I like a bit of variety on this here blog, and after last post’s discussion of three classy, classic Dracula films, I thought it would be good to go in a completely different direction and take on something cheap and grotty. I’m no gore hound per se and I’m not the kind of horror fan who is constantly hunting for the roughest stuff I can handle, but I do really appreciate when something works – when the effect actually gets to me – when the horror of a piece can linger in my mind and my mood. Today’s film is clearly one of those. Filmed to the brim with top notch suspense sequences, viscerally disturbing violence, and gritty, dangerous atmosphere, and furthermore grounded by a totally committed, unhinged, and scary central performance from Joe Spinell, William Lustig’s Maniac is really one to watch… if you’re up for it – and, to be fair, not everyone will be.
Maniac (1980)
On paper, this doesn’t necessarily seem like a film that might top a lot of lists: following a creepy weirdo with mommy issues around NYC as he hunts down young women, kills them, scalps them, and nails their hair onto his collection of mannequins. Writing about it, I have to look up synonyms for “skeezy.” It’s the sort of movie that might make you want to take a shower afterwards (but maybe you’ll feel vulnerable there – at the very least, you may want to open a packet of moist towelettes). Ugly and mean, with an uncomfortable conflation of sexual desire and violent impulse, as well as a really downbeat ending – this is a “feel-bad movie,” and I kinda love it.
Made during the first big slasher boom (though I don’t think I’d actually call this a slasher), Lustig’s film turns the still gelling conventions of the sub-genre on their head by focusing entirely on the killer himself rather than his victims, such that the real horror of the piece is more in its character study of its pitiable, if no less frightening, protagonist, Frank Zito, as embodied (and largely written) by character actor, Joe Spinell. There are wonderfully executed chase and kill scenes here that would shine in any early eighties slasher, but while they are really scary, their horror pales in comparison to just spending an hour and a half inside of Frank’s fevered mind. This situates the film closer to a work like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) or Bret Easton Ellis’s 1991 novel, American Psycho, but whereas both of those examples follow a central killer who is at least outwardly cold and in control, Frank Zito is hot and tortured, and Spinell keeps his performance’s engine solidly in the red for most of the film.
Really, it seems like it shouldn’t work so well. The performance should come off as over-the-top and melodramatic. Frank’s backstory (growing up with a sex worker mother who alternatingly neglected and abused him resulting in his compulsion to prey on attractive women for their sexuality as he gibbers and mutters – a fevered exchange between the traumatized child he was, the mother who maltreated him, the adult killer he’s become, his victims, and the mother he has recreated and asserted control over via the bloody wigged mannequins he surrounds himself with) should come off as at best facile, and at worst, offensively reductive in its armchair psychology rooted in misogynistic tropes. The plotting should come off as nonsensical and unrealistic. This feels like it shouldn’t rise above being a run of the mill, grungy, cheap little body count movie, memorable primarily for its squalor (and, to be clear, there can be value in films such as those, but I think there is so much more here).
But this is one of the reasons I really do love this genre. All of those accusations are basically true, and it is still a great film: intense, moving, uncomfortable, and wholly worthwhile. Though it seems to have been made largely in an exploitation mode, all involved mainly just trying to put something together that would be shocking, exciting, and sell tickets, the talent and total commitment of the creative team just shines through, resulting in a scary, disturbing, rough art object. Lustig put all he had, financially and otherwise, into getting his first non-pornographic feature off the ground, and it shows. Spinell was a great character actor (who also co-wrote and developed the piece, investing all of his salary from Cruising in it as well), but he’d never had the chance to lead a film before, and his work here is so emotionally grounded even while he plays for the cheap seats. Tom Savini had no budget to speak of for the effects, but everything is set up to be filmed so perfectly, making simple “right out of the kit” solutions (as I’ve seen him describe them in an interview) land with visceral power. At every turn, the love and passion and talent and hunger that went into this ugly little picture is just so abundantly clear. This all yields a commitment to the material that elevates it far above what it could have been, without adding a hint of pretension.
The film begins in typical fashion with a cold open kill scene – a young couple sleeping on the beach are murdered by a giant, looming figure that has been watching them while hiding among the reeds. The girl is dispatched quickly with a scream and a slit throat, but when her boyfriend returns with more firewood, his death takes time – garroted and held aloft by the killer, the camera focusing on his feet as his body jerks and twitches and finally falls limp, blood pouring down from above as the wire cuts through flesh. It is effectively savage, but could fit in many other films of the era, but then in the next shot, the film reveals its uniqueness as we cut to the main character, Frank (recognizably the killer from the first scene), waking up in bed as if from a nightmare. He is drenched in sweat and panting in misery and fear. Was this a dream or a memory? Did he actually kill them? The title card announces “Maniac” and we get a gist of how we are going to spend the rest of the run time. As the opening credits roll, we are shown something of his living situation. His cramped room features a candle lit shrine to a photo of a woman (his mother, as we will come to understand) and is otherwise filled with objects of art – some merely abstract and some disturbing, but the one that catches out attention is the mannequin revealed to be lying in the bed behind him, with what looks like a bloody wig nailed onto her head. This guy is clearly not well.
Shortly thereafter, we see Frank go upstairs with a street prostitute one trick away from making her rent and calling it a night, and what follows is so awkward and naturalistic as to initially feel sad and sweet, though always with the edge of fear – we can only assume he is actually a killer and she is in great danger. She seems nice and genuine – warm with him, but also clearly just doing her job and trying to upsell him out of economic need. He is clearly uncomfortable with physical intimacy, but also plainly wants it, at first asking her to model for him and leave her clothes on before finally getting more physical. The scene takes its time as she tenderly coaxes him out of his shell until he is capable of participating more fully, and it is strangely affecting, but at the same time, the tension is so thick; we know how strange he is – even if he isn’t actually a killer (and he probably is), he is quite off.
Thus, it’s not terribly surprising, but still shocking and awful when he rolls on top, grabs her by the neck and starts squeezing the life out of her, the camera largely zoomed in on his flushed, murderous visage, the sweat pouring down his face, until her body stills and his expression changes from rage to sorrow before he has to run to the bathroom to vomit. He is so dangerous, so scary, and at the same time, he does not seem to take any pleasure in his activities – he acts out an unwanted compulsion – he is a long suffering victim of his own impulses as well as a perpetrator of horrific acts. But of course, the viewer’s sympathies are tempered by the fact that he returns from the bathroom with a razor blade and proceeds to scalp the poor, dead woman.
Much of the film is relatively low on plot after that – we see many more scenes of Frank hunting and killing and suffering and fighting with himself (as he speaks for the myriad voices that fill his head). But for all that it reiterates a similar scenario, I don’t feel it wears out its welcome or becomes repetitive. Also, it is surprising how much it never feels exploitative – the victims are primarily women (he kills men too, but only when they get in the way), and the violence is certainly gendered, but the filming is never leering and the violence doesn’t feel sexualized. In each instance, I find myself really caring about the given victim or victims, honestly more than in many a slasher flick wherein they can so often feel two dimensional and disposable. Here, we aren’t given much in the way of background information, but I do believe in each of these women, filmed as actual humans and not objects, sexual or otherwise – I worry for them – and I hold my breath, waiting for the possibility that this time he won’t do what he always does, that this time he won’t succeed – he is, after all, not some mythical embodiment of evil, but just an overweight, middle aged guy with mental health issues.
And the play of identification is a really interesting aspect of the film that sets it apart from the pack. Though Frank generally dominates our point of view, we meet each of his (potential) victims as authentic people with depth and nuance and lives, and we temporarily live and fear vicariously through them. At no point do I ever root for Frank or cheer his violence (as might happen in something like a Friday the 13th or a Halloween film where the masked killer is the main draw). There are drawn out sequences of one young woman or another encountering his threat (sometimes understanding the danger she’s in and sometimes not until it is way too late) wherein Lustig teases audience expectation so expertly: Why is that door cracked? Is Frank there? No. Ok. Is he coming now? Yes, but he doesn’t see her. But does he and he’s just waiting for a better moment to strike? Maybe – but where is he now – the room is empty. Will he get her in the bath? No, but he’s still got to be in the apartment, right? I think so, but I don’t see him – he could be anywhere. She lowers her head to splash water on her face and oh no – he’s going to be in the mirror standing behind her, isn’t he? And, Bang! He appears and brings the scene to its nigh inevitable conclusion. Most famously, there is a standout chase scene in the subway that could hold its own against any other in any thriller, but the movie is full of similarly well-crafted scares. And all of those scares are so much more effective because Lustig lets us feel for those in danger before they are dispatched and we must once again accompany the killer back into his apartment and his mind and his fevered madness.
And that is not a pleasant place to be for him or for us. Past that, one feature separating Frank Zito from many a slasher killer is how deeply uncool he is. We endure him and even pity him, but I don’t think we are ever meant to like what he’s doing, and the film never endorses his violence. He is not some kind of aspirational anti-hero and his post-Norman Bates, proto-incel motivations and madness do not feel like they speak with an authorial voice. Sure, the whole “pathetic, misogynist killer obsessed with mommy” thing feels particularly skuzzy and played out, and I can’t say that I enjoy it, but honestly – it does feel rather realistic and therefore, so much scarier. I don’t believe that the shadows contain many masked killers with “the devil’s eyes,” but it goes without saying that the world is filled up with unhappy, emotionally and psychologically screwed up men who will target and hurt women to assuage their own pathologies. Frank really could be around the next corner.
Also interestingly, we don’t really know just how deep his insanity goes, and as his is the perspective we mostly see the world of the film through (as Ellis did about ten years later with his novel), I read it all as through the eyes of an unreliable narrator – though that is never really confirmed. We begin with a moment that could either be a memory or a dream. There is one scare with his mother rising from her grave that clearly didn’t really happen, as well as a horror set piece finale that must be taking place in his head. On top of that, there is a whole act of the movie that feels like it might be wholly, or at least significantly, imagined.
One day in the park, Frank notices a photographer snap his photo and he follows her home. She, Anna (Caroline Munro), is in the middle of developing said photograph when he rings her bell and introduces himself. She never asks how he found her home, but in a very friendly manner, she invites this stranger in to examine and discuss her photography, seemingly delighted to have the company. Over the course of the next half hour, interspersed with more scenes of murder (including a model friend of Anna’s), their relationship grows and deepens. In a strange little movie, this is perhaps the strangest part, and I think it is key.
Whenever Frank meets with Anna, he is so much more together – he dresses well; he looks clean; he isn’t constantly breathing hard and talking to himself; he is, if not charming, then at least a seemingly pretty “normal” guy, and it really appears that she enjoys spending time with him – perhaps romantically, or perhaps just as a friend, but regardless of the exact nature of the relationship, these scenes show that Frank can relate – he can be a person – he can control himself and there is some kind of hope for a “normal” satisfying life, free from his compulsive, miserable killing (a hope that will inevitably be dashed on the rocks). It is all kind of – nice – which is more than a little bizarre.
So bizarre that one could just chalk it up to bad writing, simply an entirely unbelievable turn of events – but I don’t. Though the film never outright explains this one way or another, for me, the whole Anna relationship, a significant portion of the movie, tells me that all is not as it seems. Either she isn’t real – or at least she isn’t really the way we see her. No one could be that nice to this creepy stranger – no one could be that available, always willing to drop whatever she’s doing any time he calls on her. No one would ask if a guy they’ve just met has a picture of his mother with him and not find it a little odd that he apparently always does in the pocket of his jacket. She seems like a fantasy – everything to him that his mother never was. So maybe she isn’t real…. Or, maybe she is real and the killings all happen in his mind – the clammy madman, bathed in perspiration and grunting insanely is his true inner life, while on the surface, he appears to be a totally “normal” person, passing through society undetected every day. Is that a more frightening scenario? This doubt in my mind as I view it is never resolved and it lingers after the film is done.
Unsurprisingly, Maniac came in for no small degree of criticism on release, often seen by film reviewers as a vile, irresponsible, reprehensible film, a symbol of how our culture had degraded itself. Gene Siskel, for example, announced in his televised review that it was one of only two films he had ever walked out of (after only thirty minutes), he and his partner, Roger Ebert, no friends to the slasher film in the eighties. While I can understand a person being put off by content like this (and I can easily accept that someone wouldn’t want to spend this time with Frank, wouldn’t want to be in a position of having to pity such a monster, or to be reminded of how commonplace, and thus terrifying, this kind of gendered violence can be), to so flatly dismiss its admittedly queasy artistic value is short sighted at the least, and not worthy of serious criticism.
That said, it is sometimes a rough watch and is clearly not for everybody. But if you are ready for its unpleasantness, Lustig and company will take you on a real horror ride – sometimes enjoyably scary and suspenseful, sometimes sickly and uncanny. You will be confronted with ugliness and tragedy and pain, but also, strangely enough, I think it’s always evident how much, for its creators, this low budget gem was a true labor of love into which they poured their whole hearts. In that, there is beauty, just as in the depth of the film’s grotesque abattoir, there still resides something of humanity.
Is there a character in the horror landscape that looms as large as Dracula? My whole life, from long before I was at all into horror, I’ve known him. Simple plastic Halloween masks, Scooby Doo cartoons, funny characters that reference him (the Count on Sesame Street, Count Floyd on SCTV, Count Chocula on cereal boxes), TheMonster Squad – he was everywhere. And he was one of the only characters so omnipresent as to warrant an indefinite article – you might see a little kid on Halloween with a widows peak, a medallion, and a cape, and if you ask who or what they are, there was a good chance they might say “a Dracula” – like being a tiger or a princess – he wasn’t just a particular vampire from a particular story – he was his own thing – on one level, synonymous with “vampire,” but also having totally specific traits and markers – and of course all of those characteristics were based on one and only one portrayal, and it wasn’t Christopher Lee (though he’s great), Gary Oldman (I love his performance, but it hadn’t been filmed yet when I was little), or Udo Kier (no way I would have watched Blood for Dracula as a child – too obscure and not exactly kid appropriate – Kier’s most famous line being “The blood of these whores is killing me” after vomiting blood into a bathtub for what feels like 15 minutes because none of the nubile Italian girls he’s feeding on are virgins); of course it was all Bela Lugosi.
So I thought this week, it would be an interesting project to dip back into the 1931 root of this image, this icon (of course the true origins begin much earlier than that). But first I had to reckon with my own expectations of his eponymous film. The last time I watched it was in the late 90s and at the time, while I could kind of appreciate its historical significance, I don’t think I particularly enjoyed it. I remembered it being slow and stately. I remembered it had been made before scoring talkies became common and that the absence of music made it really drag. I remembered, if anything, that some things looked cool, but that it hadn’t blown me away – at least not like the other Universal monster movies I’d seen from the likes of James Whale (Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, and The Old Dark House – all favorites of mine); other films I’d seen from its director, Tod Browning, such as Freaks (1932) or, more recently, The Unknown (1927); or Murnau’s granddaddy of vampire cinema, Nosferatu (1922).
So, yeah, I didn’t come to it this time particularly as a fan, but I did come with interest. Furthermore, I thought it could add perspective to look at Browning’s film in comparison with a couple of other Draculas with which it shares strong similarities, specifically, George Melford’s Dracula (1931) which was filmed in Spanish for the Latin American market at night, based on the same script, on the same sets, using many of the same shots, and generally with the same costumes as Browning’s, and also John Badham’s Dracula (1979), starring Frank Langella in the titular role. All three films came from the same studio – Universal Pictures, and all three were based on the same source material, by which I don’t mean Bram Stoker’s novel, though of course that’s there, but rather Hamilton Dean and John Balderston’s drawing room thriller theatrical adaptation first produced in England in 1922 (and actually licensed by Stoker’s widow, Florence, unlike Nosferatu), revived on Broadway in 1927 (starring Bela Lugosi), and further revived on Broadway in 1977 (starring Frank Langella).
Far from identical, all three do share much of the same structure, as well as a lot of dialogue and character choices and therefore, I feel looking at them next to each other helps bring their respective qualities into starker contrast. Primarily I will be examining the two films from 1931 as one of them has really left a shadow over the last century of culture and awareness of the other is helpful in understanding why. At the end, I plan to discuss the 1979 film just a bit – it’s fine, and is a historical-cinematic curiosity with some praiseworthy elements, but ultimately, I don’t feel it’s had the same kind of impact.
Night and Day: The Two 1931 Draculas
Given how much they share in common (sets, costumes, props, animals, shots, source text), it is striking how different these movies are, really playing differently, with different pacing, a different style, and ultimately a different lasting effect. Browning filmed during the day with his cast and crew and apparently, Melford got to watch Browning’s dailies, recreating what he liked and adjusting what he felt he could improve on before shooting with his cast at night. This resulted in two films with many of the same strengths as well as many of the same technical limitations, but they really do diverge strikingly – it is fascinating to compare them.
Interestingly, on first viewing, I enjoyed Melford’s film much more. It is more dynamic, more naturalistic, and benefits from greater narrative flow and a lively energy. Nevertheless, it is Browning’s film which has really stayed with since I watched them both last week, and which I expect will continue to linger in my memory. In a way, each excels where the other falters.
This is from Browning’s film, but the castle is the same in both.
In both cases, as was done for the play, the story has been greatly condensed (it was not a short book), and characters, settings, and events have been reduced to bare essentials, mostly playing out on the grounds of Dr. Seward’s Sanatorium where Renfield is a patient, Mina is Seward’s daughter, and the mysterious count has just moved in next door. This is, of course, after a brief first act in which Renfield travels to Transylvania to meet the Count and arrange for his land purchases in England, and it must be said that the production design is uniformly gorgeous. Kicking off Carl Laemmle Jr.’s cycle of gothic horror films for Universal, it is all spooky, decrepit castles, cobwebs, dark shadows, dramatic lighting, and incongruously placed animals (the castle features possums and armadillos, neither of which were native to Transylvania – I’ve read that the possums were used because censors at the time didn’t approve of rats, and it was assumed that most viewers outside the American southwest had never seen an armadillo and that they just look weird enough to live in a vampire’s castle).
Generally, throughout the post, the English version will be on the left and the Spanish on the right.
Off the bat (whoops), there are differences. While there was notable moving cinematography in Browning’s version, Melford utilized a far more mobile camera and found some very striking shots. Still, though it was more static (and this does affect its pacing), Browning filmed every moment as if intentionally creating an icon, resulting in lasting images that really have staying power. He also absolutely benefitted from Lugosi. Carlos Villarias, who played the Count in the Spanish language version is more active, more natural, and somehow therefore sadly more silly. He plays it big, and is fully committed, but somehow doesn’t rise above being a guy in a cape. On the other hand, Lugosi brings a weight and a weirdness that just lands. Every moment he is on screen, he’s magnetic, holding the eye with a kind of fascination. I think there’s a clear difference in the first few times we see both actors: freshly risen for the night from the coffin, as the coach driver, and staring through magnetic eyes. Villarias does his best, but Lugosi is a special effect that never fails to wow.
The coachman
Still, while his Dracula doesn’t bring the same power, Melford found striking ways to film certain moments. Below, on the left, you can see Lugosi’s Dracula staring down Renfield with his hypnotic gaze. The shot is relatively straight on, with Browning highlighting the eyes with focused hard lighting. On the right, you can see how Melford handles the same moment – a tight close up at a sharper angle – it’s a great shot and very effective, but for my money, Lugosi’s performance delivers the scene – we feel his hunger in the moment, his unsettling urgency to have his business matters dealt with before he takes this man for himself.
Which brings us to our two Renfields. Dwight Fry (in English) and Pablo Alvarez Rubio (in Spanish) are both highlights of their respective films, but they play the character in quite different ways, embodying first his cautious fear and, later, his madness quite contrastingly. Again, there is an issue of naturalism, with Rubio bringing a far more manic, unhinged performance that feels more like a gibbering lunatic and Fry delivering something a bit more stagey, more stylized, but no less effective. Fry’s performance feels quite chosen, quite controlled, even mannered, but when he goes mad, it is all the more chilling. Also, while Rubio feels more “realistic,” I think Fry brings a greater degree of nuance to these first interactions with the vampire in question. There is a tautness to their scenes, a sustained tension. Renfield has come such a long way to find such a strange man in such a creepy place, and he constantly seems to cycle between unsettled, temporarily comforted, fascinated by his charming, off-putting host, and totally weirded out by him. Is it terror or possibly attraction? Either way, it’s richer than Rubio’s well played, but less intriguing histrionics.
On the differences between the films, there are a few illustrative moments after Dracula has left Renfield for the night and the vampiric brides come for him. First of all, I think Melford clearly wins the composition here (there’s a benefit in going second). Whereas Browning has the three ethereal ladies simply enter a doorway and come for him, Melford sets up the shot such that we see them first lurking in the doorway in the distance as a terrified Renfield enters the foreground looking for a means of escape, the audience seeing their approach while, oblivious in his fear, he does not. It is a great, creepy moment.
I had trouble catching a still that does justice to Melford’s shot – in this one, you can barely see Renfield in the lower right corner. Trust me, it works when it’s moving.
Here is the Spanish version moving.
But then, Browning delivers a significant moment from the book lacking in the Spanish version. In Melford’s film, we see the brides bend to feast on the poor man, but in Browning’s the Count returns and sends them away, taking Renfield for himself.
As noted on the Shudder docuseries, Queer For Fear, this moment in the novel seems to have been particularly significant to Stoker, and in his original manuscript, he’d repeated the line, “This man is mine!” over and over again. It’s easy and obvious to conflate the vampire’s predation with sexuality – the hunger for another’s body, the ‘taking’ of the victim, and while the Spanish version restricts Dracula’s diet to one of lovely ladies, Browning shows us a figure with a less exclusive thirst. One could approach this with a simple queer reading, but for me it goes deeper – he is more and less than human and beyond such taboos and/or identifications. This kind of pansexual lust for blood and body was present in core texts such as Stoker’s Dracula and Le Fanu’s Carmilla, and it comes down, perhaps through this iconic moment, to later works, such as the novels of Anne Rice or films like The Hunger (1983).
So why does Melford excise the moment? Is it just that he is streamlining the scene and felt having Dracula return, stop the brides in their tracks and feed himself slowed things down? It’s possible – Browning’s scene is certainly slow and silent (both films suffer from the fact that scoring talkies had not yet become standard and there is a lot of silence in both – but it feels more present somehow in Browning’s film). Did he just want to give the brides something more to do? They are cool and mysterious, and it’s a shame we see so little of them. Is it instead a hunch that something that might be read as gay coded wouldn’t play so well in a more machismo oriented market? Who knows? But the absence is notable.
In either case, the next time we see him aboard the Vesta (I have no idea why it was changed from “The Demeter”), Renfield has gone round the bend, respectively with Rubio’s howling, maniacal cackle, or with Dwight Fry’s slow, haunting, vibrato laugh. Again, Rubio feels more like a real crazy person (or what you might expect from the representation of a “real crazy person” in the 30s – mental illness not being well understood yet – as if it is now), but Fry’s laugh is one of the best things in either movie, or any other movie from the decade for that matter. Troubled and troubling, it resonates with an eerie off-ness – suffering and threatening in equal measure. It really is something special.
Also, the image of the dead captain, strapped to the wheel is chilling. Again, this is Browning’s shot, but it repeats in Melford’s film.
And so, Dracula comes to England and high society. This, I think is one of the lasting influences of Bela’s performance, and of the presentation of Dracula spearheaded by the play. In Stoker, Dracula is royal in appearance, but far from handsome:
“His face was a strong, a very strong, aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth.
These protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed. The chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.
Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine. But seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarse, broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal.”
Valentino on the left and Schreck on the right.
Rudolph Valentino he was not. Rather, Max Schreck’s rat-like visage in Nosferatu seems a rather faithful representation. Now, Bela Lugosi’s Count, in his impeccably-tailored tailcoat and vest and his elegant cape is an entirely different creature. Stoker’s vampire was not without charisma or even seductive power, but he also elicited a shudder of revulsion. Lugosi brings a movie star charm to the role. He has the exotic accent and he moves with peculiar mannerisms, but he makes the Count attractive, even sexy for the first time, and this is a quality that would stick. These days it is a rarity to see a Dracula who isn’t a charmer. And, at the same time, Lugosi still retained an element of the monstrous. His Dracula is no tragic romantic figure, chasing lost love and doomed to an eternity of isolation – he is always a predator: a rapacious, dignified, bewitching predator. Whether he is padding through the streets of London to prey on a poor girl selling flowers or hypnotizing an usherette at the opera so that he might better make the acquaintance of his new neighbors, this Dracula never ceases to both captivate and unsettle. He is a beast, but he’s never not the most interesting person in the room. It is a terrible shame that Lon Chaney was cut down so early by cancer (he’d been the first choice for the role), but it is a gift to our culture that Bela got the chance to bring to the screen what he had been doing on stage (which he begged to do, drastically undercutting his earnings in the process). By contrast, Villarias’s Count can wear the cape, but he doesn’t exactly fill it out, and at the worst, he can even come off a bit goofy – forecasting the fate of many a “Dracula” costume wearer in the future – unsurprisingly, you can paint on a widow’s peak and still fail to look cool.
Another striking feature of this Dracula (and I believe this comes down to the play as it is featured in all three versions) is how little he seems to care if people know what he is. In modern times, one is accustomed to blood suckers who feel the need to hide their true nature, but he is apparently wholly unconcerned, and that makes him come off as all the more powerful. The first time he meets the main cast (Lucy, Mina, Jonathan Harker, and Dr. Seward) at the opera, he speaks like one who has lived an unnaturally long life, with lines like,”To die – to be really dead, that must be glorious!” or “There are far worse things awaiting man…than death.” Um, ok, nice to meet you, Mr. Dracula, was it? Care to come around for tea?
Browning’s is better lit, but I like how Melford has the unreflected Count kiss her hand farewell.
Or, later, when Van Helsing has discovered his vampiric nature having glimpsed his lack of reflection in a mirror, Dracula responds, “For one who has not lived even a single lifetime, you are a wise man Van Helsing.” In that moment, Dracula knows that he knows, but while irked at being discovered, he ultimately doesn’t care. He apologizes to his host, Dr. Seward, for reacting so violently (either swatting away the mirrored cigarette case in English in a short burst of rage, or explosively lashing out and destroying the case in Spanish), and exits, telling Seward that his friend, Van Helsing, will explain. He then doesn’t try to run away, knowing that they know he’s a blood sucker – instead, he immediately lures Mina outside to drink her blood under his sexy cape. He is really, really not worried.
Lugosi explodes for the briefest of moments before composing himself, but when he does, you can see how much hatred has been tightly wound within. By contrast, Vallarias bugs out his eyes and throws a tantrum.
The other players are the next significant field of difference. The English speaking cast is good, and their performances seem appropriate to the Victorian origins of the text. They are all proper gentlemen and ladies, a bit staid and respectable, their genteel English world invaded by this bold outsider, this royal figure from beyond their understanding of society or reality, undaunted by conventions of propriety – all qualities that make him both appealing and disruptive. They are all also, kind of boring (on one of the commentary tracks, I think, it was said that the role of Renfield was increased because everyone knew what a drag Jonathan Harker was). Browning thus dully plays up Renfield for all he can, allowing him a far creepier moment at one point when the camera cuts away just as he has finished crawling over to a nurse who has fainted – in the Spanish version, we see him snap out of it and laugh/cry away the notion that he might have hurt her – in the English version, her fate is unknown and we can only assume the worst.
On the other hand, the Spanish speaking cast is consistently less tightly bound, and comes across as far stronger emotionally. While the English version may be more fitting to the social conventions of 1897 when Dracula was written, I’ve got to say that the Spanish speaking cast is far more compelling, and I was more engaged with their trials and tribulations as they are targeted and try to fight back against this threat. Helen Chandler’s Mina looks lovely while she turns from her lover knowing that only unlife awaits her, but Lupita Tovar’s Eva sheds real tears and breaks down in a way that can really tug on your heart strings.
The English version has the better still, but the Spanish version has the better scene.
This is one way that the Spanish version excels. In general, it seems a bit more free, and it also seems less burdened by concerns over what the censor might think (I don’t know much about what could be shown in cinemas in Latin America in the early 30s, but it doesn’t seem crazy to expect that the English speaking market of America and Britain would be more prudish). This can be seen in small things like Tovar’s almost see-through night gown vs Chandler’s shiny silver nightdress.
Plus, Tovar’s exuberance is infectious.
It is evident in acting choices like the English language Van Helsing’s easy, reclining power as he holds the cross vs the Spanish Van Helsing’s dramatic bombast.
Or in the bite marks on Lucy’s neck, shown in Spanish, but only talked about in English.
It comes across in significant plot details that are glossed over in the English language version. For example, we see Harker and Van Helsing come out of a cemetery, but we don’t know why – whereas in the Spanish version, Van Helsing talks about how terrible it was to stake Lucy in the heart, but in doing this terrible deed, they have saved her soul (however, in both versions, Lucy dies so suddenly and isn’t much discussed or mourned afterwards – it’s odd…). Furthermore, there is a strong Catholic religiosity in the Spanish version utterly absent in the English. As far as I can tell, this is both an issue of targeting a very Catholic market (Latin America) and avoiding running afoul of censors who might disapprove of anything that could be seen as sacrilegious. To some extent, this is just a matter of local flavor, but in at least one case, it really changes a key moment, resulting in the Spanish version having a much stronger finish.
As the Spanish version is concerned more with the fates of the souls of those under Darcula’s thrall, it contains a meaningful exchange, the absence of which renders the ending of the English version quite wanting. In both versions, there are many scenes of Seward and Van Helsing dealing with Renfield, who constantly vacillates between devotedly serving his dark master, fearing him, pitying himself, mocking the others, and just trying to eat as many bugs as he can. At one point, in Spanish, when the others are discussing Lucy’s sad end and how they may have to do the same for Mina, Renfield plaintively asks Van Helsing if, even though he is a sad lunatic, he would also do this act for him. This comes back significantly in the final reel after Dracula kills Renfield, either causing him to fall down the curved staircase in English, or, more brutally, directly pushing him off the staircase in Spanish.
At the climax, after Van Helsing has hammered a stake (off camera in both versions) into Dracula’s chest and Mina/Eva have sympathetically felt the pain of the wood piercing their own hearts before finally being freed from the vampire’s dark spell,
Jonathan/Juan and Mina/Eva are about to leave and they ask Van Helsing if he’s coming with them. In the English version, he just says, no, he’ll come later. That’s odd? Why not now? Maybe he needs to pee or something? Ah well, the young couple walk up the stairs in a wide shot and leave. Sometimes older movies end quite abruptly and this is one of those. I was quite surprised to suddenly see the spinning Universal globe and the cursive text of “The End.” In the Spanish version, it all makes more sense and ends with more of an emotional punch.
Browning’s ending
As in Browning’s, the young couple asks if Van Helsing will come with them and he says no, but this time, he goes on to explain that he has to keep his promise to Renfield. The next shot is from the top of the stairs, looking down on the romantic leads as they climb into the light of day, into a more hopeful future, the nightmare finally over, but then Melford cuts to a wide shot in which we see them nearing the top of the stairs as we also see Van Helsing approaching poor Renfield’s corpse, ready to mutilate his body that his soul might survive. It lands with a sting and is, by far, the stronger ending. Personally, I’m not a fan of religiosity in my horror, but it is nice when scenes make sense and deliver on the emotion.
Melford’s ending
Across the board, I would say that Melford’s film in Spanish is consistently more engaging – I felt more of a sense of narrative drive, I enjoyed watching it more (sometimes in Browning’s, I got sleepy), I was more invested in the fates of the characters; by many counts, you might call it the better movie (and some do). And yet, and this is weird, I don’t think it actually is.
Melford’s film plays it straighter, it makes more sense, and I had more fun watching it; however, it also feels less substantial, more superficial, more forgettable. On the other hand, while the camera may be static and the performers stagey, every moment, every element, every choice in Browning’s film feels like it is creating a new icon that will last, that should last. I understand Browning had a very successful career as a director of silent movies (though I’ve only seen one of these, I really loved it), and I have heard the opinion that he shot his Dracula more like a silent movie, not entirely comfortable with dialogue. I don’t know if that’s true, but almost any still from his film could be framed and carry a kind of power. Browning’s lead players: Dracula, Mina, Van Helsing, and Renfield, each speak with an unhurried, chosen steadiness that can slow things down, but they all work their way into the memory. There are reasons that this film, these shots, and these performances have persisted into our culture.
Melford’s film is good (and, having been largely forgotten for many years, it is great that it is now readily available, at least if you’re willing to pick up a physical copy). It is engaging, exciting, and entertaining, but the fact that all of that engagement, excitement, and entertainment somewhat pales in comparison to Browning’s work says something about how significant that work is.
Dracula Tends To Return
In 1977, Frank Langella headlined a revival of Dean and Balderston’s play on Broadway, emphasizing more romantic, sensual readings of the character than had heretofore been dominant. This production was such a success that Universal apparently thought it was time to return to the Dracula well for a new film, still based on the theatrical text, but with a new sensibility.
Directed by John Badham (a director with no other horror credits, but who made many films that I loved as a kid, like Short Circuit and War Games), the 1979 film succeeds in many ways but didn’t exactly blow me away and I probably wouldn’t be writing about it were it not in relation to these other two films. Like those two, it is also rooted in the playscript, and in some ways adapts it more faithfully by setting itself entirely in England, beginning with the Demeter running aground, the crew decimated by an unseen, animalistic force.
Soon Dracula is getting to know the Sewards and the Van Helsings (confusingly, the film switches the names of Lucy and Mina, so now Lucy is the main character and the daughter of Dr. Seward, whereas Mina is the first victim and now the daughter of Van Helsing) and striking up a steamy relationship with Lucy. How these characters and the relationships between them are handled is the greatest strength of the film. From the beginning, we get the sense that Jonathan Harker is pretty much a needy, possessive, petulant jerk and when Lucy (who, we must remember, is the character traditionally known as “Mina”) meets this charismatic, dashing, intriguing man from abroad (with an American accent rather than anything Eastern European), she is drawn to him not because of his dark magics, but because she, as an adult woman with agency and sexual desire, finds him hot.
Thus, the film works best in the first half as they circle each other, falling in love and lust. Dracula does not cast her under a spell, but they mutually fall under each other’s. He can still be dominant, but it feels more like he’s performing a role – speaking dominantly to one who finds that sort of thing attractive, rather than controlling her with magic. This finally culminates in a big lovemaking/blood drinking scene at about the halfway point, after which much of the drive falls out of the movie. I was invested in their flirtation, but once she is thus bonded to him and the focus of the film shifts more to those who would oppose him, it was a bit harder to maintain interest.
Also, while Langella plays the Count successfully as a lonely romantic, I didn’t find him to be much of a monster and he just feels less threatening than one might like when squaring away against Harker, Seward, and Van Helsing. Thus in the second half, I felt a bit adrift as an audience member – Dracula is clearly a bad guy and it’s not like I’m rooting for him, but when there’s no more seducing to be done, he’s not that scary so I don’t really cheer for the people trying to kill him.
But the film has other things in its favor. Set in 1913, it is very attractive and well costumed. It brings back into a Dracula film a few elements from the book that hadn’t made it to screen in the 30s, such as the bit where he climbs down the wall like a lizard or seeing what actually happens to Lucy (even though she’s named Mina here – argh – it’s unnecessarily confusing).
Some moments of vampire business rather work, such as a surprising moment of “Bat!” when it seems Van Helsing may have the upper hand, and some comic moments between Dracula and Renfield. Also, the production design is really fun and over the top – seriously, who designed Carfax Abbey to have a giant Hellmouth in the lobby, a giant Bat as a chandelier of sorts, and how did Dracula find the time to light all those candles? I joke, but it really does look quite cool in a gloriously over the top, gothy kind of way.
Finally, I really got a kick out of Donald Pleasence as Dr. Seward, whose dominant character trait seems to be voraciously, unconcernedly eating while the world around him burns. It’s a fun character, in turns oblivious and helpless, offering pretty poor medicine, such as when he explains to his friend, Van Helsing that of course he’d had his friend’s now dead daughter on the morphine, but laughing away the suggestion that he might give something so harmful to his own daughter (probably right before shoving something else in his mouth). It’s quite a funny performance – choices were made, and I believed in and enjoyed this odd little man. Also, the degree to which her father, and by extension her home, her whole world, is so banal, small minded, and ridiculous probably underscores Dracula’s exotic appeal for Lucy.
Also, it ends satisfyingly – the boring men come and defeat the big bad vampire, but at the finish, Lucy (Mina) sees his cape fluttering away on the wind and can’t hide a secret smile, relieved that he somehow persists and will continue in the world, maybe even returning to her one day. It’s a more satisfying ending to the love story between them than if it were all just wiped away when he dies, and she felt “freed” from his power. I appreciated that.
However, one aspect that I found difficult was the color timing. I guess Badham had wanted to film in black and white and the studio execs had nixed that idea, releasing the film theatrically in vibrant color. He hated how it looked and when it came to releasing the movie on home video, Badham arranged for it to be a “director’s cut” in which he muted all of the colors.
Ah, a nice day lit exterior. It sure is nice to visit dreary, grey British seaside towns.
Honestly, I found its dinginess just oppressive and deadening and found myself craving some degree of saturation (though exactly what I’d expected did occur – in the middle of the film, when Dracula finally drinks from Lucy, there is a hyper-red artsy sequence which pops all the more for being in the midst of so much grey and beige). But for me, it was not enough to justify just how dull the rest of the movie looked.
So that was difficult. As far as I can tell, most versions available on streaming are the desaturated version (it’s what I saw), though if you want to buy a more recent double disc with both versions, that is for sale. Still, having looked at stills from both versions, I can see why the director disliked the theatrical – the full color doesn’t look great either – and the desaturated version is a bummer. Maybe they should have just let him work in black and white as he’d wanted to – it probably would have had some actual contrast and could have been starkly beautiful.
Also, I must say that I went into this viewing with the wrong expectations. I’d always heard that this was the “sexy Dracula” and had expected something lurid and over the top, perhaps like a Ken Russell flick or maybe like the gloriously pulpy extravagance Francis Ford Coppola would go on to craft in 1992 (a film that holds a special place in my heart). That was the wrong way to approach this film, and it kind of did it a disservice – it is better to say that it focuses on the romance between Dracula and Lucy (which, as described above, it does effectively), but otherwise plays as a more “realistic” period drama, and is in no way sensationalistic. So it is worth watching, but don’t go in looking for a superabundance of sensuality, cause you could be disappointed.
Just Three Draculas?
From The Lost Boys
Of course, there haven’t been only three Draculas – Draculas are everywhere! He’s been in hundreds of films, on loads of TV shows, in comic books and cartoons, and transformed into other characters like Blacula or Bunnicula; the Count gets around. There have been other great performances and also plenty of terrible ones. But I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that most of them are in some way indebted to Browning’s film and to Lugosi’s performance. Almost every gesture Lugosi made, almost every inflection in his voice, every shot, every utterance became a ‘meme’ long before that word was reduced to meaning simply a funny captioned picture on the internet. Rather, a meme is a viral concept – an idea that circulates throughout a culture, replicating itself, planting itself in new hosts from which it can further spread. In Stoker (and in Murnau’s Nosferatu), Dracula was associated with plague – he was a kind of viral illness, a sickness of the blood, a venereal disease that could infect proper, buttoned up, Victorian England. It is only fitting that Lugosi’s iconic persona and Browning’s film should similarly exist as just such an infectious concept.
I gotta say – I started this post admitting that I hadn’t returned to Browning’s film as a fan, but after spending this last week and a half with it, I think I’ve come around. It is iconic for good reason. RIP, Bela. I’m sorry that after gifting our culture something so, so good, you had such a famously hard time of it in the rest of your career.
Ok – that title just seems dirty, but in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working through a number of Christmas horrors, new and old, that I hadn’t seen yet, seeing (to paraphrase Morpheus) “how deep this chimney goes.” The answer would seem to be, “not terribly deep, but really rather weird.” Each time I crossed my fingers and hoped that I was going to discover a hidden classic, something that would really surprise me and become a new favorite, and…well, that didn’t exactly happen. I can’t make any claim that today’s movies represent the greatest heights of the genre – but hey, they’re not the worst either. And each of them, no matter how odd it gets (and often because of how odd it gets), or how little it comes together as a whole, each of them has something that I genuinely appreciated and enjoyed.
So, you could probably call these ‘minor entries’ in the canon of holiday horror – nothing here holds a candle to heavy hitters like Black Christmas (1974), Christmas Evil(1980), or Gremlins(1984), but we’ve all probably already seen those (and if you haven’t, boy are you in for a treat), and so much of the pleasure of really digging into one genre, or sub-genre for that matter, is finding those peculiar little entries that will never win many awards, but do give our life on earth so much more character. They may not be great. They may not always even be good. They may only pay lip service to the holiday or to horror. But they do make things all that more interesting.
Now, I write this knowing that everyone and their brother is publishing rundowns of Christmas horrors these days (‘tis, as they say, the season), but hey, just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it isn’t a good idea – and it’s what I’ve watched recently, so it’s what I can write about. So, let’s get into it, shall we? I’m pretty sure I’m going to spoil most of these, so be forewarned…
Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 3: Better Watch Out (1989)
Honestly, I loved the first half of this odd little picture. It is, in a word, ‘weird,’ and I found myself rather hooked by its peculiarities. We follow Laura, a young woman who was blinded in a car accident and seems to have some degree of psychic powers. A particularly unscrupulous doctor has been subjecting her to experiments wherein he links her consciousness to that of the comatose Ricky, the killer from Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (and brother to Billy, the killer from part 1). He survived getting gunned down at the end of the last flick only to end up in a coma, his Santa hat replaced by the aquarium attached to his head, displaying his murderous brain (he’s also been recast and is played in this installment by genre mainstay Bill Moseley (Chop Top from Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part II).
Probably the first ten minutes of the film is an extended dream sequence in which they enter each other’s minds through a series of sterile, institutional corridors filled with Christmas detritus. After this, Laura begins traveling with her brother and his girlfriend to their grandma for Christmas Eve dinner, all the while having horrific visions of Ricky’s thoughts, dreams, and actions (of course he’s now awake, on a fresh killing spree, and coming for her).
For the first roughly 45 minutes, I was totally engaged. The movie was peculiar, but also really specific and honestly kind of fresh. Psychic stuff, dreams, Bill Moseley with exposed brains, hallucinations, and a solid taste of the holiday as we periodically cut over to Grandma happily preparing her home for the young siblings. I even remember thinking at some point, “wow – this is fun and I really have no idea what’s going to happen – that’s great!”
Yeah – I shouldn’t have thought that. Within minutes of entertaining this assessment, Ricky had killed off granny in advance of Laura and her brother arriving, and once they got to grandma’s empty house, the rest of the film was a totally rote slasher – not terrible or anything, but pretty by the book and not all that inspired. The second 45 minutes were, sadly, a bit of a slog.
But everything leading up to that moment, I really enjoyed, so perhaps you will too…
Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 4: Initiation (1990)
So having seen part 3, I was intrigued to final check out the only remaining entry in this series I hadn’t seen yet. (Part 1 is satisfyingly grisly, Part 2 is campy fun, and Part 5 is a pretty solid little Pinocchio inflected Christmas horror about a killer toymaker). Directed by Brian Yuzna (of Society, Bride of Reanimator, and Return of the Living Dead Part 3, among others), this film maintains a small sense of continuity with the rest of the series, but then goes off in some wild new directions, aided by the goopy, fleshy, trippy physical effect work of special effects artist and frequent Yuzna collaborator, Screaming Mad George.
Christmas is almost an afterthought this time in this story of Kim, a young woman striving for respect and autonomy at the newspaper where she works, as she takes the initiative to investigate a recent case of spontaneous combustion, against the patronizing instructions of her chauvinistic boss. This brings her into contact with a coven of witches who conspire to initiate her into the insectoid, flesh melting mysteries of their Lilith worshiping, patriarchy busting, pagan rites, coinciding roughly with the winter solstice. For some reason, they are assisted in this by Ricky (from the last two movies), now played by Clint Howard (Evilspeak, The Ice Cream Man), with his brains once again covered by bone and flesh, and no suggestion that they ever weren’t.
There is a tiny dose of Christmas as she visits her boyfriend’s family in the days leading up to the holiday, where she explains that she’s Jewish and doesn’t celebrate, resulting in rude comments from his conservative, religious dad. Later, on Christmas Eve, she shows up to kidnap his younger brother (while Ricky garrotes his unpleasant parents with Christmas lights) as she needs to sacrifice a male to complete the ceremony – so there – you’ve got a bit of Christmas stuff.
Otherwise, it’s all vaginal larva insertions, vomiting up giant bugs, having fingers melt together into tentacley appendages, legs fusing together until they form a giant segmented tail, and lots of randomly bursting into flames. It is filled with insect gross out horror (the cult worships Lilith, presented here as the source of “all that crawls”); it is sleazy and sexually exploitative (including, for those who would want to be warned of such things, a carnivalesque, ritualized rape scene); and it is peculiar, unique, intriguing, creative, and disturbing. It won’t be for everyone, but I sure can’t say I’ve seen a movie quite like this before, and that singularity does speak in its favor.
The Advent Calendar (2021)
It’s funny – I feel that this French Christmas horror from a couple years back situates its scares and uncanny dread not so much in the Christmas of it all, though it does circle around an evil Advent Calendar – counting down the days to Christmas, but rather in the idea that German stuff (and the language itself) is just really creepy (as I understand it, the tradition of the Advent calendar originates in Deutschland).
Eva is a former dancer, now paralyzed from the waist down, whose friend comes back from Germany with an antique wooden advent calendar as a birthday present. The thing is a little threatening – for example, its back is inscribed with a warning that “If you get rid of this, I’ll kill you” – but the two women laugh it off with the sense that ‘it’s German – of course it’s threatening!’ It’s already December third, so she opens the first couple of doors to find some candy and a series of instructions – basically, if she starts eating the candy, she has agreed to keep opening doors, following instructions, and eating the candy until the end, no matter what happens. Again and again, the instructions say that if she breaks a rule, “I’ll kill you!” What fun!
At first, the candies seem miraculous, causing lovely things to happen – her father suffering from Alzheimer’s momentarily recognizes her, a cute guy gets interested in her, some jerks mysteriously die, she can temporarily walk; but unsurprisingly, it quickly takes a dark turn as the calendar starts demanding sacrifices in exchange for its varied gifts. Also, this tall, thin, Germanic demon thing sometimes shows up and kills anyone who interferes. In theory, this takes Eva on a fraught moral journey as she must do terrible things to both win her desires and simply to stop the German Box Monster from offing her as well.
First, it must be said that there are some cool, inventive moments along the way (a surprising death by dog is a standout example) and the Teutonic monster is sufficiently creepy. Also, it’s all played straight and it takes its story and characters and emotion seriously.
But while I generally enjoyed watching it play out, I did struggle to get past a certain drama and horror dampening sense of inevitability. After an intriguing first act, when things really start spiraling, it felt as if Eva was just moving from one demand to the next with little sense of internal struggle or choice. Perhaps she was just already committed and going on the ride, but I suspect I should have felt more of a bite of tragedy in what she was being called on to do, or conversely, the vicarious thrill of knowing that what she was being given was so great as to justify the costs. I didn’t feel those things. More I felt that a cool set up and a solid horror conceit just hadn’t quite landed satisfyingly (and along the way there were some logical leaps that stuck a bit in my craw).
But I don’t want to come off too negatively. There are plenty of horror moments that work, and even a bit of intentional comedy that doesn’t derail the weight of the events. And it was a spin on a concept I hadn’t exactly seen before. But again, though it is all about this Christmas item, it never feels like Christmas time, or like a Christmas movie. It’s just a spooky German box that keeps threatening to kill you if you don’t eat its chocolate correctly.
Violent Night (2022)
Ok, first off, it must be said that although I tend to cast a really wide genre net, I have trouble considering this a “horror movie,” but I’ve seen it listed on some Christmas horror lists, I watched it recently for the first time, and I rather liked it, so I’m going to write about it anyway. I hope you’ll grant me that indulgence. In its defense, it is very, very violent (it’s in the name).
Like a love child of Die Hard, Bad Santa, and Miracle on 34th Street, this gory, vulgar, sweet hearted concoction features a group of brutal mercenaries infiltrating a wealthy family’s remote estate on Christmas Eve to hold them all hostage as they empty the sizable vaults. But it just so happens that a down on his luck, drunk and embittered St. Nick, recently abandoned by his reindeer, has been stranded in the house, there to deliver a gift to the one good child there who still believes in him even if he no longer believes in himself.
Fortunately, we learn that before he became the perennial gift giver that he is today, Santa used to be a fierce Viking warrior and, to borrow a turn of phrase, he isn’t locked in with the mercenaries – they are locked in with him. And in a cute turn, when he takes a walkie talkie from one of the kidnappers, it allows him to stay in touch through the night with Trudy – the nice little girl, ala John McLane and Sgt. Powell.
A tremendous number of bad guys get their heads crushed, impaled on things, eviscerated, exploded, decapitated, or in one way or another, torn to pieces. The little girl, who just saw Home Alone for the first time, also manages to off a few baddies herself with DIY traps (with more brutal effect than in the popular Christmas comedy). And, most importantly, along the way, Santa learns his requisite Christmas lesson, gets his groove back, and comes to believe in himself, in the holiday, and in the potential goodness of mankind once more. In a reversal of many a Christmas horror flick, this time, the killer Santa is the good guy.
It is all a fun idea and generally well executed, but I think it rests so clearly on the shoulders of David Harbor (Stranger Things), who is just absolutely perfect for the role. He balances the misery, the irreverent, fed up crudeness, the bloodthirsty rage, and the genuinely affecting, earnest sweetness so well. I can’t imagine the movie without him – it’s a great vehicle for his talents and he manages to lift it above its enjoyable, but potentially either saccharine or overly mean spirited premise, allowing it to be both and neither in a really satisfying way. It’s a really fun, if not exactly great, movie – but I have trouble labeling it horror. But, again, Santa kills like a hundred people in this thing, so let’s agree that justifies its place on the list.
Inside (2007)
Ok, so we’re back to France for another movie that, while it’s set on Christmas Eve, doesn’t feel all that Christmasy – if anything, it’s just that it’s all about birth (which, for religious types, Christmas is as well), and I guess we hear that some characters are having Christmas dinners, but we don’t see anything of the holiday itself. I think this works therefore, more as Christmas counter-programming than Christmas horror per se. But it is, in many ways, a very effective, visceral thriller, with shocking, horrific moments of jaw dropping, cringe inducing ugliness, and, for a while, oodles of tension and suspense. There’s a reason this was grouped among the films knows as “The New French Extremity.”
Months after the death of her husband in a car accident, Sarah is due to have labor induced on December 25th. Everyone around her seems happy about the upcoming birth – her doctor, her mother, her boss, but Sarah seems ambivalent at best. Depressed and alone, she’s facing down a future with a stranger who will forever remind her of who and what she’s lost. And then there’s a knock at the door…
From there, this becomes an intense home invasion nightmare as an unnamed woman works her way into Sarah’s home, relentlessly coming after her, hellbent on cutting her fetus out of her belly with a large pair of scissors, and willing to destroy anyone who potentially stands in her way. And it gets pretty rough – by the end, rivers of blood have been spilled. All of this happens against the backdrop of riots in the Paris suburbs – everyone is so scared of the “violence” enacted by people who are viewed as outsiders (there are strong xenophobic undercurrents), but it is in this quiet neighborhood that a real invasion and violation is taking place.
When it’s working at its best, Inside is breathless and exciting, with extreme moments of mutilation and pain that can really shock if you stay open to them. If you let yourself go on its ride, it can be a real rollercoaster.
But, it must be said (must it? I don’t know, but I’m gonna) that when it’s at its worst, characters make some of the most frustrating “horror character bad decisions” I’ve seen in a while. For example, at one point, a police officer is in the house, trying to help Sarah escape. His partner is dead, and there are plenty of other corpses lying around as well. He makes a cursory examination of the place and determines that the killer has left. Suddenly, the lights go out. Sarah starts screaming (rightfully so) that “she’s still here!” but he decides that rather than get her to safety post haste, he’s going to move her to a bedroom, lay her on a bed with a revolver and go downstairs to find the fuse box. Have I mentioned that he still hasn’t called in the crime scene to dispatch or that he has a guy he’s arrested handcuffed to him the whole time for some reason (handcuffs don’t work in police vehicles or something…)? Anyway, off he goes and then Sarah – who has been under attack, who has seen loved ones die, who has been stabbed and mutilated and terrorized by this crazy woman – who is clearly still in the house – puts the revolver away and lies down to go to sleep. I’m all for willing suspension of disbelief, but this movie is really pushing it to the limit.
So yeah – some aspects didn’t work for me – and tended to break the tension because I just couldn’t believe the choices being made (also – there is waaay too much CGI fetus-cam going on for my liking – probably any CGI fetus-cam at all is too much, and this movie has much more than that). But when I wasn’t being pulled out of it, which was generally when it was just the two women, the movie was, admittedly, kinda great. So overall, it was a bit of a frustrating watch, but I am glad to have seen it. I’ve long heard its praises sung and there is a lot there to value if you can overlook all the other stuff.
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And there we are. “Another year over and a new one just begun” Happy Christmas everybody! If you’ve been watching your way through the collected holiday horrors as I have, I hope you’ve found some good ones. I’ll say that I like it best when they really bring both elements – when they are full of Christmas and are still a full on horror movie. Some, like Inside, can be a satisfying watch if you want something that is nominally set on Christmas but will give you a totally different experience, but I really love when you get those warm holiday vibes, but they are accompanied by a discordant note of something unsettling, something uncanny or threatening – that, for me, is when a Christmas horror lives up to its full potential.
Tis the season and all that. Thanksgiving’s behind us (though I still haven’t seen Eli Roth’s new movie) and we are therefore past the firewall that stops us from getting into holiday horror too soon and just ruining our appetites. So with December underway, I thought I might glut myself on killers in Santa suits, murderous toys, cannibalistic elves, and awkward family meetings – you know – Christmas!
There have got to be more horror movies set at Christmas than any other holiday, including Halloween. Maybe it’s due to the perverse pleasure taken in souring something oversweet, or the endless parade of symbols, decorations, traditions, and songs this holiday offers up to be wickedly repurposed, or the idea that it happens at the darkest time of the year – the longest night – with just a bit of light to get us through, or possibly the fact (and I am far from the first to observe this) that it is inherently creepy to tell children that there is a huge old man in a red suit watching them all year long, judging their every action, and on the darkest night he will break into their house and… do stuff. Naughty or nice, that’s scary.
Anyway, I do enjoy a good Christmas horror movie and have written about a few in the past. A couple years back, I touched on a couple of great Santa Slashers as well as one of my absolute favorite horror movies ever, Bob Clark’s Black Christmas (1974), and last year I revisited, for the first time in far too long, Joe Dante’s devilishly fun and surprisingly scary Gremlins. But as mentioned above, there are so many more that I haven’t seen. So I think I’m going to do a run through as many as I can watch in the next week or so. There will probably be spoilers – enjoy!
Blood Beat (1983)
Wow. I’d heard that Fabrice-Ange Zaphiratos’s one and only film was worth my time, but when I first tried watching it maybe half a year ago, I just couldn’t get past the non-professional acting, but I am so very glad that I gave it another chance. It’s not what many would call a “good” movie. But it is kind of amazing, and I think I love it.
To give a short, superficial description – Sarah accompanies her boyfriend and his sister to do Christmas at his home in rural Wisconsin with his reclusive, psychic, abstract painter mother and her deer hunting boyfriend. On first meeting, Sarah and the mother experience some mutually unpleasant mental connection, immediately taking against each other, and you know this is going to be an uncomfortable holiday. There’s an immediately unsettling, ominous atmosphere (accomplished via a combination of surprisingly capable cinematography, a blaring soundtrack of weird, warbling synthy twangs and overwhelmingly loud and constant classical music – the climax is set to Carmina Burana – as well as ceaseless wind and nature sounds, and periodic disorienting editing and shots that suddenly appear in negative). This eerie, uncanny vibe builds and builds until the one thing this movie is famous for finally appears – that’s right, a blue, glowing samurai ghost that starts hacking up friends, neighbors, and ultimately, the family itself – seemingly linked to Sarah writhing about on the bed orgasmically. Fortunately, it seems everyone in this family is also psychic – or at least has the ability to make their hands glow and zap samurais with laser blasts – like you do, and in the end, the brother and his sister (who spends an inordinate amount of time running around in the Wisconsin woods at Christmas time in a sleep shirt and leg warmers – give this girl some pants) walk off into the morning light, the threat having been vanquished, if certainly not understood, and Sarah apparently dead under the samurai armor – Merry Christmas everybody!
But that doesn’t do justice to the experience of watching this odd masterpiece, so let’s just boil it all down: a freaking samurai, lasers, Christmas, psychics, abstract painting, an oppressive soundtrack, negative shots, eerie nature photography, peculiar psycho-sexual content, early eighties visual effects that have aged poorly and probably looked bad in 1983, amateurish acting, strained dialogue, a really uncomfortable family visit, bad romantic relationships with pushy, petulant, shouty men, an all-out assault on the notions of logic and causality – maybe that begins to communicate the film slightly better.
Now all of this may sound like “so bad it’s good” territory – and I can see how one might view it as such. It is not, by any means, a “well-made film” and I think people could have a really good time laughing at its faults, non-sequiturs, and absurdities – for all that it is weird and confusing as a summer day is long, I was never bored. My jaw was often hanging open in shock, but I was never less than fully engaged. What’s more, I found it to be so much more than just a “great bad movie.”
Honestly, and I imagine this was largely by accident, I felt it was kind of a great movie in its own right. Watching it, I had such a strong sense of a kind of folk horror – the setting and the atmosphere and the mysterious events all worked for me – and on top of that, I read it as a sort of captivating “naïve art.” Clearly, most of the people involved were not professionals in their positions – many of the actors never performed in anything else before or after this project. The writer-director-composer-editor had written one other film (directed by his dad), but this was his only directorial effort (produced by his dad). The cinematographer, Vladimir Van Maule, was actually quite proficient, but still, through a miscommunication early in the project, he’d thought they were shooting the film for TV and so he filmed it all in 4:3 instead of a more cinematic widescreen, so let’s say there were issues. But all of this lack of experience somehow allowed something weirdly pure to slip through. I think they stumbled backwards and blind into ‘art.’
Sure, these may not have all been professional film workers, but there were strong (sometimes nonsensical, but strong) ideas, there was a real feeling that connected, and there was an odd talent or drive or spirit at the heart of it all that got its hooks into me. And this somehow worked on all levels. For example, when I’d first tried watching this, as mentioned above, I just couldn’t get past the non-professional acting, but on this viewing, it all just seemed so naturalistic and unpretentious. Sure – not every acting choice was the most interesting, but it was so simple, unadorned, and earnest – and it got to me.
On a filmmaking level, it takes some big swings, working with a stylistic freedom that “better” films wouldn’t allow themselves, and there is clearly an eye there. There are very attractive shots and evocative staging that lets the characters speak for themselves, just by inhabiting space, such as one set up in the living room – everyone has something going on and the framing allows it to breathe. Other sequences really sing, such as the first appearance of the samurai, who shows up to slaughter some neighbors as Sarah twists and turns on the bed, panting and moaning. Why is there this sexual connection? Who knows? Why is the husband in the neighbor couple such a jerk to his wife, and why does she put a tray with tea service on the squishiest, least stable waterbed I’ve ever seen – doesn’t she need to sleep there later – is she a fan of sleeping on wet, tea-stained sheets? Their relationship is strained and strange, but still actually believable – sometimes relationships are weird (and these little odd details give their marriage a surprising degree of verisimilitude). The linking of Sarah’s orgasms with the samurai’s violence is utterly bizarre, but it clicks in the moment, and as the editing feverishly jumps back and forth between her arched back and the middle aged husband next door fleeing in his saggy, once white briefs from this mysteriously exotic, eastern killer, it just feels right – strange and baffling, but right.
In the end, it all felt more like successful, if impenetrable, “art” than a ‘bad horror movie.’ But this wasn’t art to communicate meaning. I don’t think there is something to be interpreted in this piece and any discussion of what it all means, for me, is pointless. But it worked – it did something. My mind was enjoyably cracked open by the weirdness, but not so much that I lost interest. Was I moved? Maybe a little. Did I think? Maybe just “why?” But I did clearly have some kind of art experience – let’s say I was transported. Where to? I have no idea, but for a little less than 90 minutes, I was in for the ride and I’m so happy that I took it. It was a worthwhile, totally non-cerebral aesthetic encounter.
Now, as I’m including this as a Christmas movie, just how Christmasy was it? Not a ton perhaps, but it does all revolve around something that can be such a common holiday experience – going with your partner to their family home and not feeling right there. His family has different traditions. You feel his mother is judging you. Your boyfriend ignores your discomfort because for him, all of this is normal, and he keeps trying to initiate sex even though you can feel his mother’s weird psychic presence in the room, watching, thinking the worst – deeming you a tramp, or possibly the reincarnated spirit of a vengeful samurai. And of course, it all ends with katanas, lasers, howling wind, and Carl Orff. You know, Christmas…
It’s a Wonderful Knife (2023)
This delightfully titled Christmas-movie-cum-slasher has oodles of pedigree. It was written by Michael Kennedy, the screenwriter of the playful and moving Freaky (2020), and directed by Tyler MacIntyre, the director of the rather cynical, razor sharp Tragedy Girls (2017). It’s got a great cast, including Joel McHale (Assassination Nation), Justin Long (Barbarian), and Katherine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps). And it’s got a clever, impish, high-concept premise – shuffling together the tropes of a Christmas movie, particularly of a Hallmark channel variety, with those of a masked-killer slasher. It’s a great collection of elements, and it all comes together to be a rather good time, if not particularly groundbreaking or life changing. That said, off the bat, I feel like I’m damning with faint praise, but I did genuinely like watching this movie, even if I do have my criticisms.
I have written before on the emergence of a newish sub-genre/approach – that of the “meta-modern slasher.” Working with a high degree of genre-awareness, these contemporary ‘dead teenager movies’ tend to consciously build on tropes and forms much as “postmodern slashers” such as Scream have done, but with new degrees of both genre play and emotional sincerity. In all cases that I’ve seen, there has been a ‘big idea’: what if Groundhog Day were a slasher? Or Freaky Friday? Or The Purple Rose of Cairo? Or Back to the Future? Or, in this case, a made for TV movie riffing on It’s a Wonderful Life? Working within both the forms of the slasher flick and whatever the given cinematic inspiration was, there is a lot of room for both knowing comedy and brutal kills, and at their best, the two genres complement each other, each bringing out the best in its unlikely counterpart. But what really distinguishes these movies is not the cute idea of pairing two seemingly opposite types of films, but rather, their glowing warmth and good heart. These works tend to offer the thrills of a violent slasher, but the end effect is really never one of horror; rather, they are ultimately stories of reconciliation, of family, of loss and love.
In the case of It’s a Wonderful Knife, I can’t exactly say that both the slasher and the Christmas film are perfectly served by the pairing, or that they are both executed to perfection, but they are both clearly present. Most importantly though, even if there are narrative lapses, unearned character turns, or moments that just didn’t add up for me, I can’t deny this film’s big, loving heart. I’d be lying if I claimed not to have cried by the end of this movie that sees sharpened candy canes shoved through people’s heads, beheadings, impalements, electrocutions, and lots and lots of stabbing (though I admit I was disappointed that at no point did someone pick up the killer’s signature blade and say something like, “I wish he’d stop killing townspeople, but I gotta say, it really is a wonderful knife! (Look at the camera with raised eyebrows! Freeze frame! Roll credits!)
We start with the Hallmark movie – in the picturesque small town of Angel Falls, an unscrupulous real estate developer is making Winnie’s dad work on Christmas Eve as he tries to buy up the last piece of land standing in the way of his new giant shopping center/condos/fill-in-the-blank tower of greed. Winnie and her family are sad about this, but for years, it’s been the norm. Ok – so now we add the slasher: Winnie finds herself facing a masked white angel who has already murdered a couple of her friends, and she unmasks and kills him. Merry Christmas! One year later, everyone in the town has progressed from the dark events of last Christmas and is trying to just dive into the holidays and commit to being happy. Winnie seems to be the only person incapable of moving on (I mean, she is also the only one who had to kill someone last year).
Thus, so distraught in her trauma, so isolated by everyone else’s carefree gaiety, she makes a Christmas wish to have never been born (for me – I believed her misery, but the leap to “everyone would be better off without me” seemed more than a little abrupt – almost perfunctory – to hurry up and get us to the premise – in It’s a Wonderful Life, I’m sure George doesn’t decide to kill himself until well after the 2/3 mark, and in this case, Winnie does so before a third of the movie has passed – and this makes a difference). And suddenly, before any bells ring or angels get their wings, no one in Angel Falls knows who she is anymore, and the no-longer-killed-a-year-ago masked angel slasher is back (since she never dispatched him, he has apparently been killing someone every couple of weeks for the whole last year). What’s more, the town has fallen fully into the grasp of the evil developer – now the mayor, and everything has just gone utterly to hell – like Pottersville on crack – literally – now many of her friends (who no longer know who she is) are junkies – maybe this is all a reference to Community, the show where most first saw Joel McHale – this is the darkest timeline. In an uncharacteristic turn for a whodunit slasher, she knows the angel’s identity, but no one believes her of course, and she has to team up with Bernie (a social outcast with whom she shares some chemistry) to try to set everything right. Along the way, the two girls both learn to value their place in the world, each playing Clarence to the other, as they furthermore fall in love.
Of this recent wave of heartwarming, genre bending, comic slashers (such as The Final Girls, Freaky, Happy Death Day, or Totally Killer), sadly, I can’t call this my favorite, but I did very much enjoy it. It takes some unexpected turns here and there, though so much of it depends on us already knowing how a certain kind of story must progress; many of the characters have a spark, and I just enjoy spending time with them; and the Christmas movie of it all generally lands (as I mentioned, it did get me to cry by the end – though I’m an easy mark) – but if at any time it didn’t, I knew it was ok cause someone was going to get stabbed soon. Also, I did connect with the central romance – there wasn’t necessarily a lot of story to hang it on, but the two lead girls did spark, and it was affecting seeing them connect.
And there were problems as well. Many beats don’t track, some moments left me really scratching my head (glowing eyed hypnotism – huh?), and it often felt rushed. I think the story could have benefited from even an additional ten minutes. It clearly combines the slasher not with Capra’s classic film, but instead with a more superficial spin on it, as get churned out every year for TV or now streaming (I heard in an interview with the director that it was even filmed in a town used for a great deal of Hallmark Channel movies and that much of the crew had worked on such films previously). And yet, I find myself pre-disposed to like it – I want to like it – it is likeable (if clearly flawed) – and so I do like it. Of course, if all of its elements worked a bit better, it could be really special. As it is, it is merely a frolic – a light entertainment that passes a dark, cold December evening with a bit of frothy warmth – an imperfect, but highly watchable 87 minutes, full of character, tons of positive representation (a surprising percentage of named characters being gay and/or people of color and/or people with some physical difference – it’s a very open film in that way), a ticklish idea, and, again, a whole lot of stabbing.
Will I watch it every year? Maybe not – but if it’s on some Christmas time, I wouldn’t object to watching it again.
Black Christmas (2006)
So, I know this was a much beloved and critically praised film when it was released back in 2006… by which I mean, people HATED it. Made right in the middle of the 2000s remake boom, it was everything that the original was not. Whereas the earlier film had been a character driven exercise in building suspense and terror while showing very little, following a group of girls you love spending time with, whose deaths you fear for and mourn, with a killer who is never more than an eye through a crack or a deeply off-putting, horrifically unhinged voice or set of voices on the phone, who we never know or remotely understand (and is all the scarier for it), the remake was a gorefest with thinly drawn, disposable characters who were sometimes difficult to tell apart (even if a few were recognizable, known actresses), filled with drawn out exposition, detailing every moment of the killer’s development, eliciting some gasps of shock or revulsion, but ultimately too incoherent to actually be scary. It was… not loved.
And yet, over the years, I’ve seen it experience a kind of reappraisal. With the distance of time, people have been more willing to look past the comparison with its superior namesake and find value in what it is rather than just slamming it for what it isn’t. Now, I never watched it back in the day, and thought this Christmas horror run down was a good opportunity to finally check it out. So what did I think?
Well, the criticism is not wrong. But neither are the people who adore it.
First of all, I would love, if I had the power, to issue a rule that people must stop naming movies Black Christmas. Bob Clark’s 1974 film is simply too good and anyone naming their new film after it is just shooting themselves in the foot (kind of a horror version of naming your movie Citizen Kane). That was true with this flick, which was actually a remake, taking and repurposing many iconic images, names, and elements from the earlier film (sorority house, Christmas break, weird phone calls, crystal unicorns, snow globes, drunk girls being put in bed to sleep it off, a killer named Billy/Agnes, Andrea Martin, etc.), but it was also true for the 2019, much derided, “remake” in name only – which seemed like a completely different story that some executive had slapped the name Black Christmas onto in order to make a couple extra bucks from name recognition. For the record, I did actually rather enjoy the 2019 film – probably much more than this, but I believe the name really hurt it – and it was so unnecessary given how if it’s actually remaking anything, it’s not Clark’s film, but rather S02E05 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer – “Reptile Boy.” Watch them both and tell me I’m wrong.
But about this movie, I can’t say that I loved it, and I can’t say that its structural issues are insubstantial (there were moments late in the film when I really couldn’t follow what was happening from one moment to the next and it feels like almost a third of its runtime is expository flashback), but amidst what might honestly be deemed a total mess, there is some enjoyable horror to be had.
A classy film this ain’t. Rather, its dubious strengths lie entirely in outré moments of utter, shameless excess, whether in terms of gore, gooey gross outs, or sexual taboo. An incestuous, murderous mother, crispy Christmas cookies made of human skin – disgustingly dipped in a glass of milk before being munched upon, and so, so, so many eye balls pulled out of their sockets and squished or eaten or hung on a Christmas tree as festive ornaments – this movie cannot be accused of gently beating around the bush, too scared to commit to its horrors – advisable or not, it is always willing to “go there.”
And that can be fun. Even if it is often weighed down by its failings as a film writ large, this Black Christmas is an absurd, gross, cringe inducing good time that succeeded a couple of times in making me squirm in my seat when I wasn’t scratching my chin, wondering what on earth was going on. Furthermore, I don’t think it’s a film that could have been “better.” It very much is what it is. For example, the amount of time spent in flashback, giving us a backstory for the killer feels just deadly – how could this interminable exposition possibly go on so long? And just when it seems to have finished, a new character starts it up again and we’re back to another ten minutes of flashbacks. But, honestly, some of the best, most awful stuff is in those overlong flashbacks, so I wouldn’t want to cut them. Babies, bathwater, and such… It’s like the song says, “you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both, and there you have” an abused child growing up to eat his mother and subsequently murder sorority girls for some reason…
So yeah – it’s not great – but there is fun to be had if you’re open to it. I’m not offended that it exists, and it does have some memorable moments of excess – which I always have a warm place in my heart for.
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So maybe that’s a good start on the season. These have been three very entertaining watches, even if none is exactly a classic for the ages. But having covered them, there are so many more seasonal films I still haven’t seen, so I think we’re going to stay on this train for at least one more post. Stay warm out there.
