Tag Archives: vampires

Something with a Vampire

Posted on August 29, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

In my continuing quest to find cheesy horror movies to write about, I turned once again to Steven’s DVD boxes set of 50 Horror Classics, purchased for him by me out of a discount bin.

Spoiler Alert! Although I will try to avoid mentioning the big reveal. It is a big one. In fact, already I’ve said too much.

As I sit here writing this, I suddenly realize I am not 100 percent clear on what the title is. Something with a vampire. The Vampire Bat? Or was that the one I saw with Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead? So many vampires, so little time. I know I can look up these things before I type this into the computer, but I thought it said a little something about the movie that I could not recall the title. Or about me. In either case, I found it of interest.

The vampire killings start before the first scene of the movie. We open on a meeting of important men of the village discussing the murders. It’s vampires, insists the burgermeister (and any time there is a burgermeister in one of these movies, how many flash onto Santa Claus is Coming to Town and Burgermeister Meisterburger? Raise your hands).

There are no vampires, insists the sheriff or marshal or whatever he is. He is dressed like a plainclothes detective and is apparently the only cop the place has. At least, I don’t remember seeing any other cops. Probably a low budget production.

Our hero states that he will seek out a human murderer and goes to visit his girlfriend, conveniently located in the next room. I wasn’t clear on the geography of this movie, but that’s what it looked like to me. Oh, and he has to go down some steps, which seems appropriate, because it looks like a mad scientist’s laboratory. It belongs to the village doctor. Fay Wray is his assistant.

My girl Fay does not get to crack wise, like she did in Mystery of the Wax Museum nor yet to scream her head off as she did in King Kong. I was naturally disappointed. Also on hand is Fay’s aunt, a hypochondriac who is constantly after the doctor to prescribe for her, using some impressive if malaproppriate medical terms (I just made up that word malapropriate: malapropism + appropriate). She was my favorite character, especially since they let Fay be so boring.

The other character of note is a half-wit who says bats are good, making him an object of suspicion to the villagers. You can tell he is a half-wit, because he speaks of himself in the third person. He likes to catch bats and pet them and put them in his pocket. Is anybody else reminded of Lenny in Of Mice and Men? Our half-wit does not fare a whole lot better.

Things get suspenseful, even given poor Fay’s lamentably underscripted character. I don’t really want to say too much, because I was intrigued and a little surprised by how things unfolded. A little confused, too, because Fay’s part was not the only thing underscripted.

On the whole, I enjoyed the movie. But now I want to view Mystery of the Wax Museum again. So I can watch Fay Wray crack wise.

Note: It is The Vampire Bat, 1933. The one with Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead is The Bat, 1959. I wrote a blog post about it.

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Actors Have Bills to Pay, Too

Posted on December 11, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

Spoiler Alert! I intend to pretty much recount the plot of the following movie. I will not give away the ending, however, because by that point I had almost entirely ceased paying attention.

I had DVR’d Dracula Rises from the Grave (1968) when I DRV’d the other Christopher Lee Dracula movie whose name escapes me. Saturday I watched it while Steven was at work. I would have waited and watched it with him, but Steven is pretty much All Christmas All The Time these days (with the occasional DVR’d Castle episode or true crime show thrown in).

In pre-movie commentary, Ben Mankiewicz says that Lee did not want to play the role a third time, but the studio talked him into it, probably with a fat check. It must have been, because they sure didn’t tempt him with a great script that offered acting challenges and Oscar talk. Well, I’m not judging. Actors have bills to pay, too.

The movie opens with a cheerful young man whistling as he rides his bike to the church, where he works. When he goes to ring the bell, blood is running down the rope. Eek! I like a movie that doesn’t waste any time. In a creepy shot, we see a slaughtered young lady hanging upside down inside the bell (cue jokes about her face ringing a bell).

The young man spends the rest of the movie saying, “Ah-uh-ah!” instead of actual lines, apparently shocked into imbecility, because he seemed pretty normal before. These movies love to have a character that can only say, “Ah-uh-ah!” I’m sure it makes it easier to write dialogue.

As the movie progresses, the lady in the bell takes on a real “Waaait a minute” quality, because Dracula actually has not yet risen from the grave at this point. It’s never explained. I guess it’s just a set piece to start us off creepy and get the kid out of having to learn any lines.

There’s this fairly wimpy parish priest with the oddest pattern of baldness I’ve ever seen, a narrow strip down the middle of his head. All he wants to do after the bell lady incident is sit in the pub and drink. This is where the Monsignor finds him. The Monsignor is told that nobody will go to church because they fear the evil Dracula. Yes, we thought he was dead, but the shadow of his castle falls on the church, obviously a bad sign.

The Monsignor decides that he and Wimpy Priest will go to the castle to prove the evil has been destroyed. Stand by for the next “Waaaait a minute” development. The two holy men leave before dawn, carrying a really big crucifix for good measure. Finally Wimpy Priest can go no further, they must turn back, soon it will be dark.

Excuse me, what? How far away is this castle? And how big is it if from that distance it can still cast a shadow that touches the church. Perhaps it is on a mountain that goes straight up, but still.

Now, anybody who saw the previous Christopher Lee Dracula movie (whose title escapes me) knows the titular vampire went to a cold, watery end (I can’t say “grave” because that’s where he sleeps when he is undead). So right away Dracula is better off in this movie, because you may recall that he began the other movie as a box of ashes. At least now he is already reconstituted. And apparently the cold water helped him regenerate his vocal chords, because he has lines this time. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Monsignor begins some exorcism rite at the door of the castle, leaving Wimpy Priest to wait for him partway down the mountain. There is a lot of thunder and lightning. I’m not entirely clear on this, but I think what happens is that Wimpy Priest falls, hits his head and bleeds on frozen Dracula.

You may recall that blood revived Dracula when he was ashes, and so it is now that he is frozen. And it doesn’t take a whole person’s worth of blood to do it this time, so bonus for Wimpy Priest: he gets to be in the rest of the movie.

Monsignor, meantime, has completed his exorcism (or whatever it was) and sealed the door to the castle with the big crucifix. I had thought that in cases like this you burned the castle (or house or mansion, as the case may be) and scattered the ashes. Apparently not always.

Boy, is Dracula ticked off when he arrives home to find the locks have been changed.

And we’re off on a vampire revenge caper. We meet a beautiful blonde, a tawdry redhead and a stalwart hero, among others. “Ah-uh-ah” boy makes another appearance, and Wimpy Priest gets to be Dracula’s henchman.

I have to admit, I pretty much stopped paying attention after a while. I only let the recording play out so I could write this blog post. And I see I am over 800 words, so I guess it’s a good idea to stop my plot summary now anyways. It actually isn’t too bad of a movie. I may DVR the other Christopher Lee Dracula movies if they turn up on TCM. I’ll let you know.

(NOTE: The movie title that escaped me earlier was Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966); I wrote a blog post about it.)

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We Can’t All Be Bela Lugosi

Posted on August 14, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

Saturday night I continued my quest for cheesy horror with a double feature starring George Zucco. I had never heard of him, but the DVD box describes him as “marvelously theatrical,” and Leonard Maltin says he “effortlessly steals the show” in our second feature (Leonard Maltin’s 2011 Movie Guide, Signet, 2010). Who am I to argue with Leonard Maltin?

I don’t know that I need to give my usual spoiler alert, because I’m not sure I followed either movie with any accuracy. Our copies were so bad most of the dialog was difficult to understand, especially since we had two fans running. I do love a horror movie on a hot summer night.

In Dead Men Walk (1943), Zucca plays a dual role of a good twin and a bad twin, both doctors (actors just love to play dual roles and/or writers and directors just love identical twins; I may have to write a whole blog post on the phenomenon). The evil twin is dead as the movie begins, but that’s OK, because, as the they tell us in the title, dead men walk. There is a creepy prologue of a disembodied head double exposured over flame telling us… I’m not sure what. That was some of the dialogue I missed.

As the movie progresses, we learn that the good twin killed the evil twin. I personally could have used a little more information on this plot point. Good twin says it was self-defense. Evil twin says it was an ill-fated attempt to save the daughter/niece (that is, daughter of evil, niece of good).

Oh, and let’s talk about that niece for a minute. Of course, there is usually a beautiful young woman in these things, most often in deadly peril at some point. She must be sweet and vulnerable. Any additional personality is strictly optional. Come to think of it, that can be true for movie males, too, only without the sweet and vulnerable parts. The niece is mainly concerned with her young man, also a doctor. She seems completely unaware of her father’s nefarious activities and, I must point out, not particularly grief-stricken at his passing, although that may have been the fault of the lousy print. I mean, I didn’t hear everything she said. What I did hear, they didn’t give her the snappiest dialogue. I sure wish this movie had had an intrepid girl reporter, but that’s beside the point.

Bad Brother’s funeral is disrupted by a crazy old lady (no, not me) saying it is a desecration to have such an evil one in the church. She’s been nuts ever since her granddaughter was brutally murdered. Any guesses who was responsible? Well, you’re going to have to guess, because we never find out anything else about that subplot. I was grateful I heard that much.

Soon Big Brother returns, making all kinds of threats. Not surprisingly, only Good Brother gets to see him. I suppose with more budget they could have made a trippy movie where you find out at the end they are BOTH THE SAME PERSON. No such subtlety for this flick, which was really fine with me, because those trippy ones make my head hurt.

Bad Brother is a kind of a vampire. He intends to turn his daughter into one, too, but apparently this takes a lot of bites. At night she has mysterious dreams. By day she appears to be wasting away from an unknown disease. At one point her young man insists she be given a blood transfusion. She at once is better, which clues in nobody but the audience that vampires are at work. Oh, and crazy old lady, who brings her a crucifix, which helps. I’ll never understand why people in vampire movies don’t set up a perimeter of crucifixes all around the house and sleep well at night.

Zucca does a pretty good job playing two parts. I did remark at one point, thought, that it was the most professorial-looking vampire I had ever seen. That was just a cute remark, though, because he managed to be scary as well. And, after all, we can’t all be Bela Lugosi.

Things get interesting when the excitable townspeople begin to believe that Good Brother is in fact the murderer. It gets scary as events reach their dramatic conclusion. I shan’t tell you what that is, because I don’t warn you against watching this movie. In fact, if you do watch it, perhaps you could clue me in on a few of the plot points I missed due to my bad sound system. Did the niece know of her father’s evil nature? What all did that disembodied head say during the introduction? What was Bad Brother’s henchman’s name?

As usual, my review is becoming longer than the silly movie. This one runs 65 minutes, giving us plenty of time for our second feature, which I will talk about tomorrow. Stay tuned.

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Blood, But Not Bloody Cheesy

Posted on July 16, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

Saturday night I took a break from both cheesy horror movies and Mohawk Valley adventures by popping in Dracula (1931) starring Bela Lugosi.

Steven gave me Dracula as a present some time ago. I was reminded of it while looking over previous posts. So I have written about it, but not much about it, so I thought I could get away with at least a short post about it. It is, in fact, my only option, because it has been too damn hot to do anything else and I really don’t feel like writing yet another post about Why I Can’t Write A Post Today (but I will probably feel like it tomorrow when I go back to work. Just warning you). I will also mention that, although I own this movie, I think yesterday’s was only my second viewing of the movie in its entirety. I had forgotten a lot.

Black and white photography is perfect for this movie. I suppose that was merely making a virtue out of necessity in 1931, but I enjoyed it. The entire look of the movie is eerie, like a foreboding grey sky just before a storm. I hadn’t been looking at the movie very long before I grabbed the TV Journal and made the note: There is nothing cheesy about this movie.

The scene where we first see the vampires is scary. And a little gross, because there are rats. I hate rats. Renfield has just arrived at Count Dracula’s castle and has no idea he has been hired by a vampire, the warnings of the villagers having made no impression on him. One line I was particularly waiting for was when Dracula says, “I never drink… wine.” I remember Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi saying it in Ed Wood, one of my all-time favorite movies.

Dracula is very atmospheric. In fact, I’m afraid there is more atmosphere than action, which was a little disappointing to me, but I got over it, because the atmosphere was so well done. I’ve spoken about horror movies that manage to be unsettling with only noises, camera angles and acting. This one uses mostly acting and cinematography.

Slow as the action seemed to me, you had to pay attention or you missed a few plot points. Steven had to tell me Renfield had got bit (in my defense, I was knitting and probably had my eyes off the screen). I also thought some things were kind of glossed over, like the entire crew perishing on the voyage to England. There is a deliciously creepy shot of the shadow of the dead captain tied to the wheel. A few lines of dialogues from onlookers and a newspaper clipping explain.

The creepiest shot in the picture was a newly insane Renfield looking up the stairs. Ooh, he’s creepy.

The movie is not very informative about vampire lore. I would have had a hard time keeping up, but I remembered what I had learned in Lost Boys, a fun vampire romp from the ’80s. I was a little surprised when I realized who Dr. Van Helsing was. I had thought he was supposed to look more like Hugh Jackman. Oh, I know, I’m just being silly. I had to say it.

I greatly enjoyed my second viewing of Dracula. I highly recommend it to lovers of old movies, non-cheesy horror movies, and vampires.

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