Genuinely felt sick at the pereverted enjoyment the vampires had in this, and I loved every minute of it.
Always thought both Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee should've been like this (appreciate at their peaks it would've been a definite no). Anyone else get the vibe that the potential was there?
I'm not very familiar with Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee, but the vampires in this movie are terrifying to me. They seem feral, like their original domestic humanity eroded long ago, and was replaced with the base instincts of a wild animal. The scene where the husband and wife are slowly killed in front of each other is sickeningly savage. The vampire first tells them there is no such thing as hope, that only hunger and pain exist, and then he impales the husband's stomach with a fire poker while his wife watches, screaming and crying.
Later, as a group of vampires are slowly torturing a girl to death, she desperately whimpers for god to help her, and this same vampire tells her there is no god, in mock sympathy. It's like human blood just tastes better to them if the human is filled with dread, fear, and despair.
And then they don't even bother to wipe the blood off after they viciously rip someone's entire throat out with their teeth. They just leave layers of coagulating, clotting blood caked to their faces, necks, clothes, like multiple coats of drying paint. And chunks of human flesh stuck under their nails. And they walk around like this for 30 whole days, just letting it all purify.
I see my post has become a bit excessive with descriptive adjectives, but I'll leave it, because these vampires have a disturbing and lasting impression on me. Still. And I saw this when it was in the theater years ago. Most vampires just don't scare me. These do. And I love it too.
You said everything I wanted to say. You are very articulate This is how I pre my vampires to be I even like Anne Rice's vampires I cannot abide the Twilight vampires
🌈 HRH Darth Madonna of Minas Tirith, servant of Eywah
"Not familiar with Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee"????? How can you even begin to discuss vampire portrayals without knowing their work as a reference? SACRILEGE!!!!!!
Agree with all of this, it's incredibly effective, but it's too sickening for me to enjoy, made worse by how fücking horrific the vampires look. I applaud the creation of possibly the most vile monsters in cinema, but I stop being entertained when I'm this psychologically and physically repulsed.
Yeah, it's a effective version, especially when you look at the comic art that inspired it. The comic is very watercolour / dream like in it's art, so the fact that the production came up with what we see onscreen, is nothing short of brilliant.
Saw (All 7), Hostel, Hostel II, Braindead, Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, The Evil Dead, Cannibal Holocaust, The Collector, The Collection, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Feast movies, Dawn of the Dead, The Hills Have Eyes, Zombie, Laid to Rest, Chromeskull: Laid to Rest 2, Hellraiser, Hatchet, and even Alien was more gory than this... and thats just to name a few, i'm sure there's more.
To me those films tried really hard to be disturbing weren't that disturbing to me compared to the vampires of 30 days of night. like Why did you put evil dead and evil dead II in your list. Those movies felt like comedy to me. Oh I see you think those films were gory. I think driicg was more disturbed by the cruel sadistic nature of the vampires more then anything else.
This brand of monsters stand out as being rather sadistic compared to most other monsters that kill quickly. I don't recall any monster movies or horror films in general that seemed more disturbing to me.
I agree, it's one of the most visceral and compelling adaptions of Vampires I've ever seen.
It really seemed that in decades past vampires could only be portrayed as campy stooge villains for comedy, or broody contemplative souls with all too human dramas to deal with.
It's good to actually see then as they were (in my opinion) intended to be, a truly scary horrific threat against humanity, and entirely NON-human entities with very basal instincts and no conscience.
Riddle wrapped inside an enigma, wrapped inside a taco.