Interview with the Vampire (1994)

January 28th, 2009

Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles is a 1994 film, based on the 1976 novel Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. The film was directed by Neil Jordan, and stars Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, and Kirsten Dunst. It was a box office hit, generating a little over $100 million in domestic receipts.

In present day San Francisco, reporter Daniel Malloy (Christian Slater), is sitting in a room with a man named Louis (Brad Pitt), who claims to be a vampire. Malloy is unconvinced until Louis turns on the light and instantly appears in front of him, moving extremely fast. He agrees to interview Louis, who recalls his previous life and his life as a vampire.

It is 1791, and Louis is struggling to cope with the loss of his wife and child, not caring if he lives or dies. The vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise) attacks him but also offers him a chance to be reborn. Louis decides to take him up on the offer and Lestat proceeds to transform him into a vampire. Lestat begins showing Louis how to live the life of a vampire: sleeping in coffins by day and preying on unsuspecting mortals by night. Louis is not comfortable bringing harm to humans, however, and opts for feeding on animals instead, defying all of Lestat’s attempts to turn Louis to the vampire lifestyle. A despondent Louis finally succumbs and bites his faithful housemaid, killing her. He then burns down his estate, intending to perish in the flames, but Lestat rescues him and the two now-homeless vampires flee.

Renting a flat in New Orleans proper, the two continue to terrorize the public, with Louis still trying to refuse Lestat’s ways. But Louis eventually gives in to his bloodlust and bites a young girl, Claudia (Kirsten Dunst). Lestat arrives at the scene and mocks him; Louis takes off, disgusted by his actions. Lestat later takes him back to the dying girl and Lestat transforms her into a child vampire “daughter” for himself and Louis, to prevent Louis from ever leaving him. Louis reluctantly accepts Claudia, but his scorn for Lestat grows.

Claudia, under Lestat’s tutelage, soon turns into a sadistic killer, frequently toying with her victims before killing them, all the while developing a strong bond with Louis. Thirty years pass and Claudia is left wondering why she remains an eternal child. Lestat explains that she can never grow up due to the effects of the transformation, which she hates him for. She asks Louis how she came to be and Louis takes her to the place where he bit her 30 years before. Outraged, Claudia expresses her hate for him too and runs away, leaving Louis by himself in tears. However, Claudia returns and forgives him for the deed, knowing that Lestat was really responsible for her condition. She wishes for herself and Louis to leave Lestat but Louis says Lestat would never allow it. With that in mind, Claudia tricks Lestat into drinking blood from two dead children. Weakened, she slashes his throat. She and Louis dump his body in a swamp but he later returns, having drained the blood of crocodiles and other swamp life to survive. Lestat attacks them but Louis sets him on fire and flees to Paris with Claudia, leaving Lestat for dead.

In Paris, Louis and Claudia live in perfect harmony but Louis is still bothered by the question of how vampires came to be and if there are any other vampires on earth. But one night, while walking the streets, he is finally met by the vampires Santiago (Stephen Rea) and Armand (Antonio Banderas), who tells him that there are other vampires in Paris and that he knows the answers that Louie has been searching for. Armand invites Louis and Claudia to his coven, the Theatre des Vampires, where they witness Armand and his coven dispatching of a terrified human woman before an unsuspecting human audience. Armand later takes them to his lair and offers Louis a place by his side, while secretly telling Claudia to leave him. Louis refuses to leave his beloved Claudia, however, and leaves. As he does, Santiago warns him that his vampire coven knows about Lestat’s murder and that it is forbidden for vampires to kill another vampire. Louis returns alone to Armand’s lair, where Armand proceeds to reveal that Louis is a unique vampire in that he possesses a human soul and is connected to the “broken-hearted” spirit of the 19th Century. Louis becomes thoroughly smitten by Armand and resolves to leave Claudia at long last.

Returning to his residence, Louis finds that Claudia has brought home a human woman, Madeleine, with the intent that Louis turn her into a vampire to serve as a companion and protector before he leaves. Louis reluctantly gives in and transforms Madeleine, forcing Claudia to admit that they are now even and can part on good terms. Immediately after, however, the Parisian vampires burst in and abduct all three of them. They imprison Louis in a metal coffin and lock Claudia and Madeleine into an airshaft with an open roof. The next morning, the rising sun floods the airshaft and Claudia and Madeleine are burnt to ashes. Armand frees Louis, who searches for Claudia and is horrified and grief-stricken when he comes across her ashen remains. He returns that night to the Theatre and burns them all alive in their own theater as they sleep. Armand arrives in time to help him escape, and once again offers him a place by his side. Louis once again refuses, knowing that Armand choreographed Claudia’s demise in an attempt to get Louis all to himself, and he leaves Armand for good.

Decades pass, with Louis exploring the world alone. He later returns to New Orleans and finds Lestat, still alive but a mere shadow of his former self. Lestat asks Louis to rejoin him, but Louis rejects him and leaves.

At this point Louis concludes the interview, which Malloy, the interviewer, cannot accept. He asks Louis to transform him so he can see what is truly like to be a vampire, but Louis throttles him in a fit of rage, nearly killing him, and vanishes. Malloy hurriedly runs to his car and drives away, feeling happy with his interview as he plays it through the cassette player. Just then, Lestat, who had apparently been hiding in the back seat, attacks him and takes control of the car. Revived by Malloy’s blood, he then offers a dying Malloy “the choice I never had” as they drive off into the San Francisco night, taking out the cassette and turning on the radio, which is playing “Sympathy for the Devil.”

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Nosferatu (1922)

November 28th, 2008

Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror or simply Nosferatu) is a German Expressionist vampire horror film, directed by F. W. Murnau, starring Max Schreck as the vampire Count Orlok. The film, shot in 1921 and released in 1922, was in essence an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel (for instance, “vampire” became “Nosferatu,” and Count Dracula became Count Orlok).

Hutter (Harker in Stoker’s novel) is an employee at a real estate firm in a fictitious German city called Wisborg (the name of the town being a reference to the actual town Wismar), living with Ellen, his wife. His employer, Knock, receives a mysterious letter. Knock decides to send him to visit Count Orlok in the Carpathian Mountains to finalize the sale of a house. Hutter leaves his wife with his good friend Harding, and Harding’s sister Lucy, before embarking on his multiple-month journey.

Close to his final destination, Hutter boards at an inn, where the locals become frightened at the mere mention of Orlok’s name, and discourage him from traveling to his castle during the night. In his room at the inn, Hutter finds a book entitled The Book of the Vampires, which he disregards before falling asleep.

Hutter is left to finish his journey on foot after his hired driver refuses to pass the bridge to the castle. However, he is soon picked up by Count Orlok’s coach, which is driven by a strange specter that hides its face, and moves at an unnatural speed. At his arrival at the castle, whose doors open by themselves, he is welcomed by Count Orlok. His grotesque facial features hidden at this stage by his hat, Orlok initially appears to be a mere eccentric gentleman. Hutter has dinner at the castle; Orlok refuses to eat and silently reads a letter. A bell rings at midnight and a startled Hutter cuts his thumb. Count Orlok tries to suck the blood out of the wound, before being repelled by a cross hanging around Hutter’s neck. Hutter falls asleep in the parlor after a conversation with Orlok.

Hutter wakes up to an empty castle with fresh wounds on his neck, which he attributes to mosquitoes. That night he is joined by Orlok and they sign the documents for the sale of the house facing Hutter’s. Hutter finds The Book of the Vampires in his luggage and starts to suspect that Orlok is nosferatu. He tries to hide in his bedroom as midnight approaches. However, the closed door opens by itself and Orlok comes in, his true nature revealed. At the same time, Ellen sleepwalks and is found by Harding in a comatose state, screaming for Hutter. Her screams stop Orlok, who leaves Hutter untouched.

Waking up, Hutter explores the castle and its crypt. He finds a coffin, where Orlok is resting in a dormant state. Paralyzed with fear and the sheer sight of the nosferatu, he dashes back to his room, where he witnesses Orlok piling up coffins on a coach and climbing into the last one before the coach leaves. Hutter escapes the castle through the window, but is knocked unconscious when he falls and hits the ground. Meanwhile, the coffins are shipped down a river on a raft.

Next, Hutter is at a hospital after his flight from the castle. The coffins are put into a large boat, after the crew sees that they are full of soil and rats.

In a psychiatric ward, Knock is in a confinement cell where he eats flies and tries to bite the neck of his doctor. Hutter decides to leave the hospital to warn his town against Orlok. In his cell, Knock steals a newspaper with news of a new plague, which causes him to rejoice. The sailors on the boat carrying the coffins get sick, and soon all but two are dead. One of them decides to destroy the coffins, which are now crawling with rats. However, Orlok wakes up and confronted with this vision, the sailor jumps into the sea. The captain ties himself to his ship’s wheel. Orlok is the new master of the boat.

The ship arrives in Wisborg. Orlok leaves it unseen in one of his coffins, quickly followed by the rats. He moves into the house he purchased across the street from Hutter’s house. Knock escapes from his cell. Hutter also arrives in Germany. The next morning, the ship is inspected and it appears empty, except for the dead captain with wound marks on his neck. The logbook of the ship is found, the doctors realize they are dealing with plague. The town is stricken with panic. Ellen reads the book of vampires, despite Hutter’s forbidding. She learns how to kill a vampire: a woman pure in heart must make him forget the rooster’s first crowing. The town is flooded with corpses and its people chase Knock, mistaking him for a vampire.

Orlok stares from his window at the sleeping Ellen. She opens her window to invite him in but faints. As Hutter leaves to get help, Orlok comes in. He drinks her blood and forgets about the dawning day. A rooster crows and Orlok goes up in smoke as he tries to escape. The last image of the movie is Orlok’s castle in the Carpathian Mountains.

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Dracula (1931)

November 28th, 2008

Dracula is a classic 1931 horror film directed by Tod Browning and starring Béla Lugosi as the title character. The film was produced by Universal Pictures Co. Inc. and is based on the stage play of the same name by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston, which in turn is based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker.

Renfield (Dwight Frye), a British solicitor, travels through the Carpathian Mountains via stagecoach. The people in the stagecoach are fearful that the coach won’t reach the local inn before sundown. Arriving there safely before sundown, Renfield refuses to stay at the inn and asks the driver to take him to the Borgo Pass. The innkeeper and his wife seem to be afraid of Renfield’s destination, Castle Dracula, and warn him about vampires. The innkeeper’s wife gives Renfield a cross for protection before he leaves for Borgo Pass, whence he is driven to the castle by Dracula’s coach, which was awaiting him at Borgo Pass, with Dracula himself disguised as the driver.

Renfield enters the castle after his driver and his luggage disappear, and is bid welcomed by charming but weird nobleman Count Dracula (Béla Lugosi), who is a vampire, as seen him crawling from his coffin before Renfield left the inn. Dracula and Renfield discuss the purchase of Carfax Abbey in England, and afterwards Dracula departs. Renfield faints when opens a window and a bat comes in, and Dracula, morphed from bat, forces his wives to get away from Renfield and he bites him.

Aboard the Vesta, bound for England, Renfield has now became a raving lunatic slave to Dracula, who is hidden in a coffin and gets out for feeding on the ship’s crew. When the ship arrives in England, Renfield is discovered the only living person in it, the captain lashed on the wheel and none of the ship’s crew is discovered. Renfield is sent to Dr. Seward’s sanitarium.

Some nights later, Dracula hypnotizes an usherette and tells her to inform Dr. Seward (Herbert Bunston) that he is wanted on the telephone. Before leaving, Dracula meets with Dr. Seward who introduces him to his daughter Mina (Helen Chandler), her fiancé John Harker (David Manners) and the family friend Lucy Weston (Frances Dade). Lucy is fascinated by Count Dracula, and that night, after Lucy has a talk with Mina and falls asleep in bed, Dracula enters her room as a bat and feasts on her blood. She dies in an autopsy theatre the next day after a string of transfusions, and two tiny marks on her throat are discovered.

Several days later, it is seen that Renfield is obsessed with eating flies and spiders, devouring their lives also. Professor Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan) analyzes Renfield’s blood discovering Renfield’s obsession. He starts talking about vampires, and that afternoon chats with Renfield, who begs Dr. Seward to send him away because his nightly cries may disturb Mina’s dreams. When Dracula awakes and calls Renfield with wolf howling, Renfield is disturbed when Van Helsing shows him a branch of wolfbane, that stops wolfs as Van Helsing says, and also is used for vampire protection.

Dracula visits a sleeping Mina in her bedroom and bites her, leaving her the same marks Lucy had. She talks to the others about a dream of hers, when Dracula visited her. Then, Dracula enters for a night’s visit at the Sewards. Van Helsing and Harker notice that Dracula does not have a reflection in the mirrored top of the cigarette case. When Van Helsing shows that “most amazing phenomenon” to Dracula, he smashes the mirror and excuses himself leaving. Van Helsing deduces that Dracula is the vampire.

Meanwhile, Mina leaves her room and runs into Dracula’s hug in the garden, and is discovered there unconscious. The next day, newspapers write about a “beautiful lady” who lured little children playing in the park with chocolate and then biting them. Mina recognizes the beautiful lady as Lucy, who has risen as a vampire. Harker wants to take Mina at London for safety, but he is finally convinced to leave Mina with them. Van Helsing orders nurse Briggs (Joan Standing) to take care of Mina when she is sleeping, and not to remove the garland of wolfbane around her neck.

Renfield again escapes from his cell and listens to the three men discussing vampires. Before Martin (Charles K. Gerrard), his attendant, arrives to take Renfield back to his cell, Renfield narratives to Van Helsing, Harker and Seward how Dracula convinced Renfield to allow him enter the sanitarium by promising him thousands of rats with blood and life in them.

Dracula enters the Seward parlour and talks with Van Helsing. Dracula tells him that Mina is now his after fusing his blood with hers, and Van Helsing swears revenge by sterilizing Carfax Abbey and finding the box where he sleeps and stake him. Dracula tries to hypnotize Van Helsing, almost succeeding, but Van Helsing shows a crucifix to the vampire and turns away.

Mina is visited in her bedroom by Harker, and they talk about the night. Harker notices Mina’s changes, as she now becomes step by step a vampire, and when a bat (Dracula) enters the room and squeaks to Mina, she answers trying to attack Harker but Van Helsing and Dr. Seward arrive just in time to save Harker. Mina confesses what Dracula has done to her, and tries to tell Harker that their love is finished.

Later that night, Dracula hypnotizes Briggs into removing the wolfbane from Mina’s room so he can enter. Van Helsing and Harker see Renfield, having just escaped from his cell, heading for Carfax Abbey. They see Dracula with Mina in the abbey, and when Harker shouts to Mina, Dracula sees them and thinks Renfield had trailed them. He strangles Renfield tossing him from the staircase and is hunted by Van Helsing and Harker. Dracula sleeps in his coffin as sunrise has come, and is trapped. Van Helsing prepares a wooden stake while Harker searches for Mina. He finds her in a strange stasis, and when Dracula moans in pain when Van Helsing stakes him, Mina returns to her old self. Harker leaves with Mina and Van Helsing stays and the sound of church bells is heard.

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Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)

November 28th, 2008

Nosferatu the Vampyre (Ger. Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht, Eng. Nosferatu: Phantom of the Night) is a 1979 West German vampire horror film, set primarily in nineteenth-century Wismar, Germany and Transylvania, Romania. The film was conceived as a stylistic remake of the 1922 German Dracula adaptation, Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens. Written and directed by Werner Herzog, Nosferatu the Vampyre stars Klaus Kinski as Count Dracula, Isabelle Adjani as Lucy Harker and Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Harker. The film also features French artist-writer Roland Topor as Renfield.

Herzog’s production of Nosferatu the Vampyre was warmly received by critics and filmgoers alike, enjoying a comfortable degree of commercial success.[1] The film also marks the second of five legendary collaborations between director Werner Herzog and actor Klaus Kinski,[2] immediately followed by 1979’s Woyzeck.

An almost completely unrelated sequel, Nosferatu in Venice, was released in 1988 by director Augusto Caminito, with only Klaus Kinski returning to reprise his loosely connected role.

Jonathan Harker (Bruno Ganz) is an estate agent in Wismar, Germany. His boss, Renfield (Roland Topor), informs him that a nobleman named Count Dracula wishes to buy a property in Wismar, and assigns Harker to visit the count and complete the lucrative deal. Leaving his young wife Lucy (Isabelle Adjani) behind in Wismar, Harker travels for four weeks to Transylvania, Romania, to the castle of Count Dracula. He brings with him the deeds and documents needed to sell the house to the Count.

On his journey, Jonathan stops at a village, where locals warn him of the castle’s “evil”, pleading for him to stay clear of the accursed castle, providing him with details of vampirism. But Harker ignores the villagers’ pleas as wild superstition, and continues his journey unassisted. Harker arrives at Dracula’s castle, where he meets the Count (Klaus Kinski). The mysterious nobleman is a strange, ancient, almost rodent-like man, with large ears, pale skin, sharp teeth and long fingernails. Despite these horrifying traits, however, Dracula proves surprisingly accommodating, offering Harker his full hospitality.

The lonely Count is enchanted by a small portrait of Jonathan’s wife, Lucy, and immediately agrees to purchase the Wismar property, especially with the knowledge that he and Lucy would become neighbors. As Jonathan’s visit progresses, he is haunted at night by a number of dream-like encounters with the vampiric Count. Simultaneously, in Wismar, Lucy is tormented by night terrors, plagued by images of impending doom. Additionally, Renfield is committed to an asylum after biting a cow, apparently having lapsed into a psychosis.

To Harker’s horror, he finds the Count asleep in a coffin, confirming for him that Dracula is indeed a vampire. At night, Dracula leaves for Wismar, taking with him a number of coffins, filled with the cursed earth that he needs for his vampiric rest. Harker finds that he is locked in the castle, and attempts to escape through a window with a makeshift rope. The rope, fashioned from bedsheets, is not long enough, and Jonathan falls, severely injuring himself. He awakes on the ground the next morning, stirred by the sound of a young gypsy boy loudly playing a violin. He is eventually sent to a hospital and raves about “black coffins” to doctors, who then assume that the sickness is affecting his mind.

Meanwhile, Dracula and his coffins travel to Wismar by boat. The crew systematically die or disappear at the hand of the vampire, but with the belief that they are afflicted with plague. The ghost ship arrives at Wismar with its mysterious cargo, where doctors – including Van Helsing (Walter Ladengast) – investigate the strange fate of the ship. They discover a log that mentions their perceived affliction with plague. In turn, Wismar is flooded with rats from the ship. Dracula arrives in Wismar with his coffins, and death spreads rapidly throughout the town.

When Jonathan is finally transported home, he is desperately ill, and does not appear to recognize his wife, Lucy. Lucy later has an encounter with the lonely Count Dracula. Weary and unable to die, he demands some of the love that she gave so freely to Jonathan, but she refuses, much to Dracula’s dismay.

Now aware that something other than plague is responsible for the death that has beset her once-peaceful town, Lucy desperately tries to convince the town people, but they are skeptical and uninterested. She finds that she can vanquish Dracula’s evil by distracting him at dawn, but at the expense of her own life. She lures the Count to her bedroom, where he proceeds to drink her blood. ? Lucy’s beauty and purity distract Dracula from the call of the cockerel, and at the first light of day, he collapses to the floor. Van Helsing arrives to discover Lucy, dead but victorious. He then finishes the Count off with a stake through the heart. In a final, chilling twist, Jonathan Harker awakes from his sickness, a vampire, and arranges for Van Helsing’s arrest. He is last seen traveling away on horseback, enigmatically stating that he has much to do.

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Black Sunday (1960)

November 28th, 2008

Black Sunday (Italian title: La maschera del demonio) is a 1960 Italian horror film directed by Mario Bava, from a screenplay by Ennio de Concini and Mario Serandrei. The film stars Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Arturo Dominici, and Ivo Garrani. It was Bava’s directorial debut, although he had helped direct several previous feature films without credit. Based very loosely on Nikolai Gogol’s short story “Viy”, the narrative concerns a vampire-witch who is put to death by her own brother, only to return 200 years later to feed on her descendants.

The movie was considered unusually gruesome by early 1960s standards and was banned in the UK until 1968 due to its violent content. In the U.S., some of the film’s more gory moments were censored by American International Pictures prior to its theatrical release. Despite its minor censorship problems, the film was a worldwide critical and boxoffice hit, and helped initiate successful careers for both Bava and star Steele. In 2004, one of the film’s sequences was voted #40 among the “100 Scariest Movie Moments” by the Bravo Channel.

In Moldavia, in the year 1630, beautiful witch Asa Vajda (Steele) and her lover Javuto (Arturo Dominici) are sentenced to death for sorcery by Asa’s brother. Before being burned at the stake, Asa vows revenge and puts a curse on her brother’s descendants. A metal mask with sharp spikes on the inside is placed over the witch’s face and hammered repeatedly into her flesh.

About two hundred years later, Dr. Thomas Kruvajan (Andrea Checchi) and his assistant Dr. Andre Gorobec (Richardson), are traveling through Moldavia when one of the wheels of their carriage is broken, requiring immediate repair. While waiting for their coachman to fix the wheel, the two wander off into a nearby ancient crypt and discover Asa’s tomb. Observing her death mask through a glass panel, Kruvajan breaks the panel to remove the curious item. Asa’s partially preserved corpse is visible underneath, her face staring out malevolently. Kruvajan is attacked by a bat and he cuts his hand on the broken glass. Some of his blood drips onto Asa’s dead face.

Returning outside, Kruvajan and Gorobec meet Katia (also played by Steele). She advises them that she lives with her father, Prince Vajda (Garrani), and brother Constantin (Enrico Oliveiri), in a nearby castle that the villagers all believe is haunted. Gorobec is instantly smitten by the beautiful young woman. The two men then leave her and drive on to an inn.

The witch Asa is brought back to life by Kruvajan’s blood. She telepathically contacts Javuto and orders him to rise from his grave. He does so and heads off to Prince Vajda’s castle, where Vajda holds up a crucifix to ward the reanimated corpse away. However, Vajda is so terrified by the visit that he becomes paralyzed with fear. Katia and Constantin send a servant to fetch Dr. Kruvajan, but the servant is killed before he can reach the inn. It is the evil Javuto who arrives to bring Kruvajan to the castle. Javuto leads Kruvajan to Asa’s crypt, and he watches in horror as her coffin explodes spectacularly. From its ruins, the vampire-witch rises and attacks the doctor, drinking his blood. Under Asa’s command, the now vampiric Kruvajan enters Vajda’s room and murders him.

Asa’s plan is to drain Katia of her blood, believing that this act will grant her immortality. A little girl who had seen Javuto meet Kruvajan at the inn describes the dead man to Gorobec. A priest recognizes the description as being that of Javuto. The priest and Gorobec go to Javuto’s grave and find Kruvajan hiding inside. Realizing that he is a vampire, they immediately kill the fiend by ramming a long wooden stake through one of his eye sockets.

Javuto finds Katia and takes her to Asa. Asa attempts to drink her blood but is thwarted by the crucifix around her neck. Gorobec enters the crypt to save Katia but finds Asa instead. Asa pretends to be Katia and tells Gorobec that the now weakened and unconscious Katia is really the vampire. She tells him to kill Katia immediately by staking her. He agrees but at the last possible moment he notices the crucifix she is wearing. He turns to Asa and opens her robe, revealing a fleshless skeletal frame. The priest then arrives with numerous torch-carrying villagers, and they burn Asa to death. Katia awakens from her stupor, her life and beauty fully restored.

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Martin (1977)

November 28th, 2008

Martin is a 1977 horror film written and directed by George A. Romero. The film is notable as the first collaboration between George Romero and special effects artist Tom Savini. Romero is also on record as saying Martin is his favorite of all his films. It was filmed on location in Pittsburgh.

The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1977 and was released in US cinemas on July 7, 1978.

Martin (John Amplas) sedates women with a syringe full of narcotics and then slices their wrists with a razor blade so he can drink their blood. Martin, who comes to live with his uncle and niece in the dying town of Braddock, Pennsylvania, has romantic monochrome visions of vampiric seductions and torch-lit mobs, but it is impossible to tell how seriously he takes them.

His uncle, the superstitious old Tada Cuda, treats Martin like an Old World vampire and tries unsuccessfully to repel Martin with strings of garlic bulbs around the home and a crucifix. Martin mocks these attempts and says bitterly, “There’s no real magic… ever.” Martin strikes up a friendship with a lonely housewife, turning into a full-fledged affair with tragic results. The tone of the film is sad and filled with longing and unfulfilled desire– rather different for the traditional vampire movie, cliches of which are parodied in Martin’s dreams and in the mock-silent-film scene where Martin terrorises Cuda in a children’s playground. The ironic ending both gives a new twist to the traditional fate of vampires and suggests that Martin’s disease is more widespread than we might care to imagine.

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Horror of Dracula (1958)

November 28th, 2008

Dracula is a 1958 British horror film, and the first of a series of Hammer Horror films inspired by the Bram Stoker novel Dracula. It was directed by Terence Fisher, and stars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. In the United States, the film was retitled Horror of Dracula to avoid confusion (and international copyright infringement) with the Tod Browning-directed Dracula (1931) starring Bela Lugosi.

Jonathan Harker arrives at the castle of Count Dracula, posing as a librarian. He is startled inside the castle by a young woman begging for help, claiming to be a prisoner. The woman looks horrified at the sight of Dracula on the stairs and runs out. Dracula then greets Jonathan and guides him to his room, where he locks him in. Jonathan starts to write in his diary and his true intentions are revealed — he is here to kill Dracula.

The woman begs Jonathan to help the next evening and clutches at him. She leans against him as if crying but then tries to bite him. Dracula arrives and yanks her off and fights with her. Jonathan tries to protect her but is overpowered by Dracula and bitten. The pair depart and Jonathan is worried he might become a vampire. Jonathan descends to the coffin room, where he finds Dracula and the woman in their coffins for sunrise. Armed with a stake, he impales the woman first. When Jonathan turns to Dracula’s coffin, it is empty — and Dracula is waiting by the door for him.

Dr. Van Helsing then arrives looking for Jonathan. He is horrified when he discovers Jonathan lying in a coffin as a vampire. Staking his friend, he leaves to deliver the grim news in person to Jonathan’s fiancée Lucy, her brother Arthur Holmwood and his wife Mina.

Arthur is quick to dismiss Van Helsing, but soon seeks his aid when Lucy falls ill. Van Helsing suggests that Dracula wishes to replace the woman Jonathan took from him with Lucy. Lucy becomes a vampire and tries to lure a young niece to her but the girl is saved by Van Helsing and Arthur. Van Helsing suggests using Lucy as a means to find Dracula but Arthur refuses and so Van Helsing stakes Lucy in her coffin.

Van Helsing and Arthur try to track down the destination of Dracula’s coffin (which had left the castle just as Van Helsing was arriving there), resorting to bribery. Meanwhile, Mina is called away from home by a message telling her to meet Arthur at a certain address. The next morning, they find Mina in a strange state. Determined to find the coffin they plan to leave again but not before Arthur begs Mina to take a cross. Mina is very reluctant and when Arthur presses it into her hand she screams, jumps up and faints. A cross-shaped burn mark is found on her hand. Arthur and Van Helsing then leave for the location they found out (the very same address Mina was called to – not by Arthur but Dracula) but when they arrive there the coffin has vanished.

During the night, Van Helsing and Arthur guard both of Mina’s windows against a return of Dracula, but he visits and bites her nonetheless. A remark by the maid leads Van Helsing to the coffin’s location: the basement of the Holmwoods’ house. He places a cross inside it, while Dracula locks him in the basement and takes Mina with him. Arthur frees Dr. Van Helsing. A chase then begins as Dracula rushes to return home before sunrise. He attempts to bury Mina in the soil and finds Dr. Van Helsing and Arthur close behind and dashes into his home.

Inside Van Helsing and Dracula battle it out, with Dracula quickly gaining the upper hand. Van Helsing fakes a faint and escapes from Dracula’s clutches. He tears open the curtain to let in the sunlight and, forming a cross of candlesticks, he forces Dracula into it.

Dracula crumbles into dust, as Van Helsing watches in horror. Mina regains her humanity, the cross-shaped scar fading from her hand as Dracula turns to ash and leaves only a ring behind.

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Near Dark (1987)

November 28th, 2008

Near Dark (1987) is a vampire Western film, written by Eric Red and Kathryn Bigelow, and directed by Bigelow. The movie has a sizable cult following.

Caleb Colton is a young man in a small Oklahoma town who talks one night with Mae, an attractive young drifter. Shortly before sunrise, while kissing, she bites him on the neck and runs off. Caleb discovers that the rising sun causes his flesh to burn. As he suffers in the sunlight with his father and sister looking on, Mae and her group of roaming vampires pick up Caleb and sweep him away from his family’s home. Severen and Diamondback are inclined to kill him, but a romantically inclined Mae reveals she has made him a vampire. Jesse Hooker, the leader of the gang, reluctantly declares that Caleb will remain with them for a week to see if he can learn to hunt effectively and be trusted as one of the group. On one of their hunts, Caleb accompanies the gang as they harass and feed on the bartender and patrons of a roadhouse, kill them, and burn the roadhouse to the ground.

Caleb cannot bring himself to kill, even at the cost of his own survival, which alienates him from the gang of vampires. Unwilling to permit Caleb to be killed by her companions, Mae repeatedly kills for him, and allows him to drink from her wrist. Jesse and the gang are only temporarily mollified when Caleb puts himself at great risk to rescue them from a police raid on their motel during daylight hours.

Anguished at his son’s disappearance, Caleb’s father searches for the group of drifters he believes has kidnapped his son. With Caleb’s little sister Sarah in tow, he canvasses the surrounding towns for news of his son while the police conduct their own investigation. When the young vampire Homer sees Sarah at a roadside motel, a standoff develops. Homer wishes to transform the girl into a companion for himself, but Caleb demands that she be allowed to leave unharmed. While the gang argues over what to do, Caleb’s father arrives, demanding at gunpoint that Sarah be released. Jesse challenges him, and when Caleb’s father fires the gun, Jesse responds by regurgitating the bullet and wrenching the gun from his hand. In the confusion of the moment Sarah opens the door and flees, forcing the vampires to hide from the sunlight streaming into the motel room. Caleb chooses to return to his family, and jumps into his father’s truck, his skin burning and smoking in the sunlight. He suggests a transfusion to his distraught father.

In the darkness of the barn Caleb’s father transfuses his blood into Caleb’s veins, weeping in fear that his son is lost. The transfusion reverses Caleb’s transformation, and he is again human. His father’s previously gruff manner is now tempered by evident relief at Caleb’s return. That night, Mae and the rest of the vampires come looking for Caleb, knowing he can identify them and the threat they represent. Homer remains fixed on the idea of turning Sarah into his mate. While Mae distracts Caleb with conversation outside the house, the others slip inside and kidnap Sarah. When Mae ascertains that Caleb cannot be convinced to return to her, she runs away, leaving Caleb to discover the kidnapping.

Realizing that Sarah is gone, Caleb goes after her. The gang has taken the precaution of slashing the tires, so Caleb must ride one of the family’s horses into town. On the town’s main street, Caleb encounters Severen, who attacks him while decrying his lack of loyalty. When a tractor-trailer approaches, Caleb commandeers the fuel laden vehicle to run down Severen. Severen is only injured and, enraged, he begins to climbs the front of the cab toward the driver’s seat. Caleb forces the truck to jackknife before jumping clear, killing Severen in the ensuing explosion. Homer remains less than interested in Caleb and holds onto the kidnapped Sarah. Jesse and Diamondback are now intent on torturing and killing Caleb. They begin to chase him, but as dawn breaks, they return to the car and flee toward the receding dark. Mae is not only reluctant to see Caleb hurt but realizes that she cannot permit Sarah to become another child-like monster. While the vampires drive away from Caleb in the first rays of morning, Mae breaks out the back of their station wagon, pulling Sarah with her. Mae is badly burned by the sun as she runs with Sarah into Caleb’s arms, and Caleb covers her smoldering body with his coat. Homer, desperate to keep Sarah for himself, leaps out of the car to follow her and is destroyed in a fiery explosion as the sun takes its toll. With no shelter from the sun nearby, Jesse and Diamondback and beginning to blacken and burn. In a final effort they turn the car around and attempt to rundown Caleb and Sarah, but the car veers off the road and explodes as they become completely engulfed in flames.

In the final scene, Caleb open the door to the Colton family barn where Mae lies hooked up to transfusion equipment, her burns fully healed. As morning sunlight spills into the barn, Mae’s initial reaction is fear, but she has ceased to be a creature of the night and Caleb comforts her with the reassurance that she need no longer fear the sun.

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Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary (2002)

November 28th, 2008

Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary is a 2002 horror film directed by Guy Maddin. It is a silent interpretation of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s take of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It was originally filmed as a telefilm for CBC Television in Canada, but critical and popular acclaim brought it to a United States theatrical release.

In 1897, a visitor from the East, Dracula, arrives in London and is inadvertently invited into the home of Lucy. She is bitten by Dracula, and taken by his vampiric curse. Lucy’s behavior becomes progressively more erratic which becomes apparent to her three suitors and her house maids when she bites her fiancée. Lucy is immediately put under the care of Dr. Van Helsing. Van Helsing does blood tests on Lucy and eventually declares “Vampyre!” as the source of the problem, and puts Lucy to bed adorned with garlic.

That very night, Renfield, a mental patient who lives in the asylum next to Lucy’s home, escapes from confinement. This leads to Lucy’s house being broken into by demons in the night. Woken the commotion, Lucy’s mother rises from her bed to stop them. Panicked by the demons, she opens the door and inadvertently re-invites Dracula into the house. Both Lucy and her mother are killed in this incident and a funeral procession takes place. The next day, Renfield is recaptured and placed back into the mental hospital. Bizarre incidents begin to occur around the city and are reported in newspapers. Headlines speak of a supposed “Bloofer Lady” who has been murdering infants. Renfield is interrogated and confesses that Dracula has brought Lucy back from the dead. It is she committing these deeds and the solution to the problem lies in the graveyard. Van Helsing and Lucy’s suitors go there on foot and spy Dracula and the undead Lucy in a full romantic embrace. Dracula eventually settles Lucy back into her coffin and vanishes. Van Helsing declares “We must destroy the false Lucy so the real one may live forever”; however, when Van Helsing opens the coffin Lucy rises out of and attacks the men. Lucy is eventually subdued by a piercing stab from Jonathan via long wooden stakes the man are carrying. This forces Lucy back into her coffin where she is decapitated with a shovel by Van Helsing. Van Helsing declares they must find and defeat the Vampyre.

Van Helsing and his men go to Renfield and torture out of him Dracula’s next plan, which is to attack Lucy’s best friend Mina. Mina has gone to a convent to help her injured fiancée Harker. Renfield reveals Harker’s diary entry to Van Helsing. The diary details Harker’s journey to Castle Dracula to finalize a land sale. However, upon arriving Harker is ravaged by three Brides of Dracula who overpower him. Harker eventually finalizes the land deal for Dracula but is then kept captive in a room with the voracious “Vampyr Harem”. He eventually escapes Castle Dracula and finds himself under the care of the convent’s inhabitants. Renfield then explains that Van Helsing should seek past the Convent and towards Castle Dracula. With a final breath, Renfield passes away and Van Helsing and his men proceed on to Castle Dracula.

In the convent, Mina arrives to greet Harker. Mina grabs his jacket and pulls out the diary which is immediately retrieved by Harker. Harker’s conscience troubles him and he allows Mina to read his diary to let his guilty pleasures with the Brides of Dracula be known to her. Mina forgives Harker and they embrace but it becomes progressively more intimate as Mina tries to be more sexually aggressive, Harker becomes nervous and flees with the diary. Mina attempts to follow Harker but comes face to face with Dracula, who kidnaps her and takes her to Castle Dracula.

Mina finds herself trapped in Castle Dracula. Dracula woos Mina, tempting her with offers of riches and eventually biting her on the neck, solidifying the curse on her. At this moment, Harker, Van Helsing, and his men break into Dracula’s castle dispatch the attacking Brides of Dracula with long wooden stakes. The men eventually stumble upon Mina and find the mark of Dracula’s bite upon her, even though the curse isn’t in full effect yet. In an attempt to root out Dracula, the men smash coffins and place Christian crosses in them. Van Helsing discovers one full of money and declares “Money stolen from England!”. Eventually, Dracula attacks the men. After a long battle, Dracula and Mina are the only two left conscious. Dracula begins to embrace Mina, making a cut on his chest for Mina to take blood from as a romantic gesture. Mina scurries to the floor, picks up a cross, and pulls a window open which stuns Dracula. At this point the men regain consciousness, surround Dracula, and stab him with their stakes. The castle is demolished by Van Helsing’s men and everyone departs. Dracula is left hanging motionless, impaled on a giant stake.

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Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000)

November 28th, 2008

Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust is a 2000 Japanese anime film, written and directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, with characters designed by Yutaka Minowa. It is the sequel to 1985’s Vampire Hunter D, and is based on the third of Hideyuki Kikuchi’s Vampire Hunter D novels, Demon Deathchase.

Charlotte, a young human girl, is abducted by Count Meier Link, a vampire nobleman who is known not to harm humans needlessly. Charlotte’s father hires D to find her and kill her humanely if she turns into a vampire. At the same time, her older brother also hires the notorious Marcus brothers for backup.

The two parties (D and the Marcus brothers) race inexorably after Meier Link. However, Meier Link hires the Mutant Barbarois; a group of lethal mercenary body guards. They consist of Caroline, a shape shifter; Benge, a shadow manipulator; and Mashira, a werewolf. As the story progresses, Meier Link’s abduction turns out to be an escape by him and Charlotte, as they are lovers. Through the journey, D talks to Leila and tells her that she can have a life that someone like him could never have, the life of a normal human. They make a pact, if either one of them survives, the survivor can bring flowers to the other’s grave. Near the end of the movie, Meier Link goes with Charlotte to the Castle of Chaythe, where Countess Carmilla, Meier Link’s patron, waits for them. Carmilla, a ghost of a vampire who died long ago, reigned supreme within the Castle of Chaythe when vampires were all-powerful and unchallenged. However, her bloodlust was so strong that Count Dracula, D’s father, killed her in disgust. It turns out that D’s reasons weren’t monetary and that his main reason for preventing their marriage is to stop them from bringing another dhampir into the world. After going to the Castle of Chaythe, D fights Carmilla, who plotted to kill Charlotte and return to life. D, along with Leila, let Meier Link leave for the City of the Night with Charlotte’s body.

In the final scene of the movie, D arrives at Leila’s funeral, watching from a distance. Leila’s granddaughter greets him and invites him to stay with them for a while. D declines, saying that he simply came to “repay a favor to an old friend, who feared no one would mourn her death.” The girl thanks him, and D replies by smiling gently at her, and leaves.

“There, you’re not so bad,” the parasite in D’s hand comments. “You just dress bad.”

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