I select a thematically appropriate horror movie for each day of the year and tell you about it.
Why?
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
How do you get to decide what qualifies as a horror movie and where each one goes on the calendar?
I am the Mayor of Horror Movies.
Are all these movies good?
Oh gosh no. But I recommend all of them to the adventurous viewer.
What’s with the CWs?
In horror movies, disturbing material is part of the entertainment package. But for some viewers, elements like sexual violence or bigotry ruin the fun. For those folks, I include content warnings. That said, the warnings are based on my personal reactions and should not be expected to cover all potential cinematic skeeviness, so proceed with caution.
Who are you, aside from the mayor?
I’m Shaenon K. Garrity. I’m mostly a cartoonist. I watch a lot of scary movies while I draw cartoons.
Truth. Christopher Lee was amusing as Dracula, especially once he ran out of fucks to give, but Cushing was the one who made the Hammer Dracula movies worthwhile.
I love the film, and Lugosi certainly locked down most of the Dracula tropes that have persisted for the last 87 years. But I’m gonna have to give Best Dracula to Max Schreck. He may have been called Orlok in the film, but he’s way closer to book!Dracula and Stoker’s widow did successfully sue the producers for plagiarism.
I’ve been reading the book recently, and I would really love to see an adaptation that gets closer to it than any of the ones I’ve seen so far. It feels like the first few adaptations were pretty hampered by the restrictions of the medium at the time, and all the more recent ones I’ve seen felt more like remakes of those early adaptations, rather than adaptations in their own right, if that makes sense. There’s so much depth in the book that isn’t brought across in the film versions.
Closest adaptation so far has been Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which is more of a “Reader’s Digest Condensed Version” of the original novel but still not bad IMHO. I agree that most of the other adaptations are either remakes of the original Dracula with Lugosi or variations on a theme (eg Dracula 2000) that take some serious liberties with the original source material.
The only thing this version doesn’t have is the best Van Helsing. That honor goes to Peter Cushing in the Hammer version.
Truth. Christopher Lee was amusing as Dracula, especially once he ran out of fucks to give, but Cushing was the one who made the Hammer Dracula movies worthwhile.
I love the film, and Lugosi certainly locked down most of the Dracula tropes that have persisted for the last 87 years. But I’m gonna have to give Best Dracula to Max Schreck. He may have been called Orlok in the film, but he’s way closer to book!Dracula and Stoker’s widow did successfully sue the producers for plagiarism.
Tom Waits was the best Renfeld! Anthony Hopkins and Winona Ryder however, as much as I love them in other things, are the worst Van Helsing and Mina.
Frank Langella made a pretty charismatic Dracula!
Underrated movie Dracula: George Hamilton
I’ve been reading the book recently, and I would really love to see an adaptation that gets closer to it than any of the ones I’ve seen so far. It feels like the first few adaptations were pretty hampered by the restrictions of the medium at the time, and all the more recent ones I’ve seen felt more like remakes of those early adaptations, rather than adaptations in their own right, if that makes sense. There’s so much depth in the book that isn’t brought across in the film versions.
Closest adaptation so far has been Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which is more of a “Reader’s Digest Condensed Version” of the original novel but still not bad IMHO. I agree that most of the other adaptations are either remakes of the original Dracula with Lugosi or variations on a theme (eg Dracula 2000) that take some serious liberties with the original source material.
I’ll have to bump that one up on my list. I’ve been wanting to see it for a while, because Tom Waits, but I’ve not gotten around to it. Thanks!