Bavarian Scream

Was trying to get into the mood for Halloween. Saw this vampire movie in the video store, "Mark of the Vampire" with Bela Lugosi, and directed by Horror legend Tod Browning.

I said to Tony "Hey, whaddya know, a vampire movie I've never seen before. How did that happen?"

So we got the movie.

I think now I understand why I never saw it before. It's so bad, I don't think they even would have shown it on "Creature Feature" on Channel 44 when I was a kid.

I mean, the plot is so full of holes, you get the idea they just kind of were making it up as they went along. Plus, they play pretty fast and loose with the basic vampire conventions. For one thing, you have to chop off the vampires' heads to kill them, which is silly.

You have to drive a wooden stake through the vampire's heart. Everybody knows that. You chop his head off, he just duct tapes it back on and kicks your ass.

And there's a possum. Seriously. Some kind of an undead vampire zombie possum. And the movie is set in the Bavarian Alps or someplace. It's hard to tell. It's one of those movies where every character has a different accent, French, German, Russian. It reminded me of the deli I used to go to in Chicago.

But anyway, the possum. Since when do vampires take the form of a possum? Especially in the Bavarian Alps! Possums are from South America for Heaven's sake!

Besides, are possums even that scary? What are they going to do? Break into your house in the middle of the night and pretend to be dead?

Kurt "big daddy" True
29 october 2005