I was shocked and disgusted to see the trailer for Van Helsing before KB2. Shocked to see how pedestrian the film appears by the few clips seen, yes. And disgusted to see that Kate Beckinsale, once a promising actress, has just slept in her Underworld costume and recycled it here. What really made me despondent, though, was seeing that the film features not just Dracula (as the name suggested to me) but also the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's monster.

Couple this with those Mummy movies, and Stephen Sommers has now been given carte blanche to desecrate four prominent classic Universal monsters.

Swim fast, Creature. Swim as fast as you can!

Funny you should mention that Russell. I just voiced a very similar complaint here.

-s.

Wow. Even the 30-second commercial shows me this one's gonna reek. And not even the gorgeous Hugh Jackman could induce me to see it. Unless I was like his date or something. (But his wife might have something to say about that.)

stef, I bow to your ahead-of-meness. We are on a similar wavelength of genius.

On the subject of avatars, you should reintroduce an Eraserhead image for old time's sake. Jack Nance would be fine, but the Radiator Lady or the progeny would be sublime.

Heh. I am ahead of you on including Henry as well. Click on my printed name above Mr. Faust.

I guess the reason i hate the very idea of a film like Van Helsing is because busts right thru the walls of good tradition in favor of slick marketing to 13 year olds, or at least to 13 year old minds. (It should be pointed out that the guy that was sitting in front of me for Kill Bill Vol. 2 -- who was talking on his cell phone during most of the trailers anyway -- was at least in his mid-30s, and after the trailer i heard him go, "Cooool.")

It seems like this has been done for years though. I mean, does anyone anymore even recognize the initial mythology of the vampire story anymore? So many elements have been added over the years that it makes it confusing to even try to understand what a vampire now is. Blade is one movie in particular that i loathe for this very reason. It's like they take away all of the great things from vampire tradition and reinvent it for kids who shouldn't be in R-rated films anyway. And then they add things like "daywalkers" and convolute what was once a great mythology. A classic like Nosferatu doesn't need anything added to or taken away from it. That film should be like the Bible for how people are going to treat this subject matter.

The only reason The Mummy doesn't make an appearance in Van Helsing is because the director already screwed that one up twice.

-s.

It is interesting that you mention Blade, at least to me it is.

I recently watched part of an early 70's movie called Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter. A story about a former soldier who was bitten by his little sister when he arrived home after the war (Revolutionary I believe). Anyway he was only biten once and you need to be biten twice to become a Vampire (?). I am not certain when that portion of the myth was introduced. His mission is to hunt and destroy Vampires much like Blade - so it is even less original than the slop we see on the screen.

I totally disagree on Blade. Part of interesting film making is an allowance for re-invention. Dracula didn't follow the historical myths of vampires. In fact, it re-invented them as a romantic and tragic monster. This is NOT how they were perceived and Stoker created his own mythology. It's perfectly okay to add or change things. Vampires are NOT real. Vampires are different all over the world. What Blade did was make them scientific monsters. And it was a nice change of pace. It gave them an entire subculture different from the popular Ann Rice approach.

Again, Vampires are not real and do not have a central myth that anyone is obliged to stick to in storytelling. Different cultures have different takes on Vampires. Some believe they an transform into animals, some don't but feel they can communicate with them. So who is right? The answer is...NOONE. They are NOT real.


Frankly, when films stick to the Dracula myth, it just gets sad and un-imaginitive. I would rather some stuff get thrown out or added than the ridiculous adherent to rules that started with Stoker.

How exactly did Sommers screw up the mummy? By not following a movie from the thirties? By making them adventure films?

Well, I kinda enjoyed The Mummy too.

I'm just always a bit annoyed when people trash work because it doesn't fit their definition of what a character is. This isn't like Star Wars, where people are critical of things that don't make sense in the context of the series itself.


But really, Blade did something different with Vampires for the big screen...but it's clear they are vampires. I can only accept the complaint against a film for throwing stuff out or adding if it makes them utterly unrecognizeable as what inspired them. If you can't see a character is supposed to be a vampire, there is room to complain. But Blade, Dracula 2000, Underworld, etc, all were recognizeable as to what they were. From what I have seen of Van Helsing, the creatures are ALL recognizeable as their counterparts. I could tell the vampires were vampires...I could see that Frankensteins monster was the Frankenstein Monster and I recognized the Wolfman is well...a wolfman. It's an action movie with monster movie anti-heroes. I am not all that confident in it (though, I found the Mummy a fun popcorn film). But I doubt it will ruin anything. None of these monsters are bound exclusively to their 30's and 40's counterparts. They have a deeper Mythology that should be allowed to be played with and not have to listen to folks gripe about what a vampire is.

I wasn't trying to trash any work based on what I thought a character should be. The character should be what the movie sets him/her up to be. Filmmakers have as much right to use their artistic license as any other artist. I do not know if Blade was so original though and I really wanted to like the movie for many reasons, but I didn't.

Oh my. Threads like this fill me with trepidation. I have to admit I find the trailer disappointing too, but I still hope beyond all hope that the film will be at least halfway decent, since my girlfriend is looking forward to it and, being a big fan of the director's previous Mummy movies, she might very well like this film, in which case I will be obliged to find positive things to say about it too.

On second thought, she knows I loathed, loathed, loathed Bless the Child, which she also kinda liked, so our relationship has survived worse disagreements. I just have to keep reminding myself every now and then that she has also liked quite a few of the films we've seen at the Cinematheque together -- films like Kurosawa's Ikiru and the Taviani brothers' Kaos, etc.

Back to the monster movies. I noticed the other day that, in anticipation of Van Helsing, Universal Home Video will be issuing three FANTASTIC two-disc sets -- one for Dracula, one for Frankenstein, and one for the Wolf Man, ALL of which will have four or five films packed onto the two discs, plus extras etc.

Along the way I discovered that Universal had already released a Dracula DVD in 1999 that included both the 75-minute English version and the 104-minute Spanish version, both of which were produced in 1931 and based on the same screenplay and shot on the same sets -- but with entirely different actors and directors! Same script, same sets, but different creative teams -- and the films are half-an-hour different in length? Is Spanish a really wordy language or something? And when was the last time two films were made from the exact same script? (Okay, there was Gus van Sant's remake of Psycho, produced 38 years after the original. But apart from that?) Anyway, I'm looking forward to comparing these films. Oh, and the English version also comes with an optional score by Philip Glass and the Kronos Quartet -- bizarre!

nez, my slagging of Sommers isn't based on any perception of what the characters should be, but rather on my judgment of what makes a good film. I haven't seen anything out of Sommers's filmography to make me think he's got more in him than being the dutiful studio hack who delivers the summer tentpole popcorn flick, and the trailer I saw didn't do a single thing to persuade me that this film will be any different.

I'm also not beholden to the literary roots of these characters-- whatever Stoker and Wollstoncroft created has pretty much been displaced by what Lugosi and Karloff and Browning and Whale created. And that's where I think Sommers (and Universal) should be held to a higher standard by movie fans. Universal, as Peter mentioned, would like to tie this film (and the Mummy films) to their heritage of 30s horror films, but it's clearly just a crass marketing strategy, and not a reflection of any true appreciation of those earlier films. Sure, maybe the mass of people who went to see the marvelous Karloff and Lugosi makeup work largely wanted the same kind of popcorn thrill ride that people who go to see Van Helsing want, but the profound difference between the two eras is that the 30s audience got to see both spectacular effects and a story filled with purpose and meaning, whereas the modern audiences get only ILM's latest tricks, with plot secondary and psychology or meaning a luxury that can't be bothered with. Those earlier horror films-- I'm thinking here of the Frankenstein films (particularly the first and the Bride), Dracula, Wolf Man and the first Creature film (I can't speak to the Karloff Mummy films) had all sorts of things to say about the perils of science, prejudice, sexuality, psychology, fear, identity and companionship. Does anyone really think that this film will do anything like that?

I absolutely agree, this may be a perfect popcorn movie. Some of the company I keep only prefers these "popcorn," entertainment type of movies and I can respect that. I also enjoy watching the movie with them.

My life's getting too short to just give a film a "popcorn movie" pass. If I'm going in for that kind of movie-- and I feel myself wanting to less and less these days-- it's going to have to be a well-made movie, with a story that actually coheres and human performances that meet or exceed the quality of the digital performances.

Pretty much Russell sums it up, and quite well i might add.

But ditch the whole "rules" thing and the idea of a "daywalker" is still stupid. They're adding to a myth that needs no additions. Just so they can squeeze in tons of special effects that don't enhance the story anyway. In fact the older stories are much better told, much better formed and much better acted. The newer films rely so much on explosive blood sequences (the first five minutes of Blade says it all) that they've forgotten about the eerie unfathomableness that the nosferatu originally brought to the screen.

And so is a blood transfusion, which has now been done a hundred times, and really takes the mystification out of the creature itself.

Look, to me, it's a lot like The Matrix (whose franchising is a perfect example of what's wrong with Hollywood thinking, which is capitalist and i understand and love that, but their form comes with a capital "C"). The first Matrix = great adventure film. Maybe some ethical questions about the innocents who die, etc yada yada etc, but a very solid adventure film. That is undeniable. When the second one came on the scene, however, i was leaning toward not liking the first one quite as much. After the third one came the series, at least in my mind, was ruined. A great first film is warped by evil men who've made millions but still need more. The lack of creativity, the need to franchise, takes over and ruins all.

And that's not saying that the first one isn't still great. It's saying that the way we look at the subject matter of the first one has been effected in a severely negative way. It's the difference between looking the Batman of The Dark Knight series compared to the Batman of the campy old TV show. It's my opinion that life would've been better without that show, and that they take away from the way we perceive what is the truth about the original character.

I'd rather see three great movies a year than 100 carbon copies or flunkie-wanna-bes.

-s.

I've been sitting here thinking about the idea of healing yourself from vampirism thru a blood transfusion, and really, from a certain standpoint, the whole concept really does reek of modernism, doesn't it?

Again i'm reminded of churches who would rather give a pat answer, or for that matter any answer, rather than just simply embracing the mystery.

-s.

How about vampires that take communion to stave off the desire to take blood from people? Is that a ridiculous addition? (a curiousity of personal interest )

Thom, I mentioned your story idea to my matushka and she replied: "This sounds somewhat reminiscent of Brent Buckner's short story 'Flesh and Blood' in Divine Realms, Susan MacGregor's anthology of Canadian spiritual SF and fantasy. I won't give spoilers, but the idea of transubstantiation is key to the story."

In other news, today, as a sort of preparation for Van Helsing, I watched the original 1931 English version of Dracula as well as the original 1941 version of The Wolf Man. For whatever it's worth, I liked The Wolf Man more, partly because it had characters I cared about (whereas the characters in the other film alternated between cardboard and cartoons), and partly because it's always fun to see Claude Rains and a young Ralph Bellamy, and partly because I found it more atmospheric, and partly because it was obviously made at a time when filmmakers were more comfortable with sound and music, which were still fairly new to the industry when Dracula was made.

Interesting to see the role of religion in these stories, and the consistent depiction of westerners as "modern" and "scientific" folk who look down their noses at "superstition" (or who explain it away, the way a doctor in The Wolf Man dismisses the stigmata as a form of psychosomatic self-hypnosis practised by "zealots"). However, while Christian symbols have definite power in Dracula, it is not so clear what role Christianity is supposed to have in The Wolf Man -- the supernatural power represented by the wolf, and the pentagram that can ward him off, are both brought into town by a couple of gypsies whose "pagan" ways are scorned by the local vicar (singing and music at a funeral? oh dear oh dear). The most positive statement about "church" comes from the Claude Rains character, a modernist who disbelieves in the werewolf legends but is sufficiently confused by all the things he hasn't figured out that he figures he needs a comforting bit of exposure to the "hereafter" once in a while. (He also makes the remark, which I liked, that all astronomers are "amateurs", because when it comes to the heavens, there is only ONE "professional".) Is Christianity one of those truly supernatural things that the modernists have been unwise to ignore? Or has Christianity been reduced to a form of deism, while that which is truly supernatural can be found among the pagans? Difficult to say.

Anyway, interesting films. And somehow I don't know which would be worse, if Van Helsing did tap into these religious themes or if it didn't.

I saw Van Helsing tonight at a pre-screening. I and my cohort, a vast sponge of movie minutiae and a great fan of the medium, swore to one another beforehand that we would abandon our preconceptions a full half hour before the first frames flickered before us.

I, um...

Well, let's just say I'll need a couple of days before I can fully depict the true and faithful horror of what it feels like to have 'suspension of disbelief' turn into a 'lynching of sensibility.'

Apologies. Kate. You did the best you could--but ohmyGod the bilge-spume of nonsequiturian chaos you weathered...


-----------

I can't stay up late posting anything in depth, but last night I watched THE ADDICTION, and it's the first vampire story since Dracula in junior high (the Stoker novel, which was one of my all time favourites, and terrified me through and through) that's really affected me.

Seems to me Ferrarra's story is true horror. Not scary/suspense/fright stuff, but true moral revulsion. "I vant to suck your blod!" just does nothing for me. But THE ADDICTION reconnected the whole business to true evil, making links between drug addiction, rape, disease, the frightening corruption of an inner city, genocide, the Holocaust, and the compulsiveness of our inherent sinful nature in a way that was, for me, both troubling and believable.

Never thought I'd see a vampire movie that left me hungering and thirsting after righteousness.

Well I saw the trailer last night, and couldn't believe that at one point they said "Nobody knows how to kill Dracula". Have they never heard the Eddie Izzard routine?

I spent a good deal of that film with Izzard's voice in my head---came up with an entire routine myself.

But it would contain ....

Wow, our gilled friend was in more danger than I knew.

From an interview with Stephen Sommers appearing at chud.com:

Bortz, quit holding back and just go off on the thing, dude. I know i for one would completely enjoy it.

-s.

Seriously. Ridicule at will.

You know, I would, but the force I'm hitting the keys with is already attracting attention here at work.

I mean, come on--

GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH








DANGIT


From ONE LITTLE SECTION OF THE FILM, MIND YOU













In THIS scene,

HE REINCARNATED THE LITTLE PYGMY THINGS FROM THE MUMMY OUT OF DANGLING ALIEN PODS THAT WERE SUPPOSED TO BE VAMPIRE BIRTHING SACS, MADE THEM NAKED, GAVE THEM WINGS, AND WOULD HAVE YOU BELIEVE THEY ARE 'THE MASTER'S COUNTLESS OFFSPRING' AWAITING FRANKENSTEIN'S LIFE FORCE SO THEY MIGHT LIVE AGAIN--BECAUSE A WEREWOLF'S LIFE FORCE JUST MAKES THEM BURST INTO BALLS OF BUBBLING GREEN ECTOPLASM!!!


(And at this point, sadly, the WEREWOLF ANTITOXIN that Dracula developed can no longer help the werewolf strapped to the rebuilt Frankenstein machine)....


JKHDAKSDU&*#$#*$KWES





Sorry.

God, so sorry.

So sorry that the best part of the film is a






CGI cow.

Was it as good as the one in Twister? Cuz that was some cow.

-s.

Does this CGI cow do anything better than fly through the air? Now, if it tap-danced while wearing roller skates-- as I saw Gene Kelly do the other day-- then I might buy a ticket.

(m) would cash it all in for the CGI-cow sex scene.

-s.

<<<APOLOGY TO BOARDS FOR PREVIOUS JOKE. LESS THAN TWO MONTHS AND COUNTING UNTIL (m) IS OFFICIALLY OUT OF TOWN.>>>

If you must know:
















The cow is the unwitting point of contact for a Bride moving at approximately half the speed of sound. It is knocked through the air, through a roof into, the second story of a house.

At the end of the scene, there is a moo from on high--the cow is fine! No animal rights demonstrations for this movie!


Hahahaha!


Boy, that Sommers is a card!

Someone might wanna change the title of this thread...

Done.

See, I bet they could have killed six CGI people and no one would raise a word, but kill one CGI animal and you get Hugh Jackman quitting the picture.

Yes, but THIS film had
















Oompajawaugnaughts!



Don't make them angry!



Sure! Dracula's own little cadre of gas-mask wearin', Quizno's-hamster-toothed worker drones, reconstructing the original Frankenstein's laboratory!
Authenticity, after all, is key!

And am I getting the impression that we're supposed to take all or any of this seriously? Because the only reason THE MUMMY movies were any good was because they knew they were ridiculous.

If VH is presenting itself as "Ooh--we are really terrifying--look! Aren't you horrified by our magnificently creepy SFX? Boogedy boogedy!" Then--bah! And also, they obviously know nothing about scary. But I remember thinking way back when I saw the trailer that it would have to be a whole lot funnier if it were going to work; but Joss Whedon can't write everything

See, I tried, really I did, to allow for that possibility, Beth. Really. But if this was the case, the actors weren't held accountable to it. And the director didn't make a decision to stick with it. I mean, yegads,




the first time we see van Helsing he's fighting a Mr. Hyde uncannily resembling LXG's--except this one was probably voted off the week before LXG's took the prize--and the fight itself is not only ludicrous, but he winds up killing Jekyll, crossing himself grimly and taking a moment to deliver the requiescat en pace in sorrowful solemnity...

And continuity didn't remind anyone of the cohesion between scenes. Huge continuity problems and glaring and absolutely senseless direction (lack thereof) of anyone not a lead character in several scenes--




the protagonists arrive in Transylvania to find a town full of people, everyone out of doors in the gloom, just shuffling about with various farm implements like the town has suddenly sprung up over their crops, saying nothing, conducting no business even several moments after the actors burst through the doors, a couple of them even look at the camera like the 2nd AD forgot to yell action after saying 'Alright, in this scene, you're townspeople--where you're going and what you're doing doesn't matter at all, so just sort of walk about aimlessly until this Richard O'Brienesque looking fellow steps up--then you can all be aggressive and brandish the farming tools we've given you until Ms. Beckinsale here drops out of the sky and tells you to be nice and that's when the Brides will attack. Got all that? Okay, here we go...oh, I guess we're already going. Alright, then, um, do something!"


It's just bad bad bad a thousand times ugh.

uuuuuugg......

[holding back] uuuggghhhhh -- AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH

DOG-GONE YOU BORTZ

Now i just wanna see how BAD IT REALLY IS

(not to mention that it has a flying cow, mind you)

-s.

Argh! It's been almost seven hours since I've attacked this film!










The friar--a medieval "Q"--introduces Van Helsing to the weapons he'll use in the beginning, but Van Helsing becomes more interested in what looks like a fancier version of the HOLY HAND GRENADE. Van Helsing asks what it's for--the friar says he doesn't know. After a curious look, the friar explains: "It emits a burst of light as powerful as the sun...I know what it does, but I don't know what it's for."

Later on in the movie, they're being chased by a horde of vampires, and it suddenly dawns on the friar...

Oh yes.

But wait!

He stops and actually says:




"NOW I know what it's for!"





And...




Andguesswhathappens!







Man, that Sommers is a GENIUS!!!!!!

Saw this tonight. The girlfriend liked it (even though people kept laughing at the especially silly parts). I did not. I'm getting used to this. (It's been exactly a year since we officially started dating, BTW. What a way to celebrate an anniversary!) Seriously, like I told her as the credits were rolling, watching this film was like WORK for me. And I wasn't even reviewing it. "Okay, here's a CGI fight scene. Oh, look, here's another CGI fight scene. And hey, here's ANOTHER CGI fight scene." No sense of pace or beauty or art or character to speak of. And the instant someone tells someone else that s/he has 48 hours before s/he turns into a beast -- because s/he has been bitten by a monster, see -- I groaned inwardly, realizing we had another TWO DAYS of internal narrative continuity to go, still, before we'd be anywhere near this movie's climax. The Mummy movies at least had Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz and John Hannah keeping things lively and amusing, but this film has Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale doing the "intensity" thing, and please, people, the last thing an overworked, overloud movie like THIS needs is INTENSITY. Heck, Hellboy was more fun than this, and THAT film was ALSO so full of effects it failed to be a story, but at least it had John Hurt and that graceful aquatic creature with the Niles Crane voice and a bit of, you know, COLOUR.

Russell Lucas wrote:
: Done.

Eh? Does this mean the people who start these threads can change the titles, too? I know I've wanted to do that at least once since we switched servers, but I haven't a clue how to do that.

Jason Bortz wrote:
: Oompajawaugnaughts!

Oh, beautiful word! That describes those creatures perfectly!

: He stops and actually says . . .

I like the moment when one of the Brides sees the coach falling off the cliff, and she actually SAYS "We have to get the Creature!" before she swoops down to rescue the Creature. I saw another movie not too long ago in which some character states the bleedin' obvious like this, just so there'll be no confusion whatsoever about what's going on in the story at that point. I really, really hate films that feel obliged to TELL you everything. Just SHOW me and shut up, already.

Peter, to edit a thread title go to the thread's initial post and it's right there.

Russell Lucas wrote:
: Peter, to edit a thread title go to the thread's initial post and it's right there.

Well, that is what I tried, since that is how it used to work on the old board. But I didn't see the title. (And yes, I was the one who started the thread in question, so...)

I'm not one to revel in another's sorrow, but thank God! A new roomie in my pit of despair!

Did you notice that



Beckinsale's brother attacks the coach. Coach destroyed. Beckinsale finds Jackman has been bitten by brother.

Now...

The full moon was present the night before they fled in the coach, when Beckinsale's bro appears in the house.

The same full moon must have been present for Beckinsale's bro to attack and bite Jackman in the first place on the day they flee with Frankenstein the following day.

When they get back to the town after Jackman is bitten, Beckinsale states he has 48 hours until the next full moon.

Ergo, it must have taken them 27 days to walk back to the town, long enough for another full lunar cycle to pass.


Go Sommers! Go Sommers! Go Sommers!

Bortz, i have clearly fallen in love with you. Run away with me.

-s.

Jason Bortz wrote:
: Did you notice that . . . The full moon was present the night before . . . The same
: full moon must have been present . . . the following day. . . . When they get back
: to the town . . . [name deleted] states [pronoun deleted] has 48 hours until the
: next full moon.

Yes, I did notice that! That confounded me. I tried to find some way to explain it away (e.g. maybe an almost-full moon would take effect, or maybe the original werewolf was bitten in time for the previous full moon and has been coping with the lingering after-effects ever since), but the more I think about it, the more I CAN'T explain it away (because there is no difference between how the two werewolves respond to their respective moons, and because, oh yeah, that first werewolf was bitten just a day or two ago himself, wasn't he?).