The original Fright Night came out in 1985 and I was a few weeks from 10 years old. I was decidedly not a horror aficionado and frankly the poster (and matching soundtrack album cover) was the scariest thing I'd ever seen in my life at the time. I stayed well away. I finally caught up with it a couple of years ago, when I did my series on ( Read more... )

You may remember that last fall I did a series of posts on vampire films, all of which contributed significantly more to the bloodsucking canon than The Series Which Shall Not Be Named. I didn't *quite* finish it, so I thought this week, being "Eclipse Week," would be the perfect opportunity to finish the last couple of planned posts and link to ( Read more... )

Since I'm ending things with Dracula, I thought I'd close us out with my personal favorite adaptation of Stoker's novel and the one that is the most faithful. I'm talking about Francis Ford Coppola's operatic adaptation that goes so far as to invoke the author's name in it's title.


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Today I give you yet another version of Count Dracula, starring Frank Langella and British acting giants such as Laurence (of) Olivier, Donald Pleasance, and Kate Nelligan. The version with probably the greatest deviations from the novel (that I've seen, at least), it's still a rather effective vampire movie.


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Peter Cushing + Christopher Lee = INSTANT AWESOME! Peter Cushing VS. Christopher Lee = INSTANT AWESOMER!


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The dictum of "less is more" could hardly have a more convincing argument than the first official film version of the Dracula legend, Tod Browning's 1931 Dracula, featuring the Hungarian actor who had played the Count on stage - and who would perhaps be the name and face most associated with Dracula on film in years to come - Bela Lugosi. ( Read more... )

The granddaddy of all vampire films. Followed by something of a riff on it.


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Oh, 1970s, how I love thee.


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Okay, it's actually Wolf Man who's got nards, but I bet Dracula has them, too. :P


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Apparently your generation doesn't want to see vampire killers anymore, nor vampires either. All they want to see slashers running around in ski masks, hacking up young virgins.

The poster for this film (seen here) used to scare the bajeezus out of me, and when it was released in 1985, I was still very wary of anything resembling horror. (Plus, ( Read more... )