30 Days of Night

I had seen it before when it first came out and I remember really liking it. Seeing it again years later after seeing so many bad vampire movies in between brought it home how AWESOME a scary vampire movie can be! Thank you David Slade!

This movie was great.  The storyline was fun…simple, but fun.

Set in the northern most town in Alaska, Barrow (population teeeeeny tiny!) is overrun by a pack of nasty, yet mesmerizing vampires.  They have chosen this particular town because it is basked in darkness as the sun sets for an entire month.

The First Night

Then all hell breaks loose!  These vampires are SCARY.  They are dirty, bloody, elven looking creatures with black eyes and rows of sharp pointy teeth that screech at each other in an animal-sounding language.  The leader sounds like he is speaking some form of extremely guttural Klingon.  Yeah, awesome!

Marlowe - Vampire Leader

These scary bloodsuckers are strong, fast, vicious and smart. No angsty mood swings sexiness or sparkle in these guys! But they do get all whiney and flamey when they are exposed to UV light or the sun.  Classic! They prey and hunt the town until mostly all the people are dead.

Creepy scary vampire chick

Based on the 3-issue comic book written by Steve Niles & illustrated by Ben Templesmith (thanks guys for an awesome story!!), the sheriff of this small town and his estranged (then not so estranged) wife hide and then take charge and try to save their small town.  It is chock full of chase scenes, suspense, gore, love and overall vampy kickass fight scenes.  There is even a scene with a gory kid vampire! Damn, we need more vampire movies like this!

Survival mode

It’s a classically crafted story that comes full circle with a somewhat poetic ending.  And leaves it open for a sequel, surprise surprise!

Overall —  Loved it!  VVVV (4 fangaroos for 30 Days of Night)

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead combines my obsession with vampires and my love of the classics.

Vampires and Shakespeare.  I think I’ve gone to heaven! It comes out in theaters today.

The Lost Boys

I hadn’t seen The Lost Boys in years, literally.  And so when walking through the store the other day and coming upon the glare of David (Kiefer Sutherland, a super young Kiefer at that!) and Ray Bans and tousled hair of Jason Patric, I couldn’t resist!

I actually love the premise of this movie.  Family moves to city (happens to be the murder capitol of the US), son falls in with the hooligans (vampires, yay!) of the town and starts to act (gasp!) like a teenager, and younger brother has to help his brother and save the day.

Yes, the elder brother falls in with the wrong crowd, namely some rocker, biker teenaged vampires with totally bangin’ 80′s hair while following a beautiful woman and ends up drinking blood out of a bottle in the ruins of a building in a cave on the coast. I hate it when that happens!  He then starts to turn vampire.

The Lost Boys

His little brother, who also happens to be a comic book fanatic, teams up with a pair of brat pack vampire hunters.  He then commits to helping his half vampire brother and vows to save him from the vampire life.   All the while the mother is dating some spiffy dude with a dog named Fang, who happens to be way more than he seems.

The vampire hunters

Yes, this movie was totally predictable (even though I had already seen it a few times!)  But, I have to say… I like a movie with the classic vampire elements and legends.  These vampires were mean – monsters of the night.  They could come out at night, they had bad breath, hated garlic, had no reflection, could only come in when invited, could fly, and found holy water to act a bit like acid.  But these vampires have amazing feathered hair (bring on the Aqua Net!) and punk rock duds.

Vampires circa 1987

In this day of brooding and angsty vampires, it was great to get back a story of vampires being monsters – and they really don’t make movies like the classic movies from the 1980′s!  Just the soundtrack alone is amazingly amusing.

The Lost Boys, not one of my favorite vampire movies of all time, but I truly think it was significant in the evolution of the modern vampire.  It had classic elements but also made these creatures “cool” and able to live in the world without people realizing what they really were.  It’s definitely a movie for a true vampire collection.

VVV (3 Fangs for The Lost Boys)

Let the Right One In

The only thing I knew about the film before I saw it was that it was a foreign file, that it was reeeeeally good and it was about a kid who befriends another kid in his building, who happens to be a vampire.  What I heard wasn’t too far off, but what I found out was that the movie I watched was a beautifully crafted and atmospheric film.

*********May contain some spoilers if you haven’t seen this movie*********

The setting was so simple – a neighborhood in a city in the middle of a snowy winter – an apartment building, a school – very simple.  And the characters were really moving, very real.  A twelve year old boy, who is bullied at school, meets the new girl who has moved into his building.

She is strange, but they seem to understand each other.   She just happens to need the blood of others to survive.  A child vampire.  I loved that their friendship blossoms like most childhood friendships, with a few awkward words and moments, then a feeling of familiarity and ease.

Oskar in Let the Right One In

The film focused beautifully on the developing relationship of these two young people (well, at least one of them is young!).  Only when the story crept away from the children did you get a sense of something sinister.

The city newspapers told of people being killed – drained of their blood.  And boy did I get to see it!  The man that lives with the young vampire was one of the culprits - he would prey on the kind and trusting passer-bys and attack them, string them up and drain their blood to take back to the girl.

This movie did not have horrifying vampire special effects.  It did have some cool visual effects, adding to the supernatural ambiance of the film.  It had very real feeling situations.  Even the murder scenes seemed to be a part of this film’s world.  Yes, they were horrifying, but they seemed very matter-of-fact – like it was what needed to be done for this child to survive.

I did get my vampire feelers tickled during a few scenes.  I always love seeing the interpretation of what a vampire in a particular story can do and can’t do, what powers they may or may not have.  It’s fascinating to me.

In this movie, the child vampire could climb walls.  It is very subtle the way you find out, really well done.  She also is strong, but very vulnerable and can be hurt.  The most interesting element for me was that you actually get to see what happens to a vampire if they enter a home without being invited.  Usually, it’s just described as something a vampire cannot do, they just can’t enter.  In this film, she enters her friend’s house and immediately starts to bleed from every orifice and pore.  Frightening and oh so cool.  I have never seen this evolution in the vampire myth.

Eli in Let the Right One In

Every scene I found to be precise and exquisitely filmed and I found myself loving the fact that the main story was about budding friendship, loyalty and trust, even if it had a macabre overtone.

VVVVV  (5 Fangs for Let the Right One In)  Brava!

There have been so many different  adaptations of Dracula in movies and TV.  I have known and loved most of them!  Have you? Bela Lugosi in Dracula (1931)

Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula

Christopher Lee in Dracula (1958)

Christopher Lee as Count Dracula

William Marshall in Blacula (1972)

William Marshall as Dracula

Frank Langella in Dracula (1979)

Frank Langella as Dracula

George Hamilton in Love At First Bite (1979)

George Hamilton as Dracula

Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

Gary Oldman as Dracula

Leslie Nielsen in Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995)

Leslie Nielsen as Dracula

Gerard Butler in Dracula 2000 (2000)

Gerard Butler as Dracula

Rudolph Martin in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 5

Rudolph Martin as Dracula

Richard Roxburgh in Van Helsing (2005)

Richard Roxburgh as Dracula

I just found this site with a trailer for a True Blood porn parody.  It is hysterical!  Look for the wig.  You will know which one I mean!  HA!

Check it out at http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/04/15/true-blood-porn-parody-tru/

New Orleans

I am going to do everything in my power to get to New Orleans for the Vampire Film Festival.  It runs from October 27th through October 31st this year.  (I know!  Darn, I’ll be there for Halloween too!!!)

Check out their website here:  www.vampirefilmfestival.com

For the love of all that is vampire, Anna Sayer will attend!  I mean, how can I resist the call of the vampire mecca?

Dracula - 1931

I poured myself a glass of red wine, turned out all the lights and pushed play. Even though Renfield really annoyed me at the beginning (before he went crazy), I was pulled in by the villagers tales of the vampire – and couldn’t wait for Count Dracula to make his appearance.

Bela Lugosi was a wonderful Dracula – one that set the tone for the cinematic vampire for years.  So much different than the terrifying Count Orlok in Nosferatu, Count Dracula was enticing, striking, handsome, well-dressed, attentive and polite  with a hint of something very dark.  And we all know what that is!

Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula

The story is one of the most familiar stories to me, one of my favorites – though there were some differences from the original story.  One major one being that Jonathan Harker never made his fateful trip to Transylvania.  Only Renfield made the trip and helped Dracula make his way to London.  That I found to be a pretty profound detour and a little distracting.

Count Dracula

Although I loved the shadowed closeups of Dracula  (so very dramatic at first with light splayed across his only his eyes), about half way through the movie it  started giving me the giggles!  He truly was the original Zoolander!

One of the aspects of the movie I really noticed throughout the length of the film was the lack of music. Today music is such an integral part of any film and I wondered if it were just the way of early movie making.  As I sat through the film I began to think that the silence was almost fitting.  Nighttime is a very quiet time and silence can be very scary.  There is a scene where Dracula is feeding on woman in bed and not one sound to be heard.  It gave me the creeps!

I am definitely going to add this one to my collection.  It is such an important piece in the evolution of the vampire.   Now if only I could find a vampire with a long black cape to take me into his arms…

VVVV (4 fangs for Dracula)

Nosferatu

I was completely unaware of the controversy that surrounded this film when it first came out in 1922 (the release date for the US was in 1929).

When you watch the film, it is definitely a familiar story – in fact, it is a dead ringer for Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  Some of the major differences were that it was set in Germany instead of London and the names of the characters were changed.

Yes, because the rights to Bram Stoker’s Dracula were never acquired by the film makers, Stoker’s widow sued for copyright infringement.

That being said, it was an interesting film to watch.  Though I have to admit I had a hard time not speaking my own silly dialogue (hey, silent films are hard to watch sometimes!)

Count Orlok - Nosferatu

Count Orlok, in my humble opinion, is one of the most terrifying vampires ever to grace the screen.  His more rat-like features, long and pointy fingers and horrifying stare were definitely giving me the creeps.  Being extremely tall, he seemed overbearing and definitely a monster of the night.  While as my view of the Dracula story always seemed to have a romantic side to it (a small one at least), there was nothing romantic about this vampire.

There were a couple of interesting vampire concepts in this story that were different than the traditional Dracula and other vampire stories.  Count Orlok did not make vampires – instead his victims died and the deaths were blamed on a plague.  He had qualities of a rat, unlike most vampires who are associated more with bats.

All in all I think that the story wasn’t as good as Bram Stoker’s Dracula, as the screen play writers did deviate from the plot by leaving out key characters (Van Helsing, for one) and ultimately changing the ending.  But I must say that this film is a treasure – Count Orlok was terrifying.  The actor, Max Schrek, created a true fiend – perhaps what the vampire was always suppose to be, a monster.

VVVv (3 1/2 fangs for Nosferatu)

Twilight

I remember watching the movie, being interested because it was a vampire love story. I am a sucker (HA!) for vampire love stories. I watched the movie thinking probably what every other female on the planet was thinking when Edward Cullen first walks through that door and Bella asks Jessica, “Who’s he?”… My god, he is beautiful…. swoooooooon!

Edward Cullen

Other than not being able to take my eyes off the beautiful actor who plays Edward Cullen, I thought the movie was ok. A little slow at times, but hey, I like the love stories with awkward moments – makes for an interesting relationship, to say the least. Then, I read the books, and I watched Twilight again and loved it.

I have to say, knowing the characters that Stephenie Meyer created and being with them for 4 books helped me with the movie Twilight. It didn’t seem as slow and I thought the director of the movie, Catherine Hardwicke, had a vision really meshed well with Meyer’s world in Forks.

The meadow scene was beautiful, but my favorite scene had to have been the baseball scene. And it was set to the music of Muse, my favorite band. The movie really had great music all around – Blue Foundation, Muse and the Iron & Wine song at the end was absolutely a beautiful choice for that moment.

Edward & Bella

The sweeping views of the mountains and the overall mysterious bluish tinge to the movie made it a very pretty movie to watch. And I know that there are a lot of haters out there, but I love that the vampires in Meyer’s world sparkle! An interesting twist on the vampire myth, among the others she came up with.

So, even though this movie has vampires in it, I saw it as more a love story.  And as far as love stories go, I liked Twilight. I’ve seen New Moon, which I will review at a later date, and am really looking forward to Eclipse.

VVVV (4 fangs for Twilight)