B.W.'s Top Twenty Favorite Vampire Movies: The Top Ten

Like the unglued old broad down the street with the noticeably out-of-control cat fancy, we can't stop at ten. Therefore, tonight, I present to you my current top ten fanged favorites of the ever-voluminous vampire genre. Any one of these films is worthy of repeated viewings, and often are, in my digs, no thanks to untimely movie services on the web like Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, and countless other contemptible streaming sites that offer the viewer a miserable pittance of recent direct-to-video detritus and very little in the way of classic genre fare. Go ahead and scoff at the idea of owning physical media like the soft-boned beardneck weakling you probably are, I can watch any movie in my gargantuan collection whenever I want, and never have to allow for unacceptable terminology like "availability". But that's another rant for another evening. Onwards.


Last Man on Earth (1964) Based on the 1954 Richard Matheson novel, I Am Legend, this low budget cult classic pits the glorious Vincent Price against a vampiric plague that has seemingly engulfed much of humanity. A grimly chilling apocalyptic shocker that has been copied with vampires (and zombies) numerous times in the decades since.


Dracula (1931) When it came to cinematic portrayals of the legendary Count when I was a much smaller and younger Wop than the one you see before you today, Bela was my favorite fella, poised, dramatic, and intense, as he translated his American theatrical successes as Dracula to the big screen in Tod Browning's immortal adaption for Universal Studios.


I tre volti della paura AKA/ Black Sabbath (1963)  'The Wurdulak" segment of Italian director Mario Bava's consummate horror anthology stands as my favorite in the film, which is well worthy of placement among the best the genre has to offer.


Lat den ratte comme in AKA/ Let The Right One In (2008) A young,  twelve year old, oft-bullied Swedish boy develops a symbiotic relationship with a child-vampire; rare and unforgettable, it subsequently breathed new life into a genre that had stagnated for decades. One of the most superlative and sublime modern vampire films to date.


Dracula cerca sangue di vergine...e mori di sete!!! AKA/ Blood for Dracula (1974) Udo Kier, as a sickly Dracula, travels from Transylvania to Italy, in the search for the blood of virgins only to find an aristocratic family of insatiable whores and a communist peasant handyman with a Brooklyn accent. A hilarious, campy, cult classic.


Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922) A German expressionist classic that arguably stands as one of the earliest "cult" films, after most prints were burned or destroyed when Bram Stoker's estate sued for copyright infringement and won, but a much duplicated surviving copy had already escaped for international distribution, and lives on to this day as a mercurial paradigm of vampire cinema.


Dracula AKA/ Horror of Dracula (1958) Of the seven times the late, great Christopher Lee would portray the legendary nobleman with a propensity for blood, this first Hammer Studios effort directed by Terence Fisher stands,  for me,  as the first step in the evolution of the character from the oft-lampooned cliche' that rose out of Bela Lugosi's earlier portrayal. After seeing it as a child, there was only one Dracula as far as I was concerned.


Les levres rouges AKA/ Daughters of Darkness (1971) Elegant and mesmerizing, Delphine Seyrig gives us a Dietrich-esque Countess Bathory whose outward flamboyance hides her jaded views from a self-centered newlywed couple in Brussels. A movie that I've always held in the highest regard, as a fine genre example and otherwise.


Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)  With a lineup that features names like Herzog, Kinski, Adjani, and Ganz, one could almost predict the ingenuous product that would spring from the collaborative effort. Tragic and beautiful, passionate and lyrical, a worthy tribute to Murnau's then-fifty year old German classic and the second of five films that director Herzog would team up with the famously imposible actor Klaus Kinski for.


Martin (1977) Leave it to Pittsburgh zombie king George Romero to tackle the vampire genre as effectively and engagingly as anyone ever has. Often overlooked in favor of his wildly popular flesh-eating ghoul movies, this one is arguably the best he's done, hands down, with a performance that's both stellar and poignant from John Amplas, a regular in Romero's work, and top notch gory realism from FX wizard, Tom Savini. My favorite. Period.

"House on Straw Hill" (1976) d/ James Kenelm Clarke

Tonight, we'll take a look at the only British film to be found among the original seventy-two (and even the revised thirty-nine, for that matter) on the notorious "Video Nasties" list that inspired gestapo-style police raids on video shops back in the eighties in the name of "decency". Looking back, the sheltered and stuffy  film censors only really managed to succeed in bringing masses of violent film lovers together, the world over. Hell, even cobwebbed-up Damned frontman Dave Vanian caught, caught the proverbial Horror Taxi and fell in love with 'em. This effort, from the director who brought you a World War II-based musical sex comedy in 1978's Let's Get Laid, is an engaging little psychological thriller that stars cult icon, Udo Kier, as well as popular seventies British sex star, Fiona Richmond, and sexy genre staple, Linda Hayden.


"I am goink to zlip away to ze country zo I can start writing sings again..."
Paul (Kier) is a troubled novelist who rents an isolated estate in the British countryside, so that he might focus on writing the eagerly anticipated follow up to his first effort, with a secretary named Linda (Hayden) hired on from a temp agency by his agent, to accelerate the creative process for deadline's sake. Paul's lingering case of writer's block doesn't seem to discourage Linda at all, as she's packed away a handy dildo in her luggage, and plans to masturbate furiously over the coming weeks, sometimes in the middle of a nearby corn field in broad daylight, drawing the attention of two yokels on bikes, who stop to rape her at gunpoint... only she invitingly caresses the shotgun barrel, mid-violation, as a harbinger of where this chick's head is really at.Afterwards, she turns the duo's firearm on them, raping them of their miserable lives, and strolls back to the cottage as though nothing ever happened...


And the award for Least Masculine-looking Death Pose for 1976 goes to...
Meanwhile, the wide-eyed (and laughingly-overdubbed) Paul is so overstimulated that he's forced to wear latex gloves when making love to his girlfriend Suzanne (Richmond), who initially dislikes his new homicidal typist, who, in turn, adds the housekeeper to the meager body count along the way, but later warms up enough to her to wear a Joan Crawford-style lez-beanie with the young murderer while Paul is busy losing control of the vehicle on the winding country road back to the house, a victim of secretarial sabotage, no doubt. In the end, Linda turns out to be the vengeful widow of a suicidal author whose work Paul had plagiarized in bringing his first book to life, and a bloody, knock-down, drag-out finale, complete with a shock or two that I'll leave for you to discover for yourselves, is what follows...


"How'd you guess I was from Bristol?"
Hayden, who'd later voice regret concerning her participation here, could be found in memorable genre films throughout the seventies, in things like Hammer's Taste the Blood of Dracula(1970), Tigon's Blood on Satan's Claw(1971), Night Watch(1973), Madhouse(1974), and even Queen Kong (1976), while Richmond would appear in lighter fare like 1971's Not Tonight, Darling, and reunite with director Clarke on Hardcore aka/ Fiona(1977) and the aforementioned Let's Get Laid, the following year. As for tonight's review, which was originally released as Expose', and alternately as Trauma, it's a worthwhile watch for fans of Udo, Linda, and/or Fiona, and Video Nasty completists alike, and as such, I'm gonna drop the deuce upon it, so to speak. Check out the Blu-Ray-dvd combo, available from the fine folks at Severin.


"I vos practissink zhooting  jam jars off of ze garden wall...."

"La terza madre"(2007)d/Dario Argento

It's horribly trendy these days to begrudgingly dismiss the post-Opera(1987) films of Dario Argento, and, sadly, in many instances I wouldn't argue against it, as the maestro of the genre, the 'Italian Hitchcock' himself, who has seen the highest highs the medium can reach while achieving legendary status, hit a streak of mediocrity for the first time in his career with lackluster offerings like Trauma(1993), Phantom of the Opera(1998), and Il cartaio(2004).Rest assured, folks, Dario's coda in the 'three mothers' trilogy, some twenty years in the making and multiple re-writes later, does not qualify as one of those.Instead, watching 'Madre' had the opposite effect on me, much like running into an old flame after decades have passed, and though she might not look or feel the same, you still experience fleeting moments of bliss the same way you used to way back when, making the brief liason worth your while.Dario's lens moves as fluidly as ever, like a living entity, in framing some of the most vulgar imagery he's endeavored to visualize yet(as gleefully fabricated by FX wiz Sergio Stivaletti); on-screen infanticides, asphyxiation with one's own entrails, and butcher cleaver face-hackings all outlandishly transpire in the oft-delirious, witch-laden narrative.His provocatively beautiful daughter, Asia purveys strength and weakness as a lead who suddenly finds herself orbited by primordial evil, supported, in part, by genre icons like Udo Kier, Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, and Daria Nicolodi, as well as the less-familiar faces of Israeli actress Moran Atias, as Mater Lachrymarum, and late Japanese director, Jun Ichikawa, in a cameo.The visuals are suitably complimented by an effectively bombastic score from Claudio Simonetti, of Goblin/Daemonia fame, laced with familiarly spooky yesteryear riffs juxtaposed against an evolving, progressive staff.It's safe to venture that the maestro's disdain for three-line reviews could never extend to my realm.Forwards into the spoiler-ridden synopsis, I say.

Coralina deve sempre soffrire molto.Sfortunata ragazza!
After unearthing the coffin of a 19th century church official and uncovering a mysterious ornately decorated urn, padlocked and chained shut with metal crosses in the process, the clergy quickly ship the urn off to the Museum of Ancient Art in Rome, with growing fear that it may contain the effects of Mater Lachrymarum(Moran Atias), or 'The Mother of Tears', the last surviving member of an ancient trio of legendarily diabolical witches known as 'The Three Mothers'.Giselle(Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni), the assistant curator, soon finds that it does, indeed, whereupon breaking the wax seal and removing effigies of the witches and a ceremonial garb from the vessel, she's immediately set upon by the powerful witch's shadowy demonic cohorts, who punch her fronts out, and disembowel her, strangling her with her own innards(!), to the disbelief and horror of Sarah Mandy(Asia Argento), an American student studying art restoration that's been seeing the curator, Michael(Adam James).The terrified girl is ultimately aided in escaping from Lachrymarum's patrolling baboon familiar by a disembodied female voice that unlocks the exits to the darkened building.Once the artifacts are in the witch's possession, her negative influence affects all in her wake as witches from all over the world flamboyantly gather for a coming celebration, with random people suddenly compelled to beat, rape, and murder each other in the streets.While Michael's subsequent investigation gets his son kidnapped by the cultists, who remind the curator about the ancient 'silentium' vow taken by the architect who constructed the three witches' domains in separate locations, by writing the Latin warning in the boy's blood on the headboard of his bed.Meanwhile, Sarah has dodged inquisitive detectives and spying spellcasters in befriending Marta(Valeria Cavalli), a white witch who was friends with the girl's mother, Elisa(Daria Nicolodi), a powerful white witch herself, killed with her husband in a car crash caused by Mater Suspiriorum years earlier, who's been materializing before her daughter to help her realize her own powers in this dire hour for all of humanity, a new age of magic.

"Accccckkk!!Zumwahn hass sliced open my ssssroat and now ze blutt is cumming aut!"
Lachrymarum erupts in a hateful blast of violence as the two women pool their psychic abilities to hone in on the frequently naked witch's Achilles heel, using sway over one of Padre Johannes'(Udo Kier) assistants to cause her to suddenly hack his face into shredded wheat with a meat cleaver then bissecting her own throat with the same bladed deathdealer, before the exorcist can give the women a tome explaining the witch's backstory.Her horned goons then bust in at Marta's, slaying the host and her sapphic roommate in particularly brutal and horrid fashion, sending Sarah into the waiting arms of Michael, who's been rendered a zombified puppet for the witch's black-hearted gain.This earns him a full-body dousal with kerosene and subsequent immolation-by-fire at the hands of his former lover, getting dragged off of this plane of existence, kicking and screaming, by Elisa, in a final act of assistance towards her daughter.Sarah seeks out and finds succor in Guglielmo De Witt(Philippe Leroy), a cautious old alchemist who unexpectedly paralyzes the girl to determine her magical alignment(at ease, you MMORPG dorks) before giving her a copy of 'The Three Mothers' to ascertain the whereabouts of Lachrymarum's secret lair: a voluminous dilapidated mansion that she descends upon with one of the detectives who'd been hunting her since her door slammed-head kill of one the final Mater's disciples on a train, earlier on.Inside one of the catacombs, the badge gets captured and chained up right next to De Witt and his assistant, both also hostage to the witch, who manages to capture Sarah, for good measure, as the alchemist's assistant turns his toes up after having had his arm lopped off.Lachrymarum orders her cannibalistic followers to eat the young woman(!), but she manages to snag the ancient witch's tunic on a spear, chucking it into a nearby fire, leaving the spellcaster, naked and screaming, to be impaled on a stalactite chunk in the ensuing earthquake that swallows the witch and her minions.Sarah and the detective trod through corpse-filled water to the surface, where they're both overcome by laughter at the horror they've both endured.

Asia, sei davvero una festa per i miei occhi.
I've watched the movie four times to date, making sure I was staunch in my feelings about it, which have fluctuated a bit from viewing to viewing, to be honest with you.The first time you experience the campy over-the-top finale, it probably won't sit well with you, until you've had the opportunity to drink it all in a few times, which the film does easily stand up to.I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that it becomes regarded as one of Argento's minor classics in years to come, and certainly one of the better recent offerings from Italy I've seen.I can now look forward to his upcoming take on Bram Stoker's Dracula in 3D with deserved excitement.Dario's unexpectedly chaotic vision may not be the destination you'd envisioned for the trilogy, but it's a wild and enjoyably welcome one, none-the-less, full of brutal gore, artistic flair, tumultuous turns, and campy performances from long-time favorites.On more than one occasion I found myself enveloped by vapors of deja vu that emanated from the screen and transported me back to the eighties and memories of glorious art-splatter from one of my all-time favorites, a true master artist.Three Wops.Bello vederti di nuovo, Dario.

Cherry street Friday nights, you couldn't beat 'em.

"Flesh for Frankenstein"(1973)d/Paul Morrissey

Next we're going to look lovingly upon one of my absolute favorite spins on the Frankenstein myth,often referred to as "Andy Warhol's Frankenstein",though the Pittsburgh native and mop-topped fop had little to do with the production other than lending his name to it,being that director Morrissey had an office in Warhol's New York headquarters.A ridiculously over-the-top homage/piss-take on the very genre it belongs to,Flesh was originally released in field sequential 3D(and re-released the same way in the eighties),you'd have to track down the Japanese print to enjoy it as it was intended,sadly enough.Apart from the obvious,copious amounts of sex and gore that drip off the screen at the viewer,what makes this film legendary,you query?Well,it's obviously not Joe Dallesandro,who spends most of the film naked like table dressing at a homo party,and delivers his lines like a post-stroke Sylvester Stallone on quaaludes.For tonight's entry,kudos are due to Udo.Kier's amazingly frenetic and crazed performance as the racially pyoo-ah mad Serbian sister(and guts)fucking eugenical genius is the glue that holds this whole crazy movie together,with sidekick Arno Juerging also giving a memorably mental eye-bugging turn as his assistant,Otto.The gore is dumped in buckets by Italian FX whiz,Carlo Rambaldi,an excellent score supplied by Claudio Gizzi,and second unit director was none other than genre king Antonio Margheriti,with Carlo Ponti pitching in as one of the producers.Even in the flattest 2D format,there's much to enjoy that's being showcased here.So let's embark together,shall we,on the quest for the perfect nasum for our male sssombie!

The Baron(Udo Kier)and his assistant,Otto(Arno Juerging)quest together for the perfect Serbian nasum.
When he's not having sex with his sister/wife,Baron Frankenstein(Kier)slaves away in his laboratory with his wild-eyed sycophantic assistant,Otto(Juerging),to create the perfect pair of patchwork humans that meet the superior Serbian standard,and to replace "zat worn out trash zat now pop-oolates and re-pop-oolates zat planet."Huh??He's already assembled the perfect female sssombie(Dalila Di Lazzaro),but needs a head...with the perfect Serbian nasum to complete his male sssombie.The thought of the glory he'll receive,and not the scientific world,when his master plan comes to fruition causes him to take out his sexual arousal on his female's gall bladder,through opened stitching in her torso.Meanwhile, his two creepy children steal body parts from the lab,when they're not dissecting their dolls or beheading them in a toy guillotine,to the chagrin of their pet pirahnas.His sister/wife(Monique Van Vooren) has no time for the lazy,inferior farmhands who spend her brother/husband's money on cheap liquor and whores at the local brothel and ruin her picnics with the children by openly fornicating in the grass a few feet away.She has even less time for her own eyebrows.When Nicholas(Dallesandro)takes his perma-bummed out buddy,Sascha(SrdJan Zelenovic),to the brothel in attempts to sway him from joining a monastery,The Baron and Otto,out headhunting,hear the whores cries of passion inside,and assume that Sascha and his perfect nasum are the ones responsible,when it's really Nicholas doing the ploughing.Otto makes Nicholas unconscious with a good head-clubbing,while the Baron removes Sascha's domepiece with an enormous pair of neck-scissors(!).Nicholas awakens to find his pal's headless body nearby,then reports to the Baron's sister/wife who hires him in the castle as a servant/cock-on-a-leash.Then she sucks his armpits.

Nicholas(Joe Dallesandro) is a European fahmhand who tawks like a Brooklyn cab drivuh.
At dinner,the Baron introduces two new dinner guests,decked out in body and neckbraces,when Nicholas,who is serving the family,recognizes his friend's head on the male(!).After eating,the Baron tries to force his sssombies to copulate,but the male has no interest,enfuriating Frankenstein,who gives the male to his sister/wife to get her fuck on with as a reward for selling out Nicholas,who is then captured,to him.Meanwhile,Otto tries to duplicate his employer's earlier gall bladder-fucking feat with the female,succeeding only in scooping her insides clean like a pumpkin,disemboweling and killing her.When the Baron sees his assistant's feeble bumbling,he strangles him.At this point the male sssombie returns from his lovemaking session with the Baron's wife/sister's lifeless body in his arms,causing the ever-more-enraged Baron to order his creation to kill Nicholas who is hanging from the ceiling by a chain.The male creature,still possessing some of Sascha's personality,instead lashes out at the Baron,severing his hand in an iron gate,and running him through on a pole,one of his internal organs skewered at the end.Nicholas pleads with the male sssombie to let him down and free him,but the creature denies his request,and pulls his own organs out with his bare hands,preferring to be dead.The Baron's children come into the laboratory,and grabbing scalpels,being to turn the crane wheel that is suspending Nicholas in the air.Are they going to free him or carry on their father's twisted work?The credits roll.

The Baron gets to know life by fucking death in the gall bladder.
Most of the same crew would return the following year for Blood for Dracula(1974),which we'll examine at a later date.Kier,who began his film career as a protege' of Fassbinder,has an amazing list of films under his belt that reads like a who's who of genre directors.He's worked with Argento,Von Trier,Van Sant,Carpenter,as well as artists like Madonna and Korn.He continues to be a living icon of cult,horror,and exploitation movies to this very day.Morrissey,a self-avowed right winger,went on to direct fare like The Hound of the Baskervilles(1978) and Spike of Bensonhurst(1988).Nicoletta Elmi,who played the Baron's daughter went on to act in Argento's Profondo Rosso in 1976,before scoring herself a memorable role as Ingrid the usherette in Lamberto Bava's Demoni(1985).Juerging did All Around Service Girls in 1976 then nothing else.On the scale,Flesh turns the crank on a creaky chain,lifting three solid wops out of a huge tank of preservative fluid.

"I don't regret anything!"gasps the eviscerated,handless Baron,"I tried my best!"