Facing My Fears: Dan Curtis' Dracula

When I was a kid, I saw a commercial for a movie that TERRIFIED me.  Now that I've identified the movie and approximately placed when I saw it, I understand why.  I was probably younger than six at the time, at my grandmother's house, and I'm sure it was later than my bedtime, broadcast sometime during a movie of the week as an upcoming attraction.  It was Dracula, produced and directed by Dark Shadows' Dan Curtis and scripted by Richard (Twilight Zone, I Am Legend, The Legend of Hell House) Matheson, so it's completely nightmare fuel for someone who's not even in second grade.  Here's the trailer.  The moment I remember most vividly is at the one minute mark, just before he bursts through the door, the closeup on the doorknob.

I've figured out that it was on CBS- it was broadcast February eighth, 1974, a Friday.  According to wikipedia, CBS was the network running movies on Friday night.

I'm watching it now, for the first time ever.  I'm not sure why I hadn't gotten around to it, I guess it wasn't as available when I was doing the "read too much Anne Rice" phase in the nineties, After that  I took time away from Vampire fiction and literature, but recently came back to it, even going so far, much to Igor's annoyance, as starting a 365 movie project (do you have any idea how many Lesbian vampire movies there are?). This version is now readily available on HULU, which is where I'm watching it.


It's pretty good.  The costume and production values are practically cinematic.  Jack Palance is understated, but menacing and effective.  The rest of the cast isn't as memorable, just stiff and British. Apparently, one of the Brides of Dracula is played by Sarah Douglas, later in Superman II.  It didn't really register.

Ultimately, it seems a lot like a European companion to the big screen House of Dark Shadows, also directed by Dan Curtis.  I'm glad I finally got around to seeing it and the forty-years older me thinks the childhood me must have been adorable to be scared by something like this.

(Oh, and if you've somehow found me via something other than facebook, I've got a page there, please like it (here) and you'll get notifications of future blogposts.  Thanks)

Monday, Monday

Well, I'd certainly planned in posting more often, but life gets in the way sometimes.  My "roommate", who I'll refer to henceforth as Igor, another confirmed bachelor of a certain age with an interest in antiques and Italian, is going in for a root canal Friday and we're trying to put all of our ducks in a row for then. But I've got several pieces lined up for this week, including a look at The Most Dangerous Game and another required reading.

Also, I've got a Facebook page- give it a like if you get the chance.  Thank you.

Required Reading: Universal Horrors and The Monster Show

You know, film history is such a broad topic that it's hard to pinpoint the best books on the subject, even within a genre.  But I'm going to try...

First, you've got to know the classics.  And the true classics of horror are, for the most part, Universal Horrors- Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man.  Tom Weaver, Michael Brunas and John Brunas  do an exhaustive study  of the Universal Studio's horror and monster films, including the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies.  These movies didn't just start a horror boom in the thirties and forties, but they also provided the core of the Shock Theatre syndication package for television, giving rise to Forrest Ackerman's magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland, and instilling a love of the genre into Monster Kids all over America.

At $55, Universal Horrors is a little expensive for the casual fan, but it's so data rich to give hours of browsing pleasure- it's broken down film by film, so you can just read about a single movie at a time.

Of course, other studios had their classics- RKO and King Kong, Warner Brothers and Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, and David Skal's The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror covers those as well as silent movies, the Universal canon, and covers nearly a centuries worth of the genre, including the fifties Bug monsters and the slasher films of the seventies and eighties.

The important thing about the Monster show is the fact that it puts the films into a cultural perspective, be it the Great Depression, The Cold War or the Counter Culture, looking not only what the influenced the genre, but what the genre influenced as well.

Skal also wrote the definitive history of Universal's Dracula, Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web ofDracula from Novel to Stage to Screen, and a companion volume focusing on Dracula's director, Tod Browning, Dark Carnival: The Secret World of Tod Browning, Hollywood's Master of the Macabre with Elias Savada.

I'm going to try and get on a more consistent posting schedule and I think I'll be focusing on books on Mondays.  Thanks for reading!