Festivity, Revels, and Nocturnal Dalliances
Whatever shortcomings Nobuo Nakagawa’s Lady Vampire may have is not enough to counter its chaotic appeal. It may be less gory than his next film, and big parts of it may make no sense, but it has an enthusiastic willingness to be weird.
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Lam Ching-Ying made a whole slew of vampire comedies. The most interesting aspect of Vampire vs. Vampire is the fact that it pits Lam’s character against a Western style vampire
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Old Hong Kong movies use the presence of a Taoist priest as a license to print crazy, despite the real world practice of Taoism’s emphasis on quiet contemplation and equilibrium with nature.
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The multi-monster nature of Keiko the creature is reflected in the more literal translation of the film’s Japanese title: Ghost House: Bloodsucking Doll. She does have a thirst for blood, but she does not need it to survive.
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I love Santo y Blue Demon contra los Monstruos. And, judging by the way it struggles so mightily to give me so many of those things that make me the happiest — like cheesy monsters, masked wrestlers, low budget gore, and lots of incoherent but frenetic fight scenes — I have to conclude that it loves me, too.
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In 1958, Dracula would return in name but not with the familiar face of cinema’s best-known and most beloved Dracula, Bela Lugosi. Bela would return to the screen several times as a vampire, but never again as Dracula. So Dracula returned in Return of Dracula without Bela, and Bela returned in Return of the Vampire, without Dracula. Granted, Return of
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Released in 1958, Return of Dracula comes many years after the Dracula craze in particular and the Universal monsters in general had been relegated to the past in favor of atomic terrors and science fiction. Long enough, I suppose, that someone was thinking it was time for a revival, or that they were feeling nostalgic about the old films.
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