Dracula: Van Helsing Breaks into Lucy's Coffin

Dr. Van Helsing was certain that Lucy Westenra had risen from the dead as a vampire and she was what the neighborhood children referred to as "The Bloofer Lady" and wanted to prove his theory to Dr. Seward by taking him to the Westenra family tomb and opening Lucy's coffin.

The Collins mausoleum on the original Dark Shadows TV show is similar to the description in Dr. Seward's journal entry of the Westenra tomb with the creaky door and Van Helsing reading the coffin plates to find Lucy's coffin:

Then he fumbled in his bag, and taking out a matchbox and a piece of candle, proceeded to make a light. The tomb in the daytime, and when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough; but now, some days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and dead, their whites turning to rust and their greens to browns; when the spider and the beetle had resumed their accustomed dominance; where time-discoloured stone, and dust-encrusted mortar, and rusty, dank iron and tarnished brass, and clouded silver-plating gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle, the effect was more miserable and sordid that could have been imagined. (Stoker)

Isn't that great imagery? The dust and rust and creaking iron gate, the dead flowers, the empty coffin!

Dracula: The Bloofer Lady

How times have changed! According to the "Westminster Gazette" in Dracula young children have been wandering away from their homes or not coming home from playing on the heath. A couple of them go missing for the entire night, not returning home until morning. Even after their return home with bite marks on their necks and explain that they were lured away by the "Bloofer Lady," people make light of it. The neighborhood children make a game pretending to be the Bloofer Lady and lure little children away from their homes. Adults find this amusing and play the Bloofer Lady at outdoor performances.

Under the circumstances, don't you think people would be watching their kids a little closer and not allowing them outdoors after sundown and teaching them not to talk to strangers? If that happened now parents would be imprisoning their kids in their homes, barely allowing them out to go to school.

Apparently not, because later the same day the Gazette reports another pale child had been discovered that morning under a bush on a remote side of Hampstead Heath. Did the Bloofer Lady, (who we learn is Lucy Westenra risen from the dead) lure them away with her vampire powers or a sweet treat?

Being Human (UK) Season 1, Episode 1

Being Human (UK) was ranked the #2 best vampire TV show in an article on metacritic.com so as I had a craving for vampires, I found it on Hulu and watched the first episode. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was listed as #1, but I've already seen all the episodes of Buffy; not recently, but I've seen them. I was tempted to watch them all again because I love that show, but I need to expand my horizons and try new things. 

The first episode of Being Human (UK) is really good and, like The Walking Dead, drew me right in, so I'll definitely watch the remaining 35 episodes. I didn't think it was that scary until I left the room to use the bathroom and expected werewolves and vampires to jump out of the dark corners of the house and accost me on my way by. Obviously, I thought wrong! The most horrific scene was when Annie watched George transform into a werewolf. It seemed so realistic and the expression on her face when the wolf came toward her when she called his name made it even more frightening.

The comedy balances out the horror, sadness and regret that goes along with being dead people trying to live a "normal" human life alongside live humans. George's nervous response to Owen the landlord, and ghost roommate Annie's fiance, when he asked George to explain the noise upstairs was hilarious. The writing and the acting in this show is really good. I hope the rest of the series is just as good as the first episode!

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

After all these years, I finally watched Sleepy Hollow! Better late than never to see a movie where Johnny Depp is so cute that it really doesn't matter what the movie is about. However, the movie was really entertaining, more comedy than horror. With Tim Burton's direction Sleepy Hollow was darkly charming like Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, etc.

Right away I observed that the story took place in the same time period that Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights was set. What a cool coincidence! Even though the two stories took place on opposite shores of the Atlantic, seeing the settings and costumes made me wonder if Catherine Earnhart Linton's dresses were similar to those of Lady Van Tassel (Miranda Richardson). Lady Van Tassel's evil vengeful machinations made Heathcliff''s seem like a spoiled school boy's tantrum. 

Christopher Walken is so cool and I had no idea he was in it, let alone as the crazy Hessian killer who became the headless horseman! That was like hot fudge topping on my ice cream with Christopher Lee on top.

Sleepy Hollow was a really good movie that was worth the wait. What other good movies from the 90s did I miss?

Dracula: Lucy's Funeral Flowers

Lucy's youth and beauty is restored after her body is attended to by the undertaker in such an amazing restoration that Dr. Seward and her fiance Arthur can hardly believe that she's dead. Only Dr. Van Helsing knows the gruesome secret of her unnatural transformation. As they leave her coffin where she's swathed in drapery and decorated with lilies, roses and garlic flowers, Dr. Seward writes in his journal:

"Van Helsing did not go to bed at all. He went to and fro as if patrolling the house and was never out of sight of the room where Lucy lay in her coffin, strewn with the wild garlic flowers, which sent, through the odour of lily and rose, a heavy, overpowering smell into the night."

Earlier in Dr. Seward's journal when he reports that Lucy's beauty and youth have returned as she lay in her coffin, Van Helsing lifts the sheet away from her mouth to lay his gold cross over her lips. The mention of the sheet reminded me of the drapery mentioned in Catherine Earnshaw Linton's funeral arrangements when Nelly arranges it around her face in Wuthering Heights.

Mostly the visualization of all the flowers in the candle lit room with young beautiful Lucy's corpse in the coffin and then the strong odor of the garlic overpowering the scents of lilies and roses is so intense, I can almost smell it myself. Stoker's strong description of the scent of flowers and garlic, without using words, points out to the reader that there is absolutely no natural odor of decomposition, which is what the flowers are used traditionally to mask. Regardless of the beauty and aroma in the room, there's something very mysterious and unnatural as well.

Black Sunday (1960)

Black Sunday (La maschera del demonio (original title)) is an Italian horror movie from 1961, directed by the great Mario Bava. It's dubbed in English, so no subtitles to read. This movie went from campy to scary and back again. The beginning lays out the history of a witch trial in the 17th century, which is a good story in itself, and then fast forwards to the 19th century where the descendants of the witch have an underlying feeling of gloom and doom that they can't understand until all hell breaks loose.

There are bats, fog, a creepy castle with a crypt beneath an abandoned chapel, vampires rising from the dead and corpses turning up all over the place. The scenery, atmosphere and story were creepy and well done, but the dialogue and acting in some scenes was so over-the-top dramatic that it was funny. It's a scary movie with little hope for a happy ending as the young Dr. Gorobec (John Richardson) tries to get to the bottom of the horrific happenings. 

Then enters the priest. He's not much of a talker as he listens to the young doctor rant about all the freaky events at the castle and his desire to save the beautiful princess, played by the wonderful Barbara Steele (in a dual role as Asa the witch). As the doctor speaks, the priest wears this odd half smile the entire time with his buggy eyes and cheap wig. I laughed out loud during the conversation:

Dr Gorobec: The maid's daughter claimed to have seen Dr. Kruvajan get in the carriage to come to the castle. It wasn't the castle's driver though. The driver resembled the man in the portrait at the castle.

Priest: The portrait that hangs by the fireplace?

Dr Gorobec: Yes.

Priest: The portrait of the man who died 200 years ago?

Dr Gorobec: Yes. What's so special about the man in the portrait?

Priest: (His eyes seem to get even bigger) Nothing.

Ha!

However, the odd priest was instrumental in helping to rid the castle of the evil curse, but he was a weird one! You can check this movie out on Netflix.

Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)

Snow White and the Huntsman's Queen Ravenna's (Charlize Theron) need to suck the youth out of the kingdom's girls to maintain her own perpetual youth and beauty is similar to the crazy medieval Blood Countess of Slovakia, Elizabeth Bathory, who killed hundreds of girls to bathe in their blood to maintain her own youth. The difference is that Ravenna was able to use other females to remain young and beautiful with the help of a magic spell, while Bathory was just a sadistic nut because we all know that doesn't work.

Fairy tale remakes are cool, so this new twist on Snow White intrigued me. The movie cast Snow White (Kristen Stewart) as more of a self-possessed fighter standing up for the oppressed and not as a helpless domestic servant for the dwarfs waiting around to be rescued. It was cool that Snow White was not only the key to giving Ravenna eternal life and beauty, but was also the one person who could kill her. 

I'm a fan of computer generated imagery, which was used nicely to create the coolest effects like the magic mirror, the dark forest creepy crawlies and those cool little fairies. I really liked the fairy land and everything in it. The evil queen's transformations and her ravens were cool too, especially in the forest after Snow White bit the poison apple.

At the end of the movie Snow White was crowned as queen standing alone as lone ruler with her choice of lovers, which was apparently the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth), since his kiss and not her childhood friend William's, was the kiss to bring her back to life after biting the poison apple. The ending was set up nicely for a sequel as Snow White stands in front of her throne watching the Huntsman pass discreetly behind the crowd. Who would have guessed that the sequel would become a prequel?