Zevon Price – Page 3

31 Days of Vampire Movies: Day 12

Day 12 in my 31 Days of Vampire Movies brings us something a little bit different than the British horror and American hack ‘em ups we’ve had before. This one takes us to Japan, and into the realms of animation.

Vampire Hunter D blew my mind when I first saw it. I was a kid of the 80s, so fucked up cartoons weren’t something I’d never encountered before. The Last Unicorn messed me up for years (damn you, Red Bull) and don’t even get me started on Don Bluth movies. I was in college before I discovered anime in the form of Sailor Moon (Sailor Pluto girlie for life.) But this isn’t about cartoons made for kids. There is nothing about Vampire Hunter D for the kiddies. It’s dark, violent, scary, and melds genres so seamlessly it practically invented its own.

But I chose Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust because, as the first one blew my mind in concept, the artwork in this one absolutely put me in another dimension. Each frame is like a painting come to life. Like the vampires themselves, it’s cold, starkly beautiful, and otherworldly. The plot is nothing mind-breaking, it surprisingly turns into more of a tragic love story than gothic horror or the apocalyptic goth western of its forebearer, but the art of the animation is like a visual feast that’s almost too much. You feel almost drunk when it’s over, but it’s worth it. Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust shows you just what animation can be as it showers you in its richness. I highly recommend this one for vampire fans, animation fans, and someone just looking for something a little trippy outside the norm.

31 Days of Vampire Movies: Day 11

Day 11 of my 31 Days of Vampire Movies answers a promise I made back on Day 4, when I said I’d feature the most punk vampire movie of all time. So here it is.

The Lost Boys was a fun punk vampire movie. Near Dark is dark as fuck. This movie is nihilistic as all hell, bloody, and doesn’t pull its punches even a fraction. These vampires aren’t lovers. They aren’t romantic, and they’re human only so much as it takes to lure their victims in close enough to kill. And even then, if you look close enough, you can see through their disguise pretty easily.

Near Dark is a modern western. On the surface, the premise seems silly. A group of traveling vampires move from town to town like a gang of rustlers, running amok until they move on to the next, leaving a trail of destruction and dead bodies behind them. The main couple have a sort of Romeo and Juliet thing: young lovers trapped between their two different worlds, but they are honestly the least interesting parts of the movie. Vampires Jesse and Diamondback are the real love story, if love was painted in blood and viscera. They are the patriarch and matriarch of the band, but you also know they are ultimately all about each other, everyone else be damned. You see the passion between them, and understand the lengths they are willing to go to both for each other and their way of life.

Like I said, this movie is dark. The barroom scene with Bill Paxton’s Severen is a horror show, when the vampires turn on the patrons and show them absolutely no mercy. It shows just how deadly and dangerous the vampires are, and how squishy and helpless human beings actually are, shotguns be damned.

If you’ve never seen this one, you definitely need to check it out. Vampires come in all flavors these days, and a lot of them, ironically, show the more human side of humanity dealing in themes of loss, unrequited love, etc. Not these fuckers. Show ‘em the softer part of you and they’re going to rip them wide open and laugh while they do it.

31 Days of Vampire Movies: Day 10

Day 10 in my 31 Days of Vampire Movies is the embodiment of “Shoot for the Moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” This quote from Norman Vincent Peale describes the utter madness that is Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce.

Lifeforce was based off a book by Colin Wilson, titled The Space Vampires. I mean, with a title like that, you know exactly what you’re getting. Add in the fact that this was produced by Cannon Films (if you are familiar with the 80s, you know who Cannon is. If not, oh boy. You have such an amazing adventure ahead of you) and you have all the ingredients for a movie that should have blown the ass off the entire decade. Instead, this is the movie that tanked Tobe Hooper’s career and dealt Cannon a financial blow they never really recovered from. To torture the metaphor, the Stars, in this case, happened to be the cold, harsh vacuum of space.

Lifeforce was Cannon’s bid to jump from action B movies into the mainstream. It was ambitious sci-fi, and you can tell from the very first shot of the astronauts in space that they weren’t messing around. Every dime of the budget is on screen. Everyone takes this amazingly silly concept – aliens who happen to also be vampires, discovered by astronauts, who are brought to earth where shenanigans ensue – completely seriously, and the actors all do a better job than you would expect from such a wild concept.

The biggest flaw of the movie is that the first act is so much more put together than the back end. It reeks of studio interference, as plot lines that were meticulously set up were either forgotten or wrapped up almost as an after thought, and important characters are pushed off to the side and never given closure. The ending is rushed and even a bit nonsensical even for a movie made from a book called The Space Vampires.

Also, we have to talk about the elephant in the room. Or, rather, the naked vampire in the room. French actress Mathilda May is The Space Girl, and she spends 98% of the movie completely nude. There are a few scenes where she body-hops into another woman who stays clothed, and into another character I’ll leave you discover for yourself. (Also this movie has the first on-screen kiss for Patrick Stewart, Jean-Luc Picard for those of you who are nasty.) But she spends the majority of the movie stark naked, and it could be uncomfortable for viewers considering May was only 20 at the time the movie was filmed.

That being said, this is an amazing movie and I do recommend it. You get to see what real ambition looks like, even if it ended up stifled by studio and censor demands. For all of today’s slick and polished made-by-committee movies, Lifeforce shows the potential movies have to be truly unique pieces of art, even if the execution fumbles.

31 Days of Vampire Movies: Day 9

Let’s keep the Hammer train rolling for Day 9 of 31 Days of Vampire Movies and do the follow-up to yesterday’s featured movie, Dracula 1972 A.D. I’m of course talking about The Satanic Rites of Dracula.

This movie picks up a few years after 1972 A.D. and follows Lorrimer Van Helsing and his granddaughter Jessica Van Helsing in their pursuit to eradicate Dracula from the face of the earth.

This one, yeah. It’s not good. I like it, but its far and away the worst of the Hammer Dracula movies with Lee and Cushing. You could tell both were getting tired of the roles, and Cushing’s health was still in decline after the death of his wife, which he never really recovered from. The plot is less fantasy-driven, and it’s a plot where James Bond would have been more at home than the undead Count. It never really gels the way it should, and the Black Mass scenes are not that great, especially compared to the one in Dracula 1972 A.D. There’s a lack of spark that feels like everyone is just going through the motions, like it’s 3:30 pm in the workday and everyone is over it and just wants to go home. This is the first movie on the list where I’d say it’s okay if you want to skip it, but I’m putting it here because it does hold a place in my heart because it’s the last Dracula movie featuring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee together.

If you’re a completionist, go ahead and give it a watch, but you’re not really missing anything if you let this one slide by.

31 Days of Vampire Movies: Day 8

Day 8 of 31 Days of Vampire Movies takes us back to the Swinging 60’s, only 2 years too late to actually be a part of the zeitgeist. Tonight we’re going back to 1972. Specifically, Dracula 1972 A.D.

It’s another Hammer outing, and the wheels were really getting ready to fall off the wagon here. Don’t get me wrong, I adore this movie. It’s cheesy in all the best ways, has a Black Mass scene worthy of the name, a Mod sensibility that’s only a bit out of date, and yes, Christopher Lee returns as Dracula.

He had already been in several other Hammer Dracula flicks by then, but you could tell the shine had started to wear off the role for him. He was famously vocal about disliking dragging Dracula into the modern times, as this movie tried to do. You could tell it was written by scene outsiders, as it treats its young cast members and their characters as almost alien creatures, their values and ways inscrutable to its more senior cast. Peter Cushing returns as a Van Helsing descendant, and plays the part with a charming, baffled granddad sort of demeanor that’s quite endearing. He doesn’t dislike the teens his granddaughter hangs out with, he just doesn’t jive with the modern times, man.

Dracula himself seems weirdly detached from the whole affair. He’s off doing his own thing, pursuing revenge against the Van Helsing family, but doesn’t really interact with the modern scene or engage with any of its conceits. There’s a stand-in character for that, Johnny Alucard (I know, I know) an acolyte of his from the Victorian era who’s bided his time until the right moment to bring Dracula back from the dead.

The Swinging 60’s scene dressing feels very dated even for the time the movie was released. It takes place in 1972, and the decade of love and freedom was already moving to the back of people’s minds as they marched into the more dour and cynical 70s. It does give a certain tragic edge to the teens, portrayed as a generation lost in itself, left behind by the future but too different to be part of the stolid, stiff upper-lip generation before.

There’s a lot to enjoy here, but to say its one of the better Hammer Dracula movies would be a lie. They tried something new, and swung for the fences while they did it, but ultimately this one ended up lost in the weeds rather than a home run. But I do recommend giving it a watch. Like I said, the Black Mass scene is batshit insane in all the best ways, over the top and cheesy but still spooky enough to be enjoyable.

31 Days of Vampire Movies: Day 7

Day 7 of 31 Days of Vampire Movies brings you the one that started it all. No, not vampires.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Sure, some people might try to convince you it all started with Tony Stark, but this movie is where comic book movies became main stream box office successes, and showed studios that comic books weren’t just for nerds.

Yes, I know. It’s a Zorro Pop. I’m doing the best I can here, people.

It’s hard to overstate just how cool Blade was when it first came out. Released a full year before The Matrix made the black trench coat cyberpunk look mainstream, Blade exploded onto the screen in a rave of blood, pounding techno, and exploding vampires. That opening scene showed just what a comic book movie could really do, at a time when they were considered box office trash, and most were just artless IP cash grabs with little to no plot and an inherent silliness that was usually more cringe-worthy than charming. Blade played its concept 100% straight and made vampires a credible threat, and that made Blade the baddest motherfucker in the business.

Also, it had this guy. The only guy who could out-awesome Blade in his own movie.

You could never catch this fucker at a bad time.

Blade is a great time for people who like action movies before they became jumbled CGI monstrosities of pixels smashing into each other. There is CGI, and it is incredibly dated, but the wirework stunts and the commitment of everyone involved to the premise more than makes up for it. Definitely give this one a shot if you haven’t, if only to see where it all began. And to see Kris Kristofferson blasting the shit out of vampires. That is always a good time.

31 Days of Vampire Movies: Day 6

Day 6 of 31 Days of Vampire Movies brings us back to the 80’s camp and sleaze first exemplified by Day 2’s movie, Vampire Cop. This movie has it all: vampires, strippers, neon lights, existential crises, and mullets. Oh my God, the mullets in this movie. And it’s a Roger Corman flick, so buckle up, kids. This is Dance of the Damned.

Yes I know that’s a Crimson Peak Funko Pop and not a vampire. I’m running out of vampire Pops just go with it.

Dance of the Damned from 1989 has resurfaced on DVD/Bluray with a recently rediscovered master print. It was thought to be lost media, and the world was all the poorer for it. Anyone who has heard of this movie might be more familiar with its remake To Sleep with a Vampire. (Good Lord, what a title. What an awful, awful title) starring Skippy from Family Ties: Scott Valentine. That one was also a contender to be on this list, but ultimately I decided to go with Dance of the Damned, since it was the first and, on the whole, steers into it’s conceit with more conviction. And yeah, the mullet. You just have to see that godawful amazing mullet.

Look at it. LOOK at it.

The plot in a nutshell is this: a cruising vampire (with mullet) wanders into a sleazy strip club where he overhears one of the dancers contemplating suicide after her ex-husband refuses to let her visit with her son on his birthday. Her life is in shambles and she is breaking under the strain, so he decides to give her her death wish on the condition that she spend her last night with him showing him what it is to be human.

Dance of Damned has all the excesses of the 80’s and Roger Corman movies, but if you like that sort of thing, you won’t go astray here. It’s surprisingly poignant in places, and sympathetic to its main character when, at the time and even now, sex workers struggle to be seen as people worthy of love, compassion, and understanding. That being said, its also an 80’s movie about an exotic dancer, so expect all the usual exploitation that comes along with it.

But, once again, you need to see this movie, if only to see the glory of the God-King of Mullets on display. Like a car crash or a murderer jumping out of the bushes at you with a knife: you won’t soon forget it.

31 Days of Vampire Movies: Day 5

Day 5 of 31 Days of Vampire Movies takes us back to the classics. This is Hammer Studio’s second outing with Dracula, only it doesn’t actually bring back Dracula, but rather Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing. I’m of course talking about The Brides of Dracula.

In this movie, Cushing’s Van Helsing finds himself facing off against one of Dracula’s heretofore unmentioned acolytes Baron Meinster, whose mother has imprisoned him in their giant castle because he hasn’t been able to keep his hands (or his teeth) off the village’s population of beautiful young ladies. Shenanigans begin when yet another beautiful, and a bit naive, young lady finds herself stranded in the village and befriended by the Baroness and taken to the castle for a late night snack for the Baron. She manages to escape, but not before the Baron tricks her into releasing him from his prison. She flees, and is rescued by Van Helsing and taken to her original destination, a girls’ boarding school where the Baron soon follows.

David Peel plays the dashing young Baron Meinster, but he’s hardly able to pick up where Christopher Lee left off in the charisma department. Peter Cushing, as always, brings his all to the role, portraying a kindly, lovelorn Professor Van Helsing as a complete gentleman who battles the undead like a true swashbuckling hero.

The Brides of Dracula doesn’t match the Horror of Dracula in plot or character (with the exception of Cushing, of course) but the setting, costuming, and ambiance are top notch. It’s a surprisingly visceral movie for the time, especially in the scene where Van Helsing brands himself with a hot iron to cauterize a bite wound given to him by the Baron. Like I said, its not the first movie in the series, but its definitely worth watching and I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t yet seen it.

31 Days of Vampire Movies: Day 4

Day 4 of 31 Days Of Vampire Movies features not the first punk rock vampire movie, nor the best (that one shows up on Day 11, stay tuned!) but one that is a perfect encapsulation of the zeitgeist of the era. That era, specifically, being 1987, and this movie being The Lost Boys.

Where to even begin on this one? 1987 was, for a brief moment in time, the 80’s-est of the 80’s decade. A year where punk crashed into rock and roll, where the neon, synth-drenched excesses of California slammed straight into the beginnings of boomer nostalgia for the 1960s, and where goth melodrama peeked out from behind the curtains in anticipation of its ascendance in the 90s.

It’s a great fucking movie, is what I’m saying. You’ve got Kiefer Sutherland playing the baddest of the bad boys, a forever-teenaged punk wreaking havoc on a seaside coastal town with his gang of motorcycle-riding vampire cronies, a wholesome family trying to rebuild their lives and relationships in the wake of a divorce, two of the infamous Coreys, taxidemery, and a sweaty lubed-up dude in a speedo playing the most bitchin’ saxophone solo this side of Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street. (Side note, did you know the session musician who came up with that riff was only paid $75 for the gig? He was robbed.)

The Lost Boys has a great 80’s soundtrack, and its a great time. It’s funny, bloody as hell, and doesn’t apologize for even a second about what it is. You couldn’t make a movie like this any other time (believe me, they tried. Skip all of the sequels. Just pretend they don’t exist, you’ll only be half as depressed.) Best of all: the dog lives!

Who’s a Good Boy? Who’s the Best Boy?

31 Days of Vampire Movies: Day 3

Day 3 in 31 Days of Vampire Movies takes us in yet another direction, away from the Classic and the Classic Trash of Dracula and Vampire Cop. With no further ado, I give you Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive.

This movie explores the more esoteric sides of being a vampire. Namely, how to deal with immortality itself, and what that means for relationships both familial and between lovers. It shows what happens between two people over the course eons by focusing on a scant few days in the vastness of their existences. It’s about passions in all their manifestations, and just what it means to be human. Only Lovers Left Alive is a thoughtful movie with engaging vampires who tread alongside familiar tropes without falling into them. It’s not a vampire movie of scares or gore or grand sweeping romantic declarations, but its smallness is what makes it so powerful. Definitely give this one a shot if you want your moody vampires to come with a side of introspection and hopefulness in the face of the vast universe of time.