Dead Men Walk (1943) 1h 4m

I chose today's film based solely on the fact that it is just over an hour and because I'm coming down with something and feel like death myself.  The disc itself is from a cheap 10-film pack which is supposed to be zombie themed movies but for a $5 set I doubt anyone was quality checking the content specificity with these choices.  That said, let's dig into today's film!

Less vampire, more sadpire.

Dead Men Walk features George Zucco playing the roles of both Dr. Lloyd Clayton and Dr. Elwyn Clayton.  Llody is a man of science and a medical doctor while Elwyn studies the occult and, by the description on the box, is a wizard.  We open at Elwyn's funeral when it is interrupted by our Deus Ex Kate.  I don't know how she knows what she knows, but she knows way too much.  Elwyn's body is collected by his servant and Elwyn rises from the grave.  He then visits his brother and tells him he is going to wreck his life.  The rest of this film is pretty much Dracula except that Elwyn is targeting his niece and Lloyd has to be the doctor and Van Helsing.

I really liked Dead Men Walk.  I thought it was going to be a very 40's matinee film but it was fun to watch.  The pacing is really weird as they squeezed a lot into such a short time.  It's essentially death, but I'm alive, Gayle is to be married, now she's sick, a vampire?! etc. etc.

What I appreciated the most with this film was the dialog.  It felt like someone reading literature to you.  It began and end with semi-poetic verse and there wasn't much in the way of filler, just advancing the story.  I think that my biggest complaint with Dead Men Walk would be that there are no roads.  It's constantly people running through the woods, in the dark, to get to their location.  Elwyn I can write off as he is a vampire, but everyone else must have cat eyes or something.

I give Dead Men Walk 3 copies of Chuck Tingle's Vampire Night Bus Pounds My Butt out of 5:

Friday's Choice Cuts: Castlevania (2017: Netflix)

I've been a fan of Castlevania since I was a wee child.  In fact, from where I'm sitting right now, I can see my NES cartridges of Castlevania and Castlevania II, as well as my wall scroll of the box art of Castlevania hanging on my wall.  I've used this blog before to mention horror related video game things, but this time we get to talk about the animated series of Castlevania that Netflix has put out.

Spanning only four episodes (because they didn't want to take a risk on it and fail horribly), a majority of this "season" is mostly to establish plot and characters.  If you've ever played Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse for the NES then you're no stranger to most of the general things.  Trevor Belmont is your Belmont for this (although, I'm always partial to Simon), and along the way he picks up Sypha and the season ends with them acquiring Alucard to their party.  I don't think I've seen any signs of Grant Danasty yet, so they might just leave him out.

The setting is Wallachia, an area cursed by Dracula where, after returning from his travels, he finds the Church (capital C there) has burned his wife at the stake for witchcraft.  She was a woman of science and a healer but fear and superstition lead to her death.  After  giving the people one year to make their peace before the curse arrives, they instead ignore it with the thought the Church will protect them.  They're wrong and blood and gore ensue.  There were no tiny hunchbacks jumping around or floating Medusa heads...  I better see that shit!!

All in all, it's not 100% what I wanted, but it's still in the high 80%-ish range.  The writing is great thanks in part to Warren Ellis (whom I know for because of the Transmetropolitan comics).  It does a good job of bring the game into an action scenario.  Trevor uses a short sword, a whip, daggers, and at one points has holy water become a weapon.  The whip animation is awesome and there are parts where he does things like disarming someone by whipping off their finger or taking out their eye.  Which leads me to the next part, gore.  They seem to know the perfect ratio of having it look awesome but don't let it become overkill for shock's sake.

It's been picked up for a second season which is supposed to be twice as long so I'm looking forward to seeing where they're going with it.  As I mentioned earlier, four episodes of establishing why your characters get together was a long time to spend on that and it did leave me unfulfilled by the end of this season.

Plus... the only other thing we've ever really had was Simon Belmont on Captain N. *shudders*

Day 24: Dracula III: Legacy (2005) 1h 26min

I never saw Dracula 2000 (which sounds like a terrible techno-goth band) or Dracula II: Ascension but these are what come prior to Dracula III: Legacy.  That's how numbers work people. 2000 -> 2 -> 3

Surprisingly this is the second film starring Jason Scott Lee to appear on this blog.  Equally surprising is that Rutger Hauer plays Dracula in this film.  Although Dracula gets probably between 8-10 minutes total of screen time and it's mostly for a fight with his giant and obviously fake sword.  You can watch the sword flop like a semi-flaccid dick on close-up shots.  It's bad.  The design of the sword is bad.  This movie is kind of bad.

It seemed like it was going to be awesome though.  The opening credits are shots of things that look like they belong in a Castlevania movie.  There are whips, blades, vampires, fighting.  All it needed was Jason Scott Lee to eat a pork chop he found in a wall and I would've been sold.  Unfortunately this movie consists mostly of them traveling and a semi-related side angle involving some sort of criminal group collecting Romani for vampires to drain.

The simple plot is that JSL is some sort of dhampir style vampire where he isn't quite human but not a vampire either so he can go out in the day and he wants to kill Dracula.  He does.  Then he sits on Dracula's throne with a lady on his lap... posing like some Heavy Metal magazine spread, suave mother fucker that he is...

That's it.  Some say it's not the destination but the journey, but the journey sucked too.  There was maybe one good fight sequence in the whole thing and it was not like Castlevania at all.  In fact, the first time he fights real vampires they're in fucking clown paint.  Juggalo fuckin' vampires!  Vampalos!  Fuck it.

I give Dracula III: Legacy 1 Castlevania pork chop out of 5: