. Why? Because it sucks. It sucks because it lacks heart.

The problem with this film can best be explained in this formula:

1970’s Disney: Cheap Production + Genuinely Heartfelt Story = Wonderful Movie

201?’s Disney: High Production + Formulaic Emotional Manipulation = Dud

That’s the thing. If you asked me about any element of the film, I would tell you that it was well done. The acting was standard. The effects were standard. The music was obnoxiously standard. The story hit all the required highs and lows right on cue to create a standard movie. But there was no heart whatsoever. I did not care about anyone or anything I saw on film.

The movie starts with Tarzan, er Mowgli, er Pete being lost in the woods when his parent die in a car accident. Six years later, he is found by the lonely forest ranger chick whose boyfriend is a responsible logger and whose father is Robert Redford who loves to tell children stories of seeing a dragon. With no effort whatsoever, Pete takes to the forest ranger and becomes part of her family. Seriously, the only possible hangup is the twenty seconds where the ranger chick drives him to social services to be adopted but then decides to keep him without going in. There is no moment of tension between Pete and the girl who will suddenly be his sister either, and the father is irrelevant. Even when Elliott tracks Pete to the house and seems to be sad that Pete has left him, that only lasts around thirty seconds before they are reunited.

None of these characters are the least bit genuine and there is zero emotional content. Sure, they all mug for the camera and the director makes sure you get to see tears, but there's no substance what so ever.

The closest thing we come to an emotional driver for the film is black-hearted Karl Urban who decides he wants to hunt Elliott. Karl is neutered, however, because he wants to make sure Elliott is unharmed so he can somethingsomething with him and get rich. Of course, he does eventually catch Elliott, but Elliott escapes and then saves the father and ranger from the fire he caused on a bridge. Yawn.

At no point is there even the possibility of emotional connection. Everything in this film comes easy and fast. There is no danger whatsoever. There is no sacrifice. There is nothing to make you like these people or dislike them or want them to succeed or fail. There isn’t even any humor to make you enjoy watching them.

What’s worse, to try to make you care, this film is packed with heavy-handed emotional manipulation. The music pounds away with well-worn over-the-top manipulative notes. YOU ARE SAD!! THIS MAKES YOU HAPPY!! NOW YOU ARE SCARED!! The camera gets fuzzy and the lighting goes golden when Pete stares at the Ranger or she stares at him. Cue the strings, she just let a glistering-based tear fall down her cheek. The lighting goes down as the hunter appears. BUM BUM BUM!! YOU ARE TERRIFIED!!

Melodrama is subtle compared to what this film does.

The original Pete’s Dragon was cute because Pete and Elliott cared for each other, protected each other from danger, and ultimately needed to abandon each other so Pete could grow up. The new film has none of that. It goes through the motions, but it’s basically “overly-cute child actor must mug for ‘aren’t I adorable’ shots as he moves into so-perfect-it’s-fake home of actress wearing Park Ranger gear” while the “technical” aspects of the film beat you over the head with what you are supposed to be feeling.

This is the problem with constructing movies through the lens of marketing. It’s got all the parts, but it has no life.

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Scott's Posters

Hey folks! I promise there will be a film article this week. Right now though, I want to point out that friend of the site Scott Saslow is selling some of his very cool posters here ==> LINK. If you're at all interested, check it out. They are very well done and might look good hanging in your house!

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The Feminism of Ghosts of Mars

Every once in awhile, I catch myself watching John Carpenter's Ghost of Mars. This is likely Carpenter's dumbest film, and maybe his worst. It's at least in the running. In fact, the film was so bad that it burned Carpenter out and he would not make another feature length film for nine years. That's a tough call for a film staring Ice Cube, Pam Grier, and a young Jason Statham... (of course, Statham did do this too ==> Dancing Jason <==before he got famous). Anyways, what I want to talk about is the feminism of the film. I think it's enlightening.

Feminism is a tricky word because it means a lot of things and few of its adherents follow what they claim it means. On the surface, it means legal and practical equality, i.e. that men and women have the same rights, same opportunities and neither faces discrimination based on gender. But some take it further and want a gender free world. Good luck with that. Others, in particular most feminist dogmatics, see feminism as a sort of female superiority movement where women should be given special right and males are made second class citizens. Carpenter's Ghost of Mars weighs in more along these lines.

The story takes place on Mars in a world run by cartels who have imposed something called "The Matriarchy." It's essentially treated as a government run by women where women hold all the power and roles are sort of reversed. The thing is, this whole reversed roles thing ultimately proves meaningless to the plot except for a couple of small moments. Consider these:

(1) The lead officer, Pam Grier, talks about wishing she had more "dependable" women for her prisoner transfer squad than men.

(2) Grier makes a lesbian pass at the heroine, Natasha Henstridge, and Henstridge suggests this is the price of promotion.

(3) There is a woman in a jail cell who acts like a tough biker and talks about wanting a "piss break."

(4) Heroine Henstridge describes mining towns as places where there are "drugs to take and whore to f*ck."

That's about it. Other than that, the toughest character is either Ice Cube's Desolation Williams or Jason Statham's Sergeant Jericho. The women aren't stronger, faster or more physically able. They aren't brighter or more courageous either. Nor are they better people. They aren't even different people. So there's really no basis for this being a Matriarchy, except that Carpenter wanted this. But what is his point?

I rather struggle with understanding this. Carpenter is a feminist, so was his producer the late Debra Hill. You will see elements of that throughout his work. This film was the first time, however, that he openly made feminism "a thing," and look what he did with it. The government is corrupt. They lie. They abuse. They make secret deals. They discriminate openly. They are violent and stupid. Drug abuse is common. Sex abuse is common, as is prostitution and sexual harassment and being forced to sleep your way to the top. In other words, they are everything feminists claim men are at their worst.

If I didn't know better, I would think Carpenter was making a rather nasty criticism of feminism, but he wasn't. He was just trying to tell a tale of a standard dystopian world where some action film takes place. His use of feminism was just a facade on the plot.

You often see this with liberals. Their views simply don't work in the real world or in stories. So they tell a normal story and they just gloss it over by pretending that liberal ideas are involved. Indeed, time and again, liberals write stories about liberal heroes using conservative ideas to attack liberalism in action and they hide this ideological mashup by making the villain some demonized conservative, e.g. a corporation or religious person, or having the hero spout feminism or environmentalism that doesn't actually reflect the action.

That's what happened here. I suppose from Carpenter's perspective, he is presenting a group of rugged "frontier women" who have finally replaced evil, worthless men. And this is the story of our heroine, Henstridge, as she fights the evil ghosts. But that's not really what he's created. Indeed, while this is a feminist world dominated by women, Ice Cube and Statham are both more dominant than Henstridge. The world is still filled with the kind of corruption that makes this kind of dystopia work as well, even as we are told that women would not do this. These women are just as corrupt, just as over-sexed, just as stupid and just as incompetent. You could actually swap out males for females in this film, strike the word "matriarchy," and you would never have a clue that feminism was introduced into the film.

That's bad.

What I find so interesting is that if he wanted to envision a world run by women rather than men, i.e. a modern feminist dream world, why does this feel like "the ass end of the universe" as Statham puts it? Why is it just a rotten world where women merely replace the men as the rotten actors rather than a world that is changed to reflect supposed difference feminists think women would bring? What does this tell us about feminism? Frankly, I think it tells us that feminists don't really believe the crap they spew.

Thoughts?

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I watched some movies

by tryanmax

Andrew is right; the movies that have come out lately are largely blah. They’re not good enough to rave about, but they’re not bad enough to criticize. That said, I do have a few thoughts on some movies I’ve seen recently, just not enough to warrant an entire article on any one. Here we go:

The Butler (2013)

I liked this movie better when it was called Forest Gump. This is your typical nostalgia piece, rolling through the decades over the shoulder of a simple protagonist who had the smarts to go with the zeitgeist while everyone else was fighting it. Things to look for: cameos by big name actors doing pitiful impersonations of former presidents; Oprah reprises her role as Oprah.

Fant4stic Bore (2015)

This snooze fest handily steals the title of Worst Superhero Movie Ever from Catwoman. The Halle Berry vehicle merely squatted over the source material before kicking sand over it. Upping the ante, Fantastic Four forgoes even telling a story and has no characters in it. Oh sure, there are actors doing stuff and calling each other names that aren’t theirs, but who are these people? What do they want? What do they care about? Why does a black man have a black son but a white daughter? None of these things are addressed even as ugly John Cusack, the slut from House of Cards, the other Michael Jordan, and grownup Billy Elliot cross the streams and turn into X-Men—or something like that.

The Secret Life of Pets (2016)

Lest you think I just plan to rag on every movie, this one is really cute and I recommend it. There’s just not a lot to say as it is essentially a feature-length cartoon in the spirit of Tom and Jerry or Sylvester and Tweety. I loved the score so much, I bought the soundtrack on my phone before I even left the theater. Buying soundtracks is not a typical move for me.

Ex Machina (2015) / Terminator Genisys (2015) / Transcendence (2014)

A.I. is bad and it will kill you.

Actually, I enjoyed the Terminator sequel for what it was. Actually, maybe this is a reboot. With the messed up continuity of the Terminator franchise, who can tell? An interesting tidbit: the producers of Genisys didn’t have rights to reuse footage from the 1984 film, so they copied some of the original scenes.

Mortdecai (2015)

Oh, look! It’s Capt. Jack Sparrow! Again… Seriously, the only thing more tired than Depp’s drunken sailor routine are his claims that somehow each of the characters is based on something different.

We’re the Millers (2013) vs. Vacation (2015)

While neither of these movies warrants a full review, they do deserve a quick comparison. Obviously, Vacation is the official successor to the Chevy Chase franchise, with Ed Helms playing a grownup Rusty Griswold trying to relive his childhood road trip to Wally World. It tries, vainly, to replicate gags from its parent, but it is held back by PC sensibilities, overt partisanship, crude bathroom humor, and zero chemistry between the cast. Worse, a joint cameo by Chase and Beverly D'Angelo only kills what little momentum the movie has.

Conversely, the Millers feel much more like spiritual successors to the Griswolds. Jason Sudeikis plays a low-level weed dealer who, to get out of a bind, agrees to smuggle a “smidge” of marijuana into the US from Mexico. As cover, he recruits a stripper (Jennifer Aniston) and a couple of teen delinquents to form a fake All-American family on an RV roadtrip. Everything about this film is better: it’s funnier, it’s fresher, it’s edgier, it’s not driving any agenda, and most importantly, there’s excellent chemistry among the actors.

Jurassic World (2015)

If you like nostalgia, dinosaurs, and Chris Pratt—and I know I do—you’re sure to like this movie, because it has those things. Is this the best Jurassic Park movie yet? Not on your life. But it is an enjoyable time waster. I really like the direction they went with the backstory: Jurassic Park has become a commercial success to the point where both park management and visitors have gotten blasé about giant carnivores and safety protocols. That’s not so good. They don’t go too deep in the weeds about it, though, which is fine. Because what we really want to see are big dinos and Chris Pratt.

Well, those are some movies I’ve seen lately. There were others, but they were so unremarkable that I didn’t. In other viewing, if you haven’t watched Netflix’s Stranger Things, you should. And what’s wrong with you? Haven’t you heard everybody raving about it!?

Have you seen any movies lately that did nothing more than bring you 110 minutes closer to death? Feel free to drop a one, two, or three sentence review of a movie you don’t recommend.

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