Article: Going Gothic - Dracula (1958)

Even though January is nearing its end, the days have remained gloomy. The night sky still appears to be darker than usual. In this cold, dark month I decided to watch a small collection of gothic features. These films are designed to chill the spines of those who watch them. However, I hope the films I picked, warmed my typing fingers as the cold nights set in. The first film is one I’ve never seen before. One I should have perhaps seen by now. Hammer Horror’s first Dracula entry.

Shockingly, I had seen Gerard Butler’s unremarkable display as Drac in the regrettable Dracula 2000 (2000) before I’d seen any of Christopher Lee’s iconic turns in the role. More fool me. The bigger surprise came when I realised the number of creative liberties the Hammer adaptation takes with the material. Terrence Fisher’s Dracula is abridged and truncated in ways that would make modern fanboys lose their mind. Budget limitations and time constraints ensured that canon was not the main concern. Because of this, Dracula, or Horror of Dracula as it was retitled in America, becomes a rather lean revenge thriller. Having a similar affected production situation as a Marc Forster Bond film, one could call this version of Dracula A Quantum of Coffins. Not like that makes a lick of sense, but then again did Quantum of Solace?

Bad jokes aside, this Dracula rendition feels streamlined because it's leaner than turkey. Many of the bones of Stoker's original story remain. However, the changes implemented in the story alter the fabric of the narrative substantially. One example occurs right at the beginning of the movie in which Johnathan Harker travels to see Count Dracula in the guise of a commercial venture. Unlike Bram Stoker's original story where Harker is rather innocently heading to Dracula Transylvania for real estate matters, in this Hammer rendition, Harker is travelling to Klausenburg intending to kill Dracula already on his mind. Harker’s already-acquired knowledge about vampires is a startling twist. So also, is his fate in which Harker is dispatched early in the film. This sets forth an altered arrangement of the sequences and characters from the original narrative. Here Dracula feels like a strongly concentrated vendetta upon the Harker and his kin.

Of course, Dracula‘s hunting and stalking have always been predatory. But there’s a joyless, tragic nature to proceedings here that’s not always sensed in other renditions of Dracula. In John L Flynn’s Cinematic Vampires: The Living Dead on Film and Television, Christopher Lee states how he saw the character: "I've always tried to put an element of sadness, which I've termed the loneliness of evil, into his character.” Lee’s Dracula seems hellbent on dragging Harker and those around him down. The loneliness that Lee considers can be felt after the film when you realise that Dracula only has sixteen lines in the whole picture. He’s said all of them by the 10-minute mark. Most if not all of them are shared between himself and Harker, the man who has set his sights on killing him. Lee also says of his development of the character “Dracula doesn't want to live, but he's got to! He doesn't want to go on existing as the undead, but he has no choice." This brings a strange underlying tension to the narrative. Nothing is shocking about a vampire with a death wish, fighting to survive. However, in fighting against Harker and embarking on an aggressive attack on everyone he loves, the “plague” of Dracula feels concentrated in a way that differs from other versions.

It’s a stark contrast to Francis Ford Coppola’s 90s overblown adaptation of the material which focuses heavily on the idea of Dracula being so deeply bereft of love that his need of Mina is a love that bleeds through the ages. Coppola’s OTT interpretation of the material is extremely on the nose. In one of its more memorable sequences, a literal beast ravishes a young woman during a storm. The '58 Dracula, despite its bold colour palette, honking score and dramatic performances, is more subtle in its design, and more controlled in its metaphors. This can be considered in the aftermath of the first attack on Mina by Dracula. Van Helsing has Mina’s husband Arthur give her a transfusion due to the amount of blood loss. The process is straightforward and clinical in its execution. Drained of cinematic flair or fancy. The procedure also feels unemotional given the relationship between the two patients. This sexlessness in the operation helps distinguish the eroticism given by Lee’s Dracula. Fisher believed that Dracula preyed upon the sexual frustrations of his female victims. And felt that the relationship between Arthur and Mina was a sexually frustrated one. Mina, much like Lucy earlier on in the film, never hides the anticipation of her and Dracula's encounters.

Removing precautions and defences to ensure his presence. And while Dracula’s encounters are never explicit, we see the profound desire he creates with his victims in the aftermath.  Mina’s transfusion with Arthur is as mannered and stiff as their interactions. The irony is that the lifesaving operation involving her husband holds no allure as opposed to becoming Dracula’s undead bride. Lee places a stamp on this in an interview with Leonard Wolf:

 "He had also to have an erotic element about him (and not because he sank his teeth into women) ... It's a mysterious matter and has something to do with the physical appeal of the person who's draining your life. It's like being a sexual blood donor... Women are attracted to men for any of hundreds of reasons. One of them is a response to the demand to give oneself, and what greater evidence of giving is there than your blood flowing literally from your own bloodstream? It's the complete abandonment of a woman to the power of a man."

Arthur and Dracula might be both doing the same thing. But when it comes to one of them, things just hit differently.

What makes the 1958 Dracula stand out is the remarkable way that it is still quite startling. Today’s audiences may perhaps have a more sophisticated palette and are less scared of repressed sexuality in technicolour. However, Lee’s Dracula brings a varied distillation to the vampire templates set by Bela Lugosi in Tod Browning’s Dracula (1931) and Max Scheck in Nosferatu (1919). His tall, dominating presence is something other incarnations of Dracula don’t necessarily have. His charming, British manner early on is in stark contrast to the “foreign” persona of Lugosi and Gary Oldman in Coppola’s 90s rendition. The othering that inhabits some versions of the character could now be seen as kitsch. It’s not surprising that Lugosi’s version is still ripe for parody. But the elaborate politeness from Lee in the few scenes in which he has lines, disorient the viewer for when Dracula acts. The most shocking moment is when Dracula reveals himself to Harker early on. The shot switches unexpectedly from a typical mid shot to an extreme, shocking close of Dracula’s face. Blood is dripping from his mouth.  His eyes are bulging and bloodshot. His smile is manic and unhinged. It’s difficult to believe it’s the same person smattering Harker a few scenes ago. Fisher and editor Bill Lenny use a similar tactic when Lucy tries to lure Tania, daughter of the Holmwood’s maid, to a graveyard. Both close-ups of Dracula and Lucy emphasise the drastic change undertaken by the characters and how uncanny and removed they now are from society. For all the lavish art direction and effects in Coppola’s version of the story, nothing in it captures the simple sinisterness found here. From the narrative change involving Harker to the very simple scares that are found in the movie. This Dracula is the most unsettling of the versions I’ve seen.

There’s a boldness in the film’s presentation which sets Dracula ’58 apart from its counterparts. Its narrative changes help maintain a sense of loss and tragedy. Its colour and eroticism set itself apart from what came before it. The simplicity of the storytelling makes it more memorable than the films that come after it. Christopher would become Dracula 6 more times for Hammer and was Dracula ten times in total. It was a role that, while perhaps his most iconic, one that he never truly relished, despite what he infused into it. He may not have necessarily enjoyed the work, but he is perhaps the person who wanted to understand the assignment best. Funny how these things happen.

 

I caught Dracula streaming on Amazon Prime.

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Review: Crimson Peak

Year: 2015

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Screenplay: Guillermo del Toro, Matthew Robbins

Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston

Synopsis is here

Crimson Peak, Crimson Peak, where the women are strong and the men are weak. Guillermo Del Toro’s English language ode to his Spanish language gothic drama, is an opulent, female driven beast that leans more towards Jane Austin than Ju-on.  

Wonderfully carried by a spirited Mia Wasikowska performance, this gullet slicing melodrama is something that will likely frustrate those who fell for its dubious horror-only marketing guff. The approach from the studios has appeared to be so incorrect, that the director himself had to reinforce his intentions beforehand.

Such is the linear view of movies these days, I wouldn’t be surprised that people went into Crimson Peak expecting The Conjuring. I don’t believe many expected heavy references to the literature such as the likes of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca (famously adapted by Hitchcock in 1940 and gloriously highlighted here by a deranged Jessica Chastian performance). Nor do I feel that the so called “average audience” was interested in the lighter references to the likes of Nosferatu (1922) or even the meta winks to English hammer horror (Our lead protagonists surname? Cushing). Touches like this would probably be deemed uninteresting to a crowd looking for Paranormal Activity jumps.

The feverish love for the gothic melodrama, as well as the exquisite visual design, is why this blogger adored much of Crimson Peak. It’s a film which delights itself in the mood, it creates over rigid obedience over narrative. The film gracefully defies logic. The murderous, over-elaborate plot dodges any typical rationale. Meanwhile pure white snow falls delicately over the blood red clay which Allerdale Hall resides on. A grand, decaying, English mansion seemingly miles from anywhere. 

Nowhere in England looks like this. It all feels like something out of a monstrous fairy tale.

This is what Del Toro wants. It is not a film about particulars, unless it involves references to literature. The visuals help pronounce the madness. The cast is dialled to eleven, while the setting provides the psychoanalysis with Allerdale's rotten walls and sickly green lighting. It’s a film that once again highlights Del Toro’s main interest. The monstrous designs that lie within humans and how it corrupts the environment around them.

There’s ghosts and things that go bump in the night within Crimson Peak. However Del Toro’s feature is far more infatuated in those small creepy inklings that tingle the spine, over cheaper shock tactics. It’s a ghost story that is told in the way that only Guillermo can tell them. In bold, broad and intense emotions.

Review: The Quiet Ones

Year: 2014
Director: John Progue
Screenplay: Craig Rosenberg, John Pogue, Oren Moverman, Tom de Ville
Starring: Jared Harris, Sam Claflin, Olivia Cooke, Erin Richards

Synopsis is here:

For the first time in a quite a while, I found myself watching a film at the cinema with someone else. Despite the fact I gave my companion ample time to get ready for an mid afternoon screening of The Quiet Ones, she still took forever to get to the cinema. Even though her schedule became clear for her to watch the movie. I write this for the simple fact that I found more dramatic tension in whether or not my friend could make the screening, than I did in The Quiet Ones.

The film is a rather typical horror which, like many of its fellow features, is very quick to tell you how inspired by true events it is. The Quiet Ones is also one of those films that are far more interested in its multitude of jump scares over any sort of sufficient feeling of dread. By the time the first jump came about, I knew I was going to be in for a rather tepid time.

Despite its large spooky house setting and tight close ups, The Quite Ones does very little to fill you with any lingering fear. The film swaps from old 70’s 16mm film format to more crisp modern cinematography often but does little to make such switches beneficial. The characters are frustratingly archetypical and spread far too thinly for the audience to give any worthwhile concern. Jared Harris and Olivia Cooke have a lot enthusiasm but are trapped within their roles of boring sceptic and possessed waif respectively. Harris’ Professor Coupland is more disheartening due to the plain ignorance of the character as the film goes on. The films stilted screenplay doesn’t help things, repetitively giving us bump in the night moments the character has to reject without conviction.

As a story about an English haunting, the theme of repression are bound, with Erin Richards’ tarty sex-pot pitting herself against the repressed Brunette rival in Cooke’s Jane Harper early on. Unfortunately Richards’ alluring outfits are more eye-catching than any of the dynamic that occurs throughout the film.  The British (and the film’s producers, Hammer) have a long standing tradition in providing chilling tales, but this ramshackle production would do better in staying silent.