Weekly Cinemeh

Hello, and welcome back to Weekly Cinemeh! This week we finished our month long monster movie marathon. We have done zombies, aliens, and werewolves so far, and this week we round out the horror theme with vampires! Vampire movies are some of my favorite movies because the enemy is almost always suave at the same time as being fucking terrifying. It's the best. To the list!

1: Horror of Dracula
This movie is a pretty decent version of the classic Dracula story. Dracula hires a librarian, who turns out to be the vampire hunter, Johnathan Harker. When Harker fails to kill his target, he is turned by the Count, who then goes to Harker's hometown to get revenge by turning his fiancee. Van Helsing kills his former partner and follows Dracula in an attempt to end his tyranny for ever. Christopher Lee plays the titular character, and does so with style. He's creepy and his very presence has weight, for the like 3 minutes he is in the movie. I can see why he became the go to Dracula for a while though. Peter Cushing plays the main hero, Doctor Van Helsing, and I have to say, I would never have pictured Grand Moff Tarkin as a practitioner of parkour but I will now. He does some pretty impressive running and jumping while fighting Dracula, its impressive. Its a good movie, watch it with some friends while eating too much Halloween candy.

Eshi: I have to admit, I was really hoping that Dracula would have that fucking awesome Christopher Lee voice, but after I got over that disappointment I had a good time. Hammer horror tends to have that old school propriety that serves to add to the apparent discomfort of the characters and the Horror of Dracula is a great demonstration. Peter Cushing is surprisingly compelling as a determined Vampire hunter, and he does indeed book it like a motherfucker when time comes to kick some undead ass. I do find myself wishing both that Sir Christopher was a bigger part of this film, and that he hadn't been guilted into so much work because of it. If you're feeling a good old-fashioned monster movie this is a solid top to that list.

2: From Dusk Till Dawn
This is a more pulpy version of vampires. This movie starts with a two brothers escaping to Mexico after a bit of a crime spree. Along the way they pick up some hostages (a super Christian family of three on a trip) and eventually get to a bar called Titty Twister to wait for a contact who will take them to a safe haven called El Rey. While watching Salma Hayek dance, she and all of the bar's employees turn into vampires and start killing people. Our unlikely group of people then have to survive until morning. I love this movie. It knows that its a little campy, and seeks to take that to the extreme. The cast is great, there are some very funny bits, and the effects are cheesy but not terrible. All in all it is a great movie, watch it with some buddies.

Eshi: From Dusk till Dawn is one of my favorite fun vampire movies. George Clooney is exactly as charming and Clooney-esque as he always fucking is, and Harvey Keitel shows the depth of his phenomenal talent by not making his ex-preacher character into a complete fucking choad. I feel like there where several scenes in this film that had to be done with stunt feet, because Quentin Tarantino reeeeaaaally gets his money's worth on that directorial authority in regards to his weird-ass foot thing. This movie has vampires, tits, violence and a guy named Sex Machine who has a dick gun. Why aren't you watching it right now?

3: John Carpenter's Vampires
This movie starts out with a bunch of vampire hunters killing a bunch of vampires who had made a nest in a Mexican farmhouse. They kill a lot of "goons", but the master vampire is nowhere to be found. Later that night the master interrupts a party the hunters are having by killing 90% of them and turning a hooker. The remaining hunters decide to use the master's telepathic link with his newly turned vampire against him by asking her what she sees when she receives visions from him. It turns out that the vampire they are hunting is the first vampire, and that he is trying to find an object with which he will be able to walk in the sun. I still don't know how to feel about this movie. I love John Carpenter's work, but I didn't enjoy this movie. Truth be told I spent the bulk of this movie making fun of Daniel Bladwin. I thought it was fun watching James Woods try to hard be cool while the vampire leader tried to channel The Crow, but that doesn't make a good movie. The weird "love story" between Dustin Baldwin and Sheryl Lee made no sense. Their entire interaction is him pushing her around, stripping her naked while she was passed out and tying her to a bed, and punching her in her face. This is not a romance as much an abduction but the movie plays it off as the former, and that was a little disconcerting. All in all I think this movie would have been improved with alcohol.

Eshi: I can totally understand why Brian doesn't like this movie. However, between Devlin Baldwin's bipolar courting process and James Woods asking his church liaison if all this violence "gives him wood", I revel in the camp. The master vampire is every broody high schooler in every Hot Topic ever, and Gordo Baldwin's only real value to the plot is to domestic abuse the whole "vampire prostitute" problem until they don't have to bother with that bit of plot anymore. So, if you like campy vampire flicks, John Carpenter, and that one Baldwin brother, maybe work your way into a heady buzz and give this one a go.