Some things never go out of style, and Dracula is one of them. Bram Stoker’s novel helped to fully define the vampire in the cultural consciousness. Almost 130 years since its publication, it remains hugely popular, with the new horror comedy Renfield giving the one and only Nicolas Cage a chance to don the cape.
The vampiric character is the most adapted in film and television history aside from Sherlock Holmes, so we have a full century of bloodsucking variety to revel in. There are the classics, of course, from Bela Lugosi to Gary Oldman in Francis Ford Coppola’s famous interpretation. But then there are the adaptations that make us wonder what the director was going through when they made it. You can do basically anything with vampires and it’ll make sense, but these Dracula revamps seriously test that.
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
Imagine if every Marvel...
The vampiric character is the most adapted in film and television history aside from Sherlock Holmes, so we have a full century of bloodsucking variety to revel in. There are the classics, of course, from Bela Lugosi to Gary Oldman in Francis Ford Coppola’s famous interpretation. But then there are the adaptations that make us wonder what the director was going through when they made it. You can do basically anything with vampires and it’ll make sense, but these Dracula revamps seriously test that.
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
Imagine if every Marvel...
- 4/16/2023
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
Writer Jim Morton — who currently runs a wonderful blog about East German film — penned a hilarious hybrid of a movie in his landmark title on trash cinema, Incredibly Strange Films. William Beaudine's Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter is comprised of low-budget monster movie and Western elements and was a late-career entry from the prolific director who started working for D.W. Griffith in 1909. Website Neatorama recently featured the film, and we had to share its awesome awfulness with you. Morton writes of the production: "Beaudine hit his stride during the early days of Hollywood when studios were less devoted to big-budget productions and were more interested in getting as many films as possible out to the American public...
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- 7/23/2012
- by Alison Nastasi
- Movies.com
Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford contend with goo-dripping aliens in Jon Favreau's sadly humourless sci-fi western
In all the advertising for Jon Favreau's blockbuster Cowboys & Aliens, the latter element of the provocative title is presented in larger type, thus suggesting the current ascendancy of one genre over the other. Among the dozen or so listed producers are a pair of directors – Steven Spielberg, who has been behind a string of sci-fi movies, and Ron Howard, who has made two ambitious westerns, one rather good, the other a distinct failure.
Based (not surprisingly) on a graphic novel, the picture stars Daniel Craig, a stranger both to the west and to sci-fi, and Harrison Ford, who made his name in the Star Wars movies but came a cropper with his only big-screen western. They play a couple of gun-toting hardmen in post-civil war New Mexico territory, the stamping ground of...
In all the advertising for Jon Favreau's blockbuster Cowboys & Aliens, the latter element of the provocative title is presented in larger type, thus suggesting the current ascendancy of one genre over the other. Among the dozen or so listed producers are a pair of directors – Steven Spielberg, who has been behind a string of sci-fi movies, and Ron Howard, who has made two ambitious westerns, one rather good, the other a distinct failure.
Based (not surprisingly) on a graphic novel, the picture stars Daniel Craig, a stranger both to the west and to sci-fi, and Harrison Ford, who made his name in the Star Wars movies but came a cropper with his only big-screen western. They play a couple of gun-toting hardmen in post-civil war New Mexico territory, the stamping ground of...
- 8/20/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
With Cowboys & Aliens due out soon, Terence looks at the history of the sci-fi western, and picks out a few of the best and worst…
Please note: there a few spoilers in this article, but not major ones.
The upcoming Cowboys & Aliens from Iron Man director, Jon Favreau, and starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford, may seem like another one of those Hollywood blockbuster ‘high concept' movies (even if it is based on a successful graphic novel). However, the hybrid genre of the sci-fi western is nothing new. In the history of cinema, the six gun and the ray gun have shared the silver screen surprisingly often.
The sci-fi western, like any other film genre, has seen its share of the good, the bad and the ugly. While it's too early to tell whether Cowboys & Aliens will be keeping company with Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef or Eli Wallach, it's...
Please note: there a few spoilers in this article, but not major ones.
The upcoming Cowboys & Aliens from Iron Man director, Jon Favreau, and starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford, may seem like another one of those Hollywood blockbuster ‘high concept' movies (even if it is based on a successful graphic novel). However, the hybrid genre of the sci-fi western is nothing new. In the history of cinema, the six gun and the ray gun have shared the silver screen surprisingly often.
The sci-fi western, like any other film genre, has seen its share of the good, the bad and the ugly. While it's too early to tell whether Cowboys & Aliens will be keeping company with Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef or Eli Wallach, it's...
- 7/26/2011
- Den of Geek
Filed under: Movie News
'Cowboys & Aliens' has to be one of the better movie titles to come down the pike in quite a while, hearkening back to a past era of genre exploitation ('Earth vs. the Flying Saucers') and mixed-genre mashups ('Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter' and 'Billy the Kid vs. Dracula').
But titles alone don't make the movie. That's up to the directors and stars, something 'Cowboy's & Aliens' has in spades: There's hip director Jon Favreau and an all-star cast including Olivia Wilde, Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, Sam Rockwell, Paul Dano, Walton Goggins, Keith Carradine and Adam Beach.
The film -- about aliens invading the Earth in 1873, with only ragtag cowboys and Apaches standing in their way -- has been getting a lot of buzz, to say the least and, now that its release date of July 29 is fast-approaching, DreamWorks/Universal has released a new trailer.
'Cowboys & Aliens' has to be one of the better movie titles to come down the pike in quite a while, hearkening back to a past era of genre exploitation ('Earth vs. the Flying Saucers') and mixed-genre mashups ('Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter' and 'Billy the Kid vs. Dracula').
But titles alone don't make the movie. That's up to the directors and stars, something 'Cowboy's & Aliens' has in spades: There's hip director Jon Favreau and an all-star cast including Olivia Wilde, Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, Sam Rockwell, Paul Dano, Walton Goggins, Keith Carradine and Adam Beach.
The film -- about aliens invading the Earth in 1873, with only ragtag cowboys and Apaches standing in their way -- has been getting a lot of buzz, to say the least and, now that its release date of July 29 is fast-approaching, DreamWorks/Universal has released a new trailer.
- 4/14/2011
- by Harley W. Lond
- Moviefone
The resuscitation of the classic western genre seems to occur whenever it's fused with another genre, producing dissonant hybrids, intriguing for their anachronistic elements. These hybrids seem to negate the threat mumbled through clenched teeth that, "There's just not room enough for both of us in this here town." Whereas with Cowboys & Aliens Jon Favreau has pursued the "science fiction western"--following on the outlaw trail of such steampunk narratives as Wild Wild West (1999), Back to the Future III (1990) and the ridiculous but oddly entertaining The Valley of Gwangi (1969)--the category of the "weird west" is even richer in representation, ranging from Billy the Kid vs. Dracula and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter (both released in 1966), through Ravenous (1999), The Burrowers...
- 4/4/2011
- Screen Anarchy
Get your chaps and spurs on. The Western genre is riding back into Tinseltown, but perhaps not as you know it.
The Wild West has been popular on the silver screen since 1903's silent film The Great Train Robbery, with John Wayne, Charles Bronson and Clint Eastwood making their name in the genre.
More fantastical tales in an Old West setting have included 1977's The Shadow of Chikara (you can read all about that here), Wild Wild West (1999) and Westworld (1973).
Westworld starred James Brolin (who is, of course, married to Barbra Streisand) whose son Josh Brolin stepped into the genre for this year's Jonah Hex, based on the DC Comics title about a disfigured gunslinger.
It was a critical and commercial dud but, undeterred, Hollywood is hoping for better luck adapting Western-themed comic books with Cowboys & Aliens - released next July and starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford as cowboys...
The Wild West has been popular on the silver screen since 1903's silent film The Great Train Robbery, with John Wayne, Charles Bronson and Clint Eastwood making their name in the genre.
More fantastical tales in an Old West setting have included 1977's The Shadow of Chikara (you can read all about that here), Wild Wild West (1999) and Westworld (1973).
Westworld starred James Brolin (who is, of course, married to Barbra Streisand) whose son Josh Brolin stepped into the genre for this year's Jonah Hex, based on the DC Comics title about a disfigured gunslinger.
It was a critical and commercial dud but, undeterred, Hollywood is hoping for better luck adapting Western-themed comic books with Cowboys & Aliens - released next July and starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford as cowboys...
- 11/7/2010
- by David Bentley
- The Geek Files
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