Tag Archives: Horror of Dracula

Fright Club: Best Horror of the 1950s

When we first started this podcast, one hundred thirtysomething episodes ago, we devoted specific shows to the best horror movies by the decade. We started with the Sixties, but we got called on that at one point by a listener who wanted to know what we thought were the best horror movies of the Fifties.

We have finally responded to that (hopefully) very patient listener, and enlisted the help of our old friend Phantom Dark Dave. Together, we wander through the cold war movies that scared a generation.

5. Godzilla (1954)

Is Godzilla the best film on this list? No. But, more than any other film in the genre, it spoke directly to global anxieties, became a phenomenal success, and changed the face of horror.

As Japan struggled to re-emerge from the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, director Ishiro Honda unleashed that dreaded kaiju—followed quickly by a tidal wave of creature features focused on scientists whose ungodly work creates global cataclysm.

Far more pointed and insightful than its American bastardization or any of the sequels or reboots to follow, the 1954 Japanese original mirrored the desperate, helpless impotence of a global population in the face of very real, apocalyptic danger. Sure, that danger breathed fire and came in a rubber suit, but history shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man.

4. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Director Dono Siegel was the first filmmaker to bring Jack Finney’s Cold War nightmare to the screen. He wouldn’t be the last, maybe not even the best, but what he did with this eerie alien tale tapped into a societal anxiety and quickly became one of the most influential and terrifying films of its time.

Doc Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) is just home from a short trip when he’s inundated by patients swearing their loved ones are not their loved ones at all. Sure, they look the same and have all the same skills and memories, but there’s no warmth, no passion.

With this, the fear that our very nation could be overtaken by an outside force – Russians, say, for terrifyingly immediate sake of argument – working its way through not by force, but by quietly taking over each and every person in one town, then spreading from town to town to town.

It’s the kind of insidious evil that fuels contagion horror, infestation horror, even demonic horror. But Invasion of the Body Snatchers spoke to a society’s deepest fears and became a touchstone for all SciFi to follow it.

3. Dracula (Horror of Dracula) (1958)

In 1958, Hammer Films began its long and fabulous love affair with the cloaked one, introducing the irrefutably awesome Christopher Lee as the Count.

Their tale varies a bit from Stoker’s, but the main players are mostly accounted for. Peter Cushing steps in early and often as Van Helsing, bringing his inimitable brand of prissy kick-ass, but it’s Lee who carries the film.

Six foot 5 and sporting that elegant yet sinister baritone, Lee cuts by far the most intimidating figure of the lot as Dracula. Director Terence Fisher (what?!) uses that to the film’s advantage by developing a far more vicious, brutal vampire than what we’d seen previously.

Still, the film is about seduction, though, which gives Lee’s brute force an unseemly thrill. Unlike so many victims in other vampire tales, it’s not just that Melissa Stribling’s Mina is helpless to stop Dracula’s penetration. She’s in league. She wants it.

Ribald stuff for 1958!

2. The Bad Seed (1956)

The minute delicate Christine’s (Nancy Kelly) husband leaves for his 4-week assignment in DC, their way-too-perfect daughter begins to betray some scary behavior. The creepy handyman Leroy (Henry Jones) has her figured out – he knows she’s not as perfect as she pretends.

You may be tempted to abandon the film in its first reel, feeling as if you know where the it’s going. You’ll be right, but there are two big reasons to stick it out. One is that Bad Seed did it first, and did it well, considering the conservative cinematic limitations of the Fifties.

Second, because director Mervyn LeRoy’s approach – not a single vile act appears onscreen – gives the picture an air of restraint and dignity while employing the perversity of individual imaginations to ramp up the creepiness.

Enough can’t be said about Patty McCormack. There’s surprising nuance in her manipulations, and the Oscar-nominated 9-year-old handles the role with both grace and menace.

1. Diabolique (1955)

Pierre Boileau’s novel was such hot property that even Alfred Hitchcock pined to make it into a film. But Henri-Georges Clouzot got hold if it first. His psychological thriller with horror-ific undertones is crafty, spooky, jumpy and wonderful.

And it wouldn’t work if it weren’t for the weirdly lived-in relationship among Nicole (Simone Signoret) – a hard-edged boarding school teacher – and the married couple that runs the school. Christina (Vera Clouzot) is a fragile heiress; her husband Michel (Paul Meurisse) is the abusive, blowhard school headmaster. Michel and Nicole are sleeping together, Christine knows, both women are friends, both realize he’s a bastard. Wonder if there’s something they can do about it.

What unravels is a mystery with a supernatural flavor that never fails to surprise and entrance. All the performances are wonderful, the black and white cinematography creates a spectral atmosphere, and that bathtub scene can still make you jump.

Fright Club: Best Hammer Horror

With more than 200 films to their credit, there are almost too many directions you can take when whittling down the best in Hammer horror. Ingrid Pitt could have her own countdown, and fans of the sultrier side of Hammer may be disappointed with this countdown. Fans of Terence Fisher should be pleased, though, but there are still many other films in their repertoire worthy of note, which is why Phantom Dark Dave joins us with his own list!

5. The Devil Rides Out (1968)

Terence Fisher directed many—most—of Hammer’s best films. The Devil Rides Out was his last good movie.

We open on Christopher Lee, tall and brooding, his hair slicked back and his goatee dark. He is the picture of Luciferian evil. But he’s the good guy, which is just one of the ways the film toys with you.

Lee is the wealthy, occult-intrigued de Richleau, and he’s trying—God help him!—to save the life of his young friend whose very soul is in the hands of the evil Mocata. (Rocky Horror’s Charles Gray, which, let’s be honest, may be why we love this movie. The man has no neck! It’s just a jump to the left! We digress.)

There’s a black mass followed by a white mass followed by a black mass. What more do you want from a Hammer film?

Well, if you want loads of extreme close-ups of Charles Gray’s evil looking eyes, then you are in luck!

4. Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)

It turns out, we have kind of a thing for Terence Fisher. Did not even know that until we started working on this list.

In this late-life sequel in Hammer’s Frankenstein franchise, the idea of the female equivalent gets upended in sometimes fascinating ways. The film’s prelude, as a little boy sneaks to watch his drunken father’s execution, sets the stage for a surprisingly touching yet moralistically ambiguous film. Hooray!

Yes, Hammer dried this well up, returning to the Frankenstein tale for sequels and re-toolings throughout the sixties and into the seventies. One constant – Cushing – never fails the picture. Committed to his evil doctor – whom he based on the real-life British Dr. Knox he would later portray in earnest in 1960’s Flesh and the Fiends – Cushing excels where the films around him fail.

This time, it’s the human soul (as well, of course, as the idea of the ideal woman) that preoccupies the doctor and the film. It’s a topic that generates surprisingly little traction in the world’s many Frankenstein efforts, and though this one is hardly flawless, it’s still consistently intriguing.

3. Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

Beginning in the late 1950s, Britain’s Hammer studios begin making lurid period horror, banking on the awesome duo of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Their first collaboration was longtime Hammer director Terence Fisher’s take on the Shelley text, Curse of Frankenstein.

All bubbling potions and bunsen burners, Cushing’s laboratory (don’t forget to pronounce that middle ‘o’) is as fine a home to unholy alchemy as any. Jovially laissez-faire in matters of a moral nature, his sinister acts in the name of science are well played.

Cushing’s mad doctor is, at heart, a spoiled child. His behavior is outrageous, repugnant, but fascinating.

Christopher Lee made a fantastic Dracula – all elegance, height and menace. As Frankenstein’s monster, he’s rotty flesh, dead eye and sutures. Nasty! But the film’s real moment of genius was in making the doctor such a nonplussed agent of evil.

2. Curse of the Werewolf (1961)

The great, sultry, unseemly Oliver Reed makes his big screen debut in this one as Leon, the stricken ward of Spanish wealth with a hairy, toothy secret. So, that is awesome, but it is hardly the most interesting thing about this Terence Fisher movie.

Set in 18th Century Spain, the film opens on a cruel nobleman’s imprisonment of a beggar, who rots in a dungeon for decades, his only reminder of humanity the jailer and his lovely mute daughter. Naturally, that daughter is nearly raped by the nobleman, tossed into prison, and subsequently raped by the beggar. The territory is about as dark as Hammer gets, and it raises a lot of questions. Like, why is his offspring a werewolf?

Never explained, but a wealthy man takes pity on the dying girl’s offspring, raises him up and protects him from his own darker self. This is where Oliver Reed shines, because very few actors were ever more convincing when it came to the idea that they had unsettling impulses.

Fisher’s real fascination here is just that duality of man, and with Hammer flourish and Reed’s overacting, he makes a big splash in investigating it.

1. Horror of Dracula (1958)

In 1958, Hammer Films began its long and fabulous love affair with the cloaked one, introducing the irrefutably awesome Christopher Lee as the Count.

Their tale varies a bit from Stoker’s, but the main players are mostly accounted for. Peter Cushing steps in early and often as Van Helsing, bringing his inimitable brand of prissy kick-ass, but it’s Lee who carries the film.

Six foot 5 and sporting that elegant yet sinister baritone, Lee cuts by far the most intimidating figure of the lot as Dracula. Director Terence Fisher (what?!) uses that to the film’s advantage by developing a far more vicious, brutal vampire than what we’d seen previously.

Still, the film is about seduction, though, which gives Lee’s brute force an unseemly thrill. Unlike so many victims in other vampire tales, it’s not just that Melissa Stribling’s Mina is helpless to stop Dracula’s penetration. She’s in league. She wants it.

Ribald stuff for 1958!

Christopher Lee Dies at 93

The most imposing of all the Draculas, Christopher Lee died Sunday in London at the age of 93. With a powerful voice and formidable presence, Lee made his name as the villain in scores of British horror films from Hammer studios, memorably portraying Dracula, Fu Manchu, Frankenstein’s monster, Rasputin, Mephistopheles, the Mummy, as well as dozens of other random evil Counts, bloodthirsty vampires, suspicious doctors, nefarious priests, and various other sinister ne’er do wells.

He found use besides terrifying young maidens for that saucy baritone, recording a metal album in 2010 entitled Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross, and the follow up in 2013, Charlemagne: The Omens of Death.

Though Lee never struggled to land work, in his Eighties he found himself in the unlikely position of starring in two of the most financially successful franchises in movie history: Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. He also worked regularly in his later years in blockbusters directed by Tim Burton, and was a ready, welcome face in an assortment of indie horror flicks in his later years.

Lee was truly among the most iconic, most elegant, most impressive actors working in or outside of genre filmmaking. Do yourself a favor and rediscover some of the darkly magical work of the great Sir Christopher Lee.

Dracula (Horror of Dracula) (1958)

In 1958, British studio Hammer began its long and fabulous love affair with the cloaked one, introducing the irrefutably awesome Christopher Lee as the Count.

Their tale varies a bit from Stoker’s, but the main players are mostly accounted for. Peter Cushing steps in early and often as Van Helsing, bringing his inimitable brand of prissy kick-ass, but it’s Lee who carries the film.

Six foot 5 and sporting that elegant yet sinister baritone, Lee cuts by far the most intimidating figure of the lot as Dracula. Director Terence Fisher uses that to the film’s advantage by developing a far more vicious, brutal vampire than what we’d seen previously.

Still the film is about seduction, though, which gives Lee’s brute force an unseemly thrill. Unlike so many victims in other vampire tales, it’s not just that Melissa Stribling’s Mina is helpless to stop Dracula’s penetration. She’s in league. She wants it.

Ribald stuff for 1958!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTyBClMmoyQ

The Wicker Man 1973

In the early Seventies, Robin Hardy created a film that fed on the period’s hippie versus straight hysteria.

Uptight Brit constable Sgt. Howie (Edward Woodward) flies to the private island Summerisle investigating charges of a missing child. His sleuthing leads him into a pagan world incompatible with his sternly Christian point of view.

Hardy and his cast have wicked fun with Anthony Shaffer’s sly screenplay, no one more so than the particularly saucy Christopher Lee. I love him in the role of Lord Summerisle, though it helps that he gets all the great lines. For instance, “Shocks are so much better absorbed with the knees bent,” he deadpans.

When Howie asks, “And what of the one true God?”

Summerisle responds, “Well, he’s dead. He had his chance and, in modern parlance, blew it.”
Blasphemy indeed! No wonder Howie’s so up in arms. Plus there’s that naked barmaid and her sexy come-hither dance.

The film is hardly a horror movie at all – more of a subversive comedy of sorts – until the final reel or so. Starting with the creepy animal masks (that would become pretty popular in the genre a few decades later), then the parade, and then the finale, things take quite a creepy turn leading to what is still a very powerful climax.

Burke and Hare (2010)

Throughout his career, Lee made numerous, memorable cameos. Playing on his decades in genre film work, his quick appearances delivered a wink and a shudder to any true horror fan. From the LEGO Movie to The Wicker Tree to just about everything Tim Burton did after Mars Attacks, films benefitted from that otherworldly presence, even if only for a moment. Among the most fun is John Landis’s 2010 horror comedy about Europe’s famed corpse makers, Burke and Hare.

The film, loosely based on historical fact, follows William Burke (Simon Pegg) and William Hare (Andy Serkis – greatest living performance-capture actor making a rare flesh and blood appearance). It’s the age of enlightenment, and advances in medical science necessitate more fresh dissecting corpses in Edinburgh’s medical colleges. In a touching tale of capitalism in action, these two blokes simply found a need and filled it.

Landis’s approach is darkly comical, a choice he announces in the opening moments: This is a true story, except for the parts that are not. His game cast – including the always welcome Tom Wilkinson, the gloriously weird Tim Curry, and Lee as the pair’s first real victim – proves up to the challenge.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

I admit it – I had not read these books when I took my son to see the first of these films. As he and I huddled together in our seats, hoping little Frodo and Sam could outrun the Wraiths with the help of the magnificent Ian McKellan, we were naïve enough to believe that the White Wizard would be their salvation. Until I saw who it was.

I whispered to my boy, “He is not going to help them.”

Such is the effortless villainy of Christopher Lee. His simple presence fills you with fear – and then he speaks. That voice, so commanding and mocking and glorious.

Lee was 79 years old when Peter Jackson filmed the first trilogy and he twirled that staff, mounted that horse and commanded those Orcs like an ageless power. Like a boss.

The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

Beginning in the late 1950s, Britain’s Hammer studios begin making lurid period horror, banking on the awesome horror duo of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Their first collaboration was longtime Hammer director Terence Fisher’s take on the Shelley text, Curse of Frankenstein.

All bubbling potions and bunsen burners, Cushing’s laboratory (don’t forget to pronounce that middle ‘o’) is as fine a home to unholy alchemy as any. Jovially laissez faire in matters of a moral nature, his sinister acts in the name of science are well played.

His mad doctor is, at heart, a spoiled child. His behavior is outrageous, repugnant, but fascinating.
Christopher Lee made a fantastic Dracula – all elegance, height and menace. His Frankenstein’s monster is an almost unrecognizable change of pace. He’s rotty flesh, dead eye and sutures. Though his performance certainly lacks the vulnerability and innocence that made Boris Karloff’s version iconic, his version is more raw menace.