Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol 35 no. 7. 19 April 1972

Vital Gore

page 13

Vital Gore

Wellington Vampire fans are treated to a flood of quality entertainment this month, Twins of Dracula and Hands of the Ripper are a double at the St. James, and Taste the Blood of Dracula (Christopher Lee) can be seen at the Roxy and Polanski's The Fearless Vampire Killers, is coming to the University Theatre.

Twins of Dracula features the luscious Collinson sisters (ex-playmates), the possessors of such milky smooth throats that even my incisors were twitching. Needless to say, the arrival of such talent in the district doesn't escape the attention of classic latin lover cum vampire Count Constantine the smooth. Peter Cushing is the formidable and stony-faced head of a religious brethren devil worshippers. He sets fire to many luckless forest maidens in his hit and miss methods to control the vampire menace. Great stuff, and plenty of opportunity for screaming.

Dracula

Taste the Real Blood of Dracula!

Taste the Real Blood of Dracula!

Audience participation is a feature of the other part of this double programme. Hands of the Ripper is where Snaghram Smith is beautiful in childlike tranquility until somebody unknowingly wispers to this lovely creature and follows with a kiss. Then all hell breaks loose, for as the daughter of Jack the Ripper, the old man's irrepressible character shows through.

Taken in by a well-meaning doctor who has set himself the task of studying her, she rips and stabs at every occurrence of this stimulus. When the unwitting Doc turns his back after a whisper and kiss combination, Jack's sweet daughter runs him through from kidney to kidney with a cavalry sword. The stricken man gropes around his office, life draining away with every second. At this point you could expect a hushed audience, but not a bit of it, true horror fans, these 9-15 year olds amid shouts of laughter, come on with yells like, "pull it out before it rusts" followed by "Can't you see its a Wilkinson sword. By God, Jewel of the Pacific, New Zealand the fair, you've trouble when this lot take control.

Great stuff, if you're going to this double with a girl. Make sure you have a handkerchief and she has her throat covered.

Roman Polanski's The Fearless Vampire Killers, soon to be shown at the Union theatre concerns a near-sighted Ein stein-like professor, in the best tradition, who with his chicken-hearted assistant ventures into the midst of vampire territory, an 18th C Transylvanian Castle.

Portrait of a vampire hunter

He committed every sin in the book

As part of his investigation of vampires, it is necessary to kill one by piercing its heart with a wooden stake. While attempting to do this the Vampire killers unwittingly dodder and she fie within a capes length of being sucked lifeless for most of the film.

Polanski distinguishes this film by presenting characters who are parodies of the usual lot found in transylvanian tales, particularly ashen faced Vampires and disarranged and eccentric local bumpkins as vampire fodder. These people speak a lyrical and humourous pronunciation of English. Another feature is the excellent colour photography of snow covered forests. Included in the professor's adventures is a devastating chase sequence through the castles' corridors and stairways, which are made more gripping by the occasional use of speeded up film. This produces an effect guaranteed to interfere with the breathing of the most hardened vetran of the horror-film.

Hands of the Ripper. Persons under 13 Not admitted.

Hands of the Ripper. Persons under 13 Not admitted.

Photo of a woman

Photo of a woman

This light skit pays tribute to most of the classic elements that you might expect — armsful of wooden stakes, garlic bunches hanging everywhere, werewolves and bounteous wenches. In all a must for the connoiseur, and for those with a lust for the belly laugh.