Two Orphan Vampires

Two Orphan Vampires
Original Title: Les deux orphelines vampires
Directed by: Jean Rollin
France, 1997
EuroGoth / Horror / Drama, 104min
Distributed by: Njuta Films

In my continuing rediscovery of the great movies of Jean Rollin, I felt that the natural step to go after the fascinating wonder Perdues dans New York (Lost in New York) 1989 was forward - to the stuff that was made after I initially saw those old Redemption videos. I’m certain that the themes and motifs in his catalogue of work all culminate in that splendid movie, and as I consider it somewhat of a bookend which marks an end to Rollin’s exploration of themes and motifs he had used since his 1968 debut Le viol du vampire (The Rape of the Vampire) I was curious to see where he went with these elements when he returned to filmmaking a few years further down the road.

Two young women Louise [Alexandra Pic] and Henriette [Isabelle Teboul], partially blinded reside at an orphanage run by nuns – of course - who know nothing of the two girls background as they where abandoned as children, and Sister Martha [Nathalie Perry] looks at the two women as her little angels. Doctor Dennary [Bernard Charnacé] takes an interest in them and decides that he can help them to regain their sight. Later that night the two girls reveal that they actually only are blind (or colour blind actually) at day, whilst they at night can see and are in fact vampires as they feed on a stray dog in the nocturnal cemetery.

Dr Dennary takes the two girls into his care, but they take off again and at a near by circus a lost woman [Brigitte Lahaie], fails to believe that they are real vampires and provides the two girls with that precious blood the thirst for. Dennary goes away for the weekend leaving the two girls alone, and they obviously hit the town again where their bloodlust get’s the better of them. This childlike night of adventure ends with them being chased by an elderly couple that they scare in the cemetery, forcing them to hide out in a crypt with Venus [Véronique Dajouti] the second of three other night dwellers that they encounter on their way.

A final series of events see the girls taking to hiding back in the orphanage where Sister Martha’s heart is broken as she makes a shocking discovery. Running from the orphanage the farmer they scared at the cemetery earlier returns, and the movie gently moves into a traditional and poetic Jean Rollin climax.

Returning to the Vampire genre after taking a twelve-year absence from it - Fascination 1979 being the last one - there certainly are many things that Rollin could have done here to make Two Orphan Vampires feel like a rehash of vampire clichés. But instead he avoids them and actually takes a complete different path. Normal vampire lore and the rules associated with it are discarded in favour of other strenghts and weaknesses. Where the girls are completely unaffected by the crucifix – they actually start off by living in that catholic orphanage surrounded by nuns, and hide out there when the real world proves to fearsome – they can also wander in the otherwise deadly ultraviolet rays cast down by the sun. But they do have one trait that keeps them somewhat restraint, they cannot see in the sunlight, which has them blind at day and in search of blood at night.

There’s plenty of religious imagery throughout the movie, and the way it holds no power over the girls, along with their disregard for their otherwise traditional values these symbols hold is shown in a neat little scene where Sister Martha kneels before a cross and prays for the two girls who she has just put to bed, then Rollin cuts to the two girls giggling, engaging in a brief pillow fight before they take to the night wandering into a nearby cemetery and feeding off a stray dog. Keep your eyes open for Rollin in a cameo as the cemetery caretaker who later buries the dog.

During the first scene in the cemetery – after we realise that they are vampires – the two girls hold a somewhat philosophical conversation about how they where killed at one point in time, but have come back in their current state. This works as a connection to the earlier vampire flicks of Rollin, linking it with that space created pre Lost in New York - or Fascination if you like, as that was his last vampire film. The two girls hear music playing and dance a waltz on top of a tomb; the music is Phillipe d’Aram’s La Valse Fascinante from the Fascination soundtrack. This is followed by a flashback where the two girls walk across Brooklyn Bridge followed by the first feed of the movie. They also run through the New York locations that the two women in Lost in New York ran though in a montage which att the same time mimics scenes seen in that movie. It's an intelligent montage obviously crafted to bond the movies, hence making them hold a colective place in the Jean Rollin universe. It's not to far fetched to asume that this is what happened to the two girs following the enigmatic climax of Lost in New York. As most of Rollin's movies are contextually linked in several ways, answers to questions posed in earliers films are answered in later entries.

Several of the familiar faces are back once again, and the typical Rollin imagery is here, the cemeteries, chateau's, New York, abandoned railway stations, the looming camerawork and several of his familiar themes. There may not be the persistent theme of “Longing” and “Searching” so commonly found in his work, but there is a strong element of not belonging, which also can be found in the earlier works.

Two Orphan Vampires undoubtedly deals with the theme of not belonging, or not having a place in what may be a reflection on a modern world. This is a theme in addition to "longing" and "searching" which I now see to be of importance in Rollin’s movies, as it reoccurs in several of his pieces. Lèvres du sang (Lips of Blood) 1975, Lost in New York and it’s definitely a core theme to La morte vivante (The Living Dead Girl) 1982 where Françoise Blanchard has serious issues finding her place in the world after returning from the dead as a bloodthirsty ghoul. During their nocturnal endeavours the two girls meet several other creatures of the night which interact with the girls and all make the same claims – they have no place in this world. There’s the She Wolf [Nathalie Karsenty], the Batwoman [Vèronique Djaouti] and finally the Ghoul [Tina Aumont], which you know is the original word for zombie. All of them are anguished characters that have their own stones to bear as they roam the nightly world looking for a peaceful place to be part of.

With the theme of not belonging or alienation in mind there’s an interesting recurrent of discussion whether the girls are in fact live or dead, life versus death that flows through the piece, as they talk several times about their last deaths in their last lives. They are also convinced that they are incarnations of Inca gods, which with a little ethnology understanding could be seen as a form or “not belonging” as the Inca culture only lasted some two hundred years where as the Mayan culture lasted for almost seven hundred years. Despite most of the cover art you will find for the movie, Two Orphan Vampires actually holds a more restrained approach to the nudity at times found in Rollin’s movies. Here he goes more for an emotion of the girls being childlike and naïve, which is noted in the scenes where they look at the book on Inca culture and decide which images in that book represent them. Later they change from claiming that they are goddesses and argue that they are magicians referring to a book of old magic show posters instead. They change their minds, just like children searching for a point of identification in their games.

Finally, Philipe d’Aram’s soundtrack. Like many of the earlier movies he composed scores to for Rollin this definitely has some splendid dreamy and suggestive parts – but at times it get’s very perky and almost too electronic to match the mood and feeling of some scenes, which unfortunately has parts of the score feeling somewhat dated. Although some parts are pure bliss, and it get's the job done.

Based on Rollin’s own pulp novellas – five of them all in all, (one, which I seem to recall being released by Redemption Books back in the nineties) - Two Orphan Vampires at times the films oozes classic Jean Rollin. There are moments evoking those superb movies that make up the wonderful Rollin universe, but at the same time there are parts that are very tedious and drag down the overall feeling of the movie – well at least the parts that get monotonous. This is a shame, as the movie with its whopping 103minute runtime also is the longest of any Rollin movie made and it could have done with a decent trim here and there. The only other movie close is his 1968 debut Le viol du vampire (The Rape of the Vampire) with its 100 min. Perhaps Rollin found the return to vampiric horror such a pleasure that he felt compelled to stay with the material.

Two Orphan Vampires is indeed a qualified entry into the Rollin universe, and despite lacking some of the traits of previous works, its still an entertaining piece that at times evokes the poetry and emotions from his previous works. Two Orphan Vampires is a meditative, tender and delicate piece of film which firmly finds it's place amongst Rollin's cannon, and is definitely worth checking out if you enjoy the older films of the great Jean Rollin.

Two Orphan Vampires is due for release on the 6th of October from Njuta Films.

Boogie Nights : "One Last Thing"

My piece for Moon in the Gutter's P.T. Anderson blogathon is up there now .

I take a peek at the magnificent Boogie Nights and share some thoughs on that climactic grand finale which wraps up the movie.

Go get some.

Paul Thomas Anderson Week...

..over at MOON IN THE GUTTER is rolling as of NOW!

A full week dedicated to the works of P.T. Anderson, there will be boogie, frogs from heaven, great images, splendid music and there will be blood.

Make sure to check this out, it will be awesome.

Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah the Explorer...

Godzilla took a step forward, then another one, then yet another one, and one more. He looked at King Ghidorah. King Ghidorah looked back. Then King Ghidorah also took a step forward. And another one. And one more. He looked at Godzilla. Then they began to fight.

Jack J. - the Danish Nihilistic one-man militia over at En lejemorder ser tilbage (roughly Bloke with bag on head) is a fucking riot. Pay him a visit, as he can take the piss with a talent unlike no other bloke with a bag on his head out there.

A Nightmare On Elm Street [Remake]

A Nightmare on Elm Street
Directed by: Samuel Bayer
Horror, 2010
USA, 95 min

So what the heck where they gonna come up with the burst the bubble with this one? I’d read online reviews claiming that it was a more or less scene for scene remake. This was obviously bollocks, as it’s not a scene for scene remake, but a rather shallow thingy that simply walks in the shadow of that awesome 1984 original. I had high hopes for A Nightmare on Elm Street as I’ve actually enjoyed quite a few of the recent remakes – Marcus Nispel’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2003 was brilliant, it looked just as gritty and dark as it should have. Despite Michael Bay answering original cinematographer Daniel Pearl, back for a second shot at TCM almost fourty years later “Just make them fuckable!” when he questioned “How do you want me to shoot this movie?”, TCM still made an impression, so did Nispel and Pearl’s collaboration on Friday the 13th 2009, with it’s furious twenty minute opening rampage. Zack Snyder’s reworking of Dawn of the Dead 2008 was a great date flick as my wife squeezed bruises on my arm during that one. Breck Eisner’s The Crazies 2010 is also a neat remake, taking it to a darker ground than Romero’s original. Alexandre Aja’s The Hills Have Eye’s 2006 picks up wonderfully when they get into that fucked up post atomic testing village, even if the main monster is a rip off of Chris Cunningham’s Rubber Johnny 2005.

Great original movies that spawned great remakes decades later, which is perhaps why the lesser entries into the original batch ended up being such shitty remakes… Bloody Valentine 3D, Prom Night, Boogeyman, blah, blah, blah… you know what I mean.

Anyway I was really hoping that A Nightmare on Elm Street would scare the damned pants off me once again, as this is one of my most favoured movies of my youth. I saw it as a teenager during a visit to my uncle in the UK. Yeah there has been some great movie moments in my family as we all had a tendency for watching horror and listening to cool music on family gatherings. Go figure. So my parents, my kid brother, my two uncles and their wives where all sat in that living room awaiting to see what is said to be the best scary movie of ages. The tape goes in and the shit kicks in. Playing the part of obnoxious nephew I made a point out of shocking my younger uncles wife on any given occasion. Obviously my scaring her ended up being the movie scaring me as it’s innovative storyline of a dream stalker killing off the kids on Elm Street took over. After the movie my aunt turned to me and said something along the lines of Right you little bastard, I wont tell you when, but sometime during tonight I’m going to come back down here and scare the shit out of you when you least expect it!” Haw haw haw yeah as if you could… but the longer the night went the more wound up I got as every sound heard could have been aunt on her way down to fulfil on her promise. Or Freddy Krueger – sleep deprivation plays sinister tricks on a tired teenage mind. Needless to say I was completely freaked out and scared shitless by the time day broke.

So the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street had a lot of anticipation ahead of it when I two decades later sliped the DVD into the machine… to be modest, it’s somewhat of a let down! I can’t really understand how you can go wrong with a classic movie like this. A classic movie with the shittiest ending of them all, something that really needed redoing right, and they didn’t even tidy that up did they!

As mentioned, it’s not a scene for scene remake, it does live it’s own life, but for some reason the filmmakers have decided to tip their hat’s at certain iconic moments of the original on more than one occasion which ends up being irritating more than fun references. The death of Tina, Tina in a body bag, the magnificent glove in the bathtub moment, Krueger coming out of the wall and the shitty shock ending. I have no time for repetitious in jokes when they bring fuck all to the narrative. But it’d make for a great drinking game if you were up for it.

The core of the story is never the less the same - parents torch peddobear, crispy peddobear comes back and kills their kids in their dreams. I feel that they missed a great opportunity to bring something new with them to the game if they only had followed up the indication that the parents killed Krueger without any hard evidence. It would have been a grimmer movie, because then it would have been about Freddy taking revenge for being murdered without actually being guilty. They don’t, and Freddy is still just a kiddie-molesting bastard. Unfortunately the remake holds nothing on the original, as the magic of the original lies in the fact that it takes a while to realise that Krueger only can get to them when they sleep and there’s an element of good confusion trying to figure out when they are dreaming and not. As usual the remake has to waste time explaining shit that we don’t need to know and even goes as far as telling the audience how sleep deprivation works which really shits on the question and effect of not knowing dream from reality, because from there on it’s just after cheap shock value as Kruger from then on pops up when ever the fuck he wants. It’s also kinda insulting when loud heartbeats rumble on the soundtrack flagging each Kruger attack and the CGI background shatters into his rusty boiler room set. (No Fred, I'm not bitching about CGI, just how they used it!:) )

Oh yeah and five second analysis: I say let’s blame Freud for this one, as the attacks started after one kid, Dean started in therapy and to quote him “some shit from my childhood started coming up!” That’ll teach you to stay out of therapy kids. Better to be fucked up than dead!

With the amount of brilliant and sharp music videos Samuel Beyer has directed, I’d have had expected a step up in the narrative department as he certainly knows how to create some great images, but you can’t do horror with images alone, you need some sort of shit in there to activate the audience or its all just surface and no content. If you can tell a story in four minutes, then why the hell can’t you tell one in ninety minutes while you have the time to explore your characters and stuff. Go figure! Most likely because the movie was rushed and it feels that way too.

Characters are shallower than a saucer of milk. I don’t give a toss about any of them what so ever. Not even Nancy manages to evoke any sympathy this time around. There’s no time what so ever spent on presenting these characters to us, they just roam around as drones and don’t have a chance in hell to stay ahead of Krueger, and I can't wait for the killings to begin. Which in consideration aren't to inventive either. Kyle Gallner's EMO boy with sad eyes and smudged eyeliner isn’t enough to engage me and the kids never really interact with each other either, so there’s no real bond between them. Mara Rooney’s Nancy isn’t much cop either. I never feel the same commitment to her as I did Heather Langenkamp’s incarnation, and her drawing skills stay don’t change much between her childhood doodles and the ones she draws as an adult which kind of sucks. There’s certainly no Johnny Depp’s in the bunch of actors, although Rooney’s career will probably take off after she’s done with David Fincher’s reamericaniamake of Stieg Larsons Millienum trilogy. At times she actually does look like Noomi Rapace, so I’m sure she’ll pull that of with no problems at all.

Another disappointment with the A Nightmare On Elm Street remake is that there’s none of the witty dialogue that made the original such a blast either, and I'm not talking about Kruger's jokes, but the stuff that brought life to the characters. Remember Johnny Depp's famous last words?

GLEN swings his legs over the edge of the bed and shakes his head to clear the cobwebs.

GLEN

Wasn't listening to the tube,

just watching. Miss Nude

America's supposed to be on

tonight.

MRS LANTZ

Well how you gonna hear what

she says?

GLEN

Who cares what she says?

The mother gives up.

To be fair, it’s not all bad. If I was a rookie to the horror genre and hadn’t seen the original flicks, or even just missed the first few and only seen stuff like Rachel Talalay’s Freddy’s Dead 1991 or Ronny Yu’s Freddy vs. Jason 2003, I would probably have been impressed a lot more. On the plus side the movie does look great – it is dark, murky and brooding, there are a few effective shock moments, even if you can see them coming a mile away, and there is at least some sentimental value to those nods at the original the first couple of times. Jackie Earl Healey does take Kruger back to the sinister character that he was in the initial movie, and it’s a relief that the gags and wise cracks are more or less gone. But anyone working with prosthetics and special effects should know that your nose is the first piece of soft flesh to go when your face is on fire I'd have lost the ears and nose if it was my job to pimp my monster - nothing says scary as a gaping hole in a blokes face! So Kruger is simply a creepy guy with a melty face who once again gets the job done, but I still say the story could have been improved with a “wrongfully murdered” theme instead of the same old freaky Freddy back for more guts. Empathetic monsters fuck your mind much more than someone who rightfully got punished even if it was by vigilante force, so that’s a major error in my book.

Oh look! My original movie seems to have been signed by Robert Englund and original cinematographer Jacques Haitkin!

Nevertheless, I’m forty and not the primary audience for horror flicks anymore, and the movie obviously did work as it was one of the highest grossing horror remakes these last years taking in almost 34million dollars at the opening weekend box office and a sequel has already been announced.

The Long Riders

The Long Riders
Directed by: Walter Hill
USA, 1980
Western, 96 min
Distributed by: Studio S

If I was ever told to pick out five Westerns of all time to watch for the rest of my life, I’d have a hard time deciding what the two Italian Spaghetti Western’s would be, but I’d without a moment of hesitation stick Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch 1969, Alex Cox's Straight to Hell 1987 and Walter Hill’s The Long Riders 1980 in that bag to go.

A band of outlaws take to the hills after a bank robbery goes haywire. Taking time to heal wounds obtained, the members go about their ordinary lives giving the movie time to set up characters and traits. Following a heist against the Union Pacific Railroad, the law starts pursuing the riders, leaving a tragic trail of death and destruction in their path – and they are supposed to be the “good guys”. Regrouping after a few months on the run, the James-Younger gang venture further away from home than ever, and Pinkerton is close on their heels. Nerves are tense and as any classic Western structure the movie comes to a culmination with a ferocious final standoff with a nihilistic outcome.

The Long Riders is a underestimated modern classic. It really needs to be re discovered and praised as the masterpiece that Walter Hill created. Sure The Warriors 1979, Southern Comfort 1981 and Last Man Standing 1996 are classics, but as far as I’m concerned The Long Riders is the peak of Hill’s career and is one hell of a superb piece of craftsmanship. It’s definitely not another typical American western gloating in their glory, but a dark and cynical movie that manipulates it’s audience in some magnificent ways.

The Long Riders establishes character values through the initial heist; Jesse James kicks Ed Miller out of the gang for shooting innocent bystanders. There will be no blood spilt consciously by his gang. It’s also Jesse who stays away from the whorehouse and spends his time with his fiancé, Zee [Savannah Smith] who he marries earlier on in the movie. This all set’s up Jesse as a “good” character. ON the other side of the gangs infrastructure there’s Cole Younger. Cole seldom hesitates to engage in a fight or pull his sixshooter from his holster, even if it merely is to mark a warning. Cole’s relationship with Belle Starr [Pamela Reed] ,who he constantly points out is a whore, establishes the difference between the men when it comes to relationships. James has a fiancé who he later marries and starts a family with – good old fashion values. Cole’s abusive relationship with Belle continues throughout the movie, and leads to him duelling Belle’s husband, Sam Starr [James Remar from Hill's previous movie The Warriors 1979, and Michael C. Hall’s Dad in the tv show Dexter.], in a knife fight which once again shows that Cole, despite being a favourable character still plays dirty. Cole is a violent man, and he’s got nothing against bedding whores and other men’s wives. But even Cole redeems himself in the climax when he returns into enemy fire to rescue a fallen family member and later won’t reveal where the James brothers are hiding out. Despite his negative ways, he still holds positive values close at heart when it comes to the gang.

One of the fascinating effects that the skilful presentation of these likeable characters outside the law gives is that we tend to sympathise with them and feel empathy though the tragic events that happen to their family. Through showing the lethal errors of the Pinkerton Law Officials our primal urge for revenge enhances our empathy for the members of the gang. We want them to make it through even though history can’t be altered – unless you are Quentin Tarantino and want a magnificent twist to your second world war epos – and when Mother James asks her son’s “are you gonna make them pay” you will cheer on violent death for the responsible party. This also manipulates us into a mode where we show no sympathy at all for the law - the audience now become part of the outlaw band.

A while back I went on about how actors’ back-catalogue brought to the characters of the movie. Hill goes a step further and in a unique movie I can’t reacall from any other movie, casts real brothers as the brothers who make up the gang. There’s the Quaid brothers Dennis and Randy as the Miller’s, the Carradine brothers Robert, Keith and David as the Younger’s, and the Keach brothers James and Stacey as the infamous Frank and Jesse James. Hills choice of casting is phenomenal and there’s not a weak link in the chain at any time.

Supporting cast is also of significance to the movie’s narrative and plot. Yet another pair of brothers that play an important part in the movie, comedian Christopher Guest and his brother Nicholas play the bringers of death Bob and Charlie Ford. If you know the song, you know the outcome. The Ford brothers are often presented as somewhat hang around characters, and also often met quite nonchalantly by the gang. The Fords want to be a part of the gang, most likely, as it’s a fast road to infamy and wealth. It’s the same drive that leads them to that final moment, which also lead to them becoming immortalised in Bascom Lamar Lunsford’s 1924 folksong “Jesse James” – which the brilliant Pogues covered on their Rum Sodomy & the Lash 1985. It’s also rather ironic that when the gang decide to make their final heist, Jesse James brings in men from outside their clique - Bill Chadwell and Charley Pitt. If he had chosen the Ford brothers his life may have ended in a completely different manner.

The outcast Ed Miller [Dennis Quaid] acts as an agitator towards the gang and returns though subplots on many occasions to emotionally and physically taunt the riders, although he vanishes from the movie after rejecting to expose their hide out.

After the first act is dedicated to setting up the members of the outlaw band – our protagonists, the second act presents the antagonist through Pinkerton and Union Pacific Railroad who set a bounty on the band of outlaws. In the same scene we understand how popular the outlaws are when journalist Carl Reddick [Felice Orlandi] asks Pinkerton agent Rixley [James Whitmore Jr.] what he thinks his chances are of bringing them in. The subtext is superb, Redick knows that the people look at the James younger gang as heroes, and as long as they are at large, Redick has enough stories to tell to sell newspaper. It’s also Reddicks task to report to the audience the status of the hunt and inform us of time passed. He does this by opening his scenes with lines like “Sir, we met a few months back” and the public opinion is clarified when Rixley accuses Reddick of printing lies to make the people look at the gang as a modern Robin Hood.

The third act takes it’s start as the gang regroup to plan that one last heist, the square head - lingo for Swede - bank in Northfield, Minnesota. Unchartered turf for the group, and a town full of citizens warned by Pinkerton that the gang may be coming… Tension builds and judgement is fogged by the anxiety, leading the gang right into a posse of gun toting angry Swedish descendants. Despite the Swedish language gags, well they are not really gags, but if you speak Swedish they come off as humerous moments. If you don’t speak Swedish it’s fair to guess that it would sound like some unaudiable jargon. It’s a harrowing moment when the glory of life outside the law takes a disturbing turn and justice catches up with our antiheroes.

There’s a great omen foreboding the end of an era as they ride into Northfield. Tension is high, and whilst they stalk out the bank they are startled by a high pitched scream. The scream comes from the whistle of a steam engine driving down the main street – a signifier that modern times are a commin’- move over cowboy.

The Long Riders certainly ends on a sinister down note, and despite us knowing how it’s going to end it’s an effective and emotional last reel the movie unleashes. This is what happens when storytelling is at it’s most potent. We have been drawn into a world of outlaws, men that we shouldn’t identify with, but still chose to do so as they have been presented as empathetic characters.

Telling the story of a band of outlaws that anyone who at one time in life picked up a stick and played cowboys knows everything about is somewhat a tricky mission, as we all know that these guys all ended up in wooden boxes riddled with slugs. But kudos to James and Stacey Keach – who wrote the movie so that they could star in it with their mates, the other bands of brothers! How friggin awesome is that? A movie that tells the genesis story of these great legends and became the first western ever to compete at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival! And we mustn’t forget Walter Hill's contribution to that mix, because what they ended up with is one of the all time greatest American westerns, a movie that still stands up and is a powerful, engaging, a times emotional and magnificent tale of a time when the west was wild and heroes didn’t have to be on the right side of the law.

Image:
1.85:1

Audio:
Dolby Digital Mono. English dialogue with optioal Swedish, Finnish and Danish subtitles.

Extras:
Original theatrical Trailer, Biographies, trivia, poster and image gallery and other Studio S trailers.

...and here's that great Pogues cover!

Countess Dracula

Countess Dracula
Directed by: Peter Sasdy
UK, 1971
Hammer, Gothic
Distributed by: Granada Ventures

In March I was at the World Horror Convention in Brighton – Yes I keep mentioning it all the time but it was a fascinating couple of days amongst the company of some equally fascinating people – anyways, whilst we where sat in one of our many interviews, the media guest of honour arrived and gave a brief Q&A. The guest was of course Ingrid Pitt the iconic legend of Hammer Horror championed only by those two bloke’s Cushing and Lee.

As soon as we completed the interview with Dennis Etchison, I shot off back down the main hall to at least get a few moments in the presence of the screen goddess Pitt. Easy to say that I was not the only person wanting to see her and that room was packed tight with spectators, fans, legendary authors and writers in the making.

I found a spot on the stairwell outside and stuck my head round the door, and even though it was a mere momentary brief glimpse I at least laid my eyes to rest on the queen of the damned, Ingrid Pitt in the flesh, another highlight of that fantastic weekend in Brighton.

Thirty-nine years earlier, Pitt, at the height of her career, having become the new star of the UK studios, Hammer and Amicus gave a performance that may be one of her greatest performances ever in Peter Sasdy’s Countess Dracula.

After Countess Elisabeth Nodosheen [Ingrid Pitt] has laid her recently deceased husband to rest, she sets a foul plan in motion when she accidentally realises that virgin blood rejuvenates her aged skin. Well accident and accident, she smacks one of her maids, Terri [Susan Broderick] in the face with a sharp knife, releasing a splash of blood across her wrinkled face. Despite protests, even if they are pretty weak ones, she goes against her lover Captain Dobi [Nigel Green] and set’s her eyes on new found youth which she plans to spend with Lieutenant Imre Toth [Sandor Elès] – a close friend of her late husband and also the inheritor of his stables to Dobi’s dismay. After murdering the young the now rejuvenated and scantily clad Elisabeth starts to make a move on young stud Toth, but in the heat of the moment she claims to be Ilona – her own daughter! Forcing Dobi to do her dirty work yet again – seductively manipulating him with promises of intimacy later… the things men do for love - she has him ride off with a band of soldiers to intercept the wagon containing her daughter Ilona [Lesley-Anne Down] so that she won’t blow Elisabeth’s stolen identity. They do so and keep her hidden in a cabin in the woods where she spends a lengthy time trying to break free from her makeshift prison.

Needless to say the movie really picks up speed from here on. Elisabeth needs blood to stay young and there’s a series of young women lured up to the castle only to meet their untimely deaths, two of the straight from classic Hammer fetishes: one a young gypsy - Nike Arrighi from Terence Fisher's The Devil Rides Out 1968 - who is part of a larger band of travelling gypsies, and the second, Ziza [Susan Broderick] a harlot right out of the Shepherd’s Inn, a good old Hammer pub that figures in the most of their period pieces work, although there’s no Michael Ripper behind the counter this time. Finally Dobi start’s to become jealous of young Imre who’s getting it off with Elisabeth instead of him. Things get worse when Elisabeth and Toth decide to wed, and the final act is set in motion - Dobi starts to interfere, Illona escapes her captors, Elisabeth’s until now faithful nurse starts to turn against her when Illona turns up live and well despite Elisabeth telling her that she’s died… and Elisabeth bathes in blood – giving Pitt an opportunity to flaunt her birthday suit - as she prepares for her wedding night. You know where this is going to go as there have been one to many close calls where young Elisabeth turns into old Elisabeth in the blink of an eye, and once Illona meets Imre there’s no way that he’ll see the wedding though. The movie takes a baleful and ironic turn as the climax is reached, leaving the film with a very typical dark Hammer ending.

Pitt makes the most of her performance here and it’s an impressive piece of work, because she literally changes everything about her when she moves between the old haggard Countess to the young luscious version of herself. Her posture, her movement and even her looks as she's hidden away under layers of mushy makeup and wig. Unfortunately through, she never got to hear her own voice on the soundtrack as it was dubbed with proper British accent. A damned shame as Pitt’s Polish-English growling is splendid and would have added to character.

There’s no time wasted in establishing the vile ways of the Countess. Even before the title rolls she sizes up Lieutenant Toth as they stand by the side of her husbands grave, and on her way home from the funeral she runs over a farmer who has been promised work by her late husband leaving him to die surrounded by his now indefinitely doomed family. There’s no doubt in mind that this is an evil woman we are dealing with.

There’s a lot of subplots used in Countess Dracula that don’t really lead up to any major effect on the main narrative, like the recurrent questioning of where Terri can be – Terri the maid Elisabeth slew first, and that unspoken rivalry between Dobi and Toth, nor the investigation that Chief Bailiff Captain Balogh [Peter Jeffrey] initiates when the bodies of the drained women are found lead to anything. It’s more filler than anything else, and in many ways a waste of great characters. There is so much more that Lesley-Anne Down and especially Nike Arrighi could have done here, not to mention Peter Jeffrey and Maurice Denham.

Even though Countess Dracula is a pretty decent and very entertaining Hammer film – mostly due to Pitt’s splendid performance – there’s a very obvious feeling frustration and confusion within the movie. At the time Hammer where rapidly loosing ground and quality, resulting in their movies declining popularity. Despite the nudity and quasi-erotic tone that Ingrid Pitt brings to the piece, there’s never really enough to make the movie stand out amongst contemporary pieces. Even the rather conservative British soft core sex comedies of the time where raunchier, even if the Hammer films where trying their damndest to push the envelope. And considering what was going on in other European genre flicks at he time, they really didn’t have a chance to get in on the erotic horror scene at all.

Although on the up side, Countess Dracula is one of the better pieces from this time period, and on of few titles that actually stands on it’s own two legs. Much like the Roy Ward Baker’s The Vampire Lovers 1970 - which also see’s Pitt in multiple roles – it merely uses the Dracula franchise, at the time five of them and three more to come, in name only. Where The Vampire Lovers found it’s inspiration in the writing of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Countess Dracula, with it’s misleading title, is obviously inspired by the legend of Erzsébet Báthory. But it really is missing that iconic moment of naked Countessa immersed in a bath of blood. Instead we get Pitt taking a rather silly sponge bath which kinda works, but is terribly pale compared to stuff like the Báthory segment of Borowczyk’s Immoral Tales 1974 or Harry Kümel’s Daughters of Darkness 1971.

Another thing I feel is missing, is the potent and often fantastic scores of James Bernard. Instead there’s a rather weak score by Harry Robinson, which tries to emulate Bernard’s signature sound without really hitting the mark.

For some odd reason Hammer decided to market Countess Dracula as their first film based on a true story… which is kind of odd as it’s not true, there where previous movies based on authentic legends and secondly it diminishes the magnificent performance Christopher Lee gave in Don Sharp’s Rasputin: The Mad Monk 1966. Then again one can never really understand the complex relationship between Hammer and it’s legendary stars like Lee and Cushing. They often give the impression of being somewhat unsatisfied with the work, but still kept on returning for more on a regular basis. Lee is back with the recently resurrected Hammer for their forthcoming The Resident.

Never the less, Hammer continued churning them out in a pace that obviously left them blind to the fact that where they once where innovators, they where rapidly becoming stagnant and colourless. But if you want to see a splendid swan song to a great cinematic heritage, make sure to set a date with Countess Dracula.

Image:

1.78:1

Audio:

Dolby Digital Mono, English dialogue no subtitles.

Extras:

This collectors edition is jam-packed with a lot of goodies such as a thoroughly entertaining Audio Commentary with Kim Newman, Stephen Jones and Ingrid Pitt. News feature on the 50 years of Hammer celebration, and a talk show interview with Ingrid Pitt both from 1999. An episode of Conceptions of Murder (Peter and Maria) starring Nigel Green, an episode of Thriller (Where the Action is) starring Ingrid Pitt and the theatrical trailer for Countess Dracula. There’s also a booklet with essays and articles on the movie and the Bathory legend.

When meetings get boring...

...the mind tends to wander to dark places...

Cool stuff...

...on the net is always a fun way to waste an afternoon at work with.

Jeremy Mincer over at SilverFerox is putting together some neat reworkings of posters for some very iconic movies. I was going to pose the question WHEN we will see his stuff on DVD sleeves in this post... ...when he posted an update on his latest gig for the one and only Mike Baronas over at Paura Productions.

Fate is smiling on Mr. Mincer and I'm still looking forward to seeing his stuff on future DVD's.

If we now could get Baronas to bring a roadshow to Europe...

But until then, get yer' self over to SilverFerox and check out Jeremys artwork, as I totally respect his wish that people don't nick his stuff of his site.