DRACULAND: The Dracula´s Blog

Bela Lugosi´s 129th

2011-10-20T12:00:00.000-07:00

● Artwork by Gor Mandra for Bela's 129th.

Bela Lugosi was born 129 years ago today. Lugosi,

born October 20, 1882 as Béla Ferenc Dezcö Blasko

in Lugos (at the time part of Austria-Hungary, now

Lugoj in Romania).

He was, he is and will be, the best Dracula that

ever been done. Bela Lugosi's Dracula and can't die.

"Death could kill the Man, but it couldn´t kill the Legend..."

"But first, sent to earth as a vampire. Your
corpse
will escape from the grave
as a ghost
prowl his
hometown, sucking
the blood of all
yours..."

●
The Giaour, Lord Byron (1788-1824)

●
In Bela we Trust ●

Lugosi Wines

2011-05-23T01:40:00.000-07:00

Bela Lugosi created his unique characterization of Count Dracula

on the Broadway stage in 1927 and brought it to the screen in 1931.

One of the first members of the Screen Actors Guild, he was a true

American film pioneer. Although Count Dracula never “drank” wine,

Bela Lugosi, the man, had impeccable taste in wines.

With the creation of the Bela Lugosi brand wines, the Lugosi

family pays tribute to their patriarch, a man of distinction, while

acknowledging the icon that will forever be - Dracula.  

Continuing the family’s enthusiasm for wine inspired by Bela Lugosi,

Lugosi Wines will seek varietals sourced from superior wine-growing

regions. Winemakers will create exceptional wines from distinct

appellations to assemble a portfolio of the Bela Lugosi brand wines

that will celebrate the best varietals from around the

world.

With each new release added to Lugosi Wines’ offerings, the Bela

Lugosi collection will exemplify the distinct qualities of Bela Lugosi,

the man, in a unique compilation of outstanding wines. Lugosi Wines

is proud to announce the release of the first vintage of the signature

series wines.

The Domingo Hermanos Winery in Argentina produced this vintage

exclusively for Lugosi Wines. The vineyards are located in Salta,

Argentina, and at 7200 feet altitude, are one of the highest in the world.

●The label artwork is by Argentinean citizen, Bruno Fernandez.

●Only 1200 hand numbered bottles were produced.

●
BELA LUGOSI MALBEC ●

●
VINTAGE: 2007

Malbec 85%, Cabernet Sauvignon 15%

Salta - Argentina

●VINEYARD SOURCES

50% Malbec, Yacochuya, Salta, Argentina at

6,600 ft. altitude.

35% Malbec, Quebrada de las Flechas, Salta,

Argentina at 7,200 ft.

15% Cabernet, Quebrada de las Flechas, Salta,

Argentina at 7,200 ft.

●WINEMAKING

Only 1200 numbered bottles were produced.

●ANALYSIS

-Alcohol: 14.8%

-Total Acidity: 6.00 g/l

-Volatile Acidity: 0.52 g/l

-Resid. Sugar: 2.89 g/l

-PH 3.6

●
WINEMAKER'S NOTES

Different terroirs with the right blend, makes wonders. The special

microclimate of these areas allows for optimal grape ripeness,

providing them with the ability to develop and express their unique

identity. Careful elaboration and proper aging for 8 months in French

oak add great complexity and balance.

Great concentration with intense dark purple-red color has a fresh,

ripe red-fruit aroma with notes of vanilla, chocolate, mocha and

spices. Long velvety finish.

●RECOMMENDATIONS

Enjoy this wine with grilled meats, well-seasoned pasta dishes,

or cheese. Best when served between 63º- 66º F. Please decant

1hr before consumption.

For more information, please, contact and visit the Official Site

Lugosi Wines or Twitter account

●For online sales please visit: Southern Wines 

●For distribution inquiries please visit: Undiscovered Wines

●Sources

Lugosi Wines

Southern Wines

Undiscovered Wines

Happy Birthday Bela Lugosi

2010-10-20T14:52:00.000-07:00

● Happy Birthday Count Lugosi, born 20 October 1882.

Bunnicula (1979)

2010-01-27T08:26:00.000-08:00

Bunnicula is a children's book series written by James Howe
(and his late wife Deborah in the case of "Bunnicula") about a
vampire bunny that sucks the juice out of vegetables. It is also
the name of the first book in the series, published 1979.

The story is centered on the Monroe family and their pets and is
told from the perspective of their dog Harold. The Monroes find
a bunny at the theater where they were watching a Dracula film.
Because of this, they name him Bunnicula. Their cat Chester,
however, is convinced Bunnicula is a vampire and attempts to
get Harold to help save the Monroes from the perceived menace.
A 1979 animated TV special (from Ruby-Spears) by the same
name was created based on the first book and aired on the ABC
Weekend Special. The animated special deviated heavily from the
novels and actively depicted Bunnicula using vampiric powers,
which did not occur in the novels.

The full name of the first book is Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of
Mystery. The second and third books of the series are Howliday
Inn and The Celery Stalks at Midnight. Nighty-Nightmare followed
in 1987, followed by Return to Howliday Inn in 1993. In 1999,
Bunnicula Strikes Again!, was published. Bunnicula Meets Edgar
Allan Crow was published in 2006, and appears to be the final
book in the Bunnicula series.

Following the end of the Bunnicula series, James Howe began a
spin-off series called Tales from the House of Bunnicula, which
are 'written' by Howie, the dachshund puppy introduced into the
series in Howliday Inn. There is also a series called Bunnicula and
Friends: Ready To Read. They are a series of five picture books
about adventures of the characters from the stories. They are
aimed for beginning readers.

>>Characters throughout the series:

Harold – As the main character, despite Bunnicula being the
title-bearing character, Harold is an old, scruffy and loving dog
under the Monroes' care. He narrates the books, sometimes even
humorously claiming he would not even write the books if it weren't
for Bunnicula. He enjoys his life with the Monroe family, particularly
with the youngest child Toby, always being a diligent and loyal pet.
His longtime friend is Chester the cat, who also lives under the
Monroe household. Harold has a strong affection for chocolate
cupcakes, as well as other typical snacks such as cheese crackers
and fudge, despite the potential risk of food poisoning due to
chocolate consumption. He is a mongrel but is part Russian
wolfhound. He says that this is why he is able to recognize an
obscure dialect of Transylvania in the first book.

In the first book, Harold sees Bunnicula for the first time, as well
as seeing a bunny for the first time. While Bunnicula's
vampire-like activities do scare him a little, he holds no grudges
against the bunny, even befriending him. Unluckily, Chester, who
has an outrageously vivid imagination and is narrow-minded,
thinks Bunnicula is a real vampire and forces Harold to assist him
to kill the rabbit. All attempts fail, and finally Harold goes against
Chester's crazy attempts to do away with Bunnicula. Throughout
the series, Harold is portrayed the same way, albeit being a bit
dim-witted as the story progresses (which subjects him to crude
nicknames given to him by Chester). The other pet in the Monroe
household is the care-free dachshund puppy, Howie, and he
admires both Harold and Chester, as well as Bunnicula. Harold
is dubbed as "Uncle Harold" by the puppy. Throughout the series,
Harold remains unconvinced of Chester's belief that Bunnicula is
a vampire, and constantly rebuffs the ideas Chester has regarding
the rabbit.

Chester - The highly vivid cat who devours good literature. He was
given to Mr. Monroe as a birthday present, and the name "Chester"
was derived from G. K. Chesterton. Ever since Bunnicula's arrival,
Chester becomes increasingly aware that the bunny could be a
threat to the household ("Today vegetables, tomorrow the world!",
he exclaims at one point in reference to Bunnicula's "diabolical
plans" when trying to convince Harold of his belief that Bunnicula
is a vampire). He really wants to kill Bunnicula. Harold and
eventually Howie objects to that notion, but Chester has remained
firm that Bunnicula is a true vampire. Albeit an intellectual cat, he
becomes carried away with his imagination and
narrow-mindedness; Harold mentions in Nighty-Nightmare that
Chester's constant reading and watching horror movies have given
him "a reality leak that requires constant attention". He once tried
to kill Bunnicula by using a steak (not a stake), a mistake that
always greets him with embarrassing memories. Another time,
he led Harold and Howie on a chase around Centerville,
"murdering" vampire vegetables, which were in fact the leftover
meals from Bunnicula. Too many times he made crazy attempts
to eliminate Bunnicula, all of which naturally fail. He usually calls
both of his canine friends "dolts", "simpletons", or "idiots."
He is known not to apologize for his errors that greatly affect
Harold, instead referring them as "a slight misinterpretation in
the facts." He is also known as "Pop" to Howie, something that
he is still not completely used to.
Despite having a tense relationship with Bunnicula, deep down
he accepts him as one of the family, and in the final two books
of the series, Bunnicula Strikes Again! and Bunnicula meets
Edgar Allan Crow, becomes friends with Bunnicula. Chester was
named Fluffy for a short time before.

Bunnicula – The bunny with strange eating habits and strange
vampire-like qualities, Bunnicula came to the Monroe household
on a dark, stormy night. Toby found him in the theater, which
was at the time showing Dracula, and brought him home, where
Mrs. Monroe brought up the clever name Bunnicula. A note was
placed with Bunnicula when he was found, written in Russian
reading "please take care of my baby". Only Harold is able to read
the note. He is subjected to many murder attempts by Chester,
who thinks that the rabbit would eventually become carnivorous.
However, his "indestructible" stature proves to Chester that he
cannot be killed. Due to his young age, Bunnicula cannot talk—or
at the very least he doesn't speak at any point in the series,
indicating that he may be incapable of it— but exhibits similar
physical emotions all the same, such as winking or crying. His
eating habit enables him to bite onto vegetables and suck the
juice out of them, similar to the method by which Dracula dines.
Instead of buck teeth like all rabbits, Bunnicula has fangs. He
remains part of the Monroe family, often treated with the utmost
respect by everyone, including the other pets. Bunnicula, at the
end of Nighty Nightmare is revealed to have produced a litter of
offspring with a rabbit owned by a friend of Pete Monroe as part
of a project for the novels' equivalent of the boy scouts. At least
one of the offspring is stated by Pete as looking identical to
Bunnicula, and was briefly mentioned again in Bunnicula meets
Edger Allan Crow, where he was named "Sonnicula", due to his
being the son of Bunnicula and carrying an identical appearance
to his father. Sonnicula never made any direct appearances in
the series, being referred to only twice in passing during the
events in the series. In Nighty Nightmare, Chester's story implies
that Bunnicula's parents were vampire rabbits who were created
by a lonely vampire, though Chester merely made the entire
story up.

In the non-canon animated special, produced by Ruby-Spears,
Bunnicula's name is written in the note itself, to avoid having the
Monroes name him. The note is one of the few aspects of the
novel to carry over into the animated special, as Bunnicula is
found near a processing plant in the special. In the televised
version, when Bunnicula goes into his vampiric form, he sprouts
bat wings under his arms and his eyes turn yellow. His vampire
powers include flight, hypnosis, levitation, and telekinesis.

Chester's murder attempts do not take place in the special and
he ultimately decides that the idea that Bunnicula is a vampire
is "ridiculous", something which doesn't occur in the novels,
which has a touch of irony, since Bunnicula is blatantly shown
using his vampiric powers (in as far as the animated special is
concerned), Chester was correct in his belief of Bunnicula's
true nature.

Howie – The young, care-free, and sometimes dim dachshund
puppy who was adopted by the Monroes from Chateau Bow-Wow.
He was the runt of the litter and his parents were rare and valuable
long-haired dachshunds (who Chester secretly suspected of being
werewolves). He usually does not understand the seriousness of
matters, thinking that murdering vampire vegetables is a game
and chasing Bunnicula is a race. He did not even know what a
vampire was when Chester informed him about Bunnicula, though
up to date he does not think that the bunny is a danger. For an
unknown reason, he calls Harold and Chester "Uncle Harold" and
"Pop", respectively; while Harold is perfectly comfortable with his
nickname, Chester is still not completely used to his own. His
hobbies include chewing on the rug, eating, chasing cars,
and barking.

Robert Monroe – He is the husband of Ann Monroe and the father
of Peter and Toby Monroe. He works as a college professor, and
his knack for reading classical literature enabled Chester to read
as well. In the animated special, he is described by Harold as
being a scientist, rather than a college professor, and works at
the plant where Bunnicula is discovered.

Bunnicula Doll.

Ann Monroe- She is Robert's wife and the mother of Peter and
Toby Monroe. She thought up of the name Bunnicula by combining
"Bunny" and "Dracula". She had previously tried to name him
"Bun-Bun" and "Fluffy." Names like this seem to be a habit with
her because Harold and Chester were both called "Fluffy" for a short
time. Her occupation as a lawyer makes her a good and strict
mother. In the animated special, Ann Monroe is not described as
having any job other than being a housewife. She also does not
name Bunnicula in the special, as the name is included in the note
they find with him.

Peter Monroe – The oldest of two boys who slacks off often. He
usually bullies his younger brother Toby and the pets, except for
Bunnicula. Often selfish, Harold avoids him, but Howie finds him
intriguing, mainly because of the books he reads. The space under
his bed is very messy and, in addition to keeping a stuffed animal
named Puddikins under it for emergency hugs, many other stuff
has turned up such as Oreos, dirty socks and a notebook that
Harold gives Howie. Chester finds him indifferent.

Toby Monroe – The youngest of two, he is more dignified and
kinder than Peter. He likes to share his snacks with Harold during
his late-night readings, and is adored by Chester and Howie.

>>Books:

-Bunnicula

-Howliday Inn

-The Celery Stalks at Midnight

-Nighty Nightmare

-Return to Howliday Inn

-Bunnicula Meets Edgar Allan Crow

-Bunnicula Strikes Again!

>>Film:

Release date: 1979 USA

Main Crew:

Director: Charles A. Nichols (Cyrano 1974; Charlotte's Web 1973).
Producer: Ruby-Spears Entertainment.
Score: Dean Elliot.
Writer: Mark Evanier (based on the book by Deborah & James Howe).

>>Summary:

A vegetarian Vampire?! Two boys, the intelligent cat Morris and
Chester, a very laid-back dog, solve one of the most bizzare
mysteries ever. In an amazing series of nocturnal visitations,
vegetables are ruthlessly drained of their juices. Can the culprit
be a fluffy bunny-rabbit who answers to the name - Bunnicula?

Fonts:

Wikipedia
Vampyres Online
Stuffe & Nonsense

The Vampire Bat (1933)

2010-01-20T09:49:00.000-08:00

The Vampire Bat is a 1933 horror movie starring Lionel Atwill,
Fay Wray, Melvyn Douglas and Dwight Frye.

>>Plot Outline:

When the villagers of Kleinschloss start dying of blood loss,
the town fathers suspect a resurgence of vampirism. While
police inspector Karl remains skeptical, scientist Dr. von
Niemann cares for the vampire's victims one by one, and
suspicion falls on simple-minded Herman Gleib because of
his fondness for bats. A blood-thirsty mob hounds Gleib to
his death, but the vampire attacks don't stop.

>>Cast:

-Lionel Atwill...Dr. Otto von Niemann
-Fay Wray...Ruth Bertin
-Melvyn Douglas... Karl Brettschneider
-Maude Eburne...Aunt Gussie Schnappmann
-George E. Stone...Kringen
-Dwight Frye...Herman Gleib
-Robert Frazer...Emil Borst
-Rita Carlyle... Martha Mueller (as Rita Carlisle)
-Lionel Belmore...Bürgermeister Gustave Schoen
-William V. Mong...Sauer
-Stella Adams...Georgiana
-Harrison Greene...Weingarten

>>Production:

Fay Wray and Lionel Atwill had been in the successful film
DOCTOR X the previous year and had already wrapped up
work of the follow-up MYSTERY IN THE WAX MUSEUM for
Warner Bros. when small Majestic Pictures saw a unique
chance to jump on all the advance publicity MYSTERY IN
THE WAX MUSEUM was receiving. But it would be a legnthy
post production process for the larger film.

Seeing a chance to exploit all the advance press, skid row
studio Majestic Pictures Inc. snagged Fay Wray and Lionel
Atwill for a quickie Horror film of their own, rushing THE
VAMPIRE BAT (1933) into production.

As it turned out, Fay’s growing fanbase had to only wait about
four months after THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME for their next
date with Fay. THE VAMPIRE BAT was released January 21, 1933.

Majestic Pictures had a lot less overhead than the larger studios,
who were struggling at the time during the great depression.
Part of the reason that THE VAMPIRE BAT looked almost as good
as any Universal Pictures horror film is because Majestic was
easily able to lease James Whales castoffs, the beautiful “German
Village” backlot sets left over from FRANKENSTEIN (1931) and the
interior sets from his film THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1932), plus
some location shooting at Bronson Caves. Topping the illusion
that this was a film from a much bigger “A” studio, Majestic hired
amazing character actor Dwight Frye (Renfield in the 1931 film
DRACULA and Carl the hunchback in the 1931 film FRANKENSTEIN)
to populate scenes with Wray and Atwill.

THE VAMPIRE BAT ruse worked well for Majestic, with them able to
rush the quickie film into theaters less than a month before Warner's
release of MYSTERY IN THE WAX MUSEUM.

Fonts:
Wikipedia
Imdb

Ella, Drácula (2002)

2010-01-18T08:04:00.000-08:00

García Sánchez, Javier: Ella, Drácula. Madrid,
Editorial Planeta, 2002.

Javier García Sánchez.

In the early seventeenth century lived in Hungary a unique
character, the aristocratic Erzsébet Báthory.

Erzsébet Báthory.

Within eight years kidnapped, tortured and brutally murdered
seven hundred girls. Fanatic witchcraft and the cult of blood,
she, and not Vlad Tepes, was the real Dracula.

This is a fictional recreation of his life and his crimes, and a
brave plunge into the genealogy of pure evil.

She, and not Vlad Tepes, was the real Dracula, as he committed
with his own hands, a systematic genocide unparalleled in the
annals of criminology of all time.

More Info Sepiensa.org

House of Dracula (1945)

2010-01-15T09:06:00.000-08:00

House of Dracula was an American horror film released by
Universal Pictures Company in 1945. It was a direct sequel
to House of Frankenstein and continued the theme of
combining Universal's three most popular monsters:
Frankenstein's monster, Count Dracula and The Wolf Man.

>>Cast:

-Lon Chaney Jr....Lawrence Stewart Talbot
The Wolf Man (as Lon Chaney)
-John Carradine...Count Dracula
-Martha O'Driscoll...Miliza Morrelle
-Lionel Atwill...Police Inspector Holtz
-Onslow Stevens...Dr. Franz Edlemann
-Jane Adams...Nina
-Ludwig Stössel...Siegfried (as Ludwig Stossel)
-Glenn Strange...The Frankenstein Monster
-Skelton Knaggs...Steinmuhl

John Carradine (Count Dracula).

>>Plot:

The main plot is that Dracula and Larry Talbot are both
seeking a cure for their respective monster afflictions from
Dr. Edelmann (Onslow Stevens).

Dracula actually appears to be searching for a cure for his
vampirism. Somehow Dracula survived his destruction by
sunlight exposure from the previous film House of
Frankenstein and initially seeks to be cured of his vampirism
at the hands of the doctor as he seems apparently tired of his
monster nature. But after re-meeting the doctor's beautiful
assistant whom he knew in his alias of "Baron Latos", Dracula's
monsterous nature reasserts itself and infects Edelmann
through a blood transfusion of his vampire blood, which turns
Edelmann into a Jekyll and Hyde like creature. Though
Edelmann succeeds in destroying Dracula, Edelmann realizes
that he is slowly degrading into a murderous monster himself.

Lawrence Talbot soon arrives at Edelmann's castle, seeking a
cure for the curse that turns him into a werewolf (As with
Dracula, his return from destruction dealt at the end of the
previous entry is not explained, but his recuperative ability
via moonlight has already been established in the earlier
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man). The Frankenstein Monster
plays a minor role in this film, only being found during
Talbot's attempt at suicide by drowning in the ocean late in
the film. The Monster does not actually go into action until
almost the climactic finish, which results in Talbot finally
being cured of his affliction and falling in love with
Edelmann's attractive assistant, Miliza Morrelle (Martha
O'Driscoll) and killing the Hyde like version of Edelmann.
The Frankenstein Monster is burned to death in yet another
fire destruction of the castle he is in.

Also appearing in the film is Jane Adams, whose character,
Nina, is a hunchback and was thus billed as one of the
monsters in the film. In fact, her character is portrayed
sympathetically and the use of an attractive actress to play
an otherwise misshapen individual is notable for the time.

Although Glenn Strange appears as the Monster in most of the
film, footage of Chaney as the Monster from The Ghost of
Frankenstein and Boris Karloff from Bride of Frankenstein was
recycled. In the Ted Newsom documentary "100 Years of Horror",
Carradine suggested his portrayal of Dracula was meant to reflect
the description of the character in the 1897 Bram Stoker novel.
Universal only agreed upon Carradine having a thin moustache.

Fonts:
Wikipedia
Imdb

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Draculand

2010-01-13T10:03:00.000-08:00

Tony Espinosa (Gor Mandra).

You can see my presentation at the prestigious Web of
Horror "Zombos' Closet of Horror" created by John Cozzoli here.

>>John Cozzoli´s Bio:

Founder of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers, expiring writer,
and critic of the horror, sci-horror, and fantasy genres found
in cinema and literature.

John Cozzoli (Iloz Zoc).

>>Biography:

Tired of being a corpse-orate zombie, I traded in the needles
and voodoo doll effigies of my coworkers for the more rewarding
pleasure of writing my blog, Zombos’ Closet of Horror. As my
horror-oriented alter ego, Iloz Zoc, I write about the genre that
people love to fear. Growing up as a monster-kid in the 1960s,
and having two theaters in my neighborhood, it was bound to
happen sooner or later.

Zombos' Closet of Horror.

>>Interests:

The horror and fantasy genres as reflected in pop culture.

I live in Westbury, New York with my wife and son, and dream of
one day owning an old-styled movie theater serving steamy hot
popcorn, smothered in real butter, ice-cold Bonbons, and lots of
horror movies.

The League of Tana Tea Drinkers.

More Info:
Zombos' Closet of Horror
The League of Tana Tea Drinkers

New reproduction Hammer Film posters released

2010-01-11T06:47:00.000-08:00

Official licensee Postersandstuff continue to delight fans
the world over with their exclusive range of high-quality
reproduction film posters featuring the original artwork
for classic Hammer films.

December sees the issue of reproduction posters for two
horrors starring recently knighted Christopher Lee -
Dracula Prince Of Darkness and To The Devil A Daughter.

Each of the posters features the artwork from the original
British theatrical advertising, scanned from original posters
and painstakingly restored using digital technology to remove
blemishes, creases, foldlines, pinholes etc. The artwork is
then printed using special inks on 180 gsm paper to the
original 30 x 40 inch size.

There are currently 31 posters available, through selected
retailers, including the new official Hammer shop (launching
January 2010). Or you can purchase directly through
Postersandstuff here.

Fonts: Hammer Films

Vampyr (1932)

2010-01-10T01:33:00.000-08:00

Vampyr (German: Vampyr - Der Traum des Allan Grey) is a
1932 horror film directed by Danish director Carl Theodor
Dreyer. The film was written by Dreyer and Christen Jul based
on elements from J. Sheridan Le Fanu's In a Glass Darkly.

Vampyr was funded by Nicolas de Gunzburg who starred in
the film under the name of Julian West among a mostly
non-professional cast. Gunzberg plays the role of Allan Grey,
a student of the occult who enters a small village outside of
Paris which is cursed by supernatural creatures known as
Vampyrs who lure townspeople to suicide so they can become
servants for the devil.

Vampyr was challenging for Dreyer to make as it was his first
sound film and had to be recorded in three languages. To
overcome this, very little dialogue was used in the film and
much of the story is told with silent film-styled title cards.
The film was shot entirely on location and to enhance the
atmospheric content, Dreyer opted for a washed out, fuzzy
appearing photographic technique. The audio editing was
done in Berlin where the character's voices, sound effects,
and score were added to the film.

Vampyr had a delayed release in Germany and opened to a
generally negative reception from audiences and critics.
Dreyer edited the film after its German premiere and it
opened to more mixed opinions at its French debut. The
film was long considered as a low part in Dreyer's career,
but modern critical reception to the film has become much
more favorable with critics praising the film's disorienting
visual effects and atmosphere.

>>Plot:

On a late evening, Allan Gray arrives at an inn close to the
village of Courtempierre where he rents a room to sleep.
Gray is awakened suddenly by an old man, entering the
room and leaving a square packet on Gray's table with "To
be opened upon my death" written on it. Gray takes the
package and walks outside finding shadows guiding him
to an old castle where he sees several shadows dancing and
wandering on their own. Gray also sees an elderly woman
and encounters the village doctor. Gray leaves the castle and
walks to a manor. Looking through one of the windows, Gray
sees the man who gave him the package earlier. This old man
is suddenly murdered by gun shot. Gray is let into the house
by servants who rush to the aid of the fallen man but find it
too late to save him. The servants have Gray stay the night,
where the Lord of the manor's youngest daughter, Giséle
leads Gray to the library where he learns that her sister,
Léone is gravely ill. Gray and Giséle then see Léone walking
outside. They rush to her finding her lying unconscious with
fresh bite wounds. They have her carried back up to the manor
where Gray remembers the parcel given to him. On opening
the parcel, Gray finds the book is about horrific demons called
Vampyrs.

After reading the book, Gray discovers Léone is a victim of a
Vampyr and that the Vampyr also can have humans forced into
her submission. The village doctor visits Léone at the manor,
who Gray recognizes as the old man he saw in the castle. The
doctor tells Gray that a blood transfusion is needed and Gray
offers his blood to save Léone. Exhausted from blood loss, Gray
wakes sensing danger, and rushes to Léone finding the doctor
who has just dropped a poison vial from his hand. The doctor
flees the manor, as Gray finds that Giséle has gone missing.
Gray follows the doctor finding himself in the castle where he
has a vision of himself being buried alive. After waking from
this vision, he succeeds in rescuing Giséle while the doctor is
able to get away. The old servant of the manor finds Gray's
Vampyr book and discovers the way to defeat a Vampyr is
with an iron bar through their heart. The servant meets Allan
Gray by Marguerite Chopin's grave behind the village Chapel.
They open the grave and find the old woman laying there and
begin to hammer a large metal bar through her heart, killing
her. The village doctor has found refuge in an old mill, but
finds himself locked in a chamber where flour sacks are
filled. The old servant arrives and activates the mill's
machinery, making the Vampyr's associate drown in the
flour that comes crashing from above. The curse of the
Vampyr is lifted when Léone recovers. Giséle and Gray cross
a foggy river outside by boat and find themselves in a brighter
clearing.

Carl Theodor Dreyer.

>>Cast:

Julian West as Allan Gray: A young wanderer whose studies of
devil worship have made him a dreamer. Gray's view of world
in the film is described as a blur of the real and unreal.

Rena Mandel as Giséle: The younger sister of Léone and the
daughter of the Lord of the Manor. Giséle is kidnapped by the
Village Doctor late in the film.

Sybille Schmitz as Léone: The older sister of Giséle, who is
bedridden and finds her strength growing less day by day.

Jan Hieronimko as the Village Doctor: An old man who is a pawn
of the the vampyr Marguerite Chopin. The village doctor kidnaps
Giséle late in the film.

Henriette Gérard as Marguerite Chopin: An elderly women who
commands her minions to make the people in the village commit
suicide which will send their souls to hell.

Maurice Schutz as the Lord of the Manor: The father of Giséle and
Léone who offers Gray a book vampirism to help Gray save his
daughters. After his death, a vision of the Lord of the Manor
appears to the village doctor at the mill.

Albert Bras as an Old Servant: A man who works for Lord of the
Manor. After the death of his master, he finds Gray's book on
vampirism and aids Gray in killing Marguerite Chopin in her
grave.

>Production:

>>Development:

Director Carl Theodor Dreyer began planning Vampyr in late 1929,
a year after the release of his previous film The Passion of Joan of
Arc. The production company behind Dreyer's previous film had
plans for Dreyer to make another film, but the project was dropped
which lead to Dreyer deciding to go outside the studio system to
make his next film. Being Dreyer's first sound film, it was made
under difficult circumstances as the arrival of sound put the
European film industry in turmoil. In France, film studios lagged
behind technologically with the first French sound films being shot
on sound stages in England. Dreyer went to England to study sound
film, where he got together with Danish writer Christen Jul who was
living in London at the time.[4] Dreyer decided to create a story
based on the supernatural and read over thirty mystery stories and
found a number of re-occurring elements including doors opening
mysteriously and door handles moving with no one knowing why.
Dreyer stated proudly that "We can jolly well make this stuff too".

VAMPYR Programme (Danish, 1933)
This is the original Danish programme from 1933 with art by
Erik Aaes (art director on Vampyr, Day Of Wrath, and Ordet).

In London and New York, the stage version Dracula had been a
large hit in 1927. Dreyer and Jul created a story based on vampires
which Dreyer considered to be "fashionable things at the time".

Vampyr is based on elements from J. Sheridan Le Fanu's In a Glass
Darkly, a collection of five stories first published in 1872. Dreyer
draws from two of the stories for Vampyr, one being Carmilla, a
vampire story with a lesbian subtext and the other being The
Room in the Dragon Volant about a live burial. Dreyer found it
difficult to decide on a title for the film. It may have initially been
titled Destiny and then Shadows of Hell. When the film was
presented in the film journal Close Up it was titled The Strange
Adventure of David Gray.

>>Pre-production:

Dreyer returned to France to begin casting and location scouting.
At the time in France, there was a small movement of artistic
independently financed films, including Luis Buñuel's L'Âge d'or
and Jean Cocteau's The Blood of a Poet which were both released
in 1930. Through Valentine Hugo, Dreyer met Nicolas de Gunzburg,
an aristocrat who agreed to finance Dreyer's next film in return for
playing the lead role in it. Gunzberg had arguments with his family
about becoming an actor, so he created the pseudonym Julian West,
a name that would be the same in all three languages that the film
was going to be shot in.

The village doctor suffocates under flour dropped from the mill
above. This scene was added to the script during the film's production
and was told to be toned down by German censors.

Most of the cast of in Vampyr were not professional actors. Jan
Hieronimko, who plays the village doctor, was found on a late night
metro train in Paris. When approached to act in the film, Hieronimko
stared blankly and did not reply. Hieronimko later contacted Dreyer's
crew and agreed to join the film. Many of the other non-professional
actors in the film were found in similar fashion in shops and cafes.

The only professional actors in the film were Maurice Schutz, who
plays the Lord of the Manor, and Sybille Schmitz, who plays his
daughter Léone. Many crew members of Vampyr had worked with
Dreyer on his previous film The Passion of Joan of Arc. Returning
crew members included cinematographer Rudolph Maté and art
director Hermann Warm.

The entire film was shot on actual locations with many scenes shot
in Courtempierre, France. Dreyer and his cinematographer
Rudolph Maté took part in scouting for locations for Vampyr.

Dreyer left most of his scouting to an assistant, who Dreyer
instructed to find "a factory in ruins, a chopped up phantom,
worthy of the imagination of Edgar Allan Poe. Somewhere in
Paris. We can't travel far". In the original script, the village
doctor was supposed to flee the village and get trapped in a
swamp. On looking for a suitable mire, the crew found a mill
where they saw white shadows around the windows and doors.
After seeing this place, they changed the film's ending to take
place at this mill where the doctor dies by suffocating under
the milled flour.

>>Filming:

Vampyr was filmed between 1930 and 1931. With everything
being shot on location, Dreyer believed it would be beneficial
by lending the dream-like ghost world of the film as well as
allowing them to save money by not having to rent studio space.

Dreyer originally wanted Vampyr to be a silent film, as it uses
many elements of the silent era such as the use of title cards to
explain the story. Dialogue in the film was kept to a minimum.
For the scenes with dialogue, the actors mouthed their lines in
French, German and English so their lip movements would
correspond to the voices that were going to be recorded in
post-production. There is no record of the English version
being completed. The scenes in the chateau were shot in April
and May 1930. The chateau also acted as housing where the
cast and crew lived for the filming period. Living in the chateau
was unpleasant for them as it was cold and infested with rats.
The church yard scenes were shot in August 1930. The church
was not an actual church, but a barn with a number of tombstones
placed around it. This set was designed by the art director
Hermann Warm.

Critic and writer Kim Newman described Vampyr's style as closer
to the experimental features such as Un chien andalou then a
"quickie horror films" made after the release of Dracula (1931).
Dreyer originally was going to film Vampyr in what he described
as a "heavy style" but changed direction after cinematographer
Maté showed him one shot that came out fuzzy and blurred. This
washed out look was an effect Dreyer desired, and had Maté shoot
the film through a piece of gauze held three feet (.9 m) away from
the camera to re-create this look. For other visuals in the film,
Dreyer found inspiration from the fine arts. Actress Rena Mandel,
who plays Gisèle, said that Dreyer showed her reproductions of
paintings of Francisco Goya during filming. In Denmark, a
journalist and friend of Dreyer, Henry Hellsen wrote in detail about
the film and the artworks it appeared to draw on. When being asked
about the intention of the film at the Berlin premiere, Dreyer
replied that he "had not any particular intention. I just wanted to
make a film different from all other films. I wanted, if you will, to
break new ground for the cinema. That is all. And do you think this
intention has succeeded? Yes, I have broken new ground". The filming
of Vampyr was completed the middle of 1931.

>>Post-production:

Allan Gray (Nicolas de Gunzburg) finds a coffin containing
himself in a dream sequence. Modern critics praise this
sequence as one of the most memorable sequences from Vampyr.

Dreyer shot and edited the film in France and then brought it to
Berlin where it was post-synchronized in both German and French.
Dreyer did the audio work at Universum Film AG, as they had the
best sound equipment available to him at the time. Most of the
actors did not dub their own voice. The only voices of the actors
that are their own in the film are of Schmitz and Gunzburg. The
sounds of dogs, parrots, and other animals in the film were fake
and were done by professional imitators. Wolfgang Zeller composed
the film's score and worked with Dreyer to develop the music.

There are differences between the German and French releases of
the film. The character Allan Grey is named David Gray for the
German release, which Dreyer attributed to a mistake. The German
censors ordered cuts to the film that still exist today in some prints.
The scenes which had to be toned down include the doctor's death
under the milled flour and the vampire's death from the stake. There
are other scenes that were shot and included in the script that do
not exist in any current prints of Vampyr. These scenes reveal the
vampire in the factory recoiling against a shadow of a Christian cross
as well as a ferryman guiding Gray and Gisèle by getting young
children to build a fire and sing a hymn to guide them back to the
shore.

Dreyer had prepared a Danish version of the film which was based
on the German version with Danish subtitles and title cards. The
distributor could not afford to have the title cards completed in
the manner they appear in the German version, which were instead
finished with a more simple style. The distributor also wanted to
make the pages in the book shown in the film as plain title cards
which Dreyer did not allow. Dreyer responded to this idea, saying
that "the old book is not an text in the ordinary sense, but an
actor. Just as much as the others."

Fonts: Wikipedia

Count Dracula (1970)

2010-01-07T13:58:00.000-08:00

Count Dracula (German: Nachts, wenn Dracula erwacht, At Night,
When Dracula Awakens) is a 1970 film, directed by Jesus Franco
and based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker.

Although Count Dracula stars Christopher Lee in the title role,
it is not a Hammer production like his other Dracula films, but
was produced by Harry Alan Towers. Klaus Kinski, who would
play Dracula himself nine years later in Nosferatu the Vampyre,
is also featured in the film. Count Dracula was advertised as
the most faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel. Among
other details, it was the first film version of the novel in which
Dracula begins as an old man and becomes younger as he feeds
upon fresh blood.

Count Dracula was released also in Italy as Il conte Dracula and
Spain as El Conde Drácula.

>>Cast:

-Christopher Lee as Count Dracula
-Herbert Lom as Professor Van Helsing
-Klaus Kinski as Renfield
-Soledad Miranda as Lucy Westenra
-Maria Rohm as Mina Murray
-Fred Williams as Jonathan Harker
-Paul Mueller as Dr. Seward
-Jack Taylor as Quincey Morrisin

>>Plot summary:

The film starts with a shot of Count Dracula's castle and the
following text

Over fifty years ago, Bram Stoker wrote the greatest of all horror
stories. Now, for the first time, we retell exactly as he wrote, one
of the first — and still the best — tales of the macabre.

Jonathan Harker, a lawyer traveling from London to Transylvania to
secure property for Count Dracula, arrives at Bistritz to stay for the
night. There, he is warned by a concerned lady against continuing
his journey the following day. Harker believes that her concerns are
rooted in peasant superstition. He ignores her, but starts to feel
increasingly unnerved by the way everyone looks at him. Harker
sets off for the rest of his journey and arrives at the Borgo Pass
where he's picked up by the Count, though Harker doesn't realise
that it's him until much later.

Harker debarks at Castle Dracula, and the coach immediately rushes
off. Somewhat hesitantly, Harker approaches the main door,
whereupon a thin, tall, gaunt old man opens it. Harker asks, "Count
Dracula?" "I am Dracula, enter freely and of your own will," says the
man at the door (this dialog is taken straight from Bram Stoker's
book). Another detail from the book that is ignored by most film
adaptions is that Dracula first appears as an old man with a
moustache and clad entirely in black. Dracula takes Harker to his
bedchamber where Harker notices that Dracula casts no reflection.
In the following scene, Harker dines and tells the Count of London,
including more dialogue taken directly from the book.

Later, Harker goes to sleep in the bedroom assigned to him, then a
jump in continuity places him in a basement room where he is
seduced by three beautiful vampiresses. An enraged Dracula rushes
into the room and orders them to leave Harker alone. Dracula
explains, "This man belongs to me," then gives the vampiresses a
baby to feed on.

Harker realises he's now a prisoner and climbs out of his bedroom
window and finds Count Dracula and his three brides in coffins.
Harker runs out of a window screaming.

Quincey Morris, Lucy's fiancée, joins Drs. Seward and Van Helsing.
They give her a blood transfusion from Quincey but it doesn't seem
that Van Helsing makes any effort other than this to save Lucy.
Dracula gets younger while feeding off Lucy. Of growing interest
to the men, though, is one of the patients at the lunatic asylum,
R. M. Renfield, who is classed as a zoophagus. He eats flies and
insects in order to consume their life, believing that with each life
he consumes he gains that life. He seems to act violently whenever
Dracula is around.

Lucy eventually dies while her men look on. Lucy, thanks to Van
Helsing's sudden knowledge of vampires, is diagnosed as one.
Lucy feeds off the blood of a child, killing one and the men
destroy her in her tomb. Harker comes around and joins the
group who then ascertain that Count Dracula is their vampire.

Dracula then turns his attention to Mina and Van Helsing suddenly
has a stroke and remains in a wheel chair.

Count Dracula returns to Transylvania and is trailed by Harker and
Quincey who catch up with him, then set fire to his coffin. At the
same time, Dracula is approaching Mina many miles away (he is
appearing in two places at once — a feat that is not explained in
any way). As his coffin burns, Dracula turns back into an old man
and burns to death.

>>Deviations from the novel:

The film has very few changes from the novel, but there are some
notable ones. This list is not exhaustive, but intended to convey a
sense of the differences between the film and the novel:

Quincey Morris is combined with Arthur Holmwood's character.

Harker spends time in an asylum, run by Van Helsing, and is
treated by John Seward.

Lucy and Mina spend much of the film at the asylum looking after
Harker.

Van Helsing suffers a stroke which causes him to be in a
wheel-chair for one scene.

Dracula can appear in two places at once.

Mina and Van Helsing do not accompany Harker and Morris to
Transylvania.

Harker and Morris set fire to Dracula in his coffin (in the novel,
Dracula is killed by being sheared "through the throat" with a
Knife and stabbed in the heart with a Bowie knife).

>>Critical reaction:

Brett Cullum of DVD Verdict wrote, "For curious Dracula fans,
Jess Franco's Count Dracula is a neat find. It's a stellar cast
working under a low budget, and it comes off entertaining if
not a classic. It's a B-movie treatment at best, but ... Lee
comes off fiery and committed to making this Count one that
will be noticed." Brian Lindsey of Eccentric Cinema wrote,
"Upon weighing [the film's] pros and cons, Count Dracula
emerges a substantially flawed film. But I can still recommend
it to any fan of Lee, Franco, Miranda, and even of Stoker's
novel." George R. Reis of DVD Drive-In wrote, "Count Dracula
is flawed in many ways, but for fans of gothic horror, it’s still
irresistible ... Barcelona naturally allows for some truly
handsome scenery and an appropriate castle for Dracula to
dwell in, and the performances of the international cast are
above average."

Shawn McLoughlin of DVD In My Pants wrote, "The production
values aren’t stellar, and the imagery is stolen right out of the
Hammer films, but all the actors bring their stuff to the table
and it all works out together in the end." Dave Sindelar of
Fantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings wrote, "All in all, this
is an acceptable movie (both as a Franco movie and as an
adaptation of the novel), but not a particularly great one on
either level." Dracula scholar Leslie S. Klinger said "the picture
begins well, closely following the Stoker narrative account of
Harker's encounter with Dracula. The film rapidly proceeds
into banality, however, and except for the characterization of
Lee as an older Dracula and the brilliant Kinski, the film is
largely forgettable."

Jesus Franco.

>>DVD releases:

Count Dracula was released on DVD in 2007 by Dark Sky Films.
Special features include an interview with director Jess Franco,
a reading of Bram Stoker's Dracula novel by Christopher Lee,
and a text essay on the life of actress Soledad Miranda. The
DVD has come under criticism for omitting the scene in which
a distraught mother pleads for her baby's life at the door of
Dracula's castle.

Fonts: Wikipedia

Son of Dracula (1943)

2010-01-05T04:23:00.000-08:00

Son of Dracula is an American horror film released in 1943.
It was directed by Robert Siodmak - his first film for Universal
studios - with a screenplay based on an original story by his
brother Curt. The film stars Lon Chaney, Jr. and his frequent
co-star Evelyn Ankers. Notably it is the first film where a
vampire turns into a bat on screen.

It is the third in Universal Studios' Dracula trilogy, beginning
with Dracula and Dracula's Daughter.

>>Plot:

Hungarian Count Alucard, a mysterious stranger, arrives in
the U.S. invited by Katherine Caldwell, one of the daughters
of New Orleans plantation owner Colonel Caldwell. Shortly
after his arrival, the Colonel dies and leaves his wealth to his
two daughters, with Claire receiving all the money and
Katherine his estate "Dark Oaks." Katherine, a woman with a
taste for the morbid, secretly begins dating Alucard and
eventually marries him, shunning her long-time boyfriend
Frank Stanley. Frank confronts the couple and tries to shoot
Alucard but the bullets go right through the Count's body
and hit Katherine, seemingly killing her.

A shocked Frank runs off to Professor Brewster, who visits
Dark Oaks and is welcomed by Alucard and a living Katherine.
The couple instruct him that henceforth they would be
devoting their days to scientific research and only welcome
visitors at night. Frank goes on to the police and confesses
to the murder of Katherine. Brewster tries to convince the
Sheriff that he saw Katherine alive and that she would be
away all day, but the Sheriff insists on searching Dark Oaks.
He finds Katherine's dead body and has her transferred to
the morgue.

Meanwhile, Hungarian Professor Lazlo arrives at Brewster's
house. Brewster has noticed that Alucard is Dracula spelled
backwards and Lazlo suspects vampirism. A boy bitten and
drained of blood confirms this suspicion. Later, the Count
appears to Brewster and Lazlo but is driven away by a cross.
Vampiric Katherine enters Frank's cell and explains that she
still loves him, that she married Alucard only to attain
immortality, and that she wants to share said immortality
with him. Frank is initially repulsed but then yields to her,
as she advises him on how to destroy Alucard. Frank breaks
out of prison, seeks out Alucard's hiding place and burns his
coffin thereby destroying him. Brewster, Lazlo, and the Sherif
arrive at the scene, only finding Alucard's remains. They then
go to Dark Oaks, where they find out that Frank has also set
Katherine on fire, destroying her.

>>Cast:

-Lon Chaney as Count Alucard
-Robert Paige as Frank Stanley
-Louise Allbritton as Katherine 'Kay' Caldwell
-Evelyn Ankers as Claire Caldwell
-Frank Craven as Professor Harry Brewster
-J. Edward Bromberg as Professor Lazlo
-Adeline De Walt Reynolds as Madame Queen Zimba
-Patrick Moriarity as Sheriff Dawes
-Etta McDaniel as Sarah, Brewster's Maid
-George Irving as Colonel Caldwell

>>Effects:

The film was the first to show on-screen the bat-to-man
transformation of a vampire. The effect was the work of
special-effects wizard, John P. Fulton, A.S.C. Fulton was
Universal's chief special-effects artist starting with 1933's
The Invisible Man. He won an Academy Award in 1957 for
his work on The Ten Commandments, most notably for his
work on the parting of the Red Sea.

>>Universal's Dracula series:

Son of Dracula is the third installment of Universal Studios'
Dracula trilogy, following Dracula (1931) and Dracula's
Daughter (1936).

Son of Dracula dates the original Count Dracula as being
destroyed in the 19th century, when the original novel was
set.

The following year, the Dracula-related series continued with
House of Frankenstein, which starred John Carradine as the
original Count Dracula. The famous arrival of Dracula's coffin
by train was reprised in the Abbott and Costello film Abbott
and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).

The identity of Count Alucard is never specified in the film.
Brewster and Lazlo speculate that he might be a descendant
of the original Dracula, congruent with the film's title. However,
throughout the film the vampire is referred to either as Alucard
or simply as Dracula.

This is the first Universal Dracula film to take the count out of
Europe and bring him to America.

Fonts: Wikipedia

Dracula: 75th Anniversary Edition (1931)

2010-01-03T12:31:00.000-08:00

To say Tod Browning's 1931 version of "Dracula" is a classic
movie is still an understatement. The word to put this movie
in its historic context has yet to be created. For 75 years now
the images and sounds of this particular movie have haunted
our dreams and inspired our imagination. Our collective
conscience has embraced this film and the images and themes
presented within, like no other movie since. Most fascinating,
no one involved in the production at the time had the slightest
idea the lasting impact the movie would have on Western
cultures.

"Dracula" tells the story of the vampire count (Bela Lugosi) from
Transylvania who is buying an estate in London to live in. Shortly
after his arrival overseas, strange deaths and cases of bloodloss
occur in the British suburbs, until one man realizes that only a
vampire could cause these deaths and make his victims rise
again from the grave. Dr. Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan) is
finally able to put his accumulated knowledge about vampires
to the test when he is forced to square off against Count Dracula,
in order to defeat him and the evil he spreads.

The story of this particular movie is only loosely based on Bram
Stoker's acclaimed novel of the same name. It is much more
related to the theater play "Dracula" by Hamilton Deane that was
highly successful in London and New York at the time. It used
themes from the novel but made the locations more compact to
accommodate the physical limitations and dramatic needs of a
theater production. This stage play has then been worked over
for the movie adaptation by John Balderston, who would soon
become one of Hollywood's most sought-after horror scribes
of the 1930s.

Bela Lugosi's portrayal of the vampiric Count Dracula in this
movie was the most remembered part he ever played.
Remembered so much in fact that it almost became a curse
for the actor, as he was hardly offered a diversity of roles after
his appearance in this film. He was type-cast and stuck in his
role until the end of his career, despite his many attempts to
break away from the horror genre and the personification of
vampires. The same unfortunately happened to actor Dwight
Frye, who is playing Renfield in this movie, a real estate agent
who turns into a madman after he's been touched upon by
Dracula's blood curse. His manic portrayal was so good that
for the rest of his career, the truly multi-facetted actor would
be stuck in the parts of madmen.

At the time when "Dracula" was produced, horror was not a
legitimate movie genre, at least not in the eyes of Hollywood's
major studios. Carl Laemmle Jr., the son of Universal's studio
owner Carl Laemmle, was fascinated with horror however and
convinced his father that a horror film could indeed be a
lucrative business. Not knowing how lucrative, he
single-handedly spawned an entire movie genre and the
post-silent era success story of the Universal Studios.

Universal Home Entertainment is re-releasing the film now in
a 2-disc Special Edition to celebrate its 75th Anniversary and
finally the studio has given the movie long-deserved treatment.
While in previous releases of the film the print has always been
extremely dark, here now, finally, we have a version that properly
restores the movie's look. Upon doing a side-by-side comparison
of the "Classic Monster Collection" version of the movie and this
new transfer it is simply stunning what details are suddenly
revealing themselves in the picture. All of a sudden you see water
trickling down the stairs in the catacombs where Dracula and his
brides first rise, something that was never evident before and
shrouded in blackness. The matte paintings now have a much
finer quality with nicer shades of gray and overall, the print is
exhibiting much less grain than ever before. Add to that a print
that is noticeably cleaner – though still filled with speckles – and
you have the best presentation of "Dracula" you will have ever
witnessed, finally putting it in league with the look of
"Frankenstein", which has always looked significantly better by
comparison.

The audio of the movie has also been cleaned up and comes as the
original mono track, free if distracting hiss or distortion. This time
around we also have two commentary tracks to supplement the
feature film. The first one is the marvelous track by David J. Skal
that was part of previous releases. Skal is, of course, a Tod
Browning specialist as well as the world's renown expert on all
things "Dracula." His commentary is highly valuable and insightful,
offering a lot of information about the myth of "Dracula", the
transition form the novel to the stage and finally to the screen. He
also extensively covers the cast & crew careers and always maintains
a good pace with his explanations, yet making sure to leave enough
time so viewers can enjoy some of the most memorable key scenes
of the movie.

The second commentary track is by Steve Haberman, a writer of
books on the subject of classic horror movies, as well as the
screenwriter of the Mel Brooks comedy "Dracula: Dead And Loving I
t." Haberman is also very knowledgeable on the subject matter and
offers additional insight into the movie, its history and legacy.

To complement these tracks the disc also contains a "Monster
Track," a pop-up subtitle track that reveals many aspects of the
making and history of the film in text form as you view the
feature.

Also included is Philip Glass' controversial score on a separate
language track. It has been performed by the Kronos Quartet, but
sadly the nasal frequency response of a chamber orchestra
instrumentation does not do justice to the movie at all. On top of it,
the composition lacks the dramaturgy of the movie and interferes
with the images more often than it actually supports them. The lack
of a true set of motives to complement the actions and characters
of the film gives the score an erratic and agitated feel that is sadly
counterproductive to the movie.

This first disc also contains David Skal's "Road To Dracula"
documentary that was part of the previous releases. Hosted by
Carla Laemmle, it is a skillful documentation of the relevance the
movie has played in movie history, and how the phenomenon
"Dracula" has permeated our culture since the time Bela Lugosi
first graced the screen. Also included is a new 35-minute
documentary called "Lugosi: The Dark Prince" shedding additional
light on Bela Lugosi's career and the effect "Dracula" had on his
future endeavors. It also discusses quite nicely why Lugosi was
so perfect for the part and that it was no accident that his
portrayal becomes so iconic that even 75 years later every
child and adult will immediately see his likeness in their mind's
eye when they think of the vampire count.

On the second disc of the release we find once again the Spanish
version of "Dracula," that was shot at exactly the same time on
the same sets as the American production. "Dracula" was produced
during a time when 'talkies' were still in their infancy, and as a
result language dubbing did not exist. To solve the language
problem, studios at the time decided to re-shoot entire movies
with a native cast, in this case starring Carlos Villarias as Dracula.
The film also used the exact same shooting script as Browning's
version, and yet, the differences are remarkable. Especially on this
DVD where you can actually compare the two films side by side, it
is astonishing how similar yet dissimilar these movies are. It is
obvious that the Spanish crew has had access to the footage the
Americans shot during the day and based their own approach on
these dailies, avoiding certain pitfalls Tod Browning could not
foresee - or didn't want to. As such, the Spanish version feels
much livelier and almost modern due to its more dramatic use
of the camera, but on the other hand has the problem that
Villarias just didn't make a great Dracula and was nowhere near
the caliber of a Bela Lugosi. It is also notable that this version
of the film runs about 30 minutes longer than the English version,
already indicating that much time is spend to establish mood and
atmosphere - almost too much at times.

In the past the Spanish version used to look much better than
Tod Browning's film, but no longer so. While the quality of the
Spanish version is still the same, the presentation of the English
version has finally elevated above that level of quality and detail.
Only one reel of the Spanish film shows some significant defects.
It is the reel David J. Skal discovered at the "Cinemateca de Cuba"
in 1989 that was taken from a worn dupe show print from the
50s. Unfortunately this is the only reel in existence since
universal's original negative had already fallen into nitrate
decomposition by the time the negative was rediscovered in
the 1970s.

This version of the film is introduced by Lupita Tovar, the female
star of the Spanish version, and she nicely points out the major
differences and the history of this version of the movie.

As another new feature the disc contains the 1998
feature-length documentary "Universal Horror" which traces the
history of Universal's classic monsters. It offers many interview
clips with historians, actors, family members and others related
to these films, trying to give a good overview over the magic that
these films wove over their audiences and how they became
lasting landmarks in cinema history.

The disc is nicely completed by a poster gallery that shows some
exciting and fabulously preserved images as well as the movie's
trailer.

All in all, the verdict is very easy. This 75th Anniversary Edition of
"Dracula" is the release fans have been waiting for. The fact that
Universal decided to put everything that is related to the movie on
this disc, beginning with the newly done score and exhaustive
commentary tracks, all the way to the full Spanish version and the
lengthy documentaries on the film's subject, is more than laudable.
This disc is a perfect example how DVD can make film lovers'
dreams come true, making all the material accessible to anyone
with the single push of a button on your remote control. In fact,
because this DVD improves dramatically on an already stellar
previous release and is so impressive in its completeness and
presentation that it deserves to be honored with our "Gold Seal
Of Excellence". Everything you ever wanted to know can be found
on this DVD - and then quite some more!

Fonts: DVD Review

The Return of the Vampire (1944)

2009-12-25T01:24:00.000-08:00

The Return of the Vampire is a 1944 film, released by Columbia
Pictures starring Béla Lugosi, Nina Foch, Frieda Inescort and
Miles Mander and Directed by Lew Landers.

>>Plot summary:

Armand Tesla, a former Romanian scientist who became a vampire
because of his obsession with the occult, moves to London. He has
a werewolf servant named Andréas (Matt Willis), and preys on one
family until he is staked in 1918. When his grave is disturbed by
Nazi bombs during World War II, gravediggers who have to rebury
the overturned graves decide not to bury Armand with the stake,
pulling it out. He then claws out of the ground.

He seeks out Andréas, who now, after being turned back by
Armand, has the power to change form at will, and sets out to
take revenge on the family that had staked him. In the end,
Andréas is shot trying to give Nikki (the doctor's daughter)
back to Armand.

The vampire tells the lycanthrope, "I no longer had need of you.
" After changing back, Andréas, who finds a cross buried in
corner of the church Armand has made a home, pulls it out
and starts forcing Armand up the stairs toward the sun.
A bomb dropped from a passing German bomber lands in the
church causing an explosion, destroying the building. Andréas
finishes the job by dragging Armand into the sun, finishing
Armand and releasing Nikki of Armand's spell. Then Andréas is
finally dead of his bullet wound, resting forever in peace.

This is one of only three films in which Bela Lugosi played a genuine
vampire, the other two being Dracula and Abbott and Costello Meet
Frankenstein. In Mark of the Vampire, Lugosi played a supposed
vampire who turns out to be a fake. In Old Mother Riley Meets the
Vampire, Lugosi played a mad scientist who has a delusion that he
is a vampire.

Actor Matt Willis as the werewolf had a completely different
portrayal than Lon Chaney's in Universal Studios' The Wolf Man.

>>Cast:

-Bela Lugosi...Armand Tesla / Dr. Hugo Bruckner
-Frieda Inescort ...Lady Jane Ainsley
-Nina Foch...Nicki Saunders
-Miles Mander...Sir Frederick Fleet
-Roland Varno...John Ainsley
-Matt Willis...Andreas Obry

Fonts:
Wikipedia
Imdb

Dracula 'Northern Ballet Theatre' (2005)

2009-12-19T23:58:00.000-08:00

At the opening night and Saturday night Dracula was danced by
regular guest Jimmy Orrante, with Keiko Amemori as Mina, Georgina
May as Lucy, Patrick Howell as Harker, Hiro Takahashi as Arthur
Holmwood and Darren Goldsmith as Dr John Seward. Sebastian Loe
was Renfield.

For the Saturday matinee, David Kierce was Dracula to Natalie
Leftwich’s Mina, Martha Leebolt’s Lucy. Tobias Batley was Harker
with Darren Goldsmith as Holmwood and Kenneth Tindall was
Seward. Patrick Howell was Renfield. Stephen Wheeler performed
Van Helsing at all the performances I saw.

The piece starts with a coffin coming up from the ground and
Dracula emerging naked and walking to the back of the stage.
The action then moves on to Harker and his trip across
Transylvania. I think the coach and horses are cleverly realised,
realistic and spooky. At the castle we see Dracula wanting to
drink the blood of Harker and wrestling with his feelings. He
then sees the photograph of Mina and enters Harker’s mind
to find out more. There is a tussle between Dracula and Harker
before the Brides arrive and Harker is bewitched by them.
Harker also sees Dracula crawling down the castle wall.
We then see Dracula heading off to England in his box of
sacred earth.

Meanwhile Lucy is torn between Holmwood and Seward,
eventually choosing Holmwood. Seward returns to his
sanatorium and is studying his case notes on Renfield,
who is caged.

Dracula sates himself with Lucy in a churchyard before her
engagement to Holmwood. He arrives at the engagement
party and sees Mina – Lucy is forgotten for the moment.
Lucy makes a show of herself and everyone dashes off stage
after her, leaving Dracula alone with Lucy until Harker appears.
He then goes back to Lucy, who subsequently seems to die
at the end of Act 1.

Act 1 is fairly slow moving and some of the changes between
scenes are a little slow and could detract from the flow of the
action. There is a real contrast between Dracula’s treatment of
Lucy and Mina – with Lucy he is wild and full of lust and with
Mina he is gentle and really seems to care for her. The set is
fairly stark but extremely effective.

In Act 2, the action really hots up. Van Helsing had been brought
in to try and help Lucy. At her funeral he sees her rise from the
grave after the others have left and he persuades the others that
she needs to be staked.

They then go and try to find Dracula, little realising that he has
gained access to Mina and that they are desperately attracted to
each other. The hunters return and Dracula flees. There is then
the race against time across Transylvania leading to the final
confrontation.

David Nixon has conceived this piece very much as a chamber
ballet, only using a corps in the engagement party. All the other
scenes use only the main characters. The work has a tense, almost
claustrophobic atmosphere.

I found all the pdd compelling and relevant and the pdd between
Mina and Dracula in Act 2 is just stunning – worth the entrance
money on its own! There is some good ensemble work for the
male protagonists.

Dracula wears a gloriously full cape that seems to take on a life
of its own and becomes a powerful bat motif. The mostly-fabulous
costumes were designed by the multi-talented David Nixon and Ali
Allen did the atmospherically minimalist set. My one niggle is the
trousers that Dracula wears – glam-rockers The Sweet came to mind!

The dancers really threw themselves into the performances. NBT
specialises in dancers who are strong actors and these performances
proved that. The good thing about seeing several performances and
different casts is being able to see the different interpretations of the
roles. For example, Georgina May was a very young and flirtatious
Lucy while Martha Leebolt came over as being more worldly in her
dealings with her suitors. Both abandoned themselves to Dracula
with a shocking degree of lasciviousness.

It was nice seeing the younger dancers getting their big chance.
Sebastian Loe was superb as the mad, bug-eating Renfield. I
overheard someone in the audience describing him as the new
Jeremy Kerridge – very high praise indeed and well-deserved.
Tobias Batley was really naïve and totally terrified by Dracula
as Harker. Darren Goldsmith is such an elegant dancer, really
on the top of his form, and it was good to see him performing
both Holmwood and Seward and bringing something different
to both of them.

Both Jimmy Orrante and David Kierce were marvellously sinister
at Dracula, both handling the enormous cape really well – making
it come alive.

Keiko Amemori was lithe and sinuous as Mina, with Natalie Leftwich
giving a more innocent performance.

Fonts:
Northern Ballet Theatre
Ballet Magazine

Dracula of Fernado Fernández (1982)

2009-12-08T00:13:00.000-08:00

Fernando Fernández (born 1940) is a Spanish comic book artist.

>>Biography:

Fernández was born in Barcelona, Spain in 1940. In 1956 Fernandez
joined the well known Spanish agency Selecciones Illustradas, at the
age of 16. From 1958 through 1964 Fernandez worked on war comics
(including Air Ace and War Picture Library) and romance comics
(including Valentine, Roxy and Marilyn) for British publishers. He
also paintedcovers for paperbacks and picture libraries like
Commando and Chiller. Fernandez left the comics industry for a
period of time in the 1960s, returning in 1970. He drew the strip
Mosca from 1970 to 1973.

Fernandez started working for Warren Publishing in 1973 due to his
connections with Selecciones Illustradas. Unlike many of the Spanish
artists from S.I., Fernandez both wrote and drew his stories. During
his period with Warren from 1973 to 1975 a total of 11 of these
stories were made, all of which were published in Vampirella (issues
28-32,35-6,40-3). The story Rendezvous (issue 35) was included in
a list of the top 25 Warren stories of all time in the book The Warren
Companion by author David A. Roach. Fernandez won a Warren
Award in 1975 for Best Artist/Writer on the story Goodbye My Love,
Goodbye (issue 41). An additional story written by Fernandez, but
drawn by Jose Miralles appeared in issue 57 of Vampirella in 1977.
Warren would later reprint three additional Fernandez stories
originally done in Spain in Eerie in 1978 (issue 94), 1980 (issue 117)
and 1981 (issue 118). After Warren, Fernandez worked on french
educational comics for Afha as well as the Cuando el Comic es Arte
series for Jose Toutain. He also worked on the series Circulos in
1979 and Zora y los Hibernautas in 1980, which would later be
reprinted in the U.S. in the magazine Heavy Metal. In 1982 he drew
the comic version of Bram Stoker's Dracula for the Spanish edition
of Creepy. He adapted Isaac Asimov stories in 1983 for the book
Firmado por: Isaac Asimov, and collaborated with Carlos Trillo to
create the medieval fantasy La Leyenda de las Cuatro Sombras for
Zona 84.

He would later adapt Asimov again with Lucky Star in 1989.
Fernandez eventually left the comics field in the 1990s to
focus exclusively on painting.

Fonts: Wikipedia

Drakula Istanbul´da (1953)

2009-12-03T09:19:00.000-08:00

CAPSULE: This has been a very rare film, but it seems to be
becoming more readily available. This is not a sequel to, but
a simplification of Bram Stoker's novel. It just replaces the
London backdrop with Istanbul and sets the story in the year
of its production, 1953. The film has some nice bits on a tight
budget, but turning the Mina character into an alluring stage
dancer somehow cheapens the story. Atif Kaptan makes what
seems a lack-luster Dracula, but perhaps if I knew Turkish it
might have been more impressive.

As someone who was interested early on in horror films and
not long after that in the long history of the horror film, I had
a large number of titles of films I wanted to see some day.
Most I was able to see as a teen or at least by my twenties.
But there are some lost horror films and some that are just too
obscure to ever find. I had considered the Edison version of
FRANKENSTEIN one such lost film, but I eventually got a chance
to see and review.

Nearly as rare was the Turkish version of Dracula, Mehmet
Muhtar's DRAKULA ISTANBUL'DA or DRACULA IN ISTANBUL.
This was a 1953 version--not a sequel--of the Bram Stoker
story. In this version Dracula comes to prey on Istanbul. At
first that change of setting seems strange, but NOSFERATU
and DRACULA (HORROR OF DRACULA) did bring Dracula to
Germany. This was only the third film version of the novel.
Actually Dracula was only one of several well-known figures
who were brought to Istanbul in Turkish films. There was
TARZAN IN ISTANBUL (1952), THE INVISIBLE MAN IN ISTANBUL
(1955), THE UFOS IN ISTANBUL (1955) (if a UFO can be
considered a well-known figure), and in 1967 there was the
Turkish FANTOMAS: APPOINTMENT IN ISTANBUL.

One might think that setting the latter part of DRACULA in
Istanbul would create a problem. Bram Stoker's Dracula is all
caught up in the Christian tradition. The vampire is repelled
by the cross, by holy wafers, and by holy water. Well, actually
the problems had already been worked out. In 1928 Ali Riza
Seyfi wrote a novel KAZIKLI VOYVODA (or VLAD THE IMPALER)
which was mostly just a translation of DRACULA, though the
action does not move to England but to Istanbul. Seyfi had
already worked out how much of the vampirism translated to
a mostly Muslim country. The holy wafers and holy water were
left out. Crosses became portable copies of the Koran which
repelled Dracula. Seyfi's intent was to play up Bram Stoker's
having Dracula the vampire be the still-living remains of Vlad
Tepes, also known as Vlad the Impaler. After all, whom did
the real historical figure Vlad impale? It was Turkish invaders
into his country. Turks have a special historical reason to
hate Dracula.

The film DRAKULA ISTANBUL'DA is based on both the Stoker
novel and the Seyfi novel. And because the two novels are so
similar, probably even Ümit Deniz, the writer of the film, did
not know what parts he was taking from either. The script is
really a much-shortened version of the story most people
know well.

After the film was released in 1953 it disappeared for many
years, as films frequently did in those days. It was just an
unavailable film that people like me wished to see but never
really expected to see. I thought it was a lost film like LONDON
AFTER MIDNIGHT. Apparently eventually it did make it to
Turkish television and eventually could be seen in various ways
in this country. I saw it under less than ideal conditions. It was
in Turkish without subtitles and the aspect ratio was wrong. I
do not know Turkish. But seeing this film is like seeing an opera
on the stage. I may not know exactly what is being said at each
instant, but I know the story well enough to have a rough idea
of what was going on.

Is this film an accurate film adaptation of DRACULA? Well,
NOSFERATU and the 1931 version of DRACULA did not set the
fidelity bar very high. DRAKULA ISTANBUL'DA was the most
accurate adaptation up to its time. Five years later Terence Fisher
would make DRACULA (United States title: HORROR OF DRACULA)
and I would say the two are on a par for closeness to the novel.
Neither was exactly right and each was much simplified. Still, this
book has never been really well adapted to cinema. I would say
the most accurate versions made to date were COUNT DRACULA,
the 1977 BBC/PBS version with Louis Jordan, and Francis Ford
Coppola's 1992 DRACULA, though each took liberties. Orson
Welles also did a fairly accurate radio version for the premiere
of his Mercury Theater radio program.
Go to http://www.mercurytheatre.info for all his Mercury Theater
programs online.

DRAKULA ISTANBUL'DA updates its story and moves the story to
Istanbul. That is two strikes against it. It also removes an entire
insane asylum, Dr. Seward, Renfield, and a host of other characters.
Mina is no longer the delicate flower of a girl she is in the book but
a somewhat sensual stage dancer. She is less innocent, so does not
create so much concern for her situation. There are two production
numbers showing her on the stage, one has her as a Latin hottie
and the other as a tastefully covered Turkish belly dancer. The
musical production numbers in a horror film may have been
inspired by THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1943).

There are little economies throughout the production. My wife
pointed out how many scenes had Jonathan Harker in one hallway
of Dracula's castle and how easy that made camera setups. (By the
way, the character names are all Turkish and nothing like what they
are in the novel with the exception of Drakula. For example Mina
becomes Guzin. To save explaining I will use the names of their
antecedents in the novel.) Dracula has only one bride and one
servant. The latter is of dubious loyalty and seems more
sympathetic to Harker than to Dracula.

The score has odd touches including at bit of "April in Paris." The
composer, whoever he is, seems to be frequently at cross- purposes
with the director. Times when the film should be creating an aura of
fear, instead the score has an air that is light and comical.

Visually the film is a mixed bag. Clearly it was made on a low
budget. But it has atmosphere. The credit sequences take a cue
from what might be Universal horror films. The American studio
would frequently some touch like smoke congealing into the letters
of the opening titles. For this film the opening credits seem to roll
out like a scroll on invisible paper across the screen. Dracula has
sleeping gas piped to some of the rooms of his castle and in one
room is comes out like smoke from the eyes of a painting creating
a bizarre image. Staking scenes take place with most of the gory
action off camera. Dracula's castle, really an unconvincing drawing,
is wrong for eastern European castles. I think of them as having
conical turrets like Castle Bran does in Transylvania. The castle
we see in the film has open turrets like we would expect to see
in a King Arthur movie (or on the sorts of castles built by the
Crusaders in Turkey).

Mina does not look particularly Turkish and she is played by Annie
Ball, which does not sound like a Turkish name. Nevertheless
Ms. Ball seems to have made a career in Turkish films. Atif Kaptan
who plays Dracula apparently had appeared in other macabre roles.
He is a slight letdown as the King of Vampires. It might have been
different if I could understand what he was saying, but he just
looks like a distinguished gray- haired gentleman without
particularly striking looks. Dracula appears to have fangs that
grow when he needs to use them. It has been claimed that this
was the first film to put fangs on a vampire. Not true. NOSFERATU
had fangs, but they were two front teeth and not retractable. One
effect that does not work well any more is that Dracula appears in
a flash. Basically it is the effect that goes back to George Melies
of just stopping the camera, having the character walk into its
view, and start filming again. There is a nice scene of Dracula's
face when he is in the form of a bat.

In a sequence taken from Bram Stoker, Dracula crawls down the
wall of his castle, a disquieting scene. COUNT DRACULA (1977)
usually gets credit for having shown this sequence for the first
time. However, it appears earlier both in this film and in SCARS OF
DRACULA (1970). The film plays up his bat-like characteristics.
As a human he wears a cape that gives him a bat-like look.
Dracula can transform into a bat, but for some reason he does not
toward the end when he is being chased on foot. This mistake leads
to his downfall. The age-old vampire is something of an esthete and
he hypnotizes Mina to have her dance for him. Also unorthodox for
portrayals of Dracula is that when he wants to disable an opponent
and just socks him. I suppose Buffy vampires kickbox, but for some
reason I just do not think of Dracula as ever having to deliver a
roundhouse punch.

I decline to rate the film since I feel only somebody who knows
what the actors are saying should have that privilege. Overall, I
did not care for the updating. But I was willing to overlook most
of the film's other weaknesses. It had enough strengths to make
watching it, even under poor condition, a real pleasure. I hope
that now that the film has been re-discovered that some
entrepreneur will decide it is worth subtitling and putting on
DVD. Was it worth the wait to find this film? Well, probably not.
But now that it is becoming available it is worth seeking out.

Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Copyright 2007 Mark R. Leeper

Fonts: Mark R. Leeper

PAUL NASCHY´S DEAD

2009-12-01T12:03:00.000-08:00

Paul Naschy (born Jacinto Molina, September 6, 1934,
Madrid – December 1, 2009, Madrid) was a Spanish
movie actor, screenwriter, and director working primarily
in horror films. His portrayal of numerous classic horror
figures—the wolfman, a hunchback, Count Dracula, a
mummy—have earned him recognition as a Spanish Lon
Chaney. King Juan Carlos I presented Naschy with Spain's
Gold Medal Award for Fine Arts in 2001 in honor of his work.

"Una estrella s´enfonsa en un mar d´art"
"Una estrella se hunde en un mar de arte"
"A star is sinking in a sea of art"

The Boris Karloff Blogathon: Day Seven

2009-11-28T21:28:00.000-08:00

The end of the Boris Karloff Blogathon.

BORIS KARLOFF BLOGATHON
SCHEDULED PARTICIPANTS:

Acidemic
An Actor's Notebook
Andrew's Weekly Musings
Another Old Movie Blog
Apocalypse Later
Arbogast on Film
Badabing!
Baking with Medusa
Basement Screams
Behind the Couch
Black Hole DVD Reviews
Blogue Macabre
Branded in the 80's
Caffeinated Joe
Caftan Woman
Cavalcade of Awesome
Cinema Styles
Cinematografo dei trash
Classic-Horror.com
Contingencies
Cool-Mo-Dee
Daedalus Howell
Day of the Woman
Deadlicious
Deadly Movies
Detours
Dollar Bin Horror
Draculand
Dravens Tales from the Crypt
El inconsistente
Fear Fragments
Fernando Rojas on Twitter
Film of the Year
Flickhead
Gary's Goods
Greenbriar Picture Shows
Halloween Shindig 1965
Hammer and Beyond
Heart in a Jar
Hunting Monsters
Iain Maynard
Igloo of the Uncanny
John Rozum
John's Forbidden Planet
Kirdoodle
L.S.D. - Letras Sin Desperdicio
Lost Eyeways
Love Train for the Tenebrous Empire
Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies
Magia Posthuma
Martin Powell
Men's Adventure Magazines
Monster Crazy
Monster Land
Mother Firefly's Faster Pussycats
MovieFanFare
My Illustrative Life
My Two Yen Worth
MyBriefs.com
Need Coffee dot com
No More Ghostly Games
Obscure Hollow
Oklahoma Film Critics Circle
Only the Cinema
Orange and Black
Ormsby's Cinema Insane Blog
Panic on the 4th of July
Para Abnormal
Peeping Tom
Periodic Circumspection
Poe Forward's Poe Blog
Popcorn Monster
Psychobabble
Radiation-Scared Reviews
Rattigan Writes
Raven Faes Creations
Realm of Ryan
Reanimated Rags
Rob Kelly Illustration
Roque Madrid
Scaglie
Scared Silly
Screamstress
Shades of Grey
Shadowplay
Six Shooter
Skræk og Rædsel
Sleaze Blender
Teaessare Illustration and Design
Tedwrd
The Amazing Movie Show
The Boris Karloff Collection
The Captain's Ramblings
The Cathode Ray Mission
The Drunken Severed Head
The Futurist
The Groovy Age of Horror
The Horrors of It All
The House that Dripped Blog
The Kind of Face You Hate
The Ladies and Gents Auxiliary
The Lightning Bug's Lair
The Paradise of Horror
The Roads of Autumn Dusk
The Sci-Fi Block
The Vault of Horror
The Zed Word
Things That Don't Suck
This Guy Over Here
Thrilling Days of Yesteryear
Vade retro me satana
Weird Hollow
Who Killed Orrin Grey?
Woopitydooart
Wouldn't You Like To See Something Strange?
Writer By Night
You're Only As Good As Your Last Picture
Zombos Closet of Horror

THE BORIS KARLOFF BLOGATHON: Day Seven

Fonts: Frankensteinia

The Boris Karloff Blogathon: Day Six

2009-11-27T22:07:00.000-08:00

Boris Karloff "An Evening With Boris Karloff And His Friends" (1967).

A cool merging of monster talent here; Forrest J. Ackerman
writes a script that Boris Karloff reads with Verne Langdon
& Milt Larsen producing! This LP is a collection of synopses
for the classic Universal films that Karloff figured in so
largely, and mixed in with his narration are sound bites and
musical cues from "Dracula", "Frankenstein", "The Mummy",
"The Bride of Frankenstein", "The Son of Frankenstein", "The
Wolf Man", and "The House of Frankenstein"; all of which must've
blown the collective minds of monster kids dwelling in the
pre-video-on-demand days of 1967. Forrest J. Ackerman's
script (famously written in one sitting) does a nice job of
stitching together all the parts, and while the whole thing
only lasts about 24 minutes it manages to give an appropriately
grand sense of status to the initial Universal horror cycle that
was then still setting the tone for most monster entertainment.

Download the File Now! Click Here.

Boris Karloff "Tales Of Mystery And Imagination".

I've had several requests for this one. Seen in many different
versions, this particular LP was from Pickwick International in
1977. The Script is by Sid & Helen Frank. Music by Frank & Judy
Stein. Arranged and produced by Ralph Stein. The sound effects
were done by Myst-A-Rama / Cricketone Chorus And Orchestra.

HERE'S THE OTHER "CRICKET RECORDS" VERSION:

Listen to the archive or Download it! Click Here.

THE BORIS KARLOFF BLOGATHON: Day Six.

Fonts:
Mostly Ghostly Music Sharing Blaaaggghhh
Scar Stuff
Frankensteinia

The Boris Karloff Blogathon: Day Five

2009-11-26T20:42:00.000-08:00

Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff.

The Expanded Story of a Haunting Collaboration,
with a Complete Filmography of Their Films Together.

Contributors: Gregory William Mank (author)
Format: Hardback, 254 x 178mm , 701 pp, ca. 250 photos
(12 in colour), notes, bibliography, index
Publication date: 15 Aug 2009
Publisher: McFarland & Co Inc
ISBN-10: 0786434805
EAN: 9780786434800

"Dracula" and "Frankenstein's Monster" are horror cinema
icons, and the actors most deeply associated with the two
roles also shared a creative friendship. Bela Lugosi and Boris
Karloff starred in dozens of black-and-white horror films, and
over the years managed to collaborate on and co-star in eight
movies. Through dozens of interviews and archival research, this
book examines the Golden Age of Hollywood, the era in which
both stars worked, recreates the shooting of Lugosi and Karloff's
mutual films, examines their odd and moving personal relationship
and analyzes their ongoing legacies. Features include a fully
detailed filmography of the eight Karloff and Lugosi films, color
inserts of the eight movie posters, and more than 250 photographs.

>>Reviews:

"Meticulously researched (Mank has been writing on the subject of
classic horror for years and was able to interview many of the people
behind those movies of the 1930s and 1940s in the late 1980s, when
there were many more still around), and entertainingly written, this
book will stand as the final word on both actors....Mank’s book is the
best example of its type. "--Total SciFi Online

"This is an incredible book. I can barely scratch the surface of the
information and secrets that Mank has uncovered. Suffice to say that
this book is the one book you must own if you are a fan of Lugosi and
Karloff. "--Fangoria

"The Mank book, which he calls an "obsession" since his first
interviews with Lugosi's ex-wife in 1974, is meticulously researched
and more than 300 pages longer than the original. It grandly paints a
portrait of the two stars and the spooky past of Universal, Hollywood's
top scare studio of the 1930s and 1940s."--USA Today

“Explores the truths behind the mysterious Karloff and the enigmatic
Lugosi...brings to life the compelling and complicated saga of the
horror kings...add this to your shelf”—Library Journal

“Excellent...well-written and well-researched. If Mank is behind it,
you know it will be good”—Mania

>>Author Biography:

Gregory William Mank, a Delta, Pennsylvania, English teacher, has
acted in nearly 100 stage productions. He has written numerous
books on classic horror films.

THE BORIS KARLOFF BLOGATHON: Day Five

Fonts:
Gregory Mank
McFarland
Frankensteinia

The Boris Karloff Blogathon: Day Four

2009-11-25T22:59:00.000-08:00

THE FOUR "LOST" FILMS OF BORIS KARLOFF

No one can deny that Boris Karloff was a master villain, but even
the best of actors wasn´t immune to the whims of sriptwriters.
In the 40´s when studios were churning out scripts, mad
writers often threw logic out the windows and came up with some
really freaked out plots. For example take "THE MAN THEY COULD
NOT HANG", well actually they did hang him, but his assistant
brought him back to life with an artificial heart. In "THE MAN
WITH NINE LIVES" he discovered that freezing people can cure
cancer. "BEFORE I HANG" had him discovering that blood cells
carry "the very essence of our behavior". Unfortunately he injects
himself with the blood of a murderer. Go on, guess waht happens.

The four Mexican films he made at the end of his career were
no exception to far out ideas. "THE FEAR CHAMBER", the movie
I´m here to talk about this issue, is the most outrageous of the
four. Of course, it was written by Jack Hill, who also wrote "SPIDER
BABY, SWITCHBLADE SISTERS", and "BLOOD BATH", admittedly
some of the most wahcked out plots of all time, so Boris was really
doing the best he could with the material he was given. Okay crew,
leave your disbelief at the door and fasten your seat belts. This ride
is gonna get bumpy!.

A scientist (Boris Karloff) and his assistants (Julissa and Carlos
[Charles] East) are able to pull a piece of stone from an active
volcano. What makes this rock so radical is --now get this--
it´s alive, and by hooking it up to a computer they are able to
communicate with it! The talkative mineral promises to tell the
scientists where huge deposits of gold and diamond are located
if, and here´s the first plot twist, they will provide it with what
it needs to live: human glandular secretions. The gland juice
must be taken from people at the moment of extreme fear to
provide the best nourishment. Is this a totally radical idea or
what? So what do Boris and company do when they hear this?
Do they toss the rock back into the volcano and forget the
whole thing? Do they tell the rock what it´s asking is too
much? No! They all go right to work and build a torture
chamber in the basement! Is that awesome? There´s even
more. To get victims they advertise at an employment
agency for live-in housekeepers. Once thay lure tham to the
mansion thay use the fear chamber on them. With lights,
mirrors, rubber tentacles and Boris himself hamming it up
in a black robe faking a human sacrifice, they scare the
women to a point where their glands produce enough fluid
to keep the rock not only alive, but growing!.

Boris is not the well intentioned but misguided scientist he was
back in the Columbia Pictures "Mad Doctor" series in the 40´s;
he´s totally up the wall here. In once scene he describes how a
soon-to-be victim has a fear of maggots and slugs and says
"Imagine how she´ll feel to wake up and find herself covered with
them." What a relief this scene wasn´t shown, yuck, what a total
gross out!.

Now like the plot is not rad enought to carry the film for the rest
of the running time, get this; a thief breaks into the lab. The rock
knows its personal space is being violated and evolves a tentacle
to pull the female crook to her death. Upon discovering her corpse
and finding out she planned to rob the house Julissa remarks "It´s
not murder, it´s justice." Boris, showing a small spark of humanity
at last, replies "No, it´s murder as surely as if we´d killed her
ourselves." I guess scaring people out of their skins is okay but
killing them isn´t. Anyway, Boris tries to destroy the computer but
collapses from illness. His assistants put him to bed, tha´s about it
for Boris in this picture.

In order for the plot to keep going we have to lose the cast members
who showed any decency. Carlos and Julissa decide they want to go
off and get married, Boris is in his room sedated, this leaves lab
assistants Isela Vega and Verye Beirute, both of whom are deeply
into a heavy grreed trip. They lure victims to the house and bypass
the fear chamber, taking them right to the rock so it can kill them.
Members of the house also become victims. A turbaned swami
who was in the house for no reason I could figure out is stabbed
by Beirute and a mute dwarf (Santanon) is also killed. Carlos and
Julissa return just as Beirute gets way too greedy and kills Senorita
Vega. Beirute knocks Carlos down and declares, "I´m gonna be king
of the world!" (He pronunces it 'kink', and if you think about how
absolutely bizarre this film is maybe he´s right.) and stomps off
toward the volcano.

Boris finally gets out of bed and figures a way to get rid of the
yakety rock. Boris figures that if thay feed the information thay´ve
glommed from the stone to shrink back to its original size. Now
does that rank as the dumbest plot solution you´ve ever heard
or waht? Well, dumb as it sounds the idea works and the rock not
only shrinks but goes dormant again. Oh, and what about Senor
Beirute? Well, the ending of the film is pretty badly edited but you
get the idea that he went scrambling around the inside of the
volcano and falls into the molten lava. Oh well, he was a gorss
character anyway, serves him right.

"FEAR CHAMBER" has plot holes in it that you can ride a horse
through at full gallop. The living rock is millions of years old
but it says it need human pheramones to live. What did it live
on before humans came along? How did it survive buried in
Earth? If it has to be linked to a computer to talk, how does it
communicate with its own kind? How does it know that humans
value gold and diamonds enought to tell us where to find them
and why does it want to help a species so alien from its own?
And why, oh why does that soooo very dumb idea to make the
rock shrink actually work? So, like what did you expect from the
man who wrote "SPIDER BABY"? Oh puh-leeze!

Of all the four Mexican Karloff´s, "FEAR CHAMBER" is the most
deserving of its R rating. There´s one or two scenes that I can´t
even describe in a family magazine like this; but Boris isn´t in
them so don´t freak. Perfomances are way over the top from
everyone except for Boris Karloff, who only overdoes it in the
fear chamber scene and that´s because he´s supposed to.
Verye Beirute shows how he become Mexico´s best brute
villain, and Isela Vega is real...uh...well I can´t say the word in
this magazine, but it rhymes with 'witch'.

"FEAR CHAMBER" was clipped of 5 minutes in the MPI home video
but is complete from Sinister Cinema.

THE BORIS KARLOFF BLOGATHON: Day Four

Fonts:
Scary Monsters Magazine
Frankensteinia

The Boris Karloff Blogathon: Day Three

2009-11-24T23:59:00.000-08:00

Boris Karloff with daughter Sarah Karloff aired august 26, 2007.

“Sure, I remember Boris Karloff. He was the monster in
Frankenstein.”

Well, yes, but what about Scarface, one of the finest gangster
films ever made, directed by Howard Hawks … and The Old Dark
House, the granddaddy of all haunted house thrillers, directed by
James Whale … and The Lost Patrol, the template for all the lost
patrol films which followed, directed by John Ford? Not bad, not
bad at all.

“Boris Karloff, he was in that horror flick, Frankenstein, right?”

For sure, for sure. But if it’s Karloff and horror, let’s not stop
there. How about 1934’s The Black Cat, a wicked little gem which
teamed Karloff and Bela Lugosi for the first time? Or 1935’s The
Black Room, another nasty gem in which Karloff plays twins, one
good and the other evil (and is he ever!)? Or The Raven, from 1935?
Another Karloff/Lugosi delicious little horror thriller. These three
solid thrillers work surprisingly well even today, 70 plus years after
their releases.

“Boris Karloff, Boris Karloff? Wasn’t he in Frankenstein? Played the
monster, I think.”

Certainly did, more than once. In addition to Frankenstein, he also
played the monster in both Bride Of Frankenstein (1935) and Son Of
Frankenstein (1939). In fact, there are those who say that his
performance as the monster in Bride is the best of his career.

“I know who Boris Karloff was, he had the screws in his forehead, in
that monster flick, Frankenstein.”

Sure did. But the screws were inside his head – and definitely not
screwed too tight – in such enduring dark horror classics as The Body
Snatcher ('45), Isle Of The Dead ('45) and Bedlam ('46). All three are
Val Lewton productions, and each serves as a solid example of
Lewton’s estimable work.
 
“Karloff, he was always the same, wasn’t he? The Frankenstein
monster.” 

Don’t tell that to Danny Kaye, who played opposite Karloff in The
Secret Life Of Walter Mitty; nor to Gary Cooper, who played opposite
Karloff in DeMille’s Unconquered, both in 1947. Not a monster in
sight, just a very, very fine actor named Boris Karloff.

Or tell that to Broadway theatergoers, who caught Karloff in Arsenic
And Old Lace and Peter Pan opposite Mary Martin and The Lark
opposite Julie Harris.

Or mention it to television viewers who caught Karloff’s Uncle Vanya
on Masterpiece Playhouse, or his title role in Don Quixote or his King
Arthur in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court or his turn as
Father Knickerbocker in The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow.

“Karloff, Karloff? Why do I know the name. …? Oh, yeah, oh, yeah,
he was the monster in all those Frankenstein movies.”

This Sunday night, at 8 pm ET, Sarah Karloff, daughter of Boris
Karloff, discusses her father’s fascinating career on ICONS Radio
Hour with Stephen Bogart and John Mulholland. Ms. Karloff offers
first-hand anecdotes about her father’s approach to acting and,
especially revealing, his feelings about his career in horror films.

Interview Click Here.

Fonts: Icons Radio Hour

The Boris Karloff Blogathon: Day Two

2009-11-24T01:44:00.000-08:00

– David K. Frasier, Reference Librarian.

Boris Karloff (born William Henry Pratt on November 23,
1887 in Camberwell, London) was a 44-year-old journeyman
actor when director James Whale, unable to convince Bela Lugosi
to accept the role, cast the mild-mannered Englishman as “the
Monster” in the 1931 Universal horror film, Frankenstein. The
actor’s sensitive portrayal of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s
creature made him an immediate star, but forever typecast him
in increasingly low-budget horror and science fiction films from
the 1930s to the late 1960s. In 1966, the veteran actor who had
made some of the most notable genre films in the history of
motion pictures (Bride of Frankenstein, 1935; The Body Snatcher,
1945) had been reduced to appearing in cheapie productions like
The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, although that same year he had
done the winning narration for the now-classic animated television
production of Dr. Seuss’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”

In 1968, 29-year-old film critic turned director Peter Bogdanovich
gave Karloff his last memorable screen role as aging horror movie
star, “Byron Orlok,” in Targets. Bogdanovich’s directorial debut
(which he also produced, co-wrote, and edited) was inspired by
ex-Marine Charles Whitman’s deadly 96 minute rampage on the
campus of University of Texas-Austin on August 1, 1966. Hours
after murdering his mother and wife in separate incidents, Whitman
amassed a small arsenal of high-powered rifles, and positioning
himself atop the university’s Tower, killed 13, and wounded 31
before being shot to death by a campus security guard. In a more
sedate scene from Targets featured on YouTube.

Bogdanovich (seated on couch) convinces Karloff to retell
W. Somerset Maugham’s short piece, “Appointment in Samarra”
(1933). Karloff died on February 2, 1969, but not before footage
taken of him in late 1968 was added to four low-budget films
shot in Mexico: Cult of the Dead, Alien Terror, House of Evil, and
The Fear Chamber.

The Bogdanovich mss, purchased from the filmmaker in 1995 and
periodically supplemented, is housed in the Auxiliary Library Facility
(ALF). Materials must be requested in advance for use in the Lilly
Library by using the Bogdanovich mss. collection description and
inventory in conjunction with IUCAT. Among the collection’s more
than 100,000 items are production materials, research, related
business correspondence, and scripts for his films including Targets
(1968), The Last Picture Show (1971), Directed by John Ford (1971),
Paper Moon (1973), Daisy Miller (1974), Saint Jack (1979), Mask
(1985), et al. Also included are reel-to-reel audiotapes of interviews
conducted by Bogdanovich with directors George Cukor, John Ford,
Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, Sidney Lumet, Otto Preminger, Raoul
Walsh, and Orson Welles. The accompanying photos feature a unique
item from the collection: a 3-pound hand painted fiberglass casting
of Karloff’s bust by veteran Hollywood make-up man and F/X sculptor
Norman Bryn commercially available through Classic Creature Craft, LLC.

Fonts:
LILLY LIBRARY NEWS & NOTES
Frankensteinia

Boris Karloff Blogathon

2009-11-22T22:07:00.000-08:00

Let's take a journey through the art of 10 illustrators who
we show their vision of this great genius that is Boris Karloff
or Frankenstein Monster.

Gregory P. Rodriguez

Wynn Ryder

Juarez Ricci

Alicechan

David Hartman

Lucas Soriano

Chris Bones

Cuson

Brett Parson

Goldilocks Larson

Happy Birthday "Maestro".

Today begins the Blogathon Boris Karloff, conducted by Pierre
Fournier of Frankensteinia. Going through his website and take
a look at the message Sara Karloff has left the participants of the
Blogathon.

Dracula by Tha (2009)

2009-11-21T07:22:00.000-08:00

Tha career began in his early life in 1970 in the children's
magazine Patufet "by Bruguera where there happens to be
responsible for inking the pencils of unforgettable designers
and Ibáñez, Raf (Sir Tim O´Theo), Escobar (Zipi y Zape) o
Martz-Schmidt (El Profesor Cataplasma).

Five years later began working in the TBO, where he does
graphic work in addition to their own pages. It is also
responsible for keeping the pages of the TBO to censorship,
to receive the approval of the censor or his instructions on
what to tweak (it was another era, but even today kidnapped
magazines!).

In the TBO meets Paco Mir (yes, the Tricicle) and Sirvent, with
whom they later would create the page weekly "On Wednesday,
the market" in the magazine El Jueves.

August Tharrats (Tha).

By that time already begun to develop the aspect of Tha as a
musician. In 1981 he also began to work alone on Thursday,
where in the course of 18 he published the series "XXI Cycle"
"What People" and "Absurdus Delirium. The collaboration ended
(inexplicably, at least for the writer) but a week later Tha receives
a call from the DreamWorks who intend to work in the display
of characters, including film "Spirit". Subsequently published in
the journal Cimoc Editorial Standard Series "War of the Gods"
Andreu scripted by novelist Martin.

Tha Recent work are closely linked with the artwork: a series of
3 drawings to one disk of "Ojos de Brujo" and especially the
wonderful illustrations she has done to illustrate the youth version
2 classics: "Frankenstein" and "Dracula" published by La Galera on
his label "Petits Universals", examples of which adorn the text.

As a jazz musician, captaining his trio, August Tharrats has released
3 albums: Bluetime (1995), Grand Hotel Havana (1997) and NonStop
(2003), which lead us to the piano boogie-woogie blues via pop.
This master of the brush and keyboard will delight us with their
music, their presence and bonhomie. And we, excited.

Fonts:
Escola Joso
Tha - MySpace

Boris Karloff Blogathon

2009-11-18T04:44:00.000-08:00

The 2009 Boris Karloff Blogathon is set to begin on November 23rd!

Blogs all over the world will be posting about the life and art of one
of filmdom's most famous fiends, Boris Karloff. So far over 100 blogs
have signed up – click here to see a complete list of participating
blogs at the Frankensteinia site.

Beginning on November 23 — Karloff’s 122nd birthday — and on
through the 29th, bloggers far and wide are invited to post something
about Boris, his life and his wide-ranging career.

There is much to explore… His film work spanned five decades. He
clocked some 75 films through the silent era before he landed and
nailed the iconic part of The Monster in Frankenstein, a film that is
almost 80 years old and still seen and admired. The sequel, The Bride
of Frankenstein, is a motion picture classic. In his path through the
history of horror films, Karloff collaborated with James Whale, Val
Lewton, Mario Bava and Roger Corman. He proved equally at ease in
all genres, including comedies.

Away from films, Boris Karloff became a Broadway star with Arsenic
and Old Lace, The Lark and he was Captain Hook in Peter Pan.

He enjoyed a successful radio career and he was one of the first
Hollywood actors to embrace television, appearing in live drama,
in his own series — notably Colonel March of Scotland Yard and
Thriller — and as a frequent and popular guest on talk and variety
shows. He was the model and the Grammy Award-winning voice
of The Grinch. He made numerous spoken word records, reading
fairy tales to children and, in print, he lent his name to horror and
mystery anthologies and a line of comic books.

In real life, Boris Karloff was a gentleman, a cricket fan and a brave
founding member of the Screen Actor's Guild.

It’s been forty years since Boris Karloff passed away, yet his star
shines as bright as ever. This November 23, bloggers will come
together and share film reviews, profiles, images, thoughts and
remembrances and, I am sure, surprises. I, as a reader, am looking
forward to it.

Fonts:
Frankensteinia
Scared Silly

Le Viol du Vampire (1968)

2009-11-16T10:16:00.000-08:00

A bewildering fantastique film that showcases all of Rollin's
peculiarities that make some viewers hate his work and
others swear by it. In the good corner, we can marvel at his
superb eye for composition, his ability to invoke a strange,
semi-delirious gothic feel, his choppy editing that makes
the logical discontinuity in the narrative work, his strange
taste in music that somehow manages to carry even the
oddest scenes. In the bad corner, we have hammy acting,
over-the-top dialogue, inane sensibilities, and an
adolescent penchant for undressing women under just
about any circumstances one can imagine. Oh wait, move
that last one to the good corner.

The Rape of the Vampire is Rollin's first full-length feature
and it was based on his short film which now appears as the
first segment in this self-conscious melodrama. The story
goes that the producer was so impressed with that short that
Rollin apparently filmed on lunch money that he financed
expanding it into a real film. The result still carries the
stigmata origins although I am not sure whether this is a
good or a bad thing. As it is, the first segment is by far the
stronger one both because it does not attempt to make much
sense of what's going on, and because it succeeds in creating
this dream-like mood that works best with the subject matter.

And what is this subject matter? Well, there are four sisters
who live together in a ruined château. They may or may not be
vampires although they certainly think they are. One of them
thinks she was raped by villagers decades ago (and we see what
could be interpreted as either flashbacks or extemporaneous
visualization of their alleged past) and she is blind. Another is
afraid of sunlight, and all react violently to crucifixions. They are
all manipulated by a sinister old man who alternates between
admonishing them to kill newcomers that threaten their exposure
and groping their naked breasts. In addition, the four seem to
worship a bestial idol in the forest who speaks to them with a
disembodied voice.

The newcomers are three Parisians who have come to the
countryside to investigate the four sisters. They do not believe
in vampires. Thomas is a psychoanalyst who is determined to
free the poor creatures from their madness which he believes
has been induced by the superstition of the villagers who have
essentially driven the confused women insane with their religious
symbols and persecution. He is quick to demonstrate to the
women that crosses do nothing to them, that sunlight does not
harm them, and that even the blind one can actually see. He
takes all of this to be the rational proof that their vampirism is
nothing but a fantasy. When one of the women succumbs to his
charms, the old man orders another one to kill the Parisians, and
when that fails, he unleashes the peasants who brutally murder
all the women they can find, which unfortunately includes Brigitte
(one of the newcomers).

In the ensuing melee, Thomas asks his lady friend to bit him as if
she were a real vampire and when she does, he discovers to his
amazement that she is indeed one. All his ratiocination, all his logic,
all of his smug self-assurance that had driven him to pity them, all
of this evaporates in an instant as he stands in the middle of the
room, swinging slightly, with two punctures in his neck. It would
seem that he had been misled by his own preconceptions---by the
notions that society has for the vampire, notions as unreal and
incorrect as anything scared people would come up with to protect
their cherished beliefs. Ironically, in his attempt to free the women
from what he believed to be society-imposed insanity, his cure was
based on society-imposed blindness, and so little wonder that it fails.

The two manage to elude their persecutors and flee to the beach
but are shot in the back by Thomas's friend who is distraught by
Brigitte's death. This ends the first segment and the first 30
minutes of the film. What follows descends into gratuitous
exhibitionism, ill-advised sadism, and a somewhat mystifying
attempt to provide a backstory to the entire thing. What used to
be an elegy to ancient powers misunderstood both by peasants
and by those who wield them now turns into pedestrian schlock,
complete with medical experiments, a lesbian Vampire Queen,
an attempt to save the vampiric race by procreating with some
women specifically prepared for that purpose, and two idiotic
minions (the brunette dressed all in black, and the blonde
dressed all in white) whose incompetence is only rivaled by their
perpetual horniness.

Briefly, the Vampire Queen arrives on a boat and beaches on
the rough sands where the dead couple lies. She commands her
hooded cohort to grab the old man and pin him down to a slab of
rock. She then proceeds to sacrifice him, or at least that's what it
looks like, with her peering ominously at him, and then licking
what we should presume is his blood from the blade. She instructs
the leading minion woman to dismember the two corpses in order
to ensure that they do not come back to life and leaves. The woman,
however, fails to carry out her instructions because, as we shall later
find out, she is in rebellion against the queen.

Wouldn't you know it, the blood oozing from the dead old man
finds its way onto the naked (why?) corpses of the couple and
revives them. He is somewhat unhappy with the turn of events:
whereas resurrection is good, having to exist by drinking blood
does not seem that appealing. He and his lady companion also
decide to revolt although we are never quite told where they get
the clothes. At any rate, we are now introduced to a doctor who
runs a demented clinic under the supervision of the Vampire
Queen. He does not appear to be undead himself although his
trusted assistant certainly is: she happens to be the woman in
revolt. Said doctor also resents the fate of eternal bloodsucking
and has been secretly working on an antidote to the vampiric
bacteria (yes, we are told in the film that it involves some
bacterium).

In the meantime, the vampires abduct Brigitte's body from
the cenotaph and Thomas later discovers the apparently alive
former girlfriend in his apartment. He, of course, does not buy
her explanation (which amounts to claiming that he has imagined
their entire trip) but instead follows her to the hospital where he
finds her listening to an instructional tape while two (naturally,
naked) women stand behind blood-coolers sucking on long straws
(don't ask). He stops the tape and instantly kills Brigitte who is not
yet undead so she needs the vocal sustenance of her mistress.
Again, this guy is the instrument of destruction although this time
around he did it unwittingly, simply not knowing what an attempt
to free the unformed undead could do to her precarious existence.

Meanwhile, the doctors' plot is uncovered but nothing much
comes out of it, with the Vampire Queen staging a touching
ceremony to marry the renegade doctor to his assistant, although
she first has her minions strip (naturally) that assistant and whip
her mercilessly on the beach. Of course, the malcontents have not
actually bowed to her rule, and so the revolution explodes in what
looks like a shootout from a gangster film, which ends with lots of
undead actually dead, and the Vampire Queen poisoned. However,
when the doctor administers the antidote to his assistant, she dies
too. Apparently, removing the vampire from the human is impossible
without killing her in the process. Again we are told that the rational
can only doom a soul that has been exposed to the fantastic. Not
original by any means, but a nice touch nonetheless. In an ending
worthy of Poe, Thomas and his lady friend wall themselves inside a
cellar to await death:
they do not wish to feed on the living but are afraid that if they stay
free, their unquenchable thirst will eventually drive them to murder.
So they sacrifice themselves instead, ending their freedom in each
other's arms.

The Redemption DVD is atrocious. The glorious black and white
looks like it was made in the 1930s (and perhaps that was part
of the intent if not the lack of money), but that's not really the
problem. The scratches, the grain, and the noise, all contribute
to an essentially flat presentation that does not do justice to a
film that would have benefited from a luminous restoration.
The 1.66:1 aspect ratio (non-anamorphic) is the only bright
spot, so to speak. The French soundtrack itself is muffled with
occasional drops but at least it is not that distracting. The
barebones disc comes with an untranslated French trailer of
subterranean quality, and a worthless gallery of stills.
Unfortunately, since this is the only way to see this early Rollin
film (and see it you must), this DVD is the way to go. Better than
muddy nth-generation VHS copy, at least.

Fonts: Gotterdammerung

Las Hijas de Dracula (1974)

2009-11-11T22:52:00.000-08:00

Vampyres (1974) is an erotic and bloody lesbian vampire film
directed by Spanish film director José Ramón Larraz on location
in England.

>>Alternative titles are:

-Blood Hunger
-Daughters of Dracula (USA)
-Satan's Daughters
-Vampyres, Daughters of Dracula
-Vampyres: Daughters of Darkness (USA)

>>Plot:

It is getting dark. John [Brian Deacon] and Harriet [Ally Faulkner]
have not yet found a place to park their camper. They pass two
mysterious women in the road and pull up beside a deserted
castle where they intend to pass the night. For days they camp
there, not knowing that during the days the two women, Fran
[Marianne Morris] and Miriam [Anulka], lie asleep in the cemetery
while at night they pick up men and take him to their castle.

There, they feed them wine, have passionate sex, and then stab
them to death while drinking their blood. The only exception is
Ted [Murray Brown], who manages to survive for three nights in
a row. One evening Ted escapes. He runs to the camper to enlist
John and Harriet's help. When John goes to start the car, Fran and
Miriam get him. When Harriet goes to check on John, the girls get
her. Ted apparently gets away.

>>Tagline:

They shared the pleasures of the flesh, and the horrors of the grave!

>>Production Notes:

Though initially heavily censored in the UK it is now available uncut
on DVD with a commentary from the director Larraz and the producer
Brian Smedley-Aston.

A novelisation was published in 2001 by Tim Greaves, a fan of the film.

>>Cast:

-Marianne Morris- Fran
-Anulka Dziubinska-Miriam
-Murray Brown-Ted
-Brian Deacon-John
-Sally Faulkner-Harriet
-Michael Byrne-Playboy
-Karl Lanchbury-Rupert
-Margaret Heald-Receptionist
-Gerald Case-Estate Agent
-Bessie Love-American Lady
-Elliott Sullivan-American Man

Fonts:
Wikipedia
Imdb

Happy Birthday Mr. Stoker (2009)

2009-11-08T09:22:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday Mr. Stoker.

Abraham "Bram" Stoker (8 November 1847–20 April 1912) was
an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his
1897 Gothic novel Dracula.

Fonts: Wikipedia

Dracula's Daughter (1936)

2009-11-08T02:08:00.000-08:00

Dracula's Daughter is a 1936 vampire horror film produced
by Universal Studios, a sequel to the 1931 film Dracula.

Directed by Lambert Hillyer from a screenplay by Garrett Fort,
the film stars Otto Kruger, Gloria Holden, Marguerite Churchill
and, as the only cast member to return from the original,
Edward Van Sloan. Dracula's Daughter tells the story of
Countess Marya Zaleska, the daughter of Count Dracula and
herself a vampire. Following Dracula's death, she believes
that by destroying his body she will be free of his influence
and can live as a human. When this fails, she turns to
psychiatry and Dr. Jeffrey Garth. When his efforts fail, she
kidnaps Janet, the woman Jeffrey loves, and flees with her to
Transylvania in an attempt to bind Jeffrey to her. She is foiled
and destroyed when her jealous manservant shoots her with
an arrow.

Ostensibly based on a short story titled "Dracula's Guest" by
Bram Stoker, the film bears little or no resemblance to the
original source material. David O. Selznick initially purchased
the rights to the story for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Selznick,
probably knowing he could not legally make the film because
of Universal's copyright on the original film, sold the rights to
Universal. After first assigning the picture to James Whale,
Universal production head Carl Laemmle, Jr. finally put Hillyer
in the director's chair.

Upon its release, Dracula's Daughter was not as successful as
the original, although it was generally well-reviewed. In the
intervening decades, criticism has been deeply divided.
Modern critics and scholars have noted the strong lesbian
overtones of the film, overtones that Universal acknowledged
from the start of filming and which they exploited in some
early advertising.

>>Plot:

Dracula's Daughter begins a few moments after Dracula ends.
Count Dracula has just been destroyed by Professor Von Helsing
(Edward Van Sloan). Von Helsing is taken by police to Scotland
Yard, where he explains that he indeed did destroy Count
Dracula, but because he had already been dead for over 500 years,
it cannot be considered murder. Instead of hiring a lawyer, he
enlists the aid of a psychiatrist, Dr. Jeffrey Garth (Otto Kruger),
who was once one of his star students. Meanwhile, Dracula's
daughter, Countess Marya Zaleska (Gloria Holden), with the aid
of her manservant, Sandor (Irving Pichel), steals Dracula’s body
from Scotland Yard and ritualistically burns it, hoping to break her
curse of vampirism. However, Sandor soon makes her realize that
her thirst for blood has not been quenched and that all that is in
her eyes is "Death". The Countess resumes her hunting,
mesmerizing her victims with her exotic jeweled ring. After a
chance meeting with Dr. Garth at a society party, the Countess
asks him to help her overcome the influence she feels from
beyond the grave. The doctor advises her to defeat her cravings
by confronting them and the Countess becomes hopeful that her
will plus Dr. Garth's science will be strong enough to overcome
Dracula's malevolence.

The Countess sends Sandor to fetch her a model to paint; he
returns with Lili (Nan Grey). Countess Zaleska initially resists her
urges but succumbs and attacks Lili. Although the girl survives
the attack, when Dr. Garth tries to hypnotize her to learn what
happened, she suffers heart failure and dies. As the Countess
comes to accept that a cure is not possible — and the doctor
discovers the truth about her condition — she lures him to
Transylvania by kidnapping Janet (Marguerite Churchill), the
woman he loves. She intends to transform him into a vampire to
be her eternal companion; Dr. Garth agrees to exchange his life
for Janet's. Before he can be transformed, Countess Zaleska is
destroyed when Sandor shoots her through the heart with an
arrow as revenge for her breaking her promise to make him
immortal. He takes aim at Dr. Garth but is shot dead by a
policeman.

>>Cast:

-Otto Kruger as Dr. Jeffrey Garth
-Gloria Holden as Countess Marya Zaleska - Dracula's Daughter
-Marguerite Churchill as Janet
-Edward Van Sloan as Professor Von Helsing
-Gilbert Emery as Sir Basil Humphrey, Scotland Yard
-Irving Pichel as Sandor
-Halliwell Hobbes as Hawkins
-Billy Bevan as Albert
-Nan Grey as Lili
-Hedda Hopper as Lady Esme Hammond
-Claud Allister as Sir Aubrey
-Edgar Norton as Hobbs
-E. E. Clive as Sergeant Wilkes

>>Production:

Universal originally did not hold the rights to "Dracula's Guest",
a chapter supposedly excised from Bram Stoker's original novel
and the purported source material for the film. The story includes
an encounter between a man (presumed by some to be Jonathan
Harker although the character is not identified as such) and a
female vampire. The story does not establish a filial relationship
between the female vampire and Dracula. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
executive David O. Selznick negotiated a contract in 1933 with
Stoker's widow, Florence, to buy the rights to the chapter for an
advance of $500 against a purchase price of $5,000. M-G-M's
lawyers and executives were worried about the use of the word
"Dracula" in the film's title, fearing that Universal would take legal
action, although Selzick's contract with Stoker explicitly listed
"Dracula's Daughter" as a possible alternate title. The project was
code-named "Tarantula" in correspondence.

Selznick hired John L. Balderston, who had previously worked on
the 1931 Dracula and Frankenstein, to write the screenplay.
Balderston's screenplay involved tying up loose ends from the
original film. In it, Von Helsing returns to Transylvania to destroy
the three vampire brides seen in Dracula but overlooks a fourth
tomb concealing Dracula's daughter. She follows him back to
London and operates under the name "Countess Szekelsky".

She attacks a young aristocrat and Von Helsing and the aristocrat's
fiancée track her back to Transylvania and destroy her. The script
included scenes that implied that Dracula's daughter enjoyed
torturing her male victims and that while under her control the men
liked it too. Also included were shots of the Countess's chambers
being stocked with whips and straps, which she would never use
on-screen but whose uses the audience could imagine. Regardless
of any objections that the Production Code Administration (PCA)
would have raised to many aspects of the scenario, Balderston's
script could never have been filmed because Selznick's contract
with Stoker expressly barred him from using any Bram Stoker
characters that did not appear in "Dracula's Guest".

Selznick re-sold the rights to "Dracula's Guest" to Universal in
September 1935 for $12,500, which included the rights to
Balderston's scenario. Horror film scholar David J. Skal theorizes
that this was Selznick's actual motivation in buying the rights in
the first place, to profit from Universal's desire for a sequel by
tying up the only obvious source material.

>>Director:

Carl Laemmle, Jr.

Universal studio head Carl Laemmle, Jr. (nicknamed "Junior")
wanted James Whale, fresh from his great success with Bride
of Frankenstein, to direct Dracula's Daughter. Whale was idle,
waiting for Irene Dunne to finish work on Magnificent
Obsession so she could begin work on Whale's Show Boat.
Wary of directing two horror films in a row, Whale instead
convinced Laemmle to buy the rights to a mystery novel called
The Hangover Murders. Laemmle agreed only after extracting a
promise from Whale that he would direct Dracula's Daughter
next.

James Whale

Whale completed work on the film, titled Remember Last Night? for
release, on September 14, 1935. Magnificent Obsession completed
filming on October 29. With Dunne freed up, Whale went to work on
Show Boat. Laemmle replaced him with A. Edward Sutherland, who
was best known for his work on comedies. Sutherland had as little
interest in Dracula's Daughter as Whale and soon left the studio,
and Hillyer came on to direct.

>>Reception and influence:

The New York Times gave Dracula's Daughter a solid, albeit
somewhat tongue-in-cheek, review upon its release, citing the
film's "blood-curdling events" and noting that "Gloria Holden is a
remarkably convincing bat-woman" in concluding that the film is
both "quite terrifying" and "a cute little horror picture." Variety also
praised the production and Holden's performance in particular.
Despite critical approval, Dracula's Daughter was unable to
duplicate the box office success of the original.

Recent reviews of Dracula's Daughter are sharply split.
Entertainment Weekly, reviewing the film following its video
release, called it "one of the most satisfying vampire pictures
ever made". Describing director Hillyer's visuals as "lush,
evocative, and suffused with just the right gothic chiaroscuro"
and noting that "Gloria Holden, as the reluctant vampire
protagonist, absolutely drips patrician eroticism", EW
concludes that this film is better than Lugosi's original
Dracula.

Ryan Cracknell of Apollo Movie Guide, while echoing the praise
for Holden's performance, nonetheless found that the film
"doesn't hold up so well today". Citing what he sees as slow
pacing and "long bouts of over-the-top dialogue", Cracknell
compares the film to "reading a textbook – not the most exciting
thing in the world, but it does provide insights into and
perspectives on the foundation of early horror movies and how
many similarities carry over into movies half a century and more
later." Michael W. Phillips, Jr. concurs, calling the film "a marked
improvement on the original film [but] still a bit of a snooze,
relying too much on forced comedy and not enough on suspense
or fright."Phillips again praises Holden's performance and also
Pichel's portrayal of Sandor, but finds the rest of the cast weak.

Horror author Anne Rice has named Dracula's Daughter as a direct
inspiration for her own homoerotic vampire fiction. She named a bar
in her novel Queen of the Damned "Dracula's Daughter" in honor of
the film. Author Ramsey Campbell, under the pseudonym "Carl
Dreadstone", wrote a novelization of the film also entitled Dracula's
Daughter that was published in 1977. A juvenile fiction version,
written by Carl R. Green, William R. Sanford and Howard Schroeder,
was published in 1985. Some observers have suggested that the film
served as an inspiration for Sunset Blvd., noting similarities between
the outlines of each film. Michael Almereyda's 1994 film Nadja has
been described as an "unofficial remake" of Dracula's Daughter.

>>Lesbian implications:

The lesbian vampire has been a trope in literature dating back
to Joseph Sheridan le Fanu's 1872 novella "Carmilla". Dracula's
Daughter, however, marked the first time that the trope was
incorporated into a film. The lesbian implications of Dracula's
Daughter were obvious from the start and were of great concern
to the Production Code Administration. PCA head Breen took
special notice of the scene between the Countess and her model,
Lili, writing, "This will need very careful handling to avoid any
questionable flavor." The day before the scene was to be shot,
Universal's Harry Zehner asked Breen to read a draft of
the scene. In response, Breen wrote:

"The present suggestion that...Lili poses in the nude will be
changed. She will be posing her neck and shoulders, and there
will be no suggestion that she undresses, and there will be no
exposure of her person. It was also stated that the present
incomplete sequence will be followed by a scene in which Lili
is taken to a hospital and there it will be definitely established
that she has been attacked by a vampire.

"Save the women of London from Dracula's Daughter!"
Countess Zaleska seduces Lili.

The whole sequence will be treated in such a way as to avoid
any suggestion of perverse sexual desire on the part of Marya
or of an attempted sexual attack by her upon Lili."

Gay film historian Vito Russo noted in his book The Celluloid
Closet that Universal highlighted Countess Zaleska's attraction
to women in some of its original advertising for the film, using
the tag line "Save the women of London from Dracula's Daughter!"
He further cited Countess Zaleska as an example of the
presentation of the "essence of homosexuality as a predatory
weakness". Some reviewers of the day picked up on and
condemned the lesbian content, including the New York World-
Telegram which noted the Countess's tendency to wander around
"giving the eye to sweet young girls".

Other reviews missed it entirely, including the aforementioned
New York Times which advised "Be sure to bring the kiddies."
Entertainment Weekly describes the encounter between the
Countess and Lili as "so hot it's impossible to imagine how it
ever got past '30s censors" whereas Time Out London finds
only a "subtle suggestion" of lesbianism. Horror scholar Skal
notes that the scene has come to be seen as a "classic 'lesbian'
sequence, although of a decidedly negative stripe". The scene
between Countess Zaleska and Lili was included in the 1995
documentary film adaptation of Russo's book.

Another lesbian-tinged scene which has received less critical
attention comes when the Countess is holding Janet captive.
Described as "the longest kiss never filmed", Countess Zaleska
"hovers lovingly over Janet...hovers...and hovers...slowly
descending to kiss the recumbent Janet..." until interrupted
by the arrival of Dr. Garth.

Bright Lights Film Journal, after noting that "Gloria Holden in the
title role almost singlehandedly redefined the '20s movie vamp as
an impressive Euro-butch dyke bloodsucker", draws an implicit
comparison between Countess Zaleska's seeking to cure her
vampirism through psychiatry and the former position of
mainstream psychiatry of homosexuality as a mental illness
(a view still held by a minority in the profession).

Zaleska's cruising the streets of London is seen as parallel to
cruising for sex (although that tends to be a gay male activity)
and as suggesting "society's image of the lesbian as soulless
predator" but the conclusion is that "Holden's striking, masklike
face and haunting, luminous eyes [are] the intoxicating essence
of transgressive lesbian power."

Fonts: Wikipedia

Gahan Wilson: 50 Years of Playboy Cartoons

2009-11-06T00:58:00.000-08:00

OVER ONE THOUSAND CARTOONS SPANNING
50 YEARS OF A LEGENDARY CAREER.

Fifty-one, to be exact, but let’s not quibble. Gahan Wilson
is among the most popular, widely-read, and beloved
cartoonists in the history of the medium, whose career spans
the 2nd half of the 20th century, and all of the 21st. His work
has been seen by millions —no, hundreds of millions— in the
pages of Playboy, The New Yorker, Punch, The National
Lampoon, and many other magazines; there is no telling, really,
how many readers he has corrupted or comforted. He is
revered for his playfully sinister take on childhood, adulthood,
men, women, and monsters. His brand of humor makes you
laugh until you cry. And it’s about time that a collection of his
cartoons was published that did justice to his vast body of work.

When Gahan Wilson walked into Hugh Hefner’s office in 1957, he
sat down as Hefner was on the phone, gently rejecting a
submission to his new gentlemen’s magazine: “I think it’s very
well-written and I liked it very much,” Hefner reportedly said,
“but it’s anti-sin. And I’m afraid we’re pro-sin.” Wilson knew,
at that moment, that he had found a kin- dred spirit and a
potential home for his cartoons. And indeed he had; Wilson
appeared in every issue of Playboy from the December 1957
issue to today. It has been one of the most fruitful, successful,
and long-lived relationships between a contributor and a
magazine, ever.

Gahan Wilson: 50 Years of Playboy Cartoons features not only
every cartoon Wilson drew for Playboy, but all his prose fiction
that has appeared in that magazine as well, from his first story
in the June, 1962 issue, “Horror Trio,” to such classics as
“Dracula Country” (September 1978). It also includes the text-
and-art features he drew for Playboy, such as his look at Madame
Tussaud’s Wax Museum, his take on our country’s “pathology of
violence,” and his appreciation of “transplant surgery.”

Wilson’s notoriously black sense of comedy is on display
throughout the book, leaving no sacred cow unturned (an
image curiously absent in the book), ridiculing everything
from state sponsored executions to the sober precincts of
the nouveau rich, from teenage dating to police line-ups,
with scalding and hilarious satirical jabs. Although Wilson is
known as an artist who relishes the creepy side of modern life,
this three-volume set truly demonstrates the depth and breadth
of his range — from illustrating private angst we never knew we
had (when you eat a steak, just whom are you eating?) to the
ironic and deadpan take on horrifying public issues (ecological
disaster, nuclear destruction anyone?).

Gahan Wilson has been peeling back the troubling layers of
modern life with his incongruously playful and unnerv- ing
cartoons, assailing our deepest fears and our most inane follies.
This three-volume set is a testament to one of the funniest —
and wickedly disturbing — cartoonists alive.

Gahan Wilson (born February 18, 1930) is an author, cartoonist,
and illustrator in the United States. His cartoons and illustrations
are drawn in a playfully grotesque style and have a dark humor
reminiscent of Charles Addams.

He was born in Evanston, Illinois in 1930. His cartoons and
prose-fiction work has appeared regularly in Playboy, Collier's
Weekly, The New Yorker and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science
Fiction. For the last he also wrote some movie and book reviews.
He has been a book-review columnist for The Twilight Zone
Magazine and Realms of Fantasy magazine.

His comic strip Nuts, which appeared in National Lampoon, was a
reaction against the saccharine view of childhood in strips like
Peanuts. His hero The Kid sees the world as a dark, dangerous
and unfair place, but just occasionally a fun one too.

Wilson also wrote and illustrated a short story for Harlan Ellison's
anthology Again, Dangerous Visions (1972). The "title" is a black
blob, and the story is about an ominous black blob that appears
on the page, growing at an alarming rate, until...

Fonts:
Gahan Wilson
Fantagraphics
Wikipedia

Horror of Dracula (1958)

2009-11-02T22:53:00.000-08:00

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, John Van Eyssen and Christopher
Lee. In the United States, the film was retitled Horror of
Dracula to avoid confusion with the Tod Browning-directed
Dracula (1931) starring Bela Lugosi.

Production began at Bray Studios on the 17 November 1957
with an investment of £81,000.

>>Plot:

Jonathan Harker arrives at the castle of Count Dracula near
Klausenberg, posing as a librarian. He is startled inside the
castle by a young woman begging for help, claiming to be a
prisoner. Dracula then greets Harker 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 has come to
kill Dracula.

Freed sometime later, Harker again is confronted by the
desperate woman. She begs him for help but then bites his
neck. Just as she does, Dracula arrives and yanks her away.
When he awakens in daylight, Harker finds the bite mark.

He hides his journal in a Virgin Mary grotto outside the
castle and descends into the crypts, where he finds Dracula
and the unnamed woman in their coffins. Armed with a stake,
he impales the woman. But when he turns to kill Dracula, the
count has already awakened and is waiting for him.

Dr. Van Helsing then arrives in Klausenberg, looking for Harker.
The frightened townsfolk give him Harker's journal. When he
arrives at the castle, it is deserted; a hearse carriage speeds by
with a coffin in it. In the crypt, Van Helsing is horrified to
discover Harker lying in a coffin as a vampire. Staking Harker,
he leaves to deliver the veiled news of Harker's death in person
to a wary Arthur Holmwood and his wife Mina, brother and
sister-in-law of Harker's fiancée Lucy Holmwood. Lucy is ill,
so the news is kept from her. But, when night falls, Lucy opens
the doors to her terrace and lays bare her neck — already, it
bares the mark of a vampire bite. And soon Dracula arrives
and bites her again.

Mina seeks out Van Helsing's aid in treating Lucy's worsened
health, but Lucy defeats his anti-vampire prescription, and
Lucy dies. Van Helsing turns over Harker's journal and reveals
the truth. Vampire Lucy lures away a young niece, but the girl
is saved by Van Helsing and Arthur. Arthur refuses to use Lucy
as a means to find Dracula, so Van Helsing stakes Lucy in her
coffin.

Van Helsing and Arthur travel to the customs house in Ingstadt
to track down the destination of Dracula's coffin (which Van
Helsing saw carried away when he arrived at Dracula's castle).

Meanwhile, Mina is called away from home by a message telling
her to meet Arthur at an address in Karlstadt — the same
address Arthur and Van Helsing are told the coffin was bound
for — and Dracula is indeed waiting for her.

The next morning, Arthur and Van Helsing find Mina in a strange
state. They leave for the address they were given, an undertaker's,
but find the coffin missing. When the decide to set off again,
Arthur tries to give Mina a cross to wear, but it burns her.

During the night, Van Helsing and Arthur guard Mina's windows
outside against a return of Dracula, but Dracula nonetheless
appears inside the house and bites her. A remark by the maid
leads Van Helsing to the coffin's location: the cellar of the
Holmwoods' own house. But Dracula is not in the coffin and
instead escapes into the night with Mina.

A chase then begins as Dracula rushes to return to his castle
near Klausenberg before sunrise. He attempts to bury Mina
alive outside the crypts but is caught by Van Helsing and Arthur.

Inside the castle, Van Helsing and Dracula struggle. Van Helsing
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 recovers, the
cross-shaped scar fading from her hand as Dracula's ashes
blow away and leave only a ring behind.

>>Cast:

-Peter Cushing-Doctor Van Helsing
-Christopher Lee-Count Dracula
-Michael Gough-Arthur
-Melissa Stribling-Mina
-Carol Marsh-Lucy
-Olga Dickie-Gerda
-John Van Eyssen-Jonathan
-Valerie Gaunt-Vampire Woman
-Janina Faye-Tania (as Janine Faye)
-Barbara Archer-Inga
-Charles Lloyd Pack-Doctor Seward
-George Merritt-Policeman
-George Woodbridge-Landlord
-George Benson-Official
-Miles Malleson-Undertaker

>>Production:

*Screenplay and its Differences from the Novel:

This film adaptation made several deviations from the original
novel and 1931 film, and drew inspiration from the stageplay.

The location of the Count's castle at Klausenburg is only a short
distance (and customs checkpoint) from the city inhabited by the
Holmwood family, which appears to be in Germany. The sea
voyage from Transylvania to England does not appear in the film
and consequently Dracula never takes up residence in his English
home, Carfax Abbey neighboring an insane asylum.

Jonathan Harker is a librarian and vampire hunter, having come to
Dracula's castle to destroy him, rather than an unwitting solicitor.
He also becomes a vampire and is dispatched by his friend Van
Helsing.

-Mina is Arthur Holmwood's wife, while Lucy is his sister and
Jonathan's fiancée.

-The characters of R. M. Renfield and Quincey Morris are omitted.

-Doctor John Seward only appears twice, in two brief scenes as the
family doctor, and is completely unaware of the supernatural
goings-on.

-Count Dracula has only one Bride (there are three in the novel), and
she is destroyed by Jonathan Harker, not Van Helsing. She ages upon
her true "death".

-Only one coffin is transported to the city.

-Count Dracula does not grow younger, nor can he shapeshift.

-The Count has not mastered the art of magic.

-Count Dracula is destroyed by sunlight, whereas his powers are
merely limited by daylight in the novel.

*Special effects:

The filming of Dracula's destruction included a shot in which Dracula
appears to peel away his decaying skin. This was accomplished by
putting a layer of red makeup on Christopher Lee's face, and then
covering his entire face with a thin coating of mortician's wax, which
was then made up to conform to his normal skin tone. When he raked
his fingers across the wax, it revealed the "raw" marks underneath.

Still photos of this startling shot exist, but it was cut out of the
disintegration sequence in the film.

Santo in The Treasure of Dracula (1969)

2009-10-30T23:42:00.000-07:00

Santo in the Treasure of Dracula (24 July 1969) is a
Mexican Film directed by René Cardona (Santa Claus,
La Horripilante bestia humana, Las Luchadoras contra
la momia) and written by Alfredo Salazar (The Robot
vs. the Aztec Mummy, Las Luchadoras contra la momia,
Las Luchadoras contra el médico asesino).

Music By Sergio Guerrero (Chabelo y Pepito contra los
monstruos, El Beso de ultratumba, El Miedo no anda en
burro).

Produced by Guillermo Calderón (Santa Claus, La Horripilante
bestia humana, Las Luchadoras contra el médico asesino).

Any fans who have collected generously illustrated vampire
cinema books surely recognize pictures from a particular
movie. The photos in question depict a suave Dracula
positioned against a line-up of abundantly-bosomed
topless beauties. It looked as though Russ Meyer had
directed a vampire pic, but the title in question was the
Mexican-made "El Vampiro y el Sexo," which literally
translates to "The Vampire and the Sex"(!).

"El Vampiro y el Sexo" actually turns out to be the more
adult version of SANTO IN THE TREASURE OF DRACULA,
a spicier variant (reportedly created for export purposes)
with alternative nude scenes. This version is yet to surface
(damn!), but the standard Mexican cut has arrived on
DVD, for the first time with English subtitles!.

Aside from being a great wrestler, El Santo is also an
Einstein-type genius who has just invented a time
machine. He tells of his invention before a gathering
of scientists, but I imagine it's hard to take a beefy
guy wearing a mask and sports jacket seriously, so
they doubt Santo. The friendly Dr. Sepulveda (Carlos
Agosti) believes in Santo, and is willing to be his
time-traveling guinea pig. Santo suggests that a
woman would be more ideal (for some scientific
reason), so Sepulveda's daughter Luisa (Noelia Noel)
volunteers. Garbed in a Ziggy Stardust silver jumpsuit,
Luisa is transformed back into time.

We then see a nightgown-garbed Luisa falling into a
bed, a century earlier. She is now the daughter of
Professor Soler who is worried about her health and
inquiring about two bite marks on her neck. Professor
Van Roth arrives, and clearly being a "Van Helsing"
type, mentions vampirism as the culprit, wanting to
fight off the undead with mistletoe. There is also a
neighbor who goes by "Count Alucard," and even in
Spanish-language films, Alucard spelt backwards
means trouble. He of course is Dracula (Aldo Monti)
and wants to make Luisa one of his vampire brides.

Resting in his lair, Dracula gets staked, but before
the same is done to Luisa, she is plunged back to
the present safe and sound, as Santo was able to
view the whole experience on television, different
camera angles and all. Not only has Santo invented
a time machine, but he has also mastered
multi-angled closed circuit TV (through time and
space) without the necessity of cameras.

Meanwhile, a hooded stranger (alas, "The Black Hood")
had sneaked into the house and was also watching the
events, and he wants to abuse the information to find
Dracula's gold treasure for himself. Santo also needs
to find the jewels (hidden in a coffin) to prove that his
time machine works. This all leads to a brawl in
Dracula's crypt with Santo and friends against the Black
Hood and his gang, as well as a wrestling match to
decide who will obtain the vampire's valuable ring-
-which offers information on the missing treasure (this
plot device was also employed in WRESTLING WOMEN
VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY, penned by the same screenwriter).

The Black Hood later releases Dracula, unleashing him in
the modern world. Luckily, Santo's wrestling buddies are
quick for a favor and handy with dynamite.

SANTO IN THE TREASURE OF DRACULA is a fairly
entertaining, if somewhat confusing take on the legend.
Santo seems to take a back seat in this one, and has to
play off silly comic sidekick Perico (Alberto Rojas), an
irritating Jerry Lewis wannabe with huge eyeglasses and
a bulky dollar sign necklace. Santo's straightman act is
actually funnier then anything Rojas does, and the film
also has some unintentional humor. This can be
witnessed when Professor Roth's observance of Dracula
not having a reflection in the mirror. Dracula then
smashes the full-size glass and comely recovers by
declaring his hatred of mirrors to the unaffected professor.

Monti (who again essayed the role in SANTO AND THE
BLUE DEMON VS. DRACULA AND THE WOLF MAN) seems a
good choice for Dracula, somewhat resembling onetime
007 George Lazenby. Loaded with the expected fog
machines and clumsy rubber bats, the film has a nice
amount of atmosphere, emerging as a homage to Universal,
Hammer and even the then-current "Dark Shadows"
daytime soap opera.

Rise Above Entertainment has released SANTO IN THE
TREASURE OF DRACULA full frame on DVD in its original
Spanish language with English subtitles. Even though the
film was shot Eastmancolor and originally released that
way in Mexico, this is the now more common black and
white version. The quality here is acceptable, though the
conversion of the color photography to B&W causes
some darkness, grain and loss of detail in spots. Black
and white actually suits the film well, resembling the
early 60s Mexican horror films, but a title sequence
intended to show oozing red blood (similar to that of
Hammer's DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE) is
left murky and looses its intended effect. The Spanish
mono audio is adequate on the whole.

Extras include "The Best of Santo" which is about two
minutes of clips from various Santo adventures, a trailer
for the new Santo film (SANTO: INFRATERRESTRE) a
newly-created one for SANTO AND THE BLUE DEMON
VS. DRACULA AND THE WOLF MAN, and a modest still
gallery (no pics from the nudie version). David Wilt
again writes the informative liner notes include in an
insert booklet.

>>Cast:

-Santo - Santo, el Enmascarado de Plata
-Aldo Monti - Count Drácula
-Noelia Noel - Luisa
-Roberto G. Rivera - Dr. Kur
-Carlos Agostí - Dr. César Supulveda
-Alberto Rojas - Perico
-Pili González - Paquita
-Jorge Mondragón - Professor Soler
-Gina Morett - Lupe, the maid
-Fernando Mendoza - Professor Van Roth

>>Shooting Locations:

1. Coyoacan, México D.F., Mexico.
2. Desierto de los Leones, Estado de México, Mexico.
3. Xochimilco, México D.F., Mexico.

Fonts:
Dvddrive-in
Imdb.

Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972)

2009-10-25T01:35:00.000-07:00

Dracula A.D. 1972 is a 1972 Hammer Horror film directed
by Alan Gibson, written by Don Houghton and starring
Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Stephanie Beacham.
Unlike earlier films in the Hammer Dracula series, Dracula
A.D. 1972 has a present-day (1970s) setting, in an attempt
to update the Dracula story for contemporary audiences —
Dracula is brought back to life in modern London and preys
on a group of young party-goers that includes the descendant
of his nemesis, Van Helsing.

It is the seventh Hammer film featuring Dracula, and the sixth
to star Christopher Lee in the title role. It also sees the return
of Peter Cushing as Van Helsing for the first time since 1960's
The Brides of Dracula. The film has a number of different titles,
including Dracula '72 (UK working title) and Dracula Chelsea '72
(UK working title), Dracula jagt Mini-Mädchen (Dracula Chases
the Mini-girls), its German title, and Dracula '73, the title it was
given when released a year later in France.

>>Production:

Following the success of the modern-day vampire film Count Yorga,
Vampire, Warner Bros commissioned two Hammer Dracula films set
in the present day, which were to become Dracula A.D. 1972 and
The Satanic Rites of Dracula. Dracula A.D. 1972 began production in
September 1971 as Dracula Today and was filmed in Chelsea and
Hertfordshire. The film was inspired by the events surrounding the
Highgate Vampire case.

While the two present-day Dracula films star both Lee and
Cushing, they do not correspond to the chronology established
in the Victorian/Edwardian era films; the first Hammer Dracula
film, Dracula, is set in the 1880s, whereas the flashback sequence
of the last battle between Van Helsing and Dracula in Dracula A.D.
1972 is set in 1872 - long before the first meeting of Van Helsing
and Dracula in the original film.

Dracula A.D. 1972 was marketed with the tagline "Past, present or
future, never count out the Count!". When it was released in the USA,
a brief clip was played before the film in which actor Barry Atwater
(the vampire Janos Skorzeny in The Night Stalker) rises from a coffin
and swears the entire audience in as members of the Count Dracula
Society.

It was followed by the final film in Hammer's Dracula series,
The Satanic Rites of Dracula, which similarly has a modern
setting and features some of the same characters.

>>Plot synopsis:

In a prologue set in 1872, Count Dracula (Christopher Lee) and
his sworn enemy Lawrence Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) battle on
the top of a runaway coach. It crashes and Dracula is impaled by
one of the wheels. Van Helsing dies from his wounds. At that
moment a follower of Dracula (Christopher Neame) arrives,
collects Dracula's remains and, a few days later, buries them
near Van Helsing's grave at St Bartolph's Church.

(This opening sequence was not in the previous film Scars of
Dracula, but is completely new and not part of the Hammer Horror
Dracula chronology up to this point.)

One hundred years later, we are introduced to a group of young
hippies that includes Jessica Van Helsing (Stephanie Beacham),
granddaughter of Lorrimer Van Helsing (Peter Cushing), a
descendant of Dracula's old nemesis and an expert on the occult,
and Johnny Alucard (Christopher Neame), who closely resembles
the disciple of Dracula seen in 1872. Alucard persuades Jessica
and the others to attend a black magic ceremony in the now
abandoned, deconsecrated St Bartolph's, where he performs a
bloody ritual involving one of their group, Laura Bellows (Caroline
Munro). Jessica and the others flee in horror, after which Dracula
is resurrected and kills Laura.

Laura’s body is discovered, drained of blood, and a police
investigation begins, headed by an Inspector Murray (Michael
Coles). Murray suspects an occult element and interviews Lorrimer
Van Helsing, who is shocked to learn the details of Laura’s death.
He realises that Johnny Alucard (whose name is Dracula written
backwards) is a disciple of Dracula, and that Dracula must have
returned.

In the meantime, Alucard brings another of Jessica’s friends,
Gaynor Keating (Marsha Hunt), to St Bartolph’s, where she is killed
by Dracula and Alucard is himself turned into a vampire. The vampire
Alucard kills a passer-by and lures Jessica’s boyfriend, Bob
(Philip Miller), to a café they frequent, where he turns him into a
vampire as well. While Lorrimer is out, Bob goes to the Van Helsing
house and persuades Jessica to come to the café, where he and
Alucard capture her and take her to Dracula.

Lorrimer discovers Jessica is missing, tracks down Alucard’s flat and
kills him. He finds Bob's dead body and discovers Jessica in a trance
at St Bartolph’s, where Dracula plans to take his revenge on the Van
Helsing family by turning her into a vampire. Van Helsing sets a trap
for Dracula and waits for him to return at nightfall. After a struggle,
Dracula is killed by a stake through the heart and Lorrimer rescues
Jessica.

>>Reception:

Critical reaction to Dracula AD 1972 has been mixed. Upon the
film's release, Roger Ebert gave the film only one star out of four.
Dennis Prince of DVD Verdict said, "Dracula A.D. 1972 is definitely
one of the weakest installments in Hammer's horror catalog and
will likely only have strong appeal to Dracula completists." Eccentric
Cinema wrote, " One can have a fun time with this movie — mostly
because of its faults. It's cheese all right, professionally made
cheese that's much better acted and staged than it really has any
right to be."

The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review called the
film "a major disappointment" and "the low-point of the whole
Hammer Dracula series" despite "minor positive aspects". George
R. Reis of DVD Drive-In wrote, "Considered a low point in Hammer’s
roster, Dracula A.D. 1972 is hardly that. ... The film has a number of
things going for it. ... Cushing’s exceptional Van Helsing pretty much
carries the film. ... Christopher Neame is charismatically evil as
Johnny Alucard [and] his stirring fight scene with Van Helsing is a
highlight. ... How can Hammer fans not like this stuff?"

>>Cast:

-Christopher Lee as Count Dracula
-Peter Cushing as Lorrimer Van Helsing/Lawrence Van Helsing
-Stephanie Beacham as Jessica Van Helsing
-Christopher Neame as Johnny Alucard
-Michael Coles as Inspector Murray
-Marsha Hunt as Gaynor Keating
-Caroline Munro as Laura Bellows
-Janet Key as Anna Bryant
-William Ellis as Joe Mitcham
-Philip Miller as Bob
-Michael Kitchen as Greg
-David Andrews as Detective Sergeant
-Lally Bowers as Matron Party Hostess
-Constance Luttrell as Mrs. Donnelly
-Michael Daly as Charles
-Artro Morris as Police Surgeon
-Jo Richardson as Crying Matron
-Penny Brahms as Hippy Girl
-Flanagan as Go Go Dancer (uncredited)
-Brian John Smith as Hippy Boy
-Stoneground as Themselves

Four actors from the James Bond franchise appear in this film.
Christopher Lee, who played Francisco Scaramanga in The Man
with the Golden Gun, appears as Count Dracula. Caroline Munro,
who played Naomi in The Spy Who Loved Me, appears as Dracula's
first victim Laura Bellows. Michael Kitchen, who portrayed Bill Tanner
in GoldenEye and The World Is Not Enough, appears as Greg. Finally,
Christopher Neame, who played corrupt MI6 agent Fallon in Licence
to Kill, appears as Dracula's servant, Johnny Alucard.

>>Soundtrack:

The soundtrack was composed by former Manfred Mann member
Mike Vickers, and is in a funky, 'blaxploitation' style that reflects
the early 1970s setting of the film. It was not released commercially
prior to a long-awaited CD release in 2009. The film also features
two songs, 'Alligator Man' and 'You Better Come Through', by the
American band Stoneground, who were a late replacement for The
Faces. The Black Mass segment uses the track 'Black Mass: an Electric
Storm in Hell' by the pioneering electronic group White Noise. The
Black Mass scene with Christopher Neames' dialogue was also sampled
by Orbital For 'Satan - Live' and 'Tension'.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY COUNT BELA

2009-10-20T04:47:00.001-07:00

White on white
translucent black capes
Back on the rack
Bela Lugosi's dead
The bats have left the bell tower
The victims have been bled
Red velvet lines the black box
Bela Lugosi's dead.

- Lyric excerpt from "Bela Lugosi's Dead" by Bauhaus.

BELA LUGOSI
born: 29-10-1882
birth place: Lugos, Hungary (Now Romania)
died: 16-08-1956

Born Be’la Ferenc Dezso Blasko, the actor who brought
Dracula to life on the silver screen changed his name for
the stage, taking Lugosi as it meant “one from the town of
Lugos.”

Bela Lugosi was the youngest of four children to be born into
an upper middle-class family in Hungary. However, at the age
of twelve he ran away and hoped to act. He found little work,
other than in the mines or railroad yards, until one of his older
sisters arrange for him to take some small roles in provincial
theatre.

Formal training was the usual route for actors at this time, so
Lugosi studied acting theory and method diligently.

Soon, Bela Lugosi was averaging thirty to forty roles per year,
many of which were operettas, as he possessed a fine singing
voice as a young man. In 1911, Lugosi went to work in the
theatre in the capital city of Budapest, and gained much
popularity.

When World War I broke out, although actors were exempt from
military service, Bela volunteered to fight for his country and
became an infantry lieutenant. He was wounded three times
during the war, and decorated for his efforts, before leaving
the army in 1916.

After the war, Bela Lugosi made several films under the name
“Arisztidt Olt” until political turmoil in his own country forced
him to move to Germany in 1919.

In 1921, Lugosi moved to New York, where he established a
Hungarian-speaking troupe, as he himself still spoke no
English. When, in 1923, he landed the role of Fernando in the
Broadway production 'The Red Poppy', the actor learnt his lines
phonetically.

1927 saw Bela Lugosi cast as 'Dracula' for the first time in the
original Broadway show of the same name, in which he starred
for two years. He then went on to do other film roles, before
taking his 'Dracula' to the silver screen in 1930.

Lugosi went on to star in several other vampire films, before
returning to the role of Dracula for the last time in 'Abbott and
Costello Meet Frankenstein', in 1948.

Bela Lugosi died a peaceful death in 1956, and was buried in
full 'Dracula' costume.

>> Want to dress up Bela Lugosi in "Dracula" this Halloween ?

ADULT BELA LUGOSI DRACULA COSTUME!

Adult Bela Lugosi Dracula Costume - Adult Vampire Costumes -
The Adult Bela Lugosi Dracula Costume includes white satin shirt
with attached vest, medallion, and long black velvet cape.
Pants not included. The Adult Bela Lugosi Dracula Costume is
available in size Adult Std. which fits jacket sizes 42-44.

BUY NOW!

And for your guardian ...

DOGULA DRACULA DOG COSTUME!

BUY NOW!

Happy Halloween!

Fonts: The Biography Channel

Bram Stoker International Film Festival (2009)

2009-10-14T23:14:00.000-07:00

Whitby, England Oct 16-19, 2009

>>Mission Statement:

The Bram Stoker International Film Festival established in
order to provide more opportunities and exposure for
filmmakers, screenwriters, Sci-Fi and games developers
working within the horror, science fiction and suspense
genres, as well as to draw more attention to WHITBY by
means of our annual Film Festival.

Our international organisation hopes to provide education
and entertaining visual experience for the attendees of The
Bram Stoker International Horror / Sci-Fi / Thriller Film
Festival, which will showcase and celebrate the diversity of
projects submitted to our competition year on year.

We will further develop a forum for filmmakers from across
the globe, where novices and seasoned veterans alike can
interact and learn from one another, as well as from our
array of special celebrity guests and industry professionals.
The intention is to build year on year and develop the Film
Festival into on of the most popular and respected events
in Europe.

Visitors and fans can meet their favourite stars; buy horror,
sci-fi related merchandise and converse with company
representatives at the Bram Stoker expo, held in conjunction
with our film screening during the festival. We are further
looking at the literary world to invite guest writers to
workshop their skills.

Ever wondered how that effect was done? Well now is the
time to ask! The festival hopes that their efforts continue
to attract attention, tourism and economic impact to WHITBY
and surrounding area and they can provide an even bigger
and better event for attendees each and every year. The
Festival will provide to the area and beyond, quality
entertainment in an enjoyable, pleasant atmosphere. It will
provide excellent movies and opportunities for social
interaction with music, games, educational classes and
special events, with an emphasis on all areas of film.

>>Target:

The targets for The Bram Stoker International Film Festival
are to create an entertainment, community education, and
cinematic experience venue offering unique and appealing
entertainment for all visitors.

The purpose of The Bram Stoker International Film Festival
is to provide the area, and beyond, with quality entertainment
in an enjoyable, pleasant atmosphere. It will provide excellent
movies and opportunities for social interaction with music,
games, educational classes, and special events, with an
emphasis on all areas of film.

>>Bram Stoker International Film Festival

> Honorary President: DACRE STOKER

Mr. Stoker, 49, is a great-grand-nephew of Bram Stoker, the
Irish author who introduced the world to Dracula in 1897.

Dacre has graciously accepted the role as President after
conversations with his friend Mike McCarthy ( Festival Director).

Dacre says:
"That he is thrilled and honoured to be associated with the Film
Festival and is looking forward to seeing Whitby and visiting the
spiritual home of Dracula and did not think twice after speaking
with Mike about the long term plans and direction of the Bram
Stoker International Film Festival"

Dacre is continuing the Stoker literary legacy with Dracula: The
Un-Dead, the original title for Dracula before an editor changed
it. The novel, which will be launched Globally in October 2009,
will coincide with the Film Festival. The story draws on excised
characters, existing character back-stories and plot threads
that were cut from the original Dracula novel, which has never
been out of print since it was first published in 1897.

Dracula: The Un-Dead has been co-written with New York
based screenwriter Mr Ian Holt.

Dacre Stoker grew up in Canada. In 1979, while in college, he
picked up Dracula for the first time.

"I was surprised that this old story was a 'page turner' and fairly
fast-paced," he said.

He wrote a paper about his great-grand-uncle and his possible
motivations for writing the novel.

"I had seen so many film versions of Dracula and very few had
any resemblance to Bram's original novel. ... I found it really sad
that all the trash Hollywood had put out had really sullied Bram's
and the family's literary legacy," he said.

Several years ago, Mr. Stoker met Mr. Holt through a mutual friend.

"Ian's story ideas for a sequel to Bram's work really sparked a lot of
those old feelings I had when I did my college paper. Ian and I
decided to work together to re-establish the Stoker lineage ... by
resurrecting Bram's original themes and characters," he said.

Mr. Holt, 36, has been fascinated with Dracula since he was a child.

His quest to know Dracula has taken him to Transylvania, to sleep in
the ruins of the castle and stand at the spot where Vlad the Impaler,
the real-life inspiration for Dracula, would have watched the
executions of his foes.

He said he has actively pursued the opportunity to write a sequel for
a decade.

"Writer of the sequel to Dracula, that's the epitaph I've always wanted,"
he said.

The sequel is set about 25 years after the first novel ends.

More than 600 pages of the original novel were edited from the
final work. Mr. Stoker and his wife, Jenne, visited the Rosenbach
Museum in Philadelphia where Bram Stoker's original, handwritten
notes were on display. The North American branch of the Stoker
family has an autographed copy of the original novel.

Mr. Stoker said those items plus some private family papers were
used to complete the sequel, which has Bram Stoker's original title,
The Un-Dead.

"Believe me when I say we and Bram have some real big surprises
for the fans - plot twists and characters that have been hidden
from the public since 1897," says Ian. The new story is set in
London in 1912, a quarter of a century after the blood-sucking
Count apparently came to grief. The Vampire-hunter Van
Helsing's protege Dr Seward is now a disgraced morphine addict,
and Quincey, the son of Stoker's hero Jonathan, has become
involved in a troubled theatre production of Dracula, directed
and produced by Bram Stoker himself. The play plunges Quincey
into the world of his parents' terrible secrets, but before he can
confront them his father is found murdered, impaled in
Piccadilly Circus.

The new book is the first Dracula story to be fully authorised by the
Stoker family since the 1931 film starring Bela Lugosi and looks set
to be a bestseller. It has already been sold for £1m to Dutton US,
HarperCollins UK and Penguin Canada, and a film version is also
being planned. Dacre Stoker, who formerly coached the Canadian
Olympic Pentathlon team now lives in the USA..

Pre-Order NOW!

AMAZON
BARNES & NOBLES
BOOKS A MILLION
BORDERS
INDIE BOUND

More Info:
Bram Stoker International Film Festival
Dracula "The Un-Dead"