I am often (unfairly, I feel) saddled with the label “negative”. I am just a man with strong opinions. I try my very best to like every movie I watch, but sometimes the movie doesn’t show me the same courtesy. So it was with a heavy heart that Angela laid out her Fortnight of Fangs agenda to me. Mainly the part about me writing a column on vampire movies. You see, vampires are my least favorite cinematic monsters. They have been co-opted by the corseted goth girl set, the Anne Rice-reading, rave-going, pleather-wearing banes of my existence. Bram Stoker would roll over in his grave if he could see how his hell spawn stregoica blood-sucker has been dressed up in ruffles and made into a ladies’ man. I mean, in his novel Dracula, the Count feeds his three wives babies. And when one mother claws at the castle door, bewailing the fate of her progeny, what does the glammer-man do? With a wave of his hand, he calls forth his wolf children to tear her into pieces before Jonathan Harker’s horrified eyes. And so I am incapable of stomaching tripe like Interview with the Vampire. Just. In. Cape. Ah. Bull.

One favor Angela did do for me, though, was to get into a little bit of the mythology of vampires, some of their history in different cultures throughout the ages, which saves me the bother. For the extent of this article, we are going to deal strictly from Dracula to the present. The first stop on that agenda is to point out that Stoker did not base his character on Vlad Tepes. He already had his plot outlined before he stumbled upon the despot during his research, and simply retro-fitted his story to jibe with the stories of the blood-thirsty tyrant. The second thing we need to go over is that there has, as yet, never been a decent movie made from the book. Nosferatu was changed heavily, due to its completely illegal nature. Stoker’s estate never okayed it, and in fact successfully sued the tits off of F. Murnau. Which is just as well, since other than Max Shreck looking supremely creepy as Count Orlock, it is a pretty ridiculous film.

Next comes Tod Browning’s 1932 Dracula, which was officially sanctioned, but actually based on the play that was based on the book. That second-cousin status accounts for the huge departures from the novel. 1979’s Frank Langella-starring Dracula was also based on the play, and indeed seems more like a remake of Browning’s film than anything else. It is a beautifully shot film, and features the strong work we’ve come to expect from Donald Pleasance, but ultimately it can’t get out of its own way. When Dracula gets pissed at Renfield and transmogrifies into a bat, I thought I was watching an episode of The Munsters. Grandpa was a more convincing menace.

And not even get me started on the Christopher Lee stuff. He portrayed the character I think more than 20 times, and it is a huge chunk of time wasted. I know it is heresy, but I just can’t get behind the Hammer stuff. Yes, it is decently campy and cheesy, but they were just a mill churning out weakly-scripted excuses to inject tiny-tittied byrds and pseudo-disco soundtracks into the horror scene.Case in point: The Satanic Rites of Dracula. I’ll pass. (although it does feature an impossibly young Joanna Lumley – Patsy from AbFab).

Coppola’s Dracula is possibly the most ridiculous of all. It claims to be faithful to the book, but puts in just as much romance as the average Lifetime Channel movie, including some ludicrous premise of Dracula’s plight being the result of having a broken heart. What?! Anthony Hopkins is credible as Van Helsing, but that is hardly reason enough to let your ass go numb for 6-hours, or however long it is.

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Angela Mac   |67.142.161.xxx |2008-11-03 17:24:13 Corseted goth girls are a bane of your existence? You have a fence accident, or something? Or was it just the nancy men with ruffles that baned you? Two new recommendations! I'm geeked! Danke!

Zombie Boy   |12.197.177.xxx |2008-11-04 01:43:59 They're fine in theory. Nice to look at, but a chore to speak to. And when they plan the film festival, I stay home.

Angela Mac   |67.142.161.xxx |2008-11-04 03:22:42 Oh... yeah... I wasn't thinking about the part where you speak to them.

Bobby B  - Fangs a Lot! (ouch)   |67.170.183.xxx |2008-11-07 14:32:56 Habit = sold! It is just beyond me why no one, no one will take a stab at Stoker's book as is! For as many times and as many different ways they fall short they have a template for a badass movie right there, a book that's been a hit for over a hundred years -- and everybody just swears they can do it better. Grrrr... I liked 30 Days of Night...kind of. It almost gets there. It has chilling moments and that one heart breaking one....but I qualified it as a near miss. You might want to take a look at -- if you haven't -- The Addiction or Werner Herzog's Nosferatu. But I liked the old one too, so take that into account.  It's hysterical that you wrote that opening bit about being unfairly labeled -- and then went on a tear! Having said that, thank you for calling out the Hammer Draculas. I like them more than you did but holy shit the ravenous of some people over Christopher Lee. For Dracula A.D. 1972 alone he should be flogged. Man, I saw From Dusk til Dawn when it first came out...with my mother. Just...just...my mom's cool and all and she dug it as did I but it was just not the movie you should see with your mother. Or something. I don't know. I'll stop now.

Angela Mac  - Herz-ugh   |67.142.161.xxx |2008-11-09 05:16:55 It is just beyond me, why I have wasted so many hours plopped down in front of Herzog's opportunistic malarky. I also have a (albeit, minor) grievance with From Dusk til Dawn. Interview after interview with those involved expressed themselves as being blown away at the entrance of the first vampire -- "it's like this rollicking crime spree -- and then BAM! VAMPIRES?!" One of the many motivators behind my decision not to watch previews, read reviews nor read interviews for any film I know I'll want to see. As awesome as it was -- Dusk would've been EVEN MORE AWESOME if I hadn't known there would be vampires.

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