It's almost a month since I updated this blog, in spite of the best intentions to get back into a habit of doing it regularly on a Monday I haven't. For lots of good reasons though aside from just laziness - I've been busy with WI stuff, been gothing about in that Whitby (though to be fair I goth about most of the time, not just in Whitby) and I try and go to the gym on a Monday night and if I haven't written a post before I go then the chances of me doing it when I get back are minimal as all I want then is to change out of my (black) gym kit and then have something to eat whilst watching The Big Bang Theory and then fall asleep.
Last night I had a chum round for dinner and I made kedgeree and then we watched the restored edition of Hammers version of Dracula on blu-ray. It's shonky in places - some of the dialogue clunks, staked vampires still breathe and I'm still not quite sure why a servants daughter would be so close to the mistresses family but other than that it is a wonderful film. I am ever so slightly in love with Peter Cushing (for slightly read madly) and he is magnificent as Dr Van Helsing. Authoritative and charming - I'd want him on my side if ever I was involved in a fight to the death with the undead. Christopher Lee is good too though I prefer him as the Creature in the Curse of Frankenstein. But then I always feel sorry for the Creature - he's not made evil, he just becomes that way because his creator rejects him. There is a wonderful pathos to Lee's performance as the Creature though it doesn't quite reach the same heights (or should that be depth?) as Karloff's - there is something truly magical about that. Cushing is marvellous as the obsessed Frankenstein though - the near wink he gives when he knows he is going to get up to no good with his housekeeper is a wonderful moment. As is the look he gives when he locks her in with the Creature - ooh I might just have to watch it again this evening.
I'm not quite sure when I fell in love with horror films as such though I had long been a fan of Scooby Doo and Misty Comic - though I can remember when I fell in love with Peter Cushing. It was on a camping holiday in Wales and we had a portable b+w tv (the kind you tune in by a dial - the kind I still have in the kitchen) and we watched The Creeping Flesh. It was a wonderful load of campy old nonsense and he was magnificent in it and I was hooked from then on. I spent many a misspent hour in my youth watching unsuitable and age inappropriate films on VHS with my Dad which he 'got from a mate at work' and I don't mind the odd slasher type horror movie - Halloween and Friday the 13th are my favourites in that category and I'm rather fond of zombie dismemberment too - Night of the Living Dead and Dead Snow are my two favourite zombie films.
But really I like my horror to be oldey worldy, creepy, atmospheric and ideally in b+w or gentle old technicolour as opposed to full on in your face modern torture porn things like Saw. I love the Universal films of the 30's and 40's - I even love Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and the wonderful creepy films made by RKO like I Walked With A Zombie and Cat People too though I will always have a soft spot for the original My Bloody Valentine. Though Night Of The Demon, all of the Corman Poe films and the original The Haunting are also some of my all time faves. I'd be very hard pushed to say what all my all time favourite horror film is, though on balance I'd probably say Bride of Frankenstein. There is something really magical about it - might have to rewatch that soon too.
What are your favourite horror films/moments?
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