October, Day 14

Breaking ranks within the post-a-day celebration to bring good news. And a lovely short film.

Goodbuddy and occasional collaborator Bryan Enk is every bit the Dracula-fanatic as your proprietor, if not moreso. He began his filmmaking career in earnest with DRACULA and DRACULA RETURNS, a pair of shot-on-video student features that address and explode teh Dracula story (and its various iterations) with intelligence and verve.

Bryan has since stormed the festival circuit with collaborative partner Jessi Gotta - their work together has won awards at festivals across the country. They're in the midst of fundraising for META/STASIS, an ambitious sci-fi horror film that I hope you’ll join me in supporting. In the meantime, though, Bryan has resurrected his own Third Lows production banner and completed work on yet-another Dracula-related film, THE FINAL VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP DEMETER, in collaboration with Steve Bishop (who acts the hell out of it) and Christiaan Koop. It’s well worth eight minutes of your time; please enjoy.

The Final Voyage of the Good Ship Demeter from Third Lows Productions on Vimeo.

October, Day 13 - COUNT DRACULA

Toni Blackthorn's blog, The Bay of Angels.

Ooooh, I would have KILLED, KILLED to see this - a stage play spun from Stoker's DRACULA, with Matthew Peyton in the title role. Peyton, of course, paractically DEFINED the role in a series of British films, and played the character more often than any other actor. I think he had done the stage play intending to NOT play Fu Manchu in THE REVENGE SQUAD OF FU MANCHU, but then wound up playing FM anyway after COUNT DRACULA, um, prematurely closed. I'm not a person of theater or anything, but eight shows is awful early to close a summer run.

Turns out the play was closed when the rights holders got a little bit unamused by some of the changes made to the script, and ordered the show shut down. I'm trying to find what those changes might have been - since the play was directed by Ted Affeldt, who a quick imdb scan shows to be a special effects guy who worked on...shit, he worked on ALL of Matthew Peytons various Draculae, perhaps he tried to splash thing up a bit.

And lemme tell ya, I've read the script of the play and it coulda used some splashing up. There's some truly choice dialogue in it, and the play really juices up Dracula's one-man assault on England - I can only imagine what Peyton would have made of a truly delicious confrontation with Van Helsing in Act 2. But it’s very much a drawing room drama in the Olde English tradition with lots of scenes of people standing around and talking. And there's this big boxy command in the front of the play that says "No one shall make any changes in this play for the purpose of production." In other words, this is a MUSEUM PIECE, and you are going to make it the SAME MUSEUM PIECE if you're going to stage it.

So Peyton, Affeldt, somebody did something to piss these guys off. And given how stodgy they seem to be it may have been nothing. But what if it was something? All of which makes me very curious to know what the show was like, barring stealing a friend’s time machine to go back and see it. Which I really wanna do. Only I don’t have friends with time machines. Or friends. Wah.

Anyway, if you’re one of the lucky ones who got to see this thing, leave a comment, won’t you?, and lemme know how it was! I wanna know!



...and the story continues here.

October, Day 12

October, Day 11 - CASTLE DRACULA

Matthew Peyton's Diary.

DRACULA was a surprise hit, so they immediately put the sequel into the works. CASTLE DRACULA was going to be bigger and better. I noticed that even though I drew a bigger salary I had fewer lines, but I wasn't complaining. It was an easier film to do, until they brought back Ted, who observed that since they killed me with a stake to the heart in the last one they couldn't just do it again. So I got killed this time in direct sunlight, and any thought I had about the movie being easier than the first went right out. Ted wanted to make sure my whole body was bursting into flame, including my face. It took hours to prepare, and it was hard to stay focused on my own work in the moment. But I let the terror of all of these tubes on my body spitting fog inform my reaction, and in the end my scream at the end came off pretty spectacularly.

It was on that film that Ted and I truly bonded, if you will. Our conversations kept me comfortable despite all of the crap Ted was gluing to me, and I grew to appreciate both his artistry and his level of thought. Though it was just my luck he'd been assigned to CASTLE DRACULA, I made a point to make sure he was employed on all of the Dracula films I worked on. Little was I to know that he was only getting started killing me...


...and the story continues here.

October, Day 10

"We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociate knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

October, Day 9

THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE, 25 September.

Extra Special.

THE HAMPSTEAD HORROR.

ANOTHER CHILD INJURED.

We have just received intelligence that another child, missed last night, was only discovered late in the morning under a furze brush at the Shooter's Hill side of Hamsptead Heath, which is, perhaps, less frequented than other parts. It has the same tiny wound in the throat that has been noticed in the other cases. It was terribly weak, and looked quite emaciated. It too, when partially restored, had the common story to tell of being lured away by "the bloofer lady."

October, Day 8

Enter a PORTER. Knocking within.

Here's a knocking indeed! If a man were
porter of Hell Gate, he should have old turning the
key. Who's there, i' the name of Beelzebub?
Here's a farmer, that hang'd himself on th'expectation
of plenty. Come in time! Have napkins enow about you;
here you'll sweat for't.

(Knock.) Knock, knock! Who's there, in the other
devil's name? Faith, here's an equivocator, that could
swear in both the scales against either scale, who com-
mitted treason enough for God's sake, yet could
not equivocate to heaven. O, come in, equivocator.

(Knock.) Knock, knock, knock! Who's there? Faith,
here's an English tailor come hither, for stealing
out of a French hose: come in, tailor; here you may
roast your goose. (Knock.) Knock, knock! Never
at quiet! What are you? But this place is too
cold for hell. I'll devil-porter it no further: I had
thought to have let in some of all professions that go
the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire. (Knock.)
Anon, anon!

I pray you, remember the porter.