My Top 20 Vampire List.

So, the other day someone posted a link on twitter to Entertainment Weekly's Top 20 Vampire list, which caused a stir amongst fellow horror fans. Other blogs like www.ilovehorror.net and thevaultofhorror.blogspot.com/ both came up with their own list in response. So here is my attempt at making a list, hopefully with less suckage than EW's list.

First of all here is EW's list.

1. Lestat, Interview With the Vampire
2. Christopher Lee’s Dracula
3. Bela Lugosi’s Dracula
4. Edward Cullen, Twilight
5. Bill and Eric, True Blood
6. Asa Vajda, 1960’s Black Sunday
7. Angel
8. Mr. Barlow, Salem’s Lot
9. Schuyler Van Alen, Melissa de la Cruz’s Blue Bloods series
10. Gary Oldman’s Dracula
11. Klaus Kinski’s Dracula
12. Zoey Redbird, P.C. and Kristin Cast’s House of Night series
13. Jean-Claude, Laurel K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series
14. David, 1987’s The Lost Boys
15. Miriam Blaylock and Sarah Roberts, 1983’s The Hunger
16. Blade, the Blade trilogy
17. Eli, 2008’s Let the Right One In
18. Countess Bathory, 1971’s Daughters of Darkness
19. Selene, the Underworld trilogy
20. Caleb and Mae, 1987’s Near Dark

Now for my list.

1. Count Graf Orlock (Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens 1922)
2. Gary Oldman's Dracula (Bram Stoker's Dracula 1992)
3. Selene (Underworld 2003, Underworld: Evolution 2006)
4. Christopher Lee's Dracula (Various movies)
5. Severen (Near Dark 1987)
6. Jerry Dandrige (Fright Night 1985)
7. Eli (Let the Right One In 2008)
8. Klaus Kinski's Dracula (Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht 1979)
9. Duncan Regehr's Dracula (The Monster Squad 1987)
10. Bela Lugosi's Dracula
11. Mr. Barlow (Salem's Lot)
12. Marius de Romanus (The Vampire Chronicles)
13. David (The Lost Boys 1987)
14. Lestat de Lioncourt (The Vampire Chronicles)
15. Amilyn (Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1992)
16. Space Girl (Lifeforce 1985)
17. Monica Bellucci's Dracula's Bride (Bram Stoker's Dracula 1992)
18. Leslie Nielsen's Dracula (Dracula: Dead and Loving It 1995)
19. Santanico Pandemonium (From Dusk Till Dawn 1996)
20. Solina (Dracula 2000 2000)

Yeah there are some interesting choices on here like Selene being number 3, but since I'm pretty much in love with Kate Beckinsale anything she does ranks pretty high with me. You'll also notice some other pretty hot women on the list like number 16, 17, 19 and 20 mainly because...well I really shouldn't have to explain that.

DEEP STAR SIX (1989)

It’s really no secret that I love Horror movies. I enjoy a lot of different movies and genres and the like, well with the exception of modern American horror movies but that is a rant for another day. Most the people that know me know that I particularly enjoy the Giallo, Slasher and Zombie genres. But there is another genre of horror that has a place in my heart and that is the Monster or Creature sub-genre, however the hell you want to label it. From the long line of Kaiju films featuring the likes of Godzilla and Rodan to Mothra and Gamera. I don’t know what it is but watching men in big rubber monster suits stomping around on miniature sets is so damn fun and entertaining. Then there are those crazy “nature runs amok” films featuring a wide variety of insects and animals, from spider movies like KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS to ant movies like PHASE IV to movies about rampaging reptiles like ALLIGATOR. I’m sure you’ll read about some of these films in future columns.

There’s also a sub sub-genre, if you will, of films that feature sea creatures or underwater terror and that is where this particular movie that I’m about to talk about comes from. I’ve mainly chosen to write about DEEP STAR SIX because I just recently bought the DVD and I’ve finally been able to go back and revisit this favorite of mine when I was younger. Sometime around 1991 my parents had borrowed a tape from my step-aunt that had a couple of movies on it. I can’t recall what movie was on it that made them borrow it, but some time later I fast forward through the tape to see what all was on it and came upon this crazy monster flick and I was instantly hooked.

I guess I could tell you what this movie is about. A crew of scientist and Navy personnel are sent down to the bottom of the ocean to install some missile silo’s. Of course they are near the end of their mission and the dude in charge of installing the silo’s, Dr. John Van Gelder, starts rushing things cause he doesn’t want to miss his quota and lose his funding. So when he is told that there is a cave or something underneath where he wants to place a silo at he just tells the people to blow it up and get working. The cave is a lot bigger than they thought and when they blow it up it pretty much destroys the whole sea bed where they are wanting to work. After they lose a probe that was sent down into the depression, two members of the crew go down in their sub-like vehicle to retrieve it who are then quickly taken care of. As you might have guessed the cave was the home of some deep sea monster and now that it’s home is destroyed it is on a rampage and won’t stop till all the pesky human home wreckers are taken care of.

You won’t believe who directed this little gem, I know I had no idea who directed it until I got the DVD and noticed that none other than Sean S. Cunningham of FRIDAY THE 13TH fame. There are no big stars in this, but there might be a couple of names you might know like Nia Peeples and Miguel Ferrer. The person I always remember in this movie is Greg Evigan. Now I’m sure everybody is wondering who in the hell is Greg Evigan? Well, if you grew up in late 80’s you might remember a TV show called MY TWO DADS which starred Greg Evigan, Paul Reiser, who coincidentally enough went on to play in a monster flick himself, ALIENS and Staci Keanan from STEP BY STEP fame. Unfortunately ol’ Greg hasn’t done much in the world of horror since, although I did notice him on some Sci-Fi Channel movie awhile back but without his trademark beard he’s hard to recognize. Good ol’ Miguel Ferrer plays a total asshole in this, which he sure does do a lot in movies. It’s nice to see him get what he deserves later in the film.

As with most monster flicks this isn’t the greatest movie but it is highly enjoyable. There are some nice kills and some decent gore. The one that I remember the most involves this air gun like thing that looks like a spear and when you jab it into something it inflates that object. Needless to say someone got a little careless and instead of jabbing the monster he jabs a fellow crew member and well bad things happen obviously. What I really like about this movie is the monster itself. We don’t get to see it a whole lot but when we do it looks fucking awesome. Know what else makes it so awesome? Well since this was the days before CGI it’s an actual practical monster! It’s nice seeing this mechanical, animatronic monstrosity terrorizing these poor hapless people. Even all the numerous underwater scenes are done with miniatures and things like that, which makes it heads and shoulders above anything done in today’s CGI infested world.

So, if you’re tired of all the CGI dreck that is shown on the Sci-Fi Channel like every weekend and want to check out a real monster movie that uses miniatures and mechanical things as opposed to all the needless shoddy CGI to get their story across then I would suggest looking into this movie. You just might be pleasantly surprised. Oh and Mr. Greg Evigan, if you ever read this, and I certainly hope you do, please…please hook me up with your daughter!! She’s smokin’ HOT!

LEPRECHAUN (1993)

I had a very tough decision on what to write about for this first column. I went back and forth on many different topics and movies, but when I was listening to the FE Talk Radio show for September 9th and I heard these guys bashing this particular movie I thought to myself, I shall write about LEPRECHAUN. Yes folks, LEPRECHAUN! Now, before you bash my opinion of this movie or start sending the hate mail my way let me say that I have no delusions that this is a great film, because it’s not and I know that but I personally enjoy LEPRECHAUN and since most people that I know and pretty much everybody from this site hates it, I thought it would be a great example of what you may find in future columns.

It all started on one hot day in the summer of 1993 when my parents and me would make the journey to the nearest town 15 miles away to the closest place to rent videos, a little mom and pop store called J. R. Video. Remember that name, cause I’m sure this store will come up in many more of these columns. Anyways, when we got there I did what I almost always did and went straight to the back corner of the store where they hid their small Horror collection. By this time I had already seen most of the videos that were placed along the wall, some numerous times. So, as I scanned the titles saying no the various FRIDAY THE 13TH, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and HALLOWEEN movies, all of which I’ve already seen, my eyes came across the box cover to LEPRECHAUN. I picked it up and started reading the description on the back and I was instantly hooked. Sure it may sound a little stupid now, but when I was 14 I thought it was pure err…Gold! I noticed that the Leprechaun was played by Warwick Davis who was the star of one of my favorite movies at that time, WILLOW, so that also had me interested. So I picked it out and just couldn’t wait till we got back home so I could watch this sucker.

Later that night after making the trip back home and messing around a bit I finally decided to put movie into my VCR and give it a watch. And I can honestly say that I loved it! I believe that I love it for many of the reasons that other people hate it. I loved the cheesy acting and dialog from the Lep and that death by pogostick was crazy funny. Of course I have to admit that I was turned on by Jennifer Aniston even before her nose job. And I also enjoyed seeing some actors that I knew from other movies, such as Ken Olandt who I knew from another one of my favorite movies at that time, the 1987 flick SUMMER SCHOOL, which crazy enough also introduced me to a little film known as THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. If you’ve ever seen SUMMER SCHOOL you’ll know what I’m talking about. Mark Holton also had a part in this playing the dimwitted Ozzie, who was, again from another one of my favorite movies at the time, 1985’s PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE where he played the hated Francis. Seems like I had a lot of favorite movies at this time, huh?

Later on I found out a good use for this movie, scarring the girlfriends. I don’t know why but this movie seem to scare the shit out of every girlfriend that I had in the mid to late 90’s. Was the movie really that scary or were the girls really that lame? I’m sure it was probably the latter but I didn’t care I just had fun making them watch this movie and watching them jump or bury their heads when the lame scares happened. Plus it was fun having the girls jump all over me and holding onto me for protection. Hey I was a horny kid growing up, so shuddup! Then in the late 90’s I would marry a girl that was deathly afraid of LEPRECHAUN, I’m not joking either. We sat down to watch it one night and it totally freaked the shit out of her, so much so that she turned it off. Some might say that she just turned it off because she found it fucking stupid and whatever but this was not the case, she was freaked and crying her eyes out. She flat out refused to ever watch LEPRECHAUN again and banned me from watching it while she was in the house! She would even freak out whenever I would do the imitation of Mike Myers in WAYNE’S WORLD when he would try to scare Garth by holding a flashlight under his face and say “I’m a Leprechaun” and would usually end up with me being punched more often than not in the face.

It just goes to show how different people can see the same movie in totally different lights. You may hate the movie and think it’s the stupidest thing ever. I love the movie and find it highly enjoyable in a cheesy kind of way. And my ex-wife is scared shitless by it. Go figure.

NOTE: The site that I mention above is Fight-Evil.com which I also write this column for.