30 THEATRICAL TERRORS: Let Me In (Day 11)

Well, this one I’ve already reviewed twice (once, upon initially watching it and then when I made it my pick as #1 movie of 2010) and I don’t think I need to again.

Here’s the first:

Let My Ass In

Instead, I’ll simply point out a few critiques that make my point:

In comparing Let Me In with Let the Right One In, horror website Bloody Disgusting wrote, “Ultimately, if the Swedish version is near perfection, Matt Reeves’ version achieves complete supremacy. Masterpiece is an overused word, but it’s hard to think of another so powerful. Let Me In is the new standard for vampire movies.” 

Stephen King wrote “Let Me In is a genre-busting triumph. Not just a horror film, but the best American horror film in the last 20 years.”

Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers observed, “I thought for sure that any Hollywood remake of Alfredson’s artful Swedish vampire film, Let the Right One In, would be a crass desecration. Well, color me blushing and prepare to be wowed. It’s a spellbinder.”

A. O. Scott of the New York Times wrote “what makes ‘Let Me In’ so eerily fascinating is the mood it creates. It is at once artful and unpretentious, more interested in intimacy and implication than in easy scares or slick effects.”

It’s not the best trailer,

but it does the trick:

SKETCH DUMP: NOVEMBER 7, 2013

This series of sketches was done ramping up to this October and in the early days of October--most of which were done for Outcast Studios' Daily Sketch Challenge.

(It's always good exercise to sketch a little something each day to keep up your skills and further develop them.  Or, at least that's what they say.)

Here we have Marvel Comics version of Bram Stoker's eternal enemy Dracula from the longest running comic book series starring a villain, TOMB OF DRACULA.  Nearly completely done by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan, it was full of gothic atmosphere which I tried to covey a little bit of here.

(Click these for Enlargement)

Swamp Thing contemplating knowledge and how it can be both a good thing and a bad thing.  Just me having some free time at work with ballpoint pen and cardboard.

The Atom punching a guy in the face and Panthro of the Thundercats on a jaunt. 

Crusher Creel, AKA The Absorbing Man between absorbing something--

I really like this sketch and I'm not sure why.

Etrigan, The Demon, Jack Kirby's horror based fantasy hero--a demon from hell damned to do good by Merlin the Magician.  I don't really like this one.

The daughter of Dracula: Lilith. 

This is from Marvel as well--their attempt to tap the Vampirella market, apparently.

Profile shot of Mephisto, Marvel Comics' version of  the devil.

THE COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN: DAY 23

(One more thing...)

It seems I've been remiss with last night's post about the Brides of Dracula...

I seem to have left off one of my favorite brides...

Sadie Frost won me over with her performance as Lucy Westenra.

She seemed to embody the girly girl from the letters more fully than any actress before or since.  That poor doomed young lady who proves to the rest that the threat of Dracula must be fully dealt with is completely brought to life, perhaps more than in the novel because of her portrayal and Coppola's depiction.

Her euphoric performance really drove home how this woman thought she had her whole life in front of her, how she was planning her wedding and getting ready to build that life and enter true adulthood.

But then there was that...

And this...

And even...

And all of this...

Besides the "Love Never Dies" theme, which really does a disservice to Stoker's novel, I do feel that Coppola's adaptation of DRACULA is one of the best representatives of the book on film.  But it is the addition of this reincarnated love theme that totally undermines the relationship between Reeves' and Rider's characters--a key to the book.  It also happens to add more sympathy to Oldman's Count than we ever see in the novel and so he is not this completely dark, satanic force that will seemingly hunt down these good, god-fearing folks as relentlessly as a dragon.

Nonetheless, the acting is top notch and the story well told, but don't dismiss that poor little rich girl--her performance is key.  Her simple wants and needs are the basics of life and, like any tragedy, life sometimes gets in the way of ones wants and needs.  And it is that this terrible thing--that the dangers of the greater world can creep into ones life and totally mess shit up that lets everyone else know that one must always stand guard against the darkness...

because the darkness is always there and it is eternally thirsty for more.

Tonight we end things with an Annie Lennox tune from the soundtrack of this very film...

THE COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN: DAY 20

(Vivid Vampire Visuals)

Click for a closer look

THE COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN: DAY 17

(Dracula: The Muppet Musical)

In the Jason Segel comedy about a man who just can't seem to get over his breakup with a semi-famous actress entitled FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL, Segel's characters' dream is to put on a muppet musical about Dracula.  Strange but true, Jason is a huge Muppets fan and that's even more evident in the Muppets revival film that came out a few years after this production simply called THE MUPPETS.  Jason wrote and starred in it opposite Amy Adams.

And since I'd all but forgotten about this until scanning about yesterday for Dracula films, I thought I'd share some moments from the production, which is surprisingly entertaining...

Firstly, his friend gets him to sing part of it for a captive audience...

Here's the production with full cast, what we get to see anyway...

When Jason was out promoting the film, he did this number on the LATE LATE SHOW with Craig Ferguson...

Good ol' Hokey Halloween fun!

That's all for tonight, but as a parting gift I give you Halloween on Sesame Street c/o Jack Davis

--

THE COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN: DAY 15

Since I turned the focus of the blog back to me, that naturally puts the spotlight back on comic books.  More apropos here is the subject of vampires in comics and specifically

the covers of those comics that deal with the vampire!

Let's take a look, shall we?

(Clicking on any of these images and they will Embiggen)

 

 

 

 

 

Now, anyone with knowledge of vampires and Dracula from the 1970s will note the absence of the most successful comic book featuring Dracula from this list.

Marvel Comics published TOMB OF DRACULA for seventy issues

and I will blog more extensively about it in the coming weeks.

Stay tuned, dear reader!