I just got the DVD this week (an extra of it being Lee’s reading of an abridgement of Stoker’s DRACULA). This is the third time I’ve seen it & I really tried to appreciate it. I just couldn’t. Klaus Kinski as a mostly silent Renfield? OK, that grew on me. Herbert Lom as Van Helsing- well, IF HE’D SHOWN ANY EMOTION WHATSOEVER!
And now for the great heretical statement- Lee is a great actor as Saruman, as Lord Summerisle, as many other roles, but in no performance as Dracula does he give a great verbal performance. He is a fantastic Draculean physical presence, but he usually is not given Dracula a script worthy of his voice, and when he is, he does not give the performance worthy of Stoker’s words.
Along with the Franco DRACULA, I got the Lee-Cushing vehicle HORROR OF D which does hold up well, in great part due to Cushing’s owning the role of Van Helsing. And best of all, finally available in the US, the BBC 1970s COUNT DRACULA with Louis Jourdan- it rocks!
**The ORIGINAL Halloween (I love ya Mr Zombie but HOLY SHIT did you mess up here);
**Alien
**First Nightmare on Elm Street
**Resident Evil movies (yeah, I know…)
**Soylent Green
I’ve actually had this on videotape for many years – I taped it from PBS. Jordan is great in the role, and they’re pretty faithful, too (his was the first version that showed Dracula croawling face-first DOWN the wall, as described in the book, and it’s pretty freaky. But I got fed up with the frequent artsy “dream sequence” things.
I’ll admit that of the 13 I listed, it’s the one I’ve seen the least often and the least recently. However, I did see it in a theater, in an absolutely gorgeous print, and I’ll be the first to argue that Dreyer is a genius but also a bit of a challenge and an acquired taste. I recently DVR’d it off of TCM, but haven’t had a chance to revisit it yet.
And lissener, Larry Cohen in general never gets mentioned enough in threads like these, but GTMT, to use an overworked phrase that is completely applicable in this case, truly has to be seen to be believed. I saw that for the first time in a theater, also, and now think I may have to hunt it down on Amazon…
Well, my personal favorite horror movie of all time is Halloween. This movie has more than just “horror” and surprisingly little blood. But this movie doesn’t need to rely on such cheap scares, it is all about suspense and atmosphere via John Carpenter’s score and wide angle shots. It is one of those movies that takes an hour or so building up momentum and keeping you locked in to the characters and keeping the “shape” exactly that, ambiguous and vague until the later scenes.
If you are going for creepy I also highly recommend any of the asian horror films that came out around the early to late 90’s. Check out Pulse, Ringu, Ju-on, and The Eye.