Zombos' Closet

Fright Night On Channel 9

ZC Rating 5 of 7: Excellent

For me, and many like me, the impact of Fright Night has not lessened over time, but the generation that I am part of, the one that can truly appreciate this era, is rapidly aging. It's not difficult to imagine a point in the not too distant future where Fright Night, and all the programs like it, may be lost to fading memories and a society no longer interested in such antiquities. (James Arena)

I'm not as big a fan as James Arena is, but his passion for Fright Night, a horror-hostless, near midnight showcase of the good, the bad, and the ugly in fantastic cinema, that ran on New York's WOR-TV from 1973 to 1987, is well shared in Fright Night on Channel 9 from McFarland Press.

I don't often read McFarland titles because they're awfully expensive and not all of them are well-written or carefully researched. Being a Brooklyn boy growing up watching Channel 11 and Channel 9's sumptuous telecasts of horror and science fiction movies, both foreign and domestic, I couldn't resist Arena's book. If you're familiar with Fright Night, or just love to read about television in the days before anyone could see just about anything they fancied anytime they chose,  this book is a gem of interviews, anecdotal nostalgia, and glimpses into how the biz worked to bring packages of movies to affiliate stations on a regular basis. We're talking pre-video and pre-digital here, when stations ran 16 and 35mm prints, spliced up the film reels frame by frame for commercials, and did a little editing to run in allotted times and--more or less--to remove the occassional booby show, or overly nastiness, not fit for young eyes.

Within the two parts of Fright Night on Channel 9, Arena recalls the ritual of watching Fright Night regularly at the late-night hour as well as capturing that unique feeling of excitement of finally getting to see that movie you had heard was so awesome or so awful you just had to see it. Part One: The Story of Fright Night provides the history of the show, enriched by the interviews and the wheeling and dealing work involved to acquire "product" like Universal's horror pictures, Hemisphere's Block of Shock package of movies, and  Samuel M. Sherman's Independent-International Pictures Corp. and his Euro-horror movies for the show's run. Part Two: The Films of Fright Night lists all the movies that were shown with airdates. Arena goes further than simply regurgitating plot synopses by adding his personal observations to the various entries, making this part enjoyable reading as well as informative.

Hanging onto the movies once they were contracted for play wasn't always easy. The highlight of the book for me is  Samuel M. Sherman's  recounting of a run-in with a bankrupt processing lab holding his 16mm prints of his Exorcism at Midnight and House of Doom. The WOR contract stipulated delivery of a specified number of movies and couldn't be fulfilled while the lab held onto them. Elements of the shyster lawyer, the payola-or-kiss-your-prints-goodbye scenario, and the eventual showdown, to strong arm the prints from the lab, is a wild and wooly story. 

I read Fright Night on Channel 9 in one night. Half of my effort was made because I remembered the unique experience of watching the show, and others like it, which has shaped my horror habit of today, but the other half is because James Arena kept me up late with his vivid remembrance of a culturally significant "antiquity" that shouldn't be forgotten, nor the people who made it so.

The Walking Dead Too Slow Moving? No Way

The release of the zombies from the barn in last night's mid-season finale of The Walking Dead capped what, to me, has been an involving dramatic soap opera so far. It's telling that survive-at-all-costs-Shane sets them loose to "kill" them, but it's Rick who eventually shoots Sophia, surprising everyone when she staggers out of the barn. She's been there all along. That hurt. So it bothers me that some fans, a friend or two, and some critics keep asking "where's the beef-eating zombies?"

Readers of the comic book series ARE readers because it tells its story through the turmoil of the living, who live with the threat of being chomped on at any given moment. Zombies attack, but that's not the point nor should it be the focus of every issue, or in this case, every television episode. How many times, and in how many creative ways, can we feast our eyes on watching zombies attack? Sure, it's gruesome fun, but at the end of the day, it's the story that counts, not the kill-rate on either side.

Great classic television series always focus on the characters first, then the events happening around them, and their reactions to those events. Their turmoil, disagreements, sadness, happiness, agreements, and life or death defining moments simply can't be conveyed in every episode through a simplistic car chase action solution to tidy it up and provide eye-candy for short attention spans.

I recommend hunkering down and living the drama with Rick, Shane, and everyone else. The zombies will come when their good and ready. Me, I rather see how the living survive each other. 

Haunted Collector Premiere Episode

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good

I don’t fully buy into the haunted-objects-causing-disturbances premise of Syfy’s new reality-based spook show, Haunted Collector: it smacks too much of Warehouse 13 and that Canadian television series, Friday the 13^th (a deal with the devil produces cursed antiques), only they have Robey and Allison Scagliotti to emote dramatically. In Haunted Collector there’s only John Zaffis and his paranormal team, and they’re surprisingly so down to earth when finding possible culprits, you wonder what all the fuss is about. Zaffis doesn’t even lock up his collection of troubling artifacts. He keeps them in his basement. Can he sleep soundly at night without all that bad mojo giving him nightmares? I didn’t see him using any of that purple Warehouse 13 neutralizing goop, so I wonder.

I’m part skeptical and part susceptible: I had an incident with an old hand-crank Victrola back in the 1960s. Long story short, it came into the house, weird things began to happen (including shadows where none should have been), and my mom had it taken out of the house. Where it went I’m not sure, because it was placed in the trunk of a car—and that car disappeared shortly after that.

Two cases are investigated in the premiere episode: the first in a Louisiana home and the second in a Connecticut library.

In Louisiana, other-worldly irritations like footsteps, voices, and cold spots are upsetting Jill. When Zaffis arrives, his team pulls out the EMF detectors, and Beth—who is not a psychic, just very sensitive—focuses on a clown jar, which is creepy as hell (I’d have chucked it into the garbage immediately, EMF or not). An EVP question “do you want the tenants to leave” produces a clearly heard Yes, making Jill a lot more upset. A large cold spot on the kitchen floor has the team going under the house to find a box with a mud-caked 1950s gun in it. Jill has no qualms letting Zaffis add the gun to his collection.

In Connecticut, a library is so haunted the kids are too scared to go in. The usual claims of seeing apparitions, voices without bodies, and an old, non-electric typewriter that dings on its own have the team doing their EMF sweeps and investigating the library’s history. One interesting part of the investigation involved the team going old school and hanging rope around the typewriter, to see if the strands moved. Videotaping and EVP’ing also were employed, especially around the typewriter, which showed high EMF readings. I think at this stage, after so many episodes of Ghost Hunters, the constant explanations of EMF and EVP are superfluous and unwelcome time-killers. Maybe word balloons or some other informational popup instead of having Zaffis and his team explain them EACH TIME THEY USE THEM could be used instead.

What will keep me watching this series is the detective work: there’s a mystery to be solved in each case and a revelation of the perpetrator to be made. Zaffis and his team seem quite capable at handling that. And I’m hoping they run into an old Victrola: I’d really like to know what happened to it.

Supernatural: One Year Gone

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haunted Collector on Syfy

Being an innate collector, I'm a happy sucker for reality shows like American Pickers, Auction Hunters, Storage Wars, and Hollywood Treasure. This one combines collecting with the paranormal. Think Friday the 13th American-Canadian television series and Warehouse 13 for "real." 

"Premiering on Syfy on Wednesday June 1^stat 9p/c after an all-new Ghost Hunters. Possessed possessions and cursed collectibles are sure to be found in the first season as lead investigator John Zaffis and his team seek out the objects that are haunting households." 

"For more than 30 years, eminent paranormal researcher John Zaffis has been a collector. But not of stamps, coins or comic books. He collects objects that have become home to paranormal spirits and/or energy. Each week he and his family help out someone who’s being terrorized by something in their own home.

"They research the history of objects found in the home and try to identify what is causing the problem. Along with his son Chris, daughter Aimee, and paranormal investigators Beth Ezzo and Brian Cano, Zaffis, author of the critically acclaimed book “Shadows of the Dark,” tracks down haunted items ranging from Civil War era weapons to strange antiques and unusual toys.

"Once identified, the items are collected in his paranormal museum in Stratford, Connecticut, where he displays them for safe keeping, while ensuring they are specially stored to keep their powers at bay. Zaffis has also buried certain items in the foundation of the museum to neutralize the negative energy that can emanate from these haunted objects."

Dark Shadows TV Milestones Series

ZC Rating 5 of 7: Excellent

But whether naive or deliberate, pop or queer, Dark Shadows camp appeal is one of its strongest drawing points, one that many fans of the show appreciated immediately, while others "grew into it" as they got older (Harry M. Benshoff)

If words like diagesis (narrative), quotidian (commonplace), and metonymy (figure of speech and then some) give you frissons (chills) reading them, Harry M. Benshoff's academically-jargoned analytical look at Dark Shadows may not be for you. But I still recommend you give it a try: Benshoff keeps his usage of them to a minimum while the rest of his words, albeit quotidian, are well chosen, probing, and informative.

This pocket-sized book in the TV Milestones Series will initiate the merely interested reader and satisfy the devoted fan with its concise yet comprehensive coverage of this influencial, episodic Gothicmash of beasties and ghosties that originally aired from 1966 to 1971 on American television.

I was and still am one of those fans. As an impressionable kid, running home after school each day to watch the latest episode was an imperative. I was so hooked I even chose Barnabas as my Confirmation name. I blame actor Jonathan Frid for that; his memorable role of tormented vampire Barnabas Collins, with its romantically-tinged pathos overshadowed by his cursed sanguine darkness, propelled the series' unusual supernatural sashays into witchcraft, lycanthropy, Lovecraftian Mythos, hauntings, and vexing time travel well beyond 1960s soap opera pablum. Campy? Sure. Earnest in its low budget Gothic-noir intentions? Very much so. Groundbreaking in its use of the episodic soap dynamic to "sell" its spooky shenanigans to a wider audience of enamored housewives, counter-culture leaning teenagers, and easily seduced kids like me? Positively. Years after its initial run, Dark Shadows still thrives on DVD, through conventions and fan fiction, and in a planned movie reimagining courtesy of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton.  

Benshoff ably covers the cultural influences the show had (and still exerts), and details the daily business grind of producing it within budget and on time, which contributed to all those endearing flubbed line-readings, wobbly sets, and poorly chosen camera angles revealing smoke pots and fake trees. No other series on television has captured the giddy, slightly naughty fun radiating from the horror host pastiche of sly, self-referential cheekiness with horror as much as Dark Shadows. Not as blatantly campy as Adam West's Batman--the epitome of camp in the 1960s--but more subtle in its winking at the audience at a time when "there was a thriving "monster culture" in the United States."

From its generic story lines, full-throttle performances, cheap sets, and outlandish narrative events, Dark Shadows almost begs to be decoded as camp: what is meant to be frightening is also often ludicrously amusing.

But Dark Shadows was never played for laughs; whatever campiness emerged came from its stage actors and a serious approach to the "often ludicrously amusing" events. And to fans of the horreur fantastique like me, 'ludicrously amusing' is the bread and butter of our devotion to the genre.

In Chapter 4, Television Melodrama and Episodic Structure--my favorite section--Benshoff examines the series' daily format that maintained its "rigid narrative structure." His analysis of the voice-over during the opening credits, Robert Cobert's atmospheric music, the composition of shots, set design, thematic elements of episodes, and costuming is revealing and absorbing. In Chapter 7, Legacy, he rightly places Dark Shadows as the antecedent to the Gothic franchises of today, especially because of its "narrative importance of serialization." The two theatrical releases, House of Dark Shadows and Night of Dark Shadows are also assessed here, along with the vagina dentata imagery to be found in Night's one-sheet poster.

Hippie appeal, the actors , fandom, and the possible queer subtext to be found in all the male and female bonding going on around Collinwood round out Benshoff's more-than-a-mouthful's worth of thought-provoking reading available in handy monograph size.

Syfy's Face Off Casting Call Season 2

" Syfy’s Face Off, the hit competition reality series that celebrates the incredible artistry of special FX make-up, exploring the world of these pros and the unlimited imagination which allows them to create amazing works of living art. The series incorporates effects make-up, as well as a a wide range of skill sets including prosthetics, sculpting, casting and molding. Each episode involves incredible reveals of the competitors’ finished work, and the drama of one contestant being sent home by the panel of expert and celebrity judges. It all culminates in one winner and one $100,000 grand prize that will launch a career.

"Casting men and women, both professionals and novices to the art of special FX make-up. Must be 18 years or older and proficient in beautifying, prosthetics and special FX. Interested participants can obtain an application at: http://www.syfy.com/faceoff/casting/."

WHERE: 

 LOS ANGELES MARRIOTT – MONSTERPALOOZA CONVENTION

2500 Hollywood Way, Burbank, CA 91505

Faceoofflosangeles@gmail.com

NEW YORK – IMATS CONVENTION (downstairs)

82 Mercer Building, 82 Mercer Street, New York, NY

faceoffnewyork@gmail.com

WHEN:

Sunday, April 10, 2011

10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. pacific in Los Angeles

9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. eastern in New York

 

Dark Shadows 25th Anniversary MPI Home Video Catalogue

More Dark Shadows memories from Professor Kinema. Here's the VHS catalog from MPI Home Video. You remember VHS don't you? Just remember to rewind.

Dark Shadows Festival 1984

Professor Kinema (Jim Knusch) attended the Dark Shadows Festival of 1984, with Jonathan Frid in attendance. Lucky dog.

Here's the Festival's program booklet (pdf), and Jim's mementos from the event.

Johnny Depp Won't Stray Far From Jonathan Frid's Performance For 'Dark Shadows'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thriller: The Purple Room (1960)

Let me assure you, my friends, this is a thriller! (host Boris Karloff)

The first horror-tinged episode in the television series, Thriller, is The Purple Room, written and directed by Douglas Heyes. It first aired a little ahead of Halloween on October 25th. It also scared the Dickens out of me and many other viewers, a foreshadowing that Thriller would become one of the best horror anthology series--Stephen King in his Danse Macabre considers it the best--done for the small screen.

Have you any idea what it takes to scare you or me in-between commercial interruptions (when the series originally aired)? The producers and talent behind Thriller assuredly did, once they moved away from the crime story episodes and allowed Boris Karloff, the epitome of the horror mood, to introduce his kind of story. Recently released in a complete 14 disc DVD set that includes all 67 episodes remastered, with commentary and additional features added, Thriller can be savored like a fine, tingly-tart wine: take a sip from Robert Bloch's Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper; swish around a little of Robert E. Howard's Pigeons From Hell; then gulp down Donald S. Sanford's The Incredible Dr. Markesan.  If your head should get a little fuzzy, go lie down in The Purple Room.

Duncan Corey (Rip Torn) inherits a Baton Rouge Victorian mansion, complete with threadbare carpets, dreary drapes, and tragic ghost story. The will stipulates he spend one year living in the house before he rightfully owns it; that is, one year after one mandatory night spent in the desolate house, which Norman Bates recently vacated (horror fans will immediately recognize it as the Bates Mansion from Psycho).  Duncan smugly agrees, knowing a land developer will pay handsomely for the property. His cousins, Oliver (Richard Anderson) and Rachel (Patricia Barry), drive him to the mansion and make sure he's made as uncomfortable as possible by telling him all the sordid details of the death and madness that took place in the purple room. Hint: they will inherit the property if he doesn't.

With no electricity, candle-light and noir shadows make the atmosphere dramatically gloomy. Duncan tells his cousins he expects them to try and scare him. He warns them he's armed and shows his handgun. He even bangs the walls looking for the secret passages they might use to skulk around in. When they drink liquor from a decantor in the purple room, he exchanges drinks in case they try to drug him. After Oliver and Rachel leave, creepy sounds of doors opening, chains rattling, and things walking around--best left unseen--begin, causing Duncan to joke how amateurish their attempt to frighten him is. But are his cousins doing it? Duncan holds our attention as he alternates between cockiness and uncertainty, making us wonder if it's real or fake, until he walks into one of those best left unseen situations.

The intense black and white chiaroscuro and Boris Karloff's signature presence make this episode a thriller best left seen.

 

 

 

 

Dead of Night (1977) Mystery, Imagination, And Terror

I have not reviewed a DVD release before by starting with its extras, but with Dan Curtis' Dead of Night from Dark Sky I will because they are wonderful additions to this anthology first aired on television in 1977.

The standard photo gallery and unimportant clipped footage are here, but more pleasant surprises await  fans of Dan Curtis' atmospheric approach to daytime television terror: the many Robert Cobert highlight music tracks and the pilot for the proposed Dead of Night series,  A Darkness at Blaisedon.

Robert Cobert's orchestral compositions for Dark Shadows are identified more with Dan Curtis than him, but this association shows how integral Cobert's music is to Curtis' eerie, American Gothic atmosphere and its inhabitants. Cobert's string, wind, and percussive instrumentals amplify Curtis' romance-charged supernatural world of dark forces and dark beings,  demanding an emotional response from us. You don't listen to a Cobert score, you dread its alarming tones, experience its mortifying portents, and anticipate its inevitable chilling denoument. The tracks included provide a good sampling of the tonal qualities and scales he used to produce his music's dread and terror tones.

A Darkness at Blaisedon, stars Kerwin Mathews as paranormal investigator Jonathan Fletcher.  Along with his assistant, Sajeed Rau (Cal Bellini), both investigate the newly inherited--and very haunted--mansion now owned by Angela Martin (Marj Dusay). The American Gothic sets are elaborate, the pace 1969-slow (this would have been for daytime television, in the vein of Dark Shadows), and the premise would have provided for varied story ideas spread across the paranormal spectrum.  Thayer David as the stone-faced caretaker provides the usual melodramatics as he struggles to keep the secret of Blaisedon from being discovered. If you've seen The Uninvited (1944), this will all seem familiar.

A Darkness at Blaisedon shows its age. In the opening, Fletcher and Sajeed examine a sarcophagus with a conveniently hinged lid, and throughout the production closeups are often executed abruptly. Still, Mathews in his cozy sweater and Bellini as the youthful and more daring assistant give it a charming dynamic that draws you into the mystery as they unravel it.

Rod Serling's Walking Distance Still Quite a Distance

ZC Rating: 7 of 7 (Sublime)

MARTIN
(nods, slowly)
I see that now. But I don't understand. Why not?

ROBERT
(softly)
I guess because we only get one chance.
(a crooked smile)
Maybe there's only one summer to a customer.

The fifth scripted episode of the Twilight Zone, Walking Distance, written by Rod Serling, aired on October 30th, 1959. It concerns one Martin Sloan (Gig Young), age thirty-six, burned-out, fed up, and racing his expensive sports car into the distance where neither the direction nor time it will take is something he's sure of. He just wants out. What he wants out from is back there in New York City, the place he's racing away from. What he hopes to find is somewhere ahead of him, but it's still quite a distance away. How close he comes to finding it will be a little side trip; a brief moment of respite, bittersweet and soft to touch, but it will remain a little side trip nonetheless, because he still has quite a ways to go.

Call it the Golden Age, nostalgia, the uncluttered simplicity of childhood memories filled with cold ice cream eaten on hot summer days, endless bike rides, and sparse responsibilities making abundant time uniquely your own. We each have our own special slice of Golden Age pie gulped down deeply within us. Some may get a bigger piece, and for some it may not be as sweet, but it's there to be savored, especially during those grown-up times of inner turmoil and uncertainty when we long to go back for another taste.

Happy Town American Gothic Terror Returns to TV

The locals call us "The Bready." We happily employ 12 percent of Haplin's residents, and we are proud to make Haplin a place where the air is alive with the aroma of fresh baking bread, all the live-long day! Enjoy! (Our Daily, Baking and Confectionary, Haplin, MN)

ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

Measure two fingers of sinister mystery from American Gothic, add a dash of Stephen Kingish small-town-hiding-dark-secrets, spice with serial murderer and missing people, stir in an all too quiet and aloof visitor, Merritt Grieves (Sam Neill), top off with a more recent visitor who's way too anxious to ascend the staircase leading to the dark third floor of the boarding house she's staying at, and finally dabble assorted bitters of quirky townsfolk and a sheriff and his son in over their heads. Shake it all violently, garnish liberally with tidbits of plot, then knock back this new series on ABC called Happy Town: it's quite a rush given the promise shown in this first episode, In This Home on Ice.

U.S. Stamps Honor Twilight Zone and Others

The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, appear on one of 20 first-class stamps released by the U.S. Post Office, featuring 1950's hit television shows. The stamps include images of Dragnet, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Honeymooners, I Love Lucy, Lassie, The Lone Ranger, Ozzie and Harriet, Howdy Doody, and Perry Mason.

(Don't miss the Edgar Allan Poe 200th birthday commemorative stamp either.)

Here's the press info on the classic TV series:

One of America’s most revered canines was among 20 television icons that came out of retirement today to be honored on the U.S. Postal Service’s Early TV Memories 44-cent commemorative First-Class stamp sheet. Lassie participated in the first-day-of-issue dedication ceremony that took place at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in North Hollywood.

Far From a Masterpiece Masterpiece Theatre's Dracula (2007)

ZC Rating 1 of 7: Poor

From the Journal of Iloz Zoc

Feb 11. Westbury— Oh, the horror!  In this age of reimaginings and adaptations based on mere fancy and egotistical hubris, to be subjected to this singular carriage-wreck of a teleplay is more than I can bear. What mind could conceive such a thing; to put pen to paper with such disregard, such wretched villainy in this version of Dracula, and to put Bram Stoker's name upon it? I hear the pounding now, like the beating of my racing heart, as he pummels the lid of his coffin, seeking retribution for this vile act. I feel faint. I must lie down.

Excerpt from the front page of Victorian Variety —
Who Do This Hoodoo? A Stinkeroo.

Feb 12. London— From the What-Were-They-Thinking social club comes this switch on the Stoker-coker pot-boiler, mangling Count Drac with so-called Brotherhood of Undead and syphilis shenanigans. Poor Van Helsing (David Suchet) is reduced to switcheroo role with Harker (Rafe Spall) and becomes head vamp's captive, set free in last half-hour to lead lackluster wooden-stake charge against is-that-all-you've-got? blood-sucker in a chamomile tea-paced climax.

Ninety minute walk-through-park story has Lord Holmwood (Dan Stevens) contracting syph from over-sexed Dad, forcing him to postpone nuptials with hot-to-trot Lucy (Sophia Myles) as he goes off to find cure from undead count using social ties with Brotherhood of the Undead, headed by a chap named Singleton, who dresses better than the count, clothed in simply gorgeous Freemason, secret society-style robe and hat.

Using Singleton (Donald Sumpter) as his go-between, Holmwood foots bill to have Dracula take longer than three-hour cruise to England aboard doomed ship Demeter. Due to minuscule budget, not much happens during faithful trip as weather doesn't get rough and the tiny ship doesn't get tossed. Why does every film miss potential, terror-filled carnage aboard the Demeter? Then again, why bother writing this snooze-fest?

Bat-man (Marc Warren), smitten by Harker's snippet of Mina's (Stephanie Leonidas) hair, decides to woo said Mina while chewing on Lucy's neck as an aperitif. Lucy, who's not been getting any lately, is only too anxious to oblige, sending would-be paramour Dr. Seward (Tom Burke) into spasms of impotent rage; or something like that, as his acting is a shade past monotone.

Meanwhile, at the Brotherhood of the Undead's office, Singleton and another member profess their adulation for the undead guy, only to have him wring their necks. He keeps pining for Mina, while Holmwood and Seward pine for Lucy, and this reporter pines for the big stake-o' pine in Drac's chest to end this unbelievable tedium.

In the basement, Seward finds Van Helsing--cowering un-Van Helsing-like--in a corner. David Suchet plays Helsing like a man running for the bus. Wisely choosing to hide his features in a white wig and beard, he routinely pulls out the crosses and stakes for the big showdown.

Gearing up for the anxiously-awaited--by this reporter--ending, Helsing, Seward, and Holmwood head over to Lucy's vault in order to test the sharpness of their stakes. Puzzlement here as to why Holmwood doesn't just let Lucy bite him in the neck to cure his syphilis--the whole reason for this mess--but why bother with good scripting so late into the story? With amazing ease, Holmwood plunges a large stake into Lucy's chest and she goes down for the count.

Speaking of the count, next stop is Drac's place of unrest, and after a little polite mayhem, Drac and Holmwood wind up dead (with Drac presumably deader than he was, that is), mercifully ending this life-less version of Bram Stoker's classic. Or does it? In a sequalization-antic, Drac appears to not be really dead after all. Lord help us all if there’s a sequel.

Memorandum to David Suchet from his agent, undated.

Hollywood.— Look David, if you insist on appearing in these things, you better wear a white wig and beard to hide yourself. As your agent, I only want what's best for your career, and believe me, this ain't it. But go ahead, do whatever you think best; I can only recommend what I believe to be a saner course of action for you.

Journal of Iloz Zoc, cont.

Feb 12. Westbury.— I feel much better now. Chef Machiavelli brought me a nice cup of chamomile tea to calm my nerves. The life of a movie reviewer is not an easy one, and there are moments of real terror as well as joy. Why attach Bram Stoker's name to such a cinematic detour as this version, nay, this base use of his characters in such a folderol? Dracula himself is nothing more than a mercurial, long-haired rock star impersonator, showing no cunning, no evil wisdom garnered from living for centuries. And where is his accent? And how can you relegate a novel, full of terror and action, to a mere ninety minutes? Sadly, commercial interruption here would have been much appreciated.

Worst of all, key dynamics of Stoker's masterpiece were removed entirely, or presented in abridgment. Harker is dead, and does not return to lead the fight against the count, and the sweep of action, from Transylvania, to England, and back to Transylvania is gone. Van Helsing, once the self-assured powerhouse, the catalyst for action, is nothing more than a shell of his former incarnations. Subtexts of vampiric sensuality and Victorian prudeness are lost against the flagrant syphilitic-focused plotline. Dracula himself is relegated to a supporting role, and displays no charisma, no depth, no fear-inducing terror. More effort was spent on his hairdo and self-conscious preening than playing an undead creature that has survived for centuries, knowing only the lust for blood. Curse the day I started using TiVo, and the ease at which one can watch such an abomination, unsuspecting.