I was a little nervous about Crypt of the Living Dead. I haven't been having lots of luck with the 50 Tales of Terror budget set, and the description of the film on the sleeve didn't sound terribly interesting. (It turns out it's not accurate either, but still. It also says it's in color and it is not.) But I dug it. It's pretty much saved by one performance (Frank Brana - more on him later), but outside of that the story is okay and there is an eerie enough atmosphere to make it watchable.
The story: an archeologist studying "paganism, demonism, and the occult" has made his way to a remote island, where he is checking out a tomb said to belong to Hannah, an ancient vampire queen who was buried 700 years ago. He gets down there and is attacked and pushed under her tomb, which the attackers knock down, crushing him to death. His engineer son Chris (Andrew Prine) comes to the island to bury his father, and meets Peter (Mark Damon) - I don't know what his deal is... and Peter's sister Mary (Patty Shepard) - a school teacher and eventual romantic interest for Chris. Incidentally, in the first scene we saw Peter as one of the two evildoers who killed Chris's father... so despite him appearing to be helpful, we know he's up to no good.
Chris is adamant about opening Hannah's tomb so he can get his father's body out and give it a proper burial. However the local villagers are not so sure - they know of the legend of Hannah and what terror it could unleash on the island. Eventually, with the help of Peter's convincing, they acquiesce and help open it up. Chris is skeptical of all of the vampire business, and is shocked when he sees a woman in the tomb - completely in tact and not decomposed at all! But Chris still isn't convinced that the vampire myth is real. He checked and Hannah is still dead, after all.
Once the tomb is opened, Vampire Queen Hannah slowly starts to get her power back - she cannot get out of tomb yet, but *is* able to manifest as a wolf and go cause havoc. Can't all vampires do that? And since no one but Chris can close the tomb (because he's the one who built something to get the huge stone lid off), there is no one that can stop her impending reign of terror. Why one of the villagers don't just drive a stake through her heart, I don't know. Anyways, of course Chris is wrong and Hannah starts wreaking havoc on the island. Will anyone be able to stop Hannah, Queen of the Vampires (actually the alternate title)?
One of the most striking things about this movie is that is rather difficult to see. I can't say for sure if it's the 50 Tales of Terror transfer or not, but a lot of the scenes in Crypt of the Living Dead that take place outside or in the dark are *very* poorly lit. To wit - here are some screen shots from the film:
I think this may be the first time I've ever seen a movie where people are running around with torches, and the scene is actually lit with only those torches. Uh - it's different, I guess. And it doesn't confuse things too much, you can pretty much infer what's going on in these scenes anyways. And even in the light the movie doesn't look all that good. It's sort of generically shot, and the island where the action takes place is kind of a bland, hazy place - the kind of place that is perpetually foggy, I'd imagine. To be fair, it seems like this film was originally in color - but the one I saw was in black and white. I'd be curious to know if these dark scenes look any better in the other version.
The majority of the film is entertaining enough. It seems like most of it is Chris trying to explain to everybody why they are so stupid for believing in the vampire myth... and those people trying to convince him that he's wrong. It's kind of funny, because you are watching this movie pretty much *only* for the vampire action. So even though Chris is seemingly the hero, you are actively rooting against him and know that he is wrong here.
The vampire action isn't anything special. You don't really see Hannah do much of anything until the end - for the majority of the time, she's just another (very) pretty face, laying in a coffin. And when she does get out, it's nighttime - and you've seen how that works out.
But still, it's not without it's charm. You need to have some patience (the opening scene with Chris's father is basically just five minutes of him wandering around in the dark), but there's enough here to to like. Andrew Prine is solid as a leading man who thinks he's really smart but is in over his head (the villagers tell him to "put away the college books!"). He has got this smarminess that is endearing for some reason. (You don't outright dislike him because Peter, the defacto human bad guy, is deceiving him.) Also, there is also a weird caveman type dude running around, causing trouble... he's never really explained. You also get ample 70s style, getting a hefty serving of groovy haircuts and clothes. I can never really get enough of that.
And then there's Frank Brana (playing Abdul), who absolutely steals the show. He's awesome in every scene he's in. He plays a blind man, so he says his lines while just sort of staring off into space. Brana has this style of line delivery where he enunciates words weirdly and kind of sounds like cookie monster if he was a little more calm and collected. Abdul is the main character who talks about how dangerous Hannah is, so he gets all the best lines like "[there's] no telling when she'll find all of the [unintelligible] vampires... and they'll go cavorting around naked, holding black mass, sucking up little babies blood. There's nothing evil they won't try and do." Really, he's worth the price of admission alone.
And he has a dog! We are introduced to Bonnie while Abdul is just chilling, playing his accordion.
Name: Bonnie (even though he says it a thousand times, it's hard to decipher - Abdul has a thick accent)
Breed: Looks to be a golden retriever
Function: To hang out with Abdul the blind sailor, and warn him of impending trouble
Fate: Sadly, killed shortly after she is introduced. Hannah is in her wolf form (or controlling a wolf, who knows) and Bonnie is killed offscreen. Abdul is crushed and gets pissed at Chris.
Overall, Crypt of the Living Dead is a bit on the slow side, but there is enough 70s weirdness to keep it watchable. Plus, Frank Brana is just the man in it - without him? Who knows. But as it is:
I would recommend this film.
No comments:
Post a Comment