Book Review: ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King

Posted on October 11, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The town of Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine has two new arrivals.

One is Ben Mears, a successful writer who, we’re told, even has his own FBI file. (Apparently, it only consists of a report that he once attended an anti-war rally.) Ben spent part of his childhood is Jerusalem’s Lot and, upon returning, he discovers a small but friendly town. Sure, there’s some drama going on behind closed doors. There’s the sleazy real estate agent, for instance. And then there’s the Catholic priest who, naturally, has lost his faith. And then there’s the unhappy teenage mother and, of course, there’s the usual collection of alcoholics, adulterers, and cranky bus drivers. Maybe Jerusalem’s Lot isn’t that friendly after all….

The other new arrival is Kurt Barlow. Barlow’s from Austria and he’s moved into the old Marsten House. (The Marsten House, like most old houses that you come across in Stephen King novels, used to belong to a notorious gangster.) Barlow’s going to be opening up an antique store. Interestingly enough, hardly anyone ever seems to see Barlow. His business partner, Richard Straker, claims that Barlow is often away on buying trips.

Anyway, the townspeople have a lot more to worry about than what’s going on with Kurt Barlow. For instance, a lot of people are disappearing. And even those who aren’t vanishing are growing ill and having a bad reaction to sunlight. Hmmm …. what could possibly be going on?

First published in 1975, ‘Salem’s Lot was Stephen King’s second published novel and it actually holds up better than most of his recent work. It’s interesting to read ‘Salem’s Lot after Carrie, just to see how much King grew as a writer in between the two books. Whereas King often seemed uncomfortable with the plot of his first novel and tended to hold Carrie White at a distance, he dives right into ‘Salem’s Lot. It’s not just that King is obviously more comfortable writing about a male writer than a teenage girl. It’s also that King creates a town that seems so real that we feel as if we could find it on a map. King tells his story with such enthusiasm and confidence that it doesn’t matter that ‘Salem’s Lot is a fairly predictable and traditional vampire story.

Clocking in at a briskly paced 440 pages, ‘Salem’s Lot is quite a bit longer and more detailed than Carrie without, at the same time, getting bogged down in the type of stylistic self-indulgence that has come to typify a lot of King’s recent work. (One gets the feeling that if King wrote ‘Salem’s Lot today, it would be a 1,200 page novel and that Barlow wouldn’t show up until page 900.) King does a good job of offering up little snippets of life in Jerusalem’s Lot, just enough to make sure we have enough knowledge to mourn the eventual death of the town. ‘Salem’s Lot takes Dracula, drops him in the middle of a small town melodrama, and the results are still entertaining to this very day.

Horror on the Lens: The Night Stalker (dir by John Llewelyn Moxey)

Posted on October 18, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s horror on the lens, we have a real treat! (We’ll get to the tricks later…)

Long before he achieved holiday immortality by playing the father in A Christmas Story, Darren McGavin played journalist Carl Kolchak in the 1972 made-for-TV movie, The Night Stalker. Kolchak is investigating a series of murders in Las Vegas, all of which involve victims being drained of their blood. Kolchak thinks that the murderer might be a vampire. Everyone else thinks that he’s crazy.

When this movie first aired, it was the highest rated made-for-TV movie of all time. Eventually, it led to a weekly TV series in which Kolchak investigated various paranormal happenings. Though the TV series did not last long, it’s still regularly cited as one of the most influential shows ever made.

Anyway, The Night Stalker is an effective little vampire movie and Darren McGavin gives a great performance as Carl Kolchak.

Enjoy!

What Lisa Watched Last Night #170: Drink Slay Love (dir by Vanessa Parise)

Posted on September 17, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched a new Lifetime film, Drink Slay Love!

Why Was I Watching It?

Because it was on Lifetime, of course!

Plus, it was a Canadian film about vampires. I love Canada and I love vampires! Ever since that episode of Degrassi where Emma got a “social disease” while playing Mina in a school production of Dracula, Canada and vampires have mixed well.

(Now, I should admit, that, while watching Drink Slay Love, I was also watching a film called The Dead Don’t Die on YouTube. I’m a big believer in multitasking.)

What Was It About?

Pearl (Cierra Ramirez) has a life that most of us can only have erotically-themed nightmares about. She’s a sixteen year-old vampire princess. She’s headstrong. She’s a little bit bratty. She’s convinced that nothing can hurt her. Even after she’s the victim of an attempted staking, she still insists on going out in the middle of the night by herself. On the plus side, Pearl doesn’t attack animals. She only attacks humans, especially Brad, the poor guy who works at a 24 hour ice cream parlor and who never remembers Pearl’s nightly visits, in which she always gets a scoop of mint ice cream and a pint of blood.

However, everything changes when it’s discovered that Pearl is immune to sunlight! She is a rare vampire who can actually walk around in the daylight. This leads to her parents getting the brilliant idea of sending Pearl to high school. There’s a big feast coming up and apparently, teenage blood is in high demand. However, once Pearl arrives at the school, she starts to make friends, almost despite herself. She starts to do the type of things that teenagers in Lifetime movies always do. How can she set her new friends up to be the main course?

Of course, some of her new friends have secrets of their own. You know how that goes…

What Worked?

This was a nice change of pace for Lifetime. After endless movies about obsessive stalkers and stolen babies and bad celebrity lookalikes, it was nice to see something different on Lifetime. I’m going to guess that Drink Slay Love was made with October in mind and really, this is a good movie for people who want celebrate Halloween without getting traumatized. It’s not particularly scary but it’s got vampires and it’s enjoyably silly.

Cierra Ramirez did a good job as Pearl. Pearl is a very sardonic vampire, which is the best type of vampire to be. Ramirez delivered her sarcastic dialogue with just the right amount of bite. (Heh heh, see what I did there?)

If the director’s name seems familiar, that’s because Vanessa Parise has directed several Lifetime movies. She does a good job with Drink Slay Love, keeping the story moving at a good pace and getting good performances from the entire cast.

What Did Not Work?

To be honest, I liked the whole film. Even the occasionally sketchy CGI added to the film’s charm.

“Oh my God! Just like me moments!”

I related to Pearl. Well, I didn’t necessarily relate to the blood sucking. But I was really sarcastic when I was sixteen, too. Plus, I always used to dress in black and then dare anyone to make a comment about it… (Actually, not that much has changed since then…)

Lessons Learned

Canada and Vampires are a good combination!

4 Shots From Horror History: I Know What You Did Last Summer, Vampires, The Sixth Sense, The Blair Witch Project

Posted on October 26, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This October, I’m going to be doing something a little bit different with my contribution to 4 Shots From 4 Films. I’m going to be taking a little chronological tour of the history of horror cinema, moving from decade to decade.

Today, we complete the 90s!

4 Shots From 4 Films

I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997, dir by Jim Gillepsie)

Vampires (1998, dir by John Carpenter)

The Sixth Sense (1999, dir by M. Night Shyamalan)

The Blair Witch Project (1999, dir by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez)

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #6: Lemora (dir by Richard Blackburn)

Posted on June 26, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Continuing the process of cleaning out my DVR, I watched an odd little film from 1975 called Lemora. I recorded Lemora on March 25th, when it aired as a part of TCM Underground.

Lemora opens with an odd scene that appears to be set in the 1920s. A man dressed up like a stereotypical movie gangster (think Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar) guns down another man with his tommy gun and then races off in his car. After he crashes, he crawls into a dark forest where he is apparently captured by a mysterious, black-clad woman.

Suddenly, we cut to 13 year-old Lila Lee (Cheryl Smith), singing in church. Lila is blonde, innocent, and has an almost heavenly singing voice. Everyone listens to her with almost worshipful attention. When the Reverend (played by the film’s director, Richard Blackburn) steps up to the pulpit, he announces that he knows what some people are saying about Lila and her father but that she is pure and innocent.

It turns out that the gangster is Lila’s father. Lila hasn’t had much contact with her father. Instead, she has been raised in the church by the Reverend. However, Lila receives a letter from her father. The letter claims that he’s dying and that he wants to see Lila and ask for forgiveness before he passes. The letter also says that her father is in the town of Astaroth.

(You would think that, having been raised in the church, Lila would know that Astaroth is also the name of a legendary demon.)

Knowing that the Reverend would never allow her to go, Lila sneaks out of the house. She stows away in the back of a couple’s car and listens as the couple gossips about her relationship with the Reverend, suggesting that the Reverend is just waiting for Lila to “turn legal.” After she gets out of the car, she takes a bus the rest of the way to Astaroth. Sitting on the dark bus, just her and the somewhat creepy driver, Lila listens as the driver tells her that the people of Astaroth have a certain look.

When she arrives at Astaroth, Lila finds herself being pursued by seemingly deformed vampires but she’s rescued by the mysterious Lemora (Lesley Gilb). Or is she? Lemora is the same woman who found Lila’s father in the forest and it soon becomes obvious that Lemora has plans for Lila as well…

Meanwhile, the Reverend discovers that Lila has run away and his reaction leads us to suspect that there may have been more than a little bit of truth to the conversation that Lila previously overheard in the car. The Reverend sets out to track down and rescue Lila but, at this point, the viewer trusts him even less than they trust Lemora.

It’s a very strange movie and a difficult one to describe. It’s a movie that creates its own unique and odd reality. Lemora expects the viewer to conform to its style as opposed to conforming to the audience’s expectations. Lemora‘s full name is Lemora: A Child’s Tale Of The Supernatural and it really does play out like a particularly nightmarish fairy tale. Though the film was definitely low-budget, it’s full of strikingly surreal images. The entire movie feels like a dream — everything from the almost campy, gangster-film opening to Lila’s strange journey on the dark bus to Lemora’s hypnotic stare to the sudden and shocking conclusion of the Reverend’s relationship with Lila. The film has one of those endings that forces you to reconsider everything that you previously witnessed.

Much like Messiah of Evil, Lemora is one of those surrealistic and low-budget horror films that almost defies conventional criticism. It’s a surreal dream of dark and disturbing things and one that everyone should see for themselves. You may love it, as I did. You may hate it. But you will never forget it.

Horror Film Review: Central Park Drifter (dir by Jerry Ciccoritti)

Posted on October 4, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Central Park Drifter is an amazingly silly little vampire film from 1987.

Stephen Tespes (Michael A. Miranda, credited here as Silvio Olivero) is a 350 year-old vampire who suffers from not a little ennui. He spends his night driving a taxi (he works the graveyard shift, of course) around Toronto. (Actually, he’s supposed to be in New York but make no mistake about it, this film is so Canadian that you half-expect David Cronenberg to make a cameo appearance.) Stephen picks up depressed women who are on the verge of suicide. After making love to them in the back of his taxi, he bites them and does his vampire thing.

Stephen has a very strong ethical code. He only bites people who no longer feel that life is worth living. He tells all of the women that he has bitten that they are not to attack “innocent” people. Unfortunately, nobody wants to listen to Stephen and soon corpses are piling up all over ~~Toronto~~ New York.

Can the New York police solve the crime, figure out what’s happening, and prevent more senseless carnage? Well, fear not. Check out the detectives below because they are on the case!

New York is in good hands!

For his part, Stephen has other things to worry about. One night, he picks up a music video director named Michelle (Helen Papas). Michelle is unhappily married to Eric (Cliff Stoker), who we first meet while he’s busy cheating on her with a backup dancer. Michelle has just discovered that she is terminally ill. Normally, this would make her the ideal target for Stephen but, when Stephen tries to bite her, he finds himself kissing her instead.

That’s right! Stephen’s fallen in love with Michelle and, soon, Michelle is in love with Stephen. Sure, she’s a little upset when she comes across him drinking another woman’s blood in the back of his taxi but, when she tries to run away, Stephen catches up with her and explains that he’s a vampire and he has to do that or else he’ll start to dramatically age. Michelle, noticing that Stephen’s hair is no longer as gray as it was when she first met him, decides that she’s okay with that and soon, they’re having sex in Stephen’s coffin.

What Stephen doesn’t take into consideration is the fact that, as the result of their vampiric bond, all of the women that he’s bitten can sense when he and Michelle are having sex. And they don’t like it one bit. Soon, they’re all going on a killing spree and the streets of New York start to fill up with the bodies of pervs and nightwatchmen.

Eric, meanwhile, finds out about the affair and starts to make plans to destroy Stephen once and for all…

Look, technically, there’s a lot of critical stuff that I could say about Central Park Drifter. It’s a silly film that is full of inconsistent performances and it’s such an 80s film that it might as well have been made in 1987. (Oh wait, it was made in 1987…)

But, to be honest, I enjoyed Central Park Drifter. It’s a film that happily sacrifices logic for nonstop style, a movie that says, “Sure this makes no sense but listen to the music and take in the atmosphere and tell me that it matters.” It’s a silly film about silly vampires but, when taken on its own low-budget terms, it’s fun.

Plus, it was made in Canada and you know how much I love Canada!

Horror Film Review: Dracula A.D. 1972 (dir by Alan Gibson)

Posted on October 15, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(I originally wrote and posted this on February 5th, 2011. Seeing as how we’ve been taking a look at the other Hammer Dracula films, I figured I might as well repost it for Halloween!)

Dracula A.D. 1972 opens in 1872 with a genuinely exciting fight on a runaway carriage that ends with the death of both Count Dracula (Christopher Lee) and his nemesis, Prof. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing). However, as Van Helsing is buried, we see one of Dracula’s disciples (played by Christopher Neame, who had an appealingly off-kilter smile) burying Dracula’s ashes nearby. The camera pans up to the clear Victorian sky and, in a sudden and genuinely effective jumpcut, we suddenly see an airplane screeching across the sky.

Well, it’s all pretty much downhill from there. Suddenly, we discover that a hundred years have passed and we are now in “swinging” London. The city is full of red tourist buses, hippies wearing love beads, and upright policemen who always appear to be on the verge of saying, “What’s all this, then?” We are introduced to a group of hippies that are led by a creepy guy named Johnny Alculard (also played — quite well, actually — by Christopher Neame). One of those hippies (Stephanie Beacham) just happens to be the great-great-granddaughter of Prof. Van Helsing. Apparently, she’s not really big on the family history because she doesn’t notice that Alculard spells Dracula backwards. Then again, her father (played by Peter Cushing, of course) doesn’t either until he actually writes the name down a few times on a piece of a paper.

Anyway, the film meanders about a bit until finally, Alculard convinces all of his hippie friends to come take part in a black mass. “Sure, why not?” everyone replies. Well, I don’t have to tell you how things can sometimes get out-of-hand at black mass. In this case, Dracula comes back to life, kills a young Caroline Munro, and eventually turns Johnny into a vampire before then setting his sights on the modern-day Van Helsings.

Dracula A.D. 1972 was Hammer’s attempt to breathe some new life into one of its oldest franchises and, as usually happens with a reboot, its critical and (especially) commercial failure ended up helping to end the series. Among even the most devoted and forgiving of Hammer fans, Dracula A.D. 1972 has a terrible reputation. Christopher Lee is on record as regarding it as his least favorite Dracula film. And the film definitely has some serious flaws. Once you get past the relatively exciting pre-credits sequence, the movie seriously drags. There’s a hippie party sequence that, honest to God, seems to last for about 5 hours. As for the hippies themselves, they are some of the least convincing middle-aged hippies in the history of fake hippies. You find yourself eagerly awaiting their demise, especially the awkward-looking one who — for some reason — is always dressed like a monk. (Those crazy hippies!) But yet…nothing happens. All the fake hippies simply vanish from the film. Yet, they’re so annoying in just a limited amount of screen time that the viewer is left demanding blood. Add to that, just how difficult is it to notice that Alculard is Dracula spelled backwards? I mean, seriously…

To a large extent, the charm of the old school Hammer films comes from the fact that they’re essentially very naughty but never truly decadent. At their heart, they were always very old-fashioned and actually quite conservative. The Hammer films — erudite yet campy, risqué yet repressed — mirrors the view that many of my fellow Americans have of the English. For some reason, however, that Hammer naughtiness only works when there’s the sound of hooves on cobblestone streets and when the screen is populated by actors in three-piece suits and actresses spilling out of corsets. Dracula A.D. 1972 did away with the support of the corset and as a result, the film is revealed as a formless mess with all the flab revealed to the world.

Still, the film isn’t quite as bad as you may have heard. First off, the film — with its middle-aged hippies — has a lot of camp appeal. It’s the type of film that, once its over, you’re convinced that the term “groovy” was uttered in every other scene even though it wasn’t. As with even the worst Hammer films, the film features a handful of striking images and Christopher Neame is surprisingly charismatic as Alculard.

As with the majority of the Hammer Dracula films, the film is enjoyable if just to watch the chemistry between Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Both of these actors — so very different in image but also so very stereotypically English — obviously loved acting opposite of each other and whenever you see them on-screen together, it’s difficult not to enjoy watching as each one tried to top the other with a smoldering glare or a melodramatic line reading. As actors, they brought out the best in each other, even when they were doing it in a film like Dracula A.D. 1972. In this film, Cushing is like the father you always you wished you had — the stern but loving one who protected you from all the world’s monsters (both real and cinematic).

As for Lee, he’s only in six or seven scenes and he has even fewer lines but, since you spend the entire film wondering where he is, he actually dominates the entire movie. Lee apparently was quite contemptuous of the later Hammer Dracula films and, oddly enough, that obvious contempt is probably why, of all the Draculas there have been over the years, Lee’s version is the only one who was and is actually scary. F0rget all of that tortured soul and reluctant bloodsucker crap. Christopher Lee’s Dracula is obviously pissed off from the minute he first appears on-screen, the embodiment of pure destructive evil. And, for whatever odd reason, the purity of his evil brings a sexual jolt to his interpretation of Dracula that those littleTwilight vampires can only dream about. Even in a lesser films like Dracula A.D. 1972, Christopher Lee kicks some serious ass.

So, in conclusion, I really can’t call Dracula A.D. 1972 a good film nor can I really suggest that you should go out of your way to see it.. I mean, I love this stuff and I still frequently found my mind wandering whenever Cushing or Lee wasn’t on-screen. However, it’s not a terrible movie to watch if you happen to find yourself trapped in the house with 90 minutes to kill.

Horror Film Review: Dracula Untold (dir by Gary Shore)

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I finally got a chance to see Dracula Untold, the new film that claims to show us not only who the world’s most famous vampire used to be but also how he became a vampire in the first place. And I have to admit that I had strong hopes for Dracula Untold. I certainly did not think that it would be a great film but I was hoping that it would at least be fun.

And can you blame me?

After all, it is October and what better time of the year is there to see a film about the early days of a horror icon? Add to that, the film’s commercials all hinted that, at the very least, Dracula Untold would be full of over-the-top action, melodramatic performances, and ornate costumes. Sure, there was no hint to be found that Dracula Untold would actually turn out to be a good movie but how can you go wrong with the promise of a little baroque spectacle?

As well, who doesn’t love vampires? Who hasn’t, at some point, been intrigued by the mix of romance and morbid dread that epitomizes the vampire legend? And, of course, long before there was ever an Edward Cullen or a Lestat, there was Dracula.

So, yes, I had high expectation for Dracula Untold but I don’t think they were unrealistic. Ultimately, I was just hoping to see a fun and entertaining vampire film.

And, in all fairness, there were a few moments when Dracula Untold managed to be just that. Unfortunately, those moments were few and far between. For the most part, this latest Dracula film turned out to be rather bland and predictable, a well-produced film that failed to leave much of an impression. It was neither good enough to be memorable nor bad enough to be enjoyable. Instead, it just kind of was.

Dracula Untold opens in the Middle Ages, with the man that we know as Vlad the Impaler (Luke Evans) ruling Transylvania. Despite his fearsome reputation, we quickly see that Vlad is actually a very wise and benevolent king who truly loves his wife (Sarah Gadon) and his young son (Art Parkinson). However, when the new sultan of Turkey (played by Dominic Cooper) demands that Transylvania send him 100 young men to serve as slaves (much as Vlad himself was forced to do when he was younger), Vlad goes to war against the Ottomon Empire.

With his forces outnumbered, Vlad does what any self-respecting ruler would do. He goes to a cave and he talks to the Master Vampire (Charles Dance, under a ton of makeup). The Master Vampire agrees to give Vlad all the powers of a vampire but there’s a condition. In order to become human again, Vlad must go for three whole days without drinking any blood. If Vlad does drink blood, he will be cursed to be a vampire for the rest of his life.

Vlad takes the deal, fully intending not to drink any blood. As a result, Vlad can do all sorts of neat CGI tricks, like turning into a bat and fighting his enemies in slow motion. However, he can’t go out in the sun without his skin starting to burn and silver causes his eyesight to go all blurry. And, of course, he starts to crave blood almost immediately. As Vlad tries to defeat the Turks before losing his special powers, he also discovers that his own soldiers now fear him and his dark powers…

I don’t want to be too hard on Dracula Untold because, while my overall reaction was one of disappointment, there are still bits and pieces of the film that works. Charles Dance, for instance, gives a great performance as the Master Vampire. Dominic Cooper camps it up as the film’s nominal villain and, as a result, he’s a lot of fun to watch. Luke Evans is pretty to look at. The final showdown between Evans and Cooper is well-directed.

But, ultimately, the things that worked in Dracula Untold were the exception to the rule. For the most part, Dracula Untold is uninspiring and forgettable. Clocking in at 92 minutes, Dracula Untold is almost too short and quick for its own good. You never really find yourself becoming immersed in the film’s world and the majority of the film’s supporting characters were so thinly drawn that I struggled to keep straight who was who. (I swear, at first, it seemed as if one of Dracula’s friends was actually killed three separate times. It was only afterward, as I looked over the film’s credits, that I discovered that “friend” was actually three different characters who were so indistinguishable from each other that I had just naturally assumed that they were all meant to be the same guy.) There are occasionally hints of an intriguing political and sexual subtext, particularly in the scenes between Evans and Cooper, but the film is always in such a hurry to get to the next battle scene that those hints are often pushed to the side within minutes of having been brought up. It becomes obvious early on that Dracula Untold was mostly made to serve as the cornerstone of a new franchise and, as such, the film ultimately feels like a 90-minute prologue to a story that you’re not really sure will be worth all the build-up.

It’s not so much that Dracula Untold was a terrible film as much as it was just a painfully generic and predictable one. And a character as iconic as Dracula deserves better.

Film Review: Only Lovers Left Alive (dir by Jim Jarmusch)

Posted on April 30, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Is it possible that the iconic American independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch is a fan of the late and beloved French film director Jean Rollin?

I ask this question because Jarmusch’s latest film, Only Lovers Left Alive, is one of the most Rollinesque films to have ever been made by a director other than Jean Rollin.

The most obvious similarity between Jarmusch’s film and much of Rollin’s work is that they both deal with vampires. Rollin was the visual poet of vampire cinema and, if nothing else, Only Lovers Left Alive is a very poetic film. The film tells the story of three vampires — ennui-stricken Adam (Tom Hiddleston), Adam’s wife Eve (Tilda Swinton), and Eve’s hedonist sister Ava (Mia Wasikowska), all of whom would be perfectly at home in any of Rollin’s vampire films.

But, to be honest, the horror genre has reached the point where ennui-stricken and decadent vampires are hardly unique. What distinguished both Only Lovers Left Alive and the best films of Jean Rollin is the way that they both use and defy the conventions of the vampire genre to explore issues of sexuality, religion, politics, and artistic expression. Much like Rollin, Jarmusch understands what the audience expects from a vampire film and he makes his larger points by manipulating, defying, and occasionally even confirming those expectations.

In other words, Only Lovers Left Alive is no Twilight and we’re all better off for it.

There are other similarities between Only Lovers Left Alive and the best films of Jean Rollin. Much like Rollin, Jarmusch tells his story through a collection of sensual and increasingly dream-like images. Even Rollin’s trademark lingering shots of empty beaches and ancient castles are duplicated, in Only Lovers Left Alive, with haunting shots of the empty streets in Detroit and Tangiers. When, towards the end of the film, two hungry vampires find themselves searching for blood in an ancient city, it was impossible for me not to think of a similar scene in Jean Rollin’s Two Orphan Vampires.

Now, I’m sure that some of you are probably saying, “That’s great, Lisa, but can you just tell me whether the film is worth watching or not?”

To answer your question, it is. It’s not a flawless film. There’s a few comedic scenes involving a doctor played by Jeffrey Wright that aren’t quite as entertaining as they could be. And while it’s an interesting idea to have Christopher Marlowe show up as a vampire, John Hurt’s performance did not quite work for me. But, whenever the film concentrates on the chemistry between Hiddleston, Swinton, Wasikowska, and Anton Yelchin (who plays a hilariously naïve human), it works brilliantly.

So yes, definitely — see Only Lovers Left Alive.

See it for the scenes in which Adam and Eva drive through the ruins of Detroit, looking for Jack White’s house (“Oh! I love Jack White!” Eve exclaims) and discussing Adam’s belief that the “zombies” (his term for the rest of us) are on the verge of destroying themselves. Adam serves as the film’s philosophical and political mouthpiece and often times, his dialogue runs the risk of being a bit too on-the-nose perfect but Tom Hiddleston is such a charismatic performer that it doesn’t matter. Wisely, Hiddleston delivers his most portentous lines with just a hint of self-mockery, as if to let us know that even Adam knows he’s being overdramatic.

See it for the amazing sequence in which Adam plays music in Detroit while Eve dances to it in Tangiers. If Katharine Hepburn had been turned into a vampire, she would have been a lot like Tilda Swinton’s Eve.

See the film for Mia Wasikowska’s hilarious turn as a petulant and immature brat who just happens to be vampire. The scenes in which she goes out of her way to annoy the dour Adam left me convinced that, if I ever become a vampire, I’ll probably be a lot like Ava.

See it because the White Hills appear as themselves, playing in a club and absolutely killing it.

See it because it’s one of the few vampire films to strike a perfect balance between humor and drama.

Most of all, see it because it’s a good and unique movie and, so far this year, we’ve had a bit of a shortage where those are concerned.

As for me, if I ever meet Jim Jarmusch, I’m going to ask him for the title of his favorite Jean Rollin film.

If nothing else, it should be an interesting conversation.

Horror On The Lens: This Darkness: The Vampire Virus (dir by Dylan O’Leary)

Posted on October 16, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2003’s This Darkness, Dr. Van Helsing VII (played by the film’s director Dylan O’Leary) is a world-famous genetic engineer who is developing a serum that can cure all known diseases and perhaps grant immortality. Meanwhile, cheerleaders and surfers are being attack in broad daylight and having their blood drained. Among those killed is the daughter of Van Helsing’s friend Ron, who happens to own a martial arts studio. Could all of these events be connected? Your guess is as good as mine but eventually, a vampire named Tarquin does show up and demands that Van Helsing create a mate for him.

I’ve always found low-budget ambition to be very likable and, by that standard, This Darkness is probably one of the most likable films that I’ve seen. The film’s script has a few interesting ideas, O’Leary makes for an unconventional but effective hero, and the film actually looks pretty good for its budget. Especially towards the end of the film, This Darkness makes effective use of some unconventional locations. Add to that, it’s hard not to admire the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach that O’Leary took to putting his film together.

Add to that, how can you not enjoy a film directed by someone with as Irish a name as Dylan O’Leary?