Machete Kills (2013)

Title: Machete Kills (2013)

Director: Robert Rodriguez

Cast: Danny Trejo, Mel Gibson, Michelle Rodriguez, Amber Heard, Sofia Vergara, Charlie Sheen, William Sadler, Cuba Gooding Jr., Lady Gaga, Antonio Banderas, Jessica Alba, William Sadler, Tom Savini    

                    

I’ve always been a huge supporter of Robert Rodriguez’s particular brand of cinema because it’s obvious the guy loves B-Movies. He gets the joys of watching a fun, silly b-movie that you can’t bring yourself to calling “high art” but you can’t deny having fun with. B-movies can be entertaining, sleazy, shocking, fast paced, but above all fun. They are a quick thrill, a jolt of electricity down your spine, films you watch for “shits and giggles” as Austin Powers would say. Right from the beginning of his career Rodriguez has made b-movies and through the years, he’s become a specialist in them. A quick look through his filmology and all you’ll see are b-movies: From Dusk Till Dawn (1994), Planet Terror (2007), Machete (2010) to mention but a few. Rarely has he deviated from the b-movie highway, save for making family films that make tons of moolah so he can keep making more b-movies. Keeping that in mind, I really wasn’t expecting Machete Kills, the sequel to Machete, to be a ground breaking film in any way or form, in fact, I was expecting the complete opposite. With Machete Kills I was expecting a film that would play with familiar b-movie troupes, but taken to the extreme by Rodriguez, the current king of b-movie cinema. Machete Kills is a b-movie on steroids!

This time around, Machete is working on a top secret mission for the President of the United States to kill a madman called ‘Voz’ (played by a toungue firmly in cheek Mel Gibson), a maniac who wants to destroy the earth and take off on a spaceship to create a new, perfect society up on his space station. You know, kind of like that James Bond flick called Moonraker (1979) in which the villain wanted to do the same exact thing. Anyways, it’s up to Machete to stop him. Problem is that there’s a group of vengeful hookers who want to kill Machete, a personality switching psychopathic killer who wants to off Machete for a hefty ransom and on top of all that, a rebellious leader named She wants Machete to be the leader of her revolution! Can Machete achieve all these things in one movie? Of course he can, we’re in b-movie heaven here! Anything can and does happen!

Charlie Sheen as The President of the United States of America

The minute this movie started, I had a grin on my face. That 70’s “coming attraction” thing that pops up in so many Tarantino/Rodriguez films appeared on the screen and I immediately I strapped myself on tight because I knew one of those divinely fun fake trailers was about to appear. And sure enough, the film starts with a trailer for Machete Kills Again…In Space! The idea for that possible sequel looks all kinds of fun, Machete ends up in a space station shooting laser guns and wielding a glowing machete that resembles a lightsaber from Star Wars…only it’s a machete! It looks a bit like Barbarella (1968) mixed with an ultra cheap version of Star Wars (1977), actually, if I were to compare it to anything, I’d say it looks something closer to Luigi Cozzi’s Star Crash (1978), an Italian science fiction film that’s incredibly hilarious, highly recommend you guys check it out if you’re in the mood for a cheap Italian version of Star Wars, in other words, Machete Kills Again…In Space! looks like pure unadulterated b-movie goodness, if it ever happens! So how does Machete go from fighting ‘federales’ and the F.B.I., to fighting on a space station with lasers wheezing by? I’ll tell you how, through the magic that Robert Rodriguez concocts behind the camera, that’s how! I mean, here’s a director who understands that in movie land, any crazy thing you can dream up can happen and that’s alright because this is a movie! It’s not real! And I love that approach he takes with some of his movies and I loved that aboutMachete Kills.

Of course, I have to be honest, the majority of the population is going to think this movie is shit and I’ll tell ya why, this movie was made specifically for that core group of people who love b-movies, for those fan boys who get why Mel Gibson is driving a hovercraft from Star Wars, or that the whole Machete in Space thing is a spoof of all those movies that end up sending their heroes “to space” because they can’t think of anything better to do with their film. So guys like me and that other guy in the theater I was in that was obviously enjoying the movie, laughed like maniacs, the other half was asking “why are those guys laughing?” But who cares, for those few who get it, this movie will be an absolute blast, in fact if you can get past your pompous ass self and just give into the madness, you just might have a good time yourself. The movie goes at a lightning fast pace, crazy things are happening every five seconds, you’ll never be bored. There’s always some joke, or some gory, shocking thing happening on screen. Don’t look for things making sense, just go with the flow because there’s never a dull moment on this movie; there’s one thing this movie is and that’s entertaining.

At the end of the day I can’t bring myself to hate this movie because it delivers exactly what I was expecting from it. I wasn’t expecting anything I would take seriously, I was expecting something I would laugh with and be amused by and that’s exactly what I got. I’m pretty damn sure that Robert Rodriguez isn’t expecting anyone to give this movie a “good review”, he was making a b-movie and he knew it. True, ever sense Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003), some of Rodriguez's films have a shot in a hurry feel to them, and the result are sometimes sloppy but I can't deny the high fun factor of these "sloppy movies" he's been making. Sure I look forward to the day when he truly focuses all his strengths and makes something as awesome as Sin City (2005) or From Dusk Till Dawn (1994), but till then, I'm having a blast with these b-movies he keeps making. While making Machete Kills, he knew that most people wouldnt get seeing Machete hurling some dudes intestines at the propellers of a helicopter, he knew they wouldn’t get Sofia Vergara shooting bullets out of her tits, but Rodriguez also knew that a group of us out there will absolutely love this movie and get it and want to watch it over and over again, and those are the ones he made this movie for. I mean where else are you going to get a mix of Star Crash (1978), Moonraker (1979) and Mad Max (1979) all in one movie? Nowhere else that’s where! Robert Rodriguez went all out ‘nutso’ with this movie, I mean, did you ever expect laser guns and people teleporting in and out of existence on a Machete movie? Nope! But you’ll get that as well! And if that doesn't grab you, then the never ending avalanche of cameos should keep you entertained! I am looking forward to seeing Machete Kills Again…In Space! Which is why I am hoping Machete Kills makes its modest 20 million dollar budget back, I mean seeing Machete and She flying around in Jet Packs, kicking some villains ass in a cheap version of the death star is the kind of stuff I live for! Gotta love those groovy b-movies!

Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5

Rodriguez directs Gibson on the set of Machete Kills

Blacula (1972)

Title: Blacula (1972)

Director:  William Crain

Cast: William Marshall, Vonetta McGee, Thalmus Rasulala

Blaxploitation films started as a genre with one of two films, depending on whom you ask, the first blaxploitation film was either Melvin Van Peeble’s Sweet Sweetback’s Bad Ass Song (1971) or Gordon Park’s Shaft (1971). Some don’t consider Sweet Sweetback’s Bad Ass Song an exploitation film, so they give the title of first blaxploitation film to Shaft. Point is that after the release of these two films many more blaxploitation films followed, most of them focused on drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes or tough cops, but not one of them was a horror film; until Blacula (1972) came along that is! After the success of Blacula, more blaxploitation horror films followed. For example we got Abby (1974), Ganja and Hess (1973), Blackenstein (1973) and Dr. Black and Mr. White (1976). So Blacula is an extremely important film in the sense that it’s the first African American Blaxploitation horror film; and the first time we ever saw an African American vampire! 

  

In Blacula we meet Mamuwalde, an African prince who has come all the way from Africa to visit Count Dracula in his castle; apparently Mamuwalde doesn’t know that Dracula is the king of all bloodsucking vampires! But anyways, Mamuwalde being an African prince has a political agenda in mind. He’s come to get Dracula to sign a treaty that would end slavery, an arrangement that does not sit well with Dracula at all! Instead Dracula decides to curse Mamuwalde by turning him into a vampire and christening him ‘Blacula’! Then Dracula has Mamuwalde locked up up in a coffin, leaving him there indeterminately. Mamuwalde becomes a tortured soul for many years because he has not only become a vampire, but since he is locked inside of a coffin, he can’t satiate his vampire blood lust! He can’t feed! So anyway, fast forward 200 years and an unsuspecting gay couple opens Mamuwalde’s coffin out of curiosity  and out comes Blacula into the modern world! With a hunger he hasn’t been able to satiate in 200 years! So of course, he first feeds on the two gay dudes! After that, Blacula decides to walk the streets of the modern world and it is during this walk that he stumbles upon a woman who resembles his late wife, so then it becomes his mission in life to make this woman fall in love with him. Will Mamuwalde ever find love again?

"You shall be known as Blacula!"

In many ways, Blacula plays out like your basic Dracula adaptation, going step by step through the same basic structure of a Dracula film, only difference is that Blacula is set in modern times and Dracula is black this time around. On Blacula, Mamuwalde finds the re-incarnation of his long lost love, which comes in the form of a young woman named Tina, a young lady that Blacula begins to court; so like many vampire films, Blacula is essentially a love story about a vampire looking for someone to accompany him through eternity. But where Blacula takes a left turn is when they set him in the modern world, which means placing Blacula in Los Angeles, circa the early 1970’s, which is really the funniest aspect of the film for me. Actually, when we really get down to it, this film plays out a bit like Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows(2010), because it is the same basic idea of having a vampire locked up inside a coffin many years and then releasing him into the modern world. But in my opinion, Blacula didn’t really exploit this whole idea of thrusting a character from ancient times into modern times; it really didn’t play with that ‘fish out of water’ angle that Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows played with so well. On this one, Blacula stumbles upon the modern world and fits right in; he doesn’t seemed amazed at all by the ‘modern world’ of the 70’s. I mean, to him cars should be magic! But no, on this film Blacula walks into a nightclub and asks for a ‘Bloody Mary’ as if he’d done it ten thousand times before.

In that sense, the film has a couple of plot holes in it. Not to mention that Blacula walks around the city streets wearing a freaking cape! What I thought was hilarious about this movie was how so much of it revolves around Blacula visiting this nightclub to meet up with Tina and have a couple of drinks. That’s right my friends, on this film you’ll see Mamuwalde visiting a nightclub, talking to babes, having a couple of drinks, socializing and listening to soul bands playing funky music all night long. This is something that happens a lot in blaxploitation films, I remember a similar scene in Super Fly(1972), where a funky band plays in the background and takes a few minutes of screen time to show what they are made of. This is all cool in my book if you ask me, very funky, very 70’s, very black and it’s what blaxploitation cinema is all about. I don’t know if they realized they were making a funny movie or not, I think Blacula is unintentionally funny and simply a product of crazy ass 70’s blaxploitation scene, but I gotta tell ya, I love it just like it is. There’s something really funny about Dracula being in a nightclub listening to a funky soul band, which by the way was a real life soul band known as ‘The Hues Corporation’. Some might find that it takes away from the horror element of the film, but I say it’s what makes Blacula unique amongst other Dracula films.

There’s an underlying social message within the film because Mamuwalde is turned into a vampire by a racist, cold blooded, unforgiving Dracula, a white man who wants to hear nothing about abolishing slavery. On this film Mamuwalde is cursed by the white man! Anyone, be they black or white can enjoy these films, but they were primarily made with black audiences in mind. American International Pictures promoted it by pushing the slavery angle, so this is probably the reason why in some scenes white characters are portrayed as dumb and incompetent, or play second banana to the black characters. In fact, one of the main characters is a black doctor called Gordon Smith who is in charge of the investigation; he is portrayed as smarter than any cop in the film, with the white cop always two steps behind. So what we have with Blacula is a film that has strong black leads, which was something rarely seen in those days in cinema, with the exception of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead(1968), strong black leads where unheard of. The interesting thing is that sometimesBlacula doesnt feel like a blaxsploitation film at all. For example, director William Crane didn’t use an all black cast, his cast was actually multiracial, and had the black man working alongside the white man in unison, which I think is a very positive thing about the film, it doesn’t do the stereotypical thing of always portraying the white man as “evil”.  

Blacula stands as a bonafide cult classic, mainly because it was the first film in which we see a black vampire and because it was the first blaxploitation horror film ; something that up to that point hadn’t been done before. Eddie Murphy attempted a similar thing when he played ‘Maximillian’ in Wes Craven’s Vampire in Brooklyn (1995), an underrated vampire flick if you ask me and a film that holds many similarities with Blacula. I’m sure that Eddie Murphy and Wes Craven had Blacula in mind when they made their film, they probably wanted to ‘up the ante’ with their film. Blacula does suffer a little bit from a low budget aesthetic, I mean, the sound is terrible in certain moments and so is the lighting, but I still found myself enjoying the film. I felt a certain type of empathy for Mamuwalde. True Mamuwalde is a vampire, a killer, but same as many vampire films, you feel a certain kind of empathy for the character. He seems to be truly in love with Tina, and Tina with him, yet there’s always that conflict of “but he is a cold blooded killer!” You’ll find yourself rooting for Blacula anyways which is something kind of interesting about the film. So my friends, Blacula is a blaxploitation classic, it got the ball rolling in terms of horror blaxploitation films and has an important African American director behind it in William Crain, one of the first black directors who worked on television, and the guy who made the first blaxploitation horror film with Blacula, which by the way made a lot of cash for American International Pictures. In fact, Blacula was so successful that it spawned a sequel entitled Scream Blacula Scream (1973), a film I will be reviewing soon. Make it a point to check out this excellent, historically important slice of 70’s horror blaxploitation, you’re sure to have some fun with it.

Rating: 3 out of 5

In some parts of the world, the film was marketed as "Black Dracula"

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

Title: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Cast: Gary Oldman, Wynona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Sadie Frost, Tom Waits, Keanu Reeves, Cary Elwes, Billy Campbell

Dracula has been brought to cinematic life on more occasions than any other character. I mean sure there’s tons of James Bond movies, Frankenstein movies and Godzilla has its fare share of films (going on 28 as I write this)…but even more films have used the character of Dracula in one form or another. So it truly is one of the most iconic characters in cinematic history, period. So naturally, the question inevitably arises: which of these adaptations is the best one? You ask me, my favorite, bar none is Francis Ford Coppola’s take on the character. It’s just so epic, so classy, so operatic, such a well rounded production. But once upon a time, producers and critics thought the film would end up being a major flop. They even went as far as calling it “Vampire of the Vanities” in allusion to that other major box office flop Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), some deemed it too weird and violent for mass audiences. Test screenings led to Coppola editing about 25 minutes of gory bits; of course Coppola must have been shaking in his boots, I mean, another flop? Even worse is the fact that Coppola was hoping that this film would save American Zoetrope, his film studio, which was in bankruptcy. Was Bram Stoker’s Dracula destined to become yet another flop in Francis Ford Coppola’s career?

"I...am...Dracula. I bid you welcome"

All the negative pre-release buzz for Bram Stoker’s Draculawas not without merits. True, Francis Ford Coppola is one of the greatest American directors who ever walked the face of the earth, but Coppola is also no stranger to box office disasters. For example, One from the Heart (1982) lost a lot of money as did Tetro (2009) and these are not the only turkeys in his resume. Thing is that even though some of Coppola’s films don’t exactly ignite the box office, you can’t deny their artistic merits. I mean, I look at films like Tetro and Youth Without Youth (2007) and I am mesmerized by them, I love every second of both of these films, but I also realize they are not for everyone. I recognize how incredibly ‘artsy fartsy’ they are and how they can in no way be considered “commercially viable” films, but damn, aren’t they beautiful films when you really look at them? Same goes for many of Coppola’s films, and that’s probably what producers and critics feared would happen with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, they feared it would be another expensive, beautiful and artful flop. At the end of the day, awesomeness prevailed and so the film went on to make a hefty profit worldwide, saving Coppola and his studio in the process. I guess you can’t really compete with quality. A good film is a good film, and audiences recognized that in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. 

Amongst the ever increasing amount of Dracula films, Coppola’s take on the character still stands at #1 for me for various reasons. The first reason is that it’s such a great production, I mean; here we have the cream of the crop in every single department. It’s not surprising that the resulting film is such an artistic tour de force; Coppola gathered amazing talent to bring his vision to life. Bram Stoker’s Dracula was such an exquisite film that it marked one of the very few occassions in which a horror film actually got some recognition by the Academy, the only other one I can remember was Silence of the Lambs (1991). Bram Stoker’s Dracula ended up winning three academy awards in the areas in which it excels the most: costume design, sound editing and make- up effects; but  If you ask me I would have also given them the Oscar for art direction, because it excels on this as well, the sets are wow, beautiful, epic, like the old Universal Horror Films where everything was huge! One look at this film and you can tell it was done with great care and interest in making something that we’d never been seen before. Coppola managed to evoke a feeling of other worldliness, there’s always something not right, just a little off, as if the natural rules of physics did not apply. Coppola wanted the film to be bathed in a strange, surreal vibe  every time a vampire appears. This is why, when we are in Dracula’s castle, characters walk on walls, shadows seem to have a life of their own and water drops fall upwards instead of down.  

And the cast, well, for me it’s beyond amazing save for the one weak link known as Keanu Reeves. On his behalf I will say that Keanu was worn down when he made Bram Stoker’s Dracula, he’d just made three films in a row! Those films were Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991), My Own Private Idaho(1991) and Point Break (1991)! Nowadays Keanu recognizes his fault and excuses himself for his poor performance in Bram Stoker’s Dracula; he admitted “I just didn’t have anything left to give”. But getting past that whole Keanu Reeves thing, the rest of the cast does an amazing job in my book. Gary Oldman is fantastic as Count Dracula. Some people don’t seem to enjoy his performance for whatever the reason; probably because the film is a bit on the theatrical side. Some of the performances might feel a bit over the top or overtly melodramatic to some viewers, but to be honest, it’s what I like about this version of Dracula. Characters seem to feel more intensely, love without control, and in my book, this makes all the perfect sense in the world because when we really look at it, this is a passionate love story. This is a movie that speaks of the kind of passion that will blind us and make us go crazy with lust and desire, so lines like “take me away from all this DEATH!” and “The blood is the life!” are spoken with the appropriate amount of intensity in my book. Mina and Dracula really feel for each other, their love is not an ordinary love; this is a love that transcends both time and death! The rest of the cast is astoundingly good, of special note is Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing, who plays the character diametrically opposed to Oldman’s Dracula. This Van Helsing loves food, life, singing, dancing! He is full of life, as opposed to Dracula who represents death and decay.

I love how the film serves as an allegory for the sexual politics between male and female. For example, Mina and Lucy are characters that are in the prime of their youth; looking forward to getting married and exploring their sexuality by reading the Kamasutra. Both young girls are curious about sex and its many possibilities, there’s even a hint of bisexuality in them when they share a secret kiss. So when an experienced dog like Dracula comes along and shows them how it’s done, they experience this sexual awakening and suddenly it’s a whole new world for both Mina and Lucy. Dracula has always been a character that’s representative of mans sexual impulses and this film is no exception. On this film Dracula satisfies his purely physical desires with Lucy, but it’s with Mina that he finds true love. So the film points this out to us, the difference between a physical relationship, based solely on sexual pleasure and a relationship that has its foundations on love. 

One of the things I love the most about this film is how Coppola approached the production, the whole mentality behind making it. Coppola wanted to hearken back to the old days of filmmaking, actually, Coppola originally wanted to make this film with impressionistic sets, using a lot of lights and shadows, similar to what had been done in German Expressionistic cinema with films like Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Nosferatu (1922), of course the studio denied it, but he still went about making this film in the same way movies where made back in the old days, when cinema was just getting started. He wanted to use modern special effects techniques as little as possible. 

Coppola was given a special effects team which he ended up firing after they didn’t agree with his approach. He ended up using his son, Roman Coppola for the visual effects of the film which consisted in the usage of miniatures, matte paintings, forced perspective, mirrors…techniques as old as filmmaking itself. To be honest, the film looks way better than any of the CGI we see so often in today’s films. The miniature work is incredibly well done, so much so you probably won’t even realize when they are being used. On the makeup effects department, well, I have to give Kudos to the ones responsible; the makeup effects work is superb here as well! Same as in most Dracula films, the Count takes various forms, but my favorite has always been this giant vampire bat; the way this creature looks in the film always knocks my socks off, it’s one of my favorite cinematic monsters ever, top that amazing makeup effects work with Oldman’s performance and great sound effects and you’ve got yourself one amazing scene. But then again, the film is filled with many show stopping moments that I won’t go into here. Suffice it to say that Coppola’s Dracula is an amazing feat of filmmaking. It takes Dracula out of the campiness of the old Hammer movies and puts him right in the middle of a class-a big budget production, and I savored every last bit of this bloody good time. This is a highly regarded film in my book, perfect for a night of old fashion, passionate horror.  

Rating:  5 out of 5

The Many Faces of Dracula

Dracula has been around for a long long time, and a pretty eclectic group of actors have portrayed him through the ages. Some of the stories behind these adaptations are very interesting; for example, in the case of F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), Murnau wanted to make an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula but was denied the rights to it, so he just changed the name of his vampire to 'Count Orlock'. But we know it's really Dracula! The story is the same! Some fit the part perfectly, like for example Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee and Gary Oldman all of who were perfect embodiments of the character, but others, like Lon Chaney Jr., I never bought as a villain! I mean sure he was great as The Wolf Man (1941) because that character had a duality to him, but Dracula is supposed to be all evil, and Chaney Jr. had this good nature to him, I couldn't believe he'd be Dracula. Other portrayals of the character focus on the more romantic side of things, like Frank Langella in John Badham's Dracula (1979) which also has the distinction of being called "Disco Dracula" by this Film Connoisseur, the guy just looks so 70's. Finally, even though it's Bela Lugosi who is often associated with the character, its Christopher Lee who will go down as the guy who played Count Dracula the most. So anyhows, here's a list of actors who have portrayed the character through out the ages and the movies they have appeared in, in no particular order. Enjoy!

Actor: Bela Lugosi

Films: Dracula (1931), Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

Quote: “I am Dracula, I bid you welcome”

Actor: Christopher Lee

Films: Horror of Dracula (1958), Castle of the Living Dead (1964), Dracula Prince of Darkness (1966), Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), Scars of Dracula (1970), Jess Franco’s Count Dracula (1970), Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973), In Search of Dracula (1975)

Quote: “Sleep well Mr. Harker”

Actor: Frank Langela

Film: Dracula (1979)

Quote: “I am the King of my kind”

Actor: Max Schreck

Film: Nosferatu (1922)

Quote: “Is this your wife? What a lovely throat!”

Actor: Klaus Kinski

Film: Nosferatu: Phantom of the Night (1979)

Quote: “There are things more horrible than death”

Actor: Jack Palance

Film: Dracula (1974)

Actor: John Carradine

Film: House of Dracula (1945)

Quote: “I will explain everything, before sunrise”

Actor: Lon Chaney Jr.

Film: Son of Dracula (1943)

Quote: “We’re here to meet a friend of the Caldwell’s, a Count Alucard”

Actor: Udo Kier

Film: Blood for Dracula (1974)

Quote: “The blood of these whores is killing me”

Actor: George Hamilton

Film: Love at First Bite (1979)

Quote: “Children of the Night: Shut up!”

Actor: Duncan Regehr

Film: The Monster Squad (1987)

Quote: “Give me the amulet YOU BITCH!”

Actor: Leslie Nielsen

Film: Dracula Dead and Loving It (1995)

Quote: “I never drink wine….oh what the hell, let me try it”

Actor: Gerard Butler

Film: Dracula (2000)

Quote: “I don’t drink…coffee”  

Actor: Richard Roxburgh

Film: Van Helsing (2004)

Quote: “I am at war with the world and every living soul in it!”

Actor: Thomas Kretschmann

Film: Dario Argento’s Dracula (2012)

Actor: Ferdy Mayne

Film: The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)

Quote: “I am a night bird, I am not much good in the daytime”

Actor: Dominic Purcell

Film: Blade: Trinity (2004)

Quote: “Kill a man, you’re a murderer. Kill a million, a king. Kill them all, a god” 

 Actor: Peter Fonda

Film: Nadja (1994)

Quote: “I find comfort in shadows”

Actor: Rutger Hauer

Film: Dracula III: Legacy (2005)

Quote: “There are no dead here, just the fucked up dead!”

Actor: David Niven

Film: Vampira  (1974)

Actor: John Forbes Robertson

Film: The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974)

Actor: Gary Oldman 

Film: Bram Stoker's Dracula (1994)

Quote: "I am the monster breathing man would kill, I am Dracula!" 

Quintessential Vampire Movies from the 80's

Thanks to the success of Tom Holland’s Fright Night (1985), suddenly vampires were hot again in Hollywood and so during the mid 80’s; we suddenly had a barrage of vampire movies in theaters. An interesting bunch of films came out of that sudden burst of vampire cinema, some of these films have gone on to become true cult classics, or better yet, real horror classics, period. An eclectic brew of vampire films was concocted, some were great, some not so great. Some were just downright offbeat like for example, Nicholas Cage’s Vampire’s Kiss(1989) which was sold as a comedy to the masses, but was really the furthest thing from it. Vampire’s Kiss is actually a dark film, a story about a man who thinks he’s a vampire…or maybe he really is one? It’s that kind of a movie that manages an ambiguity with its character, kind of like what George Romero did in Martin (1976), another vampire film in which were not sure if the protagonist is delusional, or if he really is a vampire. I’d recommend watching it if you enjoy Cage’s wacky side. 

Nicholas Cage in Vampires Kiss (1989)

Some vampire movies from the 80’s were weirder still! When talking about Ken Russell films, weird is a relative term and so Russell’s Lair of the White Worm (1988) is without a doubt one of the strangest vampire films you’ll ever see. On this one we meet a vampire vixen who worships a giant white worm who lives inside of a cave! Add to that premise Ken Russell’s trippy visuals and you’ve got yourselves an acid trip of a vampire movie! 

Lair of the White Worm (1988)

                   

The 80’s also brought us lesbian vampires in the form of Tony Scott’s The Hunger (1983), a film in which David Bowie plays a half vampire who doesn’t like the fact that he’s starting to age and about to die. You see, up to this point his vampire life had been made up of going out to night clubs and feeding on the blood of Goth fans! But age is catching up with him, and so, since he is not a full vampire, he starts to decay. It’s a sultry tale that explores sexuality and the minds reluctance to accept the vestiges of age. It asks the question: why must the party end? Why must we get old and die? These three offbeat films are not as renowned as the next couple of films I will be talking about. 

Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie in The Hunger (1983)

Out of the 80’s, four vampire films stand out as the cream of the crop for me. You can’t talk about 80’s vampire films without mentioning these. They stand out as the best vampire films of the decade because not only where they the ones that made the most impact in terms of sheer entertainment, they were also made by great directors, Tobe Hooper, Tom Holland, Joel Schumacher and Kathryn Bigelow. I mean, all great filmmakers, some have disappeared, some have gone on to win Oscars and some are still actively working in the world of horror, but no matter where their respective careers ended up, what matters is they all left these great vampire films behind! The films I speak of are Fright Night (1985), Lifeforce (1985), The Lost Boys (1987) and Near Dark (1987), all great, but for very different reasons.

The first of the bunch to be released was Tom Holland’s Fright Night, a very successful film because it only cost 9.5 million dollars to make, yet went on to make more than 24 million, which is a lot for a small budget horror film like this one. It was the most successful horror film of 1985, with Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985) coming in a close second. From looking at Fright Night, you would never guess it cost only 9 million dollars! It just blows my mind how good this movie ended up looking for so little. Tom Holland and his crew made a good job of making the film look more expensive then it is. But many things make Fright Night one of the best vampire films of the 80’s. First and foremost is the cast, which I think had great chemistry on screen. William Ragsdale plays Charlie Brewster, the nerdiest teenager in class, the a-typical goody little two shoes, the quintessential “ guy next door”. He’s also the boy who would cry wolf! I always liked the friendship that Charlie develops with Peter Vincent (Roddy MCDowall) “the great vampire killer”, a fading actor who’s always reminiscing about his younger days, when he used to star in horror films. Now he’s just a horror show host, showcasing movies on local television. This unlikely duo form an alliance, a friendship that will transcend even towards the sequel, Fright Night II (1989), which I might add is not a bad sequel at all, not as great as its predecessor, but also not a bad effort. To seal the deal, we get Chris Sarandon in one of the most memorable vampires to ever grace the silver screen, Jerry Dandrige. Sarandon truly delivers an outstanding performance; he steals the show so to speak. But then again, the whole film is populated with good performances, who can forget Stephen Geoffreys demonic ‘Evil Ed’? Or Amanda Bearse as the virginal and then suddenly extremely sensual Amy? I don’t think the film would have been the same without this fine group of actors. And yet another great asset to this film are the incredible make up effects, they just don’t make them like this anymore, the make-up effects on Fright Night were partially concocted by the great Steve Johnson, and I gotta tell ya, they still look great by today’s standards; in fact, the vampires on Fright Night look better than a lot of the crap that passes for a vampire film these days.

Then we have Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce (1985), which in my book is a fantastic melding of science fiction and horror. This film tells the tale of a group of British astronauts who stumble upon an alien craft that is riding on the tail of Haley’s Comet. Soon, the craft starts hovering above earth! Upon closer inspection they learn that the strange ship has a crew of three naked people, two dudes and one smoking hot lady. The astronauts seem to have made the find of the century, so they take the bodies with them. What they don’t know is that these three seemingly comatose individuals they are bringing with them are really space vampires! It isn’t long before the vamps wake up and start wrecking havoc on earth. I love many things about Lifeforce, but one of the things I love the most is how it mixes vampires with zombies! These space vampires suck your life away and then leave you walking the earth as a zombie! I also like how chaotic the film gets; the last half of the film is pure chaos, with the streets of London overrun by vampire zombies looking to suck your life away! Re-watching Lifeforce last night I realized just how original it is, there’s literally nothing like it anywhere! Maybe the closest thing to it might be Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires (1965), but that’s stretching it a little. Thematically, Lifeforce is all about lust and love and the powers of sexual attraction over our lives. It speaks of how sex can drive us to do all sorts of crazy things, like falling in love with an alien vampire from outer space! The reigning theme on Lifeforce is the kind of sexual attraction that gets out of control and what better representation of a females sensual powers than the beyond beautiful bombshell Mathilda May? Gotta give her props, as an actress you gotta have balls of steel to appear naked throughout the whole freaking movie! Not that I’m complaining! Sure there’s cheesy dialog and the plot can be a bit overtly convoluted at times, but we also get giant vampire bats, a sci-fi angle mixed in with the horror, tons of visual effects by John Dykstra and epic levels of zombie mayhem?! What’s not to like on this one?

On the other hand, Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys (1987) isn’t cheesy at all, it concerns itself with simply being cool, in fact, everything about The Lost Boys is pure genius. Here’s what I dig about The Lost Boys, every element on this film was chosen to create the perfect atmosphere, the perfect ambiance for a horror movie to unfold in. First up, filming in Santa Carla, in a community by the beach, next to a beach side carnival? Freaking genius! This whole amusement park next to the beach thing was an awesome choice. I love the opening segments of the film where we get to really absorb the Santa Carla atmosphere and we get to see all these eccentric people walking about to the tune of Echo and the Bunnymen’s cover of The Doors ‘People are Strange’. It’s such a colorful way to open the film, and it really lets us sink into the world that these characters exist in. Then there’s the cast which is composed of a bunch of popular young actors from the 80’s. I mean, the list goes on with this one: Jason Patrick, Kiefer Sutherland, Corey Haim, Jami Gertz, Corey Feldman, hell even Alex Winters (also known as Bill from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure) is here. Then you take all those cool actors and put them in a story about biker vampires who dress like heavy metal dudes from the 80’s and you put them in the middle of this cool setting and it’s just pure magic. The film is actually kind of subtle with its vampire element, the film leaves a lot to your imagination, which is something I appreciated. For a huge portion of the film, the director doesn’t want you to see the vampires; he wants you to imagine them and this works like magic. But make no mistake, when these blood suckers vamp out, you will get a glimpse of true evil! It’s like Schumacher really wanted to wait as long as possible before blowing your brains out with awesomeness, the beasties do not disappoint! Top that off with an amazing soundtrack…and wowzers, you’ve got yourselves a bonafide horror classic that has lasted through the years. I hear the songs ‘Cry Little Sister’ and ‘Lost in the Shadows’ and I’m immediately transported to the world of The Lost Boys a world filled with sweaty body builders who play the saxophone with a vengeance and a grandpa who grows weed and dates old ladies! Im also magically transported to the 80’s. Pay no mind to the lesser straight to dvd sequels that have followed, this one is the real deal, this is the one to remember.  

Now if you want to take a more “poetic” detour into 80’s vampire films, then you can’t do better than Near Dark (1987), directed by Kathryn Bigelow. This one is a bit more romantic in nature, because it’s about this cowboy who stumbles upon a female hitchhiker who ends up being a vampire. Lucky for him the vampire vixen gets the hots for him, so she ends up turning  him into a vampire instead of killing him. The rest of the film is him having to learn how to be a vampire, and accepting his new fate. But does he have to accept it? Or can he change things? So again, we have a great cast on this one, Bill Paxton is the stand out for me, he plays the wild one in the bunch, the dark side, the crazy one, he really has a few moments to shine on this movie including this amazing sequence in which the vampires invade this bar in the middle of nowhere and start messing around with the customers, kind of like playing with their food? Cool scene. These vamps don’t have fangs, don’t run away from crosses or hate garlic, these are more the kind that will slit their victims’ wrists and suck their blood, but no big fangs or anything like that, just like every other vampire movie, this one also plays with the rules a little. Director James Cameron, who was married to Kathryn Bigelow when this film got made, suggested to Bigelow the use the cast from his film Aliens (1986) and so this is why we get Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton and Jenny Wright all of whom appeared on James Cameron’s Aliens, but hey, that was a sweet deal if you ask me, it’s a great cast! Near Dark wasn’t as successful as the other films on this list, but it’s gone on to be discovered by many fans and has become a true cult classic. 

Now those are what I like to call the “Fab Four” of 80’s vampire films; but there's always another film that I like to talk about when talking about 80's vampire movies and that’s Vamp (1986), which is a fun vampire film that has a real 80’s feel to it. It stars Grace Jones as an ancient Egyptian vampire queen who’s decided to take residence in this real shithole of a strip club. Once the doors close, it’s feeding time! And she’s got a hunger for dumb college students! I’ve always said that Vamp was the film that Tarantino saw when he decided to write From Dusk Till Dawn (1996). Both films play with extremely similar premises, but Tarantino filled his film with far cooler characters and of course, way better dialog. But all that aside, Vamp manages to muster up a very unnerving atmosphere. Sure it can get silly, and sure it has these ultra dumb college students as its protagonists, but there’s no denying that the film conjures up a really strange, surreal vibe with its town full of albino vampires and its streets bathed in neon colors, it’s no wonder one of the main characters says “we’re not in Kansas anymore Toto” once they reach the spooky town in which the strip club is located. This movie is worth it because of that surreal vibe, but also because Grace Jones makes one hell of a vampire! So there you have it my friends, the cream of the crop of 80’s vampire movies! Hope you find this post useful when the time comes to decide what to watch on Halloween night! So cheers my dear readers and don’t forget to keep your crucifixes handy and your holy water stored in your water guns, because on The Film Connoisseur Halloween 2013 means vampire movies all the time! So don’t miss it! 

  

A space vampire sucking the life out of one of his victims in Lifeforce (1985)