Thursday, 26 March 2015
Podcast: The Whittling Post Digest - Episode 01
A weekly cultural roundup in podcast form! The average adventures of a geek with too much time on his hands. Not to be confused with better, more professional cultural review podcasts, of which there are plenty.
THIS WEEK: GODZILLA, THIS ISLAND EARTH, MAX PAYNE 3, DISCWORLD, THE BOY IN THE DRESS, SAVE DEVONSHIRE STREET and MORE!
Thursday, 5 March 2015
Hammer: Dracula (1958) - film review
I guess I'm doing this season of Hammer horror films in
descending order of critical acclaim or popularity. As I said in my last post,
I've not approached this very scientifically but, well, I think scientifically
enough that I believe I've picked the right films to look at.
So, first up is 1958's Dracula, which inAmerica
My first impression of this film was very good, but that ended kind of quickly. The title sequence is great and the music by James Bernard scored gloriously over it sets the chilling tone well. I almost got goose bumps while the camera tracked around what I think is a stone gargoyle or angel. But as the film starts we're left with the fairly lifeless John Van Eyssen as Jonathan Harker to guide us into the piece. I've only read about a third of the original book, but as I remember Jonathan's meant to be quite wide-eyed and meek, but Van Eyssen plays him colder, harder, which reflects an important change to his character, but any familiarity with the book will render the viewer a little confused. In fact he's actually slightly creepier than Dracula himself, I'd say.
Changes to the book are a big part of this film, as many were made to condense the goings on for budgetary reasons. That's fine, really, and they do it in smart ways and never change anything for the worse. Once you realise that its only going to casually follow the events of the book then your mind opens up to new ideas.
The film struck me as similar to the Roger Corman adaptations of Poe's work I watched recently. It all looks nice and is finely acted but there's little in the way of showy filmmaking. The flashier bits are wisely saved for the grand moments of horror, which stand out very well. I wasn't expecting stakes to be plunged into women's hearts quite so explicitly, which was kinda cool in a gross-out sort of way.
The low budget stands out most of all in the exterior representation of Dracula's "castle", which here just looks like a nice English country manor... and probably was.
Christopher Lee must have been a little bored on set because he has sod all to say after the opening scenes and remains very much an off-screen threat like the alien in, erm, Alien. His appearances are brief but when they are they're very crucial. So really this is Peter Cushing's show, which is reflected in the order the cast are credited in.
The female cast members are great, including Melissa Stribling, Carol Marsh and Valerie Gaunt. Marsh in fact has a particularly disturbing scene where she tries to lure a child to her possible doom that mirrors the Moors murders a little. I found that quite upsetting.
The cinematography by Jack Asher seemed subdued to me. At the start I wasn't even sure it was in colour. When blood splatters on Dracula's coffin just after the title sequence (which, now that I think about it, was in red) I thought it was going to stay in black and white and only have colour for the gore. But no, it's all colour. I think that's my eyesight getting worse as I had the same problem with Corman's The Haunted Palace. Shame. Maybe that's why I've been buying up so many films recently - I want to see them all before it's too late and my film viewing days are over.
From watching the retrospective documentary on the bonus disc the general opinion seems to be that while this is the most confident and probably the flagship Hammer film, it isn't necessarily the best. Which bodes well for me as I have a fair few to get through.
I enjoyed Dracula but I can't say it was a revelation of an experience. Maybe the more obscure and "bad" ones will be more up my street.
We shall see.
So, first up is 1958's Dracula, which in
My first impression of this film was very good, but that ended kind of quickly. The title sequence is great and the music by James Bernard scored gloriously over it sets the chilling tone well. I almost got goose bumps while the camera tracked around what I think is a stone gargoyle or angel. But as the film starts we're left with the fairly lifeless John Van Eyssen as Jonathan Harker to guide us into the piece. I've only read about a third of the original book, but as I remember Jonathan's meant to be quite wide-eyed and meek, but Van Eyssen plays him colder, harder, which reflects an important change to his character, but any familiarity with the book will render the viewer a little confused. In fact he's actually slightly creepier than Dracula himself, I'd say.
Changes to the book are a big part of this film, as many were made to condense the goings on for budgetary reasons. That's fine, really, and they do it in smart ways and never change anything for the worse. Once you realise that its only going to casually follow the events of the book then your mind opens up to new ideas.
The film struck me as similar to the Roger Corman adaptations of Poe's work I watched recently. It all looks nice and is finely acted but there's little in the way of showy filmmaking. The flashier bits are wisely saved for the grand moments of horror, which stand out very well. I wasn't expecting stakes to be plunged into women's hearts quite so explicitly, which was kinda cool in a gross-out sort of way.
The low budget stands out most of all in the exterior representation of Dracula's "castle", which here just looks like a nice English country manor... and probably was.
Christopher Lee must have been a little bored on set because he has sod all to say after the opening scenes and remains very much an off-screen threat like the alien in, erm, Alien. His appearances are brief but when they are they're very crucial. So really this is Peter Cushing's show, which is reflected in the order the cast are credited in.
The female cast members are great, including Melissa Stribling, Carol Marsh and Valerie Gaunt. Marsh in fact has a particularly disturbing scene where she tries to lure a child to her possible doom that mirrors the Moors murders a little. I found that quite upsetting.
The cinematography by Jack Asher seemed subdued to me. At the start I wasn't even sure it was in colour. When blood splatters on Dracula's coffin just after the title sequence (which, now that I think about it, was in red) I thought it was going to stay in black and white and only have colour for the gore. But no, it's all colour. I think that's my eyesight getting worse as I had the same problem with Corman's The Haunted Palace. Shame. Maybe that's why I've been buying up so many films recently - I want to see them all before it's too late and my film viewing days are over.
From watching the retrospective documentary on the bonus disc the general opinion seems to be that while this is the most confident and probably the flagship Hammer film, it isn't necessarily the best. Which bodes well for me as I have a fair few to get through.
I enjoyed Dracula but I can't say it was a revelation of an experience. Maybe the more obscure and "bad" ones will be more up my street.
We shall see.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)