News

This Day in Horror History: February 14th

Published

6 years ago

February 14, 2018

Happy Valentine’s Day! This Day in Horror History February 14th, we celebrate a classic film that was billed as a love story for the ages!

Dracula released February 14, 1931

There may be no more iconic image in our genre than that of handsome, charming Bela Lugosi as the immortal Count Dracula in his impeccable evening wear and silk cape in the sprawling ruin of his ancestral home delivering some of those memorable lines in film.

“I never drink…wine.”

“Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.”

They’re burned into our memory, and evoke his presence whenever they are uttered, but it might be surprising for you to learn that bringing the legend to the screen was not an easy task.

There were budget concerns–the country was in the midst of the Great Depression after all–and worries about whether film audiences were ready for a full blown, feature length supernatural horror film. Still, they carried on, putting the full power of the studio behind the project and its director Tod Browning.

Unfortunately, with the studio’s power came the studio’s meddling when it came to paying its stars and the film was altered many times before its release.

Bela Lugosi and Helen Chandler in Dracula 1931

Lugosi, who had played the role of Count Dracula on Broadway for 261 performances in 1927, was not the first choice to play the role on film. Universal initially wanted Lon Chaney, but he died two years before the project came to fruition.

Hungarian-born Lugosi lobbied heavily and perhaps desperately to play the role and was eventually cast, but the studio did its level best to screw him in the bargain. They paid him only $500 a week for the seven-week shoot, an abysmally small sum for a leading actor even during the Depression.

When execs and censors read the script, they sent many memos to Browning about what he could and could not show on screen hiding behind the rules of the Hays Code. They didn’t want the scene where Renfield is attacked by Dracula actually in the film, for instance, because they were afraid that audiences might perceive a gay subtext to the scene, and so they told Browning that Dracula was only to attack women in the film.

Further, when the feature was finished and a final print was sent to the studio heads, Carl Laemmle, Sr. informed Browning that the film was far too creepy and should be re-cut. Unfortunately, doing so created a multitude of continuity errors.

When it came time for the film’s release, once again the studio execs stepped in promoting the film as a supernatural thriller, but also as a love story, playing up the angle of the Count’s desire for Mina Harker and adding the tagline, “The story of the strangest passion the world has ever know!”

The film released on February 12, 1931 in New York City, and nationwide release came two days later on Valentine’s Day to promote that love story angle. It is estimated that it sold 50,000 tickets in the first 48 hours of its release which ultimately led to a $700,000 profit for the film.

It has been 87 years since the film’s release, and it continues to enthrall audiences. Some call it a love story, others a horror classic, but I believe it has stood the test of time because it is inherently both.

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Movies

‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

Published

3 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Timothy Rawles

It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

^{High Desert Hell}

^{The Gemini Project}

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Movies

‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

Published

5 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Timothy Rawles

Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

^{Happy Sad Confused}

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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News

Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

Published

7 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Timothy Rawles

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.