Planet of Vampires

1965 spaghetti science fiction

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A strange planet influences a space crew.

Alien seems to borrow a bit from this science fiction/light-horror movie made by Italian maestro Mario Bava. You have to look past a flaky story, bad dubbing, and bad acting from actors who just look too generic to be astronauts, and if you focus on the mumbo-jumbo pseudo-scientific stuff that they say in this thing, you'll be distracted. So don't pay attention to any of that. Or the fake blood. Instead, watch this for the cool visuals--great sets, superfluous dry ice usage, backwards fog drift, awesome spaceship interiors, giant skeletons, moody planet landscapes, grave emergence. Combined with some creepy synthesizer music, a menacing alien voice, and cool space suits complete with yellow motorcycle helmets, it adds up to something atmospheric and fun to watch. I wondered since hearing about this movie what existential angst and general moodiness Bava could bring to the sci-fi genre, and this wasn't disappointing even though so much of what happens with the characters makes very little sense. I did like that ending a lot though.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

2012 history lesson

Rating: 8/20 (Jen: Did not finish)

Plot: Abraham Lincoln hunts vampires with an ax.

This movie was mostly really boring and the special effects were bad enough to make me wonder if any of this really happened. There's a climactic forty-five minute action sequence that takes place on a train that defies physics and every single other thing that can be defied, and the only reason it didn't seem like the silliest thing ever to me was because I had seen characters throwing horses at each other in an earlier scene. Timur Bekmambetov directed this. I know him from Night Watch, a movie with a look I hated so much that I had to fast-forward through most of it. This whole thing just looks greasy to me, and the guy who played the titular president--Benjamin Walker--didn't look Lincolny enough. I can't believe he won the Best Actor Academy Award for his work in this although I will admit one thing--dude can swing an ax.

Here's why this whole experience was worth it to me:

Me: Jen, do you want to watch a movie with me?
Jen: What movie?
Me: Lincoln.
Jen: Sure.

I was sneaky and made sure she didn't catch a glimpse of the menu screen, and there wasn't a title screen for this movie either. So it took my wife 11 minutes and 39 seconds to figure out that this wasn't the Academy Award nominated Lincoln and was "the one with vampires" instead. At one point, she said, "Abraham Lincoln didn't kill people!" I thought the whole thing was hilarious. She called it "mean" though.

Last laugh was on me because I watched the whole movie.

Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell

1968 space vampire movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: After the sky turns red, a plane crashes in the middle of nowhere. Space-age bloodsuckers launch a fiendish attack that dooms the entire universe! Ok, so I ripped that off directly from the above poster. What's going to happen? The makers of Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell are going to sue me?

Bonus points for a sweetly bleak ending. Oh, and another bonus point for the cool title. I don't know where "Goke" comes from because, as I recall, that name isn't mentioned in this one at all. The titular hell is actually just generic outer space, too. There is some body-snatchin' going on though, so I guess it's all good. This is a weirdo horror movie from Shochiku studios, and although its plot, characters, or really anything else aren't anything special, there's a strangeness to the proceedings that keeps you interested. Start with the effects. The shot of the airplane swimming through this red sky are really cool even if they make you think the color's all messed up on your television which makes you wonder how you even change the color on these new televisions. There are glowing orbs, forehead gulches, and cheap avalanches. For such a simple plot, there sure is a lot going on. None of it makes much sense and all of it is pretty goofy, but for a movie that isn't bad enough to be funny or good enough to be really stand out from similar movies about body-snatching or vampire aliens, this is actually fairly entertaining. It might be worth it for the Blob-esque face attacks that leave slightly embarrassing facial scars alone. And it does have that stunning ending that puts a morbid capon all the goofiness.

Tarantino borrowed a shot from this for Kill Bill Vol. 1.

Blood Bath

1966 horror movie

Rating: 13/20

Plot: An artist who may or may not be a vampire kills attractive women and then dips their bodies in hot wax.

This one recalls the superior and more comedic (blackly) Bucket of Blood with its sculpting techniques and beatniks. Blood Bath, a movie that unfortunately isn't as interesting as the above poster makes it look, has an interesting history which explains why it's kind of a mess. Corman produced this movie and wanted Jack Hill of Spider Baby and The Wasp Woman fame to use footage of a movie Corman released in Europe but not in the U.S. He wasn't completely happy, so another director (Stephanie Rothman) came along and added a few scenes and changed the story around a little. So it's no wonder that this is disjointed and confusing. And it's too bad that it's slightly incomprehensible because the movie has so much style. There's great atmosphere early in the film with greasy atmosphere and impossible architectures and creepy bells, great black and white shots that look like they could have been in The Third Man or something. Later, there's a cool desert "He was mad!" scene and a nice shot of floating high heels in a swimming pool. The climactic scene, the only thing that even approaches horror, is effectively and efficiently dark and creepy. There's some cool movie artwork and even a little satire with some beatniks discussing the application of quantum physics to painting. This doesn't really overcome its convoluted production history or problems, but it is interesting enough to take a peek at.

Note: Like A Bucket of Blood, this has a very misleading title. There's sort of a bath, but no blood. And remember, you're not quite getting the cleavage or "the shrieking of mutilated victims caged in a black pit of horror" promised on the poster.

Dark Shadows

2012 gothic vampire soap opera

Rating: 7/20

Plot: 18th Century vampire Barnabas Depp is violently exhumed in the 1970s where he desperately tries to get his family back on track and stick it to the witch who cursed him in the first place.

I can't remember being this bored while watching a movie. Maybe Tim Burton needs Winona Ryder back or something. Or maybe Tim Burton just needs to come up with original ideas. He seems to be a creative fellow and his movies are a lot better when they're straight from his imagination (Edward Scissorhands, etc.) than when they're from somebody else's (Planet of the Apes, etc.). I've not seen the 60s/70s soap opera this is based on, and thanks to Tim Burton, I don't really have any interest in seeing it. After a narrated prologue that is typical Burton, all stilted and faux-dark, I almost wanted to shut this off. I didn't because I thought there would be a few funny moments. Unfortunately, this was about as funny as being attacked by an actual vampire. The out-of-time character humor seemed cliched, and the screenwriters hit the 1970s references so hard that it just gets annoying. I lost interest in the story since I was fairly sure how it was going to end. That's not a problem if the journey there is entertaining, but this isn't. This movie does have a few things going for it. The house is cool, and it's good to see that Christopher Lee is still kicking around though his role here is very small. Best of all is Eva Green who is absolutely gorgeous here. The sex scene with Johnny Depp is all kinds of wrong though.

From Dusk till Dawn

1996 George Clooney movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A pair of brothers kidnap a faithless preacher and his two children, drive to Mexico, and meet up with some vampires and Fred Williamson.

A tale of two movies, the first a very written tale of criminal activity and possible neurosis and the second a balls-to-the-grindstone (is that a phrase?) vibrant and chaotic and squelchy erupted bloodbath with decapitations and stake piercings. And Salma Hayek, a woman who makes Juliette Lewis look like a little boy. The brothers are interesting even if they're a bit cardboardish, and even though you've already seen this movie, it's still got a way to keep you guessing. There's a solid ten minutes in this, right after Salma's little dance, that is about as exhiliratingly bitchin' as cheapo gross-out mayhem can get. But my favorite part is how John Hawkes' Pete pronounces "microwave" or maybe his magazine selection. That and the words "Hey, Monkeyman."

Recommended for people who really liked The Help.

Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary

2002 silent vampire ballet

Rating: 16/20

Plot: It's Dracula but with a lot more dancing. Oh, and the titular vampire is Asian or, as people in the late 19th Century would say, Oriental.

It's shane-movies favorite Guy Maddin with his take on Bram's vampire tale, and if you like silent movies and ballet, you're bound to love this movie. Or if you're a fan of Maddin's neo-silent style and unique visual flair. This one's all about the flair really because the Dracula thing doesn't do a whole lot for me. Either Guy Maddin puts a tremendous amount of time and care into constructing each shot (and there are a lot of shots in this one--there are action sequences where things whip by at such a frenzied clip that it makes you old school dizzy) or he's some kind of savant. Creative set design, all those obscene camera angles that are all the rage, and experimental flashes of color make this one a visual stunner. Yes, there's plenty of ballet dancing, but it never gets in the way of the story and doesn't seem all that stagy to me. And mercifully, they dance in snippets generally with only a few longer numbers. And thankfully, though the story's obviously stuffed with a lot of dark vampire-on-vampire action, you still get some of Maddin's dry humor, especially in the use of words that appear on the screen. At least I think those are supposed to be funny. If not, then I feel bad. I really wasn't looking forward to this one, probably because I thought it would be more this than this. That and I didn't want my readers to accuse me of jumping on the vampire bandwagon. But like the rest of this guy's stuff (love that pun!), this is an idiosyncratic treat!

Summer of Nicolas Cage Movie #10: Vampire's Kiss

1988 vampire comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A guy who works at a publishing company is bitten by a vampire woman and then gradually turns into a vampire himself. Or does he? Can his psychologist help him in time or is the poor guy doomed?

What's with Nic Cage's inconsistent accent in this movie? Is he supposed to be English? Whose idea was it to have his character talk with an accent? That's your first thought as you watch Vampire's Kiss, a movie that features a Nicolas Cage performance that might be second only to Deadfall in a Wacky Cage Performance competition. If you haven't seen Deadfall yet, by the way, check it out immediately. Vampire's Kiss is stuffed with Nicolas Cage moments. Observe and be aware that there are probably numerous spoilers:

At the 4:04 mark, you get to see Cage put some moves on a floozy while Stevie Wonder looks on.
6:08--He drunkenly removes a coat and throws it as only Nicolas Cage can throw a coat.
7:00--Dress shoes with no socks, Nic? Classy!
7:34--Cage says, "Shoo! Shoo!" followed by one of the greatest man vs. bat scenes you will ever see in a movie. This is the point in the movie when I got my first boner.
8:04--The way Cage flicks his hair back here. Movie magic!
8:19--Cage demonstrates that he can't laugh like a normal person. At 8:28, he repeats the exact same laugh.
10:01--Cage changes his accent three or four times in one monologue. Let's see Jimmy Stewart do that!
13:03--"Holy shit."
13:24--Cage's character admits to his psychologist that he was aroused by the bat that entered his apartment. It makes me feel better about being aroused by the scene.
15:06--Cage checks himself out in a mirror (the first of many mirror scenes) while the soundtrack to every single 80's movie plays in the background.
16:33--Cage puts the moves on another lady, showing off that irresistible Coppola charm. With the accent!
18:38--Some scatting--"Digga digga digga digga duh duh duh." Awesome.
19:37--"I gotta take a piss." It might be all about the context here, but this line made me crack up.
20:32--We hear Cage's character's answering machine message. It reveals that he can't even make something like that sound normal. It's not the answering machine message of a human being. It's one of a god.
21:13--"Yeah, well fuck you too, sister!" This is how I want to end all of my conversations.
21:55-22:48--Possibly the best dialogue in the history of film, mostly about how "drunk and horny" Cage's character was.
23:32--"Tuesday!" Again, it's all about the context. Poor Alva, by the way.
25:09--A big Nicolas Cage point! If you saw it, you'd recognize it from a few other movies. And with it, a classic Nicolas Cage delivered line: "Am I getting through to you. . . Alva?!"
26:05--"Fucking grease hole!"
26:18--Cage's character is in pain. What's the best way to show that? A rapid biting motion.
26:35--Just when you're wondering if this movie can get any better, it adds mimes. Freakin' mimes!
30:36--Cage's character is nervous and frightened. What's the best way to show that? Rapid head nodding and slamming.
31:56--Close your mouth, Nicolas Cage!
32:36--He develops a speech impediment. Alva! Maybe the whole accent thing is actually supposed to be a speech impediment, too.
33:10: A hop on a desk and another point. Two Nicolas Cage points in less than twenty minutes? I'm surprised the world didn't end.
33:34--Old lady in bathroom. "What are you doing in here?" What a cameo! Helen Lloyd Breed, you just might win yourself a shane-movies blog award at the end of the year for that work.
35:09--Weren't sure about whether Nicolas Cage could laugh normally before? Here's more evidence that he can't.
35:55--Another fight scene, this time with paper. Man vs. paper!
36:24--The fight continues with everything else in his apartment. Man vs. stuff in his apartment!
39:46--I know I've said this a lot before, but here is truly the greatest dialogue ever written, ending in Cage's infamous recitation of the ABC's. No other actor in Hollywood, living or dead, could do this. This scene alone is all the proof you need that Nicolas Cage is the greatest actor of all time.
40:06--"I never misfiled anything! Not once! Not one time!" Again, it's all about the context, but the way he crosses his arms and then quickly puts his hands on his hips, it's probably a plot-hole that his character wasn't institutionalized right away. Cage is so good with over-the-top mannerisms.
41:38--Mescaline? Geez.
43:45--Pause the movie here! Gaze into Nicolas Cage's crazy eyes and completely lose your mind! You will never recover. Never! By the time you push play again, you will also be a vampire.
47:00--You get to watch a bit of another vampire classic, Nosferatu. Keep Max Shreck's movements and body language in mind because it'll make Nic's imitation of him later that much sweeter.
48:28--More scatting and an invitation into Cage's shower. It seems like the scatting would scare most females away.
48:59--More mirror action with a great Nicolas Cage expression as he touches the glass.
49:30--Nicolas Cage eats a live cockroach. Ho hum.
51:19--Exaggerated whistling during a search through a Rolodex.
52:00--I required a break and took a long nap. When I woke up, the moon was gone and it was Tuesday! And a tumor on my back had tripled in size! I do not think this was a coincidence!
55:40--Worst fake puking I think I've ever seen, more golden because it follows some unintelligible yelping.
1:00:03--No reflection! Now we know why those other weird mirror shots were there. This movie is genius! "Oh Christ! Oh Christ! Oh, God! Where am I? Where am I?" This piece of brilliance is punctuated with the words of a disgruntled guy trying to take a dump. Movie magic!
1:00:58--Surely this movie can't get better, can it? Now Nic is doing this weird hiccup thing and holding his arms like he's a bunny.
1:03:23--Head bobbin' and the lamest chase scene down a stairwell that I've ever seen.
1:04:30--I'm laughing at a rape threat! This movie has turned me inside-out. But it was a rape threat made with a wagging tongue.
1:04:45--Another big fight scene, this time demonstrating the inner conflict going on with Cage's character. He begins slapping himself. That's right--man vs. his own palm. There will be no winner.
1:06:08--Ba-hoo! And in case you missed the genius of the Ba-hoo! the first time, Cage repeats the Ba-hoo! at 1:06:14. I pause the movie to Ba-hoo! a few times myself. I become one with Nicolas Cage and the cosmos smiles down upon me.
1:06:49--"I'm a vampire! I'm a vampire! I'm a vampire!" It's hard for me to believe that there are some people who will watch this movie and not realize it's a comedy.
1:07:01--More home destruction.
1:09:30--Nic Cage attempts to eat a pillow.
1:10:38--A phone freak-out. And a Nicolas Cage freak-out is always worth watching, probably twice.
1:11:38--I missed a portion of this scene where Cage's character buys some vampire costume teeth because I had fallen to the floor, drooling. It ends with a classically comic "I will take the plastic" that is hilarious in context. There's a great skipping-alternating-with-jogging thing that makes me giggle.
1:12:35--Now he's talking with inserted plastic teeth and that silly accent? Did this movie just get even more magical? Hell yes, it did!
1:13:49--Bird chase!
1:17:45--And now we have Nosferatu at the discotheque.
1:24:02--Nosferatu freaks out at the discotheque! "I'm a vampire. I can prove it!"
1:24:57--There's a rambling, likely improvised monologue that is mostly about the sun but for whatever reason contains the line "She's just a high school cunt." Then, the sun!
1:26:52--Cage flamboyantly finds himself a stake and tries to have somebody kill him.
1:27:24--I swear to God that I'm not making this line up--"Me vampire!"
1:27:53--Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I am vibrating internally at this point.
1:29:04--He runs into a wall. That's always funny enough, but then Cage's character starts a lengthy conversation with it. Touching stuff.
1:30:57--Another actor laughs at Nicolas Cage's performance.
1:32-59--Channeling Keanu--Whoa! Nosferatu as a skateboard punk?
1:35:09--"Born in Philadelphia"? What?
1:36:00--A "conversation" with Sharon--wow. The mannerisms. The voice. This is tragic, comic, and hallucinatory. I have urinated in my pants at least two times and didn't even realize it.
Last line--Ohhhh! I cry uncontrollably, stuff myself into a mini-fridge for an hour, and emerge again to start the movie all over again.

Shaolin vs. Evil Dead

2004 kung-fu zombie movie

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Something about the star of Kill Bill and a pair of sidekicks fighting evil and giving the dead proper burials. It involves voodoo papers. His brother's turned evil and fights against him every step of the way. There are hopping zombies all over the place, too.

First off, I want to find the guy who played Buck (Michael Bowen) in Kill Bill Volume 1 and put him in the kung-fu sequel to The Diary of Anne Frank that I plan on writing and directing some day. That way I'll be able to put "From the star of Kill Bill 1" on the top of my dvd box and make a little extra cash despite having dialogue as bad as the dialogue in this movie:

Master: Take a piss!

Kid: What? Now?

Other Kid: You heard the master. Do it.

Kid: [Pisses]

Other Kid: Master, why did you tell him to take a piss?

Master: I need virgin's pee.

See, sometimes it's poor translating combined with poor dubbing that makes it all sound much worse than it actually is, but I'm not sure that's the case here. Maybe with the later "Where do you come from, devil? How dare you invade my little brother?" is the result of the translation/dubbing combo though. This whole thing's a lot of nonsense. Why do the zombies hop? What's with the ad nauseum chanting? Why's that kid keep slamming his groin into a wall? Does a suddenly materializing Mike Tyson tattoo really give a person special powers? Why so many references to whizzing? What the hell are voodoo papers? There are a few moments when this movie almost looks good, but for the most part, it's one of those modern kung-fu flicks injected with some horror that isn't very scary and some humor that doesn't fit at all. The special effects are the scariest part of this, a kind of CGI nightmare. The Shaolin vs. Evil Dead story isn't even completed in this movie which is really frustrating. Clips during the credits promise a sequel, and it looks like they've found a way to make the special effects even uglier. I have no interest in sitting through the sequel to figure out what the hell this one was about.

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

1970 sex ed video for girls

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Inceptionesquely, menstruating Valerie dreams a little dream and then a dream-within-a-little-dream, little-dreaming of earring-thieving vampiric chimera, foul grannies, guys with ukuleles, lustful priests, stake burnings, lesbian smoochings, and funky little poisoned demons. Thanks for the trip, Valerie!

As beautiful and as visually interesting this little Czech trip through a pre-pubescent girl's subconscious was, I'm really glad it wasn't much longer. I appreciate cloudy technicolor symbol-laden seemingly-plotless abstract and surreal foreign films as much as the next guy, but this is almost hyper-dreamy if that makes sense. If it's not the sexuality, it'll be the vampires that offend the sensibilities of the religious right, and there are some startling shots of the black-cloaked pale-faced, dysodontial, gaunt figure contrasted against the softer backgrounds of the village. The colors in this beg to be remastered. They're muted and fuzzy, maybe appropriately so, like colors worn away from being from once-upona fairy tale times. This is definitely a case where director Jaromil Jires (don't ask; I don't know him) makes up for the whole no-plot thing and what seems to be a limited budget with a consistent vibe, alluringly hypnotic. It's a frustrating yet tantalizing visual treat, like an Alice's Adventures in Wonderland without the hallucinogenics or a Heidi with fistfuls and a liberally dog-eared copy of The Softest Metamorphosis--A Nubile Girl's to Her Body and How to Avoid Priests and/or Vampires.

Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare

1968 Japanese monster movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A vampirish demonoid is awakened from the dead and begins biting people on the neck, taking over their bodies, and denounce Buddha. Frog Man doesn't like it much and hops off to find his fellow monsters including Jabba, TV-Belly Man, Two-Faced Woman, Potato Man, Neck Girl, and Fat Yoda. They investigate and see about expelling the rubber man from the premises.

Well, my favorite monster didn't even make the poster. When I first saw him, I thought, "Hmm. That looks like an umbrella with an absurdly long tongue." Then another character called it an "umbrella monster" and I peed myself and had what can only be described as a religious experience. It's goofy stuff, perhaps even goofy by Japanese standards, but it's shot pretty well, contains an adequate amount of cool atmospheric settings, and does well at creating this weird mystical world. Maybe I wished it didn't have the comic overtones or wasn't so much for children, but this is quickly paced enough and so stuffed with goofy rubber monsters that I can forgive it. The snake-necked woman effects were fun, and I've already mentioned my favorite monster (the umbrella monster). But this isn't about individual monsters. This is about filling the entire screen with goofy monsters and pretending it's perfectly normal. The bad guy could be a little more engaging. I liked how the producers didn't seem to think biting people and stealing their identities didn't seem evil enough and decided to have him say "You suck, Buddha!" to make him the epitome of maleficence. Fun movie, and I'm thrilled that there are two more Yokai Monsters movies out there for me.

Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter

2001 religious kung-fu musical horror comedy

Rating: 12/20

Plot: I haven't read it, but I think this might be based on John's the Book of Revelation.

Yes, that's Santo on the cover, side-by-side with Jesus and ready to fight lesbian vampires. And in the middle is Mary Magnum in that tight little red leather number. Fetching. Making Jesus an action hero is dangerous business, especially since a lot of religious folk don't have much of a sense of humor. But I'm not sure Christians would be too appalled with the character Himself since I don't think He does anything Jesus wouldn't have done like Scorsese had Him doing in The Last Temptation of Christ. Unless bad puns are offensive. In fact, even though the title hero is your typical overblown action hero, he is the hero. He fights evil, and he quotes scripture. What's likely more blasphemous is the use of Santo. El Santo in Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter can't wrestle and is portly. When watching this movie, your first thought (other than "This is blasphemous!") would probably be, "I think this might have been made on the cheap." And you'd be right. Your third thought would probably be, "This was made in 2001? No way! It's got to be from the 70s!" But there's a charm to the proceedings, and the script, littered with (intentionally?) bad punnage and silly action hero banter, is funny enough. I found myself laughing more than I really wanted to. For whatever reason, hearing Jesus deliver the line "I'll need to buy some wood. . .for stakes!" was hilarious. I also thought the spinning crucifix used as a Batman-esque transition between scenes was clever. I also liked a scene where about three hundred baddies get out of an SUV. Not all the comedy worked though, evidenced by a scene where Jesus has a conversation with a bowl of cherries. The bowl of cherries actually tells him to find El Santo. I can't decide if seeing Jesus and a priest hanging out at a Hooters-type restaurant is funny or not. There's a lot of kung-fu in this movie, and it won't exactly make you think of Bruce Lee. The fight scenes often seemed endless, and if the guy who played Jesus (Phil Caracas [Wait a second! Isn't the guy who plays Jesus in the Mel Gibson movie named Caracas?]) had any martial arts training, they wasted their obviously limited funds on it. There is a scene where a character uses intestines as a weapon though. I should have started making a list of those movies a long time ago. This is also a musical, and although the songs were only slightly more tolerable than Repo: The Genetic Opera's numbers, there at least was some eclecticism. You had punk, techno-robot-lounge, keyboard blipping, 80s feel-good movie rock, Mexicali funk, cheesy lounge, neo-funk with vocoder, dance music, retarded jazz, and my personal favorite--a really creepy song where somebody whispered the books of the New Testament with cymbal accompaniment. The performers were likely friends of the director, some of them, I think, appearing as more than one character, but three of them were real stand-outs. Josh Grace was deliriously over-the-top as Dr. Praetorious. I checked his resume, and he's been in a few of JCVH director's Lee Demarbre's movies including one where Demarbre includes another Mexican movie legend--The Aztec Mummy. I can't find the name of a screaming woman, but it was one of the best screams I've heard in a long time. But the very best part of the movie is the introduction and musical performance of Blind Jimmy Leper played by an actor named "Lucky Ron" who had about as many teeth as Shane McGowen. He does this scatting number which could probably prove the existence of God to even the most diehard of atheists. Jesus jumped on the stage and did his own scatting, but he couldn't beat the work of Blind Jimmy Leper. And when you're Lucky Ron and can prove in your lone movie that you can out-scat Christ Himself, you don't have to do anything else as a performer to win a lifetime achievement award on shane-movies.

Note: I've heard that there's an Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter movie being made. Joaquin Phoenix is attached to that project. I guess his career is doing just fine!

Blacula

1972 blaxploitative horror movie

Rating: 11/20

Plot: In the 1500s, blac guy heads to a castle in Transylvania to protest slavery. The owner of the castle happens to be a vampire and kills his girlfriend before biting him and dubbing him Blacula. Years later, some homosexuals buy his casket and, apparently without checking to see if it has a body in it, transports it to Los Angeles. Blacula pops out and starts vampiring it up, enjoying the city's night life and chasing after a groovy gal who sort of looks like his lost love. But with an afro. Play that funky music, vampire!

Dracula Negro might be a better title. Blacula made me think I was about to watch something really stupid, really low budget, and poorly written and acted. Actually, Blacula is a fairly clever twist on the Dracula story. Some of the acting is what you'd expect from a funky 70's flick like this, but fellow Hoosier William Marshall, the guy who plays the titular vampire, delivers a very un-campy performance with some surprising emotional ummph. He's like a black Christopher Lee. I was right about the budget and writing though. It's bad puns galore and make-up that appears to have been made out of cake frosting. The vampires kind of look like undead desserts. Of course this isn't terrific cinema, but it's also not nearly bad enough to be all that entertaining unfortunately. The plot drags, and the whole thing's filmed lifelessly. I have no desire to see the sequel, and I'm pretty sure that makes me a racist.

Santo and Blue Demon against the Monsters

1970 masterpiece

Rating: 20/20 (Kairow: 20/20)

Plot/Review: See guest reviewer Kairow's thoughts here: Kairow's Blog


I don't have much to add to what he had to say. The other Santo movies I've seen have had him up against one or two monsters. This one has a ridiculous amount of monsters, making it even wackier than the others. Which likely makes this the wackiest movie I've ever seen. Any Santo movie gets an automatic 20/20. See "Santo Rule" described in the entry for Santo vs. Frankenstein's Daughter).

Other Santo movies on the blog:

Santo in the Vengeance of the Mummy
Santo vs. the Vampire Women

The Fearless Vampire Killers or: Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck

or, Dance of the Vampires

1967 horror comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A pair of clumsy vampire hunters travel to Transylvania in search of vampire hearts to hammer some wooden stakes into. They stop at an inn because Professor Abronsius needs thawing, and Alfred, his young assistant meets and falls for the beautiful red-headed daughter of the innkeeper. She's swiped by a vampire while bathing, however. Oh, snap! Can the professor and Alfred get to the castle and save her in time?

I'd only known Sharon Tate as a name. I'm not going to claim that she's the greatest actress who ever lived or anything, but there sure was something appealing about her. There is a lot to see in this movie. The cinematography is often stunning, the settings are sensual, and the quirky goings-on in the backgrounds force your eyes to examine every inch of the screen to suck it all in. But despite the gorgeous imagery, my eyes were a little angry every time Sharon Tate wasn't on the screen. But my eyes needed to calm down since most of her scenes seemed to take place in bathtubs. This is an unusual movie, a sometimes baffling movie. Unfortunately (I guess), it's neither scary or funny, and you'd figure that a "horror comedy" would be at least one of those. But there are enough of those How's-Polanski-Doing-That? moments to make it not really matter. I did have a lot of trouble understanding the actors, especially the Jack MacGowran who at times looked like Dana Carvey doing some failed Saturday Night Live character. And after a bit, I really stopped caring about the plot so that I could focus on Sharon Tate and the way Polanski weaves his camera through the gray corridors of this really cool castle. There are some really cool mirror tricks, and a great vampire ball scene where the vampires are all gray, like they've been borrowed from a Roy Andersson movie. Seeing them mingle with the still-human characters in an ornate ballroom was a nifty effect. Cool vampire flick! It does have too many names though.

Let the Right One In

2008 vampire movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Poor Oskar. He's underdeveloped, has goofy hair even for a Swedish kid, and is getting bullied at school. Luckily for him, an androgynous vampire named Eli moves in next door. He befriends her, sharing a Rubik's cube and having boring conversations. When the old dude who collects blood for her gets himself caught, apparently because he's an idiot, Eli's relationship with Oskar deepens and she convinces him to stand up for himself. Then, they have more boring conversations, occasionally through a wall using Morse code.

A handful of scenes in Let the Right One In (a title I don't fully understand, by the way) are beautifully and artistically shot and effectively creepy. The climax is especially startling and effective, a very inventive shot that leaves just enough to the imagination and ends up more shocking because of it. This movie has a consistent tone that I really liked, and for the most part, the children chosen for the roles do a terrific job. I just don't think this movie is consistently great. It doesn't really add up to much at all. The story's flimsy, and the characters don't have a lot of depth, instead working more as types than anything else. There are a few scenes where there was an obvious attempt to shock me (artistically!) instead of allowing the story to unfold naturally, and they were ultimately more of a distraction than anything else. A subplot involving an infected woman seemed unnecessary and really really silly, especially during a scene involving a bunch of cats that I think might be the funniest thing I see all year. The end of that subplot was actually pretty funny, too. I also had trouble connecting with the characters despite the good acting. I'll admit that there might be a vampire bias at play here, but I do think that's the reason why some of this seemed a little derivative and possibly why some of the characters seemed flat. This is a beautiful enough movie. In fact, it's really really beautiful. But it's also pretty pretentious and a little shallow. The goth kids would all love it though!

This was recommended by Cory, a former goth kid.