Vampire Circus is one of my favorite Hammer Studio films from the 70's. This was often broadcast on the local spook program Creature Feature. It was a great day and great weekend (even though I had church the next day) whenever this film was on. I'd call my brothers and my cousin into the room and we'd sit around my tiny black and white TV and get spooked. Ah, a great mixture of carnival, vampires, Hammer sexiness, the tiger woman (!) and revenge.
I have walked away from this forgetting that it was all about movies and music. From the looks of my calendar I take in 10-12 movies a week but I never get around to writing about them. In the past week I've watched several different kinds of films. Between my Tarot studies, work and writing a new book (and rereading Dune) I forget to maintain this thing.
Last week I watched the orig
inal The Transformers and I'm one of the few of the era that doesn't get teary-eyed nostalgic over this overhyped, extended, noisy toy commercial. It was crappy then (in the 80's) and it's crappy now. In fact, in the wake of so many great animated fil
ms and TV shows, this Transformers resurgence is just blatant catering to unknowing 80's-babies. For some reason the song "You Got the Touch" is used frequently in The Transformers (animated), a song later used to comical effect in PT Anderson's Boogie Nights.
But not all that I've seen has been like this. And even though I put down The Transformers, I did get a few chuckles out it. It was after all, Orson Welles' last film.
In the past week I have taken in Tales from Earthsea (Ghibli studios), Derailed, The Matrix (for the first time in 10 years), Quatermass and the Pit, Dust Devil, Titus and various episodes from season two of Carnivale.
Overall it's been an entertaining absorption. I'm currently undecided which DVD's to purchase from xploitedcinema: the French import of Ms. 45, Vampire Circus or Accion Mutante or Santa Sangre. These are just diversions from the real heat, the mind rotting work that I have cornered myself into. I'd be just a little bit crazy if I wasn't able to escape into film.
1 comment:
i don't remember ever having a local creature feature show when i was younger. maybe i was too busy watching "Studs" on lowest volume (so my parents couldn't hear the sounds of debauchery coming from my bedroom).
the closest thing i remember that would be similiar was USA's "UP All Night" with that annoying little man and the equally annoying blondey. And Tales from the Crypt i guess.
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