MOVIE MOMENTS: BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA (1992)

"What’s your favorite performance by a musician in a horror movie?"

Horror doesn’t get more operatic than Bram Stoker's Dracula. Featuring a powerhouse cast (and a regrettably terrible, studio-imposed Keanu Reeves) screaming for the rafters in over-the-top performances, along with an array of seemingly complex but slyly simplistic in-camera visual effects, Francis Ford Coppola’s take on the legend remains a bonafide classic and the focus of sad tumblrs everywhere. When you’ve got heavy hitters Gary Oldman as the titular foe and Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, foe to his foe, what perfectly eccentric performer could play the small but vital role of Renfield, raving lunatic and Dracula’s human familiar?

Enter Tom Waits.

Either as a musician or an actor, Tom Waits fits exactly into one category: Tom Waits. Between his bourbon-drenched, tobacco-infused gutter throat, and his extremely dry, odd, yet charming and melancholic screen presence, he’s appeared in numerous Coppola productions over the years. His appearance in Bram Stoker's Dracula is brief but, as the bug-crunching, straightjacketed lunatic Renfield, Waits fits right in with the overly dramatic production and has the unenviable task of trying to be even more overly dramatic than everyone else, as demanded by the role. Whether he’s going big and grand, or in the smaller moments he shares with Mina Harker (Winona Ryder) through the bars of his asylum cell, he’s fully committed (pun!) to the character and a total delight to watch.

[Reprinted/excerpted from Daily Grindhouse.]

DRACULA'S GREATEST HITS

In my continuing quest for Halloween playlist material, the process of which begins in July because I’m insane, I discovered this lovely, wonderfully stupid novelty record from 1964. Normally I’m not into the '50s/‘60s Halloween party music scene because it tends to dominate other Halloween playlists and it all sounds like generic surf-rock and The Monster Mash after a while. But man, this thing has won me over -- and entirely because of how dumb it is. The design is delightfully simple: Dracula's a singer and his favorite things to sing about are monsters and being a vampire. Essentially, "Dracula's Greatest Hits" is a compilation of original monstrous creations and top radio hits containing hilariously altered vampire-centric lyrics, both complemented by a Dracula-voiced singer.

While the whole thing is ridiculous, the standouts from this thing are the two song parodies, "I Want to Bite Your Hand" and “Drac the Knife,” both of which the album art goes out of its way to clarify with their original titles...just in case the concept of vampire parody party music is too complicated for you to keep up with.

The whole album is on Youtube (because of course it is—everything is on Youtube), but there are used copies on eBay if this is something you need in your vinyl collection. And if you ever wanted to hear Dracula bellow "COWABUNGAAAA!," you're in luck.

Full tracklist:

1. I Want to Bite Your Hand
2. Drac the Knife
3. King Kong Stomp 
4. Monster Hootenanny
5. Ghoul Days
6. Frankenstein
7. The New Frankenstein & Johnny Song
8. Monster Goose Rhymes
9. Surf Monster
10. Monster Bossa Nova
11. Carry Me Back to Transylvania
12. Little Black Bag

Image borrowed from Zombo's Closet.

CINEMATIC DRACULAS

Hey, they forgot Dracula 2000!

I got ya covered, buddies.

JESUS!

Guess the Jesus in this photo.

 Give up?

Here's a hint:

LEVITY

DESPAIR

"Oh, the terrible struggle that I have had against sleep so often of late; the pain of the sleeplessness, or the pain of the fear of sleep, and with such unknown horror as it has for me! How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams."