We definitely have a bounty of shows and
movies that feature the paranormal, but that wasn’t the case ten or so years
ago. Some of my current favorites include American
Horror Story: Coven, True Blood
(depending on the season), Sleepy Hollow,
giving Dracula a try, Let the Right One In, The Revenant, Hellboy...but this post
is not about the more current offerings. It’s about honoring the forbearers…the
shows and movies that broke ground when the genre didn’t enjoy the same
popularity as today. I could lose months of word count mulling over which shows
or movies deserve mention, and decided on a few that made an impression on me
and my writing, and some considered classics of the genre. Many are vampire
centric, but vampires, or some semblance of, continue to dominate.
Starting with movies, well, we can go
back to Nosferatu, Dracula, and the old Universal movie
monsters. All classic. I would have loved to have attended the first movie theater showing
of Frankenstein or Dracula. The special effects for that time must have scared
the heck out of the audience. Fast forwarding, one of my all time favorites is Frightnight. I could write an entire
blog post on that movie, discussing the non CGI special effects and tragic tone
of Evil’s transformation back into a human after Peter Vincent killed him. The
look of horror and despair on Vincent’s face as he realized the fearful wolf
was really a young boy. You don’t see that kind of pathos in many movies these
days. Roddy McDowell was great as Peter Vincent, and Chris Sarandon as Jerry Dandridge,
the vampire.
Lost
Boys anyone? Humor, good
vampires, bad vampires, Jason Patric and Keifer Sutherland :) One of the first
teen vampire movies, blending style with story, even if it was 80s style. Other
great vampire movies: Near Dark; The Addiction, an indie flick staring
Lily Taylor; the 1979 Salem’s Lot; Interview with the Vampire; the first
couple of Blade movies; and I have to
mention Vampire’s Kiss with Nicholas
Cage. More of a supernatural thriller, black comedy, and definitely one of
Cage’s best roles.
I do love me some werewolf movies, but
much of the past movies focused on the horror aspect and not the type
of werewolf hero we read about in urban fantasies and paranormals. But some
great ones include American Werewolf in
London and The Howling.
Of course, all these movies are
classified as horror or thrillers, yet they definitely set the stage for urban
fantasy/paranormal. Before the current craze, there really wasn’t another
category. Interview with the Vampire
was classified as horror/romance, and Lost
Boys comedy/horror, but both had sympathetic vampires, and were not
necessarily straight horror. On a side note, if you do a search for urban
fantasy movies, stuff like Harry Potter and Ghostbusters
comes up. So does Hellboy, which I
absolutely agree with, but I wanted to look at movies that preceded Hellboy, which leads me to my next two
movies: The Crow (1994) and Nightbreed (1990). Both movies twisted
the previous classification of horror to something closer to urban fantasy/paranormal.
The
Crow was actually
labeled action/fantasy, which seems to fit.
Its gothic stylings and story about a man that comes back to life to avenge
the death of his wife truly hit on those supernatural, damaged hero beats. And
it had a great soundtrack :)
Nightbreed is a very interesting movie and was
completely misunderstood on release. The movie company sold it as a straight
slasher type, but it was about a guy,
who stumbles upon a community of monsters and outcasts, demon-like, known as the Nightbreed. They
take refuge in an abandoned cemetery called Midian. Nightbreed
is based off Clive Barker’s novella Cabal.
Definitely B movie grade, but very interesting. For someone who features demons
in my stories, I found Barker's exploration of the monsters a revelation, at the
time. The Nightbreed were not the bad guys. Barker himself said: this picture is much
more upfront about the fact we don't want to see the monsters die. We actually
find them interesting. And sexy…we're actually on the side of the creatures of
darkness. I think this
movie would enjoy a second life with so many books featuring demons as heroes.
But really, urban fantasy/paranormal experienced its genesis on television, and Buffy reins supreme. (Dark Shadows absolutely deserves mention. I didn't watch it, but it's significant.) Not just
for the wonderful supernatural world Whedon created, but for his exploration of
the characters, the wonderful stories and writing. He built an incredible cast with Buffy at the center. She was a
girl turned woman who took charge and dealt with her problems.
Before True Blood, in 2007, there was the sadly short lived, Canadian
produced Blood Ties based off
the Tanya Huff Blood Books. It centered
on private investigator, Vicki Nelson, who
teamed up with 470-year-old vampire Henry Fitzroy, bastard son of Henry the
VIII. Blood Ties
only lasted two seasons. Sigh!!! That’s one show that would have benefitted
from the current vampire craze. You can find it around on the Internet. Before Blood Ties, was another Toronto based
show, Forever Knight, about Nick Knight, an 800-year-old vampire, who seeks redemption for past crimes by working as a homicide detective.
Forever Knight ran from 1992 until
1996. Lastly, I should mention Charmed,
and I liked some of Charmed, but when
they ruined Cole’s character (another demon), it all went downhill for me.
My little retrospective barely scratches the surface and I didn’t
even go into zombies (which I write about) and lots of other stuff. So please
join in and share some of your favorites that paved the way to the current
paranormal craze.
Mimi Sebastian
2 comments:
I used to write Fan Fiction for Forever Knight (even met with a group that watched and then discussed our versions) so glad to see another person love it.
Oh Felicia! So great to connect with others who watched those shows. Loved Nick. I wish we had more of those type of paranormal shows. Thanks for sharing!
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