Vampires

We shall talk about vampires.

A month late. Halloween was a month ago. 

But vampires are timeless. That’s why they’re appealing.

Tod Browning’s “Dracula” was not appealing.

(d. Tod Browning, 1931)

I was mildly disappointed. That must be what the play was like. Very stagy. I haven’t seen the play. And I probably wouldn’t. After having seen Frank Wildhorn’s “Dracula” and “Dance of the Vampires,” I’m done with vampires on stage.

Browning made another vampire movie, “Mark of the Vampire.”

(d. Tod Browning, 1934)

Which I liked much more than “Dracula” even though they seem to have the same sets.

If they were plays, they could be played in repertory.

Neither of them were scary. I’ve never found vampires to be scary. I was more curious about the emphasis on females as prey. Does “Dracula” only feast on women and not men? Is that a rule? Vampires can only drink blood from the opposite sex?

Is that in Bram Stoker’s book?

I don’t know. I’ve never read it.

That’s shocking.

We weren’t really allowed to watch “The Wizard of Oz” as a Bible Baptist kid because it had witches. I had to read Anne Rice books surreptitiously. I saw a bit of the Francis Ford Coppola version, but I was more dazzled by the costumes. So no, I don’t understand vampire drinking rules.

Bela Lugosi plays vampires in both Tod Browning movies.

And yet all I can think of is Martin Landau’s Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton’s “Ed Wood.” I kept wanting to hear him say, “Be-vare.” He had the Transylvanian accent, I guess. But he wasn’t terrifying.

Horror movies reflect their times. What contemporary fears were in the Browning movies?

In both movies, I suppose the fear of foreigners was strong. That “civilized” women should be attracted to foreigners is cause for fear. Fear of sex sounds too easy. But it’s there.

Is “Mark of the Vampire” a horror movie or a mystery movie?

That’s why I like the second Browning movie more. It’s both!

Like Type AB blood?

The tone is slightly jarring in the middle as the movie morphs into a different genre. But I liked that you didn’t end up where you started. Also always nice to put a face to the name of Jean Hersholt. I always hear his name during the Oscars, but forget that Jean is a guy and that he was an actor.

I can imagine the audience getting pissed off at the end of the movie. 

It’s a movie with the audience in mind. Made me admire Tod Browning more for flipping the script. It’s like he was making fun of his own “Dracula” movie four years later.

On to Roman Polanski’s “The Fearless Vampire Killers.”

“Or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck.”

(d. Roman Polanski, 1967)

They made really long titles in the 60s.

So this wasn’t on my radar until I read an autopsy of “Dance of the Vampires.” That musical flop was based on this movie. And I am willing to bet that it influenced Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder’s “Young Frankenstein.”

It’s a comedy. 

Slapstick comedy. And it works. Even with Roman Polanski acting as the assistant to the professor who is investigating Count von Krolock.

Sharon Tate is the vampire’s victim.

It’s the sixties so sex isn’t so much the fear. The count lives in a castle. The fear is about the higher class abusing the peasants? 

Communist-lite.

To watch it now feels so eerie.

Seeing Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate in the same frame. Knowing what happens two years later.

I easily dismissed it because of the title. But I was hooked from the opening Cinemascope snowy landscape. 

Shot by Douglas Slocombe. Who went on to shoot “Raiders of the Lost Ark” among other things.

If “Dance of the Vampires” was as cheeky as this, I would’ve enjoyed it more.

Not a work of art that the vampires in “Only Lovers Left Alive” would be proud to produce.

Not a huge Jim Jarmusch fan. “Night on Earth” remains a favorite. “Only Lovers Left Alive” equals it. I guess I’d have to be in the mood to watch a Jarmusch movie to enjoy it.

(d. Jim Jarmusch, 2013)

The humor is cheeky and dry.

I love that they made Christopher Marlowe a vampire and maybe the author of some of Shakespeare’s plays?  The vampires are creators, not mere consumers. Possibly responsible for great works throughout various ages? I wish I could read books the way Tilda Swinton’s Eve reads books. Just by touching them.

A most desirable vampire super power. I like those little details in the movie. They have to wear gloves because their hands are sensitive.

Not because of COVID-19. And the most nourishing blood is Type O negative. 

Your blood type?

Tom Hiddleston’s Adam would be attracted to me.

Now that I think about it, when Tilda Swinton shows up in “What We Do in the Shadows” and refers to a Tom who’s not in the scene, was she referring to Tom Cruise or Tom Hiddleston?

I thought she meant Tom Cruise, the Vampire Lestat.  

But it makes more sense that it would be Hiddleston who starred in the same movie as her.

Adam and Eve’s survival depends on human blood, which has become more contaminated in our time and is not as nourishing.

So if Tom Hiddleston bit you, he would be poisoned.

Afraid so. I would be a fearless vampire killer.

I’m sure that’s not in Bram Stoker’s book. Maybe this would have been a good time to pick it up.

Too late now. Maybe next Halloween.