Recently in Vampires Category

Directed by E. Elias Merhige. Starring John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, Udo Kier, Cary Elwes, Catherine McCormack, Eddie Izzard. Drama/horror. Synopsis: A fictional telling of the making of the first great classic vampire movies of all time-Nosferatu-that deals with the idea that the actor portraying the vampire was really a vampire pretending to be an actor pretending to be a vampire.

Now this one is certainly an interesting concept. Its a little older, but I had not seen it or heard much about before taking the chance on picking it up, which was not all that much of a risk since 1) I love almost all things vampire 2) with a cast like this, you figured that it would be a good flick.

The premise is this, a retelling of a true story, that is the making of the great silent film Nofesratu (1921), the first major vampire film based on Bram Stoker's Dracula. The film's producers could not get permission from Stoker's widow to use the novel as the basis of the movie, so went on to make a film that basically told the same story, only changing the names of the characters and the appearance of the villain from the suave, evil Count Dracula to the rodent looking Count Orlock. The film was directed by F.W. Murnau and starred Max Schreck as Count Orlock. The film was a success and still remains a classic to this day. (and, yes, as you might guess, Stoker's widow sued the production company anyway)

This is all fact, easily verifiable and probably known to many movie/vampire buffs. Where Shadow of the Vampire departs from just a historical period piece retelling an interesting story, is to use one of the "rumors" of the time, that being that the incredible performance of method actor Max Schreck as the vampire was so real because...Schreck actually was a vampire. In the film, GF.W. Murnau (Malkovich Burn After Reading Con Air) has apparently struck a deal with the devil, so to speak as he has made an arrangement with the mysterious, method actor Schreck (Willem Dafoe Inside Man) to play the villain in the film he is obsessive about making. Schreck is so into his method preparation that the rest of the crew and cast will only see him in makeup, call him only Count Orlock, and...best of all, they will only shoot at night.

Of course, only Murnau is privy to what is really going on, and the rest of the cast-initially, appreciates the realism of the movie and Schreck's acting skills...but things start to go awry as some of the cast and crew begin to get ill and to disappear. This goes against the original deal Murnau had with Schreck/Orlock, of course, but what was Count Orlock to receive in return from Murnau for his performance? Well, if you answered "the girl", pat yourself on the back and move to the head of the class. The girl is Greta (Catherine McCormack) who is the lead actress playing the Nina Harker role (for those of you who have not read Stoker's book, its the Winona Ryder role from the Dracula movie almost everyone has seen), and who is to arrive on the set for the climatic "death scene". The only problem is, Count Orlock can't wait and he and Murnau start to get a little put out with each other.

There are some genuinely funny moments in this movie and its filmed with great homage and attention to detail from that period of movie making. I can't tell you that this is scary, nor do I think it was meant to be, but the mood of tension on the set of the actors in the movie is something that is real and that you can easily appreciate. If you think about the premise, you need a very good director to pull this off seriously and Merhige hits it out of the park, in my opinion.

Of course, no flick, no matter how interesting the story, good the direction, or eye catching the videography can truly be considered outstanding with good actors. This film has good acting in spades. Malkovich is brilliant as Murnau, portraying the "slowly descending into madness" thing very well and with that unique "Malkovich" kind of presence. He gives you just what you expect from a great actor.

The supporting cast is excellent, particularly Eddie Izzard (Valkyrie My Super Ex-Girlfriend) as Gustav and Cary Elwes as Wagner. They play the shocked appreciation of Schreck's methods to perfection in the beginning, which is important as they realize what they are really dealing with in the end.

Willem Dafoe is outstanding, easily the best of a group of very good actors in this one. Almost unrecognizable in his makeup, he gets the brooding pathos and evil of a rat looking vampire exactly right. Not to mention that he is funny as well, which may be hard to believe in this kind of a movie, but believe me, he is. The scene where he is sharing a bottle with the producers during a break in filming, interrupting the talk to snare and eat a bat with lightning speed, and walking away while the two producers agree that he "is a great actor" was brilliant. Without being a spoiler, I will tell you that the ending encompasses all the theories possible in the telling of the story, and ties them up very well. It was awesome. 

This film is very tongue in cheek, as Willem Dafoe says in the special features of the DVD, "if someone believes that this movie is non-fiction, then that means they believe in vampires, and I can't help you". A brief search of the records of the film shows that, far from any actors or crew disappearing or dying during the filming, several led long lives and died natural deaths, with the actress playing Greta living until the late 1970's and Max Schreck living until the 1950's, succumbing not to a stake or sunlight, but to a heart attack.

I loved Shadow of the Vampire, it quickly goes to my favorites list. Very good flick. 

Horror/Drama. A TNT original movie. Directed by Mikael Saomon. Starring Rob Lowe, Andre Braugher, James Cromwell, Samantha Mathis, Robert Mammone, Rutger Hauer, Dan Byrd. 

Synopsis: A successful writer returns to his hometown Maine to confront his personal demons revolving around a menacing house that sits on a hill above the town. Shortly after his arrival, strange things begin to happen in the form of people disappearing. Ultimately, he and the people of Jerusalems Lot confront the horror of vampirism in their small town.

A few disclosures: Salem's Lot, by Stephen King, is one of my favorite novels, and I try to read it every couple of years. Like many fans who are in the over 30 club, I remember the original TV movie (will later be reviewed in this blog separately) vividly, and being a scared pre-teen when I saw it, it wouldn't be possible to be as scared as I was the first time, if only because I'm not a 12 year old who is scared of the dark anymore. (I'm still scared of the dark, to tell the truth, just not 12) The kid vampire floating outside the window scene in the original is one for the ages. I say this because, anytime a remake is made, and of a popular novel to boot, I think there is the temptation to not talk about the remake on its own merits, but to talk about it as a comparison to the original and/or the book.

So, when I first heard that a remake was in the works, I was very excited to see it. My reaction to hearing that Rob Lowe would be playing Ben Mears was a resounding "Huh?" Now, nothing against Mr. Lowe, he's from my generation (in fact, according to IMDB, we're almost  the same age...but, he's older..haha!!), and I know he has had success, but I wasn't into that whole Brat Pack thing back in the day, and opt now for sports, news, and movies on cable instead of network TV so I'm not that familiar with his work in The West Wing. My impression of him was that he is a celebrity, a pretty boy, and a relative lightweight as an actor. I'll talk more about  my impression and how Mr. Lowe did a little later. 

Some fans of the novel might be irked that the story in this film is set in the present day. I disagree. Some stories, no matter how timeless the theme may be, are period pieces and should stay in that period. Modern film versions of movies like Othello, in my opinion, lose a little something when set in the present day. On the other hand, movies that are remade to the present time like Scarface can work very well. I think Salem's Lot fits in the latter category. First of all, it was only set in the '70's because that was the time that King wrote it, no other reason. In this version, set aside the cell phones and references to the Internet, and we don't have a setting that is too radically different from the original.

The story is largely the same, and this version stays closer to the specifics of the book in some regards but deviates more than the original film in others. There is no question that it develops more of the novel's characters than the 70's version.

Ben Mears (Lowe Tommy Boy, The Hotel New Hampshire ) is a successful writer based in New York who returns to his hometown of Jerusalem's ('Salem's)  Lot to research a book he is going to write on the Marsden house, a home that overlooks the small town and was the scene of a gruesome murder/suicide of the owner and his wife, a crime that a young Ben Mears was witness to as a young boy entering the home on a dare.

Shortly after Ben's arrival back in Salem's Lot, two things happen that really shape the upcoming days in Salem's Lot. First, he meets Susan Norton (Samantha Mathis The American President) and, his attempt to rent the Marsden home are rebuffed when it turns out the home has been sold to a antiques dealer named Richard Straker (Donald Sutherland Human Trafficking  JFK) and his absentee partner, Kurt Barlow (Rutger Hauer The Hitcher, Blade Runner ). Of course, people soon start disappearing around Salem's Lot and its not long before some of the good folks in town start to suspect that the undead might just be walking among them.

As I said earlier, this movie develops more characters along the line of the novel, so it is much more of an ensemble cast than the '79 movie. Dr. Norton , an important character in the novel and the first movie, is replaced  by a younger and, shall we say, more virile Dr. Cody ( Robert Mammone). Dud Rogers (Brendan Cowell) also appears in this version, another important minor character in the book and absent from the '79 movie. 

The most obvious changes from the novel/orginal that fans of either will notice right away are the change in Matt Burke (Andre Braugher) , a much more sinister Larry Crockett (Robert Grubb),  and a much more worldly Mark Petrie (Dan Byrd The Hills Have Eyes). Also, the Kurt Barlow main vampire character is much closer to the novel than the hideous, Nosferatu like character in the '79 movie.

This film is told in the first person, with Rob Lowe doing the narrative throughout the film. This works very well, in my opinion, and Lowe is a more convincing Ben Mears than David Soul in the original. I was pleasantly surprised. Also, this version makes much more use of Father Callahan (James Cromwell The General's Daughter)  than the '79 version, and radically changes his role from the novel.

Again, unless you are one who thinks that a movie based on a popular novel needs to be wedded to every specific of the book, I beleive you will find this change in character enjoyable, as Cromwell plays a flawed, but likeable Father Callahan very well. To me, the changes in this version are, on the whole, minor, and made to make the story more in tune with 21st century front page issues (e.g. homosexuality, child abuse, racism, drug/alchohol abuse, the War in Iraq). However, none of these undercurrents takes from the story, or is overly emphasized, and the story is still wonderful.

Most of the main characters do a little better than their '79 counterparts, but I think this is mainly due to the expanded script and greater latitude in a 2004 cable  film as opposed to a 1979 network TV movie. As I said, Lowe surprisingly surpasses Soul as Ben Mears, the wonderful Samantha Mathis outdoes Bonnie Bedilia as Susan Norton, as Bedelia was saddled without a major impact in the '79 version, especially in the edited version many of us saw on TV where she just disappears from the movie with no explanation. Rutger Hauer is deliciously wicked, if not as shocking, as his '79 counterpart who had no dialogue.

The one major character who is not an upgrade is Richard Straker. No slam on Donald Sutherland, obviously an excellent actor, but his Straker is more humanly evil than James Mason's version in the '79 movie. Mason was the epitome of understated, polite, unspeakable European evil. In other words, Mason was scarier. 

Of the novel characters who got short shrift in the '79 movie, Steve Vidler's Sheriff Parkins stands out. Vidler makes the character much stronger, though probably a little too young, than what is portrayed either in the novel or the '79 film, which makes it even more striking when he makes his choice towards the end of the movie...which coincides with the end of Salem's Lot.

The special effects work, though it would not take much to outdo the '79 movie in that department. We see a lot more believable gore in comparison to '79, but its not over the top nor is it even close to what you will see in a typical modern horror flick. I can't say this version is scarier than '79, although I would bet that most people who have seen both would say the same thing, I think the primary reason for that is that most of use who have seen both are 25 years older. Hopefully, then , the list of things that will make us jump is a lot shorter, or at least different.

What this film does do is tell a much better story, with better acting all around, than the '79 movie. And you need to understand that I consider the '79 movie a classic in this wonderful subcategory (vampires) of horror movies. This is a decent horror movie that is also a good drama, based on a hall of fame novel that makes it a favorite. My only real criticism is the release of the DVD without special features. How long before they realize that we serious movie fans who want to break down every aspect of a film no longer consider special features as an "extra perk", but as a neccessity?

Oh, well, can't have everything.       

Directed by Uwe Boll. Starring Kristanna Loken, Michelle Rodriguez, Ben Kingsley, Matthew Davis, Michael Madsen, Billy Zane. Action/Horror.  Synopsis: A story of a half human half vampire woman who leads a group of humans against the strongest vampire and his clan of vampires, the head vampire happens to be her father. Based on a popular video game.

I'll admit, the box cover of this DVD was the driving force behind my deciding to give this movie a shot. I didn't even read the description, although if I had, I would have picked it up anyway because I am a fan of almost all things vampire. Apparently, this is a flick based on a video game of which I am not familiar, though it seems to me that most of the buzz I've heard from folks who have  seen the movie and are familiar with the game pan the movie. Not surprising to me, based on similar reactions when a popular novel is made into a movie. But, I can't, and won't even try, to talk about this movie from the VG perspective, to me they are such separate mediums that it is borderline amazing to successfully capture the best elements of both.

I can say that Blood Rayne tries to be, and is in many ways, unlike most other vampire movies that you are likely to see. First off, in my opinion, it does not even try to be a horror movie. I include that genre in the synopsis only because I try to put as many possible descriptions on a movie as possible, knowing that one person's drama is another person's action and so on. To me, this is an action movie all the way with the vampires being shown to have more "human" characteristics and emotions than in most other adaptations of the vampire legend/franchise. Its also clear that the film was relying a whole lot on special effects to carry the story.

Rayne (Kristanna Loken) is a half human/half vampire (called dhampir) who starts the saga as an unwilling freak show performer in a carnival, being as she has this funny habit of dining on blood, which seems to heal the cuts inflicted on her human skin at the start of the show. Of course, Rayne is fortunate enough to be a sympathetic figure among some of the other performers, including most importantly a fortune teller, who lets Rayne know that it is her destiny to find and destroy Kagan (Ben Kingsley Suspect Zero), the most powerful and diabolical vampire of them all, who leads the murderous vampire clan. It seems Kagan's vamp clan is after a rare gem, which for some reason will make vampires even stronger than they already are.

And there is this little kicker to boot. Kagan is Rayne's dad. Seems that Kagan violated Rayne's human mother. Fortunately, Rayen is that rarest of creatures, a dhampir who actually survives into adulthood, so she is in a unique position to, as they say, exact a measure of revenge, which Rayne is all too happy to do. Believe me, there is no Cosby-esque Daddy/daughter love here.

Fortunately for Rayne, she is not the only one wants a piece of Kagan and his clan, as she teams up with  fellow vampire hunters (Michelle Rodriquez, Michael Madsen, Matthew Davis). The most important of these pals is Davis' Sebastian, as he becomes Rayne's love interest and they combine for the film's only gratuitous sex scene. (Notice I did not say "love scene")  

The nuances of the plot are somewhat indecipherable and, there will be some cheesy dialogue there for you, so those of you who go into each and every movie looking to critique it against the Citizen Kane standard will have plenty to talk about. The setting is ambiguous, I suppose its set in the Middle Ages times, so I just decided to suspend disbelief a lot with the costumes, as Loken and Rodriguez are dressed in tight, revealing tops that you would expect to see in a Showtime late night bawdy flick...but I wasn't complaining.

Visually, the movie is way above par for its look and effects. We see the vamps going out in different ways than usual, although as a dedicated vampire fan, it seems to me that one of the staples of the franchise is that you have to play by the basic set of rules, whether the vampire is Count Dracula himself in Transylvania as in Bram Stoker's Dracula or hippie looking teenagers hanging out near a California amusement park as in The Lost Boys. That is, there are only a couple of ways to kill a vampire. So, what's this with all of the sword fighting? What the hell use is a sword against a vampire, unless you always manage to pierce his/her heart with it? And why would a vampire have a sword? And, of course, the biggest question: when did vampires start doing the actual deed? I mean, isn't it just accepted that their sucking of the blood is the symbolic replacement for having, shall we say, "relations"?

And, even when movies do imply that the vamp does the deed, its always in conjunction with his wanting his human partner to join him in the world of the undead (like in Blacula) . What I'm driving at here is, why didn't Kagan drink Rayne's mother's blood, what's up with that? 'Cause if he had, then Rayne would have been a full blooded (pun intended) vampire, right? Well, maybe I missed something or I'm just putting too much thought into this.

Anyway, you won't see superior acting in this one, notwithstanding the presence of Oscar-winner Ben Kingsley, who looks outlandish in his wig and seems strangely wooden, not scary or creepy like he did in Suspect Zero. Billy Zane (Titanic) in his cameo and Michelle Rodriguez are the best of the lot. Michael Madsen comes across as if he took this part to have some fun more than anything. Loken is not going to make anyone forget Meryl Streep with her acting, but I think its a little unfair to banish her completely to the "Eye Candy/ Can't Act Group". Like her role in Terminator 3, there is no doubt that her principal purpose is to look sexy but tough and be believable as an action hero, and she does that very well.

Here she has a lot of dialogue, most of it cheesy, but she brings energy to it and has some screen presence. I just think it's kind of hard to pull off this kind of role and really impress with your acting. I think Charlize or Halle might be able to do it, but there is a reason that those two have statues on their shelves, not too many other bombshells could do it, if any. Loken is not bad and, over time, if she ever has some real serious roles in a widely seen movie where she has a real chance to show some depth, a lot of viewers might be surprised, because I think she has some talent.

On the whole, can't say this is a good film, the story is incredulous even for its genre, the acting is mediocre, the directing is uneven, but it does try to step outside of the box somewhat and there are some good scenes and nice effects. You've seen better movies, no doubt. But you've seen a lot worse, no doubt. If you like a little special effects gore, vampire movies, or any of the main actors, lower your expectations, buy it/rent it when its reduced in price, have some popcorn and kill some time when you're bored.