To me, one is horror, the other Harlequin. Whatever floats your boat, baby. For me, one of the very first vampire films is also the best: Murnau's 1922 silent opus Nosferatu: eine Symphonie des Grauens. There's plenty of food for thought in that film, but on its most basic level, Max Schrek as Count Orlok completely terrifies me; he's simply a nightmare come to (un)life. Vampire-as-rat-demon-from-Hell works for me, whether in Murnau's film, in Werner Herzog's 1979 remake, Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht, or even in Tobe Hooper's 1979 Stephen King adaptation 'Salem's Lot.I totally have a point about all this, I swear. The trailer for the upcoming 30 Days of Night (due in October) has gone online recently, and I'll be damned if it doesn't look scary. And wow! Vampires-as-rat-demons-from-Hell, just like in the source material, the comic series from Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith. What a coincidence!
I realize, naturally, that virtually any movie can look good and scary with a nicely pieced-together trailer, but still...my hopes are high for this- and I never get excited about vampire films. So, you know, I'm sure that means something.
Wow. Count me in.
ReplyDeleteI've always leaned on the creepy-rat-faced vampire side and not so much on the Keifer Sutherland-with-a-mullet side, myself. Although, a Josh Harnett-with-a-mullet vampire might be pretty bitchin'.
I have to say that I'm looking forward more to The Mist than I am 30 Days of Night. When David J. Schow called vampires "the Star Trek of to horror genre," I had to nod in agreement.
ReplyDeleteBitchin' good trailer, though.
OK, I LOVE the Kiefer mullet vampire but's only because I want to fuck him.
ReplyDeleteThe Kinski movie is amazing.
And if Stacie's up for this movie, so am I!
I love me some good vampy fun!
ReplyDeleteI saw the trailer for 30 Days of Night when I went and saw Hostel 2 and it was the best trailer I saw that night. It looks good on the big screen too so I'm looking forward to checking out that movie when it comes out.
Good lord, I could write 5,000 words off the top of my head based on your post. Suffice it to say, I too prefer the soulless evil demon to the suave sensitive tragic soul in evening wear (Gary Oldman, I'm looking at you. Don't get me started.)
ReplyDeleteThat said, I give Béla Lugosi a pass, as he wasn't a cliché and his vampire is genuinely weird and soulless and evil.
Hie thee to a bookery, Stacie, and pick up Stoker's original Dracula and check it out. It's terrific, even now. It's an 1890s techno-thriller put together as an epistolarly novel (its one structural weakness), and its Dracula is the real deal. Totally evil and scary, and must be destroyed!
(Oh, and German Expressionism: way cool. Schreck's Orlock: amazing. Shadow of the Vampire very, very entertaining, though a libel of the genuinely decent F.W. Murnau.)
I loved Melissa George ever since she played the character everyone else hated on 'Alias'.
ReplyDeleteAnd my copy of Killer Workout is sloc coming which is pissing me off.
As much as I love Kinski in the remake of Nosferatu and Bela, Christopher Lee will always be Dracula to me...
ReplyDeleteBill- Oh yeah, I've read Dracula. In fact, there was a blog- maybe it's still in existence...it was Dracula Blogged, I believe- where the novel was transcribed as blog entries in chronological order. Very cool!
ReplyDeleteIn college I took a class called something like Gothic and Grotesque in German Film and Literature and we had a big discussion about what type of vampire is scarier: the monster type, or the rogue type who can seduce you before killing you. I was practically the only one on the 'monster' side. The seducer is scary, maybe, in a cerebral way, but even then it's a stretch for me.
Stupid college.
I'm looking forward to Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe! playing duelling vampires in Daybreakers. We might see a representative from each side of the vampire fence duking it out (Hawke as sexy vampire and Dafoe as a Kinski). And it's in the future!
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