Nach Tod...

Now, I'm watching Paul Morrissey's Blood for Dracula. Earlier, I went to the local 16-plex to view George A. Romero's (very enjoyable) Land of the Dead. Certainly beat the fuck out of Zack Snyder's 2004 remake of Dawn (which nonetheless had its moments)... Land seems to have been substantially edited prior to release, but, Hell, it's just great to have a Romero film in American cinemas again. I went to a 10:05 showing; the auditorium was empty, maybe 30 attendees tops. Guess all the dough went to Herbie and Bewitched...



(Udo Kier experiences severe gastrointestinal distress after feeding on "whores" in Paul Morrissey's crackpot socialist anomie fest, Blood for Dracula. When I first saw it 1,500 years ago, it was known as Andy Warhol's Dracula... Another excellent Criterion release, one of the oldest in their catalogue... Its sister film, the superior Flesh for Frankenstein, is unfortunately now out-of-print. Flesh, also directed by Morrissey, was originally released to theatres in 3-D (again, under the Warhol rubrick), and that's how I witnessed it. It has an absolute classic catchphrase: "To create life, you must fuck the gall bladder.")

In the desolate years before punk, these films (along with Death in Venice, The Night Porter, Rolling Thunder, Female Trouble, Desperate Living, etc.) were a godsend. No fucking flared jeans, no hippie shit, just oncoming doom, emaciated Italian women (and good ole Tejas sluts in Thunder), style (and viscera) to spare, and a (slightly bowdlerized) subtext of polymorphous perversion.

Suicide Is Next to Godliness,

TS

Comments

ommyth said…
You'll dig it, Roe. There's gore a-plenty (and the usual Romero heapin' helpin' of food for thought.

Kill Your Neighbors,

TS
leveer said…
The local midnight showing of LOTD on Thursday-Friday night was absolutely packed. I had to sit in the first row all the way off to the side. I liked the acting, where the oeuvre is heading, and Asia Argento, but the story didn't grip me. Exploitative assholes seemed to have been covered in Dawn. And yeah, Romero knew how to use a newfound big budget.

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