HALLOWEEN COUNT DOWN: 8 - DRACULA (1931)

Some things are so good that they become ingrained in pop culture and are copied and parodied to the extent that the original is almost forgotten and lost. This is the case with the 1931 Dracula starring the great Bela Lugosi. This is the film that has formed most of the modern common Dracula look, the suit and cape, the slicked back hair, the charming eloquent mysterious man (however no fangs appear in this film). Every Dracula fancy dress costume that we see today in shops and supermarkets is based on this film but it is it any good? The film is 83 years old and film making has progressed so much in that time but I will say up front, this is a very good film.

It’s hard to spoil a film that’s central story has been told so many times in so many different formats, so I will only skim over the plot and focus on what I really enjoyed about this film. I should say, I only watched this film for the first time last week and I watched the remastered Blu ray.  If you do watch this film and I strongly recommend you do, this is the best format to watch this film on. The remastered version is beautiful, the picture is fantastic and the contrast of the black and white image is great. I can honestly say that this film has probably never looked better.

This is a rather short film, running at 74 minutes. One of the reasons for this is that the screenplay was a direct use of the stage play version. A lot of the original novel has been dropped or contracted but this is a real benefit to the film. It would not have been possible to create some of the expansive scenes and locations on stage or for the film at the time it was made. So the film focuses in on the central characters and the key story points. This is excellent concise storytelling, supported by some iconic performances.

Before I get to Bela Lugosi there are a couple of other performances that I want to highlight, first off, Dwight Frye who plays Renfield. A character from the Stoker novel but expanded for this version to be the person that visits Dracula and helps him travel to London. It is this interaction that drives him insane in this version of the story.

While he replaces Jonathan Harker for this part of this story it actually does make reference to a Stoker short story “Dracula’s guest”. This was originally part of the novel (Dracula) as an introductory section but was removed by the publisher. It was later published in a collection of Stoker’s short stories. “Dracula’s guest” tells the story of another English lawyer being chased down in the woods of Transylvania. It is disputed whether this is an earlier start to Harker’s story or the story of Renfield’s interactions with Dracula. Either way, in the film we get a character that is a very reserved and goes crazy.

Frye is superb in this role. When he is introduced he is clean cut and almost naïve and reacts as you would expect to the strangeness he encounters on his way to and at Dracula’s mansion. His facial expressions are great as he interacts with Dracula, he is nervous and a little lost but keeps doing his job. The scene between Frye and Lugosi near the start of the film is a stand out for me. He is also brilliant as the insane Renfield when they get home; he is excessive crazy without being over the top. He has some of the best lines in the film and a great monologue about being promised hundreds, thousands of rats on which he can feed when he has done the work of his “master”.

Frye was a stage comedian for a lot of early career and this comes through in his timing and delivery. If this guy was working today I would expect him to be someone like Jim Carrey or Robin Williams, a comedian who takes on and succeeds at more dramatic and creepy roles.

The second character I want to bring up is Van Helsing play by Edward Van Sloan. This Van Helsing is portrayed as a man of science and superstition and happens to be right all the time. It is not really explained how he got this knowledge and to be honest it doesn’t matter. Sloan is like a force of nature in the film, despite being an older gentleman he orders people around with confidence that everything he is doing is right and I was bought into it.

There is a scene where he stands toe to toe with Dracula and lets him know that he knows what he is and what he is doing. Dracula attempts to use his hypnotic stare to bring him close enough for the kill but Van Helsing resists. Not only is Dracula impressed, so am I. it quickly shows that these two are a match and I want to see them face off at the end of the film.

Bela Lugosi had played Dracula on stage for a period and was so keen to get his performance on screen that he took a huge pay drop to make the film. It is a stage performance that he gives but it is so engaging. There are moments of stillness, where he just watches someone and or his is animated and charming as the exotic count. Either way he commends the screen and owns the character.

Forget all the over acted parodies and the ridiculous accents, this performance contains real menace and the accent is legit and perfect for the performance. The one line that I loved and has become so famous “Listen to them, children of the night. What music they make.” It can be read as corny and over the top but Lugosi delivers it with such sincerity you believe that he does take comfort from the sound.

Lugosi’s performance is taken from great to iconic by really effective lighting and direction. In 1931 this film was made to make Dracula a serious villain and it achieved it. I would suggest that a modern comparison is the way Hannibal Lector is presented in the TV show Hannibal. The audience is well aware that this suave charming person is a danger but the cast don’t see it. In fact I would suggest that Mads Mikkelsen would make a fantastic Dracula.

The three roles that I have highlighted are male, which for a film made in 1931 isn’t surprising. The female characters in this film, whilst key to the story (as in the novel) are only secondary to the males. The plot revolves around the male characters reactions to what is happening to the women. However, a lot of events regarding the women happen of screen. This is not unusual for the time, however it is one of the flaws of the film and an extra 10 – 15 minutes expanding on the women in the movie would add so much more tension and empathy.

In Summary this is a classic, a film that has set the template for all future Dracula films. Granted this is a film of its time but this only adds to the appeal. Whilst this isn’t scary by today’s standards the portrayal of both Dracula and Renfield is unsettling enough to stay with you, Bela Lugosi is and always will be Dracula. Also, as I mentioned before go and find the remastered version it is a fantastic transfer and makes the film look stunning. 

HALLOWEEN COUNT DOWN: 9 - HELLRAISER (1987)

I think that Hellraiser is one of the most mis-remembered films and would be included in the theory that general understanding not matching the original intent. This is in part due to the lesser sequels (3 onwards) and the way in which Pinhead has been marketed over the years. He is remembered as a horror icon in the same vain as Freddy, Jason Vorhees or Michael Myers but he is very different to all of these and so much more. The three I mentioned are icons, no doubt but they are all slasher killers, killing with a loose motive (revenge or territoriality) but Pinhead and his Cenobites are not slasher killers. In fact I would argue that they are not intended to be the stars of the film at all.

Hellraiser is a pretty accurate translation of Clive Barker’s novella “The Hellbound Heart”, likely because the film was written and directed by Clive Barker himself. Despite not being a very experienced director he has a very distinct vision and tone that permeates every scene. There are few directors that could have made this film and made it match the tone set out on the page. To my mind maybe Guillermo Del Toro, Tim Burton or David Cronenberg could do it well but let’s look at what Clive Barker created.

The film centres on the Cotton family, Kirsty, her father (Larry), his cheating wife (Julia) and her lover (Frank), who is also Kirsty’s uncle. Frank is the black sheep of the family and he has dedicated his life to pursuing pleasures. This leads him to find the Lament Configuration, a black and gold puzzle box that legend states when opened will provide the opener with unlimited physical sensations. It also opens a door for the coenobites, creatures driven to seek out physical sensation – pleasure and pain, and led by the priest, better known as Pinhead.

This brings us to one of the themes of this story, be careful what you wish for. Granted it’s not subtle but it does play out in the rest of the film.  Also this is where a more experienced director may have added some additional layers to the story.

Frank is taken by the Cenobites to experience the extremes of physical sensation for eternity. However he manages to escape and return to the room from which he was taken, a room in a house his brother and family now live. However, he does not come back as a whole man only a bloody skeleton returns screaming. This is a great scene and use of practical effects as the skeletal remains pull themselves from the floor. I love practical effects, yes they can date a film and look bad within a few years but this scene looks great and this is to do with the vision that Barker is bringing as well as the excellent effects by Cliff Wallace.

During the next act of the film we are shown the sordid history between Julia and Frank, as Julia finds him, skinless, bloody and weak in the attic. I have mentioned perfect escalation in films in past reviews (Ghostbusters) but this is an example of a leap of logic that almost breaks the film. Julia finds him and after only a quick conversation she is convinced not only that he is Frank but also that she has to bring him people to feed from to become human again. In the first part of the film it is made pretty clear that Julia is a bitch but it is a big jump from a cheating bitch to a woman willing to kill for a monster locked in the attic. Once again I put this clunky leap in logic down to Barker’s inexperience with film, as this plays out much better in the novella. It is saved however by Clare Higgins, playing Julia. She plays it so well and portrays a board house wife with deep passion and lust that is desperate for some excitement. It just so happens that her obsession has been Frank.

The following couple of kills are the closest the film gets to a slasher film but they are quick and facilitate the growth of Frank, which yet again looks brilliant, gruesome and terrifying using practical prosthetics. It is also during this section of the film that we get the most tension; Barker introduces a claustrophobic feel to the house. As the audience we know that Frank is there lurking in the dark as the family go about their business. The second act culminates in Kirsty finding Frank and escaping with the puzzle box and ending up in Hospital. This is when we also get to meet the Cenobites properly for the first time.

The four Cenobites, The Priest (Pinhead), Chatterer, Butterball and The Woman are visually stunning to look at. Pale skin, clad in leather, hooks and chains with weeping open wounds each unique but following a theme that Barker called “Sadomasochistic Glamour”. They are lit so well, they are hidden in enough shadow to hide the joins in the costumes but illuminated enough so that the audience get a good look at them. Pinhead is the most distinctive and made better by the great voice of Doug Bradley. He is given some dialogue that would sound ridiculous coming from someone else but he gives it a level of gravitas that makes him terrifying. One such line is, “No tears please, it’s a waste of good suffering.”

These are creatures that revel in the pleasure of pain but the film does not attempt to give them an origin or explain what they are, they just are and they always have been. Pinhead actually describes them as “Explorers... in the further regions of experience. Demons to some, angels to others” I love the idea that they have always been out there and they don’t care about good or evil, just physical sensation and looking to try something new. The notion that they have been doing this for eons is heightened by the fact that they comes across as business like. There is no huge acting, they move with purpose and look on the human characters with boredom. They are looking for something new but keep getting the same depraved people seek out an extension of limits of Human experience and they have long passed this level.

It is also demonstrated in this scene that they are arrogant and consider themselves better than human. Kirsty tells them about Frank escaping them and they refuse to believe that anyone can escape them. However, they eventually agree to give her a chance to prove it but before she leave the hospital we also get to see a little more of the “hell” the Cenobites call home. A door is open in the wall and leads down a corridor, which Kirsty just has to walk down.  However, she is chased out by a creature called the engineer hanging from and running along the ceiling. The effects in this scene are really disappointing, while the creature looks pretty good as a practical puppet; the problem is that in several shots the rigging and puppetry for the creature is clearly visible. It is only fleeting but it is so disappointing for a film that has, to this point, done some much with so little.

Eventually Kirsty escapes and returns home to find her Father and Julia playing “happy families”. Her father tells her that he knows what has been going on and everything is sorted, Frank is dead. Running to the attic she finds a bloody skinless body lying in a heap and the Cenobites waiting for her. They inform her that the remains are not of the one she told them escaped and that they will now take her. I am not going to go into detail regarding the final scenes as there are some really good twists and reveals. What I will say is that the finale is almost the pure essence of Clive Barker. There is cruelty, sexual depravity, hellish creatures and a satisfying resolution which means that this can be watched in isolation of the sequels and provide enough answers to be satisfying but leave enough to the imagination that parts of the film can be interpreted in different ways.

In Summary, this is one of few films that have managed to capture the essence of Clive Barker and delivers a really interesting horror film. The designs are iconic and the Cenobites rightfully belong in the pantheon of horror. However, the film has aged poorly in some parts, mainly due to the budget restraints on the effects and Barker’s inexperience at directing. I am in two minds about a lot of the changes that George Lucas made to the original Star Wars films but I understand his intent. I wish that Barker would do something similar with Hellraiser. This film could have a new lease of life with some CGI enhancements to some of the effects and around some of the rougher edges. Until that happens, as long as you can accept a few leaps of logic I highly recommend this truly Clive Barker Horror. I also recommend that you read the novella, at 128 pages it is a quick and tightly packed read. 

Halloween Count Down: 10 - The Frighteners (1996)

Before trekking across Middle Earth Peter Jackson made splatter gore comedies such as Bad Taste (1987) and Brain Dead (1992) (both of which I recommend). He changed direction with Heavenly creatures (1994) receiving critical for doing so. The film was nominated for Best Director and Screenplay Oscars. Following this the studios came knocking. Jackson put forward “The Frightners” a film he had penned with writing partner and wife Fran Walsh; it wasn’t the film the studios were hoping for.

The film follows window and spiritual psychic Frank Bannister (Michael J Fox) who uses his psychic abilities (and two ghost partners) to carry out haunting cons. A Ghost disguised in Death’s robes is also numbering and murdering people in the small town and Frank becomes the prime suspect. Eventually he discovers that the ghostly killer is Johnny Bartlett. Johnny, with his girlfriend Patricia, carried out a massacre 30 years previously and killed Frank’s wife following a car accident.

This film is a mishmash of tone but there are so many good elements I enjoy, the whole experience becomes satisfying. Even without knowing the full behind the scenes story the unevenness smacks of studio interference. Jackson’s core story is incredibly dark, incorporating coping with grief, survivor’s guilt and obsession. This is overlaid with strange comedic scenes of flying babies and ghost sex jokes. The latter have an air of studio “notes” to make it lighter.

The final 20 minutes are mostly spared the comedic injections and benefit from it. It’s a cat and mouse chase through the abandoned hospital where Bartlett’s massacre took place. Bannister is trying to get to the hospital chapel but keeps having flashes back to the massacre. We and Bannister watch helplessly as Bartlett and Patricia kill innocent people left and right. The joy taken in the senseless killing is shocking and while a good piece of film it fits awkwardly with the previous 70 minutes.

The killing of the character Milton Dammers further suggests studio issues. Originally written as an off screen gunshot to the chest. However once the MPAA made it clear the film would get an R instead of the much coveted PG-13 Jackson filmed Dammers’ head being blown apart on screen. Also, the fact this was held back from a 1996 Halloween release for a January 1997 release in the UK strongly suggests that the studio didn’t know what to do with the end result.

Despite the unevenness the script is good. Frank and Patricia are parallel characters. Both trapped in the aftermath of the death of a lover, not able to move on. They are being forced to face their past on a daily basis. Frank in his unfinished dream home he was building for his wife and Patricia from her mother’s unrelenting hatred and fear. This theme of loss and being unable to move on is carried through most of the film. The spirits that remain on earth decay and start to fall apart, it is only if they let go and move to the other side that they become “pure spirits”.

There are several standout performances in the film. The first is Jeffery Coombs as the damaged and deranged FBI agent Milton Dammers. He steals every scene he’s in despite leaning a little too much towards wacky comedy. There’s so much more to the character. His reaction when shouted at by women hints at past trauma. Also the scene in which he recounts how Bannister’s wife died could have been just an exposition dump. By adding in a series ticks and character flourishes it becomes just as much about his character as progressing the plot. I would love to see this character in his own film.

The second is Dee Wallace as Patricia. For the first two acts she is the perfect meek guilt ridden victim. When this mask is torn away she relishes in the wild menace and freedom of being able to be the killer she has always wanted to be. While this twist is sign posted pretty early on her character portrayal makes the reveal so much fun. Another highlight is an amazing cameo by R. Lee Emery as a version of the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket.

The decaying ghost make-up affects are really good throughout but the film is let down a little by early CGI affects. They are flat and lack texture which took me out the film in parts. Despite these flaws the film has a look which works for the content.

The Frighteners is an enjoyable horror yarn that has confused moments of horror and comedy but has darkness at its heart that makes it a Halloween must see. 

The Rocketeer 1991 Review

As a companion to my first episode (coming soon) I thought I would provide a review of the underrated pulp hero film, The Rocketeer.

The current deluge of Superhero films isn’t the first time Hollywood has dipped into the cape and tights well. Over the years there have been highs (Superman 1978) and lows (Superman IV 1987). In the middle of this was a small group of films that revisited the pulp heroes of the 1930’s. The best of these is 1991’s The Rocketeer.

The Rocketeer is a great representation of the heroes of the 1930’s, despite not actually being one. The Rocketeer was created in 1982 by Dave Stevens as a homage to the heroes he loved a child. The film maintains this loving homage and sense of adventure.

The film follows Cliff Secord (Billy Campbell), a stunt pilot in 1938 California. A good but unreliable guy trying to get along and impress his beautiful girlfriend (Jennifer Connelly), when the mob drop a rocket pack in his lap. The story is a typical hero origin story. Several groups want the rocket pack and Cliff is planning to use it to make money. By the end the good guys win and Cliff becomes a better person. It’s simple and pretty rote, so why do I enjoy it so much?

Simple, this film makes me smile from ear to ear. The characters, the setting, the action are so much fun. Billy Campbell isn’t a great actor but he has a boyish charm and enthusiasm that makes him watchable. The moment he finds the rocket he wants to strap to his back and give it a try. Cliff considers the rocket a chance to do something awesome and make a buck. Ok, Cliff’s arc isn’t one of personal discovery for the greater good. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have heart. Cliff learns to appreciate that there is someone he will put ahead of everything, the woman he loves.  

The supporting cast are really good. Jennifer Connelly as Cliff’s girlfriend, Jenny Blake, feels of the period without being just a damsel in distress. Plus she is stunning throughout. Alan Arkin is, as always, great as the weary but loyal best friend.  Then there are the Villains.

Timothy Dalton brings a moustache twirling glee to the role of Neville Sinclair. He is a smarmy, arrogant rogue made worse by being revealed as a Nazi. However, while being key to the plot making him a Nazi feels a little lazy. He is joined by a host of stereotypical 30’s gangsters and a Monster henchman, Lothar, in impressive (if immovable) Rondo Hatton make up. They are pantomime baddies, they’re bad but you never feel the Heroes are in any actual danger.

Director Joe Johnston brings comic book charm, heart and adventure to the film. A touch he would later bring to another superhero franchise with Captain America: The first Avenger. Despite being produced by Disney the Rocketeer didn’t have as much money as Cap and it shows. The film is let down by the special effects which, even for the year, are weak and haven’t aged well.

Even with iffy effects I love the two big set pieces of the film. In the first Cliff saves a pilot from an out of control Bi-plane during a stunt show, using the rocket pack for the first time. Seeing Cliff in the full outfit is awesome. The Design is great; a pulp hero has leaped from page to screen. The rescue doesn’t go so well, it’s a success but almost at the cost of Cliff’s life. Our hero is finding his feet in the only way a hero can, a birth of fire.

The second is the big finale, which is amazing in its comic book lunacy. A simple trade off escalates to a fight atop a burning Zeppelin. The turning point comes when Sinclair’s true allegiance is revealed and he is joined by a Nazi army. Not sure how they got there but I am happy to go with it. The reveal puts the gangster goons on the side of the FBI in a shoot out against the Nazi’s. During this Cliff, Sinclair and Lothar are fighting on the blimp which, as to be expected, eventually explodes. It is ridiculous but almost pitch perfect for the film.

I am a big fan of the big modern superhero universes. However, watching this makes me wish for a pulp hero universe. Smaller less god like heroes in a bygone era. I am sure it is being considered but until we get it go and enjoy The Rocketeer.