Films watched 2023
So help me, it's a list of every single film I watched in 2023. I've put notes where I could remember anything particular about the film or the viewing circumstances, but haven't tried to do that consistently. This is more about record-keeping than reviewing now.
1. Dracula (1958), dir. Terence Fisher - deliberately chosen as our first film of the New Year so we'd be starting it out right!
2. Fright Night 2 (1988), dir. Tommy Lee Wallace
3. Dracula Has Risen From The Grave (1968), dir. Freddie Francis
4. Hellboy II (2008), dir. Guillermo del Toro
5. The Vampire Bat (1933), dir. Frank R. Strayer
6. Vampire in Venice / Nosferatu a Venezia (1988), dir. Augusto Caminito - would be an amazing film about decay and ageing, if it didn't also have Klaus Kinski being actively peedy in it.
7. Caligula (1979), dir. Tinto Brass, Giancarlo Lui and Bob Guccione - the fullest, unexpurgated version, seen at Wharf Chambers as a Pervert Pictures screening, complete with a contextualising introduction. It's the logical extreme of the decadent Rome trope.
8. The Company of Wolves (1984), dir. Neil Jordan
9. Dracula Bloodline (2013), dir. Jon Keeyes
10. The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1964), dir. Michael Carreras
11. The Bride (1985), dir. Franc Roddam - a take on Frankenstein which I remember seeing on TV s a teenager, featuring Sting as Victor Frankenstein. It also draws on Pygmalion in portraying his relationship with a female creature whom he makes, and acknowledges this with a dialogue reference to the story.
12. The Damned United (2009), dir. Tom Hooper - one of Joel's favourite films, about Brian Clough's career as coach for Derby and then Leeds United. He does support Leeds United, but it's much more the narrative of rivalry and driven-ness that appeals, as far as I understand it!
13. The Wicker Man (1973), dir. Robin Hardy
14. Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), dir. Jim Jarmusch
15. The Wicker Man (1973), dir. Robin Hardy - sing-along screening at the Old Woollen in Farsley. I dressed up as Lord Summerisle in the ritual procession and Joel dressed as Sergeant Howie, and we won a bottle of wine!
16. Theatre of Blood (1973), dir. Douglas Hickox
17. Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988), dir. James Signorelli
16. Curse of Frankenstein (1957), dir. Terence Fisher - watched with Siobhan. I think I only fully realised on this viewing that Paul Krempe is supposed to have been away the night Frankenstein kills the professor, as he says "we didn't expect you back until the morning" when Paul walks in.
17. Dracula (1977), dir. Philip Saville - the Louis Jourdan version
18. Centurion (2010), dir. Neil Marshall - nominally a film about Roman Britain, but I felt the (very basic) essential story could have been set in any period really.
19. Bathory (2008), dir. Juraj Jakubisko - stars Anna Friel, and is a hot mess. Lurches from genre to genre with no apparent logic or consistency, has dialogue so murky and buried under music and soundtrack that I could barely make out 50% of what the characters were saying, and has so little exposition that even though I'd just finished Tony Thorne's excellent book on Bathory which several of the scenes in the film map onto directly, I struggled to tell what was going on half the time.
20. The Raven (1935), dir. Lew Landers - starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. We watched this immediately after Bathory, and the contrast was enormous! It's tightly plotted, well paced, with not a scene or a line wasted, the dialogue is crystal clear, and so is the plot. The first few scenes showed a car going off a mountain road, a picture of a red cross and then a hospital. After Bathory we were like "thank god, they're telling us what's going on!"
21. Martin (1977), dir. George A. Romero - one of my favourite vampire films, and Joel's first viewing of it. By leaving the question of whether or not Martin is 'really' a vampire open, Romero makes us rethink the standard moral framework of the vampire film. The moral weight of what both Martin and Tateh Cuda do in the film is no different he's a vampire or not - people still die either way. But in a standard vampire film, we'd cheer Tateh Cuda. Romero makes us ask whether he is any better than Martin.
22. Day of the Dead (1985), dir. George A. Romero and also featuring John Amplas, which is why this seemed like a good time to watch it.
23. The Pagan Queen (2009), dir. Constantin Werner - film about the legend of Prague's foundation. Trying to be a fairy tale, but didn't really have the right narrative arc for it.
24. She Played With Fire / Fortune is a Woman (1957), dir. Sidney Gilliat - insurance fraud / murder mystery revolving around who exactly set fire to a large country house and / or killed the husband out of the couple who lived there. Christopher Lee featured as an ill-tempered actor putting on an absolutely dreadful Scottish(?) accent, getting all of about five lines and thirty seconds of screen-time.
25. Countess Dracula (1971) dir. Countess Dracula - not a amazing film, but better than Vampire Circus from around the same period. From amongst the Hammer films I've seen, I'd liken it to the Viking Queen in being quasi-historical, but not very.
26. Gothic (1986), dir. Ken Russell - the Villa Diodati crew on a shared bad trip.
27. The Ghoul (1933), dir. T. Hayes Hunter - a great little film with Boris Karloff, though it didn't seem quite as good on this viewing as I remember from the first time round. It lost its way a bit around two-thirds in, with too much purposeless chasing people around the house.
28. Electric Boogaloo: the Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (2014), dir. Mark Hartley - a documentary film about the film company famous for bonkers low-budget action films, showing how equally bonkers the two guys behind the company were. Would make a great drama.
29. Wizards (1977), dir. Ralph Bakshi - done by the same guy as the animated Lords of the Rings. Very good animation style, especially the still drawings and chromakey live action material. Probably includes some of the same footage that was reused LotR. The story was rather weak, though.
30. Dracula's Daughter (1936), dir. Lambert Hillyer - beautiful, atmospheric, poignant as ever.
31. Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), dir. Robert Florey - starring Bela Lugosi as Dr Mirakle. Some decidedly kinky content, including a woman being kidnapped and tied to a giant wooden cross while forcibly injected with gorilla blood. Pre-figures King Kong in some ways, and is basically about fears regarding devolution and miscegenation. But the main monster being a man in a gorilla suit, coupled with some terrible small-part actors, made it hard to take seriously, and it completely jumped the shark at the point when one character announced that he was making macaroni, that typically Parisian dish, while clearly stirring a bowl full of spaghetti.
32. Dracula's Great Love (1973), dir. Javier Aguirre
33. The Whip and the Body (1963), dir. Mario Bava - beautifully well lit. Essentially about Nevenka's suppressed masochistic desire manifesting in the form of a ghost.
34. Dracula AD 1972 (1972), dir. Alan Gibson - 'our' film, watched to mark the first anniversary since we got together.
35. Climate of the Hunter (2019), dir. Mickey Reece - not as good as the trailer suggested, but fine.
36. Crypt of the Vampire (1964), dir. Camillo Mastrocinque - a loose version of Carmilla starring Christopher Lee, with a lot of lesbian subtext and the two leads running around in nightdresses.
37. The Dacii (1966), dir. Sergiu Nicolaescu - a rewatch after seeing Sarmizegetusa in Romania, this time watched with Joel.
38. WolfCop (2014), dir. Lowell Dean
39. Marie Antoinette (2006), dir. Sofia Coppola - one of my sister's favourite films, watched on a weekend with her.
40. The Invention of Lying (2009), dir. Ricky Gervais, Matthew Robinson - watched on the same weekend, though this time with her children as well.
41. Dracula (1979), dir. John Badham - the Frank Langella version
42. Love at First Bite (1979), dir. Stan Dragoti
43. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), dir. Adam McKay
44. The Column (1968), dir. Mircea Drăgan - sequel to The Dacii, a first watch for me and Joel
45. Horror of Frankenstein (1970), dir. Jimmy Sangster
46. The Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), dir. Peter Weir
47. That's Your Funeral (1972), dir. John Robins
48. Streets of Fire (1984), dir. Walter Hill
49. The Vampire's Ghost (1945), dir. Lesley Selander
50. Vamp (1986), dir. Richard Wenk
51. The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), dir. Val Guest
52. Quatermass II (1957), dir. Val Guest
53. Quatermass and the Pit (1967), dir. Roy Ward Baker
54. Legend (1985), dir. Ridley Scott
55. Psycho Goreman (2020), dir. Steven Kostanski - watched with Tim and Claire at the beginning of our Hadrian's Wall holiday.
56. The Twelve Tasks of Asterix (1976), dir. Albert Uderzo, René Goscinny, Pierre Watrin and Henri Gruel
57. Arcadia (2017), dir. Paul Wright
58. Amadeus (1985), dir. Miloš Forman
59. Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021), dir. Jason Reitman
60. Diary of a Madman (1963), dir. Reginald Le Borg - based on Guy de Maupassant's short story, The Horla, and starring Vincent Price. On paper that should be great, but somehow there wasn't much subtlety to it.
61. Castle of the Living Dead (1964), dir. Warren Kiefer
62. The Torture Chamber of Dr Sadism (1967), dir. Harald Reinl
63. Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971), dir. Roy Ward Baker
64. The Haunted Mansion (2023), dir. Justin Simien
65. Highlander II: The Quickening (1991), dir. Russell Mulcahy
66. Renfield (2023), dir. Chris McKay
67. The Bells (1926), dir. James Young
68. The Legend of The 7 Golden Vampires (1974), dir. Roy Ward Baker, Chang Cheh - a Cellar Club watchalong which I live-tweeted here
69. Bit (2019), dir. Brad Michael Elmore - about a lesbian vampire coven.
70. Tales of Dracula (2015), dir. Joe DeMuro - a super-low budget with nods to Nosferatu, Universal, Hammer etc. It might have been funny, but I was a long way away from being in the right mood for it.
71. The Scarlet Blade (1963), dir. John Gilling - Hammer Civil War film
72. The Long Hair of Death (1964), dir. Antonio Margheriti - I'm not really sure when I watched this, so it may be somewhat out of sequence here, but I definitely did at roughly this time. An Italian gothic and a great example of witchy women taking supernatural vengeance on the men who have wronged them from beyond the grave.
73. Challenge the Devil / Katarsis (1963), dir. Giuseppe 'Nello' Vegezzi - surreal and chaotic yet strangely fascinating film, which turned out to be as surprising as it was partly because it had been completely re-edited after its first screening, complete with the addition of totally new framing scenes that weren't intended as part of the original story.
74. Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962), dir. Terence Fisher - a German Christopher Lee film I've wanted to see for decades, and was able to thanks to the Eurocrypt box set which Joel got me for my birthday. It turned out to be very old-fashioned by comparison with similar productions from the UK and Italy at this time, but we enjoyed deconstructing it.
75. The Devil-Ship Pirates (1964), dir. Don Sharp - another Christopher Lee film I'd wanted to see for ages, though recorded off the tell this time. On paper it should be great, but it somehow failed to sparkle.
76. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), dir. Robert Wiene - my first watch, and obviously amazing. Love how it played around with sleep, dreaming, illusion and reality. I'll definitely want to see this again, especially in a cinema.
77. Nightmare Castle (1965), dir. Mario Caiano - amazing overblown Italian gothic mansion film which had become the touchstone for the album Joel released on Halloween, so I thought I should watch it! An excellent example of the genre.
78. The Haunting (1963) - watched with Joel in pursuit of the same vibe. Had forgotten how effective it was to hear the main character's internal dialogue throughout the film. Really creates a claustrophobic feeling of being trapped inside her head, as well as of course making everything we see on screen highly subjective.
79. The Playgirls and the Vampire (1960), dir. Piero Regnoli - another Italian gothic mansion film, featuring a bunch of dancers taking shelter from a storm in a vampire's castle. Silly but fun and with some good visuals.
80. The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023), dir. André Øvredal - was glad to be able to see this (thanks to the good offices of a friend of Joel's) after it was basically tanked by its distributors. I wouldn't say it was amazing, but it was a solidly good take on this narrative with plenty of good atmosphere and visuals.
81. The Blancheville Monster (1963), dir. Alberto de Martino - absolutely beautiful Italian gothic horror, one of the best I've seen for sets, locations, lighting and how the characters were filmed moving through it all.
82. El Conde (2023), dir. Pablo Larraín - surreal black comedy in which the dictator Pinochet is actually a vampire, using the idea to explore themes of exploitation and the ongoing effects of the Pinochet regime. Great visuals, good satire.
83. Crypt of the Vampire (1964), dir. Camillo Mastrocinque - a very lesbotic Italian / Spanish adaptation of Carmilla, with Christopher Lee.
84. Castle of Blood / Danza Macabra (1964), dir. Antonio Margheriti and Sergio Corbucci - a journalist accepts a bet to stay the night in a haunted castle to 'prove' that ghosts aren't real, and of course discovers to his cost that tey (or vampire-like beings anyway) are. Features Edgar Allan Poe as a character within the story.
85. Son of Frankenstein (1939), dir. Rowland V. Lee. The with Basil Rathbone as the son, Boris Karloff as the creature and Bela Lugosi as an Ygor wit a broken neck. Always striking to me for the amazing expressionist / art Deco sets.
86. The Masque of the Red Death (1964), dir. Roger Corman - seen in Whitby with Joel, who had read the story the night before so was able to comment very directly on how the two related.
87. Massacre in the Black Forest (1967), dir. Ferdinando Baldi and Rudolf Nussgruber - an Italian-German co-production about the battle of the Teutoburg Forest. The traditional German take on this story has of course been all about heroic resistance to Rome, but the Italian involvement is pretty heavy here, seemingly including all of the script-writers. As a resut, Arminius is not a straightforward hero and it's all about seeking a peaceful co-existence.
88. Slade in Flame (1975), dir. Richard Loncraine - surprisingly grim band vehicle film starring Slade, depicting corruption in the music industry so advanced that a guy is literally killed by heavies as part of a contract dispute. The obvious setting, Birmingham, was evidently deemed Not Grim Enough, and substituted with derelict parts of Sheffield instead.
89. Dracula Untold (2014), dir. Gary Shore - terrible history, but great sub-LotR / Game of Thrones / Coppola dark gothic fantasy.
90. Dracula AD 1972 (1972), dir. Alan Gibson - 'our' film, watch while we both had COVID and probably for at least the fifth time together. Had to be done since we'd originally intended a tour of its locations on the weekend when we were sick.
91. Suspiria (1977), dir. Dario Argento - every bit as surreal, visually splendid and suspenseful as its reputation.
92. Brides of Dracula (1960), dir. Terence Fisher
93. Port Afrique (1956), dir. Rudolph Maté - a murder mystery set in Morocco, briefly featuring Christopher Lee as a painter whom the the murdered woman had had an affair with.
94. Straight on Till Morning (1972), dir. Peter Collinson - a Hammer serial killer film which I'd been meaning to watch for ages. Very creepy and disturbing with some fantastic use of camera-work to show the lostness of the main character in the brutal big city.
95. The Blues Brothers (1980, dir. John Landis - I struggled to find the plot or main characters very engaging, but it was cool to see classic stars like Aretha Franklin, Little Richard and Cab Calloway doing their cameos.
96. Scrooge (1970), dir. Ronald Neame - musical with Albert Finney and a childhood favourite of Joel's which he likes to watch every Christmas. Some of the songs are terrible (as he'd be the first to admit), but it gets good value out of what was evidently a pretty high budget, and I do like seeing Scrooge dancing cheerfully along to 'Thank You Very Much' without realising everyone is thanking him for dying.
97. Cash on Demand (1961), dir. Quentin Lawrence - fantastic Hammer thriller starring Peter Cushing as a Scroogean bank manager, which also counts as a Christmas film because it takes place two days before Christmas and includes a charity collector dressed as Santa standing outside the bank.
98. Queen Marie of Romania (2019), dir. Alexis Cahill - hagiographical biopic.
99. Dracula père et fils (1976), dir. Édouard Molinaro - French comedy which Christopher Lee insisted he didn't know was going to be billed as a Dracula film. I'd only previously seen it in French without subtitles, but Joel got me the second Severin Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee box set for Christmas, which includes a subtitled version. It didn't seem either as funny or as poignant with subtitles, but still pretty decent.
100. Lady Frankenstein (1971), dir. Mel Welles and Aureliano Luppi - an Italian film in which Frankenstein's daughter continues his experiments, including building her ideal man out of the brain of her older assistant and the body of a servant with learning disabilities. Ends in a blazing inferno.
101. Don't Look Now (1973), dir. Nicolas Roeg - Joel's first viewing, my second or third. An incredible movie which really stays with you. Beautifully shot, it adds up to a poignant portrait of out-of-season Venice. I also love how it refuses to explain itself, simply putting events and images alongside each other, so that the viewers are as confused and disoriented as the characters.
102. A Haunting in Venice (2024), dir. Kenneth Branagh - recent (very loose) Poirot adaptation, and the first of Branagh's that I've seen. It was OK, but having shifted the setting of the original story (The Halloween Party) from an English country house to Venice, it felt like it was wasting Venice's potential compared to Don't Look Now. Attempts were made, e.g. via shots looking down through the rain on the canals, but it could have been a lot better.
103. Vampyr (1932), dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer - another first viewing for Joel, who loved it. Always amazing.
104. Slaughter of the Vampires (1962), dir. Roberto Mauri - slightly confusing but typically beautiful Hammer-influenced Italian gothic.
105. The Vampire and the Ballerina (1960), dir. Renato Polselli - a group of dancers stranded in a castle practice their routines and find themselves prey to a vampire. Very similar to The Playgirls and the Vampire of the same year.
1. Dracula (1958), dir. Terence Fisher - deliberately chosen as our first film of the New Year so we'd be starting it out right!
2. Fright Night 2 (1988), dir. Tommy Lee Wallace
3. Dracula Has Risen From The Grave (1968), dir. Freddie Francis
4. Hellboy II (2008), dir. Guillermo del Toro
5. The Vampire Bat (1933), dir. Frank R. Strayer
6. Vampire in Venice / Nosferatu a Venezia (1988), dir. Augusto Caminito - would be an amazing film about decay and ageing, if it didn't also have Klaus Kinski being actively peedy in it.
7. Caligula (1979), dir. Tinto Brass, Giancarlo Lui and Bob Guccione - the fullest, unexpurgated version, seen at Wharf Chambers as a Pervert Pictures screening, complete with a contextualising introduction. It's the logical extreme of the decadent Rome trope.
8. The Company of Wolves (1984), dir. Neil Jordan
9. Dracula Bloodline (2013), dir. Jon Keeyes
10. The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1964), dir. Michael Carreras
11. The Bride (1985), dir. Franc Roddam - a take on Frankenstein which I remember seeing on TV s a teenager, featuring Sting as Victor Frankenstein. It also draws on Pygmalion in portraying his relationship with a female creature whom he makes, and acknowledges this with a dialogue reference to the story.
12. The Damned United (2009), dir. Tom Hooper - one of Joel's favourite films, about Brian Clough's career as coach for Derby and then Leeds United. He does support Leeds United, but it's much more the narrative of rivalry and driven-ness that appeals, as far as I understand it!
13. The Wicker Man (1973), dir. Robin Hardy
14. Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), dir. Jim Jarmusch
15. The Wicker Man (1973), dir. Robin Hardy - sing-along screening at the Old Woollen in Farsley. I dressed up as Lord Summerisle in the ritual procession and Joel dressed as Sergeant Howie, and we won a bottle of wine!
16. Theatre of Blood (1973), dir. Douglas Hickox
17. Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988), dir. James Signorelli
16. Curse of Frankenstein (1957), dir. Terence Fisher - watched with Siobhan. I think I only fully realised on this viewing that Paul Krempe is supposed to have been away the night Frankenstein kills the professor, as he says "we didn't expect you back until the morning" when Paul walks in.
17. Dracula (1977), dir. Philip Saville - the Louis Jourdan version
18. Centurion (2010), dir. Neil Marshall - nominally a film about Roman Britain, but I felt the (very basic) essential story could have been set in any period really.
19. Bathory (2008), dir. Juraj Jakubisko - stars Anna Friel, and is a hot mess. Lurches from genre to genre with no apparent logic or consistency, has dialogue so murky and buried under music and soundtrack that I could barely make out 50% of what the characters were saying, and has so little exposition that even though I'd just finished Tony Thorne's excellent book on Bathory which several of the scenes in the film map onto directly, I struggled to tell what was going on half the time.
20. The Raven (1935), dir. Lew Landers - starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. We watched this immediately after Bathory, and the contrast was enormous! It's tightly plotted, well paced, with not a scene or a line wasted, the dialogue is crystal clear, and so is the plot. The first few scenes showed a car going off a mountain road, a picture of a red cross and then a hospital. After Bathory we were like "thank god, they're telling us what's going on!"
21. Martin (1977), dir. George A. Romero - one of my favourite vampire films, and Joel's first viewing of it. By leaving the question of whether or not Martin is 'really' a vampire open, Romero makes us rethink the standard moral framework of the vampire film. The moral weight of what both Martin and Tateh Cuda do in the film is no different he's a vampire or not - people still die either way. But in a standard vampire film, we'd cheer Tateh Cuda. Romero makes us ask whether he is any better than Martin.
22. Day of the Dead (1985), dir. George A. Romero and also featuring John Amplas, which is why this seemed like a good time to watch it.
23. The Pagan Queen (2009), dir. Constantin Werner - film about the legend of Prague's foundation. Trying to be a fairy tale, but didn't really have the right narrative arc for it.
24. She Played With Fire / Fortune is a Woman (1957), dir. Sidney Gilliat - insurance fraud / murder mystery revolving around who exactly set fire to a large country house and / or killed the husband out of the couple who lived there. Christopher Lee featured as an ill-tempered actor putting on an absolutely dreadful Scottish(?) accent, getting all of about five lines and thirty seconds of screen-time.
25. Countess Dracula (1971) dir. Countess Dracula - not a amazing film, but better than Vampire Circus from around the same period. From amongst the Hammer films I've seen, I'd liken it to the Viking Queen in being quasi-historical, but not very.
26. Gothic (1986), dir. Ken Russell - the Villa Diodati crew on a shared bad trip.
27. The Ghoul (1933), dir. T. Hayes Hunter - a great little film with Boris Karloff, though it didn't seem quite as good on this viewing as I remember from the first time round. It lost its way a bit around two-thirds in, with too much purposeless chasing people around the house.
28. Electric Boogaloo: the Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (2014), dir. Mark Hartley - a documentary film about the film company famous for bonkers low-budget action films, showing how equally bonkers the two guys behind the company were. Would make a great drama.
29. Wizards (1977), dir. Ralph Bakshi - done by the same guy as the animated Lords of the Rings. Very good animation style, especially the still drawings and chromakey live action material. Probably includes some of the same footage that was reused LotR. The story was rather weak, though.
30. Dracula's Daughter (1936), dir. Lambert Hillyer - beautiful, atmospheric, poignant as ever.
31. Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), dir. Robert Florey - starring Bela Lugosi as Dr Mirakle. Some decidedly kinky content, including a woman being kidnapped and tied to a giant wooden cross while forcibly injected with gorilla blood. Pre-figures King Kong in some ways, and is basically about fears regarding devolution and miscegenation. But the main monster being a man in a gorilla suit, coupled with some terrible small-part actors, made it hard to take seriously, and it completely jumped the shark at the point when one character announced that he was making macaroni, that typically Parisian dish, while clearly stirring a bowl full of spaghetti.
32. Dracula's Great Love (1973), dir. Javier Aguirre
33. The Whip and the Body (1963), dir. Mario Bava - beautifully well lit. Essentially about Nevenka's suppressed masochistic desire manifesting in the form of a ghost.
34. Dracula AD 1972 (1972), dir. Alan Gibson - 'our' film, watched to mark the first anniversary since we got together.
35. Climate of the Hunter (2019), dir. Mickey Reece - not as good as the trailer suggested, but fine.
36. Crypt of the Vampire (1964), dir. Camillo Mastrocinque - a loose version of Carmilla starring Christopher Lee, with a lot of lesbian subtext and the two leads running around in nightdresses.
37. The Dacii (1966), dir. Sergiu Nicolaescu - a rewatch after seeing Sarmizegetusa in Romania, this time watched with Joel.
38. WolfCop (2014), dir. Lowell Dean
39. Marie Antoinette (2006), dir. Sofia Coppola - one of my sister's favourite films, watched on a weekend with her.
40. The Invention of Lying (2009), dir. Ricky Gervais, Matthew Robinson - watched on the same weekend, though this time with her children as well.
41. Dracula (1979), dir. John Badham - the Frank Langella version
42. Love at First Bite (1979), dir. Stan Dragoti
43. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), dir. Adam McKay
44. The Column (1968), dir. Mircea Drăgan - sequel to The Dacii, a first watch for me and Joel
45. Horror of Frankenstein (1970), dir. Jimmy Sangster
46. The Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), dir. Peter Weir
47. That's Your Funeral (1972), dir. John Robins
48. Streets of Fire (1984), dir. Walter Hill
49. The Vampire's Ghost (1945), dir. Lesley Selander
50. Vamp (1986), dir. Richard Wenk
51. The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), dir. Val Guest
52. Quatermass II (1957), dir. Val Guest
53. Quatermass and the Pit (1967), dir. Roy Ward Baker
54. Legend (1985), dir. Ridley Scott
55. Psycho Goreman (2020), dir. Steven Kostanski - watched with Tim and Claire at the beginning of our Hadrian's Wall holiday.
56. The Twelve Tasks of Asterix (1976), dir. Albert Uderzo, René Goscinny, Pierre Watrin and Henri Gruel
57. Arcadia (2017), dir. Paul Wright
58. Amadeus (1985), dir. Miloš Forman
59. Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021), dir. Jason Reitman
60. Diary of a Madman (1963), dir. Reginald Le Borg - based on Guy de Maupassant's short story, The Horla, and starring Vincent Price. On paper that should be great, but somehow there wasn't much subtlety to it.
61. Castle of the Living Dead (1964), dir. Warren Kiefer
62. The Torture Chamber of Dr Sadism (1967), dir. Harald Reinl
63. Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971), dir. Roy Ward Baker
64. The Haunted Mansion (2023), dir. Justin Simien
65. Highlander II: The Quickening (1991), dir. Russell Mulcahy
66. Renfield (2023), dir. Chris McKay
67. The Bells (1926), dir. James Young
68. The Legend of The 7 Golden Vampires (1974), dir. Roy Ward Baker, Chang Cheh - a Cellar Club watchalong which I live-tweeted here
69. Bit (2019), dir. Brad Michael Elmore - about a lesbian vampire coven.
70. Tales of Dracula (2015), dir. Joe DeMuro - a super-low budget with nods to Nosferatu, Universal, Hammer etc. It might have been funny, but I was a long way away from being in the right mood for it.
71. The Scarlet Blade (1963), dir. John Gilling - Hammer Civil War film
72. The Long Hair of Death (1964), dir. Antonio Margheriti - I'm not really sure when I watched this, so it may be somewhat out of sequence here, but I definitely did at roughly this time. An Italian gothic and a great example of witchy women taking supernatural vengeance on the men who have wronged them from beyond the grave.
73. Challenge the Devil / Katarsis (1963), dir. Giuseppe 'Nello' Vegezzi - surreal and chaotic yet strangely fascinating film, which turned out to be as surprising as it was partly because it had been completely re-edited after its first screening, complete with the addition of totally new framing scenes that weren't intended as part of the original story.
74. Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962), dir. Terence Fisher - a German Christopher Lee film I've wanted to see for decades, and was able to thanks to the Eurocrypt box set which Joel got me for my birthday. It turned out to be very old-fashioned by comparison with similar productions from the UK and Italy at this time, but we enjoyed deconstructing it.
75. The Devil-Ship Pirates (1964), dir. Don Sharp - another Christopher Lee film I'd wanted to see for ages, though recorded off the tell this time. On paper it should be great, but it somehow failed to sparkle.
76. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), dir. Robert Wiene - my first watch, and obviously amazing. Love how it played around with sleep, dreaming, illusion and reality. I'll definitely want to see this again, especially in a cinema.
77. Nightmare Castle (1965), dir. Mario Caiano - amazing overblown Italian gothic mansion film which had become the touchstone for the album Joel released on Halloween, so I thought I should watch it! An excellent example of the genre.
78. The Haunting (1963) - watched with Joel in pursuit of the same vibe. Had forgotten how effective it was to hear the main character's internal dialogue throughout the film. Really creates a claustrophobic feeling of being trapped inside her head, as well as of course making everything we see on screen highly subjective.
79. The Playgirls and the Vampire (1960), dir. Piero Regnoli - another Italian gothic mansion film, featuring a bunch of dancers taking shelter from a storm in a vampire's castle. Silly but fun and with some good visuals.
80. The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023), dir. André Øvredal - was glad to be able to see this (thanks to the good offices of a friend of Joel's) after it was basically tanked by its distributors. I wouldn't say it was amazing, but it was a solidly good take on this narrative with plenty of good atmosphere and visuals.
81. The Blancheville Monster (1963), dir. Alberto de Martino - absolutely beautiful Italian gothic horror, one of the best I've seen for sets, locations, lighting and how the characters were filmed moving through it all.
82. El Conde (2023), dir. Pablo Larraín - surreal black comedy in which the dictator Pinochet is actually a vampire, using the idea to explore themes of exploitation and the ongoing effects of the Pinochet regime. Great visuals, good satire.
83. Crypt of the Vampire (1964), dir. Camillo Mastrocinque - a very lesbotic Italian / Spanish adaptation of Carmilla, with Christopher Lee.
84. Castle of Blood / Danza Macabra (1964), dir. Antonio Margheriti and Sergio Corbucci - a journalist accepts a bet to stay the night in a haunted castle to 'prove' that ghosts aren't real, and of course discovers to his cost that tey (or vampire-like beings anyway) are. Features Edgar Allan Poe as a character within the story.
85. Son of Frankenstein (1939), dir. Rowland V. Lee. The with Basil Rathbone as the son, Boris Karloff as the creature and Bela Lugosi as an Ygor wit a broken neck. Always striking to me for the amazing expressionist / art Deco sets.
86. The Masque of the Red Death (1964), dir. Roger Corman - seen in Whitby with Joel, who had read the story the night before so was able to comment very directly on how the two related.
87. Massacre in the Black Forest (1967), dir. Ferdinando Baldi and Rudolf Nussgruber - an Italian-German co-production about the battle of the Teutoburg Forest. The traditional German take on this story has of course been all about heroic resistance to Rome, but the Italian involvement is pretty heavy here, seemingly including all of the script-writers. As a resut, Arminius is not a straightforward hero and it's all about seeking a peaceful co-existence.
88. Slade in Flame (1975), dir. Richard Loncraine - surprisingly grim band vehicle film starring Slade, depicting corruption in the music industry so advanced that a guy is literally killed by heavies as part of a contract dispute. The obvious setting, Birmingham, was evidently deemed Not Grim Enough, and substituted with derelict parts of Sheffield instead.
89. Dracula Untold (2014), dir. Gary Shore - terrible history, but great sub-LotR / Game of Thrones / Coppola dark gothic fantasy.
90. Dracula AD 1972 (1972), dir. Alan Gibson - 'our' film, watch while we both had COVID and probably for at least the fifth time together. Had to be done since we'd originally intended a tour of its locations on the weekend when we were sick.
91. Suspiria (1977), dir. Dario Argento - every bit as surreal, visually splendid and suspenseful as its reputation.
92. Brides of Dracula (1960), dir. Terence Fisher
93. Port Afrique (1956), dir. Rudolph Maté - a murder mystery set in Morocco, briefly featuring Christopher Lee as a painter whom the the murdered woman had had an affair with.
94. Straight on Till Morning (1972), dir. Peter Collinson - a Hammer serial killer film which I'd been meaning to watch for ages. Very creepy and disturbing with some fantastic use of camera-work to show the lostness of the main character in the brutal big city.
95. The Blues Brothers (1980, dir. John Landis - I struggled to find the plot or main characters very engaging, but it was cool to see classic stars like Aretha Franklin, Little Richard and Cab Calloway doing their cameos.
96. Scrooge (1970), dir. Ronald Neame - musical with Albert Finney and a childhood favourite of Joel's which he likes to watch every Christmas. Some of the songs are terrible (as he'd be the first to admit), but it gets good value out of what was evidently a pretty high budget, and I do like seeing Scrooge dancing cheerfully along to 'Thank You Very Much' without realising everyone is thanking him for dying.
97. Cash on Demand (1961), dir. Quentin Lawrence - fantastic Hammer thriller starring Peter Cushing as a Scroogean bank manager, which also counts as a Christmas film because it takes place two days before Christmas and includes a charity collector dressed as Santa standing outside the bank.
98. Queen Marie of Romania (2019), dir. Alexis Cahill - hagiographical biopic.
99. Dracula père et fils (1976), dir. Édouard Molinaro - French comedy which Christopher Lee insisted he didn't know was going to be billed as a Dracula film. I'd only previously seen it in French without subtitles, but Joel got me the second Severin Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee box set for Christmas, which includes a subtitled version. It didn't seem either as funny or as poignant with subtitles, but still pretty decent.
100. Lady Frankenstein (1971), dir. Mel Welles and Aureliano Luppi - an Italian film in which Frankenstein's daughter continues his experiments, including building her ideal man out of the brain of her older assistant and the body of a servant with learning disabilities. Ends in a blazing inferno.
101. Don't Look Now (1973), dir. Nicolas Roeg - Joel's first viewing, my second or third. An incredible movie which really stays with you. Beautifully shot, it adds up to a poignant portrait of out-of-season Venice. I also love how it refuses to explain itself, simply putting events and images alongside each other, so that the viewers are as confused and disoriented as the characters.
102. A Haunting in Venice (2024), dir. Kenneth Branagh - recent (very loose) Poirot adaptation, and the first of Branagh's that I've seen. It was OK, but having shifted the setting of the original story (The Halloween Party) from an English country house to Venice, it felt like it was wasting Venice's potential compared to Don't Look Now. Attempts were made, e.g. via shots looking down through the rain on the canals, but it could have been a lot better.
103. Vampyr (1932), dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer - another first viewing for Joel, who loved it. Always amazing.
104. Slaughter of the Vampires (1962), dir. Roberto Mauri - slightly confusing but typically beautiful Hammer-influenced Italian gothic.
105. The Vampire and the Ballerina (1960), dir. Renato Polselli - a group of dancers stranded in a castle practice their routines and find themselves prey to a vampire. Very similar to The Playgirls and the Vampire of the same year.