Dracula’s Daughter (1936): The Plot: Immediately following the events of Dracula (1931), Dracula’s “daughter”, Countess Marya Zaleska (Gloria Holden), searches in vain for a cure for the vampire’s curse, which lingers even after the Count’s death. Meanwhile, Professor Von Helsing (Edward Van Sloan and yes, it really is Von Helsing in the movie) is arrested…
Picture this, if you will: Octoberween, 2021: the Korean Wave washes over Netflix, introducing millions of Americans to subtitles; a Saudi consortium purchases Newcastle United for £300 million, introducing thousands of Geordies to sportswashing; a returning Second Breakfast writes a multipart series touching upon all of Christopher Lee’s turns as Count Dracula in Hammer films,…
I’m going to be terribly gauche and start by quoting myself (kids, don’t try this at home). Last year, in my review of The Wolf Man (1941), I wrote: In the early to mid 20th century, Universal Pictures produced an iconic run of horror movies, starting with 1931’s Dracula and ending in 1956 with The…
Octoberween X. We’re all feeling very old and learned, looking back on reviews we posted and opinions we had a decade ago and wondering why we had them. As I scroll through the Rooster Illusion backlog and time and memory dreg up ponderous questions about this and that, one in particular confounds me: how, in…
I do not speak Spanish, so… not sure if the title of this post actually means anything. My apologies. Octoberween is a time for monsters, and where there are monsters, there really ought to be monster-fighters. Though I have repeatedly said—and maintain—that Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing is the greater monster-fighter ever put to screen, I’d…
When we last saw our dear Count Dracula, he’d just died the illest death. So sick. Scars of Dracula (1970) gave Count Dracula plenty to do: savage murders, commanding animals, drinking blood, and—most importantly—he overcame that most horrid of existential obstacles: teenagers named Paul. Capping that all off with pretty rad demise, the Count was…
Last week, we began by watching one really good Dracula movie and one pretty good Dracula movie, and we learned that with the absence of Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing, Christopher Lee’s Dracula is unable to die in a particularly dignified fashion. But, he has five more appearance in this franchise, so plenty of opportunity to…
Rooster Illusion 