Editorials
Monster Kid Theater: John Carpenter’s ‘Christine’
Monster Kid Theater is an ongoing column in which my three sons and I (just call me Fred MacMurray) get together to watch classic and contemporary monster movies. My trio of tots are young. Jack is 10. Elliot is 8. Ben is 6. I have not really pushed a cinematic agenda on them. They have just liked hanging out with me, I guess. And as I watch plenty of movies and make movies and move in those circles, it just goes to follow that they will follow.
Many of the movies I watch are naturally a bit odd by “normal” (whatever that means) parent standards, but I have ensured that when we do sit down to watch movies and when we go to the cinema, that I try to spin everything into education. I break down shots, discuss film history, talk about special effects, acting, metaphor and allegory and the use of music. Some of it they get, some they will eventually get. Some they just ignore, in fact.
But they are my joy. We are a team.
Over the past few years on this column’s previous home at ComingSoon.net, I have written about the lads watching everything from the original The Fly and its black and white sequel, a triple bill of Aliens, The Thing and War of the Worlds, Kong Skull Island and Alex Kurtzman’s recent The Mummy. Recently we watched a slightly censored version of Fright Night and Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. But this week, I want to discuss a recent screening of John Carpenter’s 1983 Stephen King adaptation Christine, a seemingly overly intense choice for a trio of tots, but – with a few choice on-the-fly edits – a film whose aesthetics, music and simplified narrative and character arcs proved magnetic and likely will serve as a definitive entertainment that they will take with them.
Now, I have been preaching the glories of John Carpenter to them since they were old enough to care. Not screening the films (though Jack has seen Escape from New York) but playing Carpenter’s elemental yet revolutionary synth soundtrack music. They can recognize every key theme and I have been forced to relate basic plot details to them about all the movies. But more than that, I have spoken about Carpenter’s influences and artistry, how all his music is built on simple time signatures and progressions and is employed chiefly to create a brooding blanket of mood. And when it came to driving – where most of these lessons take place, in the car – Christine was an obvious favorite. Ben especially thrilled to the idea of a sentient, haunted car marauding around as a kind of bully-hunting avenging angel. He has long loved the poster image of the bright red Plymouth Fury bathed in that signature ’80s blue backlight and 2 years ago, even re-named his Lightning McQueen toy Christine, taking a marker to other dinky cars to make them as red as the mythical monster car that existed in a film he was not allowed to watch. And Jack? Well, Hell. He’s a musician, violin is his thing, but he learned how to play that pulsing theme note-for-note on my synth.
Which brings us to now.
The three lads invited Jack’s friend Seth over for a sleepover and they demanded a film for the evening’s “movie club”. They wanted something cool and creepy and it was decided that they were ready for Christine. I agreed. In fact, I had just returned from the Frightmare in the Falls convention in Niagara Falls, where I hosted the Q&A with actor Malcolm Danare (who played chubby lackey Moochie) and we both agreed that really, Christine is not a particularly violent movie. It’s not mean or gratuitous and the only blood comes on-screen from poor glass-sliced Arnie (Keith Gordon) at the film’s metal-crunching climax. Sure, there are a few victims that get taken down by Christine, but hey, they’re bullies. Bad guys. Like, really, really bad. So they get their just desserts. EC comics style. And since the kids adore EC comics, I figured we were A-OK.
So huddled together with popcorn and lava lamps pulsing around us, we settled in to groove on a movie that couldn’t possibly live up to the hype their old man had ladled liberally on them for most of their young lives.
Now, again, these kids not only know every note of the score, they know the songs that Carpenter infused into the very DNA of the movie, from George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone” to Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” to The Viscount’s snarling version of the sax-fueled “Harlem Nocturne”. So really, to them, Christine played like one long, slick and stylish rock video, a highlight reel of badass music propelled by sound and anchored by an almost fairy-tale-like, easily accessable morality.
Now, the BIG problem with Christine is that endless wave of profanity that spews from the mouths of its characters, in particular the vile Buddy Repperton (William Ostrander) whose use of foul language is the punctuation to his aggressive, cruel and psychotic behavior. Thankfully, I know every beat of the movie and every line of dialogue. So I sat there, ever-alert, muting and muting and muting every off-color syllable. It was exhausting. But really, the problem with doing that (outside of arthritic digits) is that the kids already know these words anyway. And when you remove them, they imagine even WORSE words and it becomes larger than what it is. It’s censorship 101: deny an audience something, make it “dangerous” and they think it’s worse than it is and they only want it more. But as I knew no other way around it, I continued to cut them bad swears out until it felt like we were watching a clumsily cut ’80s TV broadcast.
Regardless, the kids loved the movie. They found it exciting and interesting. But they weren’t emotionally affected by it. Elliot mentioned that he really didn’t care about anyone in the movie…except for the car. He’s kind of right. Though Christine boasts a first-rate cast, it’s a one-dimensional, comic book version of King through and through. That devilish Fury is both the hero and the horror of the story and when “she” is crushed, it’s actually sad, with Christine valiantly trying to reshape her truck-smooshed body to no avail. It’s a monster truck rally as high opera. Beautiful.
Christine is not a scary movie either, and when film was over, it was over. The kids had no talking points. They weren’t spooked or shaken. Our special guest sleepover kid concurred that “it’s not a horror movie at all…but it sure is awesome!”.
The next morning they all got up and asked to hear the soundtrack while they milled around and ate breakfast and played pinball (I collect vintage tables so the lads live in a mini-retro arcade). Jack asked when we could watch more Stephen King movies so before we dropped the other kid home, I popped up Stand by Me. And holy Hell, did my thumb get a workout pummeling the mute button on that one…sheesh.
Monster Kid Theater will return…
The problem with filming sequels back-to-back is that, unless you can afford expensive reshoots, there’s no easy way to adjust course in between movies if fans react badly to where the story is headed. That’s why it’s important to have a complete narrative thought out well in advance lest you accidentally kill a budding franchise.
However, this isn’t always the case. Every once in a while, it seems like the cinema gods smile upon certain chaotic productions and gift moviegoers with complete franchises that feel like more than the sum of their hastily produced parts. Ted Nicolaou’s Bloodlust: Subspecies III is precisely one of these miraculous pictures, with the raw talents of the artists involved (as well as the continued support from Romania) turning the feature into an effective conclusion for a series that kind of made things up as the filmmakers went along.
That’s why I’d like to invite my fellow readers to join me on this third part of our journey through the Subspecies franchise as we look into Bloodlust and talk about how it remains a surprisingly satisfying finale to the original trilogy.
A Trilogy Planned on the Fly
Released only a year after Bloodstone found plenty of success in rental stores and mail-in VHS catalogues worldwide, 1994’s Bloodlust was produced at the same time as its predecessor in (mostly) the same locations and with the same team. This means that the movie benefited from all the same upgrades as Bloodstone, with the crew now being more experienced with the ins and outs of surviving a low-budget Romanian production and the cast really settling into their characters.
At this point, everything from location scouting to the makeup process had been streamlined, with Wayne Toth and Norman Cabrera, the main duo behind special effects, even switching out time-consuming prosthetics for latex gloves in order to speed up Anders Hove’s monstrous transformation. The titular “subspecies” demons were also once again relegated to a mere cameo appearance due to the laborious puppetry required to bring them to life.
The only real hiccup came from the fact that actress Denice Duff had replaced the first film’s Michelle (Laura Mae Tate) and was immediately expected to portray the character as both an innocent victim in part II and as a secondary villain in part III. According to behind-the-scenes interviews, the hectic production schedule that blended two different movies meant that Duff would often find herself having to alternate between two incredibly different versions of Michelle during the same shooting day – though it’s obvious that she’s having more fun with Bloodlust’s more traditionally vampiric version of her character.
In the finished film, we pick things up immediately where the previous entry left off as Rebecca (Melanie Shatner) is forced to leave her vampire sister Michelle (Duff) behind in the dungeons of Castle Vladislav due to the rising sun. This allows Mummy (Pamela Gordon) to use Michelle’s blood to revive the vicious Radu (Hove) so that he may continue his quest for the coveted Bloodstone – a magical artifact that perpetually drips the Blood of Saints.
Meanwhile, the dreamy US embassy agent Mel (Kevin Blair) agrees to help Rebecca plan a rescue mission, though they’re unaware that Radu has become infatuated with Michelle during his attempts to guide her growing bloodlust. This all culminates in a climactic confrontation meant to tie up all of the series’ loose ends in one of Full Moon Pictures’ most ambitious productions.
The Evolution of Radu
Like its predecessor, Bloodlust: Subspecies III was also warmly received by fans who argued that the series was an even bigger success than Full Moon’s other major horror franchise, Puppet Master. This praise wasn’t unanimous, however, as 1994 had seen the rise of a more modern breed of sexy vampire popularized by Anne Rice, with old-school Nosferatu like Radu being viewed as obsolete when compared to the likes of Lestat and Gary Oldman’s take on Dracula.
In a way, one might argue that Nicolaou’s film is something of a swan song for the classic vampire story, as Bloodlust combines all of the traditional elements we tend to associate with these tales into a single tragic yarn that ties a neat little bow on Radu’s story as well as the old-fashioned monster movies that he represents. The finale remains shocking despite the fact that this is the third time we see Radu get brutally killed onscreen, with the brief tease that he may one day return feeling more like a nod towards the nature of evil rather than sequel bait.
The film dabbles a bit in gothic romance and even explores the inherent power fantasy behind transforming into an immortal creature of the night, but the filmmakers never lose sight of Radu as a demonic force even when he’s willing to betray his beloved Mummy for Michelle’s sake. In fact, his twisted “love” for his fledgling makes him even creepier as we get the feeling that his passion comes from a dark and disturbing place.
Anders Hove is at his absolute best in this film, with the effects department boosting his moments of what the younger generation would call “aura farming” whenever Radu emerges from shadows like a 90s version of Count Orlok. There are even a couple of surprisingly effective jump-scares here, which is why I’d argue that Bloodlust cements Radu as one of the most memorable cinematic vampires of all time despite his humble origins.
Subspecies Saves Its Best For Last
Nicolaou and Vlad Panescu also saved the best for “last” (more on that in a bit) regarding the film’s visuals, with the cinematography and overall atmosphere of Bloodlust absolutely surpassing what we saw in the previous films. Everything feels appropriately climactic this time around (including the wonderful soundtrack that was co-composed alongside an authentic Romanian orchestra), and I appreciate how this is the fastest-paced entry in the trilogy since the film doesn’t need to waste time setting anything up.
Bloodlust still suffers from some of the same low-budget blemishes as its predecessors, but there’s so much creative passion here that no amount of wonky effects work or stilted dialogue can get in the way of appreciating the flick’s gothic grandeur. That’s why it’s not surprising that the movie’s definitive(-ish) ending would later be retconned as fans begged for more Radu.
Of course, the next entry in this series would be a different kind of vampiric endeavor altogether, with the filmmakers attempting to engage with the same trends that ultimately killed Radu and his antiquated kin. That, however, is a story for another time. For now, I’ll merely insist that Bloodlust: Subspecies III remains a highlight of Full Moon’s expansive catalogue and is definitely worth seeking out today.
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