Classic Horror Movies

In spite of my love of Halloween and weird horrifying monsters (but especially vampires), I've never really been into horror movies, and haven't seen very many of them. I don't generally enjoy stomach turning gore, violence for shock's sake, and that spine chilling sense of anticip-

But at the same time, I recognize that this has created something of a gap in my exposure to things that helped shape the hobby. Akin to not reading things from Appendix N, really. Especially older horror movies from the late 60's and early 70's. So the week of Halloween, while working on various terrain things, I checked out what was available online (Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon), and found a wealth of options.

I started with the Hammer Horror movie Twins of Evil, starring Peter Cushing, with Damien Thomas and the real-life twins and former Playboy Playmates Mary and Madeleine Collinson. Peter Cushing is a puritanical witch hunter who's recently orphaned nieces come to live with him from Venice. One is wild, the other not. The wild one falls for the decadent Count Karnstein, who in his ennui over the banality of the devil worshipers he meets, sells his soul and becomes a vampire, and promptly turns the wild sister into one too. The good sister falls for the local school teacher/boar hunter who happens to know all about hunting vampires. It was delightfully campy, and checking the wiki page on it, I learned that it was the 3rd of the The Karnstein Trilogy. So off to find the first one...

The Vampire Lovers starring Peter Cushing and Ingrid Pitt as the vampire Mircalla Karnstien, who likes hanging out with rich families that have young beautiful daughters. Equally as campy, though it was kind of fun seeing Peter Cushing as a different character from the Twins of Evil...

Lastly I watched The House that Dripped Blood. Not a Hammer Horror, but in the same vein. This one was a series of 4 short vignettes that all take place in the same house, and staring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Nyree Dawn Porter, Denholm Elliott, and Jon Pertwee. In some ways, it kind of reminded me of Four Rooms... I actually liked this one most. I think the short story format worked better, and linking it all together around the one house created a nice framework.

-pation.