Reviews, views and occasionally other things…
Ah, film – my first and greatest love!
Twenty years before “Black Panther”, Marvel partnered with New Line to release a black-led superhero movie which would see them help kick-start the current superhero boom as well as changing the course of their movie adaptations to that point. Born as his mother was dying from a vampire attack, Blade (Wesley Snipes) possesses all of … Continue reading Blade (1998) 20th Anniversary Review
It’s been a quarter of a century since “Demolition Man” first blew us on screen, licking our ass and matching our meet with its blend of high-octane action and surprisingly prescient sci-fi. With only 14 years to go until Simon Phoenix and John Spartan are thawed out, it’s time to celebrate the movies 25th anniversary, … Continue reading Demolition Man (1993) 25th Anniversary Review
If Hammer House Of Horror had produced “Spaced”, the result could have been a lot like “Slaughterhouse Rulez”. A common room home brew of British Boarding School classics like “If….” and “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” (the 1969 version specifically) mixed with “Ghostbusters” and dash of “Harry Potter”, this intoxicatingly lowbrow comedy horror offers a novel spin … Continue reading Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018) Review
In the build-up to D-Day, Private Boyce (Jovan Adepo) and Corporal Ford (Wyatt Russell) believe they’re the only survivors of an ill-fated paratrooper mission behind enemy lines to knock out a radar jamming post so the Allies can provide air support for the beach landings. They eventually meet up with a few more survivors of … Continue reading Overlord (2018) Review
“The Nutcracker And The Four Realms” is chocolate box art lavishly brought to over-saturated, over-sugared, overly decorated life on the big screen. And, like the contents of that box of chocolates, there are moments of sublime deliciousness, a few over-sweet gooey confections and even the occasional nut. It’s hard to resist all the tempting treats … Continue reading The Nutcracker And The Four Realms (2018) Review
If “Battleship” is a dumb remake of “Independence Day” (itself a dumb remake of “War Of The Worlds”) then “The Core” is the dumbest possible reimagining of Jules Verne's “Journey To The Centre Of The Earth”, combining ludicrously inaccurate science with terrible characters and stupefying dialogue (“Hack The Planet!”) and yet, it’s a film I’ve … Continue reading The Core (2003) Review
Here, for your reading pleasure, is the collected Dractober reviews, thirty-one - Count 'em - thirty-one vampiric volumes to sink your teeth into! 🧛♂️ Nosferatu (1922) 🧛♂️ Dracula’s Daughter (1936) 🧛♂️ Son Of Dracula (1943) 🧛♂️ House Of Frankenstein (1944) 🧛♂️ House Of Dracula (1945) 🧛♂️ Dracula (1958) 🧛♂️ Billy The Kid vs Dracula (1966) 🧛♂️ Dracula: Prince Of Darkness (1966) 🧛♂️ Dracula Has … Continue reading #Dractober Omnibus Edition
What better way to close out #Dractober than with a brand new interpretation of the legend of Bram Stoker’s celebrated vampire from the visionary director of “Suspiria”? Well, as it turns out, probably quite a few things. During the Walpurgis Night celebrations in the Carpathian village of Passo Borgo, a young couple sneak off into … Continue reading Argento’s Dracula 3D (2012) Dractober Review
British comedy horror is a bit of a dicey prospect at the best of times. For every “Shaun Of The Dead” there are a dozen “Lesbian Vampire Slayers”, so when “Double Date” popped up on the old Sky Q box, I was wary but willing. Jim (Danny Morgan) is about to turn thirty and his … Continue reading Double Date (2017) #MonthOfSpooks Review
“The Batman” is one animated incarnation of Batman which passed me by, but he seems to have been the only one I can find who tangled with the Prince Of Darkness himself. Walking a slightly darker path than the more kid-friendly TV series did, this feature-length direct-to-DVD spin-off features not only the title combatants but … Continue reading The Batman vs Dracula (2005) Dractober Review
Universal have been trying to resurrect their Dark Universe for a lot longer than you may think. Back in 2004, emboldened by the quick one-two hits of “The Mummy” and “The Mummy Returns”, they decided to give director Stephen Sommers the whole Universal Monster toy box. Unfortunately, what he came up with was a textbook … Continue reading Van Helsing (2004) Dractober Review
A reimagining before reimaginings were ‘cool’, “Dracula 2000” – released a mere nine days before the end of the year 2000 in America and therefore in 2001 everywhere else brings the myth of Dracula into the modern millennial age, without a smashed avocado or deconstructed cold-brew oat-milk latte in sight. When a group of thieves … Continue reading Wes Craven Presents: Dracula 2000 (2001) Dractober Review
A blackly comic metafictional account of the making of “Nosferatu”, positing the idea that F W Murnau was prepared to go to any lengths in order to capture his masterwork, even turning a blind eye to the real-life vampire he has found to ‘play’ Count Orlok. Supported by a great performance from John Malkovich as … Continue reading Shadow Of The Vampire (2000) Dractober Review
It may open with a Hammer-esque galloping horse and carriage but this Mel Brooks spoof has the whole Dracula oeuvre in its sights. From Lugosi to Coppola, Brooks and his co-writers leave no coffin unopened in the search for gags. A pity, then, that they found so few. When Renfield (a wildly overacting Peter MacNicol) … Continue reading Dracula: Dead And Loving It (1995) Dractober Review
You may be expecting a story of the notorious Singer whose controversial behaviour and alleged sexual predilections and hedonistic bacchanalia have become the stuff of rumour and innuendo legend, but we’re not here to talk about the Director, we’re here to find out what the movie is like. A rambunctious, mischievous and unexpectedly moving celebration … Continue reading Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) Review
Having secured the title rights to the name “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”, Francis Ford Coppola set out to bring his vision of the Dracula legend to unlife, the first straight ‘Dracula’ adaptation for thirteen years. Believing the fiancée of young solicitor Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) to be the reincarnation of his dead wife, centuries-old Count Dracula … Continue reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) Dractober Review
Initially, I accidentally started watching the German language version of this film (Herzog made two versions, one in German and one in English rather than use dubbing) but it took me a while to realise it such is the visual power of the movie. I’m pretty sure I could have continued to watch the film … Continue reading Nosferatu The Vampyre (1979) Dractober Review
At last, a movie for modern day America: one where the people colluding with the Russian president are the good guys! When an American submarine, shadowing a Russian sub witness their target suffer an explosion and sink, they are themselves torpedoed by an unknown assailant before they can report home. The USS Arkansas, with newly … Continue reading Hunter Killer (2018) Review
There’s something inherently funny about the idea of an individual as famously permatanned as George Hamilton portraying the notoriously sun-shy Count Dracula but it’s not quite enough to lift this dated and lightweight comedy above the ordinary. Evicted from his ancestral Castle by the Communist government of Romania who plan to turn it into a … Continue reading Love At First Bite (1979) Dractober Review
Back in 1979, Universal dusted off its back catalogue and made plans to make a feature film featuring Dracula for the first time since 1948. And they didn’t even think to wrap a whole shared universe around it, dark or otherwise. Ah, those were the days! Shipwrecked off Whitby, Count Dracula (Frank Langella), the apparent … Continue reading Dracula (1979) Dractober Review
Amandla Stenberg swaps the future dystopia of “The Darkest Minds” for the present-day real-life dystopia in “The Hate U Give”, an adaptation of the hugely successful young adult novel dealing with the shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer. Starr Carter (Stenberg) who lives in the black suburb of Garden Heights … Continue reading The Hate U Give (2018) Review
This is a real dogs’ dinner of a Dracula movie. It would have been risible nonsense if it had been played for laughs as a comedy but as a deadly serious horror movie, it’s more dog’s egg than dog’s bollocks, and it owes its entire plot to the idea that Dracula once got so hungry, … Continue reading Zoltan: Hound Of Dracula (1977) Dractober Review
Seeing as I first watched and reviewed the original 1978 “Halloween” for last year’s #MonthOfSpooks, it makes sense that I’d pick up this one for this year’s, especially as I still haven’t got around to seeing any of the other “Halloween” movies so this franchise timeline – the fifth so far – is the only … Continue reading Halloween (2018) Review
Those of you who prefer to refer to “The Witch” as “The VVitch” will be delighted to know that you can refer to this curate’s egg of a horror movie as “Blood For Dracvla” if you wish. Be warned, though, that may be the sole appeal of this pretentious, weirdly bucolic spin on the legend … Continue reading Andy Warhol’s Blood For Dracula (1975) Dractober Review
There’s no rest for the Tenacious as Jack Black finds himself back amongst the spooky goings-on, although this time around, it’s Slappy calling the shots. When Sonny (Jeremy Ray Taylor) and Sam (Caleel Harris) find a magic book that brings a ventriloquist’s dummy to life, their Halloween horror is only just beginning. The dummy is … Continue reading Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween #MonthOfSpooks Review
Absolutely not a film to be judged by today’s neo-puritan standards, “Vampira” (released as "Old Dracula" in the US to cash in on the recent success of "Young Frankenstein") is steeped in the saucy, cheeky and, yes, casually racist and sexist humour of the early seventies but taken on its own terms, it has a … Continue reading Vampira (1974) Dractober Review
Devoid of their Dracula, Hammer House Of Horror cast around for something else to stake their vampire franchise to. I’m guessing screenwriter Don Houghton must have been listening to the radio in his office One can only imagine that the radio was playing in writer Don Houghton’s Bray Studios office as he contemplated a blank … Continue reading The Legend Of The 7 Golden Vampires (1974) Dractober Review
There's a whole generation of film fans for whom Jack Palance is either Curly Washburn from “City Slickers” (and, to a lesser extent Duke Washburn from “City Slickers II: The Legend Of Curly's Gold”) or the excessively nasal-breathy Carl Grissom in Tim Burton's Batman and although he may seem something of an odd pick for … Continue reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1974) Dractober Review
“Bad Times At The El Royale” sees “Cabin In The Woods” writer/ director Drew Goddard indulging his inner Tarantino as he sets up this lurid, pulpy neo-noir tale of deceit, desperation and death in a faded motel, still trading on its glamorous past and novelty location. In 1959, a man arrives at the El Royale … Continue reading Bad Times At The El Royale (2018) Review
We start out where “Dracula A.D. 1972” ended: with terrible music. This time, though, it actually sort of fits because “The Satanic Rites Of Dracula” actually is a cheesy seventies spy thriller of sorts. When a secret agent barely escapes from a secretive country house where he witnesses a satanic ritual in progress, he uses … Continue reading The Satanic Rites Of Dracula (1973) Dractober Review
Opening with Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) test piloting an X-15 rocket ship so high you fear he may crash in to the orbiting Universal Logo which went past mere seconds before, Damien Chazelle’s quietly absorbing biopic is something of an antithesis to the usual stars ‘n’ stripes bombastic heroic portrayal the US space program usually … Continue reading First Man (2018) Review
After being shot, stabbed, electrocuted by lightning, set on fire and thrown off a cliff, Dracula apparently got better because we now return to an exciting horse-drawn carriage chase already in progress. The year is 1872 and we’re a hundred years too early for the film you were expecting. Luckily, we’re just in time for … Continue reading Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972) Dractober Review
Approaching this, I expected an uncomfortable relic, a tastless punchline to a joke that’s long since worn out its welcome, so it came as a pleasant surprise that, despite its Blaxploitation anachronisms, it’s actually a pretty solid vampire flick in its own right. In 1780, a massively racist Dracula welcomes an African prince and his … Continue reading Blacula (1972) Dractober Review
With the aesthetics of a cheap seventies porno and the production values of an even cheaper seventies porno, Starting life as a biker gang movie before being having Frankenstein’s monster add and then finally having Dracula added as an afterthought in footage shot years later, “Dracula vs Frankenstein” is an even more patched together mongrel … Continue reading Dracula vs Frankenstein (1971) Dractober Review
For my money, the definitive filmed adaptation of the legendary Yeti is The Goodies’ episode “Big Foot” but this tale of a tribe of Yetis living in secret on a Himalyan mountaintop might just come a close second (Wampas don’t count). Migo (Channing Tatum) is happy living in his village where all Yetis live under … Continue reading Smallfoot (2018) Review
Loosely based on the John Updike novel of the same name, George Miller’s sly satire of the gender wars brings a dusting of dark magic to the hollow lives of a sleepy New England town of Eastwick. Alexandra (Cher), Jane (Susan Sarandon) and Sukie (Michelle Pfeiffer) are close friends who support each other through the … Continue reading The Witches Of Eastwick (1987) #MonthOfSpooks Review
Wait a minute! This movie isn't about Dracula. It’s not even about a ‘real’ vampire. I shall have to complain to the Dractober planning department about this one. Oh well, as we’re here, we might as well delve into this story of black magic and court intrigue based on the 16th century Hungarian Countess Erzsebet … Continue reading Countess Dracula (1971) Dractober Review
Awakened by a bat vomiting blood onto his desiccated remains (we've all had nights like that, right?), Dracula (Christopher Lee) returns to life, back in his castle and ready to take in the local nightlife. Outraged at the Count’s tendency to nibble his way through their town’s young women, the men of the village rise … Continue reading Scars Of Dracula (1970) Dractober Review
Pity poor Dracula (Christopher Lee)! Last time we saw the contentious Count, he’d been impaled on a golden crucifix but as if that wasn't indignity enough, it turns out his demise – into a pile of rust-coloured dust – was witnessed by Weller (Roy Kinnear), a travelling salesman who was hurled from his coach by … Continue reading Taste The Blood Of Dracula (1970) Dractober Review
Actually, Dracula has defrosted from the freezer and he conspicuously has a reflection at a key early point in the movie, but they’re minor grumbles as Lee thaws out old fang face and Hammer horror really start to make the character their own. We’ve crept into the early 20th century and but we’re still in … Continue reading Dracula Has Risen From The Grave (1968) Dractober Review
Picking up from the end stinger of “The Addams Family”, “Addams Family Values” sets out to expand the Addams clan with the addition of a new baby and all that a new arrival entails, with a suitably impious twist, of course. After several of Wednesday and Pugsley's failed attempts to murder the new baby, Gomez … Continue reading Addams Family Values (1993) #MonthOfSpooks Review
Previously on Dracula... Having thoroughly bested the Count in his own library, Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) takes his leave of Castle Dracula and ten years go past (because we’re ignoring the Dracula-less “Brides Of Dracula”. The locals still cling to their fear of vampires and Father Sandor (the excellent Andrew Keir) prevents them from disposing … Continue reading Dracula: Prince Of Darkness (1966) Dractober Review
Over a quarter of a century before SyFy transformed high concept into low art, prolific Hollywood director was churning out such mash-ups as “Billy The Kid vs Frankenstein’s Daughter” and “Billy The Kid vs Dracula”. In fact, those two would turn out to be the final feature films he directed, capping off a career which … Continue reading Billy The Kid Vs Dracula (1966) Dractober Review
Hammer Films brought Dracula bang up to date by going back to the story’s roots, adapting Stoker’s novel – with a few twists – and bringing the famed Count back to life in all his technicolour glory. When Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) accepts a position as Librarian at Count Dracula’s castle, his subterfuge is … Continue reading Dracula (1958) Dractober Review
Like the banshee of the Bond franchise, appearing whenever that storied franchise finds itself mired in a creative or legal quagmire, Johnny English is back, summoned no doubt but the ongoing dithering over Bond 25. After a cyber-attack exposes the identities of all of the active undercover British agents, MI7 is forced to turn to … Continue reading Johnny English Strikes Again (2018) Review
Last seen getting all skeletal over his coffin on a roadside knoll, Drac’s back and in rude health, although that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to consult his physician... Count Dracula (Carradine), posing as Baron Latos (a step up, at least, from Count Alucard) arrives in Visaria to visit the castle home of Dr Franz … Continue reading House Of Dracula (1945) Dractober Review
Beset by production difficulties, it’s a wonder that “The Addams Family” movie exists at all. The fact that it’s great is a minor miracle. Marking Barry Sonnenfeld’s directorial debut after Tim Burton passed on the chance to helm this big screen reboot. Famously creepy and kooky, mysterious and spooky, the movie takes the twisted gothic, … Continue reading The Addams Family (1991) #MonthOfSpooks Review
