Whatcha watchin right now?

[Kolchak]

It is almost 2am and I am sharpening the broadheads for arrows, and this weeks deer hunt. So I decided to put Bela in the player and am watching Dracula. If a vampire decides to attack I am ready. My arrows are sharp and I'm eating some pizza that I sprinkled with garlic.

[Murfreesboro]

Husband and I watched Shaun of the Dead a couple of days ago. I don't think he had ever seen it all the way through before.

Oh, as for those Legacy Collections--we now own three of them, Dracula, Creature of the Black Lagoon, and The Mummy. We are still looking for Frankenstein, Wolfman, and the Invisible Man. We have enjoyed these collections because they bring together several vintage movies, including Abbott & Costello, if they made one for that subject. I had never really paid attention to the 1930s horror movies, and I find I am enjoying those more than I expected to do.

I did a little on-line research about both Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. I was quite surprised to learn that Boris Karloff was a stage name (I've forgotten his real name, but it was very English, as he was very English). He came from a family of diplomats going back several generations, English people who had worked mainly in India, I think. His grandmother's sister was Anna Leonowens. If anyone here is a fan of her story, as I am, that was a huge discovery for me. Anna Leonowens was the English widow of a British Army officer who became the governess to the children of the King of Siam. Her 19th-century memoirs were combined by a 20th-century American writer into the book Anna and the King of Siam, which became the basis for the movie of that name and for the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical, The King and I. She was Boris Karloff's great-aunt.

Something else about The Mummy that made me think a little. That movie was written by the same guy who did the screenplay for Dracula, and the sets are mostly Dracula sets that have been tweaked. So film historians associate the two movies/stories. Now, in The Mummy, the Mummy character is buried alive because of his forbidden love for an Egyptian priestess, and when he is revived, he becomes obsessed with reviving her, too, and discovers that she has been reincarnated as a modern woman. I am thinking that this story line may have suggested the Dark Shadows story line of Barnabas Collins' obession with Josette, his lost love from another century. I always felt the writers of Dark Shadows were incredibly inventive with that story line, and they certainly were inventive in their characterization of Barnabas, as the first tormented vampire, the first vampire who was disgusted by his own nature. However, the romantic story line may have come from The Mummy. Just a thought.

ETA: Oh, I had missed your post, Kolchak. I hope you are safe from vampires on your hunt!

[NeverMore]

Did you guys watch the Spanish version of Dracula? I read that it was filmed using the same sets as Dracula (1931), but was filmed at night while the English version was filmed during the day. Some people consider it the superior of the two.

[Andybev01]

You can find the original Spanish version on a couple of the dvd releases.

Just don't watch the original English release with Spanish subtitles...it's just not the same.

[NeverMore]

I just found out a couple of my favorite horror shorts is going to become a web series. I know I've posted the shorts before, here they are combined into the pilot episode. I'm so looking forward to this.

[Murfreesboro]

Did you guys watch the Spanish version of Dracula? I read that it was filmed using the same sets as Dracula (1931), but was filmed at night while the English version was filmed during the day. Some people consider it the superior of the two.

Not yet. It is included on one of the DVDs, though. The film historians pretty much agreed that the Spanish version is better because the director was better, but they all thought Bela Lugosi's performance is better than that of the guy who played Dracula in Spanish.

[Kolchak]

Did you guys watch the Spanish version of Dracula? I read that it was filmed using the same sets as Dracula (1931), but was filmed at night while the English version was filmed during the day. Some people consider it the superior of the two.

My Dracula DVD has the Spanish version, the regular Dracula with Bela, and the regular Dracula that has a musical accompaniment that is not in the original. I speak Spanish and my wife and I have seen the Spanish version several times, and it looks to me as though the Spanish version had more money to spend. The sets looked better and the film quality imho looked better. But they're both great works. You can turn down the volume and read the subtitles of the Spanish version and it is kind of like watching the Max Schreck, Nosferatu!

[Murfreesboro]

Interesting!

[Kolchak]

Watching the Creature from the Black Lagoon tonight and eating the Halloween Burger King Whopper. Its pretty good. If they have it at your BK give it a try.

[Boogeyman]

Apparently both of the 1931 versions of Dracula will be re-released in theaters later this month.

http://www.fathomevents.com/event/dracu ... le-feature

[Andybev01]

25 years ago this came and went, quietly.

[Murfreesboro]

The Dracula thing looks interesting!

[Kolchak]

25 years ago this came and went, quietly.

The wife and I have fights over this movie. I liked it. It was silly and stupid. Just pure escapism. Of course the reason I like it is the reason she hates it.

She also hates Killer Klowns from Outer Space. She has a phobia about clowns. I paid eighty bucks for a killer Klown mask one year and she threw it away. No sense of humor.

[Murfreesboro]

It's funny how many people are clown-phobic.

Now me, I don't like monkeys. I am not afraid of them, but something about them disgusts me. My husband tries to tell me that the reason people are afraid of clowns is the same reason I don't like monkeys, that both of them are grotesques, distortions of what people should look like. Maybe, but clowns don't bother me.

[witchy]

I was watching season 5 of The Walking Dead, Wow, that's all I'm going to say!!!