Afterword

I humbly submit to you Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Vol. II. It’s guaranteed to contain twice the intensity and excitement as the first installment. Vampires are indeed a captivating subject. They first entranced me, not in books, but at the movies.

Unfortunately I missed the theatrical debut of the Hammer Films masterpiece, The Horror of Dracula (1958). Many years later, a movie revival in my hometown left the black-clothed form of the peerless Dracula actor Christopher Lee imprinted upon my mind.

This movie gets the credit for the black slicker worn by Setsura Aki and the black Inverness coat worn by Gento Rouran in The Demon King.

Fearing he was being typecast, Lee didn’t appear in the sequel, The Brides of Dracula (1960). Instead, David Peel took on the part of the vampire Baron Meinster, facing off against the critically-acclaimed Peter Cushing, who reprised the role of Dr. Van Helsing.

Peel was then in his forties, but thanks to the power of makeup, portrayed a man in his twenties. Many critics pointed to the missing gravitas that Lee had brought with him as a major flaw in the sequel, but this is nonsense. Both were equally talented and right for the part, as was Terence Fisher’s direction.

More than anything, Hollywood special effects magic—vampires changing into bats, reflections not being seen in mirrors—even as implemented by Hammer Films, made for a movie worth watching.

But the scariest moment—more than Baron Meinster himself—was watching the Baron’s mother approaching Helsing from behind, her fanged mouth covered by a handkerchief, as he enters the castle to investigate. Then, after being bitten during the big action scene at the castle, Helsing cauterizes the wound with a red-hot poker.

Terrific scenes come one after the other. The solemn, somber music as Helsing presents the crucifix to the Baron is splendidly done.

Critically ranked along with those two films is, of course, the legendary Bela Lugosi in Dracula (1931). Back when I was going through my own “goth” phase in junior high school, I was just dying to see it. Perhaps granting my wish, the Shock! series of short films debuted on television (it was either the NET or NTV network).

I was happily rendered utterly incapable of studying, watching movies like the never-before-seen Lon Chaney, Jr. classic The Wolf Man (1941), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), Dracula’s Daughter (1936), witnessing Bela Lugosi face off against Boris Karloff in The Black Cat (1934), Son of Frankenstein (1939), and more.

Watching these silver screen gems was like having a full-blown film festival in my living room.

Bela Lugosi’s Dracula was included in this series. In the amazing opening scene, shot on a huge set, Dwight Frye as the lawyer visits Dracula’s castle. Lugosi in his black coat and white vest was a revelation as well. But what really sent a shiver down my spine was the dubbing job done by Genzou Wakayama.

Perfect casting. By comparison, Masaaki Yajima’s dubbing of Lon Chaney, Jr. in Son of Dracula (1943) sounded too young and too mellow. It made Dracula sound like Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo in The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

In the United States, Lugosi is still remembered for his role as Dracula. To varying degrees, subsequent generations of actors have tended to rely on prosthetic fangs and red contact lenses and the inevitable disintegration scene. Compared to this dependence on special effects, Lugosi alone approached the role with only the five human senses as his raw materials.

But from my perspective, that aura of dread never rises to the degree that Lee communicates (albeit these were black and white films). When making his moves on a woman, Lugosi could be eerie and lascivious, but never grabs me by the throat. Something seems to be missing.

In that department, John Carradine as the slender, aristocratic Count Dracula in House of Dracula (1945) is much preferred.

Fans of westerns should recognize Carradine as the gambler Hatfield (cast alongside John Wayne) in John Ford’s defining work, Stagecoach (1939). Carradine worked energetically into his eighties making B-grade horror flicks, but perhaps that early role came the closest to Bram Stoker’s original vision.

When Carradine, sporting a luxurious head of hair and wearing a black cloak and silk hat, spells out Dracula’s origins to Dr. Franz Edelmann (played by Onslow Stevens), you can cut the brooding tension in the air with a knife.

Incidentally, Stevens had a lead role in Gordon Douglas’s cult classic Them! (1954), alongside the great James Whitmore. Whitmore plays a police detective who discovers a colony of giant ants while investigating the disappearance of a little girl. Stevens is the army general sent to exterminate them.

I remember working as a Telex translator not long after the Montreal Olympics when his obituary came over the wires. Reading it struck in me a deep sense of nostalgia.

Actors like Frank Langella as Dracula look more like elementary school principals. What’s that all about? Zero sense of menace or majesty. Jack Palance played Dracula in a 1973 version. The same Palance who played a merciless gun-for-hire in the western Shane (1953), which is at least in the right dramatic ballpark.

These casting decisions say a lot about the mind of the American female moviegoer. A Dracula character incorporated in the script in order to instill a sense of fear or awe can come across in Japan as silly, not at all “Dracula-like,” or even the acme of absurdity.

The audience turnout for Love at First Bite (1979) made the point rather vividly. I attended the Langella film and there were maybe two other people in the theater. But Love at First Bite played to a packed house. On top of that, every time George Hamilton pulled a sad face, practically every woman in the place swooned.

When analyzing what women see in men, I concluded that it really is all about the face.

Well, that era has come and gone. At one end of the spectrum, today’s vampires come across as rather fey, such as Fright Night (1985) with Chris Sarandon; or at the other end as violent juvenile delinquents, such as Kiefer Sutherland in Lost Boys (1987).

Nevertheless, I’m not the only one concluding that nobody has bested Christopher Lee’s interpretation of the vicious, violent Dracula. Now with uncut editions available, I encourage everyone to give The Horror of Dracula another viewing.

This movie was the wellspring of an impressive number of fundamental elements found in the present-day genre. A stake being driven into a woman’s body, the spurting of blood, smoke curling up from the scorched flesh when a crucifix is pressed against the vampire’s skin—they all originated in this movie.

Well then, check out Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Vol. II and see how I’ve revived them here.

Hideyuki Kikuchi (while watching Son of Dracula)

September 19, 1989