An obsessive phase...

I think I'm having one at the moment. They are periods in my life where I focus my viewing and reading on one particular thing. They vary from a more casual three or four week kind of thing before I move on (which is what the current one is) to a complete obsession that I spend months on. Previous subjects have included spending all my spare time re-reading my favourite Clive Barker novels (which means pretty much all of them), or re-watching my favourite Brian DePalma films one after the other. Yes, I'm a big re-watcher of films - I've seen a lot of my favourites dozens of times. Anyway, currently I'm going through a vampire phase. Sparked of course, by my re-reading of Dracula. Since picking that book up again, I've watched the 1979 film, the 1977 mini-series, and many clips from both 1922 and 1979 versions of Nosferatu as well as Francis Coppola's 1992 film on YouTube. I've also watched bits of Interview With the Vampire.

My reading was sent in a different direction - after Dracula, I've had a hankering for Victorian gothic, which had me re-reading Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and now H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man. Reading these could send me back to the early films of Angela Lansbury, 1930s Universal horror films, or Paul Verhoeven's film Hollow Man. Which will in turn, send my reading in another direction, and the circle of life keeps turning.

Anyway, my vampire phase intersected with my brief interest in James Mason and I inevitably ended up pulling out the DVD of Tobe Hooper's 1979 mini-series adaptation of Stephen King's novel 'Salem's Lot. A theatrical cut down of the film was distributed to international territories in 1979, and I loved the look of it and wanted to go see it. Of course, I was nine years old and it would have scared the crap out of me and scarred me for life, so my mother quite sensibly did not allow me to go see it. I was, however, allowed to read the book. I remember finishing reading it and immediately turning back to page one and starting again. I devoured that book. It was funny, I gave it to mum to read when I was done and then my teacher at school, and no one really said anything about my tender brain being exposed to Stephen King at his very best.

I had two years of recurring vampire nightmares from reading 'Salem's Lot, but I was kind of hooked on the primal thrill of a really good scare by then. When the mini-series in it's complete form aired on Australian television in (I think) 1983, I loved it. It had all the kids at school talking about it - lots of "did you see?" and "what about..." 

It was a big ratings hit in Australia - the network broadcasting it ran a repeat screening the following year, and again the year after that. It was a period of two years where I was pleading with my parents to buy a VCR, as I wanted to start taping stuff. When our first VCR finally arrived (it's funny, I remember that VCR as clearly as if I'd seen it this morning) we were too late to miss the repeats of Salem's Lot. I had to wait until it became available to buy from Warner Home Video on VHS, which was sometime in the 1990s, before I got to see it again. I remember the first time I saw this film as an adult, I found it cheesy and dated. I never really watched it again until the price of the DVD dropped enough for to finally say "oh, alright". I blame the highbrow and dismissive company I was in when I first re-watched it for my former judgement, as this time I found Salem's Lot to be extremely effective. I used to dislike the lack of fidelity to the novel, but now I enjoy the way the screenplay by Paul Monash plays fast and loose with the novel, conflating characters and re-ordering events in a similar fashion to many of the various stage and screen adaptations of Dracula.

I won't go into comparing the mini-series and the novel even though I've done a bit of that sort of thing on this blog. I actually do believe a film should stand apart from any source text, and be judged on it's own merits. That said, this small town of 'Salem's Lot, with petty, grasping characters played by the likes of Kenneth McMillan, Fred Willard, and George Dzundza, is recognisably the world Stephen King created. I fell in love with Bonnie Bedelia, girl-next-door pretty until the final scene, where she is transformed into a vision of Gothic seduction. James Mason's sneering and disdainful Richard K. Straker and Reggie Nalder's growling Nosferatu faced monster leave strong impressions. And the sequences with the boy vampires floating outside the window, scratching at the glass and pleading to be let in, are unforgettable. It's strong stuff - I can't imagine anything being scarier than this for a 1979 television production. Special shoutouts to contact lens specialist Dr. Morton Greenspoon, Harry Sukman for his scary Emmy nominated score, and production designer Mort Rabinowitz for the Marsten house, represented by a Psycho inspired facade on location and a sensational interior set which easily gets my vote as the best ever decrepit old house of evil.

The vampire film in the 80s

Following the early 1980s revival of the werewolf movie, which had a lot to do with the fact that special effects technology had at last advanced to the point where convincing man-into-monster transformations could be depicted, it was inevitable that the vampire would receive similar treatment.

Kim Newman, in his book Nightmare Movies: A Critical History of the Horror Movie From 1968

The late 1970s was not a good time for the vampire movie. Lavish, big star, big budget re-workings of old properties like John Badham's Dracula and Werner Herzog's Nosferatu (both 1979) were poorly received by both critics and audiences. The George Hamilton starring parody Love at First Bite was a bigger box office hit than either of them.

The werewolf films of the early 80s pointed the way forward for the vampire film, with their blend of comedy and high tech effects. It was a blend none of the 80s vampire films got right, as they came at a time when the horror genre as a whole was being dragged down into too much badly executed gore and teen humour. Fright Night (1985) - the first attempt to make a vampire equivalent to The Howling or An American Werewolf in London - probably comes the closest to getting the balance right. It at least shares with the werewolf films a true affection for the genre films of old. In the excellent book quoted above Kim Newman suggests Fright Night would be a John Hughes film if a vampire didn't move next door to Charlie Brewster. I think the film is more retro than that - if Chris Sarandon's suave vampire didn't move in next door, the teens played by William Ragsdale, Stephen Geoffreys, and Amanda Bearse would be living in a 1950s teen comedy.

The following year's Vamp plays a bit more like a post Animal House frat boy comedy, but is mainly distinguished by being the only time uberdiva Grace Jones has found a film role which suits her unique persona. Then 1987 saw the same basic storyline (a youth from a single parent home seduced into becoming part of a gang of vampires) played out in two radically different movies, each ending with both the youth and the vampire girl who lured him to the dark side cured of their vampirism and looking forward to a life in the sunshine.

The Lost Boys (Jamie Gertz introduces teen hunk Jason Patric to her gang of vampire pals - Kiefer Sutherland, Billy Wirth, Alex Winter - before he ends up returning with her to his loving mom Dianne Wiest and younger brother Corey Haim) is the best example of what a dead end grafting the vampire movie to the 80s teen comedy turned out to be, despite being the biggest financial success. Near Dark (Jenny Wright introduces teen hunk Adrian Pasdar to her gang of vampire pals - Lance Henricksen, Jennette Goldstein, Bill Paxton - before he returns with her to loving dad Tim Thomerson and younger sister Marcie Leeds) finds a more interesting blend of teen vampire film, modern western, and pretentious art film. Where The Lost Boys is all wannabe Tony Scott slickness, glowing contact lenses, and a bunch of 'hip' songs designed to sell the soundtrack album, Near Dark has low budget energy and The Cramps' cover of 'Fever' playing on the soundtrack as Lance Henricksen and his gang memorably slaughter the patrons of a lonely Texas bar. Despite their differences, both films share the same signature shot: the gang of vampires walking into view, backlit, on top of a hill.

Fright Night spawned a less effective sequel in 1988. William Ragsdale was back as Charlie Brewster, but Amanda Bearse had her regular TV gig on Married with Children and Stephen Geoffreys declined to reprise his role as Charlie's best friend 'Evil' Ed. Their presence - especially that of Geoffreys - is missed. Bearse's TV work led her to directing sitcoms, which she has done steadily ever since. And Geoffreys started popping up in hardcore gay porn films in 1990, which must represent one of the strangest career paths on record - from a 1984 Tony Award nomination to hitting 'Promising New Faces' lists of 1985 to wearing a trademark red bandana whilst riding cock in films with titles like Guys Who Crave Big Cocks and Uncut Glory. Knowledge of where Geoffreys was headed adds extra poignancy to the scene in Fright Night where 'Evil' Ed tearfully succumbs to vampire Jerry Dandrige's appeals to him as a fellow outsider.

Stephen Geoffreys in an affecting scene from Fright Night.

In any case, Fright Night II came and went without causing as much as a ripple, joining a bunch of other low budget vampire films misguidedly trying to emulate the box-office success of The Lost Boys. And that was how the decade ended for the vampire film, with The Lost Boys remaining the only one that audiences went to in significant numbers (although the box office for Fright Night was decent if unspectacular), and the rest becoming DTV fodder. Big budget Gothic would be in vogue again - briefly - with Francis Coppolla's Dracula (1992) and Neil Jordan's Interview With the Vampire (1994) before franchises depicting massive secret societies of vampires (the Blade and Underworld films) became the norm.