Dracula (1979) We bet everyone forgot about this one.......the first major studio Dracula movie to feature......oh my God, a ROMANTIC HOT DRACULA!!
But hold on......not exactly a new idea.......
The Hammer horror factory, at the height of its powers, introduced a dreamy Drac in their 1960 "Brides Of Dracula".....a coiffed blonde heartthrob who, once he sprouts fangs, puts the bite on his own aging mom.......(cue the audience muttering, "eeewwwwwwwwww")
And in the 70's lonely housewives and teen girls pined for Jonathon Frid's "Barnabas", the resident tortured-soul vampire on TV's "Dark Shadows"........(even though Frid looked more like an anemic mortician than anyone's idea of a dreamboat....)
But you'll spot no dripping incisors on Frank Langella's revamping, so to speak) of the classic Count..........he's all dash 'n flash, a Byronic anit-hero.......he's like 'Wuthering Heights' Heathcliff with a yen for your hemoglobin.........
This swoon-worthy Drac gets a full top-of-the-budget treatment.......every swirl and swoop of Langella's cape is accompanied by John Williams lush score....music to bite your neck by.
And Drac's ancestral castle is a beautifully rendered glass matte by the acknowledged master of that special effects art form, Albert Whitlock......
The other primary reason you want to put this one on your Halloween 'to watch' list....none other than Laurence Olivier shows up as Drac's arch-enemy Van Helsing.......(the script ups the ante by having Van Helsing's daughter suffer the Count's hickey from hell and turned into a red-eyed fanged ghoul herself....)
Loads of style here, including swirling fog, an appropriate de-saturated color scheme , and of course, the creepy Drac minion Renfield gobbling cockroaches at every opportunity.....
4 bloody stars (****).....BQ recommends you sink your teeth into it before the 31st rolls around.......It's literally batshit crazy fun.......
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