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Historical Tales | News | Vampires | Zombies | Werewolves Virtual Academy | Weapons | Links | Forum Dr. Pecos |
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| From the very beginnings of cinema, vampires and zombies have proved fertile ground for filmmakers. Unfortunately, most of these filmmakers have chosen to take liberties with the truth for dramatic purposes. On these pages, Dr. Pecos offers reviews and articles to help counter the misinformation that exists in today's popular culture.
Werewolves in the Movies. | |
 The following films have been reviewed by Dr. Hugo Pecos for accuracy and entertainment value. Each film is rated on the Fang Scale, with four ) being the highest score. | |
| (2010)Twilight Eclipse D: David Slade This latest installment in the successful series has a vampire army arriving in Forks on a vengeful quest. Cinematically speaking, there are two main problems with this movie: it's about 30 minutes too long, and the drama of the big climactic showdown is dampened by the fact that the vampire army is made up of barely post-pubescent kids---hardly the most intimidating adversary. While vampire armies have popped up throughout history, in today's world it would be difficult to build such a force. Besides, a pack of four can hunt more efficiently while remaining difficult to detect.
By now, you know my chief objections to the Twilight series. Vampires cannot go out in the sun, much less sparkle in it, and they do not maintain their youthful appearance over time. Werewolves do not "shape shift," or move back and forth between human and animal form, and they certainly wouldn't ever join forces with vampires. A werewolf will tear up pretty much anything that comes into its path. In addition, werewolves don't look like jumbo-sized wolves--more like a wolf/human hybrid. Suffice it to say, you shouldn't go to the Twilight series for educational purposes. |
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Dracula (1931) D: Tod Browning Along with Bram Stoker's novel, this film did more to shape the vampire myth than any other work. Because of it, we've had to endure an endless succession of Eastern European men with capes and widows peaks. A great film, but it has about as much to do with vampires as King Kong has to do with monkeys. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
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The Wolf Man (1941) D: Curt Siodmak Another seminal monster movie from Universal that defined perceptions of werewolves for decades to come. Lon Chaney Jr. stars as a man bitten by a werewolf who ends up transforming by the light of a full moon. The special effects are particularly quaint and stilted; the actual transformation is an agonizing process. Overall, an atmospheric, over-the-top work that flies by rather quickly. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
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Dawn of the Dead (1978) D: George Romero Sequel to Night of the Living Dead nicely captures the zombie pathology in a gruesomely entertaining fashion. Film correctly has zombies returning to the shopping mall based on dim memories of their pre-zombie life. The film's major flaw lies in making the zombies more formidable than they really are. Historically, a zombie's minimal brain activity and lack of mobility ensured that outbreaks were much more limited than the one shown in the film. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
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American Werewolf in London (1981) D: John Landis In this strong dramatic work from a director known for comedy, two Americans are attacked by a werewolf while walking on the moors in the UK. While the movie's special effects are a vast improvement over previous efforts, the notion of a man turning into a werewolf and then back into a man is scientifically preposterous. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
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Thriller (1983) D: Jon Landis The greatest music video ever. With zombies and a werewolf, how could it not be? Then again, it wouldn't have killed them to throw in a vampire or two. Michael Jackson plays the bashful young man who in the film-within-a-film surprises his date by turning into a werewolf by the light of the moon. The zombies are great and quite realistic (aside from the dancing) and the werewolf face makeup is pretty accurate. The body, not so much. Also, for comedic value, you can't do much better than Michael Jackson saying, "I'm not like other guys." Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
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Near Dark (1987) D: Kathryn Bigelow The first film to accurately portray vampire pack mentality, with its Alpha Vampire, hunt-or-die mentality. On the down side, Near Dark propagates the myth of vampires bursting into flames when exposed to sunlight. Interestingly, the transfusion cure used successfully in this film was first tried in London in 1851. It failed miserably. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
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The Lost Boys (1987) D: Joel Schumacher This unfortunate glorification of vampirism is aimed squarely at younger audiences and shows the life of a vampire to be one lived without consequences. The vampires sleep all day, party all night, and ruthlessly dispatch their enemies: what teenager wouldn't want to live like that? Many of my students cite this film as proof that being a vampire isn't half bad. That's when I show them the real footage. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: 0 fangs |
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Vampires (1990) D: Ken Burns If you see one movie about vampires, let it be this documentary first shown on PBS. Because of its running time (8 hours), many people assume this opus will be boring. They couldn't be more wrong. By sticking with the facts, director Ken Burns brings life to vampires in a way that is far more chilling than movies that rely on special effects and blood capsules. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) D: Fran Rubel Kuzui The only thing funny about this comedy is its notion of a vapid teenage valley girl being inherently endowed with vampire-fighting skills. As a former instructor at the FVZA Academy, I know that it takes intensive training in vampire science and martial arts, along with years of experience in the field, before one can master the art of fighting vampires. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: 0 fangs |
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Interview With the Vampire (1994) D: Neil Jordan Based on a fine, if fanciful Anne Rice novel, Interview tells the story of Louis and his indoctrination into the ways of vampirism by the handsome Lestat. Initially unable to kill humans, Louis slakes his thirst for blood on rats. It's true that vampires can live several weeks on the blood of non-human mammals, although such a diet does not supply all the nutrients essential for their survival. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
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Wolf (1994) D: Mike Nichols In this high profile production, a book editor is bitten by a wolflike creature and begins to change. His sense of smell and hearing are heightened, and he takes to marking his territory and growling at his workplace rival. These changes are accurately portrayed, but then the movie falls back on the old chestnut of a man becoming a wolf at night and then awakening the next morning with no recollection of the previous night's carnage. It's enjoyable to watch Jack Nicholson face down James Spader, but the transformation effects are something of a step backward and the film plays loose with the facts. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
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John Carpenter's Vampires (1998) D: John Carpenter I had hopes for this one when James Woods' vampire hunter offered his deconstructionist view of vampires: "they don't turn into bats, garlic doesn't bother them." But in the end, the trail leads to yet another long-haired, handsome man with a bevy of beauties at his disposal and a very confusing axe to grind. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
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Ginger Snaps (2000) D: John Fawcett This Canadian film is noteworthy for a couple of reasons: one, it involves a female character transformed into a werewolf, and two, it correctly shows the transformation to a werewolf as a gradual process. The early views of the werewolf effectively rely on shadow, sound and suggestion. Alas, the eventual sight of the plastic-looking werewolf betrays the movie's low budget origins. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
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Dracula 2000 (2000) D: Patrick Lussier The title of this film gave me hope that at last we'd see a realistic updating of the Dracula myth. Alas, it is not to be. While Dracula 2000 generally covers well-trodden ground and adds little to the canon, it does offer a novel, Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
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The Forsaken (2001) D: J.S. Cardone This film continues the general trend in recent movies of demystifying vampires by stripping away some of the old totems, like garlic and wooden stakes. However, it relies on yet another preposterous creation myth to explain why vampires are "evil," forgetting that traditional notions of morality are irrelevant when applied to vampires. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
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Queen of the Damned (2002) D: Michael Rymer This sequel to Interview finds Lestat singing for a rock and roll band until Queen Akasha, the mother of all vampires, awakens and decides she wants him for herself. Like its predecessor, Queen takes vampire facts and stretches them to the breaking point and beyond. While the vampire/rock-and-roll connection is apt (see the famous case, Magic Wanda), there is no mother or father of all vampires. All in all, a pretty forgettable movie. Entertainment Value: 1/2Educational Value: |
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28 Days Later (2003) D: Danny Boyle A man wakes from a coma to find London overrun by zombies of the early-stage variety. The zombie makeup is fairly realistic, but real zombies are nowhere near as swift as the zombies in this movie (although real zombies are quicker than one might expect, especially in the early stages of decomposition). Overall, an entertaining film, but it's more about human behavior than it is about zombies. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
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Underworld (2003) D: Len Wiseman Uh-oh: black leather; gothic streetscapes; an attractive young woman with a healthy complexion and pearly white teeth. In other words, what we've got here is another glorification of vampirism. At least Underworld gets credit for throwing some CGI werewolves into the mix. Of course, werewolves are rural creatures and would never venture into a city, much less engage in a generations-long battle with vampires. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: 0 |
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Shaun of the Dead (2004) D: Edgar Wright For those of you who think I lack a sense of humor, please note that I enjoyed this British comedy very much. Like its near-namesake, Dawn of the Dead, Shaun draws parallels between the daily grind of human life and the thoughtless shamblings of zombies. However, Shaun of the Dead should not to be used as a zombie-fighting training video. Zombies, especially the early-stage ones shown in the film, are deceptively swift and agile and, trust me, you will not be able to take them out with one swing of a cricket bat. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
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Underworld: Evolution (2006) D: Len Wiseman By now you know how I feel about the whole gothic romanticism of sexy, black-leather-clad vampires. In this sequel, we learn more about the origin of the vampire-werewolf feud. Taken as a treatise on the undead, Underworld: Evolution fails on many levels. For instance, I have never seen a vampire sprout wings. Additionally, vampires have no hidden rivalry with werewolves; they simply don't travel in the same circles. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
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Blood and Chocolate (2007) D: Katja von Garnier When did Romeo and Juliet become the template for all werewolf movies? In this recent offering, a young woman who happens to be a werewolf falls for a civilian, earning the ire of her clan. Other than the fact that it's directed by a woman, this film contains plenty of the old chestnuts: long-haired Euro hunks, ancient, crumbling crypts, yellow contact lenses. Humans transform instantly into werewolves and then back into humans, and the merest whiff of silver kills werewolves instantly. Listen up, movie producers. If you're going to do a werewolf movie nowadays, give us something different! Please! Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
| 30 Days of Night (2007) D: David Slade Vampires move in on a remote village in Alaska as it enters the long polar night. A similar event actually happened in Barrow, Alaska, in 1925. As for the movie, the vampires are not the worst I've seen, although they follow the recent tradition of having a mouthful of fangs rather than just pointed canines. Several people have told me that the comic book is better, so perhaps you should start there. Or, for a better people-trapped-in-a-snowy-village movie, try John Carpenter's The Thing. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
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Moonlight (TV series-2007) This new TV series tracks the exploits of Mick St. John, a Los Angeles private detective who just happens to be a vampire. For starters, this man looks nothing like a vampire. Even newly minted vampires have visible differences from humans in their skin tone, eyes and face. And vampires cannot hold real jobs, like private detective. Although, to be fair, some vampires did "go over to the good side" and help the FVZA during my time as an agent. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
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Planet Terror (Grindhouse) (2007) D: Robert Rodriguez This Austin-set Robert Rodriguez film is one of the better zombie offerings in recent years. The cast is great and the action moves along at a nice clip. The zombies in this movie are not viral but the result of some military experiment. Their heads tend to bubble up until they resemble victims of elephantitis. Planet Terror gets points for having the outbreak start in a hospital and for capturing the panic and confusion that ensues in the wake of an outbreak. Of course, there are a few authenticity issues here. For one, Wray's penchant for killing zombies with knives wouldn't translate into real life. Knives are fairly ineffective against zombies and greatly increase your chance of getting infected fluids in your eyes, nose and mouth. Shotguns and high-powered rifles are the preferred anti-zombie weapons. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
| Twilight (2008) D: Catherine Hardwicke I realize I may incur the wrath of a thousand tweener girls for this, but Twilight is laughably inaccurate. I mean, vampires attending high school and walking about in the daylight? What's next, bloodsuckers sunning on a beach in St. Barts? And another thing: as I've mentioned on this site before, vampires do not retain their appearance over time. If the vampire Edward Cullen was as old as he was alleged to be in the movie, he would be slight, bald and withered. His head would sport nary a single flowing lock, unless it came from the Hair Club for Men. I can understand the appeal of this story to girls, but I think it perpetuates a dangerous practice by making vampires the objects of desire. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
| The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009) D: Chris Weitz Hundred-year old vampires that look like healthy teenagers; young men who instantly transform from human to werewolf, and then back again; vampires walking around in daylight. It may take me the rest of the limited time I have left here on this earth to counter all the misinformation served up by the Twilight series. The new movie has the main character Bella taking up with the werewolf Jacob after Edward, her vampire lover, moves away to protect her from the rest of the Cullen clan. I must admit, I did find some poignancy in Edward's plight. Vampires often have to make difficult choices over whether to turn a loved one or leave them be. But the movie's conception of werewolves is way off. All in all, Twilight inhabits a fantasy universe that propagates dangerous ideas about the undead. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
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Zombieland (2009) D: Ruben Fleischer Like 2004's Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland takes a fairly lighthearted approach to the genre. The story involves a hardy band of outbreak survivors led by a skilled zombie killer who just wants to find some Hostess Twinkies. Of course, the moveimakers take some liberties with the truth. The zombies are uniformly fast-moving and show little of the decay that real zombies experience. The outbreak apparently is triggered by the consumption of infected beef, much like Mad Cow disease. At the beginning of the movie, the narrator lists a series of survival tips and repeats them throughout. My personal favorite is the "Double Tap" rule, which is the practice of delivering an extra shot to the head of a zombie to make sure it's dead. That, my friends, is sound advice. Just take pains to make sure you don't get any viscera or fluids in your nose and mouth from the zombie's exploding head. Entertainment Value: Educational Value: |
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