VAMPIRES DON'T SPARKLE discussion

I stumbled across this while reading an article about Star Wars: The Force Awakens and looked into it a bit further. Apparently, Universal has plans in the works to bring “it’s” classic monsters back to the screen. That’s right; Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolfman and even The Bride of Frankenstein are all going to get new movies in the near future.

There’s really not much info on what the movies are exactly going to be like yet, just that Universal is going to bring all the characters back and all movies will be linked together. Also, that they have Alex Kurtzman (who worked on Transformers) and Chris Morgan(who worked on Furious 7) on the project because the two of them grew up on these monster movies. Together, the two of them are supposedly binge watching the old Universal monster movies with actors like Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, along with some of the old Hammer Horror movies for inspiration as well as to get ideas on what to do.

Personally, I think the whole idea is awesome, but at the same time I’m a bit skeptical. I mean, it kind of sounds just a little bit like that 2004 Van Helsing movie which was a major disappointment to not just myself but many other people as well (and there is actually a remake of that in the works with Tom Cruise!). I saw Dracula Untold this past summer and hated it with a passion. I didn’t see I Frankenstein but heard that thing really sucked. I did, however, very much enjoy the 2010 remake of The Wolfman.

I am kind of sick of remakes in general. I mean that remake of Point Break is coming out, as well as remakes of Ghostbusters, Gone With The Wind, Dirty Dancing and The Crow. Why remake movies that are already good?

As far as “The Universal Monsters” movies are concerned; don’t get me wrong cause I love them, but I never understood why they did what they did to Dracula and Frankenstein. I mean, when you think of Count Dracula…you automatically think of that image of Bela Lugosi…or not even that...more like a cartoony dramatization of that…am I right??!!! You know, the Suave, good-looking guy with the slicked back hair with widow’s peak in the cape and tux…and then you go and read Bram Stoker’s novel and he’s nothing like that! It’s the same with the case of Frankenstein. A dumb, clumsy monster with green skin and bolts coming out of its neck and all it does is grunt and moan. Then you go and read Mary Shelley’s book and that shocks you too. However, as far as adaptations go, there was that 1994 Frankenstein movie with Robert Deniro as the monster (yes that was him! That is how good of an actor he is, he doesn’t just play mafia crime bosses, he can do that too and be damned good at it). It was also a very faithful adaptation too. I wish I could say the same about Francis Ford Coppola with his 1992 adaptation of Dracula. I liked that one, but whenever Coppola swears up and down that it is the most faithful version ever…he couldn’t be more wrong.

I suppose that last half is just me ranting. I will stay optimistic about this and am happy about these movies. The problems with Van Helsing and the various other films I mentioned that I felt went wrong, maybe they will look at all that and say, “okay, we're not going to do that” and do something different. Whatever happens, I just hope that they don’t create another good-guy Dracula and that they do a good job with all the films. Well, we’ll just have to wait and see what they come up with.