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.

Diary of the Dead 2018: Week 5

I’m logging my Monster Movie Month © viewing with ultra-mini reviews at the end of every week this October. I write it. You read it. No one needs to get hurt.

October 26

Hellraiser (1987- dir. Clive Barker) **

The premise of Clive Barker's adaptation of his own novella, The Hellbound Heart, is appropriately skeletal. Some dickhead stumbles into hell, and manages to escape and return to corporeal form by slaughtering the assholes his sister-in-law/sex monkey lures to him using her feminine wiles. Unfortunately, a band of mutant hell monsters miss torturing him so much that they go searching for him in the earthly realm. With its bad acting, leaden dialogue, and over-the-top gore, Hellraiser plays like a pre-teen goth's attempt to freak out his parents. Ooooh! Extreme!

Phenomena (1985- dir. Dario Argento) ***