Movie Appraisal: Nosferatu (1922)

Oh, dude, do I love this movie. It is literally one of the best vampire movies I have ever seen. And it also happens to be one of the first. This is not going to be an incredibly long review because... seriously? This movie has been out for almost a century. If you don't know about it you really need to go watch it now. Stop reading this review and go watch it.

Yes, I know it's in black and white. Yes, it's also silent... but neither of those matter. It is an incredibly effective early vampire movie, introducing ideas like the sun actually destroying vampires and the incredibly old "Nosferatu" type of vampire with the old, bald head, ancient eyes, and fangs that go far past his mouth. Max Schreck is an icon, one of the most effectively terrifying vampires I have ever seen.

The movie starts happily and... well, not very far off from something that could easily be a romantic comedy, and then... then the movie goes dark fast. It becomes disturbing, basically following the plot of Dracula, but having different character names because... well, Dracula was still copyrighted then, and F. W. Murnau kind of, sort of... well, stole the plot without permission.

Anyway, the film is dark, effective, and wonderful to behold for such an early movie. It really starts off the vampire genre in the best possible way. It is a little short and ends incredibly abruptly, but it also is one of the perfect vampire movies out there and should be enjoyed by everybody at least once in their lifetimes.

Book Evaluation: 'Salem's Lot (1975) by Stephen King

I may have spoken of this in my first October Nights review of the television movie Salem's Lot, but since I don't remember, I'll reiterate myself for the masses, yes, the absolute masses of people reading my reviews. 'Salem's Lot is my absolute favorite Stephen King novel. To me, this novel is better than anything else he has ever written. Now, also keep in mind that this was the second novel he ever wrote. Yeah... yeah... I hope you understand where I'm going with this.

Now, it's not that I don't like a lot of his other books because that is grossly untrue and I'd probably go berserk for even trying to think it. Some of his other novels are fantastic. Duma Key and The Dark Tower series come especially to mind, but I also love many of his other works. Some of his short stories and novellas are absolutely brilliant as well, but I'll get into more detail about them when I review some of them whenever I do that. I will say that some of his legitimate novels are absolute rubbish and that I'm not afraid to say that. Actually many of his better known works tend to really rub me the wrong way.

Getting back to 'Salem's Lot though, this novel is his best to me for many reasons. It may not be as perfectly written as many of his later novels, it may not be as subtle nor as creepy as his other novels, and it deals with vampires, something that Stephen King has had almost nothing to do with before or since except in a few Dark Tower novels for brief periods. So, what makes this novel my favorite? What makes me love this novel more than the rest? What draws me back for more?

Well, one of my favorite novels has always been Bram Stoker's Dracula. I love that novel. I'm pretty certain it is the perfect vampire novel. I happen to like vampires. I think I mentioned that in my freaking review of vampires. They are my favorite presumably not real creature/horror monster. I think the idea of them is fantastic and works so well as something both exciting and creepy. That isn't to say that vampire fiction is all good. It mostly sucks. (Ha ha ha...) I make a stupid pun, but I mean it. Vampire fiction is mostly terrible, but the few shining gems really did make an impression on me.

'Salem's Lot is, at a basic level, a retelling of Dracula with a modern day small town instead of some British gentlemen and a castle. It also doesn't set itself up to be a vampire story. In fact, the whole story is set up to be a haunted house story. It seems like everything is leading up to the Marsten house and finding out that the place is haunted and everything, but no, Stephen King does something nobody reading that book would have ever expected: He brings a random vampire named Barlow into the mix along with his creepy hairless familiar-thing, Straker. Now, that actually sounds awful, but it works in the book. It really does.

The characters are absolutely fantastic as long as the character isn't one of the three leads. Ben Mears, Mark Petrie, and Susan Norton (the three leads) are the worst characters in this novel. They really come off as very one-dimensional characters, but that's okay, since some of the best Stephen King characters ever come out of this novel: Father Callahan, Doctor Jimmy Cody, Matt Burke... these characters are the reasons that the novel holds up so well. They work so beautifully in the world this novel takes place in.

This novel also happens to be Stephen King's first novel to focus on an entire town rather than a few individual characters... It is, in style, a lot like Needful Things, The Tommyknockers, and, seen in a grander scale, The Stand. It was the first time Stephen King used this style and it works here better than the rest of his novels in my opinion. It works really well, I think, because the main character here is the town itself. Yeah, that sounds a little crazy coming from me, but that's exactly how it feels. 'Salem's Lot is its own entity, a town already cursed by many things, becoming gradually less human because of a vampire outbreak and possibly its own disease. The town is diseased, you see. It's cursed and everything. That's why Barlow comes to the town. That's why he picks that town to feed. Or at least that's what we can assume. It sounds good though, doesn't it? It gives the vampire some motivation, some characteristics. He's drawn to a place of evil. So, in many ways the novel is a haunted house story... or rather a haunted town story.

I'm sure a more astute person could write essays on how 'Salem's Lot is a metaphor for the degradation and falling apart of small town America, or that it says things about AIDS, or some similar kind of STD that vampirism usually suggests. These are apt metaphors, and work really well, but I'm not really into examining something with that much academic acumen. I think a vampire is a vampire and the town is a town. You see bad towns from time to time. Who's to say some vampire won't try to make it his own village of the damned?

Why would Barlow do it anyway? I mean, what's his motivation here? Is he trying to create an army? His own town? A vampire refuge? It doesn't make a lot of sense. I guess he could have been really inept and couldn't control the very vampires he made, and they in turn started turning everybody else into vampires. That explanation works, but really takes away from Barlow as a character. I guess the more apt thing to say is that Barlow just wanted to screw up things in the town of 'Salem's Lot. He wanted to go and mess everything up and destroy the town. I guess that makes sense. But what would have happened once he finished with the town? Would he have moved on? Huh... that actually sounds really cool...

I guess my point is that this is a novel that should be read by pretty much anybody who likes old-fashioned vampire stories. I think this is one of the legitimate best novels I have ever read and really does work quite well. I love this novel. I love so much about it. Sure, it has its flaws, but it does work very well, and holds up very well despite being written thirty-six years ago. Hell, the idea of small-town America and its portrayal sounds exactly like it does today.

I love this novel and I have to add that again. Go ahead and check it out. I'd rather not tell the story again or spoil this novel for you. Check it out for yourself if it sounds interesting. I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

Creature Deliberation: Vampires

Vampires, creatures of the night, monsters beyond all horror of imagination who... until recently... had represented terrible ideas of sexuality and life beyond death, and nowadays seem to represent terrible books and movies that should be stricken from all records.

Look, I love vampires. I feel ashamed in saying that, but I find that vampires are among my favorite horror movie monsters. Although... I don't know how many vampire movies are actually "horror" movies especially in the last thirty years or so. Some books and movies that have vampires in them still stand up quite well in the horror genre, such as Dracula (1931), as well as the original novel which is still fantastic. 'Salem's Lot , the book by Stephen King, is also quite good even though the movies made of it are nowhere near as good. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova is also fantastic as a very recent vampire novel. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson is one of the first novels to really explore vampires as almost zombies and takes multiple forms of vampires. Then there is a movie like Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922), which is fantastic both as an early film and a starter to the genre.

There are a few other decent vampire stories, but most of them have not been recent. Vampires as monsters are barely recognized anymore. Now vampires seem to all be about lust and sexuality rather than a monstrous force. Anne Rice is the one to blame here. Sure, Bram Stoker kind of started it off with a sexy Dracula back in the Victorian Age, where sexy was not vogue, but try comparing that sexuality to the present-day. It's gone a little crazy. Vampires seem almost to be a fetish nowadays and not one of those cool fetishes like I have, but a disturbing one that makes me shudder every single time I hear a fangirl squee about Twilight. I have really no opinion about Twilight, only because I feel it's unfair to judge something I've never had any part of. I know about it, kind of, but at the same time, I couldn't care less about some teen girl novel, or series of novels, or movie about shirtless men that kind of make me feel very uncomfortable and inadequate... I mean... yeah... if that's what all girls want... You know something? I'm not getting into this.

My point is that vampires are first and foremost, in my mind, monstrous and horrible. That's where the horror of most of these novels and movies come from. The vampire talks like a gentleman (of gentlelady in some cases), and one can never tell what kind of monster lurks beneath the surface until it is too late and the vampire gets to have a late night snack of person neck.

The vampire myths are fascinating, stemming from old time illnesses that were diagnosed as death, and people being buried before death. Hell, maybe the myths even have some bases in reality. I'm not going to rule it out. It would be hella cool if that were the case. It probably isn't... but still, you know?

I guess my problem with modern vampires is that they aren't scary. There is no obvious horror anymore and that makes me very sad. Vampires are such an interesting monster, much more refined than werewolves or zombies or Frankenstein monsters or swamp things or whatever... and it makes them fascinating. They retain so much of their humanity while also losing so much of it as well.

Then there are things like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel and those kinds of television shows, which are infinitely better than Twilight, but simply awful in comparison to earlier and better works in pretty much any kind of media.

I like the idea of vampires. I really do, but there are so few good forms of vampires (and there really have never been many good ideas out there anyway) that it is very disappointing to see how many failures that there really are.

I wish there could be better vampires, but nowadays vampires, true horror vampires, are fast on the decline, and it shows just how far those monsters have fallen.

Movie Appraisal: 30 Days of Night (2007)

Simply put: This is one of the best vampire movies of all time. I don't even care. Don't even try to disagree with me on this next point. Vampire movies inherently suck. Sure, there are some good ones. Nosferatu, and the 1931 Dracula come to mind... but most vampire movies in recent years are not horrific stories of insatiable bloodlust, horror, and a terrible monster who looks like a man called a vampire.. no, most modern vampire croadloads are just awful pieces of romantic garbage that should be thrown... literally thrown... into the sun so that we won't have to deal with them anymore.

I understand. People like the romantic imagery of vampires. Those people are stupid and should be vanquished and conquered and the like. I can't believe there are people out there that find the Twilight series engaging. I cry for the human race. How did we lose so much ground that we now find Twilight to be a series deserving of multiple movies? I... I don't even know what to say people... I just don't know. It makes me sad. It makes me weep for the future and for our forgotten past. Look at how far the vampire has fallen... from feared bloodsucking menace all the way to... sparkling... Do you know how much typing that makes me want to break something or hit myself or something? You don't even know. Nobody does.

I love vampires. Love them. Seriously. They are my favorite type of monster. Dracula is one of my favorite books of all time. 'Salem's Lot (the book) isn't far behind as being my second favorite vampire novel. Then there's The Historian and I Am Legend rounding out some of the all-time great vampire novels of all time. And they are all seriously awesome... and even vampire movies (at least old ones) are cool, like the ones I mentioned above. But how can I ever say that modern vampire movies are good? I Am Legend (the movie) sucked. Any movie that had the name "Dracula" in its title over the last twenty years are so was absolutely terrible... and... then comes 30 Days of Night shining like a glorious lighthouse in a sea of blackened crap.

This movie is stupendous for what it is. It reinvigorated the vampire genre and made it into something a bit more respectable for a short time. Sure, a ton of things have come out more recently than 2007 that ruined vampires even more, but for a moment in 2007 this movie made vampires cool and scary again. It gave us something to worry about... something to think about... and it was awesome.

I love this film and I'm not even certain why. I thought everything was done so well. The story was incredibly well done... the visuals were PERFECT for the story, and the creepiness factor was at an all-time high in vampire films. The vampires were SCARY. This is how vampire films should ALWAYS be done. NOT WITH FREAKING SPARKLING!!! I mean, vampires should be terrifying and mystifying... they should make you want to have night terrors when you think you see the shadow of a skinny and very tall man gliding outside of your window on the darkest of nights...

These vampires can be likened to the rage-zombies in 28 Days Later. There doesn't seem to be a supernatural element in either... and instead there is strange element of reality in both... like something like that could actually happen... might even have happened in the past and that makes the whole subject terrifying. It makes the story one to shudder at in the darkest night... or a 30 day night.