84) Mama Dracula (1980)

"I am lost without you. And you, professor, are lost without me."

Director

Boris Szulzinger

Cast

Louise Fletcher - Countess Erzbert Dracula

Marc Henri Wajnberg - Vladimir

Alexandre Wajnberg - Ladislas

Jimmy Shuman - Peter Van Bloed

Maria Schneider - Nancy

When a movie like Billy the Kid vs Dracula is more engaging and entertaining than whatever other movie you might be watching, you know what you have on is bad. 

I found the 1980 Belgian horror comedy Mama Dracula in a box set of 20 public domain vampire movies called Vampires &More!. I paid about $5 for the set.

The movie is a mix of Young Frankenstein with a touch of Rocky Horror Picture Show minus the singing transvestite. And it stars Nurse Ratched herself from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Louise Fletcher. 

This isn't the first terrible horror movie Fletcher starred in. In 1977 she played Dr. Gene Tuskin in the horror thriller everyone loves to hate - Exorcist II: The Heretic.

In Mama Dracula, a haematologist (someone who studies the physiology of blood) named Peter Van Bloed (Jimmy Shuman) receives a letter from Countess Erzbert Dracula (Fletcher) inviting him to Transylvania to work on creating a substitute for human blood. She offers him $1 million for the monumental task.

He accepts and takes a ship over to her castle to start right away.

The Countess lives with her twin sons, Vladimir (Marc-Henri Wajnberg) and Ladislas (Alexandre Wajnberg) who are quite the outlandish pair of blood sucking vampires. 

The Countess tells Van Bloed that thanks to her practice of bathing in the blood of virgins, she's able to maintain her long life.

Her sons run a high-end clothing store as a front for kidnapping virgins. They invite their victims to try on clothing, and when the unsuspecting girls go into the dressing room, one of the brothers sneaks in through a trap door and pulls them into a secret room. 

In order to supply the amount of blood the Countess is demanding, Van Bloed needs an extensive supply of virgins. So, Vladimir and Ladislas work doubly hard kidnapping as many virgins as they can. As the story takes place in modern times, some tongue-in-cheek humor arises as Countess notices the number of virgins has dwindled over the decades.

It doesn't take long before the police catch on to the sudden disappearance of all the young women. 

A policewoman named Nancy (Maria Schneider, Last Tango in Paris) investigates the surge of disappearances, only to be kidnapped herself by the Countess. 

She keeps Nancy imprisoned in her castle. But when Van Bloed meets her, he immediately falls in love with her.

Louise Fletcher as Countess Erzbert Dracula in Mama Dracula.

The story told in Mama Dracula pulls inspiration from the true story of Countess Elizabeth Bathory of Hungary, who died in 1614.

The Guinness Book of World Records lists Bathory as the most prolific female serial murderer with a victim count of approximately 650 people. However, the number of her victims isn't certain. 

Among the tales told of Bathory was her habit of bathing in the blood of virgins for the sake of retaining her youth. 

The true story is more captivating to me than this movie.

The Wajnbergs's performances are terrible and annoying. They're constantly making slapstick faces in awkwardly angled closeups - licking their fangs and tweaking their lips, hissing at random moments, and wanting to bite the neck of anything human. It's as though they think the audience randomly forgets they're vampires.

The humor is completely dry and inane. Jimmy Shuman, and the Wajnberg twins are basically the comic relief of the whole movie. 

Shuman's role is either flying off the handle in the best mad scientist impression he can conjure up, or he's an overly anxious, jittery blood expert.   

Fletcher as the Countess is as threatening as a hair on a shower wall. She uses her stereotypical Transylvania accent when she talks, has little emotion, and is on screen less than the Wajnbergs.  

She doesn't fit the role at all. Nor does Fletcher look like she's having much fun in the part. And the sex appeal is not even bothered with. Her lax performance is a stark contrast to that of the Wajnbergs.  They're flamboyantly all over the place, jumping around like elementary school kids dressed as vampires for Halloween, opening their capes like Batman, and occasionally throwing in a "blah" now and then.

Indecently, these vampires don't succumb to the conventional dangers vampires generally avoid - sunlight, garlic, crucifixes. Out of the goodness of my dumb ol' heart, I'll give the movie a point for at least trying to be its own thing in that regard. 

Though I criticize the humor, one scene managed to get a laugh out of me. 

During a montage where the Vampire brothers are kidnapping virgins out of the changing room, one of the potential victims is a young girl who acts like she's on to their scheme. 

They kidnap her and take her to the back of the store. 

She smirks, and lifts up her dress revealing a cross on the front of her underwear. The vampire smiles and shakes his head. Then she turns around, and lifts the back of her dress revealing a Star of David on the backside of her underwear. The vampire then recoils in horror.   

Despite that one gag, the movie is difficult to watch, boring to watch, irritating to watch, and confusing to watch. 

Marc-Henri and Alexandre Wajnberg, and Jimmy Shuman.

And on top of the terrible acting, strange imagery, ridiculous humor, and convoluted story, is the damn harpsichord music playing like it's on a perpetual loop. It's annoying and as cliché as can be. This music is what Mama Dracula falls back on to scare the audience. Needless to say, it doesn't work-not even accidentally. 

What was an accident was my sticking through it just to see how it would end. Thankfully, it does end. I could say that's the best part of the movie, but why kick a movie that much when it's already down. 

There is one point where, thanks to exposition, the story starts to come together. And then it just goes in random directions, all culminating to some weird fashion show that just threw me off completely. 

I don't regret watching Mama Dracula. But I do regret the 25 cents I spent on the movie.

83) C.H.U.D. (1984)

"They have the power to shut the sky."

Director

Douglas Cheek

Cast

John Heard - George Cooper

Christopher Curry - Capt. Bosch

Daniel Stern - A.J. "The Reverend" Shepherd

Kim Greist - Lauren Daniels

Before Daniel Stern and John Heard appeared in the well-loved Christmas movie Home Alone, they starred together in the sci-fi horror not-so-well-loved movie, C.H.U.D. 

As Home Alone is about the comedic escapades of a young boy defending his home from two dim-witted burglars in the most hilarious way possible, C.H.U.D. centers on the escapades of a town defending itself from cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers (C.H.U.D.) who are devouring residents including some of the homeless population.

C.H.U.D. is a movie that, for some reason, popped into my list of recommendations on a few streaming services I use. So, I finally checked it out since the unseen lords of Amazon Prime, Hoopla, and a couple others wanted me to see this so badly.

C.H.U.D. opens with a woman walking her dog down an empty New York City street at night. 

She doesn't notice the manhole cover slowly open as two scaled claws poke out ready to catch her.

The creature beneath grabs her by the ankles as she passes by, dragging her and the dog into the dank, sultry darkness below.

The story shifts to a former fashion photographer named George Cooper (John Heard) who lives with his girlfriend, Lauren (Kim Greist).

Cooper has taken up a new project photographing New York City's homeless population. A large portion of that population reside literally underneath the city streets. They're referred to as "undergrounders."

Meanwhile, there has been an increasing number of missing persons being reported. Police Captain Bosch (Christopher Curry) takes up the investigation as his wife, Flora, is among those missing. 

Bosch questions A.J. (Daniel Stern), who calls himself "The Reverend" as he operates a soup kitchen for the homeless.

A.J. thinks the sudden surge of missing person reports is due to a huge government conspiracy. He claims to have evidence supporting this belief. 

Bosch also starts to suspect that his superiors know more about the situation than they're admitting. 

Looking into that situation further, he soon realizes they're taking commands from Wilson (George Martin) who works for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. (NRC)

These slimy cannibalistic humanoid creatures are surviving on the flesh of the undergrounders. The number of undergrounders, though, is diminishing. The cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers are now rising from the sewers to look for victims above. 

The best scene in the movie takes place when two cops, played by John Goodman and Jay Thomas, show up to a diner. Who also shows up soon after? The monsters! They attack the restaurant, killing both cops and a waitress. This attack is what draws the public's attention to the existence of these monsters.

George and A.J. end up working together, and find out that the NRC is directly involved. The Commission has been discreetly hiding toxic waste under the streets of New York City.

The undergrounders have been exposed to this waste causing them to mutate into the flesh-eating creatures.

Now, officials are left with the problem of how to stop these things as they rise from underneath. 

C.H.U.D. such a typical late night creature feature movie. I wouldn't watch it any other time of day. It's a movie that needs all the help it can get. 

At first, I wondered if this film is trying to convey some sort of environmental message, or making a statement regarding the lack of concern over the homelessness issue and the way it was dealt with back in the 1980s, or if it's making some general depiction about the condition of American cities underneath corrupt leaders, corporations, and political bureaucracies. Whatever the case is, it's all a far-fetched depiction. 

But it does deserve some credit for the effort behind the make-up of the underground cannibals with their overstretched glistening skin, yellow bulbous eyes, and dripping jagged fangs protruding from behind infectious bloody gums which looks like their lips fell off or dissolved. 

Daniel Stern's performance is fun to watch. His character is not just another stagnant horror movie trope. I found myself wanting to see him pop into frame, especially when the movie began to bore me. 

The rest of the cast, including the monsters, come across as typical and underwhelming. There's little enthusiasm.
The movie did little to nothing for me. All I found entertaining was seeing Daniel Stern and John Heard on screen together because... Home Alone. 

C.H.U.D. tries to create a twist by Bosch admitting to A.J. that it was his wife who was pulled into the sewer while walking the dog. 

I admit I didn't see that coming. Still, my reaction to it didn't excel past a mere "hmmm." 

I initially wasn't going write a review for this film because I had trouble staying focused. Perhaps in the future, I'll give it a second chance lest my thoughts change in some way.

Despite the movie's attempt at instilling fear and terror, I found it boring and flat overall. C.H.U.D. is one big feeble attempt to make either a satirical or subversive commentary about the state of affairs back then, resulting in a stupid, slightly pretentious little movie that now only has nostalgia going for it. 

Evidently, there's a sequel to this flick. Despite my better judgement, the search is on to find it. I'm not anticipating a grand time, though.