Films watched 2024
Sunday, 19 January 2025 14:49![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
strange_complexA full list of the 102 films which I watched in 2024, mainly with Joel. Includes 24 films with Christopher Lee in them and 21 Hammer films. My most-watched director was Terence Fisher with 5, while Freddie Francis, Mario Bava and Roger Corman are equal second place with 3 each. There's at least one film on the list for every decade since the 1910s, peaking at 21 each for the 1960s and '70s.
1. Le Frisson des Vampires (1971), dir. Jean Rollin - amazing lesbian vampire film executed with the trippy crushed-velvet excess only possible c. 1970.
2. Daughter of Darkness (1990), dir. Stuart Gordon - not to be confused with Daughters of Darkness (1971). An American woman goes to Romania in search of her father, who turns out to be a vampire.
3. Transylvania (2006), dir. Tony Gatlif - a portrait of the region, focused especially on the Romani people there, seen through the eyes of a Romani-Italian girl who goes there in pursuit of a lost boyfriend. Very rich and human.
4. Il mostro dell'opera / The Vampire of the Opera (1964), dir. Renato Polselli - a vampire haunts a neglected old theatre in which an opera troupe are rehearsing a new production. Not particularly good.
5. Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose (2023), dir. Adam Sigal - about this case. Trying to do something about the reasons why people are drawn to belief in the supernatural, including a personal character arc from scepticism to a desperate desire to believe on the part of Fodor, but somehow a bit flat in the delivery and not really that profound in the end. Good to spot location footage in the Victoria pub, Leeds and Whitby harbour, though.
6. The Woman in Black (1989), dir. Herbert Wise - the ITV version, which now has quite the status of a cult classic in vintage horror circles. Very good, and delivering sustained creepy, squirm-inducing scares in a way that modern jump scares can't really match.
7. Blade II (2002), dir. Guillermo del Toro - I didn't think I'd seen this, but it turned out I had. I just knew I'd only seen one Blade film and assumed it had been the first. Good cyber fun, very of its era.
8. Once Upon a Spy (1980), dir. Ivan Nagy - terrible American wannabe James Bond movie with Christopher Lee as a mega-villain threatening the world with a shrink-ray!
9. The Woman in Black (2012), dir. James Watkins - the revived Hammer version, which I saw in the cinema when it came out. Doesn't have the same atmosphere as the 1989 version, and even the jump scares weren't as effective at home as in the cinema. Still, had a good cast and looks nice.
10. Dark Places (1973), dir. Don Sharp - little-known contemporary-set horror film in which a man inherits a house with money hidden somewhere within it, but is haunted by the tragic legacy of the previous owner, with Christopher Lee in a minor role. Pretty solid psychological horror, better than we were expecting.
11. Voodoo Man (1944), dir. William Beaudine - short, cheaply-made horror in which Bela Lugosi lures lone female drivers to his isolated house, and then tries to use voodoo to transfer their life energy into his dead wife. Told its story very efficiently and pacily, but still somehow managed to get repetitive towards the end.
12. Starcrash (1978), dir. Luigi Cozzi - terrible Star Wars rip-off in the Barbarella tradition starring Caroline Munro and a pre-Knight Rider David Hasselhoff. Christopher Plummer had somehow been convinced to play the (good) emperor, periodically doing a 'closing-his-eyes-in-despair' face which was purportedly a response to situations in the film but probably actually him channelling his response to the script.
13. La Moine / The Monk (2011), dir. Dominik Moll - French-language adaptation of the gothic novel by Matthew Lewis. It ditches the arch humour and most of the supernatural aspects of the original, pares one of the two main plot threads down to its barest bones, and then tells the rest pretty much as it is in the novel, but as a serious story of human emotions and Catholic guilt. It sort of works, and does get good value out of the contrast between Catholicism's intense engagement with human suffering and the titular monk's selfish disregard for others. But the one major supernatural element which is retained (the magical myrtle branch) feels a bit incongruous within what's otherwise a typical French serious drama.
14. Embrace of the Vampire (1995), dir. Anne Goursaud - snaffled for me from a charity shop by Siobhan, and deemed 'the sexiest vampire movie ever made' by The Sport. What they mean, of course, is that it features several ladies with large and uncovered bosoms. It's basically absolute rubbish about a vampire trying to win over the reincarnation of his long-lost love in an American college, but it does have a cute nineties vibe to it. The hitherto virginal heroine gets gothed up towards the end to represent her sexual awakening, including smoking clove cigarettes.
15. They Were Not Divided (1950), dir. Terence Young - war film about the relationship between a British and an American soldier in the same unit. Largely feel-good jolly old Brits stuff. Lee is a background soldier whom you have to concentrate hard to spot.
16. The Old Dark House (1963), dir. William Castle - related to the 1932 version in that the titular house is also home to the Femm family, but not otherwise much alike. The cast includes Robert Morley, Joyce Grenfell, Fennella Fielding, but it's neither very funny nor very atmospheric.
17. Funny Man (1994), dir. Simon Sprackling - only watched because it had Christopher Lee in it; awful.
18. Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), dir. Terence Fisher
19. Brides of Dracula (1960), dir. Terence Fisher
20. Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), dir. Freddie Francis
21. Dracula AD 1972 (1972), dir. Alan Gibson
22. The Adventures of Greyfriars Bobby (2005), dir. John Henderson - awful saccharine nonsense, in which Bobby is not just a dog who stays faithfully on his master's grave, but functionally equivalent to Lassie, rescuing orphans from collapsed buildings and poor-houses. Christopher Lee as the Lord Provost is at least one of the good guys of the story, who rescues Bobby from execution as part of a drive to clear the city of stray dogs by paying his licence fee and granting him the freedom of the city, and looks dignified and twinkly-eyed with it.
23. Black Sunday (1960), dir. Mario Bava - double Babs, incredible cinematography.
24. Trottie True (1949), dir. Brian Desmond Hurst - quite sweet comedy about a music hall star in full technicolor, with Christopher Lee being young and awkward in and early role.
25. Rasputin (1966), dir. Don Sharp
26. The Lair of the White Worm (1988), dir. Ken Russell
27. The House of Wax (1953), dir. André De Toth
28. The Raven (1963), dir. Roger Corman
27. Doctor Jekyll (2023), dir. Joe Stephenson - the Eddie Izzard version, which I wanted to like because it had clearly attracted so much partisan criticism from transphobes, but unfortunately just wasn't very good.
28. Tempi Duri Per I Vampiri (1959), dir. Regia di Steno
29. The Hunt for Vlad the Impaler (2018), dir. Osman Kaya - a Turkish take on the story of Vlad, all about how their heroic manly warriors defeated him.
30. Vlad Tepes (1979), dir. Doru Năstase
31. Belly of an Architect (1987), dir. Peter Greenaway - an old favourite of mine which it was time to share with Joel.
32. And Now the Screaming Starts (1973), dir. Roy Ward Baker - finally watched this, but it's rather disappointing.
33. Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001), dir. Christophe Gans - sublime French werewolf story.
34. An Angel for Satan (1966), dir. Camillo Mastrocinque - double Babs!
35. Transylvania Twist (1989), dir. Jim Wynorski - really good fun.
36. Murder Story (1989), dir. Eddie Arno - Christopher Lee rarity from one of the Eurocrypt box sets.
37. The Terror (1963), dir. Roger Corman - originally conceived to make use of left-over sets from The Raven, but turned into a complicated mess; also ended up supplying clips of Karloff in gothic horror mode for Targets (1968). So has an important place in horror history, but as a film it's just dire.
38. Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), dir. Ed Wood
39. Ghostwatch (1992), dir. Lesley Manning
40. Late Night With the Devil (2023), dir. Colin and Cameron Cairnes
41. Frankenstein's Creature (2018), dir. Sam Ashurst - a one-man performance by James Swanton
42. The Wicker Man (1973), dir. Robin Hardy - the director's cut, on the fiftieth anniversary Blu-ray box set.
43. Frankenstein Unbound (1990), dir. Roger Corman - time-travelling sci-fi take on the Frankenstein story
44. Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), dir. Werner Herzog
45. Alias John Preston (1955), dir. David MacDonald - one of Christopher Lee's earliest title roles, which Joel's Dad gave me on a USB stick.
46. Queen of the Damned (2002), dir. Michael Rymer - seen at a Queer Fear screening at Wharf Chambers
47. Frankenstein (1931), dir. James Whale - the beginnings of prep for our DracSoc trip to Castle Frankenstein, Carl Laemmle's home town of Laupheim, Ingolstadt and more in Germany.
48. Young Frankenstein (1974), dir. Mel Brooks
49. Frankenstein (1910), dir. J. Searle Dawley
50. The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) dir. Terence Fisher - started in our hotel room in Ingolstadt, but finished in Munich airport.
51. The Grudge (2004), dir. Takashi Shimizu
52. Kill Baby, Kill! (1966), dir. Mario Bava - gothic horror which makes great use of medieval Italian villages.
53. To The Devil a Daughter (1976), dir. Peter Sykes
54. Gaslight (1940), dir. Thorold Dickinson
55. Jennifer's Body (2009), dir. Karyn Kusama - female-centred horror comedy which reminded me of Ginger Snaps, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Byzantium.
56. Tempi Duri Per I Vampiri (1959), dir. Regia di Steno - yep, it's on the list twice! Joel really liked it.
57. Black Sabbath (1963), dir. Mario Bava - anthology of three stories watched mainly for the one which is a version of The Vourdalak starring Boris Karloff, but the other two were also nicely tense stories of people haunted by different types of fear in their own apartments.
58. Beyond the Rave (2008), dir. Matthias Hoene - produced for Hammer and released on MySpace (really!) in a series of short episodes. One, featuring Ingrid Pitt, was cut from the original release but included on a later DVD.
59. The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973), dir. Alan Gibson
60. Psychomania (1973), dir. Don Sharp
61. The Secret of the Red Orchid (1962), dir. Helmut Ashley - German-made crime drama featuring Christopher Lee as a Scotland Yard inspector with a swinging sixties soundtrack.
62. The Legions of the Nile (1959), dir. Vittorio Cottafavi - forgettable Italian swords and sandals movie which does have Augustus in it.
63. Still Crazy (1998), dir. Brian Gibson - British comedy about a 70s rock group reuniting after 20 years for an anniversary gig, watched because it has a couple of scenes set in Avebury.
63. The Moor (2023), dir. Chris Cronin - OK, but wasted too much time on documentary-style vox-pops with random local people talking about the impact of the child's disappearance when it should have been developing the core group of central characters who end up together on the Moor.
64. The Abominable Snowman (1957), dir. Val Guest
65. Horror Express (1972), dir. Eugenio Martín
66. The Stranglers of Bombay (1959), dir. Terence Fisher - b/w Hammer period adventure, inevitably racist and not that exciting.
67. Captain Clegg (1962), dir. Peter Graham Scott
68. The Snorkel (1958), dir. Guy Green
69. Witchfinder General (1968), dir. Michael Reeves
70. Maniac (1963), dir. Michael Carreras - b/w French-set Hammer thriller about a family torn apart after the daughter is raped and the father revenge-murders the rapist, with about a million different twists that keep you guessing about what's truly going on right up to the end.
71. Carmilla (2019), dir. Emily Harris
72. The Liberator (2013), dir. Alberto Arvelo - biopic of Simón Bolivar, watched because a clip which Joel used in the video for Dented Shield made it look really good, and I was coming across Bolivar repeatedly in the course of writing about Latin America.
73. Viy (1967), dir. Konstantin Yershov - Soviet horror film about a priest performing a vigil over the corpse of a young woman.
74. Escape from New York (1981), dir. John Carpenter
75. Hannie Caulder (1971), dir. Burt Kennedy - dark and rather brutal Western which I watched because it had Christopher Lee in it.
76. Monster Squad (1987), dir. Fred Dekker - the first of five films watched at the Derby Dracula film festival.
77. Blacula (1972), dir. William Crain
78. Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein (1948), dir. Charles Barton
79. Countess Dracula (1971), dir. Peter Sasdy
80. Dracula AD 1972 (1972), dir. Alan Gibson - also on the list twice! It's Our Film.
81. The Vourdalak (2023), dir. Adrien Beau - overall great, with the 18th-century French diplomat as the main character working really well, though we weren't really sure about representing the title character via a puppet
82. Beetlejuice (1988), dir. Tim Burton
83. South of Algiers (1953), dir. Jack Lee - watched mainly for the scene set in the Roman city of Djemila.
84. The Monk (1990), dir. Francisco Lara Polop - English-language adaptation of Lewis' novel, starring Paul McGann.
85. Nadja (1994), dir. Michael Almereyda
86. When We Were Kings (1996), dir. Leon Gast - documentary about Muhammad Ali's fight against George Foreman in Zaire in 1974.
87. Dracula (1958), dir. Terence Fisher - watched as a free Halloween showing on a pull-up screen in the cafe of the Whitby Youth Hostel, just a few dozen yards from Whitby Abbey and St Mary's churchyard.
88. Fanatic (US title Die! Die! My Darling, 1965), dir. Silvio Narizzano - b/w Hammer 'old biddy' thriller starring Tallulah Bankhead, in which she is creepily obsessed with her deceased son (kind of Reverse Psycho) and imprisons the young woman who had been his fiancée but whom she considers to have been unworthy of him.
89. The VVitch (2015), dir. Robert Eggers - watched as prep for Nosferatu
90. Scream of the Demon Lover (1970), dir. José Luis Merino - terrible Spanish-Italian gothic
91. Gladiator II (2024), dir. Ridley Scott
92. One More Time (1970), dir. Jerry Lewis - piss-poor comedy starring Sammy Davis Jr. with a brief cameo scene featuring Christopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing as Frankenstein. It wastes all of them, but watching it did mean that I've now seen all twenty-two of the films in which Lee and Cushing appear together. (Two more in which Lee is uncredited and impossible to identify, or Cushing's scenes were deleted, yet remain!)
93. The Evil of Frankenstein (1964), dir. Freddie Francis - the one with the mute woman and the creature in the ice.
94. Tales from the Crypt (1972), dir. Freddie Francis
95. Scrooge (1970), dir. Ronald Neame - a musical version starring Albert Finney and a staple of Joel's annual Christmas watch-list
96. Red Snow (2021), dir. Sean Nichols Lynch - tongue-in-cheek Christmas vampire movie.
97. Starve Acre (2023), dir. Daniel Kokotajlo
98. Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow (1994), dir. Alan Metter - soul-crushingly bad action comedy, watched because it had Christopher Lee in it.
99. Cash on Demand (1961), dir. Quentin Lawrence - sublime b/w Hammer thriller set at Christmas which has become a staple of our annual festive watch-list.
100. Shadow of the Vampire (2000), dir. Elias Merhige - the first of our New Year's Eve viewing trilogy, obviously i preparation for seeing Eggers' Nosferatu the next day
101. Nosferatu (1922), dir. F.W. Murnau
102. Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), dir. W. Herzog - another on which appears twice! We were watching this at midnight, so technically it's my first film of 2025 as well as my last of 2024! The prow of Count Dracula's ship was just coming into frame on its approach into Wismar harbour as midnight struck.
1. Le Frisson des Vampires (1971), dir. Jean Rollin - amazing lesbian vampire film executed with the trippy crushed-velvet excess only possible c. 1970.
2. Daughter of Darkness (1990), dir. Stuart Gordon - not to be confused with Daughters of Darkness (1971). An American woman goes to Romania in search of her father, who turns out to be a vampire.
3. Transylvania (2006), dir. Tony Gatlif - a portrait of the region, focused especially on the Romani people there, seen through the eyes of a Romani-Italian girl who goes there in pursuit of a lost boyfriend. Very rich and human.
4. Il mostro dell'opera / The Vampire of the Opera (1964), dir. Renato Polselli - a vampire haunts a neglected old theatre in which an opera troupe are rehearsing a new production. Not particularly good.
5. Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose (2023), dir. Adam Sigal - about this case. Trying to do something about the reasons why people are drawn to belief in the supernatural, including a personal character arc from scepticism to a desperate desire to believe on the part of Fodor, but somehow a bit flat in the delivery and not really that profound in the end. Good to spot location footage in the Victoria pub, Leeds and Whitby harbour, though.
6. The Woman in Black (1989), dir. Herbert Wise - the ITV version, which now has quite the status of a cult classic in vintage horror circles. Very good, and delivering sustained creepy, squirm-inducing scares in a way that modern jump scares can't really match.
7. Blade II (2002), dir. Guillermo del Toro - I didn't think I'd seen this, but it turned out I had. I just knew I'd only seen one Blade film and assumed it had been the first. Good cyber fun, very of its era.
8. Once Upon a Spy (1980), dir. Ivan Nagy - terrible American wannabe James Bond movie with Christopher Lee as a mega-villain threatening the world with a shrink-ray!
9. The Woman in Black (2012), dir. James Watkins - the revived Hammer version, which I saw in the cinema when it came out. Doesn't have the same atmosphere as the 1989 version, and even the jump scares weren't as effective at home as in the cinema. Still, had a good cast and looks nice.
10. Dark Places (1973), dir. Don Sharp - little-known contemporary-set horror film in which a man inherits a house with money hidden somewhere within it, but is haunted by the tragic legacy of the previous owner, with Christopher Lee in a minor role. Pretty solid psychological horror, better than we were expecting.
11. Voodoo Man (1944), dir. William Beaudine - short, cheaply-made horror in which Bela Lugosi lures lone female drivers to his isolated house, and then tries to use voodoo to transfer their life energy into his dead wife. Told its story very efficiently and pacily, but still somehow managed to get repetitive towards the end.
12. Starcrash (1978), dir. Luigi Cozzi - terrible Star Wars rip-off in the Barbarella tradition starring Caroline Munro and a pre-Knight Rider David Hasselhoff. Christopher Plummer had somehow been convinced to play the (good) emperor, periodically doing a 'closing-his-eyes-in-despair' face which was purportedly a response to situations in the film but probably actually him channelling his response to the script.
13. La Moine / The Monk (2011), dir. Dominik Moll - French-language adaptation of the gothic novel by Matthew Lewis. It ditches the arch humour and most of the supernatural aspects of the original, pares one of the two main plot threads down to its barest bones, and then tells the rest pretty much as it is in the novel, but as a serious story of human emotions and Catholic guilt. It sort of works, and does get good value out of the contrast between Catholicism's intense engagement with human suffering and the titular monk's selfish disregard for others. But the one major supernatural element which is retained (the magical myrtle branch) feels a bit incongruous within what's otherwise a typical French serious drama.
14. Embrace of the Vampire (1995), dir. Anne Goursaud - snaffled for me from a charity shop by Siobhan, and deemed 'the sexiest vampire movie ever made' by The Sport. What they mean, of course, is that it features several ladies with large and uncovered bosoms. It's basically absolute rubbish about a vampire trying to win over the reincarnation of his long-lost love in an American college, but it does have a cute nineties vibe to it. The hitherto virginal heroine gets gothed up towards the end to represent her sexual awakening, including smoking clove cigarettes.
15. They Were Not Divided (1950), dir. Terence Young - war film about the relationship between a British and an American soldier in the same unit. Largely feel-good jolly old Brits stuff. Lee is a background soldier whom you have to concentrate hard to spot.
16. The Old Dark House (1963), dir. William Castle - related to the 1932 version in that the titular house is also home to the Femm family, but not otherwise much alike. The cast includes Robert Morley, Joyce Grenfell, Fennella Fielding, but it's neither very funny nor very atmospheric.
17. Funny Man (1994), dir. Simon Sprackling - only watched because it had Christopher Lee in it; awful.
18. Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), dir. Terence Fisher
19. Brides of Dracula (1960), dir. Terence Fisher
20. Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), dir. Freddie Francis
21. Dracula AD 1972 (1972), dir. Alan Gibson
22. The Adventures of Greyfriars Bobby (2005), dir. John Henderson - awful saccharine nonsense, in which Bobby is not just a dog who stays faithfully on his master's grave, but functionally equivalent to Lassie, rescuing orphans from collapsed buildings and poor-houses. Christopher Lee as the Lord Provost is at least one of the good guys of the story, who rescues Bobby from execution as part of a drive to clear the city of stray dogs by paying his licence fee and granting him the freedom of the city, and looks dignified and twinkly-eyed with it.
23. Black Sunday (1960), dir. Mario Bava - double Babs, incredible cinematography.
24. Trottie True (1949), dir. Brian Desmond Hurst - quite sweet comedy about a music hall star in full technicolor, with Christopher Lee being young and awkward in and early role.
25. Rasputin (1966), dir. Don Sharp
26. The Lair of the White Worm (1988), dir. Ken Russell
27. The House of Wax (1953), dir. André De Toth
28. The Raven (1963), dir. Roger Corman
27. Doctor Jekyll (2023), dir. Joe Stephenson - the Eddie Izzard version, which I wanted to like because it had clearly attracted so much partisan criticism from transphobes, but unfortunately just wasn't very good.
28. Tempi Duri Per I Vampiri (1959), dir. Regia di Steno
29. The Hunt for Vlad the Impaler (2018), dir. Osman Kaya - a Turkish take on the story of Vlad, all about how their heroic manly warriors defeated him.
30. Vlad Tepes (1979), dir. Doru Năstase
31. Belly of an Architect (1987), dir. Peter Greenaway - an old favourite of mine which it was time to share with Joel.
32. And Now the Screaming Starts (1973), dir. Roy Ward Baker - finally watched this, but it's rather disappointing.
33. Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001), dir. Christophe Gans - sublime French werewolf story.
34. An Angel for Satan (1966), dir. Camillo Mastrocinque - double Babs!
35. Transylvania Twist (1989), dir. Jim Wynorski - really good fun.
36. Murder Story (1989), dir. Eddie Arno - Christopher Lee rarity from one of the Eurocrypt box sets.
37. The Terror (1963), dir. Roger Corman - originally conceived to make use of left-over sets from The Raven, but turned into a complicated mess; also ended up supplying clips of Karloff in gothic horror mode for Targets (1968). So has an important place in horror history, but as a film it's just dire.
38. Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), dir. Ed Wood
39. Ghostwatch (1992), dir. Lesley Manning
40. Late Night With the Devil (2023), dir. Colin and Cameron Cairnes
41. Frankenstein's Creature (2018), dir. Sam Ashurst - a one-man performance by James Swanton
42. The Wicker Man (1973), dir. Robin Hardy - the director's cut, on the fiftieth anniversary Blu-ray box set.
43. Frankenstein Unbound (1990), dir. Roger Corman - time-travelling sci-fi take on the Frankenstein story
44. Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), dir. Werner Herzog
45. Alias John Preston (1955), dir. David MacDonald - one of Christopher Lee's earliest title roles, which Joel's Dad gave me on a USB stick.
46. Queen of the Damned (2002), dir. Michael Rymer - seen at a Queer Fear screening at Wharf Chambers
47. Frankenstein (1931), dir. James Whale - the beginnings of prep for our DracSoc trip to Castle Frankenstein, Carl Laemmle's home town of Laupheim, Ingolstadt and more in Germany.
48. Young Frankenstein (1974), dir. Mel Brooks
49. Frankenstein (1910), dir. J. Searle Dawley
50. The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) dir. Terence Fisher - started in our hotel room in Ingolstadt, but finished in Munich airport.
51. The Grudge (2004), dir. Takashi Shimizu
52. Kill Baby, Kill! (1966), dir. Mario Bava - gothic horror which makes great use of medieval Italian villages.
53. To The Devil a Daughter (1976), dir. Peter Sykes
54. Gaslight (1940), dir. Thorold Dickinson
55. Jennifer's Body (2009), dir. Karyn Kusama - female-centred horror comedy which reminded me of Ginger Snaps, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Byzantium.
56. Tempi Duri Per I Vampiri (1959), dir. Regia di Steno - yep, it's on the list twice! Joel really liked it.
57. Black Sabbath (1963), dir. Mario Bava - anthology of three stories watched mainly for the one which is a version of The Vourdalak starring Boris Karloff, but the other two were also nicely tense stories of people haunted by different types of fear in their own apartments.
58. Beyond the Rave (2008), dir. Matthias Hoene - produced for Hammer and released on MySpace (really!) in a series of short episodes. One, featuring Ingrid Pitt, was cut from the original release but included on a later DVD.
59. The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973), dir. Alan Gibson
60. Psychomania (1973), dir. Don Sharp
61. The Secret of the Red Orchid (1962), dir. Helmut Ashley - German-made crime drama featuring Christopher Lee as a Scotland Yard inspector with a swinging sixties soundtrack.
62. The Legions of the Nile (1959), dir. Vittorio Cottafavi - forgettable Italian swords and sandals movie which does have Augustus in it.
63. Still Crazy (1998), dir. Brian Gibson - British comedy about a 70s rock group reuniting after 20 years for an anniversary gig, watched because it has a couple of scenes set in Avebury.
63. The Moor (2023), dir. Chris Cronin - OK, but wasted too much time on documentary-style vox-pops with random local people talking about the impact of the child's disappearance when it should have been developing the core group of central characters who end up together on the Moor.
64. The Abominable Snowman (1957), dir. Val Guest
65. Horror Express (1972), dir. Eugenio Martín
66. The Stranglers of Bombay (1959), dir. Terence Fisher - b/w Hammer period adventure, inevitably racist and not that exciting.
67. Captain Clegg (1962), dir. Peter Graham Scott
68. The Snorkel (1958), dir. Guy Green
69. Witchfinder General (1968), dir. Michael Reeves
70. Maniac (1963), dir. Michael Carreras - b/w French-set Hammer thriller about a family torn apart after the daughter is raped and the father revenge-murders the rapist, with about a million different twists that keep you guessing about what's truly going on right up to the end.
71. Carmilla (2019), dir. Emily Harris
72. The Liberator (2013), dir. Alberto Arvelo - biopic of Simón Bolivar, watched because a clip which Joel used in the video for Dented Shield made it look really good, and I was coming across Bolivar repeatedly in the course of writing about Latin America.
73. Viy (1967), dir. Konstantin Yershov - Soviet horror film about a priest performing a vigil over the corpse of a young woman.
74. Escape from New York (1981), dir. John Carpenter
75. Hannie Caulder (1971), dir. Burt Kennedy - dark and rather brutal Western which I watched because it had Christopher Lee in it.
76. Monster Squad (1987), dir. Fred Dekker - the first of five films watched at the Derby Dracula film festival.
77. Blacula (1972), dir. William Crain
78. Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein (1948), dir. Charles Barton
79. Countess Dracula (1971), dir. Peter Sasdy
80. Dracula AD 1972 (1972), dir. Alan Gibson - also on the list twice! It's Our Film.
81. The Vourdalak (2023), dir. Adrien Beau - overall great, with the 18th-century French diplomat as the main character working really well, though we weren't really sure about representing the title character via a puppet
82. Beetlejuice (1988), dir. Tim Burton
83. South of Algiers (1953), dir. Jack Lee - watched mainly for the scene set in the Roman city of Djemila.
84. The Monk (1990), dir. Francisco Lara Polop - English-language adaptation of Lewis' novel, starring Paul McGann.
85. Nadja (1994), dir. Michael Almereyda
86. When We Were Kings (1996), dir. Leon Gast - documentary about Muhammad Ali's fight against George Foreman in Zaire in 1974.
87. Dracula (1958), dir. Terence Fisher - watched as a free Halloween showing on a pull-up screen in the cafe of the Whitby Youth Hostel, just a few dozen yards from Whitby Abbey and St Mary's churchyard.
88. Fanatic (US title Die! Die! My Darling, 1965), dir. Silvio Narizzano - b/w Hammer 'old biddy' thriller starring Tallulah Bankhead, in which she is creepily obsessed with her deceased son (kind of Reverse Psycho) and imprisons the young woman who had been his fiancée but whom she considers to have been unworthy of him.
89. The VVitch (2015), dir. Robert Eggers - watched as prep for Nosferatu
90. Scream of the Demon Lover (1970), dir. José Luis Merino - terrible Spanish-Italian gothic
91. Gladiator II (2024), dir. Ridley Scott
92. One More Time (1970), dir. Jerry Lewis - piss-poor comedy starring Sammy Davis Jr. with a brief cameo scene featuring Christopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing as Frankenstein. It wastes all of them, but watching it did mean that I've now seen all twenty-two of the films in which Lee and Cushing appear together. (Two more in which Lee is uncredited and impossible to identify, or Cushing's scenes were deleted, yet remain!)
93. The Evil of Frankenstein (1964), dir. Freddie Francis - the one with the mute woman and the creature in the ice.
94. Tales from the Crypt (1972), dir. Freddie Francis
95. Scrooge (1970), dir. Ronald Neame - a musical version starring Albert Finney and a staple of Joel's annual Christmas watch-list
96. Red Snow (2021), dir. Sean Nichols Lynch - tongue-in-cheek Christmas vampire movie.
97. Starve Acre (2023), dir. Daniel Kokotajlo
98. Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow (1994), dir. Alan Metter - soul-crushingly bad action comedy, watched because it had Christopher Lee in it.
99. Cash on Demand (1961), dir. Quentin Lawrence - sublime b/w Hammer thriller set at Christmas which has become a staple of our annual festive watch-list.
100. Shadow of the Vampire (2000), dir. Elias Merhige - the first of our New Year's Eve viewing trilogy, obviously i preparation for seeing Eggers' Nosferatu the next day
101. Nosferatu (1922), dir. F.W. Murnau
102. Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), dir. W. Herzog - another on which appears twice! We were watching this at midnight, so technically it's my first film of 2025 as well as my last of 2024! The prow of Count Dracula's ship was just coming into frame on its approach into Wismar harbour as midnight struck.
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Date: Thursday, 23 January 2025 21:41 (UTC)As far as I can count, I saw 4 films last year (of which, 3 at the cinema). Braining films is hard, doing two a week is amazing :-)
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Date: Thursday, 23 January 2025 21:42 (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, 23 January 2025 22:26 (UTC)Starve Acre was very good. A similar essential approach to Midsomar, in that it was about traumatised people getting embroiled into a cult. Characterisation, dialogue, landscapes, narrative trajectory all really good, and I like how the story stopped just at the point where they'd have had to come down on one side or other of the question of whether there was 'really' anything supernatural going on, or it was just all in their traumatised minds.
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Date: Friday, 24 January 2025 12:02 (UTC)I really must watch the tv version of a Woman In Black and what did you think of Late Night With The Devil? I really enjoyed that and must get round to watching it again.
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Date: Sunday, 26 January 2025 18:25 (UTC)Late Night with the Devil - I thought it was pretty good, but went a bit OTT and lost its subtlety towards the end.