Dracula Watch: The Horror of Dracula (1958)

Watched:  10/13/2026

Format:  DVD

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Terence Fisher

Part of the Hammer horror explosion, The Horror of Dracula (1958) may be a horrendous adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel, but it is a banger of a movie.  And as Hammer knew immediately, Peter Cushing could flip the evil intensity he'd shown as Victor Frankenstein in The Curse of Frankenstein the year prior and create a bonafide horror hero out of Van Helsing, while Christopher Lee looked at Bela Lugosi and said "hold my beer".  

This Dracula is not some smooth bastard here to make off with your virgins, this is the first in a series of movies where Dracula is a straight up menace who is not going to do a bunch of magic tricks to scare you - he's just going to murder you with his bare hands and scary eyeballs.

It has bits of the book, but feels like someone forced to tell the story of Dracula who saw the 1931 movie once while blitzed and is cobbling pieces together as they go.  I have to accept that that's fine as I do like the movie for what it is - an earnestly told story with the actors leaning into it.

Storywise, subsequent installments would build out what an absolute bastard this Dracula is, and Cushing would delight as the iron-willed Van Helsing.  The follow up doesn't even have a proper Dracula - it's a different vampire.  

Anyway, if you're looking for a bit of Dracula that isn't all cheesy melodrama, this is your choice.  No romantic subplots here, no oceans of time.  Just vampiric dickery and a Dracula who loves making a dramatic entrance.

I may just feel compelled to watch these Draculas again.

Noir Watch: Loophole (1954)

Watched:  10/12/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Harold D. Schuster

I dunno.  

I hate to speak ill of a movie with Dorothy Malone and Charles McGraw in it.  But Loophole (1954) didn't make a lot of sense.

Our set up:  Barry Sullivan plays a bank teller.  Clean as a whistle.  A war vet. 

One morning, the bank is visited by a fleet of bank examiners - 10 arrive at one time to perform a surprise exam.  But a clever fellow, Tate (Don Beddoe), slips in behind them as if he's part of the group.  He manages to blend in and while his accomplice (Mary Beth Hughes) distracts Sullivan, our crook snags almost $50K from Barry Sullivan's drawer - roughly $621,000 in today's dollars.

To make the movie happen, our hero doesn't tell anyone.  He just goes home for the weekend, like that money is going to just show up.  

I don't buy it.  If you saw that money was missing, it clearly has legal implications and will cost you your job.  You're telling your boss, or calling them at home and absolutely not leaving the bank.  You are removing any hint of suspicion.

Then, Charles McGraw is assigned the case - and he's a hard nosed detective for the bond company.  He thinks Sullivan did it, and even after it's clear Sullivan didn't do it - months later - he still thinks he did, and is trying to cost Sullivan every opportunity for work by telling employers Sullivan is a crook.  It's *clearly* slander, opening McGraw and the bond company up for a lawsuit.  I mean, I've seen real life detectives refuse to believe they're wrong no matter what evidence is there, but McGraw is a private detective, not a cop.  He's got no coverage.

Dorothy Malone plays Sullivans very, very, very supportive wife.

The last 1/4 is just as messy as Sullivan tracks down Beddoe and makes horrible choice after horrible choice.  Like I said, I just didn't think this movie made much sense.  The best part of that section of the movie is Hughes turning on Beddoe and trying to take control.  She's an absolute gem here.

As Noir Alley host Eddie Muller pointed out - the highlight here is really the two women in the movie who kind of keep it going.  I've seen Sullivan in several movies now, and he's... fine.  He's just never my favorite.  But he is a good choice here - his height working as a defense against McGraw's intensity.

I've seen worse, it's just not a movie that is so bad it's memorable or good enough to think about by the end of the week.

Mod Horror Watch: Spider Baby, or The Maddest Story Ever Told (1962)

Watched:  10/11/2026

Format:  YouTube (watch it here)

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jack Hill

Usually the way Halloween-time spooky-movie-watching occurs is I pitch a few movies and Jamie picks one based on how well one of them suits her mood.  But this time I said "your challenge is to pick a Halloween or horror movie without any input from me".  

Not too very much longer after, she said "Spider Baby".  And I said "beg pardon?"  For I had never heard of Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (1962).  

Jamie put on a trailer for the movie, and I groaned when I saw Lon Chaney Jr.  But, still, it wasn't Glenn Strange, so we take what we can get.  But then, Jamie said "it has an 88% critics rating on RT, and a 75% audience rating", so we fired it up.

This movie was a delight.  It made me think of JeniferSF repeatedly.  She'd enjoy this one.

It's a sort of riff on the Old Dark House motif, of a house full of weirdos living their lives in a ramshackle place, unsuspecting travelers drop in, and things get crazy.  

Horror Watch: Carnival of Souls (1962)

Watched:  10/10/2026

Format:  Criterion Disc

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Herk Harvey

I'm the guy who thinks Carnival of Souls (1962) is a great movie.  I liked it so much after the first time I saw it, I bought the disc.  I sent money to star Candace Hilligoss and got a signed picture.

For me, this is a terrific, gothic American horror story.  And (spoilers) I dig that the explanation leaves more questions than it answers.  

Hilligoss is *great*.  With a camera shoved in her face almost non-stop, she carries the film with a mix of bewilderment, iciness, and desperation.  She's not an easy heroine.  She's not likeable.  She's not a final girl.  But she's *compelling*.  

The script places Hilligoss's Mary Henry with feet in the world of the mundane and the spiritual - she's to be an organist at a church.  She declares it's just a job, it has no religious significance to her - and whether that was her stance before or after she went in the water, we don't know.  

But now she's a lost soul, slowly realizing she's a spirit among the living, her human wants and interests dissipating - knowing she should want human contact, but spinning away from even the sleazy kindness offered her, as well as the friendship of the church.

It's sort of a great novella or short story of a film.  No, the budget isn't spectacular, and you have to accept the limitations, but it's nonetheless effective.

Anyway, I know this is one that a lot of people came to thru Riff-Trax or whatever, but that's because it was out of copyright.  There are weaknesses aplenty - only Hilligoss and Sidney Berger were regular talent.  And this was Hilligoss's second time on screen.  I dunno, I find the stilted delivery of everyone around Mary to feed the vibe.  

If you tell me it's a bad movie, I'll say "it's an inexpensive movie, sure" but would defend what it's doing as what I find interesting in horror versus someone slashing kids at a summer camp.  

Horror Watch: A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 - Freddy's Revenge (1985) / Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street (2020)

Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge 

Watched:  10/09/2026

Format:  HBO

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jack Sholder

Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street

Watched: 10/10/2026

Format:  YouTube (link here)

Viewing:  First

Directors:  Roman Chimienti and Tyler Jensen

My guess is that because A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985) is kind of interesting and tries to do character stuff, the fans hate it. 

I'm first to confess, I really don't know the Nightmare on Elm Street movies.  I've seen the first one a few times now, and the third one once.  But I just wasn't terribly interested in horror growing up.  At the time kids are getting into it, I was like "gimme Dracula or I have no time for your tomfoolery".  And then, when I was 14 and finally rented The Exorcist and The Shining, was like "Hey, THIS is horror?  These movies are great".  

My tastes have shifted, and I've come around on some of this stuff.  

Crampton Watch: Fraternity Vacation (1985)

if the poster gives you a sinking feeling, that is the right reaction

Watched:  10/08/2026

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  James Frawley

This movie is bad.  

You go into it knowing it's bad.  But then it's very bad, and there you are.  But you were the one who hit play on the movie, so you have to just sit with who you are and what you're doing with your life.

Fraternity Vacation (1985) is part of the horned-up young adults having wacky misadventures films of the 1980's.  But it comes along at a point where there were so many of these dumb things, there's a punchlist of things that need to happen more than there needs to be a plot.  

Crampton Watch: Dead Night (2017)

Watched:  10/07/2026

Format:  Amazon?

Viewing:  First

Director:  Brad Baruh

Someday I should go to Fantastic Fest here in Austin.  JAL does it every year, and it's a whole scene.  I guess a decade ago Dead Night (2017) was included, and co-star Barbara Crampton was actually there with some of the rest of the cast.  That would be great.

Dead Night seems like a movie that made sense on paper, and would work great as a horror comic book.  As a movie, it has some structural issues that maybe keep it from knocking it out of the park, because it's well acted, had a good location/set, and - in the end - the overall concept is something I liked.

But I didn't think much of the movie for maybe the first thirty minutes.  As we made the turn into the last ten minutes or so I thought "well, that was kind of clever".  It didn't knock my socks off, but I was impressed with the notion of the movie.  

Signal Watch Reads: Caves of Steel (1953)

I have a few books I return to every once in a while.  Frankenstein.  Fahrenheit 451.  The Hunter.  Red Harvest.  

But in this century, I haven't come back to Caves of Steel, a book I read first in Sixth grade and probably last looked at in 11th grade.  Which is odd. If you asked me if I liked it, I'd have given you a definite thumbs-up.

At the time, I was aware I was reading something published more than thirty years prior - but that wasn't entirely new to me.  I'd read kids fiction and non-fiction books written in the fifties.  I was aware of the 1950's and 60's belief in atomic energy, which had fallen apart in the wake of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.  As a young child, I'd read speculative non-fiction about where we were headed - and firmly believed that humanity's future would be one of robotic pals, cybernetics and star-faring pioneering.

Well, two out of three ain't bad.

Eva Marie Saint Merges With The Infinite

Actor Eva Marie Saint has passed at 102.

I primarily know her from North by Northwest, Superman Returns and On the Waterfront.  

Hell of a career and a heck of a life.

DCU TV Watch: Lanterns

After Episode 1 of DC Studios' Lanterns, I wrote a post with some early general impressions and my Green Lantern commenting credentials.  Enjoy.  

I didn't want to do episode-by-episode coverage because, frankly, all you're left to do each week is say "remember the part where he did the thing?  That was cool" and then speculate a whole lot.  

But, as one can expect, the internet reaction to the show has been wild.

A whole lot of people are furious at the lack of tights on the show.  People are surprised that an 8-episode TV show - that has offered up production stills and ads for months, clearly showing our two Lanterns on Earth, with tag lines about them looking into a crime in small-town America - did not pull a switcheroo and become Power Rangers. 

People gotta weigh in.  We don't get a sense of ownership over the thing we like if we aren't there to comment early and often.