Have you ever walked out on a movie?

A much better version is the tv movie Bram Stoker’s Dracula, starring, of all people, Jack Palance. Coppola’s version seems to draw a lot from it. My wife and I consider it the best “book version” of Dracula out there. It was on Amazon Prime, but I think it’s dropped off now.

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Doh! I hadn’t thought of that, was only thinking about sitting down to watch movies “conventionally.” I’ve seen all MST3K (well, except K03), a large chunk of the Rifftrax library, and most of Cinematic Titanic, so that’s probably 400 - 450 right there!

And then there are the grey areas – hanging out with friends, maybe at someone else’s house, and unexpectedly catching the first/last 75% of a movie on TV. If I counted those I’m sure the total would be higher.

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That was actually the second Dracula I ever saw. (Murnau’s Nosferatu was the first.) Not too long ago Shudder had a lot of Dan Curtis’ stuff, including this. (Curtis did “Dark Shadows”, Trilogy of Terror, “The Night Stalker”, etc.)

I like it but it also has the Mina-is-Dracula’s-Wife subplot which is most decidedly not in the book and probably would’ve been inconceivable to Stoker. (Although he did wrestle with a similar theme in Jewel of the Seven Stars so maybe I’m selling him short.)

Do you know why Dracula was after Mina Harker in the book? It’s his revenge. “I’m gonna turn her into a vampire, then we’re gonna hide for a century, and when you’re all dead, we’re gonna party!”

Movies never capture the fact that Stoker’s Dracula was a real jerk.

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That one featured Star Force: Fugitive Alien II. So in a sense, you have seen it. If not quite the same cut.

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I can’t recall ever walking out on a film, other than a film I’ve already seen or was never interested in. Like passing time in a Sci-Fi convention movie room waiting for someone to come get me. Or—others, not me of course—sneaking into another, possibly R-rated film one theater over.

And I’ve sat through some klunkers. Most recent was an amateur, low budget sci-fi-ish film at a film festival that supposedly already won a different film fest award. It was *** so *** bad, painful, yet I stayed. (But so many others didn’t, as testified to by the loud door latch mechanisms.)

. . .

What!? Oh, yeah, it’s been restored on video for decades now. I guess I was still in the mindset of expecting only to hear that claim from folks born prior to around 1900. LOL

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There are a lot of well-known films people haven’t seen.

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Blood and Chocolate, I couldn’t…just wasn’t enough to hold me in my seat.

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No, you misunderstand, or perhaps I worded it poorly. My surprise was, out of the 80+ years of more popular Dracula films, that the 1920s Nosferatu would be a person’s first exposure to Dracula on film.

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I don’t remember, but it may have been mine too. My father was a film historian with a special love for silent film.

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My first exposure to Dracula was either the Count on Sesame Street, or some bad comedian going “I am DRAK-oola, blah blah…”

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Leave during a move. Never. I mean I stuck it out through Origins: Wolverine, so fair to say once planted, the butt stays. But (heh) to be fair, I used to be a film critic so it was my job to stay put and see the whole movie. Guess that habit is ingrained now.

But (heh, heh) there are two incidents close to this.

Once was during The Piano. I remember somewhere during the film, can’t remember where but that’s kinda the point, I completely tuned out. Instead of watching the movie I was checking out the audience and looking at the faces. Just for something to do. I’ve never lost interest in a film that way before.

The other was during Bringing Out the Dead. Not because the film was bad, but right before watching I had some bad Mexican food. And for those who have seen the movie, there are scenes where, to show how exhausted Cage’s character was, they started to mess around with the focus. Needless to say, I had to leave the theatre for a bit to un-queese my stomach.

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Hey! I’m only 112!

Also, it was not unusual in the pre-video era for people to have film projectors and film, it just wasn’t anywhere near as ubiquitous as the video player made it.

For whatever reason my grade school decided to have a night show of Nosferatu.

Oh! Also, we had a UHF channel that showed all the PD stuff which, at the time, was silent movies, old serials and the like. So Nosferatu played pretty regularly there.

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The closest I’ve ever come to walking out of a movie was Hereditary—maybe I was just in the wrong headspace that day, but I have never been that aggressively bored by a movie. When an entire row of people in front of us got up and left about halfway through I had to convince myself not to follow them.

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That’s what ya call a “slow burn” movie.

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Has it ignited yet?

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Lemme just say, if people say “'gique, can you recommend a recent horror movie for me to enjoy on a Saturday afternoon”, it’s not my go-to.

I don’t use Rotten Tomatoes any more because of all the nonsense they do with the scores, but back then I felt it deserved its 89/59 split. It’s not what you call a “people pleaser”.

My ticket cost $16.75 which I paid for with my MoviePass. Yes, I am the reason they went out of business.

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Yeah, that really bugs me about both versions. Stoker’s Dracula is an irredemable monster! He is not romantic or sexy. Only the actors who play him.

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Quickly goes and reads moviegique’s Hereditary review. Nice thoughts.

And I can’t say I was bored; I was too busy laughing myself sick. And I’ve liked Collete in other films (Japanese Story, Muriel’s Wedding) but even she couldn’t rise above this. I just didn’t see what my movie pals, who gave 4.5 and 5-star reviews, saw.

But I don’t think I’m into Ari Aster as I didn’t like Midsommar either, partway through I just clicked to the end to see what happened, and eh, I’d rather have watched the original Wicker Man

I can’t remember my first Dracula, probably Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein?

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I forced myself to finish the movie (green knight) hoping the ending would make it worth it, nope.

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If there is both blood AND chocolate acting to hold you in a theater seat, it sounds like a pretty nasty theater. Getting out of there was totally sensible, man.

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