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Dec. 31st, 2014 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darchildreToday, I watched Son of Dracula for the first time in a while and now I want to talk to people about it.
You guys, this movie is so weird. And I don't mean that in terms of its subject matter - it's a fairly run-of-the-mill vampire story, to be honest - but the whole movie feels like the film makers thought they were making one film while the whole time they were, in fact, making a different one.
I spent most of today thinking about the film and trying to put my finger on what, exactly, felt so odd about it. And I think I finally figured it out. See, horror movies from this era are, as the author of the book I'm currently reading points out, like fairy tales or commedia dell'arte. You know who the characters are and what kinds of things they're likely to do before the story starts and the characters don't deviate from that - a wolf is always a wolf, a witch is always a witch, Jack is always Jack. It's the same with 30's and 40's horror film. Except in Son of Dracula, because there's no role that properly fits Kay Caldwell.
For convenience sake, I'm going to give you a brief plot synopsis of the film (because no one watches this movie). We open on a plantation in Louisiana called Dark Oaks. It's owned by the Caldwell family, which consists of a very elderly gentleman and his two daughters, Kay and Claire. Kay is engaged to Frank, who wants to take her away because he thinks she's getting morbid. Kay is holding a party to celebrate the arrival of a friend she met while traveling in Budapest: Count Alucard. (Yes, okay, I know.)
OnceAlucard - I'm sorry, I can't do that, I'm calling him Dracula - Dracula arrives, elderly Mr Caldwell promptly dies, leaving all his money to Claire and the plantation to Kay. Kay then throws Frank over. He talks to the family doctor, Dr Brewster, who is concerned about Kay and tries to convince Claire that if they can't get Kay to leave Dark Oaks and stop seeing Dracula, Claire should authorize Dr Brewster to have Kay committed. (!) Frank starts following Kay around and sees her meeting up with Dracula and secretly getting married. He confronts them back at Dark Oaks, tries to threaten Dracula out of town and force Kay to get the marriage annulled. Kay and Dracula refuse, Frank pulls a gun and shoots Dracula. But the bullets pass right through him and hit Kay, who crumples to the floor. Frank flees into the night to Dr Brewster's house. He tells the doctor the whole story and Brewster goes up to the plantation. Where he finds Kay sitting up in bed with her new husband. She tells him that she and Dracula will be far too busy to have a social life anymore and he should tell all her friends goodbye for her and never come to the house again.
Frank, in the mean time, has turned himself into the police for murder. When they come to investigate (Dr Brewster in tow), they find Kay in a coffin. So Frank's arrested and put in a cell. That night, he's visited by Kay, who explains that she married Dracula so that she could become immortal and then share that immortality with Frank - they can be together forever. All Frank has to do is destroy Dracula, and she can tell him how to do it.
(Meanwhile, Dr Brewster has figured out the vampire thing and called in one of those professors who are experts in vampires to help him drive away the undead menace.)
So Kay breaks Frank out of jail and he goes after Dracula, setting fire to the coffin Dracula has to sleep in during the day. Since Dracula can't return to his coffin when the sun rises, he is destroyed. Frank then finds Kay's coffin, with Kay in it. He removes Dracula's ring from her finger and slips on his own, before lighting the coffin on fire. The End.
Universal made two Dracula movies before this one. They both feature essentially the same cast of characters: the vampire, the young lovers, the wise old man, a few other intrepid vampire hunters, the vampire's minion, some comic relief, and assorted victims. Sometimes they get a little shuffled or a couple get combined - Dr Garth in Dracula's Daughter replaces both Dr Seward and Jonathan Harker - but the basic outline is there. (This is also the basic outline of The Mummy, btw.) But the outline doesn't work with Son of Dracula, because of Kay. Kay Caldwell doesn't properly fit any of these predetermined roles. She could be the young lover, but she marries someone else and her lover kills her rather than rescuing her. She could be the monster, but we never see her do anything monstrous and she's never presented as frightening. Honestly, the role she fits best - and even this isn't perfect - is the vampire's minion. But no one makes the vampire's minion the center of the film.
And that's why the movie feels so weird. The wrong character is in the spotlight and it warps everything else out of true. You can see where all the other players are supposed to go - you can almost tell what the movie would have been without that distortion. Frank and Claire are the young lovers, which provides a reason for Claire's existence in the film. Kay is Renfield, in which case Dracula has been a corrupting influence, or she's Sandor, in which case Dracula has a willing assistant. Either way, because he has control over her, Dracula appears more powerful, more of the monster we're used to instead of the soft-spoken passive milquetoast vampire the film gives us. Since Kay is either less rational or more evil, Dr Brewster seems more rational and less evil in his action towards her*. Kay and Dracula are more clearly antagonists, threatening Frank and Claire, and so we get the return of the status quo when the two of them are destroyed. Those characters fit into the framework we're familiar with.
But that's not what we get. Instead, we get Kay stepping forward, taking all the important actions, making all the important decisions. The movie still seems to think that Frank is the protagonist - his is the first name in the credits, he gets the last heroic shot - but it's clearly wrong. Kay is the character whose choices drive the film and one never really feels that the film makers meant for that to happen. It's really fascinating and is one of the major reasons that I love this movie far more than it deserves**.
I'd really love to learn more about the making of this film, because watching it feels like reading one of those stories where the author tells you that a character started making decisions on their own that the author hadn't planned. I want to know if Kay Caldwell was planned or if she just decided to happen, like she decides everything in the movie.
*Nope, never getting over the fact that Dr Brewster tries to get Kay committed for having a goth phase and wanting to marry Hungarian nobility instead of Frank.
**The other reason is Kay herself, who is splendid. Ladies get to be victims or monsters in Universal horror films and Kay chose monster. She chose. I love her for that.
You guys, this movie is so weird. And I don't mean that in terms of its subject matter - it's a fairly run-of-the-mill vampire story, to be honest - but the whole movie feels like the film makers thought they were making one film while the whole time they were, in fact, making a different one.
I spent most of today thinking about the film and trying to put my finger on what, exactly, felt so odd about it. And I think I finally figured it out. See, horror movies from this era are, as the author of the book I'm currently reading points out, like fairy tales or commedia dell'arte. You know who the characters are and what kinds of things they're likely to do before the story starts and the characters don't deviate from that - a wolf is always a wolf, a witch is always a witch, Jack is always Jack. It's the same with 30's and 40's horror film. Except in Son of Dracula, because there's no role that properly fits Kay Caldwell.
For convenience sake, I'm going to give you a brief plot synopsis of the film (because no one watches this movie). We open on a plantation in Louisiana called Dark Oaks. It's owned by the Caldwell family, which consists of a very elderly gentleman and his two daughters, Kay and Claire. Kay is engaged to Frank, who wants to take her away because he thinks she's getting morbid. Kay is holding a party to celebrate the arrival of a friend she met while traveling in Budapest: Count Alucard. (Yes, okay, I know.)
Once
Frank, in the mean time, has turned himself into the police for murder. When they come to investigate (Dr Brewster in tow), they find Kay in a coffin. So Frank's arrested and put in a cell. That night, he's visited by Kay, who explains that she married Dracula so that she could become immortal and then share that immortality with Frank - they can be together forever. All Frank has to do is destroy Dracula, and she can tell him how to do it.
(Meanwhile, Dr Brewster has figured out the vampire thing and called in one of those professors who are experts in vampires to help him drive away the undead menace.)
So Kay breaks Frank out of jail and he goes after Dracula, setting fire to the coffin Dracula has to sleep in during the day. Since Dracula can't return to his coffin when the sun rises, he is destroyed. Frank then finds Kay's coffin, with Kay in it. He removes Dracula's ring from her finger and slips on his own, before lighting the coffin on fire. The End.
Universal made two Dracula movies before this one. They both feature essentially the same cast of characters: the vampire, the young lovers, the wise old man, a few other intrepid vampire hunters, the vampire's minion, some comic relief, and assorted victims. Sometimes they get a little shuffled or a couple get combined - Dr Garth in Dracula's Daughter replaces both Dr Seward and Jonathan Harker - but the basic outline is there. (This is also the basic outline of The Mummy, btw.) But the outline doesn't work with Son of Dracula, because of Kay. Kay Caldwell doesn't properly fit any of these predetermined roles. She could be the young lover, but she marries someone else and her lover kills her rather than rescuing her. She could be the monster, but we never see her do anything monstrous and she's never presented as frightening. Honestly, the role she fits best - and even this isn't perfect - is the vampire's minion. But no one makes the vampire's minion the center of the film.
And that's why the movie feels so weird. The wrong character is in the spotlight and it warps everything else out of true. You can see where all the other players are supposed to go - you can almost tell what the movie would have been without that distortion. Frank and Claire are the young lovers, which provides a reason for Claire's existence in the film. Kay is Renfield, in which case Dracula has been a corrupting influence, or she's Sandor, in which case Dracula has a willing assistant. Either way, because he has control over her, Dracula appears more powerful, more of the monster we're used to instead of the soft-spoken passive milquetoast vampire the film gives us. Since Kay is either less rational or more evil, Dr Brewster seems more rational and less evil in his action towards her*. Kay and Dracula are more clearly antagonists, threatening Frank and Claire, and so we get the return of the status quo when the two of them are destroyed. Those characters fit into the framework we're familiar with.
But that's not what we get. Instead, we get Kay stepping forward, taking all the important actions, making all the important decisions. The movie still seems to think that Frank is the protagonist - his is the first name in the credits, he gets the last heroic shot - but it's clearly wrong. Kay is the character whose choices drive the film and one never really feels that the film makers meant for that to happen. It's really fascinating and is one of the major reasons that I love this movie far more than it deserves**.
I'd really love to learn more about the making of this film, because watching it feels like reading one of those stories where the author tells you that a character started making decisions on their own that the author hadn't planned. I want to know if Kay Caldwell was planned or if she just decided to happen, like she decides everything in the movie.
*Nope, never getting over the fact that Dr Brewster tries to get Kay committed for having a goth phase and wanting to marry Hungarian nobility instead of Frank.
**The other reason is Kay herself, who is splendid. Ladies get to be victims or monsters in Universal horror films and Kay chose monster. She chose. I love her for that.
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Date: 2015-01-01 04:56 pm (UTC)