Someone Who SHOULD know ...

follow-up movie tripe

My pal Mark Clark, who has too full a life to be registered to post comments at Blogger, sent me the following note about my vampire movie challenge. Mark is a published author (for-real publishing, with paper and ink) on the subject of horror films as well as a massive geek, and yet I will take exception with some of his picks via comment below. My hubris knows no bounds.

p.s. -- note the properly posted comments by Greg Harris on the original post.
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It's hard to argue with most of your choices. Murnau's NOSFERATU would have made my personal list ahead of the Herzog remake. MARTIN, HORROR OF DRACULA and NEAR DARK would be lead-pipe cinches to make my list of faves, and FRIGHT NIGHT and THE NIGHT STALKER be very strong candidates for my list, as well.

Both the Spanish DRACULA and HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN are enjoyable (although the first is somewhat overpraised). From among the Universal films, I would have opted for the woefully underrated DRACULA'S DAUGHTER (or maybe even SON OF DRACUA, which has everything a Dracula fan could want -- except a halfway decent Dracula).

Another movie that would definitely appear on my list is EL VAMPIRO (THE VAMPIRE, 1957), the Mexican classic starring Abel Salazar and German Robles, which spawned a whole generation of Mexican horror films, most of which were nowhere as good as this. EL VAMPIRO is a first-rate gothic vampire yarn, and it had an obvious influence on the later Hammer vampire films.

Speaking of Hammer, I'd be tempted to include one or two more entries from that fabled studio: The action-packed BRIDES OF DRACULA and, even more likely, TWINS OF EVIL, which features one of Peter Cushing's best performances. Although the latter film might present a bit too much moral ambiguity for your taste!

My list would also feature a couple of my favorite '70s relics: COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE and BLACULA, which are simply too much fun to leave off.

And finally, I would feel compelled to include at least one continental vampire picture, most likely the gloriously trashy lesbian-bloodsucker pic DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS, with THE BLOOD-SPATTERED BRIDE (the best adaptation of "Carmilla") and COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE (starring the one-of-a-kind Paul Naschy) looming as dark horse candidates.