Friend @NutshellGulag sets up a discord server for horror movies on Halloween and I try to catch some of them. This usually increases awareness of contemporary movies significantly. This year I watched:
HOUSE OF WAX (1953)
I had to leave partway through to take Tir to the vet so this is a movie about a passionate artist who finds a way to continue his art after being disabled by a tragic accident. Inspiring!
HOUSE OF WAX (2005)
I missed the first part of this because of the above-mentioned Tir at the vet. It seems to be a very confusing movie about torturing young WB/UPN/CW stars. Jared Padalecki is here with unfortunate facial hair and gets a chunk of his face peeled off like an orange.
The literal melting house of wax in the climactic scene would make a very good set piece in a videogame.
The wax figures look much worse than Vincent Price's, so I do not look forward to a youtube video essay dork redeeming this film in a few more years because it's actually a meta-commentary on how the quality of art has fallen in correlation to the development of our technology.
DRACULA (1931)
A Reader's Digest version of the novel, there's a reason Lugosi's Dracula became iconic. When Lugosi isn't on screen, everything slows to a crawl, except for when Dwight Frye's amazing Renfield is there, contorting himself with wide-eyed, fragile madness.
Lugosi was 49 at the time and very striking.
BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA (1992)
Incredibly faithful to the source material except when it wildly isn't. Visually distinct and kind of overwhelming. Very horny. The cowboy is there. Gary Oldman's Dracula when he's being a Victorian gentleman seems likely to have inspired something of the character design of the Count in GANKUTSUOU.
Then it was time for Anime Girls' Night and it had been decided I would experience LOST BOYS (1987).
I do not think the '80s and I are meant to be together, movie-wise.
I liked the dog.
Shirley's boy had more lines than he did in MGSV.
If the movie had been made a decade later the Frog brothers would be school shooters.
Why was there a prop child vampire in a confederate soldier jacket?
I liked the bit with Grandpa putting upsetting taxidermied animals in Younger Brother's room.
I also liked the bit where I decided the vampires were all worshiping an evil carnivorous helicopter god.