VAMPIRE DOUBLE: THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE THEM AND THE PEOPLE THAT HUNT THEM

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Well I did I ask Twitter to chose the movies....




CAPTAIN KRONOS: VAMPIRE HUNTER - BRIAN CLEMENS,  1974



LET THE RIGHT ONE IN - DIRECTED BY TOMAS ALFREDSON,  2008


    Anyone who has watched more than a couple of Vampire movies knows how wildly they can differ.  There are different mythologies and different creators playing around with lore.  From grotesque blood sucking animals to sparkling in the sun immtoral  fantasies.  The Vampire can fit into almost any mold you want.  And on the outset you cannot get two different movies than the 1970s era Hammer Horror Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter and the dark Swedish movie Let the Right One In.  They are night and day, almost literary, one is set duriung the day the other is set at night.  Watching these movies as a Double Feature, it was intersting to see not only how each movie presented not only the Vampire but, also the relationship the protaginst has with each.  It brings into focus violence of what the Vampire is.  Whether it is more adventurous swashbuckling or more dark an predatory.

    Hammer Horror's Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter is goofy fun.  I land love it.  Horst Janson as Kronos rand his cheak bones waltzes into town rescueing saucey maidens and figuring out new and wonderful ways to kill Vampires.  Captian Kronos is living his best life.  It's a hoot.  Hammer Horror made a lot of different Vampire movies, so they were constantly playing around with Vampire lore and what they can do and what can be done to them.  One of my favourite genres of horor is folk or pagean horor, the likes of The Wicker Man, The Witchfinder General, Night of the Demon and the newer Midsommer.  Captain Kronos fits into this nicely.  There is something old and evil in the pretty tranquil countryside that has a vauge ritualistic element to what is happening.  The Vampires Kronos is hunting feel more magical, and themselves more of dark magic than creatures of the night.  And I love me some ritualistic peagen shenanigans.  In terms of the Vampires, they are after your youth not blood.  Think a more landed gentry Lifeforce without a naked Mathilda May.  

Captain Kronos living his best life

    Kronos is a fun example of what I tend to love in British storytelling and movies.  A mixture of dark magic with swashbuckling adventure.  The always summer countryside in Captain Kronos feels similar to that of King Arthur's Knights would play in, and Kronos is definitely riffing on these images and tone.  But with some added Hammer sauceiness.


    I've always considered John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel Let the Right One In to be part of the 'Nordic Noir' boom of the early 2000s that started with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  Its been been a few years since I have read the novel, but I remember a dark pulpy quality.  This dark edge is not a new trend in Europe, however, comparitively to say, Australian, British or American noirs and crime novels of the time, these books of the Nordic North are generally darker and more violent.  Tomas Alfredson's adaption of Let the Right One In brings it's dark, sparce and predatory nature to the screen.  Let the Right One In brings monsters hiding in the forest into a cold harsh resident building in a forever dark winter.  Let the Right One In isn't exactly a gritty urban story, it still has the villiage quality of Captain Kronos, but the surounding trees are now cement tower blocks.  And Eli's presence is still very much that creature lurking in the woods, but instead in coming into to play hero, Oskar finds a kinship with our Monster.


    Every Alfredson movie I have seen loves using empty space to illustrate the isolation of characters.  On this viewing Let the Right One In reminded me a lot of Lucky McKee's 2002 May, the story of a lonely young woman who has a specific relationship with gore and horror and has difficulty relating to those she wants to connect with.  It's a wonderful movie.  Oskar can only communicate through violence, he has a very different relationship with his bullies than his bullies have with Oskar.  A chilling moment is when Oskar smakes one of his bullies in the ear with a rod, and I am still not sure if he is getting revenge or trying to make friends.  Oskar is generally surprised at the howling scream of pain that comes from the boy. 


    The first time I watched Let the Right One In, I saw it as a coming of age and  love story between human and Vampire.  There are so many versions of the romantised Vampire, it's not hard to read this in Let the Right One In.  But now I think it is more primal than that, less emotional and sexual.  Oskar is not suduced by Eli, more he finds kinship because they see the word in similar terms.  And both have a similar realtionship with violence.  In their more tender semming moments, it really feels like they are going through the motions of what they think they should do.  Once Eli starts to trust Oskar, Eli makes it clear Eli is pure creature and there is nothing human in the realtionship.  Whatever Oskar thinks he is feeling or needs to be feeling, Eli cannot reciprocate.  Oskar finds his place with violence he feels more comfortable with a creature that only sees the world through violence and food the than the other people around him.  It's a far more basic and animalistic relationship.

     I generally love Vampire movies because they are great monsters, they are the night, the forests or manner houses they hide it.  The Vampire is a reflection of it's surroundings or the type of story that is being told.  They're an incrediably verssatile Monster.  Like in Captain Kronos, in typical Hammer fashion, the Vampires are the Lords feeding off the villiagers.  In Let the Right One In, Eli is still feeding off the villagers but, has to blend in as the child it looks like.  Actually, the Vampires from both movies are hiding in plan sight.  And it's either the person that is searching or the person that connects that are the ones that find them.  Both Captain Kronos and Let the Right One In represent the time and country they were made in and both were great in different ways.  But those Vampires are there, hiding and hunting whether you are hunting.  And hopefully as movies change they will always be there.








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