No matter what seems to happen in life, I always find myself returning to my monster roots. Thanks to our favorite Chicago Horror host Svengoolie, my handy dandy DVR and the internet. I find it pretty easy to keep track of whats going on in the classic monster genre.
My DVR is always set up to capture Sven’s show every saturday night and over this last weekend, I was excited to hear that Sven was running the original 1931 version of Tod Brownings “Dracula”
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Tod Browning…. either doing a semi-face-palm over the unauthorized alteration of his monster classic… or he simply has a migraine head ache..
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I was also very surprised to find out that Sven was featuring a version of Dracula that had been altered with a new and more complete background music scheme. Per Svengoolies website which said; this time out- we will be showing the version featuring the musical soundtrack created by Philip Glass and The Kronos Quartet. Glass was commissioned by Universal to create the score to provide a new dimension to the film, which, aside from the opening “Swan Lake” theme and opera house scene, was devoid of any musical accompaniment.
We do ask that you let us know what you think of the musical soundtrack version- we wanted to try it, since so many people have NOT seen it, but we do know some people have definite and opposing opinions of it. Personally, I think that some of the added sound effects might be a bit overbearing, but- as I said- let me know what you think!
I found this to be so interesting, I grabbed a nice glass of Chianti wine, some fava beans… No liver though… I hate liver. Found my way to the couch and gave the movie a good viewing.
In great challenge to my personal chagrin, (after all, I am a purist at heart). I found the update to very intriguing. It was much less troubling than I anticipated. The new music seemed enhance the roles of both of the main protagonists in the movie, Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi) and Mr. Renfield (Dwight Frye).
Whereas Dwight Frye’s character Renfield was all but forgotten by Hollywood history, the internet has made Dwight a cult classic horror figure and he has quite the following online. I was pleased to see that Dwight’s performance was bolstered by the background music. I enjoyed his performance more as the intense music filled his screen presence as he portrayed the threatening minion under the spell of the vampire Dracula.
SOCIAL MEDIA RESPONSE; So I took to social media to see what the response was from the monster fans. I wasn’t really surprised to find a lot of detractors online who hated the change to the movie. I totally get what they were thinking.. I too am a purist.
Imagine taking the Creature from The Black Lagoon and overlaying a new music sound track..monster fans heads would explode.
Monsters After Midnight 