ethan put us through the horror of dracula

Thursday was Ethan's turn in "Bring Your Own Movie" month of our film class. His choice, the 1958 Hammer film, Horror of Dracula starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

I don't recall ever seeing this film before, though Ethan says he did. Some years ago -- maybe ten --

Publicity poster from 1921's Dracula's Death

someone on Freecycle gave us a carload of CDs, DVDs, videotapes and books. This was one of the movies. Ethan apparently watched it and liked it. In his talk, Ethan focused more on the history of Dracula movies than on this movie itself. He started with something from the late 19th century, and narrated forward until some point where the genre exploded. He included some stills and a poster from a 1921 Hungarian production of Dracula's Death. He then talked about this movie and why he likes it. It's the iconic Hammer film, it has both Cushing and Lee, and it's the movie that put Christopher Lee on the map.

For Ethan, I think this was an interesting choice -- a fact I noted in the after-movie conversation. This is the second year of our timeless BYOM tradition, and a pattern has emerged. Dave showed Attack of the 50 Foot Woman last year and Creature from the Black Lagoon this year. Those are two classics of the genre, and movies that I could esaily see Keith showing -- if Dave hadn't picked them. I picked The Rocky Horror Picture Show last year, and Shock Treatment this year. That's two musicals written by Richard O'Brien. These are not at the top of Keith's hit parade, though he does say that he may have eventually gotten to Rocky Horror. For two years, Joe tied horror movies to TV and, instead of showing a movie, made a presentation. Steve showed us The Sixth Sense last year. He is no longer in the class, but his de facto replacement, Scott, is showing The Exorcist next week. These are both more-modern movies that have won accolades and are thought of as serious film instead of simple horror pulp. But Ethan, with two years of choice, has gone in two very different directions. Last year he chose Battle Royale, a 2000 Japanese thriller about students placed on an island and forced to fight to the death. That film, full of graphic blood and guts and a few jump scares was very much the modern horror movie. And he followed it up with this iconic Hammer film from 1958. But, while these two movies went in very different directions, they were both great choices for the class.

The film itself was, in my opinion, kind of good, but not great. Christopher Lee was a better Dracula than Bela Lugosi. He moved quickly and menacingly -- he almost ran up the stairs at one point. The use of color was particularly interesting. The settings consisted largely of grays and muted browns. But there were splashes of saturated reds -- the cover of a diary, the cushion on a chair. That created an interesting contrast. There were also some points where the action was riveting. But all too often the movie had long sequences of unnecessary talk.

I gave it a 7.5.