Okay, so maybe I do drink wine

We all know he played Dracula, and did so memorably, but how many know that at birthday parties he got all super goofy and shit? Exactly.
Happy Birthday, Bela!

Long Live the Queen

Using footage taken from higher budget Soviet sci-fi productions and combining them with newly shot low budget footage, Queen of Blood is a little wonder of a movie. Cheap, ill-paced and flatly written, it nevertheless has something about it. Something ethereal, intangible. And while it's got everyone from Basil Rathbone and John Saxon to Dennis Hopper and Forry Ackerman (yes, that Forry Ackerman!) it's Florence Marly*, as the Queen of Blood, that gives it that something special. Director Curtis Harrington gives her a nice intro, pulling the camera in close as she comes to on the American ship, after being found unconscious on the Martian surface. As she's gawked at by Hopper, she slowly opens her eyes until she spies him and gives him a smile. Later, she kills him for his blood but honestly, she's the sweetest villain you're ever likely to see.











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*Sadly, she died of a heart attack at only 59. A brief bio can be found here.

When Horror Doesn't Scare You

There's a phrase that I find particularly frustrating when applied to a good horror movie, especially one I happen to like: "It's not even that scary!" My reaction, usually, but not always, spoken silently to myself is, "Oh, shut up."

I know this will sound strange to some, yet obvious to others, but horror doesn't have to be scary to be good. It's basic quality of goodness or badness has, in fact, little to do with how scary it is and more to do, as with all art, with how effectively it conveys its meaning. If that means an overall sense of dread rather than a lot of scares, so be it. Hell, I like an overall sense of dread in horror.


On Facebook recently I posted a status update alluding to The Exorcist and Larry Aydlette chimed in to say he never found the movie scary. He was not, as some do, posing this as a criticism, merely an observation. Rod Heath did the same, carefully adding, "but that's not a fault, just a personal reaction." Marilyn, on the other hand, wrote, "I was terrified the first time I saw The Exorcist. The audience was freaking out all around me, people running up the aisle screaming. It was a happening." Sounds like it. My first experience with The Exorcist was quite different.

I saw it on an early cable showing in the seventies (it may have been HBO but I can't remember) with my sister, mother and father. Yes, I was around ten and my parents watched it with me. They were never the hysterical type, worried that if we were exposed to something with violence or language we would turn to a life of crime or insanity. And my father, and this is important, was a true believer, still is. He left college after his parents died to enter the monastery but left before taking his vows, deciding that marriage was the sacrament for him. His sister, on the other hand, stuck with it and became a nun who became Mother Superior of an order in Massachusetts. Finally, in our house, along the second bookshelf in the den, was and is the entire set of the Encyclopedia of Catholicism. So The Exorcist was a movie he had to see and, what the hell, might as well watch it with the kids.

My sister was decidedly scared and freaked out through most of it and I, while more fascinated than upset, was a little creeped out by things like the desecrated statue of Mary and the death mask flashing on the screen. By the time Merrin and Karras were doing battle with Regan in the bedroom at the end of the hall my father was more bemused than anything else. Bemused with my sister's reaction and the movie itself. He assured my sister there was nothing scary in the movie. It was a girl under the control of a demon, a demon that would be driven out by the faithful. No harm would come to her and, aside from exploiting an old man's weak heart, she could bring no harm to anyone else (Burke Dennings notwithstanding). Besides, he noted, this stuff doesn't even really happen like this. Yes, my dad's one of those types of movie viewers, the ones that too often let reality get in the way of a good story. But here's the thing: I agreed with him (on the "not scary" part, not the other stuff). I thought it was an excellent movie, but I couldn't be sure what everyone found scary about it. I mean, it's a girl. On a bed. Tied down, no less.

When I got older I realized that, while some people may be scared by it, what I felt was a sense of dread. A pall of death and familial collapse hangs over the house throughout the movie. Very, very little, if anything, in the movie actually feels good. And that is what makes it a great horror movie. To me, it's not meant to scare, it's meant to disturb, and those are two very different things. The Exorcist is disturbing, as in it disturbs our view of a normal mother/daughter relationship. It disturbs our view of faith, in ourselves and, if we choose, God as well. Most of all, it disturbs our view of what is right and wrong and good and bad. It is, in fact, one of the most disturbing movies I have ever seen. So whether I'm scared by it or not hardly even matters. The feeling's the thing, and the feeling is one of dread, a dreading of what's coming and how much worse it can still get.

I've had that feeling with several movies and some movies I consider the very best of the genre I would never consider scary, The Wicker Man for instance. I think it's brilliant but not because it's scary, rather, because it feeds on uneasy feelings of isolation, "us and them" belief systems and societal dysfunction. That it's not scary doesn't affect its quality one iota. It's brilliant, as is The Exorcist, in taking a feeling and building a whole movie around it. Sometimes people get the wrong idea about horror, even if they're a fan. They think it's about jump scares and gore and evil creatures and, actually, it is! It is about those things but it's also about so much more and whether or not it frightens isn't always the end-all, be-all of whether or not it succeeds. Sometimes, the best thing a horror movie can do is fill you with a vague, creeping sense of discomfort. Disquiet. Disorder. And when it's done right, it can be downright scary.

Where Did the Time (for horror) Go?

Over at TCM's Movie Morlocks, I take part in a semi-regular roundtable called The Horror Dads, in which a few of us (including fellow bloggers Dennis Cozzalio, Jeff Allard and roundtable ringleader Richard Harland Smith) discuss watching horror with our kids. Although the youngest is my stepdaughter, rather than biological (I never actually use the term "stepdaughter"), I've been with her since she was a toddler so I've had the full experience of watching her grow. Somewhere along the way, Friday night became movie night for the three of us (me, my wife and daughter) and shortly after that started (somewhere around six years ago) the weekly pick became horror, or at least 90 percent of the time. There is an occasional comedy thrown it but even then, it's usually comedy horror.

As I've discussed at the roundtable, we usually keep ourselves to pre-1970 horror so that nothing gets too disturbing for the youngest. We've watched all the Universal classics, most of them multiple times, and all the Corman and Hammer classics. But we've also watched less celebrated thrillers like The Spiral Staircase or Hangover Square. We haven't watched Psycho with her yet but we have watched City of the Dead, twice, and although that also has a death by stabbing halfway through the movie, it's done as a cutaway so nothing is seen. It's not that she really understands something like Hangover Square but she appreciates the ambiance and feel of a horror movie or thriller or mystery. It's what she likes and there's no getting around it.

Most of that came not from me but from her mother, my lovely wife, Laura. Laura loves October, witches, black cats and graveyards. We spent a lot of time in an old graveyard in Massachusetts when we drove our oldest daughter up to college, reading tombstones and taking photos. There wasn't a person buried there with a birthdate later than the 1700's and most were born in the 1600's. That kind of thing holds a certain allure for us and it's something that Laura has implanted in the youngest since day one.

It's a love of the macabre but a gentle one. It's the atmosphere of it all that we love more than anything and, more often than not, movie night runs along the line of fantasy horror, such as vampires and mummies and sorcerers, rather than the mad killer variety. Still, I have occasionally tried, and failed, to bring a stronger variety of horror to the fore.

About two years ago I foolishly thought Theatre of Blood might be a hit on movie night. Laura told me that was a big mistake and I should pick something else. But, I countered, the youngest loves Vincent Price, loves him! I'd tell her to cover her eyes when anything too bad happens. So yeah, anyway, I'm an idiot. Nobody needed to say, "I told you so," because I was telling myself two minutes into it when the homeless crazies descend upon the first victim and it was quite clear this was not entertaining the youngest, but rather, freaking her out. It was turned off and put away. Another movie was shown but now, I can't remember which.

Of course, I saw Jaws at eight, in the theatre. I watched The Omen and The Exorcist at ten. And so, I thought, if I could handle it, she could. But, it occurs to me, there are three different types of horror fans (well, in a sweepingly general kind of a way, at least): The ones who like the gentler more ambient horror of yesteryear (1970 and before), the ones who like hardcore, disturbing horror from any time (Psycho, The Exorcist, The Shining) and the ones who like both. I fall into the "both" category, my wife into the "yesteryear" category and the youngest? I think I have to accept she falls into that category too, the kinder, gentler variety. Sure, there's time to grow into it but as she approaches middle school, I wonder. How many horror fans know early on, very early, that they like the hard stuff too? I did. It's usually not something that waits until puberty to manifest itself.

As she grows older I wonder if we'll continue to watch horror together. Will we graduate to stronger stuff or will she lose interest in the genre only to retain a nostalgic sense of warmth for its atmosphere, memories of Friday night with pizza and ice cream? I don't know. I do know there will still be plenty of mysteries and ghost stories to watch with her even if she never wants to watch the other stuff. But I'll also miss the enthusiasm that I fear will diminish as she grows older and has less time for Mom and Dad and more time for friends and parties. Oh well. It's been a hell of a good run and something I'll always hold on to, tightly.

As she grows up I realize more than ever how much a debt of gratitude I owe Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, James Whale, Peter Cushing, Hazel Court, Terence Fisher, Christopher Lee, Barbara Steele, Peter Lorre, Jimmy Sangster, Roger Corman, William Castle, Hammer Studios, Universal Studios and a hundred other artists who helped make the Friday nights of my daughter's youth some of the best nights we'll ever have together. Without them, it never could have happened.

Coming Soon

Horror - But Once Each Year?

Every year around this time I feel like an interloper. The great blogs with a focus on the darker side, from Arbogast on Film to Final Girl, from Frankensteinia to Love Train for the Tenebrous Empire and even Cinebeats and Coffee Coffee and more Coffee, not exclusively horror blogs as they cover all genres of films but are certainly comfortable tackling horror with precise expertise, must get annoyed at all the non-horror blogs suddenly joining the club for a scant 31 days and acting like they know anything at all on the subject. I must admit that with each post I write in October I imagine they are all out there shaking their heads thinking, "I've read about this topic about a million times before on horror blogs dude. If you read them too you'd know how stale this is." And I know that while my most paranoid visions may be false the general belief is true. For instance, I wrote a post on Peter Cushing this October. How many posts on Peter Cushing have there been on horror blogs? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? A million? And yet each October I feel compelled to celebrate horror despite my amateur standing in the community. I feel compelled because I love both horror and science fiction and the fantasy elements they bring to film. But why only once a year?



I cannot stick to one genre for very long I admit. I once tried to do a whole month of nothing but Sci-Fi banners and even that I abandoned after a mere week. I love Sci-Fi but the idea of not using so many other great banners from so many other genres gnawed at me until I caved. In another case, a couple of years ago I devoted a whole month to movies and events important in the history of the Production Code. By the end of the month I was so sick of it I've yet to broach the subject again. But that's not the real problem. The problem is that I foolishly avoid the genre for most of the rest of the year. There have been times, too many to count, where I have an idea for a horror post that I don't do because I think, "I'll save this for October." Then when October finally rolls around the post has disappeared into the cobwebbed recesses of my doddering mind.

This has all been swimming around my brain lately because this year in particular proved a difficult one for saying what I wanted. There were and are many obligations that stood in the way of a full scale celebration of horror, mixed in with a generous dose of blogger fatigue and an ever increasing captivation with photo blogging (three of the four places I blog at are photo blogs). And so many of the posts I had planned never materialized, including a video post where I narrate the images to express my thoughts on the subject. And frankly, I know if I wait until next year almost all the ideas I had for posts this year will be lost forever and I'd still like to write them.

So write them I shall.

If you'll forgive me, this year's October celebrations will spill over into November, December, January and on through to September and why shouldn't they? Why restrict myself to one month out of the year? I don't want to be the interloper anymore. I don't want to feel like the Johnny Come Lately showing up at a bar full of regulars and acting like I own the place. So I think I'll follow the lead offered by Kimberly Lindbergs and Peter Nellhaus and throw horror into the mix whenever I feel like it. I still don't have anywhere near the expertise of either of them, or of the great Arbogast on Film, but I have a love for the genre and a compulsion to express it. If I'm honest, I suppose this whole post is just a way of saying I'm sorry I didn't do more this year. I'm sorry I let you down.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Halloween and a safe one. This year it falls on a Saturday which, if you have children in their late teens and early twenties (and I do), is always a bit of a worry. Trick or treating is much less fretful than late night parties with kids who are under the delusion they're adults. No matter how much guidance you give, how many restrictions you enact, at some point, it's up to them and for a parent that's always a bit scary especially when you look back and realize you didn't figure anything out until around 40.

So have a safe one and a happy one boys and ghouls. Happy Halloween!

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P.S. - That's me in the blog banner (as well as the picture at the top of this post) by the way. It occurred to me that most people didn't know after I asked a couple about it. I don't look like that all the time, I just hadn't had my coffee yet.

P.P.S. - I would be remiss if I did not point out that both Bill and Arbogast made the decision to do a special post each day (31 posts on horror fiction for Bill and 31 posts on horror movie screams for Arbogast) and by God, they stuck to it! Spend some time reading through them all when you get the chance if you haven't already. I humbly bow before both of them.

Black Sabbath Poster Bonanza

Look at the great posters below for Mario Bava's Black Sabbath. They're courtesy of a wonderful site entitled The Wrong Side of Art and I heartily recommend going there and browsing their immense archives. I put them up to remind everyone that there are still three days to go in Kevin Olson's Italian Horror Blogathon. It's final day is Halloween itself so submit your own entry today! This simple poster post will have to suffice for my entry as I am not prepared to do anything more unfortunately. I'll level with you: it's been pretty damn busy around here with our oldest daughter reaching her deadline for college applications (this Friday) and I've been researching, writing and editing towards those purposes which explains why things have been more on the video side around here than the writing side. No one is applying to college next year (we hope) so I should have more time to devote to Cinema Styles October 2010: 100 Acre Horror, in which I spend the entire month interpreting horror through the lens of Winnie the Pooh and friends. The post on Eeyore alone should send chills down your spine. Until then, enjoy these posters and submit your own entry to the Italian Horror Blogathon soon!

Scary Face #1

Presenting the "Scary Face" series. Watch at your own risk. Images are terrifying. Small children should be gently but firmly escorted away from computer before playing. Not for the faint of heart. You've been warned.

Gently Johnny: A Picture Book Story

"A picture of me arresting somebody would look soooo cool right here."
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The bacon trees are in bloom!
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and the manager gives me a smile;
'cause he knows that it's me;
they've been coming to see;
to forget about life for a while.
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"Excuse us please. Is this the Overlook?"
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Here comes the king, here comes the king, here comes the big number one.
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You're stupid!
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No you're stupid!
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Touchdown!!!
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Best tailgate party. Ever.
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For the real deal, go here. Best review of this film you'll read.

Kiss Me, Stupid

I'll be at Illusions Travel by Streetcar today to discuss Billy Wilder's Kiss Me, Stupid for this month's TOERIFC selection but I'll be back for October festivities later. Come join us if you've seen it, admission is free.

Synthetic Flesh

Continuing the "Creepy Moments" series for this month we move on to Doctor X from 1932, directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray and Lee Tracy, none of whom are in this scene (but Preston Foster is). And yes, it's a scene not a moment. Furthermore, it's not very creepy with all the electronic gizmos and gadgets pulsating throughout the scene probably removing any sense of creepiness to the modern eye but I don't care because I love the movie, the whole damn ridiculous thing, and the scene. And if you've never seen Doctor X and would like to see it fresh DO NOT WATCH THIS SCENE. This scene is in fact the spoiler of the movie where the Moon Killer's real identity is finally revealed. Otherwise please do watch this entertaining and goofy scene in which the Moon Killer disguises himself before the kill by applying mounds of goopy synthetic flesh to his face (which is kind of funny because immediately following this scene he reveals who he is without hesitation to the other characters who have been trying to solve his identity).

The Middle Ground between Light and Shadow

As a part of October celebrations I watched Twilight Zone: The Movie, a film I'd not seen since its debut on cable way, waaaay back in the day. Watching it again with older, maybe wiser, eyes revealed a film so inconsistent as to make one wonder why they bothered releasing it. Add on to that the fact that three actors ( Vic Morrow, My-Ca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi) were killed during filming due to questionable filming practices, ignored safety standards and violations of child labor laws and one really does get the feeling that out of respect alone they should have shelved it. But they didn't and I suppose Vic Morrow, the great character actor with such an extraordinary gift for playing the jerk, deserves recognition for his final performance, something too often overlooked in write-ups on the film.

Vic Morrow's performance comes in the first tale told (there are four in all, bookended by a mildly entertaining, and completely pointless, prologue and epilogue featuring Dan Aykroyd and Albert Brooks). The tale concerns a hateful bigot who, after spending his evening complaining about every non-white ethnic group under the sun controlling the world, walks out of a bar and into the Jewish ghetto in Nazi Germany. Get it? He's a Jew now, suffering divine retribution for his sins. Moments later he is a black man being held by the KKK (with a young John Larroquette as their leader) and then a Vietnamese man escaping American troops in Vietnam. This last sequence involved a scene where Morrow and two children (the actors named above) escape a helicopter attack which ended, in reality, horrifically as the helicopter lost control and descended upon and killed all three actors below. Whatever that scene entailed it was clearly vital to the sequence because without it the Vietnam sequence is so weak and meaningless that it honestly should have been left out. Editing out the helicopter scene, and the previous scene with the two children, but leaving in all that surrounded it seems both disrespectful and dishonest. Because the sequence is so weak and barely understandable (it's not even made clear that he is a Vietnamese man - that was made clear in the footage with the children apparently) it feels like it was left in just so they wouldn't lose any usable footage. If that is in fact the case then may I just offer up a huge "Fuck you" to John Landis and if it is not the case the "Fuck you" stands for filming at night with child actors illegally hired to avoid adherence to child labor laws, a fact that only Landis and first and second assistant directors Dan Allingham and Anderson House knew on the set. I won't go any further but if you would like to read more on this whole disgusting episode, go here. But back to Morrow. He is, as expected, excellent. Whether at the beginning of his career (Blackboard Jungle) or near the end (The Bad News Bears) Morrow could project hate and anger like few others. He is perfectly cast here and makes an otherwise unmemorable segment slightly better.

Then there's the second segment, directed by Steven Spielberg and without a doubt the weakest of all four segments. No, that's not right, it's much worse than weak. It's horrible, insufferable, unbearable. It is a ripe stinking piece of garbage. It's a story about a group of old timers who get the chance to be young again thanks to a magic man with a twinkle in his eye and... Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!! The music is goopy, the shots are sickly sweet, the child actors playing the old timers now young are AWFUL! Oh screw it, here just watch this Cinema Styles video review:



Moving on to the third segment things improve dramatically. The music still sucks for the most part (only because Jerry Goldsmith doing 'whimsical' is just about the worst thing the Earth has ever known) but the story and pacing are a hell of a lot better. Kathleen Quinlan stars as Helen, a woman taken to a strange house by a strange boy named Anthony who can make anything happen by wishing. He has, we find out, held four people captive that he reveals to outsiders as his family. A fifth hostage, and true relation - his sister, sits in the bedroom silently watching cartoons, her mouth long ago removed by the vindictive Anthony. The story races along at a clipped pace as we watch the immensely entertaining set of character actors, including Kevin McCarthy, wiggle and squirm through sycophantic tributes to Anthony. The biggest fault of this story is it pretends to have a nice ending with Anthony telling Quinlan he let everyone go as she smiles and says she wants to be his teacher. Thing is, it's alluded to by one of the characters early on that his parents met a horrible fate at his hands. No mention is made of this as we all hold hands and watch flowers grow alongside the road as the new teacher and homicidal student drive off into the sunset. Ugh. I guess when Steven Spielberg is your producer these kinds of endings are unavoidable (at least, I should qualify, the Spielberg of 1983).

That takes us to the fourth and final segment, a reworking of the original series classic Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. John Lithgow takes over the role William Shatner made famous as an airline passenger terrified of flying who sees a gremlin on the wing of the plane destroying the engine. No one else sees it of course and Lithgow does a tremendous job of playing full-bore hysterical throughout most of the segment. It's not any better or worse than the original (maybe slightly worse - it plays the hysterical angle a bit too long) but it's not a bad capper to an otherwise undistinguished affair.

In the end, the first two segments (the first for its banality, the second for its no-holds-barred awfulness) weigh too heavily on this enterprise for the movie to succeed. By the time we get to the good stuff we've already entered an advanced state of indifference to the whole damn thing and even Joe Dante's and George Miller's very good third and fourth segments can't resuscitate this comatose patient. When the credits roll we feel a mixture of depressed detachment and relief. The movie didn't really affect us one way or the other and yet we're glad it's over. Like Rod Serling's famous narration, it occupies the middle ground between light and shadow, never really venturing fully into either, staying the middle course, playing it safe and finally, and ultimately, failing as both.

It was always Peter

I recently watched The Curse of Frankenstein again and was once again impressed with how boldly Hammer Film Productions, director Terence Fisher and write Jimmy Sangster all worked together to produce such a splendid reboot of a story (before they were called reboots and one year before their Dracula reboot) so familiar to so many fans. How they took the basic framework of the story and twisted it around just enough to make a story they could call their own while still enjoying the benefits that come from attaching the name "Frankenstein" to the end product. I was again impressed with how well Christopher Lee does in evoking sympathy for the pathetic creature he must play, much more pathetic than his original literary counterpart or the 1931 Universal creation. But more than anything I think I realized, or perhaps better put, finally let myself accept, that without Peter Cushing Hammer films would have never succeeded. That is high praise indeed and I intend it to be the highest praise I can give to an actor underrated by legions of non-horror fans and deified by those in the fold.

Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are associated with Hammer more than any other two names but the two films that put Hammer on the horror map were this one and the previously discussed Horror of Dracula and in both, even Dracula, Lee is but a supporting player. It is Cushing that carries both films. It is Cushing that makes both films. Without Cushing neither film would have been the success it was and Hammer, perhaps, would have moved on to other things. Goddamit, it was Peter. It was always Peter.

And it's not just that this film, this Frankenstein, wouldn't have worked without Cushing. The 1931 Universal Frankenstein wouldn't have worked with Cushing in the role of the doctor. That role needed an actor who could exhort wildly that his creation had life and then recede into the framework while we follow the monster and his doings. Colin Clive played that role and did it well. But this Frankenstein is Cushing and nothing else. The creature is damn near an afterthought. In fact, he could have never succeeded in bringing the creature to life and it wouldn't have hurt the movie. He could have just kept on killing people and kept on trying and that would have been enough. With another actor it wouldn't have been but with Cushing? Yes, easily.

Peter Cushing had an intensity as an actor that few like him have possessed. Critics and actors like to use the word "intensity" to describe the Marlon Brandos or the John Garfields of the acting world (or any actor associated with Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler or Sanford Meisner), actors playing a brutal or brutalized working class American raised on the streets of Brooklyn. But Peter Cushing had an intensity that put all of them to shame - And NO, I am not just saying that for the sake of hyperbole, October celebrations or to give respect to a disrespected genre. I am saying it because it is true. How many people remember Peter Cushing in Star Wars? Everyone! He has but a few lines and yes, I know it's among the most popular films ever made so even minor characters are known, but still, with all the action and starfights and light sabers and Darth Vader roaming around all moody-like there's Grand Moff Tarkin, and he stands out. Now, think back to the movie, the whole saga in fact. There is no character working for the Empire, save the Emperor himself of course, who does not tremble in Vader's presence, except Tarkin. Cushing's intensity was such that he simply wouldn't have been believable fearing anyone.

It is that intensity that makes his Dr. Frankenstein such an astonishing creation. His face, his eyes, his build, his manner of speaking all signal to the audience far beyond the machinations of the script that this Doctor is mad. Homicidally mad. And that becomes our story, and would further become the story of more Hammer Films Frankensteins because fans couldn't get enough of this great yet sadly unheralded actor playing crazy. Peter Cushing changed the way horror fans thought of Doctor Frankenstein. There was the Doctor from the Universal films, the Doctor from the television productions that followed the novel more closely or even the Doctor from Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein. They all had a madness to them, an obsession that drove their desire to create life from dead tissue. But they were all also, at their core, decent human beings who loved and felt guilt and revulsion at what they had wrought upon the world. And then there's Cushing's Frankenstein. No guilt, no revulsion. This Doctor is a bastard.

While the movie contains many scenes that make this clear, including a scene early on where the good doctor kindly ushers a brilliant scientist guest to his death over the second floor railings just so he can use his brain for his reanimated creature, the scene that projects it best and brilliantly is one of true horror and perversion. Frankenstein has dug up his first failed creature and brought him back to the lab where he has chained him to the wall and brought his former tutor and mentor to the lab to show him off. He orders him thuggishly to "Stand up!" "Sit down!" and so forth while the creature performs these rudimentary actions with oafish inexactitude. His mentor, and the audience, see a pathetic and horrifying display. A mentally disabled man, chained to a wall, clearly afraid, being yelled at to perform like an organ grinder's monkey. But one look at Frankenstein and the audience knows he's thinking, "Isn't this great?! Look at this! That son of a bitch does whatever I tell him - And he was DEAD before! Goddamn I'm good! Aren't you stunningly impressed?" Peter Cushing's Frankenstein cannot, will not, see that he has done something morally repugnant. He can only see personal glory no matter what the cost has been to others (Cushing would have been superb as Colonel Nicholson in Bridge on the River Kwai - not that Alec Guiness wasn't mind you).

The Curse of Frankenstein put Peter Cushing in the public eye but he never achieved the peer recognition that an actor of his immense talents should have. The Curse of Frankenstein is a fantastic reboot of the Frankenstein story but without Cushing it would have been so much less. The Curse of Frankenstein and The Horror of Dracula that followed set Hammer up for life but none of it would have happened like it did without Cushing. It was Peter. It was always Peter.

Creepy Moments #1

All month long I'll be presenting Creepy Moments, just short bits from horror films, or otherwise, that I find eerily effective. The first comes from Carnival of Souls (d. Herk Harvey, 1962). I've cut it off right after the change occurs because it is the moment of the change that I find so effective. One second the sounds of everyday life surround her. The next... silence.

This. Is. Horror.

Dracula is horror. He's not the first horror figure by a long shot, that role belonging to some long-forgotten figure spoken of in the caves and drawn on the walls, probably some part mammoth, some part monster. And he's also not the oldest passed down in writing either, with such figures as the golem far surpassing his longevity. But Dracula is horror. He is monster, myth and menace, sexual menace, rolled into one.

Dracula is dread. He's the guy who comes into your home, into your bedroom, and takes care of your wife or fiance while you're away, or just in another room. When he leaves she has a disease, one that you can't cure unless you kill him before she dies and if she dies first there's nothing to do but drive a stake through her heart and cut off her head. But the part that really stings is... she can't wait for him to come back. And it's not like you can compete with him because you can't. See, it's not about looks because he doesn't have any. He's dirty, has a foul odor, sleeps in a coffin and has hairy palms... and she can't wait for him to come back. But it gets worse: He is most decidedly not a subject of the British Empire. Oh no, he's one of those swarthy types, an Eastern European lacking the refinement of a well-bred, well-educated Anglo-Saxon man. That's right, your girl has the hots for a foreigner. A foreigner who spreads disease and can disarm you physically in seconds, throwing you to the ground or out the window while your best girl pants in expectation and pulls back the sheets. You. Are. Impotent.

Dracula is the Victorian man's worst nightmare. And Dracula can be or mean almost anything. He can be the sexual predator, he can be the untrustworthy foreigner or he can simply be the monster hiding under the bed. The fact that Dracula can stand in for so many ills and dreads of our society as the perfect scapegoat is a testament to how well drawn he is in the epistolary novel written by Bram Stoker and first published in 1897. But I'm not here to talk about his multiple meanings or vampire symbology or why people are so afraid of the whole sense of "other." Rather I am here to state boldly and without reservation that the movie that best understands everything stated in the first two paragraphs is 1958's The Horror of Dracula (Dracula in Britain), directed by Terence Fisher and starring Christopher Lee as Count Dracula and Peter Cushing as Doctor Van Helsing.

The Horror of Dracula is a reboot, only they didn't call such things reboots in those days. It takes the basic, very basic, story of the novel and runs with it. The names are changed, the relationships are changed, the plot points are changed. But what they do is more extraordinary than providing a faithful adaptation (that was done by others later and didn't prove very interesting). What they do is cover the themes and ideas of Dracula and throw everything else away. Look not here for a deep reflection upon Van Helsing or Dracula or any of the characters. Look here for the bewitched damsel getting up to open those windows and unlock those doors because he's coming back tonight. Look here for a vampire woman attacking a good English man only to be thrown to the floor by Dracula and later to be staked, through the heart that is, by that very same good English man, already falling victim to the disease himself. Look for children led astray, burned impressions of crucifixes on foreheads, blood spurting death scenes and sunlight sending the unwanted one, that goddamn dark, stinky, swarthy son of a bitch, to his grave, as it were. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Horror of Dracula is about the idea of Dracula. It couldn't give less of a damn about the story of Dracula and that's why it's my favorite of the vampire genre. Because sometimes the best way to adapt a work of one medium to another is to interpret, not transcribe.

Dracula the vampire, and all of his ilk, will play strongly into the ideas and themes discussed this month here at Cinema Styles and so it seems fitting to introduce the month by introducing the Count but make no mistake: There will also be madmen and monsters, witches and ghosts, corpses and killers. It's October and we here at Cinema Styles welcome you and bid you good morning. Let the horror begin.

October got your goose?

Don't forget: October starts tomorrow and with it the festivities here at Cinema Styles. Check in early and until then be careful when traversing barbed wire - especially if there are scarecrows around!

Cinema Styles October - Coming Soon

This October Cinema Styles will be exploring the passion of horror rather than the slashing, killing and maiming. Love, madness, obsession, desire. All those deep primal emotions, feelings and states of mind that horror has always exploited so well. From Dracula to Christine, Peeping Tom to Fade to Black, Lust for a Vampire to The Wolfman and everything in between, before and after, Cinema Styles will be celebrating it all month long. I have a trailer here for your viewing pleasure. I'll have original works in store this October again and new banners for each day. See you then!

TOERIFC August: The Merchant of the Four Seasons

Don't forget: Next Monday at Fox's place will be August's TOERIFC discussion of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Merchant of the Four Seasons. Usual posting time is around 10 a.m. and the discussion should be, as always, fast and furious so be ready. The movie is available on Netflix Instant Viewing so it's about as easy as can be to watch it before the discussion although if you can get it on DVD that's preferable as the picture quality is much better and the adherence to proper aspect ratios with Netflix Instant Viewing is hit or miss at best.

Also, my final October trailer has been completed, the one in which you find out what's going on with all that "they're coming" stuff. I always get excited about October, my favorite month of the year, and this year's Octoberfest will be another day in, day out celebration of the world of horror culminating in... well, something. I don't know what yet because I haven't completed all the montages yet but I will, promise.

For now, remember - The Merchant of the Four Seasons, next Monday at Tractor Facts.