2006-07-16

Crappy Vampire Movie Double Feature!

Every now and again, I must appease my long-suppressed inner Goth by feeding it really BAD vampire movies.

There are two that always do the trick.

"Interview With The Vampire" and "Bram Stoker's Dracula.'"

"Now hold on," you may all be saying, "while the latter (which for brevity's sake you should refer to as 'BSD') is most certainly - arguably - the biggest, most turgid, overblown turd of a movie ever made, 'Interview With The Vampire' is actually pretty good!'"

To which I say - you're WRONG.

Understand that I get immense, perverse pleasure from both of these movies. They are bad, but yet they are oh-so-good. Like those cherry peppers pickled in oil and vinegar and stuffed with provolone. Indeed - these movies are velvet dumplings stuffed with cinematic cheese and left to soak in a brine of scenery-chewing histrionics and (in the case of "BSD") ridiculous British accents.

So terrible. And yet I watch them again and again and AGAIN.

So I watched BOTH of them last night, back-to-back, and I was just a puddle at the end of it all. So much overwrought homoerotic bloodletting. So much shapeshifting sexual confusion. I'm afraid I abused myself horribly.

Each has its pros and cons. Actually, "Interview..." has a pro AND con wrapped up into one package, and that package is Tom Cruise.

Because let's face it, Cruise is undeniably fuckin' awesome in this movie. He's awesome, which is why it's so painful to watch, because he's so deranged now, suckling as he does on the gilded teat of L. Ron Hubbard. Brad Pitt - meh. Pretty enough to look at, but the dude's as dumb as a box of rocks and always has been. You can TELL that Cruise was completely into this role, back when he actually still sort of took acting seriously and wasn't claiming that his every artistic success stemmed from playing on the clay table or grasping the cans or whatever the fuck it is them Scientologists do.

"BSD" on the other hand, has Tom Waits, and he's the best thing about the movie.

Waits as Renfield - a definite "pro."

Now, there are many things about "BSD" which would fall into the category of "con." Keanu Reeves and his talcum-powdered "gray" hair and Surfer-Brit accent. Gary Oldman's horrible wigs. I mean, the list goes on and on. But I have no problem with weeding through these and coming up with the NUMERO UNO "CON," AND HER NAME IS WINONA RYDER.

Jesus Christ. She makes this face in every movie she does. You know what I'm talking about - that "fish out of water" thing she does with her mouth when she's trying to convey passion, or anguish, or righteous indignation when she's sentenced to community service for being a friggin' klepto.

It's like she first tried it out during "Beetlejuice" and decided that was going to be her trademark. You know, Katharine Hepburn had the classy voice, Audrey Hepburn had the ingenue eyes, and Winona does the fishmouth thing.

Really. I'm annoyed unto distraction by Ryder in this movie. It's otherwise deliciously terrible.

lisamcc at 8:21 p.m.

6 comments so far
Soozan
2006-07-20 13:13:44
If you want to see Winona make what I consider to be the ULTIMATE fishmouth of her career, check out that particularly fetid 1990 flick "Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael." It happens near the end, when Nonie's character walks in on her parents making out. CLASSIC, chickens!!!
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Honey
2006-07-18 03:16:07
What, nobody mentioned that one with Adam Ant?
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Andrea
2006-07-17 17:52:27
I second The Lost Boys. Seriously, though, if you need to watch a crap vampire movie, there is nothing better than Vamp. Nothing. Cheesy lighting, horrible one-liners and Grace Jones. Perfection.
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vikkitikkitavi
2006-07-17 11:38:36
I still got to go with the 1979 Dracula with Frank Langella. Old school but sex-y!
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Jess
2006-07-16 23:00:51
a) I love vampire movies. Good. Bad. Whatever. I love 'em! Mr. Pibb & I recently re-watched The Lost Boys. If you want a good laugh... watch The Lost Boys. Holy crap! I took that movie SO SERIOUSLY when it first came out! b) Mr. Pibb recently made me watch the movie 1969 staring your favorite band skank & mine: Winona Ryder. What a piece of shit that was. And I realized something. Winona Ryder really wasn't (isn't) very attractive. Like, at all. I used to think she was! "Yeah, but she has a great rack!" Pibbles pointed out. He has said this also of Adrienne Barbeau, Florence Henderson (!!), and (wait for it...) Joanna "Growing Pains" Kerns. I'm not sure how to feel about this.
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Houseboy
2006-07-16 20:52:16
By the time you read this, I will be gone, having jumped ---- having plummeted off the Winter River bridge.
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