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HORRROR OF DRACULA

Horror of Dracula was an eye-opener when it was first released (in 1957). In his great book of short reviewsThe Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film, Michael Weldon calls it “The best vampire film ever made.” I think he’s absolutely right.

Its studio, Hammer, had a small budget to work with. Much less freedom to use special effects likethose, for example in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, years later. Hammer had to leave out several parts of the novel requiring special effects.

Still the stripped-down plot taken from Bram Stoker’sgreat 1897 novel is focused and absorbing; scenes and images will
stay with you. Screenwriter Jimmy Sangster and director
Terence Fisher got what they wanted.

  They believed that, to tell the story right, their
movie needed two elements.   First, to spill blood like
never before.   Second, the freedom to show women
lusting for Count Dracula. It meant pushing the censors
(even stricter in the United Kingdom than in the USA) to new
limits. Remember, 1957 was still the era of Doris Day/Rock
Hudson comedies.

Horror of Dracula did not share much with the 1931 Universal Studios Dracula.But surprisingly, this was a good thing. Most of that movie had been based on a Broadway play; the longer it goes on, the more stage-y it feels. The new Count Dracula, Christopher Lee,had never seen the Universal movie. Instead, he reread
the novel many times for his inspiration.

Christopher Lee–Dracula

The opening scenes succeed in translating much of the
book’s atmosphere. The count is polite and speaks good
English. You don’t immediately feel anything sinister
about him. But all this is just a mask; you learn real fast
that things are wrong here.

Jonathan Harker has come to Castle Dracula in the
disguise of librarian, his real mission to destroy Dracula.
The count gives Harker a brief, but warm welcome. He says
little except for his compliments while he looks at photos of
Harker’s beautiful fiancée Lucy.

But you learn how false this mask is. That night Harker walks downstairs and meets a woman begging him forhelp. She tells him that Dracula is keeping her prisoner.

Harker is unsure whether to believe her. But when he later wanders downstairs, he accepts her word for everything. Again the same embrace but this time with a savage difference; she turns her mouth to his neck and bares herteeth to bite him.

What follows is probably the most intense scene in
director Fisher’s career. You see Dracula at the top of the
staircase, face in close-up, eyes bright red. In an instant
he is down the stairs, throwing the woman to the floor. She
hisses back at him in pure fury.

The savagery behind the polite shell

The two of them literally snarl at
one another, hungry cats fighting over a scrap of food.

Or maybe; two junkies fighting over just enough
dope to get one of them off. You feel a sense of
viciousness, rarely experienced onscreen 50 years ago. It
shows another side of Dracula, one that stays with you. A
truth about him that makes Lucy and Mina’s craving for him more
unsettling. You have already seen his
animal side.

Harker abruptly realizes what he is dealing
with

Harker is soon dead, a victim of his own bad judgment in trying to
stake Dracula. But Harker’s work is taken up by a new vampire
hunter—Dr. Van Helsing. An insightful, intelligent,
imaginative, articulate, courageous man. Someone who’s able
to deal with vampires, but with others too: Superstitious
peasants in Transylvania, terrified of strangers. Members of
the Victorian-era middle class with just enough scientific
knowledge to reject anything they believe is superstition.
(The movie is set in Germany but its characters seem much more
English than German.)

Worst, a middle class that puts down its women,
ignoring both their intellect and their sexuality. The men,
mostly pompous, self-satisfied, know-it-alls. The
women’s lives empty and boring. It’s no great surprise these
women are ready to follow a figure as charismatic as Dracula.

Van Helsing knows all this and knows he must
deal with these things alone.

As he moves from each closed world to another, Van
Helsing must deal with the peasants’ mistrust, and the
Holmwoods’(Jonathan’s close friends) lack of belief.
His job is especially difficult with this family. Van
Helsing needs to respectfully, yet forcefully convince them their
rational, scientific outlook is accurate… but limited.
Vampires still exist, and modern science is helpless against them.

Most of all Van Helsing understands vampires; their
craving for blood, a craving that inevitably strips away all
humanity. A craving more potent than friendship, love, even
the taboos against harming a child. He knows what Harker did
not; how to use the weapons he has.

Dr. Van Helsing–great personal courage

When the scene shifts from Transylvania to
middle-class Germany, Van Helsing has the difficult job of telling
Harker’s friends that Jonathan is dead. With
great tact, Van Helsing wins over Mr. Holmwood.

At this same moment, Van Helsing faces a new
crisis. Lucy, Harker’s fiancée, has been suffering anemia
without explanation. Lucy is a kindhearted but naive woman,
over-protected all her life. Her future already determined:
wife and mother in the privileged class.

Slowly but surely you sense a change in Lucy.
As much as any British movie at that time could show, you feel her
yearning, then lusting, for an unknown force to possess her.
Watch her reaction to the garlic placed at her window for
protection (no, it’s not the smell that makes her uneasy.)
Watch her lie down in bed and open her nightgown to
expose her throat. Then watch her look of quiet
expectation as the wind swirls the leaves outside her
window.

Lucy waits for the Count; subtle images yet nearly censored in 1957

She waits for someone, the opposite of the gracious
but utterly bland Jonathan. Someone with no hesitation about
taking what he wants. The count has left his castle
and descended upon a society with no defense against
him. Gasoline and matches.

Lucy dies from loss of blood. She is buried,
yet Tania, a servant’s young child, has seen her at night, in the
garden. Van Helsing knows what must be done.

Already, Lucy has asked Tania to go walking
with her. Without showing any violence, the movie makes it
clear; though Lucy has known Tania for years, the girl is nothing
to her now. Only an easy blood-meal. You are
light-years away here from the little girl in
Interview with the Vampire.

Van Helsing, not a pious man, is described by critics
as a man with an intimate knowledge of sacred objects as weapons
in his arsenal. He uses a cross to stop Lucy in her tracks
by placing it against her forehead, burning her deeply. She
flees back to her crypt. Tania watches, one small step from
hysteria. Her plea, “I want to go home,” only hints at how
close she is to chaos.

But Van Helsing stays in control. “And so you shall,”
he tells her, his words symbolizing the calm presence he
brings. Very quietly, very assuredly he asks Tania to wait
for him.

Van Helsing must convince Holmwood that their only
way to save Lucy’s soul is to drive a stake through her
heart. (In the novel, they must also cut her head off.)

Blood gushes, but Van Helsing finishes his
work. Afterwards, his wisdom is clearly shown by the
transformed expression on Lucy’s face, the sweetness, the
innocence of the old Lucy.

The violence that Fisher believed he
needed to show is essential. Lucy’s demonic urges must be
purged from her to restore her to purity. To
understand, to taste for yourself the transformation from
Lucy to vampire, then back to Lucy, you need to see the
cancer cut out of her.

Critics at the time, especially in
England, criticized Fisher’s onscreen violence. He believed
that storytellers of magical tales needed to portray the struggle
between good and evil graphically. Suggestion was not
enough. His goal was not the ambiguity Val
Lewton aimed for, and achieved so well, in
Cat People and
The Seventh Victim. Instead Fisher strived
for something closer to the horror of Germanic folk tales and
legends. The ones before well-meaning people created tamer
versions, believing these tales must be made suitable for
children.

Sadly, time and budget limits meant that many
of the novel’s characters had to be minimized or left out
completely. Stoker’s theme of a group of brothers and a
sister united by common blood against a sinister foe is
gone. Van Helsing must face Dracula alone.

In every way, he is up to the task.
Horror of Dracula becomes a pure action movie
after the count begins his flight back to the castle and
Transylvania. And it may be Hammer’s best action movie
ever. A fight to the death between two figures, both larger
than life. Peter Cushing, with a style of acting once
described as “fussy” proves himself not just scholarly, but
tough.

Hammer’s peak years lasted until about 1962.
The studio never could top what they achieved in this movie.
Only one vampire movie The Brides of Dracula,
even comes close, along with a scattering of others. Hammer
tried to ride the wave of freedom to show more sex, nudity, and
violence in the late 60’s but it was too late. Horror of Dracula
remains their best, the real deal, especially when you imagine how
it must have felt to people accustomed to Rock Hudson/Doris
Day. Don’t miss this one.

September 17, 2025

THE BRIDES OF DRACULA

After the great success of
Horror of Dracula, Hammer studios wanted badly to
make a sequel.

However, Christopher Lee, so effective as the
count in Horror, refused to star. Lee was
afraid of being typecast forever as Dracula.

Hammer’s answer was to use a misleading title and
then state in a prologue that Dracula is dead, but his many
disciples live on. Brides of Dracula is the
story of one disciple, Baron Meinster. You get a sense
throughout this movie that Hammer did not want to change a
successful formula. They used the same director,
Terence Fisher, writer Jimmy Sangster (along with two other
screenwriters) and the other star of Horror,
Peter Cushing, again playing Dr. Van Helsing.

What they got was the same intensity, possibly
more. The music tended to be melodramatic, over-the-top at
times. But it adds to the atmosphere. And you feel a
sizzling tension between the vampire, Baron Meinster, and his
mother, who has kept him prisoner for years.

In Brides, you feel right away that the
countryside is a dangerous place, especially after sunset.

Everywhere is mist, but it has a foul appearance to
it, especially where it hangs over ponds and swamps.
(In Horror of Dracula, Jonathan Harker
notices the silence surrounding Dracula’s castle: No
birds sang.)

Even at the inn, the atmosphere is tense. The
student-teacher, Marianne feels like an outsider the minute
she enters.

As thunder crashes, the tension increases with the
arrival of a strange, severe-looking, aristocratic old woman
dressed all in red and black. She speaks one word to the old
couple, “Wine.” She is the Baroness Meinster, and
immediately invites Marianne to share a drink, then to spend
the night in her castle. The landlord and his wife are
clearly shaken and abruptly offer Marianne the chance to stay
at the inn. But Marianne has already accepted the baroness’
hospitality.

You first see the castle in a low-angle shot, showing
it perched on a mountainside. Inside, it
is exquisitely decorated, suggesting a great family
fortune. Yet somehow Marianne still appears to be
in danger. Greta, the baroness’ one servant, gives off
suspicious, controlling vibes; you get the impression that
she will bully anyone who lets her. For a moment, Marianne
steps onto her balcony. From there she can see a man
standing outside in another wing of the castle.

Instead of denying what Marianne saw, or trying to
avoid it, the baroness speaks freely about the man, her
son. “My son is ill,” she says. When Marianne
asks if he is ill in his mind, the baroness does not deny
it. She says that he has caused her endless pain. Once
the castle was a place of grand parties and gatherings, but
those days are long-gone, because of her son. You can
hear a mix of great sadness, regret, and bitterness in her
words. She has not seen him or spoken to him in years,
she says; he is fully in Greta’s care.

Marianne goes to sleep then wakes suddenly, her mind
on the man she glimpsed before. She finds her way to
his room. For a long time he does not step out of the
shadows. He asks Marianne to come closer, explaining
that he cannot come to her. It is then that Marianne sees he
is held prisoner by a long silver chain.

The baron says that his mother has kept him chained
and told people that he is dead; that she is motivated to
keep the fortune, land, and castle that would be his
inheritance. As Marianne does, you wonder now if the
baroness is the insane one, the monster. Marianne agrees to
find the key to the chain. As Marianne walks from the
baroness’ room back to the baron, his mother seems to
stalk Marianne, the lighting on the baroness’ face making her
look truly evil. But Marianne is able to throw the
baron the key.

As Marianne finds the baron, his mother condemns her,
“You little fool, you don’t know what you’ve done.”

The baron speaks with quiet assurance, “She can’t harm you
now.” Then,” Mother, come here. Now mother, come
along with me.”

   Like Marianne, you can only guess what happens
next.   But you get a clear enough idea
  when Marianne speaks to Greta, now
hysterical. Greta tells her that the countess is dead.
“He’s free, the cunning devil… She’s dead and he’s free.”

Baron Meinster (David Peel)

Marianne leaves. Greta, still hysterical, speaks a long while to
the dead baroness. She is able to sum up her twenty
years with the family into a few minutes of monologue.

Keep in mind this movie was made in 1960, with many
limitations in effect on what movies could not show, not
mention, only hint at. I think any aspiring screenwriter
could do a lot worse than to listen to Greta’s words, for the
way they hint at family dysfunction, with so many
suggestions, implications, so much between the
lines.

“Twenty years…You encouraged him. You drank
with him and his friends, laughed at their
wicked games…brought women to him…”

Critics have read many suggestions in these
words: Bisexuality, procuring victims after the
baron became a vampire, just for starters. But the more
subtle suggestion: an incestuous relationship between mother
and son (in all senses of the word). Whatever the
relationship was like once, it degenerated into hatred and a
vicious struggle for power, stalemated for years until Marianne’s
arrival. The contempt the Baron feels for his mother is
obvious in his voice. Their years of separation have
only made the situation uglier.

Next morning, Marianne is found unconscious on the
road by Dr. Van Helsing. The story now takes a new
turn: Van Helsing matching wits with Baron Meinster. As in
Horror of Dracula, Van Helsing is a man of
great courage, knowledge, and dedication. In absolute
contrast, Baron Meinster is ruled by his passions.

But you soon learn that he has an ally; Greta’s
devotion to the Meinster’s is unchanged, even after the baron
has turned his own mother into a vampire.

After the baron kills a woman from the village, she is
buried in the churchyard. In a truly chilling scene,
the undead woman struggles to get out of her coffin and through
the soil above it. Greta stands above her, and like a
sinister midwife, urges her to push herself free. Even Van
Helsing’s eyes open wide.

As in Horror, Van Helsing is
dedicated (some would say, fanatically) to wiping out the plague
of vampirism. Though not a particularly pious man, he
sees this struggle as one between absolute good and absolute
evil. He calls staking the dead village woman, “an act of
healing.” When he meets the baroness, now a vampire
herself, she asks Van Helsing if he knows who she is. “I know who
you were,” he tells her calmly.

Van Helsing–again, the only one to offer protection from
the Undead

She has become a tragic figure, telling Van Helsing she now must
do all the wicked things her son tells her to do; there is no
salvation for her. Again, Van Helsing tells her salvation is
still possible.

Marianne sees Meinster’s powers–former friend, now a
vampire

In the end, Van Helsing must face the baron, along with Greta and
two other vampires: the woman from the village, and Gina,
another student-teacher at Marianne’s school. Van Helsing
shows true courage after Baron Meinster bites his neck,
cauterizing the wound with a red-hot iron, then cooling it
with Holy Water.

At least one critic has called
Brides of Dracula the best movie Hammer ever
produced. I couldn’t quite go that far, but the
direction, acting, and especially the screenwriting are all
excellent. As big a Hammer fan as I am, I seldom
remember much of their dialogue.

Here, there are some memorable
lines. Marianne says good-night to the baroness,
adding, “God bless you.”

“If only He could,” the Baroness replies.

David Peel, better known on-stage than in movies, is
excellent in a demanding role, requiring (among other
things): charm, vengefulness, pleading, gloating, bloodlust, pain,
viciousness, even vulnerability. Terence Fisher’s
direction underlines Marianne’s struggle to find the truth behind
the family’s masks. Marianne is trusting, probably too much
so, and her ability to judge from intuition is limited.
Fisher shows you the anguish in her confused search to find the
truth.

It’s hard to believe now, but at the time, the
director Fisher, and Hammer films were widely attacked for
the violence they showed onscreen, the sexual innuendo they hinted
at. Years later, Fisher, and screenwriter Jimmy
Sangster’s work was put into clearer perspective, and many critics
began to praise them.

Both Sangster and Fisher wanted to show just
how corrupt and foul vampirism was. Here, the evils
of vampirism are often overshadowed by the festering illness
of the the Meinster family. In Brides,
you get the feeling this illness must be disinfected, or cut out
like a cancer.

Baron Meinster’s disciples

Fisher made a point of showing what that surgery was like, without
much subtlety. He believed that suggestion
cannot show this visceral ripping, this tearing
out. Long before TV had ER, Fisher
and Sangster showed you the operating room, up close and
personal. Ultimately this is what Van Helsing meant
when he tells the dead girl’s ( bitten by the Baron) father that
unearthing her body and staking her will be “an act of
healing.”

June 26, 2025

THE NIGHT STALKER

A made–for-TV movie on a top-100 horror
list. Hard to believe, for sure.
The Night Stalker is peculiar in some other ways
too. At times it is more of a newspaper movie than a horror
movie. Or an expose story about a police cover-up,
that happens to have a vampire in it.

But still it more than holds its own as
a horror movie. Even though, made for TV in the early 70’s,
it could only show a limited amount of violence. (Remember, this
is years before CSI or
Law and Order SVU, let alone
Criminal Minds.) An excellent screenplay by
the veteran writer Richard Matheson (The Incredible
Shrinking Man, The Devil’s Bride, to name just a
few) is one key. When the suspense starts to come, you get
some truly creepy atmosphere. This is a credit to the
director, John Llewellyn Moxey who had previously directed a movie
in England with even more of a sinister atmosphere,
Horror Hotel.

Horror Hotel was set in
present times, but in a lonely little town, looking like it had
barely changed in years. The filmmakers realized they
needed to use a radically different approach for
The Night Stalker. Here, the setting is Las
Vegas, with no fog and few lonely places. It is bright
lights, 24 hours a day. Nothing Gothic about it. More
people working night shifts than day shifts. Everything
about it screaming–Modern.

But when the reporter Carl Kolchak (Darren
McGavin) learns about a possible serial killer, evidence
definitely points to a maniac who thinks he is a vampire.
Victims drained of their blood. Killed only during the
night. Soon afterward, a hospital is robbed of its blood
supply. Kolchak, an intelligent, intuitive man, immediately
senses a connection.

You may find it hard to take a reporter as the main character in a
horror movie, especially someone as full of himself as Kolchak
is. He is arrogant, believing himself to be the most
insightful guy around. And he is never shy about letting
people know this. His mouth and his attitude have caused him
to lose one job after another. But he has not changed.

Yet at the same time, he follows the courage
of his convictions. In addition, he gains some sympathy due
to this; He is forced to deal with law enforcement officials who
are at least as egotistical as Kolchak is. And more
selfish. They think like politicians, obsessed with making
themselves look good, whatever the cost. If other
people have to get hurt in the process; too bad. That’s the
way it goes. Kolchak is the last guy they want around,
someone who is not only in your face, but steps ahead of them.

Carl Kolchak–his ego is infuriating to people in
power

Kolchak’s lady friend Gail finds him a book on
vampire lore, and he educates himself real fast. What
Kolchak finds out about a vampire’s powers is not so different
from what the heroes in Bram Stoker’s novel
Dracula find. Kolchak learns the necessary
weapons: a crucifix, a wooden stake and a large
mallet/hammer. Stoker’s book mentions the vampire’s
sensitivity to daylight. It emphasizes too something
that few or none of the Dracula movies had
mentioned—a vampire’s physical strength at night. Already
you have seen the killer taking on a guard dog, a Doberman, and
killing it with his hands, with barely a struggle.

A crowd of police is unable to stop the killer

Kolchak’s intelligence lets him match the law
enforcement people step-for-step, and later gets him a few steps
ahead. The police are stuck at a point Kolchak already got
past; they think their suspect is insane, with vampire
delusions. Kolchak has seen enough to believe their man
truly is a vampire. He has already gotten a good
look at this man, identified as Janos Skorzeny, said to be over 70
years old. Yet Skorzeny has fought off several police
officers and survived nightstick blows to his head. He has
also survived numerous gunshots, not just from handguns but from a
shotgun as well. Unless every shot missed him, very
unlikely.

Gail believes in Kolchak and has the instincts to point him
in the right direction

Your perception of Kolchak changes once he
decides to go into Skorzeny’s house alone. Not every
smart-ass narrator would have the nerve for this. The scenes
inside the house don’t grip you as hard as for example, similar
scenes in Silence of the Lambs or the original
Psycho. Some, but not a lot of music
is heard. There is little use of editing for shock.
Instead of Skorzeny suddenly jumping out and grabbing Kolchak, the
movie simply shows him pulling into the driveway.

Yet these scenes still carry
their share of tension. You already know what Skorzeny is
capable of doing, in scenes at the blood bank and in the backyard
and pool. And Kolchak is not experienced in
dealing with vampires—he’s no Buffy.

In addition, Barry Atwater, who plays
Skorzeny, creates a sinister, powerful presence. An actor
vaguely familiar from guest shots on a wide variety of TV
series and three years on one soap opera, Atwater is up to seizing
his big opportunity. And without saying a single word.
His expressions, his intense hisses and sighs make up for
the missing dialogue.

Barry Atwater as Janos Skorzeny

As unlikely as it sounds, The Night Stalker may
have influenced Silence of the Lambs. One
small, brutal detail, the vampire keeping a woman captive, tied to
a bed, hooked up to a blood bag. Her face pale as a ghost,
she is barely alive, her mouth sealed closed with adhesive
tape. Like Catherine, the Senator’s daughter in
Silence, she is on schedule to die. But not
until she has served her purpose, for a killer who has no concept
whatever of her as an individual. Kolchak wants to save her
but knows he must deal with Skorzeny first. You feel for her
and for Kolchak too, in this insane house. You hope he is
ready to deal with all he has gotten himself into, much the same
as you feel for Jodie Foster, trapped in the pitch-black of
Buffalo Bill’s basement.

One more unique feature in regards to
The Night Stalker. It was the inspiration
for a brief TV series, also starring Darren McGavin.

June 26, 2025

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN

Once in a while, you watch a movie that is so good
you doubt you can do it justice in a review. Let the Right One
In is that good. The video box quotes a review
calling it the best vampire movie ever.

I‘ll take a pass on agreeing or disagreeing, only
because it’s more than vampires. What else is it? It’s
hard to know where to stop. First, a movie about
adolescence, a time of change that can be brutal. Many of us
feel the scarring the rest of our lives.

Not all of us will make it at all. We may
never escape the violence around us and inside us. Do we
slip away into a fantasy world because reality is unbearable?
Do we decide to join the bullies, to hurt the people who
were kind to us? A lucky few find a way to stay out of the
mean-ness and violence. Others seek desperately for a drug
or an obsession as their way out.

Let the Right One In was made in
Sweden but it’s no art film. It’s got a gritty reality you
will feel no matter where in the industrialized world you come
from.

The movie’s director describes the story’s adults as
being nearby, but unable to get the big picture. They have
enough problems of their own. Divorce, alcoholism, unhappy
marriages, putting food on the table. Their kids need a lot
more than their families can give.

The movie starts out as a painful look at two of the
outcasts, the victims. One is Oskar, the target of bullying
at school. The other is Eli, a strange girl who moves in
next door, who helps Oskar fight back. But Eli can never be one of
the in-crowd; for a million different reasons. Most
important—she is exactly what she appears… a vampire.

Your first look at Oskar is a quiet but agonizing
moment. Snow falls steadily on a dark night. He
replays a kid’s voice from school. “Squeal like a pig,” the
kid tells Oskar. Anyone who remembers
Deliverance will flash back instantly to that
moment, the ultimate bullying. But you can figure out
Oskar’s life easily enough, with or without that memory. He
looks down from his window, a knife in his hand, all vulnerability
and sadness.

.

Oskar–a bully’s victim, with all the desperation that comes
with that

Both Oskar and Eli are searching for love. They
slowly begin to look for love in each other.
Victims/outcasts will never find this an easy path.
You may find it too hard to deal with the violence inside
you…or the loneliness. You may never be able to get in touch
with your gentle side. You may find it too hard to listen to
the other person—or empathize if you can listen. You are
bound to say things you will soon regret.

But the fortunate ones get past this, and form a
true bond. So much happens in this movie, but this is its
heart—two people finding the path to form a bond.

Oskar and Eli are characters you can’t forget.
We have all known people like Oskar. But Eli feels
real too, a different kind of outcast. To be with her, to
stay with her, Oskar has to grow. As the expression goes, he
needs to find things in himself he didn’t know he had.

Eli–as much the outsider as Oskar is

Your first looks at Eli show her loneliness,
her vulnerability. Wearing no winter jacket on a sub-
freezing night, snow all around. “I can’t be friends with
you,” she tells Oskar before he can say a word. Wanting to
say she’s sorry in advance.

One reason Eli is unforgettable; her emotions are so
easy to recognize, to identify with. But she is something
more. And this is another big theme in the movie.
Years ago there was a Donovan song called
The Universal Soldier. Eli is something
else, The Universal Outsider. And more; the savior you never
expected to be your savior.

You didn’t expect them to be the one to redeem
you…for many reasons. Maybe sexual orientation, like Dil in
another great movie, The Crying Game. Maybe
their ethnic group. Maybe they’re a whore. Or older
or younger, different education level, different social
class/caste. Eli could be any of them. Oskar’s road is
not that different from Fergus’, the IRA soldier in
The Crying Game. And Eli takes a lot of the
chances that Dil took, in trusting anyone.

Oskar’s first reaction to Eli is worse than
ambivalent. “You smell funny,” he tells her. Watch her
face; she tries not to cry. You may be reminded of Fergus,
when he first finds out Dil’s secret—he vomits.

Seated on the jungle gym, Eli looks down on Oskar.
No big surprise; so does everyone else. But he takes a
chance with this strange girl, handing her his Rubik’s cube.

Next morning, Oskar finds the Rubik’s cube in front
of his house, its mystery solved. He smiles cautiously,
probably for the first time in the movie. In his lonely
classroom, he holds it, like a magic charm. How many of us
know that feeling, of finally finding a symbol of protection… or
wish we did?

Oskar finds her in the same place that night.
“Do I smell better?” she asks him anxiously. She tells
him she is 12, but doesn’t know her birthday. Oskar presses
her on this question but all she will tell him is that she has
never gotten any presents.

He offers her the Rubik’s; her first-ever present.
She shows him how she solved it. His gaze at her is
longing.

The next day, Oskar takes awkward steps to change
himself. But definitely a start. Outside school, the
bully, Conny waits. His two friends step out of the shadows;
one looks at least as scared as Oskar. One more kid paying a
high price to fit in. Another reminder how easily one kid
can turn on another.

But for the first time, Oskar stands up to Conny.
His expression shows he’s ready to deal with the pain he
knows is coming. Conny uses a branch to whip Oskar’s leg;
one friend slashes his face. They tell him, you better not
tell.

At home, Oskar continues being courageous, lying to
his mother about his face. When he sees Eli later, she’s the
one to reach out. She tells him, next time they hit you, hit
back…hard. She says she will help him if he is in real
danger….”if I can.”

We can identify with Eli; torn between wanting to
reveal our secrets, and the fear of the consequences when we do.
They go to the movies. Another big step. Eli
asks, “Would you still like me if I wasn’t a girl?” More
mysteries, more doubts. But one big difference; Oskar lets
the question drop. He is glad just to be with her.

But this movie won’t let you romanticize its story
for long. You’re seeing another story unfold—the story of
Eli’s ‘father.’ You never learn how he first met Eli, how
they decided to stay together. My gut reaction; he wanted to
escape his loneliness; he hoped Eli could fill the emptiness in
his life. He was willing to pay the price to be with her.

And he has paid—big time. He stalks the woods
around the apartment complex. If he can find someone alone,
he kills them, hangs them upside-down, drains their blood, then
disposes of the body. Endless chances for things to go
wrong. And the times he returns home with no blood, Eli
screams at him in frustration. The movie refuses to let you
forget how much Eli needs.

The strain is wearing him down. Everything
about him smells of desperation, even his lifeless hair.
Again, the movie is honest with you. It gives you a
clear picture– what it costs to stay with Eli… already you sense
Oskar will have to pick up where father has left off.

Days later. You knew it was inevitable,
but you still feel the impact when Eli’s father is trapped by
reality… checkmated.

Not his fault. But his attempt to kill a boy
inside Oskar’s school goes wrong.

No way out. He has planned for this; destroy
as much of his face as he can with corrosive liquid, and cover any
links to Eli. And Eli is prepared too. She visits his
hospital room where he clings to life…then removes his breathing
tube and drains his blood.

The movie takes a lot of chances; and big ones.
The next time Eli is with Oskar, she asks if she can get
into bed with him. Oskar can feel how cold she is.

Yet it is not a scene about sex. They are miles
away from being ready. Instead the question is simply, can
they be boyfriend and girlfriend? The dialogue is risky.
You may find it embarrassing, even ludicrous… or deeply
touching. But one thing is clear; these are people forced to
be honest. They can’t put on a “cool” façade…and they know
it.

“Do I have a chance with you?” Oskar asks her.

It takes Eli a while to realize he is talking about
going steady. When she at last understands, Eli says
straight-out, “Oskar, I’m not a girl.”

A long silence. Finally Oskar says it doesn’t
matter. “Then you have a chance with me,” Eli tells him.
Under the blanket she is naked, but completely covered.
Oskar continues to face the opposite direction, never
turning to look at her. But she takes his hand.

Again, an unorthodox, courageous scene and dialogue.
Unexpected, almost unimaginable in the age of MTV. Yet
surprisingly believable.

Oskar’s life has definitely taken a turn for
the better. He stands up to Conny and for the first time is
left alone. In Eli he sees the girlfriend he dreamed of, but
never expected to find. He has new-found self- respect.

Much of this is due to Oskar taking the risk;
trusting an outsider. Yet he doesn’t know Eli as well as he
thinks. The years have taught her how to keep secrets.

Oskar’s too caught up in himself to understand how
much Eli’s life has changed. She is vulnerable without the
guardian who kept her supplied with blood… and paid rent.
And more than that, the circle is closing. Eli has
already killed a man in the apartment complex. The dead
man’s best friend, Lokke, is not about to stop looking for the
killer.

Desperate for blood, Eli bites Lokke’s wife
Virginia, and almost kills her. Virginia lies near death at
the hospital. Her husband decides he must become a
vigilante; find her attacker.

Oskar spends more time with Eli. He
notices more than one strange clue, odd coincidences. As
difficult as it is to believe Eli is a vampire, Oskar finds the
evidence increasing. No other explanation makes sense.

The scene where Oskar brings his suspicion into the
open will leave you breathless; you can picture how differently it
could have turned out. You see another big theme in the
movie firsthand.

Oskar’s suspicions about Eli confirmed

The theme of identifying with the oppressor.
In this case, the kid who got bullied, becoming a bully himself.
Eli stands at Oskar’s door. She says he must ask her
in before she can enter. Oskar stands motionless, silent.
As if the power he holds over her is suddenly a drug.
He makes a slight head-movement; trying out some new
tough-guy body language. Like… yeah, come in if you want,
bitch.

Eli takes a few steps inside. Blood slowly
begins to flow—from her eyes, her ears, even her scalp.

Oskar gets it. “You can come in!” He
hugs her.

You feel the conflicts, the self-doubt. Bitter
words, the kind that end relationships. Eli tells him she is
the same as he is. She throws it in his face– how he was,
when they first met.

“I don’t kill people,” Oskar answers her.

“No, but you’d like to…be me a little.”

He once was happy being with her. Empathizing
with her is not as easy. They stand there, at the edge of
the cliff. One possible road—end it now, turn their backs.
Or… keep trying to trust each other. They survive this
hard test.

But they face worse tests down the road. More
surprises are left to come.

On a less serious note, many who haven’t seen the
movie want to know–Is it scary?

My answer; yes, but what makes it frightening does
not have much to do with vampires. The filmmakers wanted
their story to play out as realistically as possible: the
struggles at school, family problems at home, and being close
friends with a vampire. They did not want the look and feel
of the movie to change when Eli uses her powers. The idea is
to basically leave you alone, to watch the characters, the story,
the themes.

One more scene is worth a description. Oskar
free and easy, alone with Eli. Happy to have found a girl of
his own, and more, a girl who knows exactly who he is and still
wants him. He hopes to do what romantic teenagers do—each of
them will cut their fingers, then press them together.

Of course this fantasy is doomed. Eli’s
craving is impossible to miss once Oskar cuts his finger.
She tells him to get away from her—now.

Like a junkie, she attacks the first stranger she
sees; a woman with a husband walking just behind her. An
unlucky choice.

Not a feel-good romantic movie. Love carries a
heavy price. Eli and Oskar are barely past their childhoods,
and faced with a daily struggle to survive. You see
crystal-clear how hard the road is. What gives this movie
its power, its resonance, is just how badly you want them to make
it.

June 12, 2025

Category: Vampires

HORRROR OF DRACULA

THE BRIDES OF DRACULA

THE NIGHT STALKER

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN