Vampire | Coosa Creek Cinema

Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter

By Rick, on October 31st, 2008 |

As our story opens, so does a car door, and given the angle — low, and focused on the bottom — we’re expecting a slinky Jimmy Choo to emerge, or something. Instead, we get a clunky tennis-shoe: the camera pulls back and its a nurse, complete with white stockings and a uniform. Suddenly, [...]

The Money Shot

By Rick, on October 22nd, 2008 |

There’s always a point in a vampire movie where it’s revealed that the hero’s lover is a vampire, as if we didn’t know already, as if the BENDING OVER THE NECK wasn’t a big, fat clue. Anyway, there’s always a reveal that every self-respecting vampire-movie fan waits for, and it often — though not always [...]

My Best Fiend: Part III

By The Tuscaloosa Strangler, on October 15th, 2008 |

Béla Lugosi defined Dracula — and vampires in general — for a generation. For several generations, actually. The thick Romanian accent. The evening clothes and cape. The courtly, old-world manners. All delineated the vampire “type” that dominated in film and imagination throughout the middle part of the last century.

He was amazingly well-suited for the part: [...]

Dracula (1979)

By The Tuscaloosa Strangler, on October 6th, 2008 |

John Badham’s Dracula opens on the ship bringing Count Dracula (Frank Langella) to English shores, and as I watched it, two words popped into my head: production values. The film has that slick Hollywood look of a certain period, as if it had been over-produced on a massive budget. There is meticulous detail, obviously by [...]

Nosferatu: An Appreciation

By Rick, on October 2nd, 2008 |

Count Graf Orlok. Note the shape of the window.

What can I say about F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror that hasn’t already been said? Not much, I think … it’s an archetype of German Expressionism, and contains one of the single most famous Expressionist scenes in the movies (see below). The the [...]