Posts Tagged ‘vampires’
Wednesday, November 10th, 2021
Francis Ford Coppola’s BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA is an incredible fucking movie that I previously mistook for a pretty good one. I saw it first on opening night in 1992, when I thought it was cool and weird, if flawed. (If you would like to imagine my wild teen years, I remember it was a foggy Friday the 13th and I was bummed that I hadn’t done anything good on Halloween, so I drove a carload of friends to an evening show, blasting the score from NIGHTBREED in the tape deck.)
The second time was in 2000 after reading the book (Dracula by Bram Stoker, not Bram Stoker’s Dracula: The novel of the film by Fred Saberhagen and James V. Hart Based on the Screenplay by James V. Hart from the Bram Stoker novel, which I have not read and can’t afford). At that time I wrote about it along with a bunch of other Dracula movies, and you can see I was pretty hard on the “ridiculous origin story” and “trying to make him into a more sympathetic Dracula,” among other things.
But it felt overdue for a revisit and on this viewing all that stuff finally clicked for me. Though I always thought it was a stylish looking movie, I feel like I didn’t fully appreciate just how much, or how special that made it. And everything else worked better this time too. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony Hopkins, Bram Stoker, Dracula, Eiko Sihioka, Francis Ford Coppola, Gary Oldman, gothic horror, Greg Cannom, James V. Hart, Jim Steranko, Keanu Reeves, Mike Mignola, Monica Belluci, Pete Ramsey, Roman Coppola, Sadie Frost, Tom Waits, vampires, Winona Ryder, Wojciech Kilar
Posted in Reviews, Horror, Romance | 47 Comments »
Monday, October 14th, 2019
NEAR DARK is what happens when young, hungry Kathryn Bigelow comes off of co-directing the arty biker movie THE LOVELESS and teams up with the writer of THE HITCHER to do horror movies. She and Eric Red sat down and wrote two scripts together, one for each to direct. A producer says on the making-of featurette that he trusted her to direct, then admits he told her up front that she had three days to convince him not to fire her.
Man, firing her would’ve been a huge fuck up! It’s definitely a cool scenario they came up with, but the primary appeal of the movie is Bigelow’s style, mood, attitude. I suppose the alternate timeline scab that took over would’ve at least had the great cast she put together. Yes, three of them (Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton and Jenette Goldstein) had already been together in ALIENS (a movie that exists in some form within the NEAR DARK universe, unless the “ALIEN5” we see on a marquee meant PROMETHEUS). Bigelow correctly guessed that they’d not only be perfect for the characters, but would carry over a chemistry and familiarity that would work well as this outlaw family. Reportedly she hired them all separately and all were worried about the perception of following ALIENS with a low budget vampire movie. But they knew what they were doing. They chose right. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adrian Pasdar, Bill Paxton, contemporary western, Eric Red, Jeanette Goldstein, Jenny Wright, Joshua Miller, Kathryn Bigelow, Lance Henriksen, Tangerine Dream, Tim Thomerson, vampires
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 25 Comments »
Thursday, December 13th, 2018
My friends, the time has come for the THRILLING CONCLUSION to the Twilight Saga review saga. This is the one where the most crazy shit happens, especially in a big deadly snow battle between all the characters. So I had fun. If you support me on Patreon thank you, if not thank you also but consider signing up some time if you can. Either way, more reviews coming soon and
GLITTERY VAMPIRES FOREVER
Tags: Bill Condon, Jeff Imada, Kristen Stewart, Lateef Crwoder, Maggie Grace, Rami Malek, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, vampires, Wendell Pierce, werewolves
Posted in Horror, Reviews, Romance | 11 Comments »
Thursday, November 29th, 2018
This week for anyone who pledges $1 or more on Patreon I have my third Twilight review, ECLIPSE. This is the one directed by David Slade (30 DAYS OF NIGHT), who added some interesting new weirdness. I particularly had fun with this review because of some Seattle-specific details I noticed.
Thanks everybody!
Tags: Bryce Dallas Howard, David Slade, Kristen Stewart, Patreon bonus content, Robert Pattinson, Stephenie Meyer, vampires, werewolves
Posted in Horror, Reviews, Romance | 22 Comments »
Friday, November 23rd, 2018
Okay, let’s try this again. Due to the troubles with the Patreon plugin I’m going to try housing the exclusive reviews on Patreon itself. (Thanks for the suggestion, Shan.) So if you pledge $1 or more to my Patreon you can enjoy the ever-loving werewolf shit out of this exclusive review series. Thanks for your patience!
And here’s a link for the first one, TWILIGHT.
Tags: Chris Weitz, Kristen Stewart, Patreon bonus content, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, vampires, werewolves
Posted in Horror, Reviews, Romance | 17 Comments »
Wednesday, November 21st, 2018
I don’t know why there was a Wes Craven movie that I didn’t bother to see in the theater and then didn’t bother to see on home video for over 20 years. Granted, everyone said it was terrible, and it seemed to be an Eddie Murphy comedy vehicle, not a real horror movie, and he started wearing fat suits and shit right around that time.
But these days you can’t take fresh Wes Craven movies for granted, so I decided the moment had come to watch VAMPIRE IN BROOKLYN. The verdict: it’s not an unheralded gem. But it’s also not what I had pictured. It’s a mildly interesting failure.
Murphy (DOLEMITE IS MY NAME) plays Maximillian, the only survivor of a tribe of Egyptian vampire who “traveled south through Africa and over the Atlantic to a beautiful island hidden deep in the Bermuda Triangle,” where they lived for centuries before the vampire hunters found them. There’s a certain parallel to COMING TO AMERICA, because he’s this confident, exotic visitor from another culture, looking for a woman. In this case it’s a specific woman, Rita (Angela Bassett, PANTHER, BLACK PANTHER), a rookie NYPD detective who doesn’t know there are vampires, or that her dad was one, or that she’s the last descendent and only hope to revive the race. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Allen Payne, Angela Bassett, Charlie Murphy, Eddie Murphy, Joanna Cassidy, John Witherspoon, Kadeem Hardison, Simbi Khali, vampires, Wes Craven
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 34 Comments »
Thursday, November 15th, 2018
This is the first in a Patreon-only review series of THE TWILIGHT SAGA. For as little as $1 a month you can support an ol’ so-called outlaw in his writing endeavors, and as a thank you I got these exclusive reviews for you.
This one was originally housed here on outlawvern.com but I had to move it to Patreon due to technical difficulties, and I didn’t want to delete all your comments so I left the post here. So what the hell, this time I’m gonna include an excerpt so you non-Patreons can get an idea of the approach I’m going for. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anna Kendrick, Billy Burke, Cam Gigandet, Catherine Hardwicke, Christian Serratos, Justin Chon, Kellan Lutz, Kristen Stewart, Matt Bushell, Michael Welch, Robert Pattinson, Sarah Clarke, Stephenie Meyer, Taylor Lautner, vampires
Posted in Horror, Monster, Reviews, Romance | 39 Comments »
Wednesday, October 10th, 2018
I remember DEF BY TEMPTATION (1990) seeming like an important indie movie at the time. Robert Townsend and then Spike Lee had created this excitement around the new black cinema in the late ’80s. This one predates Matty Rich’s STRAIGHT OUT OF BROOKLYN by a month and John Singleton’s BOYZ N THE HOOD by a year, and represents the movement extending into the horror genre half a decade before Rusty Cundieff’s TALES FROM THE HOOD.
Writer-director-producer-actor James Bond III made his low budget story of a vampire in the dating scene in New York, with Troma coming in to give him finishing funds. So Lloyd Kaufman provides an introduction with some fun trivia on the crappily transferred 20th Anniversary Edition DVD, including that he had to take over as cinematographer for one of the climactic scenes. That’s notable because the rest of the movie is, as the credits say, “shot by Ernest Dickerson,” who was definitely hot shit because he’d already done THE BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET, KRUSH GROOVE, SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT, SCHOOL DAZE and DO THE RIGHT THING. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bill Nunn, Cynthia Bond, Ernest Dickerson, James Bond III, Kadeem Hardison, Melba Moore, Michael Michele, Minnie Gentry, Samuel L. Jackson, Troma, vampires
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 15 Comments »
Friday, October 27th, 2017
FRIGHT NIGHT PART II came out three years later, in 1988. Part I‘s writer-director Tom Holland had moved on to CHILD’S PLAY, bringing Chris Sarandon with him. Makeup FX genius Steve Johnson was doing NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4. It was the year of PUMPKINHEAD, HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II, THE BLOB, THEY LIVE, MONKEY SHINES, MANIAC COP, THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW, PHANTASM II and PAPERHOUSE. Maybe the world didn’t feel the need to rehash FRIGHT NIGHT. But somebody was gonna do it, and they got William Ragsdale and Roddy McDowall to come back as Charley Brewster and Peter Vincent.
In the opening, a quick clip montage (as was the style in those days) and Charley’s narration recap what happened in the first film, only for him to then say that he imagined most of it. Yes, Jerry Dandridge was a serial killer, but “vampires aren’t real.” Charley says he’s returning to “the real world” after three years so I thought he’d been hospitalized, but I guess he just means he’s mentally returning to a world where monsters don’t exist. He says he’s worried he’ll run into Peter Vincent, which is weird because in the next scene he goes to visit him. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brian Thompson, Greg Cannom, Jon Gries, Julie Carmen, Mark Metcalfe, Miguel-Tejada Flores, Roddy McDowall, Russell Clark, Tommy Lee Wallace, Traci Lind, vampires, werewolves, William Ragsdale
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 8 Comments »
Thursday, October 26th, 2017
I remember thinking FRIGHT NIGHT was pretty good in the ’80s, but honestly I was skeptical that it would hold up as well as its reputation. I should never have doubted! Writer and first time director Tom Holland (CHILD’S PLAY) revived the classical style of vampire tale for 1985, now souped up with some of the hallmarks of the era: quirky teen comedy, postmodernism/nostalgia, and most of all imaginative, gooey, wonderful creature effects. I was surprised by how much of that last one we get.
This is the age of home video and having a TV in your bedroom, so our teen protagonist Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale, ROAD HOUSE 2: LAST CALL, Justified) is very familiar with horror movies, having watched many of them as presented by the local horror host and former star of Hammer-esque vampire films Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall, CLASS OF 1984 [which was written by Holland]). In the opening scene he’s got Vincent’s show “Fright Night” on in the background while he attempts to make out with his reluctant girlfriend Amy (Amanda Bearse, Married… with Children). Then he happens to look out his window and sees his new next door neighbor Jerry Dandridge (Jack Skellington himself, Chris Sarandon) getting it on with a woman who is found murdered the next day. After some spying Charley sees Jerry turn into a bat and have fangs and claws and suck blood, so he determines that Jerry is a vampire who is luring women to his house and killing them. For some reason nobody believes him. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Amanda Bearse, Chris Sarandon, Stephen Geoffreys, Tom Holland, vampires, werewolves, William Ragsdale
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 36 Comments »
