Goofy fun or great Vampire Horror.
I miss vampire flicks like the Frank Langella Dracula.- he played that role with such animalistic ferocity.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Fright Night, arguably a lighter vampire flick, but it has a lot of style. After transforming Evil Ed was pretty damned terrifying, both in makeup effects and acting, and the main vampire stuck with me too. He goes as a yuppie most of the movie, but when he does the scene where he’s walking down the stairs and peeling up a sliver of wood with his fingernail, damn, that sold it.
Caveat: this was my impression in my teens, could be complete dreck and I just didn’t have the taste to distinguish.
I think part of it is that I’m tired of ultra gorefest Vampire movies, and also sparkly vampire romance.
I miss the feral creatures of the night. Ones with animal cunning, but which humans could overcome with brains and faith and a bit of good fortune.
Fright Night was a pretty decent one (I think I only saw snippets of the remake).
The original still holds up. It’s schlock, but it’s damn stylish and rides that lines between horror and comedy quite well.
Now, the remake with Colin Farrell? That’s only just okay, mainly because it has to be compared to the '85 movie. Whatever you do, don’t watch the 2013 direct-to-streaming Fright Night 2: New Blood. It’s not a remake of the original Fright Night 2. It’s a mashup reboot of the first story, but set in Eastern Europe with none of the same actors.
Noted and noted. I was at least tasteful enough to know that the particular lightning in a bottle it captured for me wasn’t something that could be reproduced.
I enjoyed the Fright Night with Farrell, but the first was better.
Made for TV Salem’s Lot is still one of my favorite fang flicks.
The old Christopher Lee vamp movies terrified me as a youngster, so those get my vote too.
I can’t think of others now, though there are probably some. Not a movie but the old Night Stalker TV series with Darrin McGavin had a good vampire episode, but that’s all due to Darrin McGavin. He was great in that series even though it doesn’t hold up well.
I loved loved loved all Abbott and Costello monster flicks when I was a kid
The original Night Stalker was one of those ABC Mystery movies of the Week and was based on a novel called The Kolchak Papers. It became the highest rated TV movie to date, spun off a sequel called The Night Strangler, which did so well that they decided to spin it off into a TV series. Darrin McGavin rocked that role. Unfortunately the series veered from the serious/comic balance they had in the movies and became pretty goofy. But those two movies were great.
On a side note, In 1977 the BBC came out with a fairly accurate to the novel Dracula movie. Its been awhile since I’ve seen it but as a kid it terrified me.
IIRC, Night Stalker 1st Movie was the first time I saw a blood bank robbed where the vampire was using the blood to replenish his victim ( rather than see a vampire just drink it directly).
As a young boy, I got Kolchak and Kojak confused - people told me “Kolchak” was really scary but when I watched Telly Savalas I was like “this is not scary!” I was a foolish youth.
Kolchak wasn’t really scary either, but it was good campy fun. Darrin McGavin was great.
I always enjoyed watching him. I liked listening to his voice and expressions.
Who loves you, baby?
Welp. I just watched Day Shift.
I would’ve really enjoyed a movie following the exploits of the Nazarian brothers.
That’s well said. I wasn’t particularly a fan, Foxx’s character was just too single-note unpleasant to enjoy the otherwise decent action and silliness.
Andrew Dominik’s Blonde is out. His passion project to turn Joyce Carol Oates’ 2000 novel of Marilyn Monroe into a movie. It’s got Ana de Armas. It’s rated NC-17. It’s three-hours long. And it’s bad. It’s misery porn.
Kermode kind of liked it, FWIW. He just said don’t go in expecting a biopic.
His Graun review, though I meant the podcast one:
The first, eponymous one “The Night Stalker” dove a lot more into the horror than the rest of them, IMHO.
So excited about this.