It’s not right for a child, but for a teenage boy, it’d be everything he’s ever wanted in a film.

I also saw … some movie with Peter Cushing fighting silicon creatures that escaped from a lab on some island.

That’s not actually a Hammer, though there’s a fair amount of talent overlap. It was called Island of Terror and did indeed star Peter Cushing, but it was made by another British B-picture outfit called Planet Studios. Directed by Terence Fisher, who did a lot of Hammers, so it stands to reason it would have that same feel.

I only have this information so readily to hand because my old friend Joe mentioned that same film to me this morning and wanted to know if it was a Hammer. I was sure it wasn’t but looked it up anyway and was surprised to see how many Hammer people had worked on it.

I find it sickening that there would even be a novelisation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Couldn’t they just release a new printing of Stoker’s book? (Maybe with pictures from the movie or something.) Sure, they did make some changes to the story, but they followed it closer than any other film I know of, and it wouldn’t be any more different from the film than some novelisations have been.

Well, really the closest one ever done to Stoker is, for my money, the BBC version with Louis Jourdan and Frank Finlay. I actually read the novel Saberhagen did based on the 1992 movie, and didn’t care for it — but mostly because I didn’t really care for the movie, either. I had hoped he would sneak in bits of his own Drac mythology in there, but it was just a standard workmanlike novelization job. It did strike me as humorous that there was enough difference from the original in a screenplay called Bram Stoker’s Dracula that you could even DO a novelization of that screenplay.

Saberhagen may very well be a good writer, but I find it sickening that there would even be a novelisation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Couldn’t they just release a new printing of Stoker’s book? (Maybe with pictures from the movie or something.) Sure, they did make some changes to the story, but they followed it closer than any other film I know of, and it wouldn’t be any more different from the film than some novelisations have been.

Favorite Hammer flicks? I’m still waaaay behind in watching most of the studio’s landmark works, but the three Quatermass movies can’t be beat. PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES is awfully good as well.

Comfort-food horror movie? Maybe NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD — my 3rd-favorite movie ever, period, behind only REDS & GRAPES OF WRATH. Though I do have a real soft spot for ’50s sf, many — most? — of which often crossed into horror territory. THEM, come on down!

By the way, I’ve never read anything by Saberhagen, so I have to ask, is he responsible for turning Dracula, and vampires in general, into tragic heroes? That’s actually one thing that’s always bothered me about most more modern vampire stories (except in comics to a certain extent).

Absolutely not. I think you have Anne Rice and Lestat to blame for that. Although I suppose you can lay some of it off on Buffy’s Angel, as well.

But what I like about Saberhagen’s Dracula is that he’s the hero, but he’s still, well, Dracula. He occasionally reminisces about how, during his ‘breathing years,’ after a few well-timed public impalings Transylvania was a happy, orderly little place. That kind of thing. If I was going to draw any kind of comparison I’d say he comes off as about the same level of “good guy” as the Sub-Mariner… ill-tempered, hugely powerful, but with a sort of ragged nobility. And always a gentleman to the ladies… even the ones that are inconveniently married to someone else.

Drat! Now I’ll have to go looking for the Saberhagen books. Your columns are a menace to my wallet.

Another great column. Looking forward to next week’s!