Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Castle of Horror, the show dedicated
Speaker 1: to horror movies and awesomeness. We are a feat Spot
Speaker 1: top one hundred horror podcast. This week we have a
Speaker 1: look at the nineteen sixty eight Hammer Dracula film Dracula
Speaker 1: Has Risen from the Grave. This is episode four hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty two. Bear in mind if you haven't seen
Speaker 1: today's movie, we're going to be talking here about up
Speaker 1: from the perspective of horror fans who have seen it,
Speaker 1: So warning spoilers ahead. From Denver, Colorado, I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jason Henderson, publisher at Castlebridge Media, home of the Castle
Speaker 1: of Horror anthology. With me from Austin is Tony Savaggio,
Speaker 1: lead singer and Basins of the band Deserts of Mars
Speaker 1: and lead guitarist of the band Rise from Fireus Hey Loo,
Speaker 1: Tony Howdy Howdy, also in Austin. Mister Drew Edwards is
Speaker 1: the writer creator of the long running underground comic Halloween Man,
Speaker 1: which you can find at Global Comics. He is a
Speaker 1: Best Writer Ringo nominee, Austin Chronic Best of Boston Award
Speaker 1: winner and a member of the Pen American Fellowship Say Hello.
Speaker 2: Drew who has done this thing? Uh?
Speaker 1: And finally also in Denver color. Commentary from a woman
Speaker 1: that I walked with on a on a walking tour
Speaker 1: of Haunted Denver this weekend, Julia Guzman of Guzman Immigration
Speaker 1: of Denver Cy.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 3: Hello. I have to say that the ghost tour was
Speaker 3: led by the host of Kessel Horror podcast, So that
Speaker 3: was pretty That's true.
Speaker 1: It was really, it was really a blast. It was
Speaker 1: I spent like two weeks studying for that, and then
Speaker 1: and then and then we hit and it was it
Speaker 1: was great. We all learned all about haunted uh, Haunted
Speaker 1: Denver all.
Speaker 3: Right, super entertaining, super interesting.
Speaker 1: Oh thank you. Some of it even brought me to tears.
Speaker 1: There was like there's like one element of it that
Speaker 1: literally just made me cry every time. So I was
Speaker 1: I was really moved by that. Okay. Dracula Has Risen
Speaker 1: from the Grave is a nineteen six British supernatural horror
Speaker 1: film directed by Freddy Francis and produced by Hammer Film Productions.
Speaker 1: Francis was the director of Tales from the Crip, Who's
Speaker 1: like one of my favorite Amicus movies. It is the
Speaker 1: fourth entry and Hammer's Dracula series third to feature Chris
Speaker 1: Furley as Count Dracula. This is number three with Chris
Speaker 1: Furlee the and the film stars Rupert Davies as a
Speaker 1: clergyman who exorcises Dracula's castle and in doing so, Udding
Speaker 1: unwittingly resurrects the Count back from the dead. Dracula Has
Speaker 1: Risen from the Grave also stars Veronica Carlson, Barry Andrews,
Speaker 1: Barbara Ewing, Ewen Hooper, and the One and Only beloved
Speaker 1: Michael Ripper. It was followed by Taste the Blood of
Speaker 1: Dracula in nineteen seventy. All right, so let's get our
Speaker 1: opening thoughts, just a few thoughts to get us going.
Speaker 1: I cannot wait to talk about this movie. This movie
Speaker 1: is so beautiful that it has been oftentimes my desktop
Speaker 1: on my phone. Let's go Drew, Julia Toni, and then
Speaker 1: I'll go monsieur Drew. What are your opening thoughts? Dracula
Speaker 1: Has Risen from the Grave.
Speaker 2: I think this is a really really interesting entry in
Speaker 2: uh the Dracula the Hammer Dracula canon. I think this
Speaker 2: is one of the first that that really seems like
Speaker 2: it's aimed squarely at the youth culture, and you have
Speaker 2: this much more skewed idea of religion, and you have,
Speaker 2: of course a you know, a a main character who
Speaker 2: is an atheist, which I think is a really novel
Speaker 2: idea for this, this kind of vampire movie. I think
Speaker 2: that it's got a lot of really interesting, conflicted kind
Speaker 2: of characters, which is really really really great when you
Speaker 2: put them up against the in particular the Christopher lee
Speaker 2: Uh version of Dracula, who, above anything else about his character,
Speaker 2: is definitely not conflicted. You know, when he has a goal,
Speaker 2: he goes right for it. You know, everybody else in
Speaker 2: this movie is much more, let's say, all over the
Speaker 2: place in their journey. I think also, unlike a lot
Speaker 2: of the other Hammer movies, and this isn't a knock
Speaker 2: necessarily because I enjoy almost I mean, you can go
Speaker 2: back through this podcast and listen. I enjoy almost every
Speaker 2: Hammer movie we review. But a lot of the characters
Speaker 2: have a much more point A to point B kind
Speaker 2: of arc to them in this movie. And I, you know,
Speaker 2: as somebody that has spent my life writing, I really
Speaker 2: appreciate that. And I don't know, I just think it's real.
Speaker 2: You know, we'll get more into it, but especially this
Speaker 2: time watching it, because this is a movie I have
Speaker 2: seen a lot, and it is in fact one of
Speaker 2: the first DVD that I ever bought. You know, it's
Speaker 2: so it's a movie I've seen a hell of a lot,
Speaker 2: but I got even more out of watching it this
Speaker 2: time when we were doing it so close to some
Speaker 2: of the other Hammer Draculus. You know, I think it's
Speaker 2: it's it's an interesting jump in both style and and
Speaker 2: you know text as well. And you know, I don't
Speaker 2: want to give necessarily my whole thesis statement in my
Speaker 2: opening thoughts, because I do have a lot of thoughts,
Speaker 2: but I kind of want to save it for the conversation.
Speaker 2: But needless to say, I think this is a really interesting.
Speaker 1: Movie, wonderful. Thank you very much for kicking it off.
Speaker 1: That's great, Julia. I think you liked this one a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean you seem to what are your what are
Speaker 1: your thoughts?
Speaker 3: I mean I liked a lot of things about it,
Speaker 3: But there was I sort of it was two minds
Speaker 3: going through, Like some of the movie felt pretty unoriginal,
Speaker 3: and then other then there was a couple of things
Speaker 3: where I was like, well that's really interesting, but it's
Speaker 3: just kind of I think, I don't know, I didn't
Speaker 3: get a whole lot from the script, but I did, like,
Speaker 3: I mean, I know you're a big fan of the set, Jason,
Speaker 3: and the yeah, the idea, a couple of the ideas
Speaker 3: behind it, especially the you know, the atheist hero that
Speaker 3: was very interesting. So I think there's some moments that
Speaker 3: I'm looking forward to discussing and hearing what you guys
Speaker 3: have to say. But I feel like a lot of
Speaker 3: it was just kind of like, okay, like checkbox, a
Speaker 3: bunch of checkboxes for a Hammer Dracula film, which you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, that's that's what makes it a Hammer Dracular film,
Speaker 3: is that text boxes. So I think it's fine.
Speaker 1: I love that idea that you could have a Hammer
Speaker 1: Dracula film be sort of like a James Bond movie,
Speaker 1: that there has to be like points along the way
Speaker 1: that you have to do the thing, you have to
Speaker 1: have a certain element, you have to have the plot
Speaker 1: do a certain thing. And that's really wild that just
Speaker 1: you know, this is the third Christopher Lee Dracula movie,
Speaker 1: and already there are recognizable elements that they have to hit. Tony,
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts.
Speaker 4: Julia, I think Rain actually commented on something really similar,
Speaker 4: likes like, how many drag movies do we have? And
Speaker 4: how many this, this, this, and this now I I yeah,
Speaker 4: there you get I, you know, but even that, like
Speaker 4: I was kind of in between you and Drew because
Speaker 4: I don't know if this is Mike, this certainly wouldn't
Speaker 4: be up there my favorite Dracula movie. But one thing
Speaker 4: I love about watching these hammered Dracula is even if
Speaker 4: there is kind of hey, Dracula's going to do this
Speaker 4: and then this is going to happen, et cetera, he
Speaker 4: is going to, you know, seduce this woman, Like there's
Speaker 4: I have yet to see one where there isn't like
Speaker 4: several things that are fascinating or interesting you know that,
Speaker 4: Oh well look, you know this one has a lot
Speaker 4: of this rooftop stuff. It's got you know, an.
Speaker 1: Arc for the character.
Speaker 4: It's got a you know, Draculu's helper being a priest,
Speaker 4: you know, his Renfield.
Speaker 1: Like Andrew was saying, like.
Speaker 4: That's that's interesting that that doesn't happen very often. So
Speaker 4: there's all these bits, you know, the while they do
Speaker 4: with while they deal with crosses, there's also a prayer
Speaker 4: slash you know, mystical like ritual element to it. As
Speaker 4: well for getting rid of a vampire in this So
Speaker 4: the way that they go through the mythos as well
Speaker 4: is really interesting. So while it's not my favorite, I've
Speaker 4: always just really intrigued at how you get something interesting
Speaker 4: no matter what, and that that's something you can't say.
Speaker 1: For for kind of every franchise.
Speaker 4: So I really enjoy I enjoy that aspect perhaps the most.
Speaker 1: I really I thank you very much to me. I
Speaker 1: really appreciate that there is a continuity such because we've
Speaker 1: talked all the time about how films of this era
Speaker 1: often wouldn't really bother attempting much at continuity, and so
Speaker 1: it's always so wonderful when they actually do, like when
Speaker 1: you leave Frankenstein's Monster underground and you find them later
Speaker 1: underground and a block of ice, I mean. And so
Speaker 1: it's always nice when when you're like, hey, they're they're
Speaker 1: doing a continuity thing, even when they know that that
Speaker 1: people we barely people of of prior decades before home video,
Speaker 1: you know, you had no reason to expect that they
Speaker 1: would remember how the last that ends. But I love
Speaker 1: that they do this, and and uh so, uh uh,
Speaker 1: let's just go right into it, because I want to
Speaker 1: talk about Dracula in this So first I want to
Speaker 1: talk about how he is resurrected, because Hammer Dracula always
Speaker 1: starts out dead and always gets resurrected, well, with a few,
Speaker 1: with a few, uh, with some with some exceptions, but
Speaker 1: often it feels like the cliche. It feels like one
Speaker 1: of the rules of the road that they're hitting.
Speaker 3: And that would be the first one of the ones
Speaker 3: I'm talking about where I'm like, oh, here we go
Speaker 3: again with somebody just delivering blood to Dracula.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So you remember at the end of Dracula Prince
Speaker 1: of Darkness, Uh, Dracula and Barbara Shelley were out on
Speaker 1: the eye and the ice was was over a river,
Speaker 1: over running water in a moat around Dracula's castle, and
Speaker 1: so the the roving anti vampire priest shot at the
Speaker 1: ice and Dracula fell in and it was great. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just never get enough of the beautiful awesomeness of
Speaker 1: that of Dracula's icy demise. It never looks real, but
Speaker 1: it looks like you're on a dark ride with Dracula
Speaker 1: in it. And I dig that. So in this movie,
Speaker 1: Dracula's still under that ice. I just think that's great.
Speaker 1: They don't even bother to mention it to his dialogue.
Speaker 1: They're just like, Dracula died a year ago and later
Speaker 1: we find him in a river.
Speaker 2: Well they say did they say? They do say, did
Speaker 2: you know did he not die in your mountain stream
Speaker 2: or whether something to the Okay.
Speaker 4: Well, you didn't get he didn't flow that far. That's
Speaker 4: the other thing. He's kind of got stuck right outside
Speaker 4: the castle, like we expect him to kind of flow
Speaker 4: out to see, but nope, he did kind of got
Speaker 4: stuck on the grating or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean so much for running water, Like, doesn't
Speaker 3: seem to have run very much right.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, he's sort of large, so he just
Speaker 1: get hung up on something and you know, so he's there,
Speaker 1: which is so silly. I would have been great there,
Speaker 1: Like Dracula, you know, he gets his blood. He's like,
Speaker 1: oh crap, I'm just stuck in this bike because rebirth.
Speaker 1: I'm here at the bottom of a damn with a
Speaker 1: giant catfish. That's just like it's stuck there making friends
Speaker 1: with the catfish. And you know when we get out
Speaker 1: of here.
Speaker 2: What I love about the beginning of this movie is
Speaker 2: you sort of have to accept that deer in all
Speaker 2: of the action of uh, Dracula Prints of Darkness. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Dracula mosied over to this church, killed a girl, hung
Speaker 2: her up, hung her up in the bell tower, and
Speaker 2: they went right back into the age.
Speaker 1: It's a really good point because he had been dust
Speaker 1: prior to that, until they until they hung up Paul.
Speaker 3: I guess if okay, wait, wait, wait, you've lost me
Speaker 3: and I just watched this movie. Why don't we start
Speaker 3: from the beginning.
Speaker 1: Okay, Dracula Prince of Darkness the movie before this, Remember,
Speaker 1: Dracula starts out as dust because he had turned to
Speaker 1: dust at the end of the first movie. Okay, Then
Speaker 1: the two couples come to visit Dracula in his castle,
Speaker 1: and then in the night, one of them, Paul, is
Speaker 1: murdered and hung up by his heels and his throat slit,
Speaker 1: and that blood brings Dracula back.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Yes, of course, this movie establishes that wild Racula is
Speaker 1: awakened and messing around with those couples and doing all
Speaker 1: this stuff he does in that movie. He also went
Speaker 1: into this town and killed a girl and hung her
Speaker 1: up in a bell tower, and then went back to
Speaker 1: the business of Dracula, Prince of Darkness, and then he
Speaker 1: got killed on the ice.
Speaker 3: It happened, but before Dracula was killed. It's not something
Speaker 3: else I thought maybe I thought maybe it was somebody
Speaker 3: another vampire that don't.
Speaker 2: No, there's there's a time lapse, okay, the which is
Speaker 2: why we get all the depressed villagers that won't go
Speaker 2: the church because the shadow of the castle falls on it.
Speaker 2: It's a bit it's a bit convoluted, I admit. But
Speaker 2: one of the things that I love about it is
Speaker 2: that if it means is if this monsignor had just
Speaker 2: let the townspeople not go the church, right, none of
Speaker 2: this would have happened.
Speaker 3: Okay, so so so on on playing monign advocate here,
Speaker 3: I would say that he would rather save their souls
Speaker 3: than save their bodies. Now, of course if they turn advantage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he is. But that's the That's the thing
Speaker 2: that's kind of fascinating to me about this character is
Speaker 2: he's sort of he reminds me a bit of Father
Speaker 2: Sandor from from the previous movie, but he's in Sandor
Speaker 2: is kind of charming in his abrasiveness. This guy, when
Speaker 2: he goes abrasive, just he kind of you know, oscillates
Speaker 2: between being very warm and fuzzy and then being a
Speaker 2: straight up dickhead. And the way he he sort of
Speaker 2: bullies this this drunken priest into going up into the
Speaker 2: mountains and performing an exorcism with him is super dickish.
Speaker 2: And I I don't know if that was intentional, but
Speaker 2: I kind of hope it was because I think this
Speaker 2: movie has a much more complex relationship with a religious
Speaker 2: authority figure that it's sort of it's sort of getting
Speaker 2: you know, if you look at this in the the
Speaker 2: Larger Cannon of Hammer vampire films, you know, like you
Speaker 2: think think about twins of evil, like Peter Cushing's character
Speaker 2: in that who is a minister, but he's also just
Speaker 2: a straight up villain. This character, yeah, this character is
Speaker 2: not that. But it is showing a sort of a
Speaker 2: starting of a strained relationship with with religious faith in
Speaker 2: these movies that I find really interesting.
Speaker 1: That's the the I like. I like that you said that.
Speaker 1: I just want to point out that this You're right,
Speaker 1: that this guy is very conflicted because, for instance, when
Speaker 1: they climb up to Dracula's castle and by the way, okay,
Speaker 1: one thought at a time when they climb up to
Speaker 1: Dracula's castle. He does allow the priest to remain behind.
Speaker 1: He's like, look, it's okay if you know, if you
Speaker 1: don't have the energy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because his premise was that he needed a guide,
Speaker 3: basically right, But.
Speaker 1: He leaves him behind, and because the guy's too afraid
Speaker 1: to go up, and I thought it was it's actually
Speaker 1: fairly mention of him to leave him behind, Like he's like,
Speaker 1: it's okay, you can you can wait here. You don't
Speaker 1: have to go all the way.
Speaker 2: But you know what a bit even more minshi, Yeah,
Speaker 2: just letting the people be right and not setting in
Speaker 2: motion a Dracula rampage.
Speaker 1: I suppose. I suppose that is true, but I just
Speaker 1: wanted to mention.
Speaker 3: That nobody does achieve his task of making the castle
Speaker 3: Dracula proof anyway.
Speaker 1: Coaches, Well, that that's sort of Drew's points is that
Speaker 1: is that you know these things, every action has an
Speaker 1: equal and opposite reaction. Like he goes to exercise the
Speaker 1: castle and make it so Dracula can't use it, and
Speaker 1: Dracula goes on a gosh darn rampage.
Speaker 3: The only reason Dracula goes on a rampage is because
Speaker 3: he accidentally got brought back to life, which was not
Speaker 3: the intention of the right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just saying that this is a movie that
Speaker 2: would be better off if everybody in this movie would
Speaker 2: have been better off if he had just said, you
Speaker 2: know what, you're a drunk priest. Yeah, olive your breath,
Speaker 2: best life. You know, let's maybe build a new church
Speaker 2: that's not in the shadow of Castle Dracula. I will say,
Speaker 2: I will say, you know, I'm not saying any of
Speaker 2: this is to the movies detriment. I actually like this
Speaker 2: stuff about this movie because I think it makes all
Speaker 2: the characters much more interesting because he is well intended,
Speaker 2: Like he's not you know, he's not cartoonish when he's
Speaker 2: being he thinks he's he thinks he's doing the right thing,
Speaker 2: and it's sort of the road the hell is paved
Speaker 2: with good intentions.
Speaker 4: We had no idea that, you know, his buddy was
Speaker 4: gonna fall down and bleed all over Dracula's.
Speaker 2: That day.
Speaker 1: There's something he.
Speaker 2: Does believe in Dracula. It's not like he's like, you're
Speaker 2: a bunch of superstitious so and so's so.
Speaker 4: Well, nobody, I mean, nobody would have been like, yeah,
Speaker 4: come up and go, come come with me, come bleed
Speaker 4: on Dracula.
Speaker 1: This sounds like a good thing.
Speaker 4: And then when Dracula can't go to his house, he's like, oh, okay,
Speaker 4: well now everybody gets a Dracula problem, right, everybody gets
Speaker 4: a Dracular problem.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Christopher Lee has more dialogue in this movie than he does.
Speaker 2: You know, it's not a lot, but the way he's
Speaker 2: he is used, it's so afe, like you know, I
Speaker 2: I did it in my opening, you know, but like
Speaker 2: the who has done this thing? Who has done this thing?
Speaker 2: I love that lying delivery and how super offended he
Speaker 2: is that somebody performed an exorcism on his castle. And
Speaker 2: I I also, you know, you want to talk about
Speaker 2: Dracula in this movie. I love how personal this attack is.
Speaker 2: This isn't just him wanting food. You know, he is
Speaker 2: mad at this monsignor, and so he's going to go
Speaker 2: direct and directly to him and fuck up his life.
Speaker 1: I mean, think about it. That's where Dracula keeps his stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you beat this too.
Speaker 4: All my Dracula stuff is in my castle. I got
Speaker 4: one cake, now one?
Speaker 3: What would Jason do if I just changed the lock
Speaker 3: on his office?
Speaker 1: Right, exactly, Yeah, all my stuff.
Speaker 2: Who has done this thing?
Speaker 4: Exactly, But but it's even more it's even more of
Speaker 4: an affront all jokes aside by the fact that it's worms.
Speaker 4: I mean, these people are so this Dracula especially, these
Speaker 4: people are so below him in every way that he
Speaker 4: can think of the fact that they barred it from
Speaker 4: his castle home. It's just a I mean triple affront
Speaker 4: ten times a front, right, I saw you. Okay, now
Speaker 4: that's it. And you you know it's it's just such
Speaker 4: a fundamental just it's pas it's petty.
Speaker 2: And I love it when villains are motivated by pettiness.
Speaker 2: I I it's it's both grandiose and relatable at the
Speaker 2: same time.
Speaker 1: Well, Dracula always is all about revenge, like he often
Speaker 1: is is saying, you know, I'm going to take my
Speaker 1: time getting my revenge and spreading it across centuries. So
Speaker 1: you know, this is a common thing for him to
Speaker 1: like pick somebody and really want to want to want
Speaker 1: to get him.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, and this it's like, you desecrated my castle,
Speaker 2: so I'm going to desecrate your niece.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, and and exactly so I I I want
Speaker 5: to keep talking about Dracula, But I do want to
Speaker 5: mention this castle has completely changed now in universe, we
Speaker 5: now have a there's no explanation for this at all.
Speaker 1: But in universe, Dracula's castle is now impassable, so there's
Speaker 1: there's no road leading up to it anymore. There's no
Speaker 1: more mote, there's there's only a castle at the top
Speaker 1: of a mountain that you have to climb. So either
Speaker 1: the townsfolk have destroyed the road, which I think is
Speaker 1: a reasonable assumption, or or magic has happened and caused
Speaker 1: the countryside to be totally differently shaped. Doesn't matter. We
Speaker 1: now have a completely different surrounding for the castle, and
Speaker 1: there's no way to just ride to You can't just
Speaker 1: ride a coach up to the castle door anymore, which
Speaker 1: makes no sense, but that's what we're going with.
Speaker 4: And I mean it's always kind of been sort of magical, yes,
Speaker 4: and you can imagine some kind of a between the
Speaker 4: magic and the villagers probably doing something.
Speaker 1: By the way, I did have a question.
Speaker 4: I probably should have looked this up, but you know,
Speaker 4: we asked some experts here. How is there any mention
Speaker 4: of how they make him so bloodshot? Makeup wise?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he has contact lenses. Contacts like that can have
Speaker 1: been fun to wear.
Speaker 4: I was curious, that's what I figured, but I was like, well,
Speaker 4: it says.
Speaker 3: In the IMDb that this time around it was they
Speaker 3: were better than about the past ones because they're cut smaller,
Speaker 3: so they're not like bothering in the inside of his eye. However,
Speaker 3: that makes that means that that at one point they're
Speaker 3: actually you can actually see the edge.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, but it's effect.
Speaker 4: It is super bloodshot all the time, and it looks
Speaker 4: it adds to the kind.
Speaker 1: Of here I feel like, just gets better and better
Speaker 1: every movie, so that you know, he's gorgeous.
Speaker 3: In this film. He's absolutely gorgeous in this movie. No,
Speaker 3: he he is presently. Yes, you think you're right about
Speaker 3: the wig is he's in great shape, so he looks
Speaker 3: very like just strong and fit when he's standing there.
Speaker 3: And the lighting is so fantastic every time he shows up.
Speaker 3: It's like he always steps out of the shadows and
Speaker 3: he's his face is always lit more than anything else
Speaker 3: around him. It's just great. He looks fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he has these really long legs, so he's
Speaker 1: able to just like heap all over the place. His
Speaker 1: sort of animalism is on display, and it's funny to
Speaker 1: think of Dracula Christopher Lee Dracket. So when I say Dracula,
Speaker 1: unless I say otherwise, I'm just talking about Lee Dracula
Speaker 1: in this thing. But so Dracula as he showed up
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty eight was very urbane in that one.
Speaker 1: You know, he has a lot of dialogue and he's like, well,
Speaker 1: it'd be very agreeable if you would, if you would
Speaker 1: look into my library and make sure everything goes to
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah blah. He talks a lot, you know,
Speaker 1: and with each movie he's you know, in the previous
Speaker 1: one he's completely mute. In this one he has a
Speaker 1: few words. We've come up with all kinds of you know,
Speaker 1: no prize theories for it. But the bottom line is
Speaker 1: these guys don't want this Dracula talking very much, which
Speaker 1: I find strange because he has a really great voice.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, this is the this is
Speaker 1: the hammer Dracula. This is hoppening.
Speaker 3: Maybe he's expensive to if if you give him lines,
Speaker 3: it costs a lot of money.
Speaker 1: You know, That would make a lot of sense to me,
Speaker 1: But I don't think that's it, because I because, yeah,
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't think that's it. I don't think
Speaker 1: that's how you know.
Speaker 2: I I think at least in this one, they probably thought, well,
Speaker 2: he was effective as a mute in the last one.
Speaker 2: But we don't want to do the exact same thing again.
Speaker 2: So what if we just give him a minimal amount
Speaker 2: of dialogue so when he does speak it has because
Speaker 2: I feel like when he does speak in this it
Speaker 2: has a lot of impact. And you know some of
Speaker 2: that is just because you know, Christopher Lee has a
Speaker 2: great speaking voice. Yeah, but you know two, I think
Speaker 2: you know, he seems so like this isn't Dracula just
Speaker 2: going around and randomly raising hell, Like this is Dracula
Speaker 2: very purposeful and like I'm going to this town, I'm
Speaker 2: targeting this specific group of people, and I'm going to
Speaker 2: ruin their lives.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it's yeah, that that's like. And the funny
Speaker 1: thing is in the in the nineties, eighties and nineties
Speaker 1: when the erotic thriller became a big thing, this was
Speaker 1: a major plot idea that got transported into like people
Speaker 1: in suits. Is this person like laid off my dad
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, and so I'm going to
Speaker 1: go into their life and ruin everything about their life.
Speaker 1: Like that's a that's a common trope for a kind
Speaker 1: of I.
Speaker 2: Think it's something that we, you know, because Dracula didn't
Speaker 2: like up and honestly up until you know, we've started
Speaker 2: to get back to more of a overtly evil Dracula.
Speaker 2: But but you know, with with the popularity of Anne Rice,
Speaker 2: for a long time, we had the conflicted Dracula, who
Speaker 2: wouldn't who wouldn't operate like this, even though in Stoker's novel,
Speaker 2: you know, is obviously not conflicted at all.
Speaker 3: And in this film you have the conflicted Renfeld.
Speaker 2: Renfield, he's too and he's great, He's he's wonderful. And
Speaker 2: you know, I think I think Dracula, like you know,
Speaker 2: there's there's something to be said about maybe you know,
Speaker 2: other vampire characters, but I think Dracula works best in
Speaker 2: this mode, like I I, at least for my.
Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah, Also it's it's further upfront now that I
Speaker 1: remember it, because he has even has to steal a coffin.
Speaker 1: That's true, yes, but.
Speaker 4: It's also again coming from Hey, I am Dracula, you
Speaker 4: gotta fear me. I have my own cool coffin. Everything
Speaker 4: about this has been you know, I've gotten over the ages.
Speaker 4: I ruled a school is great, and then now that
Speaker 4: is his you know, his house has been exercised. Uh,
Speaker 4: he's even got to steal a coffin. It's just I mean,
Speaker 4: it's gotta just burn him up the whole time, Like
Speaker 4: you can't just can't do that to do you know
Speaker 4: who I am, I'm Dracula, But I think that's just awesome.
Speaker 1: That reminds me of there was a there was a
Speaker 1: comic mini series about Doctor Doom where Doom winds up
Speaker 1: transported to another planet and he winds up there naked
Speaker 1: it alone on another planet, and so it's like, what
Speaker 1: does Doom do if he has to start from nothing?
Speaker 1: And the first thing he does is kills an animal
Speaker 1: to make some clothes and a mask, and the next
Speaker 1: thing he does is find a gang and take it over.
Speaker 1: And then by the end of the first so that
Speaker 1: the whole notion was that uber menshed like Dracula and
Speaker 1: Doctor Doom. Sure, okay, take it all away. By the
Speaker 1: end of the movie, they're going to be built up again.
Speaker 1: And yet somehow with the problem is in these little
Speaker 1: ninety minute stories. It doesn't quite ever happen for him.
Speaker 1: He always winds up somehow killed and back to dust.
Speaker 4: I'm picturing that that could go so many different ways,
Speaker 4: Like he could have killed like some cute fuzzy creature
Speaker 4: or something he never killed, and like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: what's wrong with you? Chinchilla's I pity you. I don't
Speaker 4: I don't fear you at all. Gurbals like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: it's doctor Doom though, like I understand.
Speaker 2: That tumbles up beneath Doom.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the first encounter is not like, oh man, look
Speaker 4: at this guy with his spur and he's you know,
Speaker 4: it's not a wolf pelt.
Speaker 1: It's like a bunch of Gerbils and he's together.
Speaker 2: I actually would probably be even more afraid of that guy,
Speaker 2: because they would be like, what the hell is wrong with.
Speaker 1: Well, that's what I'm saying it instead of beer, it's pity.
Speaker 3: And also that you'd be like, how long did that
Speaker 3: take you.
Speaker 1: To make to make this code of man? Everybody hung
Speaker 1: this alien guy? He's really in dire streets. Okay, so
Speaker 1: we talked. We talked a little bit about Dracula. I
Speaker 1: want to talk some more about the Hammer universe. Once again,
Speaker 1: we are back in the Hammer versus. This is only
Speaker 1: the third Christopher Le Dracula movie. There aren't very many,
Speaker 1: so when we talk about setting the vocabulary, this is
Speaker 1: one of them. And boy oh boy. So this rooftop
Speaker 1: set by Bernard Robinson. So instead of a small village
Speaker 1: in most of this movie, we're in a large city
Speaker 1: called Kinnenberg, and it's made up of all of these
Speaker 1: very close together buildings and people live in these multi
Speaker 1: story town homes and they have these big clay tiled
Speaker 1: rooftops that are close together. So the young people sneak
Speaker 1: out at night and jaunt around the rooftops of the
Speaker 1: city to meet one another. It is the coolest. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's ever. I don't know if that's real.
Speaker 1: I don't know if anybody ever lived in a town
Speaker 1: where you just sort of wander around the rooftops all night.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't care. It is a great concept for this movie, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, Connenberg, you just hang out on the roofs
Speaker 1: all the time. It is great. It's a neat looking set,
Speaker 1: just just.
Speaker 2: Really the sets in this and the whole rooftop set
Speaker 2: up to me. Almost feels like they looked at the
Speaker 2: end of Curse of the Werewolf with a werewolf having
Speaker 2: a rampage across rooftops. Yes, and like the higher ups
Speaker 2: and Hammer was like, get me more rooftop action, Yes,
Speaker 2: because I mean it.
Speaker 1: Oh you're so right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, talk about a movie that makes such good
Speaker 2: use of its it sets though, like and it does
Speaker 2: really give you a sense of geography, you know, like
Speaker 2: because you have the bakery and bar where our hero
Speaker 2: Paul lives, you have the Monsignor's apartment, and you get
Speaker 2: the sense of kind of how far they are from,
Speaker 2: which is not far.
Speaker 1: You get the senses like it's like, you know, probably
Speaker 1: like one hundred and fifty yards, like they're they're really
Speaker 1: they're really close together. You know. You gotta like turn
Speaker 1: a couple of corners so that if you're chasing Dracula,
Speaker 1: he can turn a corner and be and be gone. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: Also, of course nineteen sixty this is nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: So Mary Poppins came out in nineteen sixty four, and
Speaker 1: it has a lot of stuff on the rooftops, you know,
Speaker 1: so there's there are definitely predecessors. Boy, it's cool I mean,
Speaker 1: I just there's also another like so that looks beautiful.
Speaker 1: So when Dracula is fleeing onto the rooftops, that's really cool.
Speaker 1: There's also a moment when Dracula comes to Veronica Carlson,
Speaker 1: who we haven't really talked about yet, and he sort
Speaker 1: of stands in her bedroom. She's sitting on the bed
Speaker 1: and he sort of stands there half in darkness. It
Speaker 1: is so incredibly well constructed as as as a as
Speaker 1: an image that it looks almost like a poster, like
Speaker 1: it should be a poster. Really locking in all of
Speaker 1: this movie is really good.
Speaker 4: And you know, even again back to the room top scenes,
Speaker 4: like they decided to do that because it gives you
Speaker 4: such a great uh there's so much action that can
Speaker 4: happen across those I mean, look at any daredevil anything
Speaker 4: right for Mars. Yeah, but you can you know, you
Speaker 4: can flow across that so well, and it looks it
Speaker 4: looks cool, you know, and it gives us something again,
Speaker 4: it gives us something different. Even though there are you know,
Speaker 4: horse drawn buggies and carriages and everything like that, they
Speaker 4: give us something different here to break that up.
Speaker 1: And that's all the rooftop stuff. You mentioned the horse
Speaker 1: drawn carriage.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: So Black Park, which had played the woods of Transylvania
Speaker 1: many times in these movies, is back again playing Transylvania.
Speaker 1: So it's still Black Park. However, the reason everything else
Speaker 1: looks different is because we moved from Brace Studios to Pinewood,
Speaker 1: and which is where Star Wars would be shot in
Speaker 1: like less than ten years. So you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a stranger. It's a strange adjustment to to be
Speaker 1: in these very different sets. But but part of their
Speaker 1: move to Pinewood means that they could build a more
Speaker 1: expansive set like that rooftop set. So you know, that's
Speaker 1: how that's how it goes. Do you want to talk Drew?
Speaker 1: You had some thoughts about Uh, forgive me, I I
Speaker 1: don't think that we've covered this. We talked about it
Speaker 1: extensively beforehand. But the whole question about the youthfulness of
Speaker 1: the main characters, and the the whole question of religion
Speaker 1: and debating religion, going to visit your girlfriend's you know,
Speaker 1: parental figures and offending.
Speaker 2: Them, so which I think is something a lot of
Speaker 2: people can relate to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the last movie was a bunch of young.
Speaker 1: Married's right, it was ye.
Speaker 2: That they don't they don't feel like this. This feels
Speaker 2: much more even though it's it's set in the you know,
Speaker 2: the whatever the ham Hammer time period is, this one
Speaker 2: is yeah, you know really yepkay huh okay, Well, the
Speaker 2: the vague Victorian past of of the Hammer Escape to
Speaker 2: use Jason's the use Jason's like, this feels very like
Speaker 2: the the you know, the hero kind of looks like
Speaker 2: the lead singer of the Who.
Speaker 1: Yes, there's a both. There's a little bit of Jagger
Speaker 1: and a lot of Robert Daltrey. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so they've style already styled him to look
Speaker 2: a little bit more rock and roll. But he feels
Speaker 2: a lot young like, like you know, the the you know,
Speaker 2: the characters in in Dracula Prince of Darkness are even
Speaker 2: if they're supposed to be comparable age like, they feel
Speaker 2: you know, they're they're married, their upper class, you know,
Speaker 2: they have a much more establishment feel about them. This guy,
Speaker 2: he's a self taught scholar. He's always reading. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: says stuff like, well, I'm interested in truth. I'm interested
Speaker 2: in truth. He's he's an atheist, which, again incredibly novel
Speaker 2: for the incredibly christian Hammer Dracula series, and just you know,
Speaker 2: like his whole relationship with every you know, from his
Speaker 2: girlfriend to the way he interacts with his boss, to
Speaker 2: the fact that he even has a boss, and he's
Speaker 2: not like this independently wealthy, you know, nobleman. It just
Speaker 2: feels much more contemporary. It feels like Hammer is trying
Speaker 2: to do a character that is a little more relatable
Speaker 2: and a little bit more you know again, a little
Speaker 2: bit more appealing directly to youth culture. Even the fact,
Speaker 2: even the fact that he does have a bit of
Speaker 2: a scuffle with the older religious authority figure who again
Speaker 2: acts acts out. Even though he's he's very polite, he
Speaker 2: doesn't you know, necessarily say anything disrespectful. He doesn't say, well,
Speaker 2: you're an idiot for being religious. He just says like, well,
Speaker 2: I myself am not religious, and the mon signior acts
Speaker 2: very petulant about it afterwards.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's the message, but also but also the message
Speaker 3: end up being that if you're not religious, then you
Speaker 3: can't win, Like because when he's trying, when he actually
Speaker 3: gets Dracula because he's an atheist, it doesn't work. But
Speaker 3: when he gets killed by a cross and there's a
Speaker 3: priest who actually manages not only to be a priest
Speaker 3: and believe, but also so break the spell of Dracula
Speaker 3: that spelled that Dracula had on him. Then he crosses
Speaker 3: himself and that's like he's like, Okay, I get it.
Speaker 3: Now I have to be like I was wrong. So
Speaker 3: I kind of feel like that's the lesson is maybe
Speaker 3: the opposite.
Speaker 4: By the way, before I'm exercised for Dracula's Castle, of course,
Speaker 4: I meant Roger Daltrey, and I think I did it wrong.
Speaker 1: But I think you said the right thing. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 4: I think I I was thinking like about five different
Speaker 4: things at once.
Speaker 1: Just in case, just in case. Roger Daltrey, by the way,
Speaker 1: did some excellent horror work himself, especially in Legacy, which
Speaker 1: was written by Jimmy Sankster. And yeah, really really.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's very he's very definitely our guy is very
Speaker 4: dull Trey in his Oh yeah. And I wonder if
Speaker 4: that was if he was if that was purposefuler, I mean,
Speaker 4: makes if it was, it was a good idea.
Speaker 2: I have to believe that it was purpose because I
Speaker 2: really do think they were trying to release, you know,
Speaker 2: and to Julia's point, you know, I you know, ultimately
Speaker 2: this is a supernatural vampire movie, so like, you know,
Speaker 2: no atheists and fox foxholes. But the fact that they
Speaker 2: even like that's his arc is still kind of interesting. Also,
Speaker 2: the fact that the fact that you have this rubbing
Speaker 2: up against this corrupted priest who is basically bullied into
Speaker 2: being the Renfield in this movie is incredibly like I said,
Speaker 2: there is a much more even if they do end
Speaker 2: on the side of like I said, we're not at
Speaker 2: Twins of Evil yet, you know, we're not We're not
Speaker 2: there yet. But the fact that this movie even has
Speaker 2: a slightly more complicated relationship with Christianity is you know,
Speaker 2: does feel light years away from from Prince of Darkness already.
Speaker 2: And I just think that that's that's interesting, you know,
Speaker 2: you know, and again I'm not saying it's the most
Speaker 2: complicated writing ever, but it does it does, you know,
Speaker 2: give everything maybe a bit more of a of a
Speaker 2: you know, dare I say it bite to it, and
Speaker 2: you know the fact that you have a mind. The
Speaker 2: Mond Senior, who would have been one hundred percent you know,
Speaker 2: even in his bluntness, would have been portrayed as charming
Speaker 2: the way Sandor was the fact that he can come
Speaker 2: across is kind of petulant and kind of dickish. That
Speaker 2: even there is again much more complicated, because as I said,
Speaker 2: you know, the young hero, you know, Paul, even when
Speaker 2: he's having this conversation like the the you know, the
Speaker 2: mon Sior does kind of make him feel like he
Speaker 2: can speak freely because he leads into well, I think, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think people are don't speak the truth, don't speak
Speaker 2: their honesty enough. And so that's that's what Paul does.
Speaker 2: And then he kind of gets he literally gets ejected
Speaker 2: from their their home, even though again he's perfectly polite
Speaker 2: about it. He's not, you know, he's actually very respectful.
Speaker 3: He told his story in the book that people and
Speaker 3: this is true for all of us. If I say
Speaker 3: to you, you know, you can tell me anything, you know,
Speaker 3: be honest with me. I appreciate honesty. And then you
Speaker 3: tell me that you like to kill murder rabbits or whatever,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to be like, oh, thanks for me,
Speaker 3: thanks for sharing. Horrified, be horrified.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: But my point is, like I'm saying, I wouldn't you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: most of us wouldn't. And even and if you would.
Speaker 3: It's probably because that's like like I wouldn't let me.
Speaker 2: Put it this way.
Speaker 3: I would never there's never. I'm never horrified by stories
Speaker 3: that my clients tell me because I'm fully ready for
Speaker 3: their for their story. But if somebody tells me this
Speaker 3: in the in the wild, like in my house, I
Speaker 3: might be horrified, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So like that makes for good drama. The fact that
Speaker 1: he's that it's a it's a twist. He goes, tell
Speaker 1: me your mind and then he's offended. That's actually more
Speaker 1: interesting than if he hadn't been.
Speaker 2: Well. This dinner, this dinner sequence is incredibly relatable. Yes,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's it's so you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: who of us has not had a awkward family dinner?
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's again, and I just I have
Speaker 2: to believe, I have to believe that, you know, that's intentional,
Speaker 2: that they were trying to, you know, appeal to people
Speaker 2: that you know wouldn't necessarily you know, again, because like
Speaker 2: how how far This might only be the third Christopher
Speaker 2: Lee and the fourth you know Hammer Dracula movie, but
Speaker 2: it's still you know, Hammer had been around and had
Speaker 2: been a viable brand in horror movies for for over
Speaker 2: a decade at this point. And you know they so
Speaker 2: they're trying to, you know, see what they can do
Speaker 2: with the formula and maybe broaden their appeal a little up.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, and they're always tweaking it. You know that
Speaker 1: the the you know that these these are these movies
Speaker 1: are coming around really quickly. You know, they're not not
Speaker 1: I mean, well except for the big expanse between nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty eight nineteen sixty six, But after that, they're like
Speaker 1: the Taste the Blood and Scars one year together, you know,
Speaker 1: Dracula AD and then Satanic Rites separated by a year.
Speaker 2: Well that's if only you're talking about the Dracula series.
Speaker 2: I mean that's not even counting you know, or Frankenstein
Speaker 2: movies or standalone hammer horror films like The Reptile or or.
Speaker 1: Right, and that that is the kind of thing that
Speaker 1: it fills my heart with delight. I love being able
Speaker 1: to anytime you have something that amounts to kind of
Speaker 1: a family of filmmakers who keep coming back. And that's
Speaker 1: why I talk about the Beach Party movies so much.
Speaker 1: I love that those movies came like every six months
Speaker 1: like somehow they were able to just churn those things
Speaker 1: out using the same people over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: It's it's cool, It's it's fun, all right. So let's
Speaker 1: see the Let's get back for a moment to the
Speaker 1: end of Dracula, like his fall, and then we'll come
Speaker 1: around to whatever we'll pick up whenever we missed. But oh,
Speaker 1: go ahead, Joy, what is it?
Speaker 3: Well okay, I mean, if you want to come back
Speaker 3: to it. But we haven't talked about the females at all.
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about Veronica, but I definitely want to
Speaker 2: talk about the priest more too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, then we can save the big cross impalement
Speaker 1: until later. So I do want to talk about the
Speaker 1: female stars, So moving in order of lesser importance. The
Speaker 1: bar Maid who is ZENI rude.
Speaker 3: I've been telted on behalf of the bar Maid that
Speaker 3: she is of lesser important than anything else in this film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, all right, I'm offended on her behalf, So
Speaker 1: all right, I love the Barmaide. I think she is
Speaker 1: a really neat character. Zina. She's called and she is sassy,
Speaker 1: and she has a cool high nineteen sixties wig, and
Speaker 1: you know, which makes her so distinctly a hammer creature
Speaker 1: basically where she's she's sexy and weirdly semi Victorian, but
Speaker 1: also kind of nineteen sixties. It's like, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: she's funny, So I like what she seems like she's.
Speaker 2: Got an unrequited, unrequited crush on.
Speaker 3: Oh sure, yes that, But also I feel like she
Speaker 3: just wants to be loved. I mean, is that so wrong?
Speaker 3: She to quote downloads? She uh, clearly, you know, is
Speaker 3: just make I feel like this character. You know, the
Speaker 3: actors are always, not always, but often have backstories for
Speaker 3: their character that nobody else knows it was about. I
Speaker 3: feel like this actor really has quite an elaborate backstory
Speaker 3: for this character because I just there was so much
Speaker 3: to her, given that she doesn't have nearly as many lines,
Speaker 3: you know, as some of the other characters. But I
Speaker 3: really got that she's just, you know, she's trying to
Speaker 3: make it in this world. And it's like Alice the
Speaker 3: the you know, the TV show Alice, and she doesn't
Speaker 3: have uh you know, she doesn't have money, she doesn't
Speaker 3: have education. She's a woman, so she can't really do
Speaker 3: much except for be a barmaid. And but she wants
Speaker 3: to be loved, she wants you know, companionship, and so
Speaker 3: this guy, you know, she's really into him. And then
Speaker 3: when Dracula, when she's under Dracula spelled, then she's like,
Speaker 3: why am I not enough for you? Why do you
Speaker 3: need her like you have me? She says it twice.
Speaker 3: She gets slapped, and she still says it again. She's like,
Speaker 3: you have me. I felt bad for her that character.
Speaker 2: Really, I I agree with you. She's she's very kind
Speaker 2: of you know, she's funny, but she's also very trad
Speaker 2: and like the way after she gets bit, the way
Speaker 2: she's like still going around the bakery with her you know,
Speaker 2: neck wound covered up. And then even after Dracula kills her,
Speaker 2: you know, you see her corpse and she's got the
Speaker 2: little budding vampire frames, but she's got this like frozen
Speaker 2: grin almost like she was killed by the Joker on
Speaker 2: her face. And Dracula just is like destroy her, you know,
Speaker 2: like I don't even want her around as another vampire
Speaker 2: you know he has.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he totally throws her away, I mean uses her
Speaker 3: and throws her away quite literally uses her and throws.
Speaker 1: Her AWAYA is a user. Here is this horrible person.
Speaker 4: And this is the well, this is kind of the
Speaker 4: first time I can remember him actively, not just oh no,
Speaker 4: something happened to one of my brides, but just like, no,
Speaker 4: you're not good enough.
Speaker 1: I'm moving on.
Speaker 4: Big time and you're not coming along the right the
Speaker 4: way the way it's horrible, well.
Speaker 2: The way Dracula, uh, you know, I was talking about
Speaker 2: this before we started recording. The way Dracula goes about
Speaker 2: the two attacking the two women is very different, Like
Speaker 2: he is very abusive towards Zena. But with Maria that
Speaker 2: is the character's name, right, Maria. The other.
Speaker 3: I kept saying movie.
Speaker 2: With Maria, he's more tender, and he's more traditionally seductive.
Speaker 2: It's more uh you know, reserved. You know, it's not
Speaker 2: it's not the sort of uh you know, dominating you know,
Speaker 2: and then abusive. Uh you know, because we've seen Lee's
Speaker 2: Dracula in this mode somewhat before, Like he is kind
Speaker 2: of that way the Barber Shelley's character in in you know,
Speaker 2: Prince of Darkness, but he is very mean spirited towards Zena.
Speaker 2: And you know that that sort of under under current
Speaker 2: of classism that Tony keeps talking about is I think
Speaker 2: readily apparent in that relationship. It's like, well, of course
Speaker 2: I'm not going to keep you around as one of
Speaker 2: my brides. You're you're just a barmaid, you know, Like
Speaker 2: you know, I'm Dracula. I could have any woman I want.
Speaker 2: I should, I should, you know, have the cream of
Speaker 2: the crop, the greatest, you know, you know, like, so
Speaker 2: that's why I'm going to go after the monsignor's daughter,
Speaker 2: because you know she's she's more innocent, and you know,
Speaker 2: of course that's going.
Speaker 3: To and the revenge.
Speaker 2: Revenge, of course, the revenge. The revenge is never fought away,
Speaker 2: is it.
Speaker 3: He reminds me a lot in this movie of John
Speaker 3: Makovich in Dangerous Liaisons. You know, the way he's the
Speaker 3: way he's always a predator, but he's but he's a
Speaker 3: predator against different women differently. Is very similar.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's very much. I agreed. Agreed.
Speaker 4: Do you try to make her a little less sympathetic, though,
Speaker 4: because even when she's confronted with trying to uh, you know,
Speaker 4: get it on with with our hero. Uh, whenever she's caught,
Speaker 4: she's like, I was gonna take your manu.
Speaker 1: And each other? Like wait, I know what's going on.
Speaker 4: She's not to touch his crotch, and his girlfriend's like whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 2: That whole sequence to me seems like something that probably
Speaker 2: would have been you know, is supposed to be funny.
Speaker 2: But but in contemporary lie like because you have the
Speaker 2: hero who apparently doesn't drink that much. He says, only beer,
Speaker 2: and so he drinks three schnops and is you know,
Speaker 2: horned up and drunk, and she's gonna take advantage of him,
Speaker 2: which to contemporary eyes probably seems even sketchier than it
Speaker 2: does in this movie, because the movie, you know, that
Speaker 2: plays out much more lighthearted, even the fact that you know,
Speaker 2: he's not entirely opposed to her coming on to him
Speaker 2: while he's drunk.
Speaker 4: I mean yes, but also like she knows exactly what
Speaker 4: she's doing. Oh no, And to the again she actually
Speaker 4: gets caught, it's still like I don't know, I'll see
Speaker 4: what I can do, what can I get away with here?
Speaker 1: Ben Hill, Okay, we're talking about a totally different time.
Speaker 3: But like missus Roper, you know.
Speaker 2: And she you know she is. I think it would
Speaker 2: be even different if it was an unattractive woman like
Speaker 2: she is objectively as attractive as the lead woman, if
Speaker 2: not more. I mean she's she's styled differently. Obviously she's
Speaker 2: got more, she's got more cleavage. Her clothing isn't as nice,
Speaker 2: but you know she you have a you have a
Speaker 2: nice girl blonde and a fiery red head.
Speaker 4: That's well, there's there's also like when she comes back
Speaker 4: to the the bar, then she's actually standing around with
Speaker 4: pretty much just a corset.
Speaker 1: Yeah, weird, like.
Speaker 4: No shirt basically, and so it was it was one
Speaker 4: of these things like it's it's a weird again. It
Speaker 4: goes back to that class kind of thing, like we're
Speaker 4: supposed to see her more. What they're trying to do
Speaker 4: is code it more like you know, she would get
Speaker 4: seduced by Dracula in a weird way. But it's just
Speaker 4: you know, that's her lot, that's she's like, yeah, I'm
Speaker 4: you know, her sexuality is part of her character in
Speaker 4: that like kind of that's her, that's her brand, you know,
Speaker 4: And it contrasts it's very like I said, I think
Speaker 4: I said before, like it's a very So she's she's
Speaker 4: the Rizzo to our our Maria is Sandra d And
Speaker 4: he's definitely definitely the Hey, I'm cool, I'm I'm the
Speaker 4: Zuko of the this screw.
Speaker 2: What's what's interesting to me, you know about her is
Speaker 2: even though the movie kind of judges her for her
Speaker 2: you know, overt sexuality, she doesn't judge herself.
Speaker 1: Oh exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, unless I guess you could read the way
Speaker 2: Dracula treats her is her own judgment of her. There's
Speaker 2: an interpretation there. But but I am choosing to not
Speaker 2: to not slut shame Zena.
Speaker 1: But no, I mean, she's that's her. That's that's her.
Speaker 4: Hey, I've I live in in my own terms, and
Speaker 4: I take what I want is her character, right, which
Speaker 4: again is why when she tries to use that as
Speaker 4: a vampire and gets tossed aside, it is, like you said,
Speaker 4: it's more tragic because you know, Draculas used to like, well,
Speaker 4: you know, I've got a vampire women in every town.
Speaker 4: So the fact that he chose this to just be
Speaker 4: super petty and I am completely through with this, this
Speaker 4: plaything is yeah, you know triple evil.
Speaker 1: Well said, yeah, it is interesting to me also that
Speaker 1: her look, but we talked a little bit about, you
Speaker 1: know her, it is it is more distinctly of a
Speaker 1: it's kind of a sixties look much more of her
Speaker 1: her hair.
Speaker 2: She's kind of got the I mean, this is a
Speaker 2: contemporary show, but it was set in this time period.
Speaker 2: She's kind of got a Christina Hendricks and Madman hairdo well.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, it looks like like laughing hair
Speaker 1: Like it looks like like you know, Joanne Worley and
Speaker 1: all these other people who are wearing these like shaggy
Speaker 1: shaggy wigs. It's total it is totally sixties up. Whereas
Speaker 1: Veronica Carlson, Sure she's also a sixties girl, but her
Speaker 1: hair is more classic. I mean it is long, and
Speaker 1: it is it is, you know, as straight as you
Speaker 1: can possibly get it.
Speaker 2: And and she's she's kind of got the more boring
Speaker 2: part because she she's she's the virginal, innocent who's gonna
Speaker 2: be corrupted by Dracula. But you don't even you don't
Speaker 2: even get a full corruption the way we saw with
Speaker 2: Barbara Shelley in Prince of Darkness. You know, she's you know,
Speaker 2: she's she's more of a damsel and distress type.
Speaker 1: She does have an innocent sexuality. I mean, she's perfectly
Speaker 1: happy to like sneak out at night and see your boyfriend.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 3: That's why she was cast. I mean they they auditioned
Speaker 3: her because James Carrera saw a picture of her coming
Speaker 3: out of the waves in a white bikini allah Bo
Speaker 3: Derek on the front page of a tabloid and was like,
Speaker 3: I want her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, isn't well.
Speaker 2: And it is implied that she stays overnight with with
Speaker 2: with Paul.
Speaker 1: So this is what I mean about in innocent sexuality.
Speaker 1: Like they are sexual, but they are not corrupt. They
Speaker 1: are there's something in a and and kind of.
Speaker 2: Not well, and they're they're in love and you know,
Speaker 2: as it turns out, you know, his love for her,
Speaker 2: like you know when when the ship hits the fan,
Speaker 2: you know, the Mon Senior realizes that Paul's love for
Speaker 2: her is you know, what's really going to save her,
Speaker 2: and you know there there's again like that's you know,
Speaker 2: the Mond Senior has an arc. You know it's a
Speaker 2: small arc. But a character like like like father Sandor,
Speaker 2: as much as I enjoy him, does not have an arc.
Speaker 1: That's correct.
Speaker 2: He starts out one way, he ends one way. Peter
Speaker 2: Cushing as Van Helsing, as much as I love him,
Speaker 2: does not have an arc. In any prior Hammer movie,
Speaker 2: the Mond Senior would have begun the movie one way
Speaker 2: and ended the movie one way.
Speaker 1: I feel like they're taking your class, and I'm so
Speaker 1: thankful for it. Honestly, thank you.
Speaker 2: You're you're so kind. You know, like the mod Senior
Speaker 2: has to kind of realize that he was at least
Speaker 2: a little bit wrong about Paul. And I love this
Speaker 2: movie for that because, I you know it it gives
Speaker 2: it a distinct flavor that is slightly different from all
Speaker 2: the other Hammer movies. And you know, also the fact that,
Speaker 2: you know, the Monsignor is rendered powerless by another priest.
Speaker 2: You know, he's he's chasing, you know, across the rooftops
Speaker 2: and he literally gets brained in the head by this
Speaker 2: This the the Ghoul priest that we've been following through
Speaker 2: this entire movie. And again even that character gets an arc.
Speaker 2: So you know, it's it's this is a pretty good
Speaker 2: structured little movie. You know, it's it's not perfect, but.
Speaker 1: No, I that's a good point. And it's one of
Speaker 1: the dangers, of course, because these movies oscillate between different characters.
Speaker 1: In the next film, if I recall, there's almost too
Speaker 1: much time spent with the supporting characters and not enough
Speaker 1: with Dracula. But this one kind of I think sets
Speaker 1: the right balance. And by the way, I don't remember completely,
Speaker 1: so we'll find out for sure when we watch Taste
Speaker 1: the Blood to see if if it's if it is
Speaker 1: imbalanced or not all right?
Speaker 3: Before we move away from Veronica Carlton Carlson, do you
Speaker 3: want to Jason, do you want to talk about meeting her?
Speaker 1: I mean, I my story of meeting her is probably
Speaker 1: no more interesting than you know lots of She was
Speaker 1: a very lovely person, and she met many people, and
Speaker 1: she was always just incredibly gracious. So Veronica Carlson wound
Speaker 1: up being a painter in California and would often go
Speaker 1: and do panels. I've I chaired a couple of panels
Speaker 1: with Veronica crossing on them, one of them that had
Speaker 1: Veronica Carlson and any grid pits actually, and she was
Speaker 1: just just an incredibly funny and kind lady. And I
Speaker 1: remember once somebody asked a very complicated question, and that
Speaker 1: somebody might have been me. So if I were a
Speaker 1: better storyteller, I would have said that this question was mine,
Speaker 1: But I can't actually remember for sure, But I remember
Speaker 1: the question was something like it was something something like,
Speaker 1: you know, given the rapid expansion of of you know,
Speaker 1: the economy in the mid century, do you think that
Speaker 1: your characters were trying to show a change and more?
Speaker 1: And and she was like, could you repeat that question?
Speaker 2: Like like.
Speaker 3: It was this it was this sort of like a
Speaker 3: dense question.
Speaker 1: What in the absolute hell are you talking about?
Speaker 3: I really, I'm just here for a panel. I'm not
Speaker 3: I'm not this is not a prefet I'm not in
Speaker 3: a college course.
Speaker 1: Yes, neat lady. You know, she did not brook any
Speaker 1: disrespect towards any of her co stars, you know.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: She her her discussions of Christopher Lee were complicated because
Speaker 1: she earlier she would always say that when when she
Speaker 1: was young, she completely looked up to him, and when
Speaker 1: she was older, she was irritated that he was such
Speaker 1: a jerkuad about horror movies, you know, and she felt like,
Speaker 1: this was the work that we did, you know, and
Speaker 1: we were proud of the work that we did. And
Speaker 1: if somebody insulted hammer or said something ignorant, like, you know,
Speaker 1: and if they were low budgeted or she was like,
Speaker 1: these weren't low budget these were major films, you know,
Speaker 1: from a from a very important, uh, very important studio
Speaker 1: of the era. So she was very quick to even
Speaker 1: things out and correct things and going, let me make
Speaker 1: let me make clear like what hammer was, and and
Speaker 1: and I think Chris has been unfair and here's why.
Speaker 1: So she was a neat lady.
Speaker 2: You said this wasn't interesting.
Speaker 3: I know, he sounded so dismissive at first, and then
Speaker 3: he goes into like fully documentary level analysis.
Speaker 1: Oh that's kind of neat lady. Hot, my god, even
Speaker 1: even yeah, no.
Speaker 3: Always, even in her in her older her older years.
Speaker 1: Well, the thing is, I'm now probably older than she
Speaker 1: was when I when I hosted her, No doubt that's true.
Speaker 2: But anyway, anyway, well, I mean, Jason does have an
Speaker 2: interesting conception of time. So in his mind, right, he's older.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in Jason's mind, I'm sixty five.
Speaker 1: So yeah, what are you talking about? What does that mean?
Speaker 3: You always you always ate me?
Speaker 1: No, no, us, I'll say, you know, you know, we're
Speaker 1: pushing sixty when we're not remotely pushing sixty.
Speaker 3: So I'm going to be sixty when some day, some day.
Speaker 2: Because because Jason is really looking forward to being an
Speaker 2: old man, it's like his his he's he's worked his
Speaker 2: whole life to reach the stage of scholarly, you know, like,
Speaker 2: is you want to be the professor right?
Speaker 1: You know, so it's yeah, you know if this is
Speaker 1: a ride, though, honestly I think actually I'm ready for
Speaker 1: it to stop. That that you're actually right, But I
Speaker 1: don't think.
Speaker 2: Jason, do you need do you need a do you
Speaker 2: need a hug?
Speaker 3: He just means he's at he's at the point that
Speaker 3: he wants to be at professor wise.
Speaker 2: So he wants you want you want this is this
Speaker 2: is peak Jason, And you don't want to you don't
Speaker 2: want to aid. You just want to stop aging it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah he doesn't.
Speaker 3: I don't think he's got a death wish.
Speaker 1: He just wants to stop.
Speaker 2: But that that that briefly came out that way, and
Speaker 2: I was like, oh that got dark.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no, no, I appreciate. Yeah, Okay, I want
Speaker 1: to talk about the death of Dracula.
Speaker 2: So no, no, no, no, no, no no no. What else did
Speaker 2: we miss and talk about the priest?
Speaker 1: Okay? Elwen Hooper obviously he left a bigger impression on you.
Speaker 2: Then is the m v P of this this movie
Speaker 2: starts with his church dude gets traumatized. He spends the
Speaker 2: rest of the movie being abused by everybody he comes across,
Speaker 2: and he is so sympathetic to me. You know, he
Speaker 2: this actor is doing you know, his character doesn't even
Speaker 2: have a name. He's just called priest, and he's doing
Speaker 2: so much heavy lifting here, you know, like he's basically
Speaker 2: bullied by the mind Senior. Then he his his head
Speaker 2: wound resurrects Dracula. Dracula. You know, it's not even like
Speaker 2: Dracula enthralls him or you know, gives him his blood
Speaker 2: or anything like, there's none of that. It's just like
Speaker 2: just like, okay, bitch, you're my goal now, you know.
Speaker 2: And and man like, first of all, like you know,
Speaker 2: you're saying, like the ending of this movie would not
Speaker 2: have happened the same way with this guy. This guy
Speaker 2: also has an arc. He starts out one way and
Speaker 2: he comes back to his faith at the very end
Speaker 2: of the movie. But before that, like the scene where
Speaker 2: he has to burn Zena's body, yea so deeply sad,
Speaker 2: like it's so messed up and so gnarly. And then
Speaker 2: also the scene where he's having to dig up and
Speaker 2: dump a body to get a fresh coffin for Dracula.
Speaker 2: All the facial acting that this guy is doing. You
Speaker 2: know that this is one of the reasons why I
Speaker 2: love Hammer is they find these like British character actors, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, Michael Ripper also great in this movie.
Speaker 2: But yeah, but you know this this guy, you know,
Speaker 2: he's taking again a very minimal character and he's he's
Speaker 2: doing so much with it because like they find these
Speaker 2: guys with these great faces and they do so much
Speaker 2: with it. Like he's so oh deep. This is such
Speaker 2: a deeply sad character to me that I I I was.
Speaker 2: I just loved it. And you know the way he
Speaker 2: he just has this put upon like even when he's
Speaker 2: trying to pretend to be normal when he enters the
Speaker 2: bakery and it's like trying to rent a room, and
Speaker 2: he he never looks directly at anybody, like you know,
Speaker 2: all the choices the s guy makes gives this character
Speaker 2: so much more than you know was probably on the page.
Speaker 1: And sorry.
Speaker 4: It's also interesting that again, since he's a priest, it's
Speaker 4: a it's a twisting of the tail like Dracula I'm
Speaker 4: sure directly was like, yo, yeah, this time I got
Speaker 4: a priest. How how evil is that? Yeh, Like I
Speaker 4: was able to to I don't have my house.
Speaker 1: But I have corruption all over well, and it's it's
Speaker 1: like the perfect it's the perfect you.
Speaker 2: Know, kind of front for Dracula because no one, you know,
Speaker 2: even Paul the atheist, you know, at you know, towards
Speaker 2: the end of the movie, you know, Paul is like
Speaker 2: running back to get his stuff and he runs into
Speaker 2: the priest, and of course he takes the priest back
Speaker 2: to the mon Senior's house, even though this guy is
Speaker 2: the person that's caved the mon Senior's skull in. But
Speaker 2: you know, people are just trained, especially in this world,
Speaker 2: to trust clergy people. So it's kind of a perfect
Speaker 2: you know, foil for Dracula and a perfect well not
Speaker 2: a foil, but a perfect you know, daytime errand boy
Speaker 2: for Dracula. No one will suspect this guy.
Speaker 4: I mean to the point where even when they try
Speaker 4: to do the rituals that they need to do and
Speaker 4: he's like, yeah, yeah, I can do that. Oh wait,
Speaker 4: I'm corrupted, Like oh I just I mean, it's it
Speaker 4: works really well well.
Speaker 2: And the way, you know, again going towards where where
Speaker 2: you know, Jason wants to end. You know, he's the
Speaker 2: one that's saying, like, well, what you know, if you
Speaker 2: don't say a prayer, Dracula is not going to die.
Speaker 1: Okay, I do want to talk about that, So before
Speaker 1: we get to the end, let's talk about that business.
Speaker 1: So they come close to killing Dracula at one point,
Speaker 1: and Paul.
Speaker 3: Fa So this is a new concept and lots of
Speaker 3: people have complained about this over the years.
Speaker 1: All right, this this concept that that our young hero
Speaker 1: can can stab a big old steak through you know,
Speaker 1: that Paul can drive a stake through Dracula's heart and
Speaker 1: then it doesn't go the way you expect, which is
Speaker 1: kind of cool for any horror movies when you're trying
Speaker 1: to kill something and it doesn't die the way you expect,
Speaker 1: because Dracula starts scrabbling about and hissing and doing all this,
Speaker 1: but he's not dying. And the priest says, well, you
Speaker 1: have to pray. I mean, we've never heard this before.
Speaker 3: I know, I think that's consistent. I think that's consistent
Speaker 3: because all the other films, it's not nobody prays out loud,
Speaker 3: but all the other films whenever somebody puts their fingers
Speaker 3: together in the shape of a cross. What makes it
Speaker 3: a weapon is the faith. And so I think that's
Speaker 3: that's just understood that that people when they're when they're
Speaker 3: killing Dracula, it's their faith that's killing Dracula. And so
Speaker 3: I think even though he's not saying a prayer quote unquote,
Speaker 3: they're not saying quite prayers, they're still praying in their
Speaker 3: soul or whatever.
Speaker 1: I am totally down with that.
Speaker 2: But I think an atheist in in this universe is
Speaker 2: sort of like a unicorn, you know. I don't think
Speaker 2: there is that many atheists in in the.
Speaker 3: Hammer louted ones, just like there aren't out gay people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look at look at the way they
Speaker 2: reacted when he said he was an atheist. They basically
Speaker 2: was like, well, you're not having any cake, Get the
Speaker 2: heck out.
Speaker 1: Of here, get out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, you know, I think what's good
Speaker 2: about this is it gives you know, both of these
Speaker 2: characters something to do in the end of the movie,
Speaker 2: because like the priest basically just ends up right back
Speaker 2: in the thrall of Dracula. Like the very next scene
Speaker 2: he's he's driving the hearse with Maria in tow and
Speaker 2: in the very end he redeems himself. You know, he's
Speaker 2: the one that starts to say a prayer, you know,
Speaker 2: even though it seemingly his heart gives out while doing it.
Speaker 2: And you know that's even you know, there's some subtle
Speaker 2: stuff done with this character visually, like you know, even
Speaker 2: though he's he's got the monkering throughout the entire movie.
Speaker 2: He starts the movie with darker hair, and by the
Speaker 2: end of the movie he's got grayer hair, as if
Speaker 2: like his service to Dracula is literally just sort of
Speaker 2: sucking the life out of him.
Speaker 3: Well, and I haven't talked about vampires as a metaphor
Speaker 3: for addiction in a while, so let's do that. That
Speaker 3: That's the thing is that he is constantly being pulled back,
Speaker 3: and he tries to go into recovery, He tries to
Speaker 3: go to you know, Dracula rehab, and then he just
Speaker 3: gets sucked right back in again. You know, he says,
Speaker 3: I'm weak willed or whatever he says, so I can't
Speaker 3: exactly what, but he talks about how he's easily you know,
Speaker 3: he just keeps getting controlled, and then the other guy's like, well,
Speaker 3: I'm going to command you. I'm gonna you need to
Speaker 3: listen to me. Now, I'm going to take take it
Speaker 3: the reins or whatever.
Speaker 2: And it's not quite he's literally an alcoholic too, So
Speaker 2: like this guy's battling addiction on two fronts and you know,
Speaker 2: like he's he's he's a lot more complicated than Clove,
Speaker 2: you know who we just and I again so interesting,
Speaker 2: you know, and again the the the the young hero
Speaker 2: isn't really like yeah, I guess he's the one that tosses.
Speaker 1: He tosses.
Speaker 2: This might be my favorite death of Dracula in any
Speaker 2: of these movies because it's the most hardcore Dracula falls.
Speaker 2: It gets impailed on a giant cruci.
Speaker 1: Yes, and he again with this Dracula is so wild
Speaker 1: because he's sexy when he's like kissing Ronica crossing on
Speaker 1: the cheeks, and then he is bug like when he
Speaker 1: is impaled on this on this cross like he just
Speaker 1: is like a spider that's been that's somehow been stuck
Speaker 1: through with something and it's he's grotesque.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he does, like although it is turned about fair
Speaker 4: play because I gotta say Paul gets the award for
Speaker 4: most thrown around by Dracula.
Speaker 1: Yes, the movie, he's constantly like.
Speaker 4: Whoa knocked He gets knocked around our Dracula. Or maybe
Speaker 4: this is just the most knockdown Dracula. Contracula knocks down priests,
Speaker 4: he knocks down his servants, and he knocks down his
Speaker 4: love interests, and he knocks down Paul multiple times, just
Speaker 4: throwing him all over the police.
Speaker 2: Dracula is not around in this movie.
Speaker 1: You're totally ready.
Speaker 2: He's he's on a roaring rampage of revenge and he
Speaker 2: aroars and he rampages.
Speaker 3: I have to read to you guys this this bit
Speaker 3: in IMDb. It says Sir Christopher Lee love to recount
Speaker 3: the following tale. Hammer was given a Queen's Award to
Speaker 3: Industry while shooting the final scenes of Dracula impaled on
Speaker 3: the rocks with a group of British government dignitaries watching
Speaker 3: as Lee thrashed around, screaming and pouring with gore. After
Speaker 3: the scene wrapped, a minister turned to his wife and said,
Speaker 3: that man is a member of my club.
Speaker 1: Gosh, yeah, this is when Christopher Lee is. There are
Speaker 1: a couple of times when chrispher Lee really kind of
Speaker 1: earns his his pay, like one is when he gets
Speaker 1: to do really good monologues, which rarely happens in a hammer,
Speaker 1: and then also just all these physical bits. He's very
Speaker 1: good at this, you know, And yeah, that's a that's
Speaker 1: a good ending. Although honestly, if we had to at
Speaker 1: this moment name our favorite hammered hammer Dracula deaths, I
Speaker 1: think the the one from Dracula a D where he
Speaker 1: gets where he gets killed by the wagon wheel is better.
Speaker 1: I think that that's that's really that's even cooler. But
Speaker 1: this is I just.
Speaker 2: Think the overkill of him being staked with a giant
Speaker 2: cross appeals. And apparently, you know, apparently I wasn't the
Speaker 2: only one that this left an impression on, because I
Speaker 2: mean this, this gets echoed in Monster Squad because Dracula
Speaker 2: gets impelled on a giant cross in that movie as well.
Speaker 2: So and you know, I have to believe that's a
Speaker 2: direct reference. You know, there's somebody should do a h
Speaker 2: like a clip reel of all the times dra not
Speaker 2: just Christopher Lee, but like every Dracula, like all the
Speaker 2: time Dracula has been killed in a movie, and we
Speaker 2: could just pick out which which Dracula had the juiciest death.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, that's a good idea. That would be a
Speaker 1: really cool just reel of of Dracula's deaths.
Speaker 2: The many deaths of Dracula.
Speaker 1: Yeah, alright, I believe that covers the whole of the film.
Speaker 1: So I would like to come around, uh and get
Speaker 1: our final thoughts and then get into our endorsements. So
Speaker 1: where did we did we start with? Drew? It was Drew? Yes,
Speaker 1: mister Drew. And you've been Drew. You've done such a
Speaker 1: good job in this whole discussion of keeping us on
Speaker 1: you know, and you know everybody's been so super wise,
Speaker 1: but I I appreciate that you've kept us on track,
Speaker 1: or kept me on track. And god, no, no, you're
Speaker 1: forgetting the awesomeness of this or that.
Speaker 3: So not just that, but it was peak Professor Edwards
Speaker 3: in this episode.
Speaker 2: Oh well, gosh, I I that is what I needed
Speaker 2: to hear today. I was having a low self esteem.
Speaker 2: Oh and and that this just perked me right back up.
Speaker 2: So thank you? I yeah, I what First of all,
Speaker 2: what a lovely discussion we got out of this. I
Speaker 2: In case you could not tell by my enthusiasm throughout
Speaker 2: the entire discussion, I really, I really loved this movie,
Speaker 2: and you know, I'm glad that this is one of
Speaker 2: the first DVDs I ever thought. Yeah, and I'm still
Speaker 2: watching that same DVD decades later, so that DVD has
Speaker 2: held together nicely and has served me served me well.
Speaker 2: So thank you hammer Box set I bought in the
Speaker 2: early aughts. But uh yeah, this is a fantastic Hammer
Speaker 2: horror movie, and I think a transitional vampire film, and
Speaker 2: I think, uh yeah, everybody should go out and watch
Speaker 2: along with us as we work our way through all
Speaker 2: these these Hammer horror classics.
Speaker 1: Wonderful. Thank you very much. Julia. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 3: I think the discussion has made me realize that I
Speaker 3: like this movie more than I thought I did so
Speaker 3: because there's definitely, like I said, there were some things
Speaker 3: that I thought were you know, kind of like cliche,
Speaker 3: but but really there's a lot of interesting stuff that
Speaker 3: we've kind of uncombed as we've been talking about it.
Speaker 3: So very interesting discussion and an interesting, interesting film as well.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Tony. What about you?
Speaker 4: I think I have come around more. I mean, I
Speaker 4: thought it was a good movie, but I think the
Speaker 4: discussion really helps. Yeah, it's kind of what's fun about
Speaker 4: doing this right, Yeah, watching it coming out of theater
Speaker 4: talking about it, it's great. I yeah, I like the
Speaker 4: brutality of this Dracula. I really still enjoy the rooftop
Speaker 4: setting is just something to break it, break things up.
Speaker 4: I think that's neat. Overall, it's it's still fun. And
Speaker 4: even if it's again, any Hammer Dracula, even if it's
Speaker 4: not your favorite Dracula, you're always gonna get something neat
Speaker 4: or a twist here and there, and that can't be
Speaker 4: said about everything. And that's another reason why I like
Speaker 4: those films.
Speaker 1: That's that's really that's really wonderful. Thank you so much. Uh,
Speaker 1: this one always the first thing that I go to
Speaker 1: is just the look of it. But I I feel
Speaker 1: like there is no such thing as a perfect Hammer
Speaker 1: Hammer film. There are some that are super close, you know.
Speaker 1: I feel like Brides of Dracula is probably as close
Speaker 1: to a perfect Hammer film as you get. But what
Speaker 1: it's more like is that there are just many, many
Speaker 1: facets of Hammer and everyone has an element of what
Speaker 1: would make the perfect Hammer movie. And this one has
Speaker 1: several really cool ideas, such as you know, alternating sect
Speaker 1: and animalistic Christopher Lee and also these amazing sets and
Speaker 1: it's this is a really fun one and gosh, I
Speaker 1: would love to see this one giant on a giant screen.
Speaker 1: I would just that would be so cool. So thank
Speaker 1: you very much. I've really enjoyed discussing it all right, endorsements.
Speaker 1: Dying to know because it's been a couple of weeks
Speaker 1: since we were together, Drew, what do you have for us?
Speaker 2: So I watched a Swedish I guess you know, kitty
Speaker 2: horror film for lack of a better term, called nelly
Speaker 2: Rap Monster Agent on Prime and it was just charming
Speaker 2: and delightful. It's about a young girl named Nellie who
Speaker 2: goes to stay with her odd uncle Hannibal, who, unbeknownst
Speaker 2: to her, is what is called a monster agent, which
Speaker 2: is basically like a group of monster hunters, and she's
Speaker 2: soon drawn into this world of vampires and werewolves and everything.
Speaker 2: But she ends up befriending a girl, a character that
Speaker 2: is what they call a Frankensteiner, which is like their
Speaker 2: version of Frankenstein's and who doesn't want to be a monster,
Speaker 2: she wants to be a baker. And it's just so
Speaker 2: cute and the monster effects were actually surprisingly really well done.
Speaker 2: Like all the makeup and everything, and I just found
Speaker 2: it very, very charming. It is a kid's film, so
Speaker 2: you're mileage may vary. But as a new father, I
Speaker 2: find that I really enjoy coming across these movies that
Speaker 2: are genre adjacent, but I can watch with no trepidation
Speaker 2: with my daughter. So you know, I could see this
Speaker 2: being a go to Halloween movie for and then the
Speaker 2: next few years because it's it works very well on
Speaker 2: that level.
Speaker 1: Wonderful. Thank you very very much, Julia. What about you?
Speaker 3: I can't remember what we what we talked about last time,
Speaker 3: so I'm going to We've.
Speaker 1: Talked about the Honor Farm just before there.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, I'm saying last I can't remember what I
Speaker 3: already endorsed last time we met, so I don't know
Speaker 3: which movies I've seen since then. But yes, no, I
Speaker 3: know that the Denver Goes Tour. There's a bunch of
Speaker 3: places that the Jason researched, and one of them is
Speaker 3: this awesome, such a cool bar that we'll have to
Speaker 3: take you guys to when you're in town. That is
Speaker 3: it's called Honor Farm, which it's a name that I
Speaker 3: just keep forgetting because it doesn't it feels like it
Speaker 3: should be haunted something or something, but but there's like,
Speaker 3: you know, these all these skeletons everywhere, and it's it's
Speaker 3: just a really cool place. But no, as far as
Speaker 3: things that I've watched, I just went to see the
Speaker 3: Life of Chuck, which is actually not at all what
Speaker 3: I expected it to be. It's very strange. It's a
Speaker 3: really strange movie, really cool. I liked it a lot,
Speaker 3: super starks that had cast. Even though Tom Hidleston's on
Speaker 3: the poster, he didn't show up until like a third
Speaker 3: of the way in. So it's very interesting. Based on
Speaker 3: a Stephen King novella, and so that explains some of
Speaker 3: the weirdness of it. But I recommend it. Don't don't
Speaker 3: assume anything based on the small trailers that you may
Speaker 3: have seen.
Speaker 1: Wonderful. Thank you very much, Tony. What about you? So
Speaker 1: I'm seeing that tomorrow. I'm stoked.
Speaker 4: I did enjoy twenty eight years later. I think it's
Speaker 4: a much artsier film than people might think it is,
Speaker 4: and bonkers in places that people that were completely unexpected.
Speaker 4: But I'll try to take too long. But my big
Speaker 4: endorsement is it's Chattanooga Film Festival time and you know,
Speaker 4: I've talked about it in previous years. Do a great,
Speaker 4: just a fantastic job on their virtual fest. It started
Speaker 4: when they had to pivot during lockdown and they've kept it.
Speaker 4: And it's really hard to get distributors to send their
Speaker 4: movies because now they're like, hey, I can see these
Speaker 4: in theaters. Now, why would I let you stream my movie?
Speaker 4: So Chattanooga Film Fest gets a lot of stuff, but
Speaker 4: there's you know, I want to say there's close to
Speaker 4: thirty at least virtual things, and some of them are
Speaker 4: time you know, they show it that specific days for rights.
Speaker 4: But I've just really enjoyed Since Friday, I've seen like
Speaker 4: fifteen movies, so you know, I you know, I'm fitting
Speaker 4: them in amongst you know, actually doing stuff adult things
Speaker 4: and band stuff and everything like that. But I've tried
Speaker 4: to stay up late and watch as many movies as possible.
Speaker 4: They also do a great job of they have this
Speaker 4: lineup that's midnight movies they call the Red Eye Movies,
Speaker 4: and each night there's a movie like a secret movie,
Speaker 4: and those have been great. Last night was Killer Party,
Speaker 4: which was an eighties you know slasher, kind of the
Speaker 4: typical slasher boner comedy kind of stuff, you know, with
Speaker 4: some fool new wave and also you know hard rock
Speaker 4: metal soundtrack, like all the things that make a good
Speaker 4: eighties of that time period. There was an anime block.
Speaker 4: They've shown the Horror Party Beach, So every night this
Speaker 4: week I'm looking forward to, you know, since since they started,
Speaker 4: I've been looking forward. I've also seen some great movies
Speaker 4: that several films that has a documentary extracismode the transgressive
Speaker 4: legacy of classificata s and it's about these s classification
Speaker 4: horror movies and erotic movies that happened after the fall
Speaker 4: of Franco right, and that was fascinating. And there's you know,
Speaker 4: actors and actresses and directors and and it's just it's
Speaker 4: also a history lesson about what was going on in
Speaker 4: that era. There's a band and another doc The most
Speaker 4: Australian band were about a punk band called the hard Ons.
Speaker 4: There's you know, there was a music related horror, low
Speaker 4: budget horror pittern Oster and the Mission of Light. There's
Speaker 4: a Hollywood movie Operation Jaca, Liga Fade and Blood, which
Speaker 4: is a weird Collywood plus some people from Israel at
Speaker 4: the time. This is a couple of years back, a
Speaker 4: year or two back, have a thing and a really
Speaker 4: fascinating documentary called Bob Morgan's just going to tell some stories.
Speaker 4: And Bob Morgan, uh, you know, is in Kentucky and
Speaker 4: he lived with he knew Faulkner and is this artist.
Speaker 4: And it starts as as you know, him being this
Speaker 4: kind of quirky uh you know, found object artist, but
Speaker 4: then goes into you know, queer Kentucky and you know
Speaker 4: what growing up as a gay man in this area
Speaker 4: and the further history of that. It that turned out
Speaker 4: to be something I had, you know, didn't expect. And
Speaker 4: that's the greatness of to me, Chattanooga, I've I've as
Speaker 4: a virtual fest has turned out these just a lot
Speaker 4: of it's very indie and you know, I don't want
Speaker 4: to go too long. But a couple of others. There
Speaker 4: was one called Hacked, a double entendre, rage fueled karma.
Speaker 4: That's you know, crass in the good ways that I
Speaker 4: like it things to be crassed. But it started as
Speaker 4: this filmmaker got scammed for twenty grand right right when
Speaker 4: they were about to buy heat and his wife were
Speaker 4: about to buy a house. And so he turns that
Speaker 4: scam into part of the movie and then also kind
Speaker 4: of this revenge on the person who scammed him by
Speaker 4: way of the movie. So uh, you know, it's his
Speaker 4: own like Catharsis as a movie. There's a crime one
Speaker 4: called The Misadventures of Vincent Hick. And again I'm trying
Speaker 4: to see as many as much as possible. There's you know,
Speaker 4: I talked less about the horror side other than Peter Nostro,
Speaker 4: but there's there's a bunch of stuff, and you know, there's,
Speaker 4: like I said, I'm hoping to see you know, I'm
Speaker 4: hoping to catch by the by Friday that it ends.
Speaker 4: My goal is to watch all twenty seven or thirty
Speaker 4: entries if possible, but we'll see how far I get.
Speaker 4: But they do just such a great job, and they're
Speaker 4: really passionate about all the good things and you know,
Speaker 4: being good people and respecting film. And I can't say
Speaker 4: enough good things about the way that they run the
Speaker 4: virtual fest that if you want to, there's a discord
Speaker 4: channel all of this stuff, like being excited about filming
Speaker 4: and keeping that hybrid because it's also you can buy
Speaker 4: hybrid ticket so you could go watch films in the theater.
Speaker 4: There's exclusives to the to the actual in person fest,
Speaker 4: and then you can watch as much as you want
Speaker 4: on the virtual fest as well, if you If you
Speaker 4: that's your bag. So I'm always you know, I know
Speaker 4: I'm spreading it pretty thick, but you know, these kind
Speaker 4: of fests are things that I dig and they give us.
Speaker 4: They give a really cool voice to independent filmmakers and
Speaker 4: that doesn't always happen regardless, and I think that that's
Speaker 4: that's pretty rad. Hopefully I'll all when come back the
Speaker 4: next week, I might have more, we might do a
Speaker 4: wrap up, but I still think that they're just they're
Speaker 4: doing good stuff and I think they should be commended
Speaker 4: for that in addition to me just loving to watch
Speaker 4: a buttload of movies.
Speaker 1: That's that's fantastic. What what's the name of the festival again?
Speaker 1: The Chattanooga Film Festival. Chat Chat is just simply the
Speaker 1: Chattanooga Film Festival, all right. I well, I'll make sure
Speaker 1: it gets in the in the show in the show notes.
Speaker 1: Chat film Fest is there is their thing, and it's
Speaker 1: they're just great. I wish I'd had a chance to
Speaker 1: watch the Horror Party Beach with you, because I love
Speaker 1: I love Yeah. Well, I think they offer I don't know.
Speaker 4: In the past, it's also worked that you could rent,
Speaker 4: like I bought a I bought a virtual film pass
Speaker 4: and they go through events. But there might be you know,
Speaker 4: tickets where you can just see, you know, they had
Speaker 4: it from I know last year you could buy a
Speaker 4: single ticket, but I haven't checked since I already had
Speaker 4: a pass.
Speaker 1: I needed research that. But yeah, it's super cool, wonderful.
Speaker 1: I have two quick endorsements. One is, I don't know
Speaker 1: if anybody else will appreciate this the way I do.
Speaker 1: But in nineteen ninety five, there was an anthology series
Speaker 1: called Picture Windows from Norm Jewison, and I've been looking
Speaker 1: for it for years and years and years because it
Speaker 1: was an anthology of dramas, often crime or sexy or horror.
Speaker 1: But the trick was every single story was based on
Speaker 1: a famous painting, so like the famous painting of the
Speaker 1: clown sitting at a table with a cigarette danging from
Speaker 1: his mouth becomes a crime story with Alan Arkin, you know.
Speaker 1: And it had it had these great actors and you know,
Speaker 1: really good creatives behind it. So nineteen ninety five and
Speaker 1: then it disappeared, it like just went poof. You couldn't
Speaker 1: find picture windows anywhere. Well, anyway, it's all been it's
Speaker 1: all been uploaded to YouTube, so you can see all
Speaker 1: six episodes, and I'm thrilled. The other thing is Lukasman,
Speaker 1: as you know, who is a member of our cast,
Speaker 1: is the chair of the American Immigration Lawyers Association in Colorado,
Speaker 1: and she spent last week acting as one of the
Speaker 1: hosts of the national conference for AILA here in Denver, Colorado.
Speaker 1: And so she was like dedicating her whole life to
Speaker 1: this for like a long, long long time. It was
Speaker 1: a really big deal. So I just want to like
Speaker 1: endorse that it was an amazing amount of work and
Speaker 1: really impressive and I'm just so proud of them.
Speaker 3: So there you go, very nice. Thank you of course.
Speaker 1: So and that's it. We hope that you're doesn't hate me.
Speaker 1: But as you picked that.
Speaker 4: In my brain because this is how I think I
Speaker 4: am picturing the episode that is that the dogs playing cards?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, like what would that be? Yes? I
Speaker 1: if I ever get another office, because right now in
Speaker 1: my office, I used to have a really elegant office
Speaker 1: that was painted like a dark, sumptuous red and it
Speaker 1: was all wood. And in this office since it was
Speaker 1: painted blue, I decorated it with movie posters. But I
Speaker 1: think in the future next office I have will be velvet,
Speaker 1: velvet paintings like yeah, you know, so it'll be dogs
Speaker 1: playing poker and Jesus meeting mothers and and.
Speaker 4: My very Italian Catholic grandfather had a bullfighter oh boy, yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh and and girls with castanets like yeah, yeah all that. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: Can I decorate one of the rooms with with.
Speaker 3: Your your room? You can redecorate your room.
Speaker 1: It stays in your room. That's that's our that's our.
Speaker 4: Like, I don't care what's in your office because I
Speaker 4: don't have to go in there is the nature of
Speaker 4: the Beast.
Speaker 1: But I know we're talking about that series.
Speaker 4: All I could think about is what is the dog play?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Well, or you know, it'd be funny if you
Speaker 1: did Night Hot. Actually, if you rebooted, because it's a
Speaker 1: long time ago now right, if you rebooted Picture Windows.
Speaker 1: What I would do is an episode called Nighthawks, But
Speaker 1: you can somehow find a way to go from one
Speaker 1: Nighthawks to another, So you'd like start with Nighthawks and
Speaker 1: then you'd wind up at like the one with Marilyn
Speaker 1: Monroe and then you wind up at the one with
Speaker 1: the monsters, like because there's a million ripoffs of Night
Speaker 1: of Night. So yeah, that would that would be really funny.
Speaker 4: That would be fascinating. Yes, I mean I'm down with
Speaker 4: all of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so anyway, yeah, picture Windows that I am a
Speaker 1: sucker for a late nineties anthology series, so certainly Picture Windows.
Speaker 1: But also, what's the one that's a vampire? The Hunger?
Speaker 1: Holy shit, The Hunger is so good. Jesus Christ, I
Speaker 1: had no idea. It is really good, and nobody ever
Speaker 1: talks about it like it's like it never existed. So yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: all right, everyone be excellent to one another. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, and we will talk to you really soon.
Speaker 1: Come to the Facebook page. Tell us about your favorite
Speaker 1: anthologies and and why I'm crazy, uh to to like
Speaker 1: The Hunger so much? Byeway by perfect m m
Speaker 2: M m hm