Review: 'Horror of Dracula' Blu-ray

In 1957, the world gasped before the film that defined Hammer Horror. With Terence Fisher behind the camera, and Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, classic monster source material, and an unprecedented degree of violence and sex in front of it, The Curse of Frankenstein laid out the Hammer essentials. 

The following year the same elements perfected it. Fisher's Dracula was even better than his excellent Frankenstein adaptation, this time matching a great villain with an equally formidable hero. Lugosi's Dracula may have still been a bit too iconic for Lee to beat, but Cushing's charming, action-packed Van Helsing was definitive. With Jack Asher's colorful, autumnal photography and Jimmy Sangster's tight script—as well as strong support from Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling and Carol Marsh—Dracula proved to be the finest film from one of horror's defining studios.

Review: 'Dracula Has Risen from the Grave' Blu-ray

A quaint little village is still reeling from Dracula's last rampage, and though the count is dead, the local priest can still feel his evil presence. That's probably because "dead" is a relative term when it comes to vampires, especially one in a long series of Hammer Dracula movies.

So what happens next? The title says it all. Freddie Francis's Dracula Has Risen from the Grave is Hammer's fourth vampire picture, and it's the third with Christopher Lee and the second without Peter Cushing as valiant Van Helsing. Cushing is sorely missed, but a couple of youngsters take up the slack: Barbara Ewing as sexy barmaid Zena and Barry Andrews as refreshing atheist Paul. Because this is a Hammer picture, which always balanced its buckets of red-paint blood and leering close-ups of cleavage with a pretty conservative outlook, you know Paul will see the light by the time the closing credits roll, but it does this with enough subtlety to not be totally off-putting. 

Review: 'Frankenstein Lives: The Legacy of the World's Most Famous Monster'

Dracula may be sexier, but Frankenstein is the king of the monsters. His power, pathos, versatility, metaphorical possibilities, and iconic looks are all larger than manmade life. The story of his literary creation is much more legendary than that of Dracula's, and the subsequent tales he has inspired more profound. So it's only natural that this unnatural character has been the topic of many books.

Review: 'Dark Carnival: The Secret World of Tod Browning' (revised edition)

Tod Browning is not usually considered among the great directors. Although he made over sixty films, only a half dozen or so are regarded by film historians, and the public at large are mostly familiar with two. But they're both doozies. However, although Dracula is among the most iconic films ever made, it's also often dismissed as lazily directed. The other big Browning film, Freaks, is widely considered potent, but it's use of actual circus performers, many of whom are differently abled (a term that really applies here... anyone who'd call Prince Radian disabled couldn't have been paying attention to the film), has been attracting controversy for over ninety years. 

Review: 'The Team-Up Companion'

In 1954, DC halved the page count of its World's Finest Comics and forced Superman and Batman into the same book as if they were a couple of recently divorced bozos sharing a flat. They mostly kept to their own sides of the room, but a new format was inadvertently born: the team-up. This was distinct from crossovers or guest appearances because both heroes were on equal footing in a shared title with both their logos on display. Pretty soon, team ups of everyone from Green Arrow and Martian Manhunter to Supergirl and Wonder Woman to Aqualad and Robin to Richie Rich and Casper to Spider-Man and Dracula (!) began proliferating funny books. 

Review: 'Nosferatu: 100th Anniversary Edition' Blu-ray

This year is the 100th anniversary of F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu, certainly one of the most important horror films ever made for its status as the inaugural Dracula adaptation and its impressively enduring ability to unsettle, which is largely down to Murnau's unrelentingly Goth atmosphere and Max Schreck's still-scary bald-rat portrayal of the count in the days before the character became all urbane and sexy. Because of the anniversary's significance, you could bet there would be some low-budget video releases of this public-domain film to cash in on the occasion. As far as that sort of thing goes, you could do worse than Reel Vault's "100th Anniversary Edition" of Nosferatu. Compared with Kino Lorber's blu-ray from 2013, the one "official" U.S. release, some complaints can still be lodged. While both editions have their share of scratches and blotches, Kino's trounces Reel Vault's in the stability department. The grain of Reel Vault's squirms around the picture like an ant colony, and the intertitles vibrate.

Review: 'The Ultimate Book of Movie Monsters'

One of the great draws of scary movies--which often aren't really that scary at all--is the chance to see some rad monster designs. That's the main draw of Christopher Carton's new book, The Ultimate Book of Movie Monsters, too. 

Review: 'Gothic: An Illustrated History'

Gothic is a bit like that old pornography rubric: I know it when I see it. Dracula? Gothic. King Kong? Not Gothic. The Cure? Gothic. Metallica? Not Gothic. Gothic isn't just the monstrous, or the dark, or the nihilistic. It is ruined structures. It is shadows. It is urbane yet corrupt. It is beautiful and ugly in such close proximity that it is impossible to decipher which specific features are beautiful and which are ugly. Robert Smith tripping on acid with his jet-black bird's nest, smeared lipstick, and vulnerable pout is Gothic. James Hetfield guzzling Bud in denim is not.

Roger Luckhurst keeps his definitions much more specific and academic in his new book Gothic: An Illustrated History. Yes, he agrees that Gothic involves ruined structures, monsters, and blurred borderlines, but he has no problem defining King Kong or Godzilla as Gothic characters because they're monsters and monsters are Gothic. I don't know where he comes down on the big "Is Metallica Gothic?" question because he completely ignores Gothic music. He does address architecture, art, literature, design, and film, so Gothic: An Illustrated History, so it would be unfair to call the book limited, and the writer does cover these topics with authoritative command and novel organization: the chapters are largely organized according to locations, which allows a great deal of discussion of ethnicity and cultures, revealing the racism at the heart of a good deal of what might be considered Gothic. However, by ignoring Gothic music and fashion, Luckhurst leaves a major gaping hole in his book and fails to complete the definition he valiantly works to construct.

The illustrated format of Gothic would have also lended itself very well to discussions of Gothic music and style, since both of those strands are so closely entwined--after all, Robert Smith and Siouxsie Sioux are probably the Goths most Goths strive to emulate. There are no images of those two Gothic icons, but there are plenty of images of architecture, furniture design, fine art, and horror movie stills that make each turn of the page a thrill. 

Review: 'Universal Studios Monsters: A Legacy of Horror' Updated Edition

This year marks 90 years since Universal Studios became synonymous with horror by plopping both Dracula and Frankenstein into theaters. To commemorate that momentous event (and the 80th anniversary of The Wolf Man), Michael Mallory has updated his 2009 book Universal Studios Monsters: A Legacy of Horror. Apparently, no changes have been made to the book's main text, which features synopses and a bit of background information on Universal's monster movies, including less celebrated pictures such as Night Monster and Monster on the Campus, and profiles of significant players from Karloff, Lugosi, and Chaneys Sr. and Jr. to director James Whale, makeup magician Jack P. Pierce, and perpetually shrieking character comedienne Una O'Connor. Short bios on Gloria Stuart and Elena Verdugo imply that these actresses, who died after the book's first publication, are still with us. 

The main changes are in a new introduction from Jason Blum of new horror manufacturer Blumhouse Productions and a 15-page coda mostly focused on Blumhouse/Universal's 2020 update of The Invisible Man. Oddly, there's nothing about Universal's other revivals of classic monsters both successful (1999's The Mummy and its sequels) and considerably less so (2004's Van Helsing, 2010's The Wolf Man, 2014's Dracula Untold). 

Still, it's worthwhile to have Universal Studios Monsters back in print. Serious fans may not learn much from Mallory's text, but the copious B&W and color portraits, stills, posters, and behind-the-scenes snaps of the most recognizable faces since Santa Claus are spectacular. With the additional material, there's also some neat fan art to complete a visually arresting package.

Review: 'Hosted Horror on Television: The Films and Faces of Shock Theater, Creature Features, and Chiller Theater'

In 1957, Screen Gems released a package of 52 horror films produced between 1931 and 1947 to local television stations across the U.S. The "Shock Theater" package arrived with a suggestion that stations might want to employ a host to introduce and comment on the pictures. Every Monster Kid knows what happened next. Vampira popped up on KABC-TV in LA. Roland (soon to be Zacherley) did the same on WCAU in Philadelphia. Chicago's Marvin, San Francisco's Terrence, Indianapolis' Sammy Terry, New Orleans' Morgus, Nashville's Dr. Lucifer, Cleveland's Ghoulardi, Pittsburgh's Chilly Billy, and many others who adopted bizarre, high-camp personas to introduce Lugosi and Karloff pictures followed. Droves of kids too young to see The Invisible Man first time around finally got a chance to revel in James Whale's outre humor. Forry Ackerman fed that love with Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazine, as did The Munsters and Aurora's line of macabre model kits.

The horror host phenomenon was so widespread and influential that it's just waiting for someone to write a terrific book about it. Bruce Markusen's Hosted Horror on Television is not the book because it doesn't really attempt to be. It's basically a critical survey of some of the films that appeared in "Shock Theater" and the later packages "Son of Shock Theater", "Creature Features", and "Chiller Theater". Markusen's specific discussions of the packages and the horrors who hosted them come in fitful bursts that spark the book to life whenever they interrupt his fairly insightful yet wordy critiques. 

Review: 'Drawn to the Dark: Explorations in Scare Tourism Around the World'

In 2013, Chris Kullstroem was fresh out of graduate school and primed to pursue her next project: she would travel the world and experience its various horrific traditions and attractions first hand. She’d hang out in an Oaxaca cemetery on Dia de los Muertos. She’d get whipped by part-time sadists in Krampus masks in Salzburg. She’d visit Kyoto during Japan’s demon-centric celebration, Setsubun. She’d check out the Transylvanian castle that inspired Dracula’s digs and do Walpurgisnacht in Berlin.

Review: 'Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing and Horror Cinema'

Like Karloff and Lugosi, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee partnered in several beloved horror movies that are all the more loved because these two particular actors appeared in them together. Unlike Karloff and Lugosi, Cushing and Lee’s partnership extended beyond the screen. They were close friends who spoke of each other in only the most rapturous tones. That friendship also affected their work, as when Lee prevented Cushing from deserting the Horror Express production by gently reminding him of the good times they had together.

Review: 'The Nosferatu Story: The Seminal Horror Film, Its Predecessors, and Its Enduring Legacy'

Nosferatu may be the first horror feature that really feels like one. Based on one of horror’s top-three essential texts, featuring an iconic portrayal of one of the top-three essential monsters, and brought to life with dank, Gothic atmosphere, F.W. Murnau’s Dracula adaptation is historically significant and still very scary after nearly a century. The film’s making is also well worth deep discussion and very deserving of a book with a title like The Nosferatu Story: The Seminal Horror Film, Its Predecessors, and Its Enduring Legacy.

Unfortunately, that title ended up on book that is disjointed and flimsy. The Nosferatu Story feels like excerpts from essays about early German cinema sutured together in a way more reminiscent of Mary Shelley than Bram Stoker. Author Rolf Giesen fails to tie together his various discussions in a way that tells a satisfying, linear story. He dwells on odd things and skims over essentials. There are thirty pages of discussion of films such as The Golem and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari before Giesen gets to Nosferatu. Then there are another thirty pages of pointless plot description, which is a major issue in a book that is only 210 pages long (and 75 of those pages are devoted to filmographies and appendices). Perhaps the most well known detail of the Nosferatu story is Stoker’s widow Florence’s accusations of copyright violations against the film and the subsequent court decision that demanded every copy of Murnau’s film be destroyed. Instead of unearthing interesting new details about this key part of his story, Giesen darts through it in three brief paragraphs. He does, however, set aside an entire paragraph of his slim book to relay every person director Tony Watt thanks in the credits of some movie called Nosferatu vs. Father Pipecock & Sister Funk.

There are interesting chunks of The Nosferatu Story: The Seminal Horror Film, Its Predecessors, and Its Enduring Legacy —particularly a brief but fascinating biography of star Max Schreck, who applied his own makeup for his portrayal of the rat-like Count Orlock and enjoyed a rich stage career, and everything pertaining to the film's occultist producer, Albin Grau— but the overall telling of that story is much too unfocused to earn its enticing title.

Psychobabble’s 31 Favorite Universal Horrors: #5

Halloween season simply isn’t Halloween season without a regular dose of golden age Universal horror (1923-1963). Every day this October, I’ll be giving you a steady IV drip of it by counting down Psychobabble’s 31 Favorite Universal Horrors!

#5. Dracula (1931- dir. Tod Browning)

Scoff if you will. Many have. They call it static, stagy, and hammy. They call it boring and inept. They can stake themselves as far as I’m concerned. Dracula is flawed in some ways, but the film’s overall effect is profound. This movie is so Gothic, so alluringly archaic, so deeply creepy you can practically smell the dank crypt air. Dracula builds atmosphere like few other films, and a horror movie is nothing without atmosphere. It also has Bela Lugosi, the man who embodies the count so completely that it is always unsatisfying seeing another actor portray him no matter how technically better the actor’s performance is. As iconic as Bela is, Dwight Frye arguably steals the film as Renfield. He’s crazed, but he is also funny, frightening, fearful, and strangely sympathetic. The entire opening sequence in Dracula’s castle is masterful: Dracula’s awe-inspiring appearance on his massive stairway, Renfield and Dracula’s sickly humorous dinner, the dreadful appearance of the vampire’s famished brides. Critics complain that the film loses all steam after it leaves Transylvania, but I prefer to think that the steam that opening sequence builds powers the rest of the picture. Frankenstein is technically a better movie, but no serious horror puts me in the Universal spirit like Dracula.

Psychobabble’s 31 Favorite Universal Horrors: #25

Halloween season simply isn’t Halloween season without a regular dose of classic Universal horror (1923-1963). Every day this October, I’ll be giving you a steady IV drip of it by counting down Psychobabble’s 31 Favorite Universal Horrors!

#25. House of Dracula (1945- dir. Erle C. Kenton)

Not nearly as much fun as Erle C. Kenton’s previous monster-rally house, House of Dracula does improve on its Frankensteinian predecessor in some ways. The film’s three monster’s are better integrated (though there still seems to be an unwillingness to find much for the Frankenstein Monster to do) since Dracula is not dispatched before the other creeps even appear this time. John Carradine continues to make an interesting and elegant vampire, and the mad scientist plot to cure vampirism is pretty original. Plus, you just can’t go wrong any time Universal’s three main monsters share the screen.

Review: 'The Definitive Guide to Horror Movies: 365 Films to Scare You to Death'

In 2006, monster authorities James Marriott and Kim Newman published the first edition of The Definitive Guide to Horror Movies: 333 Films to Scare You to Death. With our current decade slouching toward its conclusion, Marriott and Newman have updated their guide to a neat 365 films, so it can serve as a demon-a-day calendar for horror freaks with plenty of spare time.

The additions are all limited to the eight years that have passed since The Definitive Guide to Horror Movies was last updated, and like the rest of the book, the addendums consist of the essential (instant cult smashes A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, The Babadook, It Follows, Get Out), the awful (V/H/S), and “How’d this get in here?” non-genre pictures (A Field in England). The new material also commits some glaring oversights. How did great stuff such as Black Swan, The Skin I Live In, Kill List, and The Cabin in the Woods not make the cut? Surely there must be a better explanation than “We needed to make room for The Human Centipede 2.”

For those who’ve never read any edition of Marriott and Newman’s tome, it consists of half-page reviews written with an analytical eye and a blob of cheeky wit. Finding 365 great movies in any one genre is pretty tough, and the write ups are not always favorable, so don’t get too bent out of shape about the inclusion of crap such as Last House on the Left, Friday the 13^th, Sleepy Hollow, and Saw. Seven guest critics join the main writers, yet the guests are the only contributors whose reviews receive bylines. It would have been helpful if we’d known which of the others were written by Newman or Marriott since there are sometimes conflicting opinions about certain films (for example, the introduction to the chapter on 1930s films is way more complimentary toward Tod Browning’s Dracula than the specific review of the film is).

It also would have been nice if the expanded format extended before 2010 so that absolute essentials such as Gojira, The Stepford Wives, Gremlins, 28 Days Later, and Shadow of the Vampire could finally take their rightful places in this book. The older entries haven’t even been updated for this new edition, so an insert about made-for-TV horror peters out in 2007, missing the rich vein of today’s scary small-screen choices and the piece on Suspiria indicates that the final chapter of Dario Argento’s Three Mothers Trilogy has yet to be released when Mother of Tears came out all the way back in 2007. There’s also no introductory chapter for all the new entries for 2010s films.

While no one ever pleases all fans with movie guides such as these, Marriott and Newman get it righter than most. If you already own 333 Films to Scare You to Death, 365 Films to Scare You to Death may be worth a double dip, and if you don’t, you’ll probably want to add it to your Halloween wish list… and be sure to check back here on Psychobabble this coming Halloween season, because I’ll be putting my copy to good use.

And Now for No Other Reason Than Universal Horror is Awesome, Here Are 20 Horrific Sketches...

I whipped up some sketches of classic Universal horror characters. Here they are...

Review: 'Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff: The Expanded Story of a Haunting Collaboration'

With the release of Ed Wood in 1994, “Karloff! That Limey cocksucker!” quite nearly replaced “I never drink…wine” and “The children of the night…what music they make” as the go-to phrase when doing a bad Bela Lugosi impression. Tim Burton’s movie hipped the larger film-going public to some of the real-life seething that went on during the filming of such Lugosi/Boris Karloff collaborations as The Black Cat and The Body Snatcher. However, Burton’s superb yet cartoonish film provided little of the complexity behind this classic Hollywood “rivalry.” For that, one would have to take a trip to the local Waldenbooks and pick up a copy of Gregory Mank’s Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff: The Story of a Haunting Collaboration.

Originally published in 1990, the over 350-page book attempted a more nuanced view of a relationship that couldn’t simply be boiled down to a venerated horror star and a jealous, drug-addled also-ran. Swelling with an additional 250-or-so pages in 2009, the now Expanded Story of a Haunting Collaboration went into even greater depth with additional information and interviews. By Mank’s analysis, Lugosi and Karloff may have enjoyed a rather friendly working relationship while making Son of Frankenstein, and the alleged hatred Lugosi felt for Karloff may have really been directed at a Hollywood system that constantly ground the vampire under its merciless stake.

Karloff is not completely without blame in this mostly one-sided clash of titans. While he never had an explicitly nasty thing to say about Lugosi, his patronizing insistence on referring to his co-star as “poor Bela” in private and public could not have endeared himself to the actor who could be quite proud despite demeaning himself in Poverty Row and Ed Wood pictures.

Mank’s valiant attempt to uncover how Lugosi and Karloff really felt about each other was doomed to go without a definitive answer, but that barely matters when the rest of the story is so fascinating and well told. Mank goes deep into the movies they made together with nearly scene-by-scene analyses without neglecting the most important pictures they made without the other. So we get very satisfying histories of Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, and other key films, as well as quite a bit of information about other key players in those films such as James Whale and Colin Clive.

Last updated nearly a decade ago, Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff: The Expanded Story of a Haunting Collaboration is now enjoying a new printing though not another updating. That’s generally fine since there probably haven’t been many new revelations about the Karloff/Lugosi rivalry in recent years since so many of their other collaborators have died. Mank’s incessant leching over Lugosi and Karloff’s female co-stars is more than a little dated and brings nothing but discomfort to the storytelling, but if you can get past that, you will find that Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff: The Expanded Story of a Haunting Collaboration remains one of the great studies of classic horror films.

Psychobabble’s 100 Favorite Monsters!

Welcome, foolish mortals, to Psychobabble’s House of 100 Monsters. Creak up the steps and over the threshold. Within this vile abode you will encounter not 98, not 99, but one hundred of the most terrifying, horrifying, unpleasantifying creatures who have ever haunted the page, the screen, and the breakfast table. They are my personal favorite freaks, ranked from terriblest to really terriblest. No Halloween is complete without a visit to a spook house, and my house of horrors is as spooky as it gets. So I formally invite you to freak out to Psychobabble’s 100 Favorite Monsters. Step right this way…

100. Tar Man

First, allow me to guide you down into the basement where a certain deceased individual has recently been resurrected by a certain military-grade toxic gas. Don’t ask me who he was in life, but in death this standout star of Return of the Living Dead is like an E.C. Comics zombie in the oozing flesh and he wants one thing only... brains!

99. Black Frost

Sidestep the Tar Man and take a break by our deep freeze. Oops. Bad idea, because inside is a terrifying thingy that blasts incapacitating frosty air from its jockstrap. This is how Black Frost brought down The Mighty Boosh, and it traumatized many viewers of their surreal British comedy by baring its unsettlingly white teeth before breaking into a hideous dance of death. He’s one icy bastard.

98. Clayface

Wait a minute… that chap wasn’t Black Frost at all! His face has morphed back into its natural state—that of one Matt Hagen, better known as Batman’s hulking, shape-shifting nemesis Clayface, one of the nastiest and most genuinely monstrous monsters to ever menace Gotham City!

97. Wampa

Back in the deep freeze is another terrible creature, a towering snow beast with white, shaggy fur and clawed paws the size of trashcan lids. Is it the Yeti? Nah. They wouldn’t know what the hell a Yeti is up on the distant planet of Hoth. That’s where the Wampa whomps Luke Skywalker’s face off in the shocking attack that kicks The Empire Strikes Back into gear.

96. Pumpkinhead

Review: 'The Monster Movies of Universal Studios'

When I was a Monster Kid, there was nothing I liked to check out from the school library better than books about classic horror movies. They gave you the basic rundown of what made flicks like Dracula and The Wolf Man so boss and delivered plenty of B&W photos to back it up. Today, works such as Gary D. Rhodes’s Tod Browning’s Dracula and David J. Skal’s The Monster Show take a more scholarly and/or critical look at the classics. The Monster Movies of Universal Studios falls somewhere between the kids and film criticism library shelves.

Author James L. Neibaur zips though the 29 movies he covers too swiftly for the book to qualify as scholarship, and his writing is simple enough for any Monster Kid to grasp (Neibaur is an Encyclopedia Britannica contributor, and his affectless writing would not be out of place in an encyclopedia), but he does make room in each roughly 5-to-10 page chapter to get into a bit of plot synopsis, a bit of criticism, and a bit of background history. For those of us who’ve consumed what’s already out there, chapters on well-examined films such as Dracula and The Wolf Man are redundant, but ones on items such as The Invisible Woman and The Mummy’s Tomb are fresher—if not exactly revelatory— and more likely to stimulate Neibaur’s critical side. That latter observation is not a sly criticism of Neibaur, since the Monster Kid in me appreciates his unabashed love of Dracula, a delightful film too often run down in contemporary criticism, and since analysis is not the author’s primary goal.

Neibaur limits his discussions to films that deal with the big six monsters of Universal (or Universale, as he repeatedly spells it for some reason) —Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, and The Creature—which means that both Chaney and Rains’s Phantoms and Abbott & Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde get left out of the chat, as do non-Monster horrors such as The Black Cat and The Old Dark House. So The Monster Movies of Universal Studios isn’t exactly the definitive book on the topic, but I bet some modern-day Monster Kids might still enjoy checking it out of their own school libraries.