Fangs for the Memories
Oct 1st, 2008 | By Rick | Category: News & Comment
Ok, so it’s October, and it’s time to start the soon-to-be-annual Halloween special. All over the interenet, movie bloggers are gearing up for one of our biggest months. Two I’m particularaly looking forward to are Bill over at The Kind of Face You Hate and Jonathan at Cinema Styles, who are cooking up some pretty interesting stuff this month. With that in mind, I hereby kick off my own special content for October, called — not particularly originally — “Fangs for the Memories,” wherein I plan to concentrate on my favorite horror genre, the vampire flick.
Seeing as how one of the primary virtues is to “know thyself,” I don’t promise to contribute a piece every day. I’m not particularly good at discipline, and follow-through sometimes eludes me. Besides, I have a full-time job that actually pays money, unlike this blogging gig. What I plan to do is contribute essays on my favorite vampire movies, both already seen and new ones that I’m sure will be favorites as soon as I’ve watched them.
Has the vampire genre ever really gone out of style? The western, over the years, has come and gone, the noir came and has now left the building, but the vampire flick just keeps soldiering on. Just this past year, there was a passable vampire movie (30 Days of Night) and just last month, the vampire series True Blood debuted on HBO.
Seems the genre is stronger than ever, and although we probably won’t get much of anywhere analyzing why, we should have some fun along the way. First up will be Nosferatu, hopefully by close-of-business today.
RSS 2.0
I feel like I’m at work (oh wait, I am) with that close-of-business talk. “We need this by C.O.B., no later!”
Look forward to sinking my teeth into your posts. Ahahahaha ha haaa haa … uh… sorry.
About the COB … it was late, I was tired, and, well ….
I vant to drink your blood!
(btw, the article now links to your and Bill’s blog … as I said, it was late)
I’ve never been able to decide whether I liked vampire or zombie movies better. I actually think television has done a much better job in the vampire category that the movies have. Look at Dark Shadows, Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the unequalled Count Dracula starring Louis Jourdan. I can count on one hand the vampire films that are their equal.
There is a little movie called Let The Right One In that is slowly buzzing and bubbling it’s way up to becoming the “next” vampire movie, though, it kind of steals, unintentionally, the tone of Claire Denis’ Trouble Every Day.
I will be curious to hear people’s opinions when it comes out. Do vampire/zombie geeks like when their sub-genre goes “art film”? Or, have v/z geeks already splintered off into their own special groups?
Here’s some of the overpouring hype surrounding it…
Marilyn,
I really like zombie flicks, too, but I don’t think they have the resonance — sexual, theological, etc. — that a good vampire movie can have. I think there’s a reason they’ve been popular throughout the history of the movies; really, zombie flicks have only been around since 1960 or so (although there were two in the thirties and one in 1943).
Still, I love a good zombie film, and there are some interesting recent variations: Danny Boyle’s “28 Days Later,” of course, but also Simon Pegg’s “Shaun of the Dead” and Andrew Currie’s “Fido.”
Fox,
I don’t consider myself a Vampire geek at all, it’s just my favorite genre of horror. I don’t watch all that much horror, to tell the truth, which is why I’m in awe of folks like Arbo who are walking encyclopediae of all things horror.
I kind of like it when vampire movies go all art-house, though. I’m looking forward to “Let the Right One In”
BTW… I mean “geek” in the most affectionate way. Sometimes people get huffy about that term. I’m a geek too.
I’m not upset about it, I’m just not a vampire-film geek. I’m not obsessed with vampire movies, only wanna watch them, only wanna write about them. I am geeky in other ways, though.
‘Let the Right One In’ is going to ROCK MY WORLD. Well, I hope it will, anyway.
Also, I love that the first Christopher Lee movie I ever watched was ‘Return from Witch Mountain.’
Vampires do resonate more, but I think zombie flicks are more fun - and in the case of the Romero “Dead” series, more socially pointed.
My favorite vampire movies are Nosferatu (Herzog), Interview with the Vampire, Near Dark, and the original Dracula.
Scott … I LOVE “Return from Witch Mountain”.
Marilyn,
I like Herzog’s “Nosferatu” as well, and I tried to put it on my Netflix queue to re-watch it for this month, but suddenly it says unavailable, which is weird because that’s where I saw it the first time.
And I think “Interview with the Vampire” is very underrated.
“Has the vampire genre ever really gone out of style?
I don’t think so!…
The western, over the years, has come and gone,
This is true!…constantly, being reinvented by the likes of Eastwood, Costner,etc, etc, etc…
the noir came and has now left the building.”
Well…that is true, but before it left the building… it stopped “married” and created a progeny…called neo~noir. … and let me tell you a couple of the noir progeny’s names…“NCFOM,” “Before the Devil Know That You Are Dead,” “Eastern Promises” and “There Will Be Blood.”
but the vampire flick just keeps soldiering on. Right you are!
Rick, it (Vampire flicks) just keeps soldiering on and on and….
dcd
Rick, please tell me you’ve seen the Andy Warhol Production….BLOOD FOR DRACULA.
It’s hilarious and stars the most weak Dracula ever filmed. He literally runs around, whines and throws up…blood!
Hilarious campy fun.
Rick said,”The western, over the years, has come and gone…”
and Rick, here it comes again!
http://www.welcometoappaloosa.com/
dcd
Oops! Sorry! Rick,
I am unable to “open” the link!
dcd
dcd —
Well, yes about the Neo-noirs, and although I never thought of NCFOM or Eastern Promises as neo-noirs, but so be it. Although I’d call them thrillers and gangster flicks (respectively) before neo-noirs.
Joe, I’ve seen the Warhol flick, but it’s been years. Gotta see it again! Maybe even write about it, if I can find it.
Ooh, sorry I missed this. Well, I guess I haven’t missed your October Project yet, but I missed this kick-off to the celebrations.
But I have to be honest, I’m a little burned out on vampires. I love Herzog’s Nosferatu, agree that Interview with the Vampire is underrated, love a number of Hammer’s films, and also found 30 Days of Night to be diverting. But I do prefer zombie films, because the potential to explore the characters, and to indulge in true nightmarish horror, is, I think, greater.
However, Rick, I’m hoping you’ll be able to point me towards some vampire films I’ve never seen that might respark my interest. By the way, have you seen Trouble Every Day, referenced by Fox earlier? I admit, that’s another good’un. Extremly disturbing.
Nope, never seen it … I hope to find some beyond the usual to look at … gotta find the Warhol Fox talks about, as well, so I can hopefully talk about this.
Zombie films, just by the very nature of the crime do indeed have a higher disgust factor. But I ask you: who’s ever seen a suave, debonair zombie?
But who knows, after this month I may be a little burned out on Vampire movies as well.
It’s not really the disgust factor that appeals to me in zombie films, although it’s unavoidable (at least as zombie films have been defined for the last 40 years) and, I admit, an occasional perk. It’s more that, in the best zombie films, a character can find themselves dragged down by a mob of these things, or even by resurrected loved ones, and have no idea why any of this is going on, why they’re dying like this, how the world could be ending this way.
And why I would refer to such a thing as one of the “appeals” of zombie films, I have no idea. Poor choice of words, I supposed. But I tend to take the horror genre pretty seriously. Too seriously, in fact.
Yeah, compared to you and the estimable Arbo — and even Lapper, don’t tell him I said so — I am a veritable horror piker, a dilettante, if you will.
However, that’s the really cool thing about being a blogger. I’m inspired by my friends in the blog-world, and so I’ve started my October festivities with the full expectation that I’ll get more horror I.Q. as the month goes on.
I get to watch vampire movies! How much better can it get!
“Well, yes about the Neo-noirs, and although I never thought of NCFOM or Eastern Promises as neo-noirs, but so be it. Although I’d call them thrillers and gangster flicks (respectively) before neo-noirs.”
Hi! Rick,
The “crowd” that I hang around with…You know in the “world” of noir…They also consider NCFOM and Eastern Promises (and the other films that I mentioned) as either
thrillers, dramas, and gangster films, but with “element” of “noir.”
Btw, I have linked an article from the NY Times with the title Texas Noir…Do you know what film that the reviewer is referring to?
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06EEDD113DF937A15754C0A9639C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
dcd
But he’s reviewing the novel, not the film, the review was written in 2005 … the concepts of noir — stylistically, at least — are meaningless outside of film.
HI! Rick,
I am so sorry! about not checking whether the reviewer was discussing the book or reviewng the film- my mistake - in my haste to make my point!
“But he’s reviewing the novel, not the film, the review was written in 2005 … the concepts of noir — stylistically, at least — are meaningless outside of film.”
But, after discussing your response with other film noir aficionados they reached the conclusion that…”The noir sensibility has it’s genesis in hard-boiled fiction and in his article, Texas Noir, it is fair to say that when Walter Kirn uses the word noir he is referring to hard-boiled fiction as manifested in film noir.”
Tks,
dcd