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teawaffles · 4 years ago

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There’s No Business Like Show Business: Chapter 2

The next day.

After finishing his work at the mansion, Bond headed to Whitechapel’s Leman Street, where Maya and her company normally held their rehearsals. [1]

Walking down the noisy street was not just Bond, but also three other employees of the Moriarty household. One of them was Fred Porlock.

“It would’ve been fine if only you came along, Fred…… But thanks for joining us anyway, you two.”

Bond directed that to Jack Renfield and Sebastian Moran, who were walking a little behind him.

As Fred was a master of disguise, Bond had asked him to contribute his opinion on the performance too when Jack and Moran decided to tag along. Now the four of them were on their way to the rehearsal — with Louis’ permission of course.

Jack roared with laughter.

“No, you don’t have to thank me. I’ve watched my fair share of theatre, so I thought I could help them out, even if it’s from an amateur’s perspective,” said the old butler, nodding as he reminisced about those good old days.

“You’re probably just after the young girls from the theatre company, aren’t you old man?” Moran said, half in disgust. “Bond said this Maya chairwoman is a dashing lady in her own right, so I came along to feast my eyes on—— Ow, that hurt!”

Jack had clapped Moran on the head, as a warning to not shoot his mouth off.

“The only one here chasing women is you. Really, you didn’t even finish your chores properly before coming here.”

“I did my part just fine. For once, I’m not skipping out on work.”

“Rubbish — I did a check before we left and found some cigarette butts in the hallway. Don’t you dare annoy Louis any further.”

“……W-Well, the more the merrier, right?”

“…………”

Listening to their usual argument at the back of the group, Bond smiled wryly, while Fred was silent.

Finally, they had reached their destination. Waiting in front of the theatre was Maya, and her little sister Mae.

“Mister Bond!”

“Hey, haven’t seen you since yesterday.”

Mae waved her arms up and down in excitement, while Bond greeted them with a smile.

“S—sorry. Normally, she would play with the other children near our place, but today she insisted on coming with me…… By the way, um, who might these, d—dignified gentlemen be?”

“Ah, they work at the same household as me. The short one here is Fred. The somewhat scary-looking one is Moran. And this dandy old gentleman is Mr Jack. If you’re alright with it, I thought you could use their input as well.”

As Bond introduced them, the three men also greeted their host. But Maya seemed a little perplexed.

“……Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to come here in a big group,” Bond admitted, looking slightly uncomfortable.

“No, no.” Maya hurriedly waved her hands. “I—I’m really grateful to be able to, hear valuable feedback from, so many people. For now, let’s not stand here to talk, please come in……”

Maya guided them into the theatre, stooped in a self-abasing posture. Her faltering voice was much as the same as from their previous encounter, but today, nerves seemed to have crept in as well.

“She has a sort of shadow about her, but that has its own charm. Like the transient beauty of a young widow, don’t you think?”

“She’s pretty, for sure, but not really my type. More like the kind of woman who complicates things when you break up with her.”

“Um, sorry you two, but if you could just keep your voices down,” chided Bond, as Jack and Moran whispered about the chairwoman behind her back.

Right after the entrance was a cramped space. The box seats above them looked hastily constructed; in truth, the interior decorations made it seem more appropriate to call this place a playhouse, rather than a proper theatre.

But their guide had only praise. “The manager here is, a really nice person; whenever we say we want to practise, he’s always happy to lend it to us. There are performances held at night, so we can only use it during the day.”

“He trusts you, doesn’t he.”

Hearing her speak with such sincere gratitude, Bond was quietly impressed by her character. Perhaps her dark aura easily invited misunderstanding, but she was definitely genuine at heart.

“Speaking of which, Miss Maya, you said that you’re the director for this performance, but surely someone else is responsible for the sets and the arrangements at the other theatre during this time?”

“Another member is in charge of the sets, but the negotiations and the like, w—were handled by me. Even so, the manager of the larger theatre — a nobleman — had actually approached us to be the opening act for another company, and I just accepted his invitation.”

“Still, isn’t it great to be invited to perform on a bigger stage, even if it’s just as an opening act?”

“Yes; for people like us — a theatre company from the slums, we don’t have many chances to show the world what we can do, so everyone’s doing their very best.”

Saying that, Maya secretly clenched her fists. Surely the one working the hardest was none other than Maya herself.

There was no audience in the stalls, and on the stage were a number of men and women — likely the company members themselves — doing light warm-ups and vocal exercises. A few of the children he’d met yesterday were also frolicking about on stage.

One exceptionally tall man on the stage had noticed Bond and the others enter the hall, and spoke up.

“Oh, is that the rumoured theatre master?”

Moran whistled at this unusually grand title.

“Theatre master, eh. A fitting name considering your experience, Bond.”

“Fufu, I’m honoured.”

Bond accepted it with his innate courage and composure. Then, he went onto the stage with Maya, while the other three sat in the stalls at the far end, so as to not stand out and interfere with the rehearsal.

The company members each stopped what they were doing and lined up in wait.

“Everyone, this is Mr Bond, who will be watching our performance today,” introduced Maya.

Right then and there, her voice had become clearer and stronger. A little taken aback by the sudden change in her attitude, Bond took a quick look around the room.

“Hello to you all. I’m looking forward to what you have for me today,” he said solemnly, as he bowed.

“We’ll do our best!” The company members bowed their heads in unison.

From their greeting, Bond could feel the the quality of their bearing, and the strength of their cohesion. Not only that, the tension he himself once felt when he stood on stage came rushing back in waves.

He switched his frame of mind from that of a special agent, to that of an actor, and looked over Maya and her company with an earnest gaze.

“Well then, without further ado, please show me what you’ve got.”

“Yes!”

Even though his instructions had been given with no introductory remarks, they asked no unnecessary questions, and jumped straight into preparation. Even though they had only put up plays in cheap theatres, Maya’s company already displayed the high level of professionalism they had developed.

“Miss Maya, what’s the programme for today?” Bond asked, as he moved to the row of seats right in front of the stage.

Maya was also directing Mae and the other children to sit down. “We’re starting with ‘The Red Shoes’, followed by ‘The Little Mermaid’, and lastly, ‘The Little Match Girl’.”

“Hmm, fairytales, I see.”

The unexpected subject matter piqued his interest.

In a time when Shakespeare was all the rage, to perform children’s literature in a proper theatre, and a serious scripted play at that — now this was a bold move.

But as someone who liked to do things unconventionally, that was precisely why their play intrigued Bond. Yesterday’s playful rendition of “The Little Match Girl” was probably inspired by it as well.

Then, the tall man who noticed Bond earlier spoke up.

“Ain’t it interesting? Maya always makes sure to write plays that even us poor dumb folk understand. Today’s script is also entirely her work,” he said cheerfully.

“Weren’t you in charge of creating the play too? You should be able to write at least one decent line of dialogue.”

At the man’s self-satisfied tone, a woman beside him sighed. But he ignored her pointed comment and carried on.

“There were a bunch of people who’d always thought ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Macbeth’ and the like were plain boring; but after Maya broke them down into something easier to follow, they’ve gotten hooked onto Shakespeare.”

“Being able to interpret works in a way that everyone can understand…… A wonderful talent indeed.”

But if you were to put on a proper production of Shakespeare in an unregulated theatre like this, you would be caught by the censors. To avoid that, incorporating music and the like into their productions was a brilliant adaptation on their part.

Bond had said that last part out loud, and the man thanked him for his words of praise. The members of the company had shown their admiration for Maya, but the woman herself took in a deep breath, as if to hide her embarrassment.

In other words, in order to put on a play that everyone could follow, the answer she'd arrived at was “fairytales”. Although it may be the best choice given the short length of the opening act……

“I’m sitting next to Mister Bond!”

“Hey, no fair!”

Bond had been absorbed in thought about the contents of the play. Nearby, the children were scrambling for the best spots. Having won the seat to the left of Bond, Mae asked him a question.

“Mister Bond, do you like ‘fairy tales’?”

That pulled him out of his thought process for a moment, and Mae smiled.

“Yeah. I read them when I was a child.”

“I like them too, because Maya and the rest always read them in a fun way—”

“Me too!” The other children raised their hands and shouted. Reading stories aloud while acting out the roles was indeed a theatrical way of reading to children.

However, Mae immediately pouted in frustration.

“But I really hate that story.”

“……Why is that?”

“The little girl always looks so sad. I tried asking Maya to give it a happy ending, but she just said that we have to ‘respect the intent of the story’ and didn’t listen.”

Her words helped Bond discern the true nature of the incongruity he'd felt.

As Mae had said, all three stories had their protagonists fall into unfortunate circumstances and perish. It was true that many fairytales were cruel, but there were others with happy endings too. Was there some hidden intent behind these choices?

As Bond pondered the new question that surfaced in his mind, Mae leaned in towards him.

“Mister Bond, do you also think it’s important, what Maya said? No matter how sad a story is, can’t we make it happy on our own?”

She asked that question with clear eyes. Bond thought for a few seconds, before responding.

“It’s true that it’s important to understand the intention of the original story. If you change its contents haphazardly, the fans of the story would be upset. I think your sister is the type who would take that very seriously.”

Mae glanced down in disappointment at his level-headed answer, but Bond continued.

“However, if we were all afraid of criticism, then nothing new would ever be made. If you have something you really want to tell others, then I think it’s possible to add a new interpretation to a story. After all, one form of respect is to show the world how you would’ve done it.”

“……Oh I see!”

Mae brightened up, and Bond smiled. Her question was one that had always, and would continue to vex all interpreters of stories. But at the very least, he didn’t want to make a decision on which way was right.

Just as their conversation had come to an end, it seemed the preparations for the performance were now complete.

“Without further ado, let us begin.”

Standing on a platform, Maya gave a bow, and with that the curtain rose.

Footnotes:

[1] Leman Street is a little to the north-east of the Tower of London and St. Katharine Docks, and within walking distance of both.

T/N: Is this chapter some meta-level commentary on the series itself?! omg

#moriarty the patriot #yuukoku no moriarty #yuumori #english translation #forbidden games

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orphancookie69 · 3 years ago

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Dracula: Origin, Remake, Now

Most people know Dracula, whether that is in an animated format or as an unspoken grand daddy of a type of being in a “parallel” universe. But how many know the real story of Dracula? If you asked me last year, I would of described it in 3 words: Dark, Bloody, Sexual

Now? I would say this: Romantic, True Horror, Funny. Worlds apart those words...here are some films I watched to educate myself on this timeless story.

Nosferatu (1922)

I LOVE THIS SILENT FILM. The love between the Harker’s is...inspiring. The iconic characters found in all three films I think are seen here in their purest form. And no one told me Dracula was a real estate investor? And honestly, this version (and 1979) is truly frightening just for the way that a whole town is taken over by darkness. HIGHLY RECCOMENDED. Also, way to empower the woman to save the day when no one will listen to her, for the power of LOVE!

Nosferatu (1979)

If you watch this, watch it on the same day as 1922 version. You will not be disappointed. This was a foreign film, mostly the same as the 1922 version but longer...in some ways it was a little hard to keep up because of the pace. Because it’s foreign, you have to read the screen anyways. But it does its source fair justice.

Dracula (1992)

Having watched Nosferatu, this movie makes much more sense...but also infuriates. Like, I loved how publicly insane Renfield is but here, you skip right past that. I guess in some ways your boss going insane on his assignment, now yours, is a different red flag...but it was funny the other way around. Also, there is not so much sex in the other ones and there’s a ton of “implied” sex here. But there are some classic scenes that just get bypassed with a “newspaper clipping” that I highly missed. But its what most modern versions of Dracula are based on; brides, sex, blood, fangs. Good cast, not a bad watch (if you don’t expect it to honor the source material).

Dracula was written in 1897 by Bram Stoker and based on Vlad the Impaler. Inspired by...a nightmare. I have not read the source material, but I am told by others that the 1992 version has more from the book than Nosferatu. Perhaps one day I will read it and further my research.

Other movies I love that have explored this genre, so to speak, is Van Helsing from 2004. I have been told that Nosferatu and Dracula are not the same thing, but then that makes me wonder...what are they then? Dracula takes from Nosferatu...but changes it as it references it? Is it like, my great grandfather did this and now a couple of generations later we do it like that? Also, I can not believe how much I did not know about this when I thought I did from watching a couple of modern films about the subject. Like I thought Van Helsing was this bad ass, and he’s not in some versions. Which one have you seen? Which one do you like?

#Nosferatu #dracula #1922 #1979 #nowwatching #shudder #netflix #1992 #noschoolliketheoldschool #creepyisalifestylechoice #romance #horror #silentfilm #foreignfilm #femfatale #heroine

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my-fanfic-library · 5 years ago

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Something Different {BBC Dracula x Reader} [13]

Masterlist

~^*^~

Your eyes fluttered open. The amber sun beat down on your face through the cracks in the curtains. Your phone buzzed excitedly on your bedside table. With a groan, you reached out, missing once but grasping it firmly the second time. Eyes a little blurred, you answered.

“Hullo?” You asked groggily.

“Good morning, Princess, did you sleep well?” Dracula’s voice rang through.

“Very.” You hummed.

“Good... I’ll be back in a couple of days. Behave yourself and I might just be tempted to show you a little gratitude for it...”

“I have no idea what that means but you have fully intrigued me.”

“Ahh, now you have just a fraction of an idea on how I feel about you.” A smile broke out onto your face at his words.

“The most romantic thing anyone has every said to me and it’s from a vampire.” You playfully mused, rolling your eyes.

“So that is where we are,” he pondered, “a budding romance?”

“Ah, well, no, I didn’t mean it like that-“

“I think I like that very much.”

Your smile softened. And then your phone began to vibrate once more. Zoe was trying to call you. Your heart faltered. You hadn’t heard from her in so long. Worry had begun to settle in your gut, but here she was calling you.

“Drac, I’ll have to call you back.” He tried to protest, however you cut him off and answered Zoe, “Zoe? Is everything alright?”

“[First].” She spoke slowly, voice weak and having lost its character.

“Zoe...?”

“You need to come to London...”

“What’s going on? Why? Why do I need to come to London?”

“I’m in the hospital...” she told you slowly. She kept gasping quietly for breath, “my health... deteriorated... I was moved to Westmoreland Street hospital... the oncology ward... bring all your files and come...”

“What about Jack...?”

“He arrived yesterday... his friend, Lucy... is about to die...”

Your heart swelled with guilt. You had caused that.

But could you go back to London? Could you return to the place that you had once fled? Where every street had its memory - most more than painful - and every place that you had ever been there tainted with heartache. Zoe had beckoned you to join her in what you suspected were her final days but you didn’t know if you could. Over the last two years, she had become a stand-in mother figure while you were so far away from your own. She was your mentor, and your inspiration. How could you go and watch her die? How could you go and relive all that heartbreak only to create more?

~^*^~

You closed your eyes, not wanting to see the city rise up from the horizon. Already, you missed Whitby. You missed the screech of the seagulls, the constant whisper of the waves, the groan of the boats coming up and down the harbour.

A good 20 minutes later and you were hauling yourself and your bags off of the coach, wishing that you weren’t here. The familiar and unforgettable scent of London filled your lungs and you almost burst into tears right there. But you didn’t. You simply pulled up the handle on your suitcase, held your canvas bag tightly and began to walk. The coach had stopped opposite Regents Park station, and you knew it wasn’t too much of a walk to the hospital. It was a short journey. Soon you were navigating through the winding halls, trying to decipher where on Earth the oncology ward was. After asking several nurses, you found yourself outside of her door.

‘072 A

Zoe Van Helsing’

You wanted to cry for her. Your fist rapped on the door and you entered. She was lying back, head elevated slightly with cushions. Her once glowing skin was pale and opaque, matted with deep bags under the eyes. Her lips had pastelled and cracked up. She didn’t look great.

“Hi, Zoe.” You greeted softly.

“[First], you came.” She didn’t push back the tired smile, but her voice gave away her exhaustion.

“Of course I did.” You set the bags down, walking towards her side. Closer up, she looked even worse.

“Jack... asked about you...” she told you, “his friend... Dracula has been drinking her,” she stopped, just for a moment to weakly cough, “blood.”

“I...”

“She was an old friend of yours... wasn’t she...? You must be upset.”

“...not really... our friendship ended on bad terms.”

“I...” her eyes looked past you, as if she was looking at another person. You turned your head, seeing no one, “see...”

“What? What is it?” You asked her softly.

It was probably the high dosages of medicine making her hallucinate. It was the only explanation. You sighed.

Her eyes fluttered a few times before slowly closing. She was clearly exhausted. Whispering your goodbyes, you left the room and plucked up your bags. Just as you were turning to leave, very familiar male.

“Hey!” You called. He turned to look at you and then began to walk a little faster, “stop!” You called. Reluctantly, he turned and gave you a nervous smile, “Renfield, right?”

“Sorry, Miss [Last], I didn’t realise it was you.”

Yes you did, you slimeball you thought

“That’s okay!” You smiled sweetly, “can you do me a huge favour?”

~^*^~

Renfield shuffled a little away from you as you turned your head up to smile at him. It was obviously fake and very much forced. He gulped. You wanted to laugh. You had seriously unnerved him but you didn’t care.

He began to panic in his own head beside you. The lift pulled you up to the penthouse suite. Dracula had given stern orders that no one was to visit, except for... well, she wasn’t an issue anymore, she was dying. But Dracula had only mentioned this sweet [First] [Last] as his “lady in the North”. He often neglected Renfield’s plans to visit you for a few days. However, the lawyer couldn’t see what he saw in you. He rubbed at the scar on his neck.

When the doors opened, he stepped out and you happily trailed behind him. His shoes clicked on the floor until he came to the wooden door.

“Stay here for a moment.” He commanded, voice growing with nerves.

He carefully opened the door so that you wouldn’t be able to see inside and slipped away. Dracula sat at the head of the table, reading on his kindle. He had grown very close with it, having realised just how many books the tiny slab of plastic contained.

“Count Dracula...” Renfield began.

“Why do you sound so guilty, Renfield?” Dracula apple, not looking up from the page he was reading. He was playing with his fingers with his free hand.

“There is a lady here to see you...”

“Ah,” Dracula looked up, “so soon? I knew she was a lively one... though I did expect her to be trapped in her physical body... perhaps she was much stronger than I anticipated.”

“N-no, Count Dracula-“

“Enough. You can go and sort your work out. I’ll entertain our guest.”

Renfield retreated immediately. He knew Dracula had grown fond of you but he didn’t know if he would be angry that you had found him where he occasionally had the other lady around for... activities.

Dracula’s pace was slow. He knew that on the other side of the door, he was heard. He was prowling, testing the impatience of the person waiting for him. He was teasing.

His fingers reached out. He grasped the handle. He pulled.

“Just the very person I was expecting, much sooner than I expected thou-...” his voice cut and trailed off. His eyes locked with yours. He was genuinely shocked to see you standing before him, smiling. You let a small giggle pass your lips and had he had a beating heart, he knew it would have skipped a beat at the sound, “[First]?” He managed to ask through his question.

“Who else were you expecting?”

You already knew the answer, and the pain in knowing that she was openly welcome to this place radiated through your chest. But the reminder that she was dying due to becoming acquainted with him, whilst you still bloomed with life gave you some peace on the matter.

“My goodness this is a shock.” He breathed.

“Not to quote a close undead acquaintance of mine, but will you invite me in?”

He breathed a laugh. He could sense that you were angry at him, but you still joked around with him. You were smiling through the pain. Goodness, how he admired that on you.

“No.” He deadpanned, “I’m demanding your entry.” The wicked smile appeared on his face and you pushed back a laugh.

You made your way in, admiring the darkness of the room. A long table ran the length of the room and a tall, slender window was covered to conceal the sunlight. There were purple and cyan lights and it was very pretty.

You wondered where Renfield had disappeared to. There were a few doors and you wondered where they lead.

Dracula’s hands slipped over your own for a moment and the contact sent a pleasant shiver down your spine. He lifted the suitcase and the bag from your grip and moved them, setting them down by the door. You watched him move around. He seemed very much at home here, but after two months, you supposed he would in a place he could fully call his own. He fit in very nicely in the sophistication of it all.

“When did you get here?” He inquired.

“A few hours ago. I took a coach.”

“You took a coach? That must’ve taken so long.”

“Six hours. And then I went to visit somebody...” you didn’t want to say who.

You knew that over the time Dracula had been coming back to visit you, he had also been having secret meetings with Zoe. She had never told you this. You had found out yourself during your absence when Jack directed you to her office to find some paperwork he needed. You had found the diary entries, dates and all, documenting her meetings with him. He had been the one to diagnose her cancer (her blood had been poison to him - which both horrified and intrigued you), she had drunk the rest of the sample of his blood that she didn’t send off for testing, and they had been meeting secretly for months.

Count Dracula had proved himself to be somewhat of a playboy, managing three maidens all at once.

You scoffed.

“What?” Dracula, who had sunken down into the chair nearest to you, looked up at you.

“Nothing.” You shook your head.

“You must be tired, I suppose. Do you want to lie down for a while?”

You simply hummed and nodded. He stood once more, gently taking your hand and leading you towards one of the doors. He paused.

“Renfield!” He bellowed, “fetch some food for our guest! And make it nice!”

You stifled another laugh as he pushed open the door and pulled you through. The next room was similarly as dark and featured a beautiful black four poster bed, with black satin canopies. The bedding was silk, and glistened. Pushed against the wall you had just entered through, to the left was a matching black wardrobe and on the opposite side of the room beside the window was a matching tall chest of drawers.

You audibly gasped at the sight. Dracula smirked at your reaction. But then the memories of what had happened here filled his head.

Did he feel guilty...?

“Impressed?”

“Very much, Christian Gray.” You joked.

“[First],” he warned lowly, turning to face you, “never ever quote that book again.” He turned away from you, “at least I know what BDSM is now.”

“You actually read Fifty Shades...”

Oh, how badly you wanted to laugh at the thought of a well-mannered and charming gentleman reading such a book.

“It was recommended to me.” He stated plainly.

“Believe me, Drac, that book doesn’t even scratch the surface of BDSM.”

You pulled your hand out of his and he turned his head so quickly you would be surprised if he didn’t end up with whiplash. He eyed you. You bit your lip in order to prevent the laughs. And then he did the most unexpected thing. He trapped you in his arms, bringing you close as they slithered around your waist. You were pulled into him, the mere feeling of him holding you knocking the breath from your lungs. He lowered his head, connecting his forehead with yours.

“I suggest you stop right there, darling.” He whispered.

“I’m tempted to carry on now.” Your eyes sparkled with mischief.

“Yes, carry on, see where it lands you.”

Your eyes flickered to the bed and back to him. Both of you seemed to have the same thought and you began to laugh. Hard. The ridiculousness of it. Part of you was tempted to bring up a certain movie scene where a mating between a vampire and a human lead to an utterly destroyed bedroom, but you opted against it.

You planted your forehead on his chest as you laughed into him. The sweet sounds that came from you vibrated through him and he found himself holding onto you just a little tighter. He threw his head back, inhaling deeply. Slowly but surely, the room was being taken hostage by your scent.

When your laughter had died down a little, Dracula released you and you stepped back to look at him. Your eyes truly did sparkle in every light, didn’t they? Was it simply the life flowing through your veins? Or were you truly just that special?

He announced to you that he’d leave you alone to rest and your eyes lingered on the door after he gently shut it. Sighing, you turned and decided to have a little root around the room. You began at the wardrobe, opening the doors to reveal many freshly ironed suits, crisp shirts, some sweats and other items of clothing hung up neatly and colour-coded. You scoffed. Trust Dracula to have a colour-coded wardrobe. Then again, being awake 24/7 must end up proving to be extremely boring.

The next place you looked was in the chest of drawers. Everything was seemingly normal, until you found yourself opening the bottom drawer.

Women’s clothes?

You tugged a t-shirt out you gasped at the shirt beneath it. It was so recognisable. The eyeliner stain was still there.

~^*^~

You laughed as Lucy began to swipe eyeshadow all the way out towards your temple. Clearly she had gotten bored with doing a nice job with your makeup and wanted to start clowning around a little. She swapped out the eyeshadow after a moment with her brightest liquid lip and began to paint it on your cheeks, and your laughing caused her to lose the grip.

The applicator fell, not without leaving a vibrant mark on your white pyjamas.

“Lucy!” You whined.

She was too busy laughing at your despair to help. So, you did the only thing a teenage girl could think of doing. You grasped her liquid eyeliner, ripping open the lid and began to draw lines up and down her arms.

She began to laugh harder with the sensation and then, you began to swirl a dark mark into her pyjamas. She only laughed, and you couldn’t help but join her once more.

~^*^~

You dropped the t-shirt immediately and pushed yourself back. Due to the fact that you were crouching, you toppled backwards and landed on your backside. You drew in a breath and waited for Dracula to come in and find you snooping. He’d make a stupid remark at you being so nosy and would most likely forget about it sooner or later. But he never came. Instead, there was silence.

Not wanting to look inside of the drawer anymore, you kicked it shut and flopped onto your back.

So she had been here? She had been in his bedroom? She had been so often that she needed to leave clothes? So she had been staying the night... how many nights? You couldn’t help but think about what they did during that time.

Dread filled you as you pondered on it longer and longer.

Why hadn’t Dracula ever invited you down to London if he had such a beautiful home here? Did he wish to conceal his close relations with Lucy so badly from you? It must’ve been her he was expecting. You wondered how disappointed he must’ve been when he opened the door and realised that it was you and not her.

You couldn’t stay here. You had been awake since 5am, and had been on a coach since 6am. You needed your sleep. It was only 2pm. A few hours wouldn’t hurt, as long as you left before the sun went down. If you planned it correctly, you could even get the same coach back to Whitby.

Pulling yourself up, you made yourself to the bed. When you sunk down, you were surprised to find that the mattress was memory foam. The sheets were slippery beneath you. You didn’t like them much, if truth be told. Maybe Lucy had picked them out...

Instead of thinking about it anymore, you shut your eyes and regulated your breathing. There was no point on dwelling on it. She was as good as dead.

When your eyes fluttered open, the room was pitch black. From outside of the room, you could hear the soft hum of music. What time was it? You pulled yourself up and your legs were wobbly with having just woken up. You pushed past it and made your way out of the room. A soft light hit you and at the sound of the door opening, Dracula turned to look at you.

He had a glass before him, it was half full. He ignored it, however and strolled towards you.

“Did you sleep well, darling?”

“Is that what you asked her every time she stayed over?”

You were too tired to process your slightly bitchy attitude. He cocked an eyebrow. Then he sighed.

“She didn’t stay as often as you are imagining.”

“But she’s stayed more than I have.”

“Trust me, I’ve spent more time with you.”

“Did you sleep with her?” You asked sharply.

“Would you prefer my honesty or will you flee in anger again?” He was treating you like a ticking time bomb. Good.

“Just tell me. I need to know.”

You did. You needed to know how she had won him over. How she had won another person against you. Whatever she did, she was too good at it. If this tiny piece of closure would help you heal, then god damn it, you needed it.

“Fine...” he took a step towards you warily, “only... when I drank her blood... and only here. Every other time I drank her, we were in less intimate places...”

“How many times...?” You could barely speak louder than a whisper. Your heart was pounding with what you could only describe as jealousy. But why on Earth were you jealous?

“Three times.”

Your bottom lip trembled.

Why did you decide it was a good idea to inquire about such things? Why did it hurt so much? When had you grown so attached to him?

“... why not me...?”

“Why not you?” He repeated, “darling, because I have more respect for you than that. And should our blossoming romance progress, I’d rather not drink your blood. Not again. It is much too valuable.”

You turned away from him. If he saw the tears in your eyes, he’d pin you as weak. You weren’t weak. You were devastated that Lucy had wormed her way in between you and another person. Maybe you shouldn’t have come here.

“I’m gonna go, Drac.” You whispered.

“You’re leaving so soon?”

“Yes, I haven’t been to see my parents and-“ you lied, voice shaking, “I should go and see them.”

“At three in the morning?”

It was 3am?

“...yes...?” You lied once more but you sounded more unsure of yourself than ever.

“I suppose I cannot convince you otherwise. However, I am indebted to you. May you allow me to pay you back?”

“You aren’t in debt to me-“

“That’s where you are wrong. Indeed I am. I left a very beautiful lady alone at a ball after only one dance. Will you indulge me in just one more?”

He extended his arm to you and you looked at him in disbelief. Did he have to do this now? You didn’t want to think of the consequences if you didn’t; besides, you couldn’t leave now that it was dark, he’d follow you.

“Only one.”

“Thank you. Sincerely, thank you.” He smiled softly at you, “and instead of waltzing you around, we shall dance a little closer to how your generation does it.”

What?

“Hold up, if you think for one second I’m gonna grind up on you, you are wrong-“

“I’m not going to ask how you came to that conclusion. Now take my hand, darling.”

He truly was mesmerising when he wanted to be. You were a moth and he was the burning light. He drew you in even if you knew he was dangerous. Even if he would kill you, something inside of you screamed to get closer and closer evermore to him. You took a few steps forwards and took his hand.

Gently, he pulled you into him and wrapped his free arm around your waist. Your other arm came to rest on his shoulder and he pulled you just a little closer.

‘My lover’s got humour, she’s the giggle at a funeral, knows everybody’s disproval, I should’ve worshipped her sooner’

You scoffed quietly at the song choice. Slowly, he swayed your bodies, relishing in the feeling of you. Again, he could hear your pulse. Dear lord, he was begging whatever force there was to keep you this close. He had never in his 500 years imagined to meet somebody like you.

He could stay like this with you forever and he would be content. Absolutely, utterly content.

“Take Me to Church?” You whispered questioningly, “I thought you shunned anything holy.”

He chuckled.

‘The only heaven I’ll be sent to, is when I’m alone with you, I was born sick but I love it’

“I suppose this is an expection.” He whispered back.

He slightly tightened his grip, wishing to feel the beat of your heart against his chest. You sighed a little at the closeness. You shut your eyes and disconnected your hand from his, and instead wrapped it around his neck. His now free arm worked it’s way around your waist.

“Why?”

‘I’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife, offer me that deathless death, good god let me give you my life’

He pulled you ever tighter, inhaling your scent. You buried your face into the crook of his neck. Here, his aftershave was strongest. You liked the smell of it. The feeling of your youth, of your life made Dracula feel more alive than he ever could devouring other humans. The rush of adrenaline he got with that was nothing to the way he felt holding you like this.

God, what was happening to him?

“Because it reminds me of you.” He whispered into your ear, pressing a tender kiss to your head.

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#whoooooo boy #that took way too long #hope you guys enjoy #something different #dracula #bbc dracula #netflix dracula #dracula x reader #bbc dracula x reader #netflix dracula x reader #claes bang #dolly wells

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fireleaptfromhousetohouse · 5 years ago

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Howcumzit?: Dracula

How come the show never followed up on the idea that Jonathan Harker had fucked Dracula?

They pretty much opened the show by bringing up the idea, after all, which lent an unpleasantly '80s frisson to Jonathan's emaciated appearance - one thinks of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, and that immortal line "the cosmic spores, of course, represented AIDS". But then Jonathan's interactions with the Count end up playing out, if not exactly like the novel, then more or less played straight - you'll pardon the pun, I'm sure.

Dracula does of course go on to gin up sexual tension with pretty much everyone else he meets, no matter their gender or religious leaning, but what makes it particularly surprising here is that in the first episode he's actively becoming sexier in every scene. Yet even when Jonathan is completely in his power, it all seems quite innocent and chaste. Perhaps those aren't quite the right words for being held captive, but nonetheless it doesn't seem to have any particular undercurrent of sauciness. Stephen Moffatt has been quoted as saying that rather than bisexual, this incarnation of Dracula is "bi-homicidal...he's killing people, not dating them". Which would seem to put a pin in the thrust of my complaint here, until you recall - as Moffatt really should have - that the show ended with Dracula banging Van Helsing.

How come Gatiss and Moffat couldn't resist slipping in that painfully clunky reference to Sherlock Holmes? And by Sherlock Holmes, what they really mean is their BAFTA-award winning series Sherlock®.

What makes it so obviously shoehorned in is the much better reference to 'Inside No. 9' in the following episode. Inside No. 9 is of course the comedy-horror anthology series made by the non-Mark Gatiss parts of the League of Gentlemen, which has, so far, not needed nearly as many frantic, flailing fan interpretations to make its plots make sense.

How come Dracula's meant to pick up traits from the people he feeds on, but doesn't start speaking in Sister Agatha's silly Dutch accent?

How come in episode two, the little mute girl didn't immediately tell her dad that Dracula was the killer?

This is more a straightforward plot hole than a wider point of pondering, but it's one that will probably occur to even the most casual viewer. The show's clearly hoping there's enough other stuff going on that nobody will notice, which is obviously a misstep when what's going on all revolves around there being a killer at large.

Now, there's an obvious fan interpretation to be made here that the little girl - angry with the world - simply wanted to see them all die horribly. I'd watch that, and so, I suspect, would most right-thinking people. It would certainly have made for a better episode three than the one we got.

How come the snobby twink's boyfriend spends most of the time resenting the guy's sham marriage, then doesn't seem to care when Dracula feels him up in front of everyone? Come to think of it, why doesn't anybody else care about that?

How come Gatiss and Moffat couldn't resist leaping into a contemporary setting?

And why, if they wanted to do it so much, did they have to do it so poorly? Thanks to some confusing editing and omissions, it came off looking like Dracula had been struggling along the sea bed for 123 years.

This is a recurring feature of their work - Sherlock, too, was taking a classic bit of Victoriana and transplanting it into the modern day. The Sherlock Christmas special, though, did put it in its natural setting, which if nothing else worked as a fun, campy thing - and that, despite what Gatfat might think their work is, is the tone that runs right through it like a stick of Brighton rock.

Episode two took a part of Stoker's book, stitched it onto a familiar Murder On The Orient Express-style setup, and then turned Claes Bang's Dracula loose to bounce around in that framework - and it worked beautifully. This could have been a winning formula for any number more episodes, but instead they pissed it all away in favour of a tired Hollyoaks-style relationship drama and a secret institute which definitely isn't Torchwood.

How come modern-day Van Helsing didn't have the same silly Dutch accent?

Just to harp on a point, this makes the problem with the time jump quite clear. Van Helsing is pretty much the same character even before they literally inject the original Van Helsing into her - which makes it seem oddly like the sexual tension between her and the Count was somehow heritable. And having already demanded that willing suspension of disbelief, why not go the whole hog, and have Jonathan and Mina's identical great-great-great-descendants turn up too?

How come they thought putting a bit of off-coloured prosthetic on the incredibly attractive Lydia West would put anyone off?

The TV and film industry in general has an issue with this, fumbling to present unattractive people while staunchly refusing to even think about casting anyone less than conventionally beautiful. Dracula, however, had already presented some suitably ghastly ghouls, and here went through an overlong sequence of coyly refusing to show us what the post-cremation Lucy Westenra looked like - then the shocking reveal was that, uh-oh, she's got a bit of latex on her face. I'm a man of the world and let me tell you, it would take more than that to change my mind.

How come Mark Gatiss didn't stay behind the camera where he belongs?

This isn't to say he's a bad actor, but if he wanted to do Renfield, he should have done it properly. A show that's already had Dracula dressing up in another guy's face before tearing it off (for my money, one of the funniest things on TV in some time) doesn't need wacky comic relief.

How come everything about the conclusion?

Okay, that may be a little vague. Let me rephrase it to at least be making a point, rather than inarticulately shaking my fist in the general direction of the TV screen - why'd they even need to have a conclusion?

Gatiss and Moffat are not good at overarching storylines, yet they will keep using them, and I simply don't understand why. The appeal of Sherlock Holmes is to see the guy solving mysteries - so Sherlock had the mysteries take a back seat in favour of examining the ever-more-complicated relationships of the Holmes family.

The last five minutes or so of Dracula's third episode crumble when exposed to the light, which is ironic, because this Dracula doesn't. Given any thought at all, it's clear that the inspiration here was that Gatiss/Moffat thought 'oh shit, we need to wrap this up'. It tries gamely to tie everything together, which is somewhat undermined by at least one dangling plot thread - which the writers have openly admitted was left there in the hopes of getting a second season.

Bram Stoker's novel, spoiler alert, ends with the Count getting staked - but this adaptation went off those rails long ago. The central charm of it is the battle of wits between Dracula and Van Helsing, seeing them try and one-up each other while trading sexually charged barbs in much the same way as Sherlock and Moriarty (or at least the Sherlock and Moriarty that Gatfat gave us). This is a dynamic which could carry on indefinitely, and would have done better if it had, rather than been sidetracked into an unnatural-seeming ending.

#dracula #claes bang #stephen moffat #mark gatiss

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chiseler · 5 years ago

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The Chiseler Interviews Tim Lucas

Born in 1956, film historian, novelist and screenwriter Tim Lucas is the author of several books, including the award-winning Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark, The Book of Renfield: A Gospel of Dracula, and Throat Sprockets. He launched Video Watchdog magazine in 1990, and his screenplay, The Man With Kaleidoscope Eyes, has been optioned by Joe Dante. He lives in Cincinnati with his wife Donna.

The following interview was conducted via email.

THE CHISELER: You're known for your longstanding love affair with horror films. Could you perhaps explain this allure they hold for you?

Tim Lucas: I suppose they’ve meant different things to me at different times of my life. When I was very young (and I started going to movies at my local theater alone, when I was about six), I was attracted to them as something fun but also as a means of overcoming my fears - I would sometimes go to see the same movie again until I could stop hiding my eyes, and I would often find out they showed me a good deal less than I saw behind my hands, so I learned that when I was hiding my eyes my own imagination took over. This encouraged me to look, but also to impose my own imagination on what I was seeing. Similarly, I remember flinching at pictures of various monsters in FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND magazine, then realizing that, as I became able to stop flinching, to look more deeply into the pictures, I began to feel compassion for Karloff’s Frankenstein Monster and admiration for Jack Pierce’s makeup. You could say that I learned some valuable life lessons from this: not to make snap judgements, not to hate or fear someone else because they looked different. I should also point out that beauty had the same intense effect on me as ugliness, in those early days at the movies. I was as frightened by the glowing light promising another appearance by the Blue Fairy in PINOCCHIO as I was by Stromboli or Monstro the Whale. I also covered my eyes when things, even colors, became too beautiful to bear.

As I got older, I found out that horror, science fiction, and fantasy films often told the unpleasant truths about our world, our government, our politics, and other people, before such things could be openly confronted in straightforward drama. So I’m not one of those people who are drawn to horror by gore or some other superficial incentive; I have always responded to them because they made me aware of unpopular truths, because they made me a more empathic person, and because they sometimes encompass a very unusual form of beauty that you can’t find in reality or in any other kind of film.

THE CHISELER: I'm fascinated by what you term "a very specific hybrid of beauty that you can’t find in reality or in any other kind of film.” Please develop that point.

Tim Lucas: For example, the aesthetic put forward by the films of David Lynch... or Tim Burton... or Mario Bava... or Roger Corman... or Val Lewton... or James Whale... or F.W. Murnau. It's incredibly varied, really; too varied to be summarized by a single name, but it's dark and baroque with a broader, deeper spectrum of color. I’ll give you an example: there is a Sax Rohmer novel called YELLOW SHADOWS - and only in a horror film can you see truly yellow shadows. Or green shadows. Or a fleck of red light on a vine somewhere out of doors. It’s a painterly version of reality, akin to what people see in film noir but even more psychological. It might be described as a visible confirmation of how the past survives in everything - we can see new artists quoting from a past master, making their essence their own.

THE CHISELER: Your definition of horror, to me, goes straight to the heart of cinema as an almost metaphysical phenomenon. My friend and frequent co-writer, Jennifer Matsui, once wrote: "Celluloid preserves the dead better than any embalming fluid. Like amber preserved holograms, they flit in and out of its parameters, reciting their own epitaphs in pantomime; revenant moths trapped in perpetual motion." Do Italian directors have what I guess you can call special epiphanies to offer? If so, does this help explain your Bava book?

Tim Lucas: The epiphanies of Italian horror all arise from the culture that was inculcated into those filmmakers as young people - the awareness of architecture, painting, writing, myth, legend, music, sculpture that they all grow up with. It's so much richer than any films that can be made by people with no foundation in the other art forms, people who makes movies just because they've seen a few - and maybe cannot even be bothered to watch any in black and white. I imagine many people go into the film business for reasons having to do with sex or power rather than having something deep down they need to express. The most stupid Italian and French directors have infinitely more in their artistic arsenals than directors from the USA, because they are brought up with an awareness of the importance of the Arts. No one gets this in America, where we slash arts and education budgets and many parents just sit their children in front of a television. Without supervision, without a sense of context, they will inevitably be drawn to whatever is loudest or most colorful or whatever has the most edits per minute. And those kids are now making blockbusters. They make money, so why screw with the formula? When I was a kid, it was still possible to find important, nurturing material on TV - fortunately!

Does it explain my Bava book? I don't know, but Bava's films somehow encouraged and sustained the passion that saw me through the researching and writing of that book, which took 32 years. When my book first came out, some people took me to task for its presumed excess - on the grounds that “our great directors” like John Ford and Orson Welles, for all their greatness, had never inspired a book of such size or magnitude. I could only answer that my love for my subject must be greater. But the thing about the Bava book, really, was that - at that time - the playing field was pretty much virgin territory in English, and Bava as a worker in the Italian film industry touched just about everything that industry had encompassed. All of those relationships needed charting. It would have been an insult to merely pigeonhole him as a horror director.

THE CHISELER: I discovered your publication, Video Watchdog, back in 2000 when Kim's Video was something of an underground institution here in NYC. I mean, they openly hawked bootlegs. There was a real sense of finding the unexpected which gave the place a genuine mystique. Now that you've had some time to reflect on its heyday, what are your thoughts, generally, on VW?

Tim Lucas: It's hard to explain to someone who just caught on in 2000, when things were already very different and more incorporated. VIDEO WATCHDOG began in 1990 as a magazine, but before that it was a feature in other magazines of different sorts that began in 1986. At that time, I was reviewing VHS releases for a Chicago-based magazine called VIDEO MOVIES, which then had a title change to VIDEO TIMES. I pointed out to my editor that his writers were reviewing the films and not saying anything about their presentation on video, and urged him to make more of a mandate about discussing aspect ratios, missing scenes (or added scenes) and such. I proposed that I write a column that would start collecting such information and that column was called "The Video Watchdog.”

In 2000, VW's origins in Beta and VHS and LaserDisc had evolved to DVD and Blu-ray was on the point of being introduced, so by then most of the battles we identified and fought had already been won and assimilated into the way movies were being presented on video. But in our early days, my fellow writers and I - were making our readers aware of filmmakers like Bava, Argento, Avati, Franco, Rollin, Ptushko, Zuławski - and the conversation we started led to people seeking out these films through non-official channels, even forming those non-official channels, until the larger companies began to realize there was an exploitable market there. Our coverage was never limited to horror - horror was sort of the hub of our interest, which radiated out into the works of any filmmaker whose work seemed in some way paranormal - everyone from Powell and Pressburger to Ishiro Honda to Krzystof Kiesłowski.

Now that the magazine is behind me, I can see more easily that we were part of a process, perhaps an integral part, of identifying and disseminating some very arcane information and, by sharing our own processes of discovery, raising the general consciousness about innumerable marginal and maverick filmmakers. A lot of our readers went on to become filmmakers (some already were) and many also went on to form home video companies or work in the business.

I'm proud of what we were able to achieve, and that what were written as timely reports have endured as still useful, still relevant criticism. Magazines tend to be snapshots of the present, and our back issues have that aspect, but our readers still tell me that the work is holding up, it’s not getting old.

When I say "we," I mean numerous writers who shared my pretentious ethic and were able to push genre criticism beyond the dismissive critical writing about genre film that was standard in 1990. I mentioned this state of things in my first editorial, that the gore approach wasn’t encouraging anyone to take horror as a genre more seriously, and I do think horror became more respectable over the years we were publishing.

THE CHISELER: My own personal touchstone, Raymond Durgnat, drilled deep into genre — particularly horror films — while pushing back instinctively against the Auteur Theory. No critic will ever write with more infatuated precision about Barbara Steele, whose image graces the cover of your Bava tome. Do you have any personal favorites in that regard; any individual author or works that acted as a kind of Virgil for you?

Tim Lucas: I haven't read Durgnat extensively, but when I discovered him in the 1970s his books FRANJU and A MIRROR FOR ENGLAND were gospel to me. Tom Milne's genre reviews for MONTHLY FILM BULLETIN were always intelligent and well-informed. Ivan Butler’s HORROR IN THE CINEMA was the first real book I read on the subject, along with HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT - and I remember focusing on Butler’s chapter on REPULSION, an entire fascinating chapter on a single film, which I hadn’t actually seen. It showed me the film and also how to watch it, so that when it finally came to my local television station, I was ready to meet it head on. David Pirie’s books A HERITAGE OF HORROR and THE VAMPIRE CINEMA I read to pieces. But it was Joe Dante's sometimes uncredited writing in CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN magazine that first hooked my interest in this direction - followed by the earliest issues of CINEFANTASTIQUE, which I discovered with their third issue and for which I became a regular reviewer and correspondent in 1972. I continued to write for them for the next 11 years.

THE CHISELER: I was wondering how you responded to these periodic shifts in taste and sexual politics, especially as they address horror movies — or even something like feminist critiques of the promiscuity of rage against women evident all throughout Giallo; the fear of female agency and power which is never too far from the surface. Are sexism, and even homophobia, simply inherent to the genre?

Tim Lucas: None of that really matters very much to me. I've been around so long now, I can see these recurring waves of people trying to catch their own wave of time, to make an imprint on it in some way. For some reason, I find myself annoyed by newish labels like "folk horror" and "J-horror" because such films have been with us forever; they didn't need such identification before and they have only been invented to get us more quickly to a point, and sometimes these au courant labels simply rebrand work without bringing anything substantially new to the discussion. Every time I read an article about the giallo film, I have to suffer through another explanation of what it is - and this is a genre whose busiest time frame was half a century ago. Sexism and homophobia are things people generally only understand in terms of the now, and I don’t know how fair it is to apply such concepts to films made so long ago. Think of Maria’s torrid dance in METROPOLIS and all those ravenous young men in tuxedos eating her with their eyes. Sexist, yes - but that’s not the point Lang was making.

I don’t particularly see myself as normal, but I suppose I am centrist in most ways. I don’t bring an agenda to the films I write about, other than wanting them to be as complete and beautifully restored as possible. That said, I am interested in, say, feminist takes on giallo films or homosexual readings of Herman Cohen films because - after all - we all bring ourselves to the movies, and if there’s more to be learned about a film I admire, from outside my own experience, that can be precious information. I want to know it and see if I can agree with it, or even if it causes me to feel something new and unfamiliar about it.

My only real concern is that genre criticism tends to be either academic or conversational (even colloquial), and we’re now at a point where the points made by articles published 20 or more years ago are coming back presented as new information, without any idea (or concern) that these things have already been said. As magazines are going by the wayside, taking their place is talk on social media, which is not really disciplined or constructive, nor indeed easily retrievable for reference. There are also audio commentaries on DVD and Blu-ray discs. Fortunately, there are a number of good and serious people doing these, but even when you get very intelligent or intellectual commentators, they often work best with the movie image turned off, because it’s a distraction from what’s being said. Is that true commentary? I'm not an academic; I’m an autodidact, so I don't have the educational background to qualify as a true intellectual, and I feel left out by a lot of academic writing. I do read a good deal and have familiarity with a fair range of topics, so I tend to frame myself somewhere between the vox populist and academia. That's the area we pursued in VW.

THE CHISELER: David Cairns and I once published a critical appreciation of Giallo, using fundamentally Roman Catholic misogyny — and, to a lesser extent, fear of gay men — as an intriguing lens. For example, lesbians are invariably sinister figures in these movies, while straight women ultimately function as nothing more than cinematographic objects: very fetishized, very well-lit corpses, you might say.

Tim Lucas: See, I admire a lot of giallo films but it would never occur to me to see them through a lens. I do, of course, because personal experience is a lens, but my lens is who I am and I’ve never had to fight for or defend my right to be who I am. I have no particular flag to wave in these matters; I approach everything from the stance of a film historian or as a humanist.

There is a lot of crossdressing and such in giallo, but these are tropes going back to French fin de siècle thrillers of the early 1900s, they don't really have anything to do with homophobia as we perceive it in our time. In the Fantomas novels, Souvestre and Allain (the authors) used to continually deceive their readers by having their characters - the good and the evil ones - change disguises, and sometimes apparently change sexes.

I remember Dario Argento saying that he used homosexual characters in his films because he was interested in their problems. He seldom actually explored their problems, and their portrayal in his earliest films is… quaint, to be kind about it… but it was a positive change as time played out. I think the fact that Argento’s flamboyant style attracted gay fans brought them more into his orbit and the vaguely sinister gay characters of his early films become more three dimensional and sympathetic later on, so in that regard his attention to such characters charts his own gradual embracing of them. So in a sense they chart his own widening embrace of the world, which is surprising considering what a misanthropic view of the world he presents.

THE CHISELER: But Giallo is roughly contemporaneous to the rise of Second Wave Feminism. Like the Michael & Roberta Findlay 'roughies', this is not a fossilized species of extinct male anger we're talking about here. Women's bodies are the energy of pictorial composition; splayed specifically for the delectation of some very confused and pissed off men in the audience. I know of no exceptions. To me it makes perfect sense to recognize the ritualized stabbings, stranglings, the BDSM hijinks in Giallo as rather obvious symptoms of somebody's not-so-latent fear and hatred.

Tim Lucas: I think that’s a modernist attitude that was not all that present at the time. Once the MPAA ratings system was introduced in late 1968, all genres of films got stronger in terms of graphic violence and language, and suspense thrillers were no exception. At the time, women and gay people were feeling freer, freer to be themselves, and were not looking for new ways to be taken out of films, however they might be represented. Neither base really had that power anyway at that time, but at any rate it wasn’t a time for them to appear more conservative. That would come at a later period when they felt more assured and confident in their equality. Throughout the 1960s, even in 1969 films like THE WRECKING CREW and BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, you can see that women are still playthings of a sort in films; there are starting to be more honest portrayals of women in films like HUD, but the prevailing emphasis of them is still decorative, so it makes sense that they would be no different in a thriller setting. There’s no arguing, I don’t think, that the murder scenes become more thrilling when the victim is a beautiful, voluptuous woman. It’s nothing to do with misogyny but rather about wanting to induce excitement from the viewer. If you look back to Janet Leigh’s character arc in PSYCHO, the exact same thing happens to her, but because she’s a well-developed character and time is given to explore that character and her goals and motivations, there is no question that it is a role women would want to play, even now. However, the same simply isn’t true of most giallo victims, which should not be seen as one of their rules but as one of their faults. In BLOOD AND BLACK LACE, I think Mario Bava shows us just enough of the women characters for us to have some investment in their fates - but when the giallo films are in the hands of sausage makers, you’re going to feel a sense of misogyny. It may be real but it may also be misanthropy or a more commercial mandate to pack more into a film and to sex it up. I should add that, because I’m not a woman or gay, I don’t bring personal sensitivities to these things, so I see them as something that just comes with the territory, like shoot-outs in Westerns. If you were to expunge anything that was objectionable from a giallo film, wouldn’t it be just another cop show or Agatha Christie episode? You watch a giallo film because, on some level, you want to see something with the hope of some emotional or aesthetic involvement, or with the hope of being outraged and offended. There is no end of mystery entertainment without giallo tropes, so it’s there if you demand that. Giallo films aren’t really about who done it, only figuratively; they are lessons in how to stage murder scenes and probably would not exist without the master painting of PSYCHO’s shower scene, which they all seek to emulate.

THE CHISELER: You mentioned Val Lewton earlier. Personally, I've never encountered anything like the overall tone of his films. There's always something startling to see and hear. Would you shed a little light on his importance?

Tim Lucas: He's an almost unique figure in film in that he was a producer yet he projected an auteur-like imprint on all his works. The horror films for which he's best known are not quite like any other films of their kind; I remember Telotte's book DREAMS OF DARKNESS using the word "vesperal" to describe the Lewton films' specific atmosphere - a word pertaining to the mood of evening prayer services, which isn't a bad way of putting it. I've always loved them for their delicacy, their poetical sense, their literary quality, and their indirectness - which sometimes co-exists with sources of florid garishness, like the woman with the maracas in THE LEOPARD MAN. In THE SEVENTH VICTIM, one shy character characterizes the heroine's visit to his apartment as her "advent into his world," and when I first saw it, I was struck by the almost spiritual tenderness and vulnerability of that description. Lewton was remarkable because he seems to have worked in horror because it was below the general studio radar, which allowed him to make extremely personal films. As long as they checked the necessary boxes, he could make the films he wanted - and I think Mario Bava learned that exact lesson from him.

THE CHISELER: I've always been fascinated by a question which is probably unanswerable: Why do you think it is that movies based on Edgar Allan Poe stories — even those films that only just pretend to sink roots in Poe, offering glib riffs on his prose at best — invariably bear fruit?

Tim Lucas: Poe's writings predate the study of human psychology and, to an extent, chart it - so he can be credited with founding a wing of science much like Jules Verne's writings were the foundation of science fiction and, later, science fact. Also, from the little we know of Poe's personal life, his writing was extremely personal and autobiographical, which makes it all the more compelling and resonant. It's also remarkably flexible in the way it lends itself to adaptation - there is straight Poe, comic Poe, arty Poe, even Poeless Poe. It helps too that a lot of people familiar with him haven't read him extensively, at least not since school, or think they have read him because they've seen so many Poe movies. The sheer range of approaches taken to his adaptation makes him that much more universal.

It also occurs to me that people are probably much more alike internally than they are externally, so the identification with an internal or first person narrator may be more immediate. But it's true that his work has inspired a fascinating variety of interpretation. You can see this at work in a single film: SPIRITS OF THE DEAD (1968), which I’ve written an entire book about. It’s three stories done by Roger Vadim, Louis Malle, and Federico Fellini - all vastly different, all terribly personal expressions of the men who made them.

THE CHISELER: Speaking of Poe adaptations, I've long thought it's time to confront Roger Corman's legacy; as an artist, a producer, an industrial muse, everything. Sometimes I think he's the single most important figure in cinema history. And if that's a wild overstatement, I could stand my ground somewhat and point out that no one person ever supported independent filmmakers with such profound results. It's as though he used his position at a mainstream Hollywood studio to open a kind of Underground Railroad for two generations of film artists. He gave so many artists a leg up in a business where those kinds of opportunities were never exactly abundant that it's hard to keep track. Entering the subject from any angle you like, what are your thoughts on Corman's overall contribution to cinema?

Tim Lucas: I can think of more important filmmakers than Corman, but there has never been a more important producer or mogul or facilitator of films. I said this while introducing him on the first of our two-night interview at the St. Louis Film Festival’s Vincentennial in 2011. He was largely responsible for every trend in American cinema during its most decisive quarter century - 1955 through 1980, and to some extent a further decade still, which bore an enormous influx of talent he discovered and nurtured. People talk about Irving Thalberg, Darryl F. Zanuck, Steven Spielberg, etc. - but their productions don’t begin to show the sheer diversity of interests that you get from Corman’s output. He has no real counterpart. I’ve spent a lot of the past 20 years musing on him, first as the protagonist of a comedy script I wrote with Charlie Largent called THE MAN WITH KALEIDOSCOPE EYES, which Joe Dante has optioned. A few years ago, I decided to turn the script into a novel, which is with my agent now. It’s about the time period before, during, and after the making of THE TRIP (1966). It's a comedy but one with a serious, even philosophical side.

You know, Mario Bava once described himself to someone as “the Italian Roger Corman.” It’s incredible to me that Bava would have said that, not because it’s wrong or even because he was a total filmmaker before Corman made his first picture, but because Bava has been dead for so long! He’s been gone now almost 40 years and Roger is still making movies. And he’s been making movies for the DTV market longer than anybody, so he sort of predicted the current exodus of new movies away from theaters to streaming formats.

THE CHISELER: Are there any other producers/distributors you'd care to acknowledge, anyone that you think has followed in what you might call Corman’s Tradition of Generosity?

Tim Lucas: No, I really think he is incomparable in that respect. I do think it’s important to note, however, that I doubt Roger was ever purely motivated by generosity of spirit. I don’t think he would put money or his trust in anyone merely as a favor. He’s a businessman to his core and his gambles have always been based on projects that are likely to improve on his investment, even if moderately. I have a feeling that the first dollar he ever made is still in circulation, floating around out there bringing something new into being. I also don’t think he would give anyone their big break unless they had earned that break already in some respect. And when he does extend that opportunity, he’s got to know that, when these people graduate from his company, he’ll be sacrificing their talent, their camaraderie, maybe even in some cases their gratitude. So yes, there is some generosity in that aspect - but he also knows from experience that there are always new top students looking to extend their educations on the job. I wish more people in the film business had his selflessness, his ability to recognize and encourage talent. It may be his greatest legacy.

THE CHISELER: You introduced me, many years ago, to Mill of the Stone Women — I'll end on a personal note by thanking you and asking: Would you share an insight or two about this remarkable gem, particularly for readers who may not have seen it?

Tim Lucas: MILL OF THE STONE WOMEN was probably my first exposure to Italian horror; I saw it as a child, more than once, on local television and there were things about it that haunted and disturbed me, though I didn't understand it. Perhaps that's why it haunted and disturbed me, but the image of Helfy's hands clutching the red velvet curtains stayed with me for decades (a black and white memory) until I got to see it on VHS - I paid $59.95 for the privilege because my video store told me they would not be stocking it. It's a very peculiar film because Giorgio Ferroni wasn't a director who favored horror; the "Flemish Tales" that it's supposedly based on is non-existent, a Lovecraftian meta-invention, and it's the only Italian horror filmed in that particular region in the Netherlands. It looks more Germanic than Italian. I’m tempted to believe Bava may have had a hand in doing the special effects shot, which look like his work, but they might also have been done by his father Eugenio, as he was also a wax figure sculptor so would have been good to have on hand. He seldom took screen credit. So it's a film that has stayed with me because it's elusive; it's hard to find the slot where it belongs. It's like an adult fairy tale, or something out of E.T.A. Hoffmann. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve wasted, trying to find another movie with the unique spell cast by that one.

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spookysnicket · 5 years ago

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ANON: Hey there, love your work!! May I have a matchup if you’re not too busy? I don’t have a gender preference, I like everybody 💦 I’m agender/asexual, I’m an animator and besides horror I love insects/arachnids. I’ve got a pet leech named Renfield 💖 I have kind of a bad temper and it’s not hard to make me fly off the handle. My other job besides animation is I’m a live-in airbnb maid, I stock up on supplies and hide from the guests. Thank you so much for reading!!

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(Here you go love! As always, matchup under the cut)

I match you with Vincent Sinclair

🖌 Vincent doesn’t speak, but in his head, he always thinks about you with your proper pronouns

🖌 I HC that Vincent’s either demisexual or asexual as well. Besides- bodies, to him, are more associated with art and anatomy than anything else

🖌 Seeing as you’re an animator and Vincent’s a wax sculptor- I propose to you both: stop motion! Just imagine it- you planning out storyboards and characters, while Vinny creates all the little parts and pieces out of wax! You two could spend hours making little movies or skits

🖌 Vinny isn’t particularly partial to any one specific genre when it comes to movie night, so he’ll be down to sit with you and relax with any good horror or classic slasher flicks of your choice!

🖌 A lot of his works (aside from, well, the “life-like” human pieces) on display in the museum are notably influenced by different creatures, bugs and insects included. I highly suggest, if it’s your thing, to watch the human centipede trilogy with him- it’ll give him a bout of inspiration, if you can see where I’m going

🖌 Renfield is pretty nifty to Vinny! He’s intrigued by anything unusual, and quickly finds himself quite attached to your little leechy friend! However, sometimes, he means that literally- be sure to enforce the ‘no literal finger food’ rule, or else you’ll catch Vinny with his hand stuck in Renfield’s tank making wiggly fingers at the little guy

🖌 Vincent worries quite a bit when you and Bo get into heated arguments- he’s really the only thing that could set you off, and when you get into a rage, it’s scary to Vinny

🖌 He’ll do his best to calm you down when you get angry, and as much as he wants to see you be happy again- if you need to be left alone, he’ll give you as much space as you need

🖌 There’s no way to say it other than how it is, Vincent absolutely understands the stocking up and hiding away thing. He just makes art all day, puts it up in the museum, and lurks in the shadows away from any unfortunate travelers until Bo lures them in enough to get to work. So, there’s a few differences- but it’s the thought that counts! You’re hermits together!

#matchups #slasher matchups #slashers #vincent sinclair

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spacetrashpile · 4 months ago

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DRACTOBER DAY 2: EVIL OF DRACULA

Welcome back to Dractober, where I watch and rank one film adaptation of Dracula for every day in October! I'll be ranking each film on two one to ten scales (was it a good adaptation of Dracula and did I enjoy it?) and giving the film a final score at the end by averaging out the other scores.

Today's film is Evil of Dracula (1974). This is a Japanese horror film directed by Michio Yamamoto and distributed by Toho films, who you may recognize as the distributors of the Godzilla series, for one. The film follows Professor Shiraki, the new hire at a girls' school in a rural area of Japan, where a mysterious monster is looking to prey upon him and the students. This film is the third in a trilogy called The Bloodthirsty Trilogy, but it stands perfectly well on it's own (I didn't even know it was the last in the trilogy until I looked it up).

This review will contain spoilers, so if any of this sounded interesting to you, I highly suggest checking out the film before you read my review. If you are interested, please keep in mind that this film deals heavily with physical and sexual assault of underage girls.

Now, let's get into the review!

All of the films I'm watching this month (except for the 1931 Bela Lugosi Dracula and the Francis Ford Coppola film) are ones I've never seen in full before, and Evil of Dracula was no different. As such, when doing research on these films and where to watch them, I tried to keep myself as un-spoiled as I possibly could. From what I did read about this film before I went into it, I was expecting this to be a Dracula adaptation in no more than name. I was pleasantly surprised to find this was not entirely the case!

While the general story of the novel was obviously not adapted, I think this film managed to grasp the spirit of the novel and it's characters quite well. The movie is a slow creep of horror, which suits the tone of the novel quite well. The first 15 or so minutes of the movie, despite the locale shift, feel exactly like what it's like to read the opening chapters of the novel for the first time. You know that Jonathan/Shiraki is in danger from the moment he enters the house. You know that Dracula/the Principal is a vampire and that he only holds bad intentions for our main character. But he doesn't know that yet, and you get to watch in horror (and delight) as he figures it out.

The rest of our main cast also fill in the roles of the rest of the protagonists of the novel. Dr. Shimomura fills a similar role to Dr. Van Helsing, and the girls (Kumi, Kyoko, and Yukiko) fill the roles of Mina, Lucy, and occasionally the suitors (Prof. Shiraki also occasionally fills Mina, Van Helsing, or the suitors' roles, by nature of him being the protagonist and by nature of how many of these characters don't make it out alive). Renfield is also present, with role in the novel split directly down the middle between a previous professor of the school who's now in an insane asylum and a current professor who acts as the principal's right hand man.

To be clear, however, this is far from a one to one adaptation of the novel. Even outside of the very different location and inciting incidents, the similarities to the plot of the novel stall out around the second act. From the third act onward, the film takes it's own spin on vampirism and the fate of our unlucky protagonists- only two of whom make it out of the film alive.

This film takes numerous liberties with the story of Dracula, which is exactly what I expected from the outset. However, it's not trying to be a one to one, it's trying to be a horror film taking inspiration from Dracula, and I think it does that quite well. The two most notable types of horror in the novel (to me) are the creeping horror of the unknown and the horror of bodily violation, and this film does a great job preserving those elements.

So, is this film a good adaptation of Dracula? I'd say it gets a 6/10 in that regard. It's far from one to one, and as the film goes on it takes more and more liberties with the plot of the original novel, but it nonetheless manages to maintain the spirit and tone of the novel pretty effectively.

On to our next category! How much did I enjoy the film?

This film was my first ever foray into Japanese horror and I had a great time. I see why everyone says it's awesome now! I don't watch a lot of horror in the grand scheme of things (mostly because I'm a wuss when it comes to visual gore, lol), but this film really did it for me. I've mentioned the slow, creeping horror of the film already, but I can't stress enough how much that worked for me.

I briefly mentioned above the horror of body violation, and I wanted to get into that more here. As I've said in my previous posts about Dracula, vampirism and blood transfer in the novel is a very sexual thing. It's also a very horrific thing, and sometimes these two traits can be difficult to balance. This film did so very well, primarily because most of the Principal's victims are his students, and it's an inherently horrific thing to watch these girls be preyed upon. I mention this here both because, to me, Dracula is a novel about sexual assault, and I greatly appreciated this film for maintaining that in a way that did not feel like it was pandering to the male gaze, but also because this means this is a film that deals heavily with sexual assault of underage girls. I mentioned it above, but I'd be remiss to not hone in on this fact, both because this is a very sensitive topic and because you might interpret wildly differently than me. While I personally found the film to be focusing on the horror of the situation rather than the sexuality of it, you may think otherwise, and that's fine! But from my point of view, I really appreciated the way in which the sexual themes of the novel were handled in this film, and that's a highlight to me.

This film was certainly not perfect, however. The film relies primarily on lengthy, dialogue heavy scenes to communicate the vast majority of it's plot points. I was personally fine with this, but it can definitely make the movie feel a bit sluggish at times. The acting from our main character also left things to be desired at times, and his acting did not help this feeling in these expository scenes.

The other main issue this film has is it's budget. A lot of the actual horror and fight scenes in the film feel very cheap, and as a result, cheesy. The blood often looked watery, and the special effects weren't great, even taking into account that this is a 70s film. The fight scenes where we actually got to see Dracula/the Principal fight someone rather than just bite them felt particularly comical, like no one really knew how to fake fight but more so how to flail. While the creeping horror of the film was nice, it can't be everything, we have to see the conclusion of that build up at some point, and unfortunately, said climaxes almost always fall flat. In the end, I think this movie gets a 7/10 for enjoyment. I enjoyed the movie, but it was far from perfect.

Overall, I'm giving Evil of Dracula a 6.5/10. The film's loyalty to the novel was a pleasant surprise, and the slow building horror was a great fit for a Dracula adaptation. However, the film was far from an extremely loyal adaptation, and the adrenaline-filled moments that were meant to give conclusion to the slow creep of horror often felt cheap and silly, rather than actually scary. Nonetheless, I recommend giving Evil of Dracula a watch sometime this spooky season!

#dractober #dracula #dracula daily #evil of dracula

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amplesalty · 5 years ago

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Dracula (2020) - S01 E01 - The Rules of the Beast

It’s not October already, is it?!

The Beeb’s mini-series game has been really on point in the past few months or so, huh? Whilst I was seeing Zombieland 2 I had a trailer for ‘His Dark Materials’ which looked pretty epic and then I found out about their new version of A Christmas Carol whilst researching the musical one I just watched, spoiler for Christmas marathon 2020 on that BTW. Now, we have the latest in a long line of Dracula adaptations. Apparently there’s another on the way in the form of a Renfield movie directed by Dexter Fletcher.

I say Beeb but they’re making these in conjunction with others, HDM with HBO, Christmas Carol with FX and this with Netflix. Presumably this will lead to Dracula being available worldwide, I know the BBC output doesn’t usually travel outside of the confines of UK Netflix (unless you’re using VPNs) so it’s good that everyone will get to experience this.

This represents not only some unseasonal content for me, it’s also uncharacteristically fresh given that it only aired just a few days ago, with one episode airing each night across the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of January. I must say it’s really strange to be viewing content that you can list as 2020, we’re more used to things marked like 1940 in this house. I could have put it off until October I suppose but why not get in whilst it’s topical? Plus it’s made by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, they of Sherlock fame, so maybe that’s good for some Tumblr clicks. I know you guys love you some Sherlock. There’s also a documentary that aired alongside the series called ‘In Search of Dracula’ in which Gatiss looks at the history of the character so that should make for some interesting viewing too, much like his other looks at horror movies throughout the years that I’ve looked at previously.

Pretty much the first thing you see at the start is a fly, like right up close and personal as it effectively lands on the camera lens. These things are everywhere throughout the episode, not just around food or the rotting bodies that come up later, that would make sense. During the scenes at Dracula’s castle you see them landing on paintings or swarming around what is to be Jonathan Harker’s bed and I’m not sure what the symbolism is meant to be. It’s at that point that Dracula makes explicit reference to them, suggesting they are man’s companion to the end and that where there is flesh, there are flies. Flies are obviously attracted to rotting material so possibly this speaks to how we find Dracula initially, very old and haggard, or just to the history of bloodshed and murder that has existed in the castle over what must be hundreds of years at this point.

There is one moment very early on in which a fly lands on Harker’s eye and actually crawls inside his head, a silhouette of the insect can be seen passing over the back of his eye. Just a really creepy and unsettling visual to see only 3 minutes in.

It’s strange that something as simple as a fly triggered a thought in me that we must be about to meet either the Renfield or Harker character, albeit in a state I wasn’t expecting at this point. I guess the two Renfield performances in the original Universal Dracula and it’s Spanish equivalent just really stuck with me and made me instantly connect the two. Harker finds himself in a convent being interviewed by a pair of nuns about his experiences in Dracula’s castle and how he came to make his escape. He’s actually asked if he and Dracula had sex during this time which is an interesting question.

Putting aside all the potentially shipping and fanfiction that it might inspire, in a rational world that wouldn’t acknowledge the possibility of Dracula or vampires being real, some sort of STI might be a reasonable assumption to make on Harker’s rather sudden and drastic collapse in health. He’s got these scabs all over his face, darkened sunken in eyes, any sembelence of colour completely washed away...guy is pretty much looking like a ghoul or zombie at this point. The other vampires we see later on are more akin to what you expect zombies to be like in other movies, they are the undead after all but I guess vampires are normally portrayed differently, keeping more of their humanity and coming across almost sexy in a brooding, gothic way.

It can be a little jarring at times to go back and forth between the convent and the castle but I suppose that’s a little more in line with how the original novel played out in journal entries and the like. This mini-series approach has given the creators the chance to dedicate much of this feature length runtime to Harker’s story within the castle walls, his first meeting with Dracula and his gradual descent into the husk he’s become now. Going back to the Universal version, it seemed a very brief transition, Renfield arrives and pretty much overnight becomes the gibbering slave to his new master. Here though, Harker never quite reaches that level of insanity but you can see how he might; isolated throughout the day whilst Dracula sleeps and with no one else around, he has this compulsion to search the castle in search of answers for the weird things he’s been seeing.

This is a really cool sequence with Harker’s narration describing the twisting and turning nature of the castle’s construction, with every door he opens somehow leading to another two or three. The images will seemingly repeat with him entering one hallway, making his way through and then coming through the entrance again. It reinforces the maze like quality and the repetition he is going through but also creates a sense of mystery. Sometimes there will be a brief glimpse of a shadowy figure moving through a doorway in the background, is this just another past version of Harker to underline the previous point or are there other people or creatures in this labyrinth?

And whether it’s through exhaustion, the eventual attacks he suffers or just some possible mind altering trick of Dracula’s, there are times when Harker drifts in and out of consciousness. In one moment, he finds himself awakened over his work at a table as Dracula hovers over him, offering him a glass of wine. In a bleary eyed state, Harker comes to find Dracula suddenly looks almost rejuvenated, looking far younger than he had previously. It all gives proceedings a very nightmarish quality.

Dracula benefits also from being immensely more threatening here than I recall him being in the Universal version. Well, aside from the voice of his initial form that is. People will often imitate the Lugosi voice but here he sounds like the bloody Meerkat from the adverts. Most of the most menacing moments come towards the end of this particular episode when his violent nature is truly unleashed but he seems very knowing and calculated early on, almost toying with Harker. It can come across a little cheesy at times because there is some very deliberate language choices that Harker himself is oblivious to but Dracula and we the audience know the true meaning behind. Like, Dracula suggesting that the locals lack ‘flavour’ to which Harker suggests he might mean ‘character’.

There is one frantic scene where Harker stumbles upon Dracula’s coffin and inadvertently awakens him, leading to Dracula setting upon him with bared fangs before the scene abruptly cuts away from the screams of Harker. It’s a very Christopher Lee-esque image, of this one in particular.

As the tides turn, Dracula’s strength and vigor increasing as Harker’s is drained, Dracula becomes a bit more blunt in revealing his motivations but still Harker remains defiant to the end which lends him more sympathy. There’s an almost tender moment when Dracula takes Harker to the ramparts of his castle, laying his enfeebled body in the light so that the morning sun might vanquish him whilst he watches from the shadows, speaking softly of how beautiful the sun is and how Harker should embrace death. As Harker begs to be spared, he does so with the promise that he will do everything within his power to stop Dracula.

With the later revelation about Mina, I did wonder if there would be some ongoing story arc about the struggle for Harker, his want to retain his humanity versus the growing urge to fulfil the desires of the vampire’s curse and his master. But, going by the ending, the struggle is already over. And boy, what an ending.

“They’re not my eyes...”

That’s a really great shot BTW, the rest of her face and pretty much the rest of the frame being in shadow except for her eyes, really lets you focus in on them and her expression as the reality of the situation sinks in.

It really is an exclamation point on what was a very brutal and bloody affair at times. The Christopher Lee reference earlier is quite apt as this is the kind of thing I would expect from those Hammer movies. I’ve always been hesitant to watch those as there’s so many, like 7 Frankenstein and 8 Dracula movies, so to experience something in that style but in a more condensed and standalone format is ideal.

Stay tuned for the next two entries!

#Dracula #Dracula (2020)#The Rules of the Beast

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dweemeister · 7 years ago

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Movie Odyssey Retrospective

Dracula (1931 English-language version)

The 1920s had been an ideal breeding ground for horror films in the West. As cinematic technology improved and daring directors unleashed their magic on nitrate film, audiences found themselves terrorized by titles like Nosferatu (1922, Germany), The Phantom of the Opera (1925), and The Unknown (1927). With the introduction of synchronized sound, it was only a matter of time before someone took the genre to the talkies. Tod Browning (frequent collaborator with Lon Chaney, Sr., including The Unknown) would be that director, and the first horror masterpiece after the silent era would be Dracula, based on the 1924 stage play Dracula (itself based on the classic Bram Stoker novel of the same name). Universal Studios – a major studio but not yet considered in the same class of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, and Warner Bros. at that time – had been considered specialists in horror and further burnished that reputation here. Hungarian-American Béla Lugosi became an overnight sensation, and since 1931 he has always been associated with black flowing capes, a badass accent, and blood-sucking.

Before a brief synopsis, it should be noted that there is a Spanish-language version of this film, Drácula, directed by George Melford and starring Carlos Villarías as the title character. That film, also released by Universal, came at a time when – during the early years of synchronized sound movies – studios frequently released non-English language versions of their movies (almost always European languages like French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Swedish; a burgeoning, but bankruptcy-prone market for films catering to the United States’ numerous ethnicities existed, too). Thought lost to time, Drácula resurfaced in the 1970s and has been restored for public consumption. A third version – a silent film – was released to theaters that had not updated their technology yet. As should be obvious, this write-up on Dracula will be on the English-language version with synchronized sound.

On Walpurgis Night somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania (present-day Romania), Englishman Renfield (Dwight Frye) is traveling by carriage to reach his client, Count Dracula’s (Lugosi) estate. Count Dracula has expressed his interest in an abbey outside of London. Villagers, warning of the spirit of Nosferatu, are fearful that the Count is a vampire, but Renfield dismisses those concerns. Renfield arrives at the castle, stunned at the immensity of the place and the appearance of a cloaked, slick-haired figure gracefully, slowly making his way down an immense, cobwebbed staircase. After bidding Renfield welcome, something can be heard howling outside.

“Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.”

Renfield becomes Dracula’s first victim and servant – groveling, maniacal, and violent – as the plot shifts to England and characters like Professor Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan), sanitarium Dr. Seward (Herbert Bunston), his daughter Mina (Helen Chandler), Mina’s fiancée John Harker (David Manners), and Mina’s friend Lucy Weston (Frances Dade) begin investigating their newest acquaintance.

As the vampire Count Orlok in Nosferatu (itself an unauthorized version of Dracula), Max Schreck relied on his physical acting and makeup to frighten audiences. As Count Dracula in this film, Lugosi has a powerful weapon not afforded to Schreck: the sound of his voice. Born in 1882, Lugosi, having appeared in 1927 as Count Dracula in the stage play this movie is based on, arrived in the United States from Hungary in 1920. In that interim, Lugosi became fluent in English (this is disputed, but even if he had to learn his lines phonetically, the results were worth it) yet retained a thick Hungarian accent that prevented him from having a more prolific, diverse movie career. Nevertheless, in Dracula, his dialogue delivery – deliberate, deceptive, sometimes pausing for no apparent reason near the end of sentences – is incredible. Where Schreck’s Orlok angled for removing any semblance of humanity, Lugosi’s Dracula (which, on the basis of subsequent cultural references, has become the preferred prototype on which to create a vampiric character) is sophisticated, in touch with his humanity, all while retaining a threatening sexuality – “I never drink… wine,” he says. To put that in terms of a scenario, meeting Lugosi’s Dracula for dinner in any place outside of his castle might leave you charmed by the Count and just comfortable enough to eat and drink in his presence. That is, until Dracula feeds on you.

Universal did not see Lugosi as their first-choice Dracula; instead, that went to the senior Lon Chaney (1924′s He Who Gets Slapped, The Phantom of the Opera). Chaney died prior to production and, despite Universal’s preference for Paul Muni, relented when Lugosi lobbied relentlessly and said he was willing to accept an exiguous salary of $3,500 (~$56,000 in 2017′s USD). Lugosi declared bankruptcy the year after the film’s release. Having turned down the title role in Frankenstein (1931), Lugosi plodded through years of typecasting as suave horror villains and a British ban on horror films in the mid-1930s. He never became as established a movie star as fellow Universal Monsters star Boris Karloff, and played Count Dracula only twice – the second time in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).

Alongside a bevy of forgettable performers, only one other actor stands out. That is Dwight Frye (who would also play Fritz in Frankenstein later that year) as the realtor-turned-slave Renfield. His performance, nowadays, might be dismissed as a relic of the worst of silent-era filmmaking that seems anachronistic even in 1931, but it works. Whether Frye swings into entertaining campiness or unmitigated insanity, he serves the film wonderfully. With eyes wide, veins pulsing from his neck, and not giving a shit about what people think of his behavior, Frye’s Renfield is unpredictable, unstable, and possesses an unsettling laugh – it is not the stereotypical villainous belly/diaphragm laugh – halfway between a sneer and a chuckle. It is not exactly something you want to hear in the darkness.

Director Tod Browning – an expert in horror films – assembles a team of craftspersons of envying pedigree. Production designers Herman Rosse and John Hoffman and art director Charles D. Hall (1930′s All Quiet on the Western Front, Frankenstein) outdo themselves with Dracula’s castle. It is everything you want from a decrepit fortress – cobwebs (one eighteen-foot spiderweb was created by rubber cement shot out of a rotary machine gun), an enormous fireplace (one fire made so much noise that the primitive microphones then being used picked up that sound rather than the dialogue; production halted as the fire winded down) ruined windows and columns, and tangled vines intruding from the outside. The enormity of the set lands with chilling impact, assisted with the costume design by Ed Ware and Vera West and cinematography by Karl Freund (1927′s Metropolis, 1937′s The Good Earth, I Love Lucy) inspired by German expressionism – a silent film-era movement which emphasized exaggerated geometries, shadows, and high-contrast lights and darks. Freund’s camera is often static but, unlike many films the early 1930s, slowly floats across the set when needed. This creates an impending sense of terror, lending Dracula a thick atmosphere that has kept it watchable even though the movie itself may no longer be scary to most. However, this focus on the production design is mostly abandoned after twenty-five minutes as Dracula finds himself in London. Lugosi and Frye’s performances grab the film by the scruff, and further solidified themselves into Hollywood lore.

The sets themselves impressed Universal’s art department and directorial contractees so much that they remained standing for at least a decade longer for subsequent films for the studio; the finale of Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942) holding its finale within what used to be Dracula’s walls, for example. These same sets also appeared in the Spanish-language Drácula –when the English-language production completed its shooting during the daytime, the Spanish-language production commenced at night using much of the same resources. The cast and crew of the Spanish-language production might even have had an advantage, as they had access to the English-language Dracula’s dailies/rushes (raw, unedited footage of the day’s shooting on a movie), to tinker with their own performances and handiwork.

Other than Tchaikovsky’s most famous theme from his ballet Swan Lake playing over the opening credits and a brief snippet of Wagner and Schubert, there is zero music in Dracula. In scenes as Dracula is approaching someone with ill intentions, this increases the dread. In transition scenes where the audience is reading the text of some publication or when characters are traveling, this might not work with impatient viewers. This almost-complete lack of music is because – with synchronized sound introduced just four years earlier – filmmakers believed that movie audiences could not accept music in a film unless there was a source of music within the film (diegetic music; one of those instances is when an orchestral performance is featured in Dracula). Considering that silent films were never truly silent – movie theaters during the time had resident musicians (typically pianists, organists, or small ensembles) – and that movie music has become a genre all its own, that idea might seem quaint to modern audiences. Watch enough post-Jazz Singer 1920s and early 1930s movies and one will notice that lack of music is widespread.

In other aural developments, depending on the quality of the print that you watch, a crackling image noise may be heard throughout the film. That is due to the age of the film print and the quality of the sound recording available in 1931; the newest restorations of Dracula should minimize the sound.

Though a relic of early Hollywood horror, it is a film energized by a star-making performance from Lugosi, which has since altered audience conceptions of what a vampire looks like, talks like, moves like. Okay, we never see Dracula’s blood-sucking fangs, but credit Lugosi, Browning, and screenwriter Garrett Fort for devising a character that is essentially the origin of anything that even references vampirism.

Dracula shows its age as it approaches its ninetieth anniversary. Wooden acting from almost all of the supporting cast, its rough editing, and pacing issues may not be accommodating for those accustomed to older movies and are watching the film without knowing the limits of cinematic technology in 1931 (again, Dracula may have terrified viewers upon release, but it is no longer “scary” in the modern sense). It is an essential piece of the horror genre, as well as cinema. The dedication to which those behind the camera applied to this film is remarkable, diffusing a frightful feeling that could only have been produced in its own time.

My rating: 9/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

This is the tenth Movie Odyssey Retrospective. Movie Odyssey Retrospectives are write-ups on films I had seen in their entirety before this blog’s creation or films I failed to give a full-length write-up to following the blog’s creation. Previous Retrospectives include A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969), Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001), and The Wizard of Oz (1939).

#Dracula #Tod Browning #Bela Lugosi #Helen Chandler #David Manners #Dwight Frye #Edward Van Sloan #Herbert Bunston #Frances Dade #Carla Laemmle #Garrett Fort #Karl Freund #Charles D. Hall #Herman Rosse #John Hoffman #Ed Ware #Vera West #TCM #My Movie Odyssey

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theliterateape · 7 years ago

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REVERSALS: Rebecca is Almost Always Right

By Don Hall

The following story was originally written for First Person Live in Arlington Heights. The theme was REVERSALS and I thought it would be fun to write a piece to be read in chronological reversed order.

Diane didn’t care for it so I did another piece. But I still like it so here it is.

IV.

As Dracula stood centerstage, surrounded by the bodies of his victims, and the first piano strains of “I Will Survive” chimed in, the audience started giggling again already exhausted from laughing their asses off for a straight hour. By the time he was fully into the song, glorious in his Richard Harris singing style, the crowd was clapping on the beat and the place was on fire.

The show was a hit. The cast was thrilled. The press was good and the audiences howled. At one point during that opening night Hail Mary pass, Dave’s Johnny Cash, having been bitten by Dracula, lumbered onstage with blood dripping from his fangs. He saw the audience, struck an iconic Cash pose and the place went wild. It didn’t matter that most in the crowd had never seen Dean Martin’s variety show nor had even heard of Joanne Worley, we had sold the concept and they cheered as Vlad Dracula wrapped things up and the undead cast rose from their graves to sing the closing number.

That night, Ron and I pulled out a bottle of Kentucky Bourbon and toasted each other on the roof of the theater until the sun came up. I raised my glass to Rebecca.

III.

“Gang. First I’m sorry. You’ve been working and writing for weeks. I’ve been sort of mailing it in. We’re scrapping the whole thing and restarting.”

“Why?” asked Noah, already fully dressed and make-upped for Renfield.

“Because it isn’t funny. At least not to me and if I am to be the best director for this show, it has to make me laugh first. Oh, and Ron? You’re going to sing in this new version.”

Ron couldn’t sing. He was terrified of it. I told him to go home and watch Richard Harris sing-speak in the film “Camelot” for inspiration.

The night before I spent seven hours watching The Dean Martin Show from 1968, The Smothers Brothers, Laugh-In, Hee-Haw and every time I saw a bit that genuinely had me cracking up, I wrote it down.

As I wrote, I slowly began weaving together moments that would lead to others that would seem ridiculous but funny.

Johnny Cash singing “Ring of Fire” as a duet with Dracula.

Dracula and Renfield transforming into Dickie and Tommy Smothers except this time, when Dickie was finally exasperated with Tommy’s goofy ideas, he’d beat him brutally or torture him set to a canned laugh track.

A Benny Hill-like chase set to “Yakety Sax” but in a minor key.

It all was so stupid, I thought, it just might work.

The cast was frustrated but game. We set into revamping this limp show and developed it for twelve hours a day for three days. We opened on Friday after all.

II.

I could see that she was unhappy.

“It isn’t funny, Don.”

“It’s kinda funny.”

“Does it make YOU laugh?”

“Well, no but I think it’s a clever enough concept that it will make others laugh.”

“That’s bullshit, bro.”

Rebecca had come to see a technical rehearsal a week before we opened “The Vladimir Dracula Variety Show and Comedy Hour.” She was supposed to be a second set of eyes on things and, in her estimation, the show was crap.

She was right.

In my defense, I had been burning the candle at both ends and in the middle with a welding torch and I was tapped out. Running a small storefront is a lot of work if you’re only doing the facilities — cleaning and stocking the bathrooms, mopping the stage, fixing lights, vacuuming chairs, repairing random broken door frames, and the like — but with the added duties of administrating the finances, writing grants, executing a low budget marketing plan per show, directing the art within the building ended up getting the last scrap of consciousness before a drunken nap.

We needed a hit. We needed a show to make up for the loss of income that resulted in closing a show after opening night. Rent was freaking due and the piper needed to be paid so this show was important.

And it stunk.

“Don,” she lectured. “You are first and foremost an artist. A Henry Rollins, take no shit, Art for Art’s Sake delinquent. You wouldn’t allow any director of any show you put up on this stage the excuse that they were tired and the show was ‘funny enough.’ You have three days before an audience. DO SOMETHING.”

It was the first and only show I closed after opening night.

Jonathan had the idea to create a piece that told the Dracula story from the perspective of his human sycophant, Renfield. After a few months of development and rehearsals and the casting of Ron Kuzava as Dracula, we watched a staging of it on Jonathan’s roof at 10PM and it was brilliant. We were all thrilled by the physicality, the daring, and the overall coolness of what Pitts had created.

Jonathan, however, struggled with moving the show indoors. He reversed many of his coolest ideas and whittled the show down to a series of earnest monologues and some shadow puppetry and it was, all agreed, not the same show. Once the reviews panned it mercilessly, I pulled the plug.

Ron was furious and disheartened. His Dracula was amazing — part Nosferatu, part Gary Oldman, part Bela Lugosi. Soon after we closed, he and I sat on the roof of the theater, drinking beer and talking. At one point, we started laughing about his version of The Impaler being immortal in our times and what he might’ve done in the 1960’s. And I made the joke that he would’ve had a hit TV show. You know, like the Sonny & Cher Show or The Dean Martin Show.

The more we drank, the funnier the idea became. Guest stars could be Joanne Worley from Laugh-In, Johnny Cash (the Man in Black guest starring on The Prince of Darkness’s show) and Barbi Benton as the silly eye candy. We could take all the work he and Noah Ginex (who had played Renfield in Jonathan’s play) and put it in the new show.

A week later, the show was cast and we started the month-long grind to create this weird, new show. We called it “The Vladimir Dracula Comedy Showcase & Variety Hour.”

It was a no-brainer. It practically wrote itself.

#WNEP Theater #Vlad Dracula #Ron Kuzava #Noah Ginex #Rebecca Langguth #Jonathan Pitts #First Person Live

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