Friday 5 February 2010

Vlad The Impaler

The early Hammer Horror films with Christopher Lee really started the whole vampire craze. Then of course in the 80's there was a whole spate of films, including Near Dark, The Lost Boys, and John Carpenter's Vampires. All good films. The 90's weren't such a good era for vampires, but they still managed to produce From Dusk Til Dawn and Vampire In Brooklyn (two of my favourite vampire movies). There have been a few poor attempts at vampire films since (including the Blade trilogy, which didn't really do much for me, I'm afraid), and Van Helsing (which, despite featuring the lovely Hugh Jackman, couldn't quite decide what it was, and sadly failed as both a horror and as a comedy).

But in the last few years we seem to have been bombarded with the undead, both in film and on TV...first Underworld, then Twilight, True Blood (brilliant), Being Human (even more brilliant), Daybreakers (fantastic vampire gore-fest), and now The Vampire Diaries. And soon we have The Wolfman (which I am actually quite excited about - the trailer is damn impressive).

Combining vampires and werewolves seems to be the real creature-feature obsession at the moment. Underworld was the first real attempt to combine them in one film, and I have to say it was very successful. The underlying mythos was well constructed and had some depth to it, providing a good story that made the film more than a simple vampires vs. werewolves brawl, which it could easily have become. And instead of the werewolves being painted merely as vicious animals, they were given a history and a motive, and, most importantly of all, a charismatic and intelligent leader. It could be argued that the third film, Rise of the Lycans, was unnecessary since the first film provided the highlights of the Lucian/Sonja story, but I think they carried it off well, again adding depth to the mythology that they had created. And they had such a superb actor in Michael Sheen that he gave the film, and the character, some real credibility.

Twilight also combines the two species. But the whole premise is just far too twee, teen angsty and romanticised to actually be a good horror film. Or even to count as horror at all. It is, let's face it, a teen romance. And a fairly dull, two-dimensional one at that. I really don't understand the hysteria surrounding the series, or the actors. I just don't get Robert Pattinson. The guy who plays Jacob is quite sweet but very, very young, which made the shirtless scenes a little uncomfortable. Is it right for women in their 30's to be lusting over a 17-year-old?! I haven't read the books, and having sat through the first two films (grudgingly), I can't say I feel any strong desire to try. The Vampire Diaries is another new vamp-based TV series imported from America. I saw a trailer for it the other day, and I'm afraid it just looks like Twilight all over again, with the same sickeningly romantic tweeness to it. But we'll see. I'll probably have to at least watch the first couple of episodes. Can't condemn something as crap if you haven't seen it!

There is also now a growing foreign contingent in the horror movie industry, especially from the Spanish, Russian, and Korean fronts, that must get a mention. Some of these countries have produced some very fine vampire films. Night Watch and Day Watch are Russian, and are adaptations of the first two of a series of four books (supposedly. Having just read the blurb for the second book, I suspect the film deviates heavily from the text!). Night Watch is poorly subtitled, which makes the story a little hard to follow in places, but it is a very good story, and another original take on the vampire genre. It sets up events nicely for the second film, which leaps quickly into the action and hurtles along to a very satisfying ending. And has much better subtitling! I'm intrigued enough to actually try reading the books now. Let The Right One In (Swedish) has also been a huge critical success, but I'm afraid I haven't gotten around to seeing it yet. It's at the top of my 'to watch' list, because it does look very good. And a foreign film has to be good to encourage lazy British crowds to actually pay attention and read the subtitles! Such hard work!

Bad Moon Rising

Moving on from the sci-fi theme and heading a little further along the genre spectrum, we come to horror. I've decided to split this into two posts for more bite-sized reading, as it was getting a little long...

Now, it can't have escaped anyone's attention that vampires and werewolves have suddenly become very popular. Vampires have always been popular, but for werewolves this seems to be a pleasant little renaissance. They've been out of vogue for a very long time. I tried writing a list of vampire and werewolf films that I've seen earlier, and only managed to come up with 7 werewolf films, compared with at least 17 vampire films (not including cross-overs such as Underworld and Twilight).

Of course, werewolves are smelly and hairy and not nearly as romantic a horror villain as your average vampire, so they've always been rather underrated. However, I would argue that An American Werewolf in London is one of the finest horror films (albeit a horror-comedy) of all time. And still to this day has THE finest werewolf transformation scene (although George's first transformation scene in the TV series Being Human was pretty damn impressive, and quite brutal). I was distressed earlier to hear a rumour that somebody plans to re-make it. Why on earth would you want to do that? It's such a classic.

In fact, An American Werewolf in London is the only good werewolf film on my list! The sequel, An American Werewolf in Paris, was just poor. Dog Soldiers and Ginger Snaps were cheesy (but faintly amusing!), Cursed was pathetic, and Teen Wolf was...well, Teen Wolf. Say no more. Ah, tell a lie. The Jack Nicholson film Wolf was actually very good.

So, two good werewolf films, in the whole of cinematic history (that I've seen, anyway. If anyone is aware of any more good ones, please let me know!). That's a little pathetic. But there is a wealth of good vampire mythos kicking around, and many different takes on the legend, giving vampire films a diversity and popularity that has always far outstripped that of the humble werewolf.


To be continued...