Mistah Barlow, He Dead

Last night, as per our biweekly Movie Night over at my brother John’s, as an October/Halloween theme, we watched the 1979 miniseries, Salem’s Lot. This was a kind of a theme continuation of our watching The Shining (1980) last time. I hadn’t seen the Lot in a long time and was pleased to find that it held up surprisingly well. Perhaps not so surprising when you learn it was directed by Tobe Hooper, a name that meant little to me at the time but who is a horror legend. The show now has an added dimension for me, that of nostalgia for a bygone cultural era. I also found the ‘regular’ vampires to be more frightening than Barlow, the head vampire, whose appearance was based on the 1922 Nosferatu. Perhaps because they were more prevalent and personal, while Barlow looked more like a special effect. Old Nosey was not so ubiquitous or well-known at the time.

We had another ‘undead’ film for our second movie, Black Sunday (1960). I’d been seeing stills from it for years, but never had watched it before. It’s original title in Italian was The Mask of the Demon, and it was largely based on a story by Nikolai Gogol. “The film takes place in Moldavia and tells the story of a witch who is put to death by her brother, only to return two centuries later to seek revenge upon his descendants.” – Wikipedia. It, too, was full of period charms – not necessarily the period where the story takes place, but for a certain period of filmmaking. It was alternately lush and stark with good horror effects and scenography.  Dubbed, of course, but after a bit my mind just blipped over the fact. Full of a vampiric vibe, reportedly to appeal to the same viewers who enjoyed Hammer Film’s 1958 Dracula. John tells me that Mom remembered seeing it in the theater back in the day.