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Victim of The Night

Welcome to a month-long celebration of all things October, the macabre, the wicked, the sinister, the dark, and the darkly funny.
Here we present the mood of the best month in every way we desire, imagery, videos, music, movie-posters, cartoons, shorts, and most of all we watch the movies and present them to you.
We hope we can help everyone get in... the spirit?


We look forward to our first full October here and we hope our presentation adds to all the great Halloween fun that is already afoot here. No doubt some of our movie write-ups will be cross-posted in the Halloween Challenge and, of course, The Horrorcram, but we look forward to being the October Lounge when you just wanna hang out and get evil.


So join us for the month as we immerse ourselves in ghoulish delights and share them with you and please don't hesitate to join in the fun and share things of your own.
Let the celebration begin!
Right this way...




Victim of The Night
There's a very good chance that some of the images I post will have been stolen from some of your past Horrorthons. Apologies in advance.
I'm flattered.
And relieved cause I'm definitely stealing some of your cartoons.



Victim of The Night
I’m finally about to delve into Black Sunday. Also, went to my local movie store and rented Horror of Dracula and Near Dark.
Love me some Black Sunday!






Captain Terror, 1982

If I could go back in time, I'd tell Lil' Cap to lose the monster hands. Overkill, dude. And not movie-accurate at all. How embarrassing. My aunt's brown Buick is also ruining the illusion.
This may or may not have been taken on Halloween. But it was probably Halloween.



Victim of The Night

Here I am kicking off October with Tod Browning (of Dracula and Freaks), Lionel Atwill (of Doctor X, Mystery Of The Wax Museum, The Vampire Bat, Son Of Frankenstein fame), Lionel Barrymore (of so many titles it seemed odd he'd be slumming it in this movie, but hey, I guess people gotta work), and of course, a little (very little) Bela Lugosi.
This is an odd little movie and not really a very good one, but I had it in my head that I really liked it from my last viewing about ten years ago. Less than halfway through I almost quit. It almost felt like if Ed Wood actually had a B-movie budget (albeit a low-B) for one film, he might have made this. I wanted to abort. But I stuck it out and in the end I enjoyed it and I remembered why I enjoyed it the first time.
The story here is that the old nobleman of the region is killed by a vampire on the eve of his daughter Irena's engagement. Irena becomes the ward of the nobleman's friend Baron von Zinden and a year later, as it appears Irena will perhaps finally get married, vampire shenanigans begin anew as attacks begin to mount with the victims drained of blood and two puncture wounds on their necks. Suspicions do not improve when this creepy gal keeps showing up...


And Bela Lugosi is hanging around with some weird, distracting mark on the side of his face. So there's some back-story about an old Count or something who was murdered and returned as a vampire or something, it's a bit vague honestly, but Lugosi is apparently that guy and the creepy gal is his daughter or something. Anyway, everybody's freakin' out.
So the Inspector, Atwill, who doesn't believe any of this vampire talk, sends for a revered professor (Barrymore) to come help sort all this out. But the professor is certain that all the trouble is the work of vampires. And there's definitely some serious cobwebs and other haunted business going on in the old castle.


I mean, honestly, I don't know what the hell was happening here:


But it certainly has a vibe to it.

So, look, I'm gonna be honest, like I said, this is not a good movie, the budget is low, and it's noticeable, they keep using the exact same bat on a string over and over, there's a lot of nonsense, and, even though they have Atwill and Barrymore holding everything down, the movie feels unrehearsed. Like these pro-actors showed up and were handed a script, they memorized their lines off-set real quick, came on and fired out their parts, and hit the bar.
And yet, I still have this weird fondness for this movie. And I think it's just because of how it turns out. When you finally learn what it is the movie is actually doing, it's kind of a fun subversion and you feel like you're kind of on the movie's side now.

So anyway, this is how I started off my Horrorthon, my SEVENTEENTH in a row (starting after Katrina in 2005!) and, while I might have done better to go with the far superior Return Of The Vampire (which I probably will later this month), I can't say I'm sorry I watched this again despite all its shortcomings. It's an adorable little curio of 40s low-budget Horror and I'm ok kicking off the season with that.



Yeah, I've gotta agree with you about Mark of the Vampire. I watch it pretty often though, just because it's such Gothic goodness.

I admit I sometimes just skip to the cool scenes, rather than watch the entire thing.

And this is pretty cool and all---
but makes NO sense once the big reveal happens.



Victim of The Night
It was pretty good!
Glad you liked it!
I think of it as a sort of must-see given that it's kinda Bava's feature debut as a director (first credited film) and it's certainly his most famous early work.
There's a lot to like including some really good special effects.
Barbara Steele is also just such a fun character on her own. Couldn't act a lick, really, but became a sort of icon anyway.



Victim of The Night
Yeah, I've gotta agree with you about Mark of the Vampire. I watch it pretty often though, just because it's such Gothic goodness.

I admit I sometimes just skip to the cool scenes, rather than watch the entire thing.

And this is pretty cool and all---


but makes NO sense once the big reveal happens.
Agreed on all counts.
I always assume there's something late in the film that makes it all make sense but really all this movie requires is the proper amount of hand-waving and an appreciation for what it does kinda succeed at.