30 Days, 30--No, 40--Horror Movies

Yet another one of those opportunities to clog up one's friends' Facebook feeds with movie trailers is going around. Since this one's about horror movies, I thought it would make a nice warm-up for Camp NaNoWriMo next month. (I'm working on a YA gothic novel.) This was actually kind of fun because I really had to think hard to remember which horror movies I've seen, since it would probably be cheating to list Dracula Has Risen from the Grave 40 times. I never really noticed how much of my experience with horror is vampire-related. 

1. Your First Horror Movie I’m not sure. When I was a kid, my best friend’s mom loved horror movies, so we’d always end up watching scary stuff whenever I went over to her house. One really horrible one I remember was called The People Under the Stairs, I think. 

2. The Last Horror Movie You Saw in the Theater The 40th anniversary print of Alien. I’d seen it on TV, but I was still chewing my nails in terror. 

3. Favorite Classic Horror Movie Actually, my real favorite classics are mentioned elsewhere, so I’ll say the silent version of The Phantom of the Opera, specifically for it’s nightmare-inducing two-strip Technicolor sequence.

4. A Horror Movie You Thought You'd Love and Didn't The Hunger. Bowie is really good in it, but otherwise, it’s a lot of style over substance. 

5. Favorite Horror Remake Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht, Werner Herzog’s remake of the silent film. Most disgusting fingernails ever. 

6. Favorite Vampire Movie Funnily enough, the original Nosferatu. Doubly scary because it’s also an old silent film. 

7. A Horror Movie You Think No One Has Seen Decasia, which I know other people have seen (because I saw it with them), but which I suspect no one who isn’t a film student has seen. 

8. Favorite Foreign Horror Let the Right One In. It’s one of the very few cases where it’s actually appropriate to have emo vampires. I mean, they are Swedish, after all. 

9. Favorite Super Natural [sic] Horror Movie The Shining. There’s that one disturbing image from near the end of the film I will never, ever get out of my head. If you’ve seen it, you know which one I’m talking about. 

10. Horror Movie Every One [sic] Loves But You Don't Frankenstein, if by everyone you mean “film critics.” You know it’s going to be a bad adaptation when they list the author as “Mrs. Percy B. Shelley” in the opening credits. 

11. Favorite Horror/Comedy [You know what, I'm just going to stop pointing out the grammatical errors and correct them.] Young Frankenstein. That’s “Fronk-en-steen.” Not only is it hilarious, but it is the best of all the hundreds of adaptations of Mary Shelley’s novel. 

12. Most Disturbing Horror Film The original German Funny Games. In fact, if you do not find this film disturbing, you need serious help. 

13. Favorite Zombie Movie Shaun of the Dead. Every time I’ve seen it I get zombie-related nightmares, but I don’t care. It’s hilarious! 

14. Favorite Indie Horror Movie Indie horror? I don’t even know which—Oh! Shadow of the Vampire! That was an independent production, right? 

15. Favorite Monster Movie The original Gojira. I know we like to joke about the bad dubbing and guys in rubber suits, but the Japanese subtitled version is actually pretty good. 

16. Horror Film With a Great Soundtrack Suspiria, because it does exactly what a good horror movie soundtrack should do: make the film even scarier than it would be with just the image alone. 

17. Favorite 80s Horror The Lost Boys for it’s cheesetasticness. And, with both Coreys, it’s quintessentially 80s. 

18. Favorite Horror Movie Filmed in Black and White Hitchcock’s Rebecca. Technically more of a thriller or even a melodrama, but is Mrs. Danvers not the scariest female character ever? 

19. Best Use of Gore Videodrome, which uses gore to actually say something rather than just grossing the audience out. 

20. Favorite Horror Character Count Dracula, or, as he’s sometimes called in a non-copyright infringing* way, Count Orlock. 

21. Best Horror Franchise Forget franchise, how about cycle! I like the Hammer films of the late 50s-early 70s. Sure, they’re kind of camp, but they’re still a lot of fun. The Curse of Frankenstein, Horror of Dracula, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Mummy are the best, though the second Frankenstein film and many other Dracula ones aren’t too bad either. 

22. Best Death Scene Martin Balsam’s in Psycho. We all know what happens to Janet Leigh, but this death is even scarier because we don’t see it coming. 

23. A Great Quote from a Horror Movie Two from Todd Browing’s Dracula. The first the hilarious “I never drink… wine.” And of course, for the second, the classic, “Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.” 

24. Horror Movie Character That Describes You I wouldn’t say “describes,” but I kind of identify with Carrie. I mean, what kid who’s ever been picked on hasn’t cheered just a little bit inside the minute she slams those gym doors closed at the prom? 

25. Favorite Christmas/Holiday Horror Movie The Wicker Man. Happy May Day, everyone! (What?? It’s a holiday!) 

26. Horror Movie for a Chicken The original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It’s actually kind of boring. 

27. Your Guilty Pleasure Horror Movie Dracula A.D. 1972. Hammer camp + hippie exploitation = so bad it’s good? Well, almost. 

28. Horror Film You'd Like to See Remade/Rebooted Van Helsing, and not just because it was really awful. There’s a line in the novel where Van Helsing mentions that he’s been pursuing Dracula his whole life or something like that. I’d like to see movies with more interaction between them, and not like this crap, or the Hammer franchise where they had to keep coming up with more ridiculous ways of resurrecting Dracula. I’m thinking more like Dracula prequels, which would be great, because we need more vampires who aren’t a bunch of emo wusses. 

29. Worst Horror Movie Blair Witch 2, which my friend dragged me to see for her birthday. I don’t like horror movies that are more “Eww!” than “Aahh!” 

30. Your Favorite All Time Horror Movie (Or One Of [Emoticon excised. Thank me later, humanity.] ) Most of my favorites are listed elsewhere, but this seems like a good place to mention The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Sure, it’s not all that scary (unless you think a guy in fishnets is particularly frightening, but that’s your problem), but it’s got music! And you get to throw things!! 

31. Favorite Horror Movie Theme Song David Bowie’s “Cat People (Putting Out Fire),” and not the remix on Let’s Dance. Although, to be honest, I’ve never actually seen the remake of Cat People, so I don’t even know if it’s still a horror film. 

32. A Movie That Scared You as a Child (Doesn't Have to be Horror) The Dark Crystal. Creepy!! I’m 28 and still find it a little bit disturbing. 

33. Favorite Slasher Movie Silence of the Lambs. Does that actually count as a slasher movie? Oh, well, it’s a lot better than the average slasher movie anyway. 

34. Horror Movie That Was Ruined by the Ending Kracauer would say The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari because we now question the narrator's sanity and thus the film's anti-authoritarian message. But I don't know. Now, the cheesy overdone special effects at the end of the original version of The Omen--that's how ruining a movie with the ending is really done. 

35. The Horror Film That Started Your Love for Horror Interview with the Vampire. More accurately, it’s the book that got me into horror, but I read the book because my friend and I had been plotting for months to see the movie, so it still counts. 

36. Favorite Contemporary Actor in a Horror Movie Um, I haven’t seen that many contemporary horror movies, so I’ll go with Johnny Depp in Sleepy Hollow. 

Future Me: Wow, this did not age well.

37. Best Special Effects in a Horror Movie I don’t think special effects should be all that important to a horror movie. I mean, to be truly frightening, you need more than just convincing monsters or gore. So, even though I think it’s a horrible movie, I’ll say Bram Stoker’s Dracula, because it’s a celebration of cinematic technique. And it’s got some killer under-cranking. 

38. Best CGI in a Horror Movie I don’t even know if I’ve seen a horror movie that uses CGI. What about the little girl in The Ring? Was she CGI? 

39. Horror Movie That Should Be Seen on the Big Screen The Tingler. Unless, of course, they come out with some kind home media delivery system that will also send little shocks to your seat. 

40. A Must See Movie for Every Horror Movie Lover Peeping Tom, because it’s so metafilmic cinephiles will love it. 

*Um, apparently the courts feel otherwise.

British Actor of the Month: Wizarding Edition

With the final Harry Potter movie released this month, I thought it appropriate to honor

Alan Rickman

Now, after a pause in which you’ve wiped that coffee or whatever you were drinking off your computer screen, I’m sure you expected me to suggest Daniel Radcliffe or Ralph Fiennes or change things up with Emma Watson, let me explain.

To those outside the Potter fandom, Rickman is perhaps best known for playing bad guys. His first major part as Hans Gruber in Die Hard, which the AFI ranked at #46 on their 100 Heroes & Villains list, defined the role a generation of British actors would play in Hollywood cinema: clever, sophisticated villains. Rickman has continued to play bad guys in films like Sweeney Todd and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, in which he, as the snarky Sheriff of Nottingham, steals the movie from Kevin Costner's rather lame Robin Hood. 

Of course, Rickman doesn't always play the bad guy. Thanks to that rich, velvety voice of his, he's played the romantic lead a few times in films like Truly, Madly, Deeply and Sense and Sensibility, for which I must amend the Rule of Austen to say that playing a character who ends up married to a Jane Austen heroine in the film or TV production is British-Actor-of-the-Month-worthy. And let's not leave out a bunch of notable comedy roles such as in Dogma and the Star Trek spoof Galaxy Quest, where he plays a Spock-like character. Lest my geek membership card be taken away, I must mention also that Rickman voices Marvin the Paranoid Android in the film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. 

And, lastly, the point of this blog, Rickman’s role in the Harry Potter films as Professor Snape. A thoroughly unlikeable character who is nevertheless not really a bad guy*, Snape would be a difficult character to tackle, and yet Rickman plays him to perfection. We never really know whose side the potions master is really on**, and yet we're always intrigued by him. We have no idea what Snape's motives are, but he always comes across as a believable character. And, without giving away too much (seriously***, is there anyone out there for whom this would be an actual spoiler?), his performance in Deathly Hallows--Part 2, in which we finally find out what does motivate Snape, is heart-breaking. I really do think Rickman's performance in the last film should get an Oscar nomination for supporting actor. 

*River Song just hit me over the head with her diary. 

**Until page 658 of the American hardback edition. That's where I started jumping up and down shouting "Haha! I knew it!!" And then I cried. 

***I so wanted to type "Sirius-ly."

Proper Hot Dog Preparation

I was going to relish (tee-hee) not being obliged to post a blog today, but then I realized, what with the holiday weekend upon us, I'd be doing a public disservice if I didn't address this topic.

Every year, millions of Americans jeopardize their tastebuds by incorrectly preparing and consuming hot dogs. Here is the correct way to eat a hot dog:

1) Steam an all beef hot dog.

2) Place on a poppy seed bun.

3) Top with the following:
Yellow mustard
Chopped white onions
Sweet relish (the more vibrantly green, the better)
Tomato slices
Dill pickle spear
Sport peppers (opt.)
Cucumber slices (opt.)

4) Sprinkle with celery salt.

5) Enjoy.

Some cultures may prefer to top their hot dogs with chili or sauerkraut in combination with other condiments, however

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD KETCHUP EVER BE PUT ON A HOT DOG.

Have fun and eat safe this Fourth of July.

NaBloPoMo Wrap-Up

Last November, I took part in National Novel Writing Month and managed to write over 50,000 words worth of novel (it's not finished yet) that month. It was a blast. I had fun with the friendly competition going with some of my writing buddies. And, yes, sometimes it was a totally pain-in-the-ass to come up with 1667 word a day when I was tired, out of ideas, or really really wanted to do something else. But it was so worth it. It really felt great to be writing everyday. NaNoWriMo is definitely something I will do again, starting with Camp NaNoWriMo this August (gotta finish my novel somehow), and possibly also this November, despite having schoolwork again.

This past April, I did Script Frenzy and wrote 100 pages of a screenplay (I've got about 10 to go). I have mixed feelings about it. While I did have fun working on the project, I found it kind of counter-intuitive. The three and a third pages as a daily goal wasn't all that challenging--during grad school I churned out far higher page counts than that--but normally when I'm writing a script, I try to keep structure and pacing in mind. The idea behind these writing month challenges, though, is to write as much as possible in a month. It really goes against how I've been taught to write in script format. For example, normally in screenwriting, it's not a good idea to let a scene drag on, but in Script Frenzy, you're kind of encouraged to do that to meet your page count. It's really too tempting to over describe things or to write pages and pages of useless dialogue. And, finally, I didn't quite enjoy myself as much this time because, though my friends showed a lot of support and interest, I wasn't "competing" against anyone this time. At the beginning of May, I wasn't sure whether or not I would participate in Script Frenzy again. And I probably won't make up my mind until around February or March when I get a really great idea for it.

In case you haven't noticed, this month I've been doing National Blog Posting Month, which is held every month, participants choosing which for their convenience. I haven't enjoyed it in the least. Whereas with NaNoWriMo and Script Frenzy writing everyday was, for the most part, fun, this has been a chore. When writing a novel or a script, sometimes it can be hard figuring out what to write for the day, but at least I know where I'm ultimately going, and can slog through till I hit some more inspiration. With NaBloPoMo, though, I have to come up with something completely new every single day. I wanted to get myself to post in my blog more often than once ever three months, but every day is too much. Nobody, not even the guy in the Dos Equis commercials, can come up with something truly interesting every single day. Yeah, sure, I could slap together a bunch of lists (which I did--fun though it was, it felt like copping out) or just talk about my life in general. There are a lot of people participating in NaBloPoMo who do so, and, sorry to hurt feelings here, but, unless you know them or have some reason to want to know what they're doing, that's pretty boring. If I remember right, when I started this blog, I swore that I would try to never be boring and also to have certain standards of quality for the writing I display here. That's another thing I don't like about NaBloPoMo. As with the other monthly writing challenges, it's quantity over quality. With NaNoWriMo and Script Frenzy, that's no problem because they're first drafts. Anyone would be a fool not to revise a first draft. But blogs are instantly published. That's why I like to take time to really craft something I wouldn't be ashamed to let others read, or, rather, feel like I have that time, whether or not I actually bother to do it. Because speed is of the essence, NaBloPoMo doesn't allow participants to do that. Finally, I find the NaBloPoMo site to be much harder and, frankly, less fun to use. Shouldn't there be some way of cross-posting your actual blog to the site, instead of having to copy and paste to their blog? And it does kind of suck that, unless you participate in November, there are no prizes--not even a winner's certificate or HTML badge for your blog. And as for the social aspect of it, well, the site has a kind of outdated feel to it, especially since the profiles look like their programming was based on MySpace. I don't think I'll be doing NaBloPoMo again.

Anyway, here's a hub for everything I've written this month:

Continuing Features
How to Get Into Doctor Who
How to Get Into The Beatles
British Actor of the Month: Petrolhead Edition
More Advice for the College Bound

New Features
50 Favorite Classic Rock Albums, Part 1
50 Favorite Classic Rock Albums, Part 2
50 Favorite Classic Rock Albums, Part 3
30 Days, 30 Movies in One Day
30 Days, 30 Songs in One Day
30 Days, 30 Books: For Bibliophiles
30 Days, 30 TV Shows

Other Music Topics
Defining the Concept Album
Classical Rock
Notes on Gaga

Movie Guides and Reviews
A Selective Guide to Bowie's Movies
"Well, There Was This Movie I Seen One Time..."
Scottish Cinema
80s Fantasy Round-Up
Review: Strange Psychokinetic Strategy

Other Pop Culture Topics
Alien Invasion Survival Kit
River Song Is--Spoilers!
Graphic Novels and the Tradition of Quality
The Venture Brothers Funniest Moments
Modern Vampires Suck

Writing
NaNoWriMo: An Excerpt
Writing Prompts

Serious
Being Serious for a Minute Here

Stupid
5 Random Things I Like
5 Random Things I Dislike

Review: Strange Psychokinetic Strategy

For those of you not into anime and manga, Lupin III has been, since the late 1960s, one of the most well-loved series in Japanese culture. It follows the exploits of the grandson of the great French gentleman thief Arsène Lupin as he pulls off heists and tries to pick up chicks, all the while accompanied by his friends Jigen, a marksman, and Goemon, a samurai; his on-again off-again lover, the not-exactly-loyal Fujiko; and the intrepid Inspector Zenigata from Interpol, who's always hot on Lupin’s heels. I got into the show the way I got into most of the anime I watch—though the good ol’ days of Adult Swim when it was shown in the wee hours of the morning. I tried to read the original manga, but had trouble getting into it because I wasn’t comfortable with it’s level of sexism. But the anime is no more offensive than the average James Bond movie, and is a very clever action-comedy. I’m glad I had the foresight to set my VCR to record all 26 episodes AS aired, because , unfortunately, all the North American DVD and video* releases seem to have gone out of print.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I found out the only live-action Lupin III movie ever made, 1974’s Lupin III: Strange Psychokinetic Strategy is actually available on Region 1 DVD, and that I could even get it from Netflix.

The film is, essentially, Lupin III’s origin story. Or one of them, I should say, as both the manga and anime have conflicting versions of it as well. Here Lupin first teams up with Jigen, falls in love with and is double-crossed by Fujiko, and comes to the attention of Zenigata. The only one missing is Goemon, who in both canon versions, was a later addition to the Lupin gang. His omission, then, is understandable, though nevertheless disappointing.

Strange Psychokinetic Strategy is a lot different from the manga and first (Green Jacket) anime series, though closer in tone to the second (Red Jacket) series which was broadcast on Adult Swim. However, it tends to focus a bit more on slapstick over action than the series did. It is good slapstick, though, which makes the film something of a Japanese version of the Pink Panther movies Blake Edwards was making at the time. In fact, though a lot of fans complain about the “cartoony” nature of the film, it’s what I liked best about it. Among other things, we see Lupin literally leap out of his pants in his eagerness to see Fujiko, rewind and play back in slow motion the film in order to show a thug how he knocked him out, and get serenaded by a group of girl assassins out to kill him. (Only Lupin would cop a feel while getting his ass kicked.) The film operates by the same logic of cartoons—disregarding the laws of physics and the fourth wall whenever possible, which I found incredibly refreshing. In a world where CGI Garfields, Chipmunks, and Smurfs can star alongside real people and act like live-action characters, it’s a nice change to see live-action characters literally behaving like cartoon characters.

However, a little of the focus on being silly should have been moved to the plot, which was thin and episodic. And while the actors playing Lupin and Fujiko were spot-on and cute in their scenes together, the ones playing Jigen and Zenigata seemed a bit out of character. Jigen seemed a bit more hot-headed than usual, though, to be fair, I base this mainly on the English dubs I’ve seen. I don’t know how the character is portrayed in the original Japanese versions. Zenigata, is, of course, always going to be the comic relief, but here they took it to the extreme. With the addition of his two bumbling assistants, he seems more like the Pink Panther’s Chief Inspector Dreyfuss, cast jokes and all. Finally, the subtitles, while far from awful, translate the dialogue well, but seem to be missing some cultural nuances.





*The feature films and direct-to-video releases still seem to be available. The critically acclaimed The Castle of Cagliostro, in fact, is very accessible; it currently streams on Netflix.

80s Fantasy Round-up

Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of Labyrinth’s premier, so to celebrate, here’s a rundown of ten of the more memorable (or, in some cases, the unfortunately unforgettable) fantasy films of the 80s.

Excalibur, 1981
Premise: From the moment young Arthur plucks Excalibur from the stone, his destiny begins…
Based On: Malory's Le Morte d’Arthur.
Magical Kingdom Of: Camelot (It’s only a model.)
Big Star, Early Role: Helen Mirren, Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne, and Patrick Steward pre-TNG.
Hot Villain: Morgana, the sexy metal bustier-wearing sorceress.
Beloved Muppet: There is a dragon, briefly.
Soundtrack By: Wagner.
Sparkle Quotient: Shiny, shiny armor.
Head Trip? Sir Percival’s Grail quest gets a little—abstract—at times.
Cult Status: There are films that are cult films, and films that are bad films. This is not the former.
Aged: Other than being an awful movie, it holds up pretty well as far as special effects go.

The Dark Crystal, 1982
Premise: Jen, the last of his kind, has to go fix a crystal so the world can be right again.
Based On: Buddhist philosophy. Or was it Taoist?
Magical Kingdom Of: Thra, a world where everyone is a Muppet.
Big Star, Early Role: Directorial debut of Jim Henson and Frank Oz.
Hot Villain: None. The Skeksis are some of the creepiest figures ever to grace the silver screen.
Beloved Muppet(s): Everyone!
Sparkle Quotient: Well, there’s this big purple crystal…
Head Trip? Whoa, man, it’s, like, deep.
Cult Status: Doubly so, as it has the reputation of being loved by fantasy geeks and stoners alike.
Aged: Considering it was so carefully made at the time, very well.

Return of the Jedi, 1983
Premise: After rescuing Han Solo, Luke Skywalker finally confronts the Dark Side as the Rebels make their final play against the Empire.
Based On: The genius mind of George Lucas... and some stuff he ripped off of Japanese movies.
Magical Kingdom Of: A long time ago in a galaxy far away, specifically the Forest Moon of Endor.
Big Star, Early Role: Warwick Davies as an Ewok.
Hot Villain: Averted when Darth Vader takes off his mask and reveals he's an ugly old white guy.
Beloved Muppet: Master Yoda, puppet he is!
Soundtrack By: John Williams. Yeah!
Sparkle Quotient: None, but it's got light sabers!
Head Trip? Not even if you haven't seen the first two films.
Cult Status: It's frickin' Star Wars!!
Aged: The weakest of the original trilogy, it's still far better than Attack of the Clones.

The Neverending Story, 1984
Premise: A bullied kid finds a magical book that lets him in on Atreyu’s quest to save his world from The Nothing.
Based On: Half of the book by Michael Ende.
Magical Kingdom Of: Fantasia (the book's Fantastica). Oh, and some creepy school attic.
Big Star, Early Role: Where are those kids today?
Hot Villain: The bad guy is an abstract concept, so, no.
Beloved Muppet(s): Falkor!!!
Soundtrack By: Title song from that guy from Kajagoogoo and some chick
Sparkle Quotient: Blindingly high.
Head Trip? Maybe not for everyone, but when you realize that the whole thing is a metafilmic commentary on how viewers identify with the cinema…
Cult Status: And how! The Neverending Story is beloved by a generation who grew up watching it on VHS.
Aged: Not well. The effects look cheap, and those kids really can’t act.

Ladyhawke, 1985
Premise: Two lovers cursed—she’s a hawk by day, he’s a wolf by night—to be always together, eternally apart.
Based On: Fairytales, though none in particular.
Magical Kingdom Of: Medieval Europe.
Big Star, Early Role: Matthew Broderick, pre-Ferris Bueller.
Hot Villain: An aging, lecherous bishop, so not so much.
Soundtrack By: Alan Parsons.
Sparkle Quotient: Going for a more authentic medieval look, so very low.
Head Trip? It takes them a while to explain what’s going on, and Broderick talking to himself is a bit odd, so more confusing than anything.
Cult Status: High. It’s somewhat obscure and not very good: the makings of a perfect cult film.
Aged: Not very well. The fancy dissolves for the changes are really cinematic, but in the era of digital technology, it looks like a cop-out. And the acting is more wooden than a baseball bat.

Legend, 1985
Premise: A feral young man has to get his girlfriend back and help some dwarves save the last unicorn to prevent the Lord of Darkness from ushering in eternal winter.
Based On: Vaguely, fairytales and folklore.
Magical Kingdom Of: Somewhere that has fairies and unicorns and stuff like that.
Big Star, Early Role: Tom Cruise after Risky Business but before Top Gun.
Hot Villain: The Lord of Darkness, a.k.a. Big D, a.k.a. Tim Curry in more makeup than Frank N. Furter.
Beloved Muppet(s): Not as such, but the makeup makes some of the actors look like Muppets.
Soundtrack By: Tangerine Dream, with a video by Bryan Ferry.
Sparkle Quotient: More glitter than a kindergarten art project. And unicorns!
Head Trip? Like all Ridley Scott films, it takes a while to get to the point, but other than that, it’s fairly easy to follow.
Cult Status: Somewhat, though the fan base may be a bit smaller than some films mentioned, especially since the original US release was crap.
Aged: Well, thanks to the director’s cut.

Highlander, 1986

Premise: A bunch of Immortals fight each other to the death because there can be only one.

Based On: Sort-of the Scottish literary tradition of tartantry, but not really.

Magical Kingdom Of: Bonnie Scotland, as well as 1980s New York City.

Big Star, Early Role: No one went on to fame from here, though, of course, Christopher Lambert was in the sequels.

Hot Villain: You'd have to be really kinky to find the Kurgan sexy-evil as opposed to scary-evil.

Beloved Muppet: Pffft, who needs Muppets when you've got Sean Connery... as a Spaniard?

Soundtrack By: Queen.

Sparkle Quotient: Lightning. And lots of it. What else would you expect from the Quickening?

Head Trip? Only if you start thinking about why you're still watching it.

Cult Status: Sequels, a TV show, spin-offs, books... Yup.

Aged: Look, it's a terrible movie, and the effects looked cheesy even in the 80s. And yet, there's something that you just can't help but love about this film.

Labyrinth, 1986
Premise: Teenage girl wishes her baby brother away to the Goblin King and has to make her way through a magical labyrinth to get him back.
Based On: Freud. Um, I mean, Froud. Drawings by Brian Froud. Yeah, that's it....
Magical Kingdom Of: The Labyrinth.
Big Star, Early Role: Future Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly.
Hot Villain: Jareth, the Goblin King.
Beloved Muppet(s): Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Diddymus… pretty much everyone but Connelly and Bowie. Even the baby gets replaced by a puppet at one point.
Soundtrack By: David Bowie.
Sparkle Quotient: Jareth enters in a shower of glitter. It’s Bowie, what did you expect?!
Head Trip? Not very. Unless you really, really want to unpack the Freudian stuff.
Cult Status: Loyal fan base. Many people might think of Labyrinth just as that weird kid’s movie with David Bowie, but there is a whole generation of fans who grew up watching it. Also, has sparked a religion devoted to Bowie’s crotch.
Aged: Pretty well, other than a few special effects fails it holds up as a family/tween film.

The Princess Bride, 1987
Premise: Having lost her beloved, Buttercup is kidnapped on her way to marry an odious prince and gets a surprise from the mysterious man who rescues her.
Based On: The book by William Goldman.
Magical Kingdom Of: Florin.
Big Star, Early Role: Robin Wright, before she added Penn to her name.
Hot Villain: The Dread Pirate Roberts, who wasn’t quite what he seemed…
Beloved Muppet(s): ROUS!
Soundtrack By: Mark Knopfler.
Sparkle Quotient: Surprisingly low for such a staple of 80s fantasy.
Head Trip? Nah. Solid family film.
Cult Status: Low. I know a whole bunch of people quoting "My name is Inigo Montoya..." are about to argue with me, but come on. It's shown on basic cable ALL THE TIME.
Aged: Very well. Like I said, it gets a lot of play on TNT and the like.

Willow, 1988
Premise: A Little Person takes it upon himself to protect the baby prophesied to destroy the evil queen.
Based On: Given that George Lucas wrote and produced, Joseph Campbell’s writings on mythology, probably.
Magical Kingdom Of: Several Kingdoms, actually, made up of people of different sizes.
Big Star, Early Role: Val Kilmer.
Hot Villain: Jean Marsh is the evil queen, so only if you have a thing for aging head house-parlor maids.
Beloved Muppet(s): Sadly, this is one of the first movies to use a new technology called the digital morph.
Sparkle Quotient: Not as much. High Glitter was on the wane by the end of the decade.
Head Trip? Not really. Unless Madmartigan’s drag bit confuses you.
Cult Status: Yes. Though perhaps not as big as some of the other 80s fantasies, it does have it’s loyal followers.
Aged: Once groundbreaking, the special effects look a bit behind the times. And it tends to lag.

Modern Vampires Suck

Allow me to elaborate on a statement I made yesterday about modern vampires being “a bunch of emos.” Now, though I have no doubt my comments made the Jacobites cheer, before those Edwardians get up in arms—which they should—let me fill in a little vampire history. 

In the pre- and early-modern world, the vampire was a monster from folklore. Vampires were a reanimated corpse who would rise from the grave, drink its victim’s blood, and, upon their death, that victim would become a vampire. For the most part, they were little more than animals preying on the living to quench their thirst for blood. Though we are most familiar with the Easter European variant, cultures around the world have their own version of an evil undead killer. 

Then came the Nineteenth Century, wherein the vampire moved from monster to bad guy. What’s the difference? The vampire was still an evil killer, but now he had a motive. He didn’t just want to kill, he lusted after the heroine. He wanted to infect London and create a modern empire as great as that of his Magyar ancestors. In works of fiction—from penny dreadfuls like Varney the Vampire to novels like Dracula—the vampire became not a creature from folklore, but a character. 

Next was the Twentieth Century and cinema. The vampire was still the bad guy, but now, he was sexy. Bella Lugosi and Christopher Lee both played Dracula not as a crusty old count, but as a suave sophisticate. Because girls love their bad boys, the biting=sex metaphor was played up as much as standards of the day would allow. 

And then, the 1970s, people were being all post-modern and questioning cultural assumptions. Was the vampire really evil? Did we maybe just misunderstand him? Stuff like Dark Shadows and, most importantly, Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire showed the vampire as not evil, not a monster, and not even always a bad guy. The vampire had become an anti-hero. 

The alleged turning point: 1997. Buffy the Vampire Slayer hits the airways. We have two male vampires who (sometimes) aren’t the bad guys, both in love with a teenage girl—who incidentally in the beginning of the series is an outsider with divorced parents starting at a new school. (Sound familiar, Stephanie Meyers?) Some people have claimed that the likes of Edward Cullen are the direct descendants of Angel and Spike (mpreg slash shippers rejoice), but I disagree. Spike isn’t always a bad guy, but he’s always a badass. And the one time he was acting like a whiny emo was because something powerfully evil was making him do it. Angel, admittedly, is a bit of a wuss (although at times he can be a bit of a deadpan [pun intended] snarker), but with a pretty good reason. As Angelus, he’s so unimaginably awful that, with a soul, Angel has to be kinda wimpy. 

Enter the Twenty-First Century, with its vampires who love, and don’t kill, and are just filled with wonderful sparkly goodness. Ok, I exaggerate based on one text, but the point remains that vampires are now the heroes. How is that different from before? Throughout the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, the vampire was gradually humanized. However, as the new millennium began, vampires were bowdlerized. Lestat, Angel, Spike, and all the other anti-hero vampires had moral conflict. They struggled because being good guys conflicted with their evil natures and the bad things they did. In modern vampires, though, this struggle is lacking. We automatically accept that the vampire protagonist is a creature of good. Yes, there are still bad vampires around, but only to make the good vampire seem more heroic. In short, whereas the anti-hero vampire had an inner monster to fight, the in the modern vampire, there is nothing to fear.