I LIKE MOVIES #14: DRACULA DOUBLE FEATURE

I'll take a short break from packing up my house to quickly write about the Dracula Double Feature I treated myself to last week. First up was Horror of Dracula, the first movie for Christopher Lee to suck blood as the famous vampire. If you are familiar with the basic Dracula story or have seen other Dracula movies then you will know what to expect plotwise. The scenery and the performances are what make this one stand out as something special.

As big a fan I am of the classic Universal monster movies, I must admit I have never really delved into the Hammer horror movies. I think I am going to enjoy digging into their catalogue in the future. Christopher Lee is probably the most famous Dracula aside from Bela Legosi so I was very interested to see his take on it. To my surprise, he gives a very restrained, natural persona to the Count (when he isn't in blood thirsty vampire mode, that is). There was no booming bass in his voice to which I've grown accustomed from Lee. His stately demeanor allowed the transformation to be much more startling when his red eyes glare over his protruding fangs.

The real star of the show, though, is Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. He has a cocky coolness to him and carries the movie. He's so cool that when it comes time for Van Helsing and Drac to throw down at the end, you kind of feel that Dracula doesn't stand a chance. Van Helsing is seemingly the only guy on the planet who knows what he's doing when it comes to fighting a vampire. I had complete faith in him. Dracula's toast. (That means Dracula is toast. It is not a cross promotional breakfast treat)



But Drac isn't toast for too long since Dracula AD 1972 sees the Count resurrected in London.



Since I haven't seen the numerous other Christopher Lee Dracula movies, I don't know how much continuity there is between them, but this stands alone well enough. Something tells me this was a last straw, out-of-the-box attempt to get the swinging London kids interested in spending their time and money on Dracula. I wonder if, at the time, sending Dracula to the 70s was like sending Jason to space?

In Dracula AD 1972, a group of groovy kids are hanging out, being hip, looking to do something really boss. One of these kids just happens to have the last name Van Helsing. And her grandfather just happens to be Peter Cushing. Another kid in the group happens to be a Dracula minion and is determined to resurrect his master. You see, several generations ago Dracula and Van Helsing were having an epic fight on top of a runaway horse-drawn carriage. Van Helsing gets the win and Dracula gets buried in holy ground.

When Dracula gets woken up he realizes how delicious Van Helsing's ancestors would be. He wants to eat Peter Cushing's busty 1970s granddaughter. An awesome 70s soundtrack plays while the Van Helsings and Dracula do their eternal dance. It's pretty fun.

I enjoyed my Dracula Double Feature and I'm looking forward to seeing more of the Hammer horror movies. I'll the give the entire late night experience today's arbitrary rating of 4 stakes through the heart out of 5.



Bonus Cool Italian Poster

I LIKE MOVIES #7: DOLLY DEAREST

Dolly Dearest is what you get when you try to make a direct to the video store hybrid of Child's Play and The Exorcist. As far as evil doll movies go, I suppose you could do worse than this. But that isn't saying much. It's a genre that isn't burdened by too many looming, insurmountable peaks.

The movie is about an American family moving to Mexico to make dolls in a factory that happens to be located next to an archaeological dig site. The dad in this family either misread the memo about outsourcing his work to cheap Mexican labor or he is planning on living his dream of personally running a hands-on sweatshop. Either way, he dragged the whole fam to Mexico to make cheap dolls that "every little girl in the world is going to want." The evil spirit buried in the tomb next door must have overheard that these would be a hot Christmas item, so it possesses the dolls. Then the dolls can possess the children. Or something. I don't know why the spirit needs to be in a doll to possess the little blond girl instead of just doing it directly. That's just the way the cookie crumbles.

This movie doesn't bother messing around with any mind games about whether the dolls are actually possessed and the kid is just crazy, which seemed like an obvious route for this to take. I'm actually glad it didn't because the only thing this movie had going for it aside from terrible(-ly funny) acting was watching the animatronic doll and the midget in doll clothes do things. Oh yeah and Rip Torn.

Rip Torn plays an archaeologist from the prestigious University. He has some hilarious, amazingly unplaceable accent. Never have I heard such an accent. Judging by his tan and the movie's setting I guess it was supposed to be a Mexican accent but something tells me I'm way off on that. Probably his accent.

So Rip Torn eventually explains that the dig has uncovered the tomb of a devil-baby that the Sanzia tribe buried almost a thousand years ago. He describes an evil beast that had the body of a baby and the head of a goat. That sounds so awesome. Why couldn't the movie have been about that guy?

Generally movies like this try to fall back on humor or at least treat the premise with a little tongue in cheek. Unfortunately for Dolly Dearest the laughs are unintentional and I really do get the feeling that there was true intent for creepiness in some of this movie. It didn't intend to come off as camp. There is sincerity in her voice when the mother yells, "I am not losing my daughter to a God-damned, nine-hundred-year-old goat-head!"

Speaking of dialogue, the thirteen year old son is written so excellently for this type of movie. He's a geeky bookworm so that we can learn all about the history of the Sanzia (even though we already have an archaeologist character and superstitious locals for that) and he gets to say things that all kids in 1991 said. Things like, "The Mayans? They were cool dudes." And that the Sanzia were "really weird dudes." You see, kids call people "dudes." Look it up. It's a fact.

I feel like I'm giving this a bum rap. If you are reading this and think this sounds terrible, then you probably wouldn't have liked it anyway. But if you are reading this and thinking that it sounds like fun, then you are right. Indulge in some early nineties video store horror aisle gluttony and check this out. Double feature it with Stuart Gordon's Dolls to sweeten the deal. Microwave some popcorn or get some Doritos and dust off the VHS player.

I'll give this the arbitrary rating of 36 demon goat-head babies out of 48. And that's saying a lot for Dolly Dearest, because you only need one demon goat-head baby to get a party started.

PS: I present the coveted "Least Amount of Acting Award" to Sam Bottoms for his performance of "man-getting-stabbed-slightly-above-the-knee." Congratulations! May your stiff, emotionless portrayal of "man-getting-stabbed-slightly-above-the-knee" continue to be hilarious for years to come! Hip hip hurrah!

I LIKE MOVIES #2: DANCE OF THE DEAD

Last night I watched Dance of the Dead. It's currently on Fearnet on demand if you want to check it out. I wasn't expecting much but I'm a sucker for zombie movies. I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. Luckily it didn't try to tread too far into Shaun of the Dead's turf, because it could have in many ways. The turf it does tread upon is very familiar but that doesn't hurt it. In many ways it helps it.

Dance of the Dead is the post-prom pregnancy of countless 80s zombie movies. In it a teen slacker with no aspirations gets dumped by his girlfriend the afternoon before prom because of his apathy and inability to take anything seriously. Zombies attack. He proves he can do something with his life by going to save her. Sounds like Shaun of the Dead, right? Luckily this movie is also pilfering themes and styles from many other aspects of the genre.

Yesterday I mentioned how I liked that the teens in Ginger Snaps don't veer into cliche territory. Today I will praise the opposite. This movie is full of high school stereotypes, but they work in this environment. The sci-fi nerds, the overbearing gym teacher, the unattainable-for-the-geek cheerleaders and prom queens, the cool slackers, the angry tough guy loner with a heart, the punks/metal heads . . . the sportos, the motor heads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads...they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude . . . sorry, I was somewhere else there for a minute.

This movie was clearly made with a lot of affection for the genre. Many folks like to debate zombie rules. Are they fast or slow? Do they talk? Do they eat brains or will any human meat suffice? Most of these debates will likely conclude that it's different within each movie's world. Or in a fist fight. Dance of the Dead's zombie rule book kind of picks and chooses from its favorite movies. It has a pretty great cemetery eruption scene that recalls the first two Return of the Living Dead movies but also Dead Alive or maybe even Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. And it works great. Zombies burst out of the grave like Rey Mysterio and take off after their meals. These zombies cry out for "BRAINS!" although I don't really recall seeing any brain eating, just a whole mess of flesh eating. The movie tries to cover all of its zombie bases. There are slow zombies. There are fast, screaming zombies. They rip people apart and eat their faces, but they still moan for BRAINS to keep our ears entertained. But one thing is for certain: you kill the brain, you kill the ghoul.

Another aspect of the movie that was old fashioned and welcomed was the reason for reanimation. This one was simple. Chemical waste from the power plant. So many movies nowadays try to invent some new way to explain zombies. This felt right out of the 80s. It works.

The ending (this won't ruin anything) gave me the same feeling I had at the end of Demons. I have grand anticipations of some epic, weird, stylized sequel that would continue directly after the events of the first but probably won't ever happen.

Dance of the Dead isn't the most original zombie movie you'll ever see, but it's familiar waters are always refreshing. And considering the current state of zombie movies, you could do a lot worse than this.

So I guess I'll give this three and a half mouthfuls of brains out of five.

Must have been a tough call to not name this Prombies.

I LIKE MOVIES

In an attempt to stay productive I am going to try to review the movies I watch. And I watch a lot of movies. I haven't come up with a format yet, so let's see how this goes.



I'm no werewolf movie historian, but I've seen my fair share. What was at once a metaphor of a man's inner rage, the werewolf at some point also became the horror movie symbol for puberty. Whether it was I Was A Teenage Werewolf in the 50s or Teen Wolf in the 80s, it was hard to avoid the parallels between lycanthropy and puberty. New urges! New unexpected growths! New body hair! And in Michael J. Fox's case, new slam dunk skills! This is the category in which we find Ginger Snaps.

Ginger Snaps is better than its name or poster let on. In it, two late-blooming, social outcast sisters named Brigitte and Ginger are faced with all the problems of being 15 and 16 respectively. High school's social cliques, underachieving hormones, oblivious parents, and the fear of growing apart are quickly becoming concerns for these two almost weirdly close sisters. Oh yeah, and some sort of unidentified beast has been eating the neighborhood's dogs. About four seconds after Ginger is stricken with "the curse" of womanhood she is attacked by the monster. It's true: Their menstruation attracts bears. Or in this case, werewolves.

Their menstruation attracts bears

Ginger starts turning into a werewolf over the next few weeks, getting interested in boys, drugs, sass-mouthing her mom, and eating the neighbor's pooch. Meanwhile her sister tries to find a way to cure her. Their bond is well established very early in the movie so you actually care for both of them getting out of this predicament.

One thing this movie does really well is how it handles the high school stereotypes. The stereotypes are there for sure: the snooty pack of girls, the "stoners," the "freaks." But they don't tip too far overboard into cliche or jokey territory. You don't have the nerd with the tape on his glasses or the guy in his varsity jacket always carrying a football.

Definitely worth checking out if you're in the mood for a fairly unique approach to the werewolf genre. Also this movie gets points for using all practical effects as far as I could tell.

I don't have a rating system, like stars or thumbs up . . . so this one gets, I don't know . . . 8 drops of werewolf period blood out of 11.

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