However, there is one big bright spot to the onset of October. It's time to focus on yet another hobby. Horror movies.
I'm home alone with the kids today. And they asked me to put on one of my horror movies. Katie, my eleven year old daughter, asked for Dracula. Alex, my six year old son, asked that it not be the old black-and-white Dracula. He finds that movie terrifying. So I smiled, patted his head in reassurance, and told him I had something even scarier in mind and he better go potty now instead of waiting.
About five years ago, I found out about the Hammer horror films. Hammer was a British studio that reached the pinnacle of it's popularity in the 1960's. They were most famous for their horror movies, putting out a line of Dracula movies starring Christopher Lee as Dracula. They did a line of Frankenstein movies, Mummy movies, and only one Werewolf movie. Hammer studios excelled in creating atmosphere. Creepy old mansions, castles, villages, dark countrysides, beautiful backdrops for their creepy stories to take place. When I 'found' the Hammer horror movies, it was like stumbling onto a hidden treasure that you didn't know you were looking for. There were times when it didn't even matter if the movie was good! The sets were so beautiful that the movie was a visual treat regardless.
One of their better films was the Horror of Dracula. The movie was released in 1958 in full color. As I mentioned, it starred Christopher Lee as Dracula. Which was magnificent enough. But to top that off the movie casts Peter Cushing as Dr. Van Helsing. A perfect match up in casting.
The interpretation is an interesting one. The story doesn't strictly follow Bram Stoker's novel, but it's close enough to feel like you're slipping on an old shoe. Usually I write about how a character is portrayed differently through the ages. Dracula has the same comparison with some slight differences. The biggest being that his story almost always takes place in the same time frame. It's only the production that moves between eras. So the Dracula we get from Bela Lugosi in 1931 is different from Christopher Lee's Dracula in 1958, Gary Oldman's Dracula in 1992, and (Heaven help us) Frank Langella's groovy Dracula of 1979. We can learn things about what was considered scary and entertaining for the audiences of the different decades.
... or maybe it's age.
As an adult, I don't find Hammer's Horror of Dracula particularly scary. I love the movie and I can see why it was popular or considered scary for it's time. But I've seen much worse. However, for my son Alex, it's easily the scariest thing he's ever seen. As Universal's Dracula was before it. There were moments when Alex refused to even look at the screen.
So is it a jaded contemporary culture that needs more blood and gore for the scare with each decade? Is it up to the individual and what entertainment they've experienced before that makes it scary? Or rather, is it the horror movies themselves? Having seen the 1931 Dracula, it's lost it's bite. So time to try to scare a new decade of movie-goers that have seen the horror movies of the past. Hollywood stuck in a never-ending cycle of trying to top it's last scary outing.
Horror of Dracula sets itself apart from it's predecessor through the use of color. Where the 1931 Dracula film evokes strong mood and gothic atmosphere with it's black and white medium, the Horror of Dracula specializes in shocking the viewer with bright, bright red blood. Clearly unnaturally bright red blood. The effect is starting, even to my 2012 brain. The opening scene of the movie is a shot zooming in on the coffin of Dracula, which suddenly gets splattered with blood from above. We never see the source of the blood, but I imagine the effect on 1958 audiences, used to black and white features, was dramatic.
The other striking difference between the two Dracula's is the actor himself. As a kid, when I thought of Dracula I thought of something tall, dark, lean, and angular. I don't know where I developed that impression, unless it was from Frank Langella (gasp!) But the reality of Bela Lugosi is quite different. Short, with a round face and an odd shape, Lugosi doesn't really seem built to play the character as I've described. Where Lugosi puts it over the top is accent, acting, the way he held his hands, and the intensity of his eyes.
Christopher Lee is different from Bela Lugosi in almost every way. While Lee was probably a more accomplished actor than Lugosi by the end of their careers, Lee's performance still seemed less 'crafted' than Lugosi's. Lee was tall, slim, angular, striking, imposing, threatening, and just darn impressive. A shot of Lugosi as Dracula standing at a distance from the viewer evokes in you a sense of weirdness about the character and what's to happen next. When you see Lee standing there in the black cape, you just want to run.
Langella? I confess I don't remember much. But I do remember thinking he was Disco Dracula.
The kids loved the movie, by the way. And they've given the Hammer horror films, what few they've seen, the thumbs up. It'll be awhile before I let them see Bram Stoker's Dracula with Gary Oldman, though.
Maybe I should pull out the Frank Langella?
This is Ashton at probably around five.
Katie at about age three.
Ashton's first real Halloween, just over a year old.
Thanks,
DCD
What about Adam Sandler's 2012 Dracula? :-)
ReplyDeleteHaven't had a chance to see that yet, but I definitely want to.
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