Redwood – review

Director: Tom Paton

Release date: 2017

Contains spoilers

I had noticed this was being made but it snuck out when released over in the UK, on DVD and stream. The press it got during production was centred on the appearance of Nicholas Brendon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Blood on the Highway) in a cameo – and cameo it is, though welcome.

The production is a UK one but the National park setting felt American, especially given the park rangers and general flora and fauna (at one point wolves are mentioned, if not seen, for instance). There is also a rather impressive folk horror like altar and it is there we start.

the altar

A woman (Jessica-Jane Stafford) drags a bier with a man (Luke D'Silva) on it to a mausoleum. Inside is a giant, twisted icon rearing over the room, an altar to an ancient God it would seem. The man is upset but she says it is as it must be, she reminds him that he had said he would do anything, she slits his throat. He falls to the floor and an ichor drips down the bony finger of the icon that she gathers in her hands and laps up.

Mike Beckingham as Josh

A 4x4 sits at the side of the road as Beth (Tatjana Nardone) searches through a bag in the boot and Josh (Mike Beckingham) has a wee in a field. As we get to know the pair we discover they are in a relationship but he has been diagnosed with Leukaemia. He is a musician and his manager, Nick (Nick Sadler), has suggested they go to Redwood National Park – there is a campsite at the mountain top with a waterfall where Josh can do some soul searching.

camping

The Park has signs warning against off-trail hiking and, when they pull into the park, a ranger, Steve (Muzz Khan), also pulls up and, whilst a little awkward in his communication, does offer to give them a ride to the ranger station near the camp site (it’s a good three-day hike) and when this is refused gives them a map of the park. They are told to stay out of the grey areas on the map and that they’ll know if they stray there.

Josh and Beth

What makes the film is the relationship between Josh and Beth. It perhaps doesn’t come across as romantic (but one would suggest the news of the cancer has suppressed that), rather they come across as a couple genuinely fighting through the hand life has dealt them, with all the fear, anger, disbelief and upset that brings. Josh comes across as a little petulant and maybe arrogant but we see that mask slip when alone and anger/upset overcomes him. During this moment he cuts his hand quite badly.

Nicholas Brendon as Vincent

When he gets back to camp he discovers Vincent (Nicholas Brendon) there. He is a ranger – animal control – who travels with a pack full of pointy sticks. He gets firewood for the couple – after Josh refuses a lift to the station for stitches in his hand. Before he leaves them he checks that they are not heading for the mausoleum. They look blankly at him and he explains that some people come looking for a miracle cure but there isn’t one. Of course, they eventually go off track and take a short cut through the grey area.

vampires - a bugger to screenshot

It is in here we get the vampires. They mainly stay at a distance at first and are used very sparingly in the film. They take a bloody t-shirt from the camp, shriek, lurk, harry and leave ammonia smelling residues (guano?). The way they are filmed they are mostly shapes moving quickly in the night – a bugger to screenshot but effective in film. There is a nice referential moment when Josh admits that all he knows about vampires is from Buffy. They have black eyes, fangs, are nocturnal, avoid flares and are animalistic.

lighting up a flare

So the film is effective but hinges on a twist that was telegraphed really early on – or at least so I thought. What took me beyond said telegraphing was the investment in the characters and the nihilism (perhaps, or selfishness) that Tom Paton instilled in the story. The story itself was somewhat of an origin story and was fairly thin but It was definitely helped along by engaging leads and a pleasant cameo. There was a lot left unanswered, especially around the mausoleum.

Not the greatest vampire film but I appreciate that it did something a bit different with the genre but could have expanded on that a lot more. Nevertheless a strong 6.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

AS:VS Back in Business – review

Director: Jim Weter

Release date: 2015

Contains spoilers

Despite saying, at the end of my review of AS:VS At Stake: Vampire Solutions, “There is a sequel – not yet released – and I am really looking forward to it.” I have to admit that the sequel did fall of my radar but when it suddenly appeared on Amazon Prime it was immediately put on.

Despite being a budget indie flick, the first film was a black humoured comedy that really pressed my buttons in all the right ways. This sequel was welcome, enjoyable but didn’t press my buttons in the same way. This probably had something to do with the fact that the humour was somewhat curtailed and veered more into character humour, rather than the black comedy under-current of the first film, and it didn’t work as well for me.

news reports on a new strain

Not that I am saying this was bad, far from it, or unwelcome, again far from it. Just not quite up to the first film. So, to recap – there is a vampire virus in the world and people are turning. Some of them are more zombie like (deliberately so – the filmmakers know that the folkloric vampire has more in common with the cinematic zombie, in many respects, than the suave creature of the night). In the first film we do hear of a strain of intelligent vampires who can blend with humanity. In this there is a new strain, one of the horde variety but one that rapidly turns.

Evan and Ulrich on a call

In this world there are vampire solution crews and the one we are with, AS: VS, is now run by Evan Shandling (Jimmy Patterson), who was the film student who documented the crew in the first film. In this there is pretty much a whole new crew with him and near the head of the film Gage (Ross Williams) goes to pick up to foreign exchange workers, Wolfe (Joshua Brunson) and Akemi (Vee Gray). Into the mix comes Ben (David Hammons), a federal licensing agent who is going to interview the crew and go on ride outs to see if they can be independently licenced. It is a week before Halloween and it seems that they are getting a lot of deadly prank calls.

David Hammons as Ben

What I did like was the background of large companies subsuming little operations – and the fear that the prank call outs and the presence of Ben was down to this. Just to clarify, when I say pranks, they really are deadly – vampires with glass in their throats to prevent them making a noise and their legs tied so they crawl at the crew, or a call to a close quarter attack where no vampire should have been. However, despite this the larger aspect was not the focus of the film that was the crew (as a team and individuals) and the larger conspiracy was more used as texture to the story.

confronting the infected

I said that the comedy was more character driven and it centred mostly on characters such as Gage – who worked – and Templeton (Duane P. Craig) a street talking, rapping, white homeboy wannabe. Templeton just didn’t work for me – but comedy is subjective. There were some occasional moments featuring audition tapes (to join the crew) that didn’t do much but didn’t offend either. But these are quibbles – mostly the film had lost some of the humour but carried a dark action element that worked really well. 6.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Nosferatu A Symphony of Horror Full Sound – review

Director: F W Murnau

New Material director: Strephon Taylor

Release date: (this edition) 2010

Another day, another version of Nosferatu, this one boasting full sound. So, what does that mean? It means that as well as a soundtrack, the film boasts sound effects, narration and voice acting. And I felt a chill go through me before it even started…

You see, I remember watching (twice, unfortunately, once on the big screen and once for review) the risible Orlock the Vampire in 3D. Now, that had a few claims to fame. They had 3D treated the film (that actually worked, at least on a technical level), they had filmed new (and at times bloody awful - bat segue) scenes and they had added sound effects.

kitten moment

This was not as bad as that – no new scenes added and whilst there are sound effects they are appropriate and not gratuitous “giggling, growling, kissy noises”. So, other than some idiosyncrasies the sound effects were generally well done. The music was odd, however. Now I am not opposed to mixing things up. I rather like the Gothic Industrial Mix version of the film (though I am a Christian Death fan and that involved Rozz Williams) but a too modern soundtrack can distract from the film and the music has to be scene appropriate to work. This was a score by HobGoblin and there was plenty in this that didn’t work for me, such as the horror moments being heralded by an ominous metal refrain (too modern for me) or some overtly light-hearted pieces (too cheesy). However other moments were surprisingly effective – jazz pieces over the travelling to Transylvania, I’m looking at you as a prime example.

landfall

Of course I have avoided the biggest change so far – voice acting and narration. I was really worried about this and mostly I had a right to be. Whilst the very occasional voice worked the voice acting was often at Muppet standard. In fact one character sounded like Fozzie Bear and whatever possessed them to think that making Dracula (I’ll get to character names in a second) sound like a third rate cartoon villain was a bright idea is beyond me. The narration was even worse, absolutely inappropriate it sounded like a narration of the Whacky Races in tone.

come the dawn

That said the film didn’t outstay its welcome, what with coming in at just over 60 minutes. To put that in context, the Masters of Cinema/Kino restoration is around 93 minutes (and is absolutely the version you need to watch). Being an inferior, shorter print also meant that it did not look at its very best generally. The filmmakers decided to use the full English/Stoker character names rather than Murnau’s German names but did (unlike the makers of Orlock) keep the film centred on Germany, using the occasional deviation of calling the city Bremen rather than Wisborg. However, despite the occasional innovation (like the use of jazz in certain scenes) and the fact that this doesn’t stay around too long, all in all the (unintentionally, I assume) Muppet voices and misplaced narration distract from a classic movie. Stick with the Kino restoration or, if after a more modern score, the Gothic Industrial Mix. 3.5 out of 10.

Shake Rattle and Roll Fourteen: The Invasion – review

Director: Chito S. Roño

Released: 2012

Contains spoilers

The Shake Rattle and Roll series of films have been featured here before and are a long running series of horror anthology films from the Philippines. Often it’s been because of a creature from Philippine mythology that could be said to be analogous to a vampire.

In this case we get one of those and a western style vampire in the first segment, Pamana, and something that might have amounted to a ‘Vamp or Not?’ on its own in the second segment, the Lost Command. The final segment, Unwanted, is an alien invasion story.

vampire illustration

So looking at Panama first and we meet Donald (Herbert Bautista, Shake Rattle and Roll). Donald was a seminary but left that for a woman who has now left him and taken his daughter to the US – this was a depth of characterisation that was perhaps unnecessary but welcome. He and a few cousins, Benedict (Eri Neeman, Shake Rattle and Roll X), the awful Myra (Janice de Belen, Tiyanak & Tiktik: The Aswang Chronicles) and Faye (Arlene Muhlach, Shake Rattle & Roll XV), are summoned to an uncles house as he has died and they are his last relatives. The Uncle was a filmmaker, who made horror films until he was ripped off and became a recluse.

tiyanak illustration

The will stipulates that they will get a large sum of money each, but after a month, if anyone dies in the meantime their money will be split between the survivors. In the meantime, they also have been given a large boxed illustration of four of the Uncle’s creations – they are to take one each. The creations are Rosalda (Snooky Serna), a ghost who must eternally play a piano or someone will die, Filomena (Dimples Romana), a creature that can turn into a hog but also uses her long, animate hair to kill her victims, a Tiyanak (Alex Bolado), which we have met before in the guise of a vampiric baby but in this case it was more like a miniature man with a gourd on his head, and finally Konde Nado (Fabio Ide), a vampire searching for Rosing, his lost love.

rising from coffin

Benedict throws the Filomena picture in the garbage as he leaves the house and Myra isn’t far behind, ordering her stepson, the very put upon Filemon (Gerald Pesigan), to throw the Konde Nado picture away as they return home. Only Donald, who knew his Uncle’s films, seems at all happy with his Rosalda picture. That night Benedict is attacked and killed by Filomena and Myra finds a coffin in her kitchen, from which Konde Nado emerges claiming that she is Rosing. He attacks her (presumably wishing to bite and turn her) but she manages to stake him with a US flag. He turns to smoke and then emerges from it as a bat.

tiyanak on the prowl

Myra has taken the opportunity to exit the house rapidly with Filemon and her daughter Gladys (Anna Vicente, Aswang & Shake Rattle and Roll 12) in tow, and then heads over to Faye and Donald. When they discover that Benedict is dead they head over to the Uncle’s house but the place seems deserted – the man that told them of the will’s stipulations is dead – and they become locked in. The creations reappear, including the tiyanak who comes after Faye. Only Rosalda seems benign, suggesting to Donald where he might find a clue to what is going on.

Fabio Ide as Konde Nado

Suffice it to say that there was a fifth creation, Buboy (Rain Prince Allan Quite), a devil boy with immense powers. He has created and is controlling the other creatures. Will they get out? I’m not saying… The second segment, the Lost Command, follows a platoon of special forces soldiers (the unruliest bunch, you could imagine actually) in the forest on a mission. Ultimately, they are looking for a group that some have suggested are monsters but could also be simply terrorists. In the material I have found about the film they are referred to as zombies – they are not zombies.

Ronnie Lazaro as a creature

So what are they? They are referred to as Aswang at one point – though we have to remember that the word is not only a species of monster but also an overarching genus of all the Filipino monsters. They look very zombiefied – though some apparently can look human and change/transform. They are superhumanly fast and strong and they are recruiting. Tainted food can turn someone, but so can a bite. They seem impervious to standard bullets (if you can hit them).

another creature

What we do get is a suggestion that virgin flesh tastes best but that, for full transformation, any human flesh must be consumed. However, when the focal character of the main segment, Sgt. Martin Barrientos (Dennis Trillo), is told this by head creature Col Palma (Roi Vinzon) he is also essentially told that blood is the primary element (rather than flesh) as blood is mentioned specifically. Barrientos is helped to escape by another creature (Ronnie Lazaro, Yanggaw & Shake Rattle & Roll 2K5), who throws Barrientos into a river as there seems to be something about the creatures not being able to cross water (although they must have done to attack the soldiers at the head of the segment).

the creatures

So, certainly zompires at the very least – they have intellect, increased physical prowess, and hunger for flesh (but specifically blood is mentioned). Running water appears to be apotropaic. I’d say they are enough to be classed as vampires. The question, however, is how good is the film? Shake Rattle & Roll can descend into silliness sometimes, and the shrill dislike between Myra and Faye in the first segment was a perfect example of this – too much melodrama slapped over a horror framework. That said I liked the premise. The Lost Command suffered from a lack of vehicle direction – the soldiers seemed without discipline (until turned, so maybe that was the point), the mission was vague and the monsters’ purpose so hidden as to be occult. However, I do have a soft spot for the series. 4 out of 10 is probably too generous but is bolstered by said soft spot and is for the two vampire segments.

The imdb page is here.

Guardians of the Night – review

Director: Emilis Velyvis

Release date: 2016

Contains spoilers

I’m going to say it from the get go, this owes such a debt to Night Watch its untrue – though it doesn’t have the grim atmosphere, lyricism or set pieces of the older film – coupled with a lashing of Men in Black (and actually name checks that film/urban legend).

However the vampirism of the Night Watch series can be secondary, whereas these vampires (or, not vampires) take centre stage (and are the bad guys). I say “not vampires” because vampires are dismissed as a product of Hollywood and these are referred to as ghouls… but a rose by any other name…

Ivan Yankovskiy as pasha

So we start with a stairway, the camera work is disorientating, a woman (Lyubov Aksyonova) is bundled up the stairs though we only see a distinctive tattoo on the back of her neck and not her features. A young man, Pasha (Ivan Yankovskiy), follows her. He reaches the roof of the building, he bleeds from the nose and his hands are cut and bloodied. He takes a run off the roof… And awakens screaming. His mother (Ekaterina Volkova) asks if it was the flying dream again.

the tattoo

Pasha is a delivery man and travels Moscow delivering parcels. He notices posters for a Lithuanian singer called Dana – the posters have her facing away from camera and she bears the same tattoo from the dream. He is delivering his last package at the Hilton, a programme on TV mentions Dana is missing and a girl checks in – he notices the tattoo. He asks the concierge for her room number, the concierge gives it whilst also reaching out for the reward offered for information about her.

out of the coffin

A crate is carried into a room and inside it is a coffin. As Stefa (Sabina Akhmedova) fills a glass with blood the chain is removed from the coffin and a desiccated looking corpse stirs. The mummified corpse, Yankul ( Mikhail Evlanov), ignores the blood and leaps after a dove. The bird’s blood is enough to make him appear young again. Meanwhile Pasha is looking to get in to see Dana and Yankul and Stefa have been contacted by the concierge. Stefa stalks on the outside of the building, whilst Yankul and a warrior named Mikhal (Aleksey Dmitriev) head for the room, swatting Pasha out of the way.

guardians

They are in the process of taking Dana when humans arrive and engage them. The ghouls show ‘vamp face’ and fight back. Pasha and Dana head to the roof, pursued by Mikhal. Dana calls Pasha a warrior and wants to jump from the building roof – something he is understandably reluctant to do. Suddenly he is tussling with Mikhal and accidentally stakes him with a table leg. Dana escapes and an incredulous Pasha meets Gamayun (Leonid Yarmolnik) who leads “D” division – a government agency whose purpose is to control demons. The creatures we have met are ghouls and the humans are wipping memories with a herbal spray. Eventually it is used on Pasha but he seems to remember and ends up being recruited by D division as a frontiersman – someone sensitive to “alternative life forms”.

killed

So – the ghouls produce fangs and have vamp face, turn to ashen skeletons if staked/have their heart destroyed, are burned by sunlight and by garlic. They are fast and strong and appear to be another species rather than undead (for the main). They can be tasered effectively. Dana is the heir to one of two ghoul families and, according to prophecy, if a ghoul unites with her during the eclipse (due in two days) then they will get ultimate power and overturn the peace with humanity – she is trying to escape that.

Anastasiya Tsoy as the fox spirit

We do get other creatures – most notably a friendly fox spirit (Anastasiya Tsoy) – but the film itself is a workable adventure, slightly derivative of other things and a little by the numbers (in events and reactions) but absolutely watchable. A nice little bit of Russian urban fantasy that perhaps needed a little more grit but has some nice bloody scenes occasionally (the attack of ghouls across the city worked rather well). Some of the effects worked better than others. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Rancid – review

Director: Alastair Orr

Release date: 2011

Contains spoilers

South African film Rancid (AKA Expiration) is an odd one. Possibly closer to zombie than vampire these fall easily into the zompire camp. Indeed the zombie word is used (once) and I did actually put it on expecting something from that genre. The use of blood and a mouth full of sharp teeth made me realise that I had put a vampire (or at least a zompire) film on.

The other thing I noticed was that I really rather enjoyed the film as I watched it, but even as I enjoyed the tense little zompire horror the plot was noticeably unravelling. There are some great whopping story holes and I am going to have to spoil the twist (or at least one of them) to explain why the holes are so blooming massive.

Justin Strydom as Le Roux

So four people are brought together to take part in a drug trial. They all have a medical reason to be there (beyond the very handsome payment for the trial); William Hunter (Brandon Auret) has alcohol problems, Jake Butler (Ryan Macquet) has had brain tumours, Samantha Foxx (Ingeborg Riedmaier) has chronic asthma and Dominic Black (Michael Thompson) is wheelchair bound. The Doctor, Le Roux (Justin Strydom), explains that they must all read and sign a disclaimer, hand over their personal items and take a sedative before being taken to a ward. The drug being trialled is Gentek B15.

awake and abandoned

When they awaken they are given very quick cognitive tests and then they are wheeled by armed and masked guards into an abandoned hospital. Hunter tries to break his bonds and is belted in the face with the butt of a gun. Soon they are alone, disorientated and each in possession of an item – Hunter his lighter, Butler his watch (this reveals that they have been out of it for 2 months), Foxx her inhaler and Black his glasses. Foxx finds that her piercings have been healed, Black can walk, Butler has lost the heavy scars at the back of his head and Hunter has lost a tattoo. However Foxx still has asthma – they deduce that non-genetic things have healed (so Black had lost the use of his legs, rather than being born with mobility issues, and so could now walk but still needs his glasses). They have no water.

creature

In another part of the hospital a worker in hazard clothing goes to fix something. He is armed and aware that two of the B14 trialist are still there. One is now a creature and the other is a pregnant woman, Megan (Christien Le Roux), who lied on her declaration (presumably about her pregnancy). The worker is attacked by the creature who has sharp teeth and black eyes. Two guards are sent in to recover Megan (who steals the water). The attacked worker quickly turns into a creature.

finding the cube

So, they seem pretty darn resilient, can spread their infection, (it isn’t clear but likely that) they are undead and they seem very much like a faster end zombie. That is... apart from the sharp teeth (which the first of our new crew to turn, due to the procedure, shows us involves losing their teeth and rapidly growing new sharp ones) and the fact that they can smell and are attracted to blood. One interesting point was that one of the test subjects starts playing briefly with a Rubik's cube he found and then puts it down unsolved. Later, after he has turned, the cube is found, solved, just before he attacks. This would seem to refer to the vampire and the need to solve puzzles (a subset of the arithmomania sometimes associated with vampires).

Christien Le Roux as Megan

So, problems… Why wait until a new set of test subjects were in before retrieving Megan? Why not deal with the creature before then too – it makes no sense if they are trialling a new batch of drug to mix it up with the “anomalies” from previous tests? The creatures may well be dead (the drug is said to rot them from the inside out) but Megan clearly needs water (she comes out of hiding to grab the worker’s water flask). She’s been inside for two months we are told – what did she eat and drink? Indeed our new test subjects are left without water and they are being observed (initially) over four days (a human can last on average three days without water). When they find Megan no-one asks her for water or wonders where she might have got it from during her incarceration.

turned

Indeed we don’t know what is doing this to them – heavy spoilers. We find out that the test subjects are clones – this is presumably the real reason why tattoos and scars vanish, rather than being down to the drug. Could it be the cloning process that is causing them to turn and not the drug? Was there even a drug or is it the cloning they're testing? Why is it treated like an infection? We see it can be spread in an attack but the hazmat suits and gas masks suggest something air-born. If they can clone someone (over a two month period it would seem) and pass the subjects’ memories on (and thus they don’t know they are clones) surely their technology is more advanced than the failed tests suggest?

eyes blackened

It’s a shame that a tense little film with good characterisations should be as holey as Swiss Cheese when looked at with the slightest scrutiny. I liked what they were doing but not how they ended up doing it – so intent on getting to a certain place they refused to think whether the route made sense. However, take your brain out and it is entertaining. 5 out of 10 for that entertainment factor but it has lost marks for the holes and is lucky it didn’t lose more.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable mention: Deadtime Tales 2

Sometimes I despair at covering a given vehicle under the moniker ‘honourable mention’ as sometimes there is nothing honourable about it whatsoever.

Let’s take Deadtime Tales 2… to be honest let’s take the 2.5-hour anthology and bury it in a shallow grave. Rather than a collection of random but original shorts stitched together or a carefully crafted collection of interlocking short stories in visual form, this is four full length films cut down and bunged into one ungodly mess.

bite time

The vampire section comes first and it is nothing we haven’t seen before on TMtV, being the poor feature Cryptz, which was directed by Danny Draven and released in 2002. It was poor then. It wasn’t improved by editing it down to just 45 minutes. So, we are ‘treated’ again to the story of vampire strippers in the ‘hood. (Actually, whilst not brilliant, the full film had a degree of B movie credibility and a couple of neat ideas – cutting it down hasn’t helped the credibility any).

As things stand there isn’t an IMDb page that I can find for Deadtime Tales 2.

Danger Mouse: From Duck to Dawn – review

Directors: Robert Cullen & Simon Hall

First aired: 2016 (episodes)

Contains spoilers

So before we had the show Count Duckula the character had appeared in four episodes of the series Danger Mouse as a villain. When Danger Mouse was rebooted as a series in 2015 it seemed sensible that Duckula (Rasmus Hardiker) would be repurposed for that show.

Cut forward and this compilation DVD was released featuring the villainous vampire duck on the cover. And yet, of eight episodes only two featured Duckula (his portrait and a statue appeaed in others as background eye candy). Two… Two measly episodes. The character has been in more than that… I feel as though I need a mouse super-spy to come along and work out why we’ve been diddled.

adversaries

Not that the other episodes were bad, mind you. This reboot is very well done with Alexander Armstrong taking over the reigns as the titular Danger Mouse and Kevin Eldon as Penfold, the series stayed very true to the original with some nice twists – I rather liked the idea of Arkwright Asylum. As for Duckula… well he is villainous once again (and just as inept) and likely he is a different incarnation to the vegetarian vampire duck of his own series (the resurrection ritual was botched to create his less villainous persona).

shadow of the vampire

Duckula is still obsessed with being famous. In the episode From Duck to Dawn we get a mission to Transylvania, where Duckula is broadcasting a hypnotic show that turns the viewers, literally, into vegetables. We get a crap bat carrot, a bar called the Slaughtered Llama and an appearance by a werewolf. In the episode The Duckula Show, tired of being the second rate villain that he is, Duckula kidnaps the Danger Mouse show writers (shown to be monkeys) and uses them to alter the fabric of the show’s reality.

with the radish Renfield

It is all good stuff… But dagnabbit I wanted more Duckula than that. Be that as it may, we have to live with what we have and I am certainly not down marking the DVD set for its lack of Duckula. All in all I think this was an excellent reboot, great fun episodes… but needing more Duckula (fans of Danger Mouse will be well served, to be fair). 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: The Boy Who Left Home to Find Out About the Shivers

I am absolutely torn on this one. Part of Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre, this was an adaptation of the Brothers Grimm’s The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was. It has a bit of an all star cast and my reason for including it are two-fold – one reason might be a ‘Vamp or Not?’ for something that is essentially a fleeting visitation and the other is, at best, of genre interest.

After Shelley Duval introduces the show, the story is narrated by Vincent Price and follows the adventures of Martin (Peter MacNicol, Dracula – Dead and Loving It). Martin feels the odd one out in his Transylvanian village as he does not (and never has) felt fear, unlike his superstitious father (Jeff Corey) and brother (Gary Springer). When the sexton (Jack Riley, The Night Dracula Saved the World) dresses as a ghost to try and scare Martin in the church belfry, Martin nonchalantly pushes the trespasser down the stairs, injuring him, and his father sends him away with a little money and orders never to tell anyone who his family is.

Christopher Lee as King Vladimir V

Ten miles later and Martin has reached the kingdom of King Vladimir V (Christopher Lee), he sees a note directing him to the inn as the King has a problem of a haunted castle. The King is indeed there and it is revealed that he is the son of Vladimir the Impaler, also known as Vladimir Ţepeş AKA Bad Vlad. If someone can spend three nights in the castle then they would break the curse, win the treasure, win the hand of the Princess Amanda (Dana Hill) and rule as King. Martin accepts the challenge – but not for the prizes, rather to see if he can feel a shiver. Amanda falls for Martin, though he thinks she works at the inn. So, our genre interest moment is the fact that Christopher Lee plays Vlad Ţepeş’ son (though the numbering is wrong, of course, and Vlad was never a king).

fangs

The night that interests us is the second night. Having just been missed by (and been oblivious to) a falling axe and a razor-sharp pendulum, Martin is sat by the fire when a disembodied phantom head (Gary Schwartz, The Nightmare Before Christmas) rises from the flames. The first thing I noticed was the fangs! His body follows and interacts with the head but Martin feels no fear. When he puts his head back on his shoulders he becomes corporeal and Martin teaches him how to scream menacingly. More spectres appear (none with fangs), become corporeal and, after failing to scare Martin, they all end up bowling (using bones as pins and a skull as a ball).

Martin and Attila

Was he a vampire? The fangs suggested so, and he was monstrous in visage, so perhaps he was a vampiric ghost – or perhaps he was just a ghost and the fangs were an affectation? Honestly, I just really wanted to feature the episode so I’ll leave it to you to decide whether you think the fangs were enough to qualify? The episode also features Frank Zappa as Attila the hunchback and David Warner as the innkeeper and it is a fun little way to spend just under an hour.

The imdb page is here.