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For anyone unfamiliar with the work and style of director Ken Russell this is probably not going to win him any new fans. But those of us who are this is a fun and daffy twist on the tired vampire genre. Phallic references abound, even the title can be interpreted as a double entendre. The story is fairly straightforward as it follows a group searching for the parents of one female character who have disappeared,which lead to a ancient snake cult. It's very silly and it's obvious that Russell took none of it seriously, discarding most of the Bram Stoker novel and keeping only the title. I've never read it so I cannot state if any elements from the source material were retained. The fantasy sequences are fun and might offend some more religious types-but Russell identifiedhimself as a Catholic. The cast is good, especially Amanda Donahoe as Lady Slyvia. It's not Russell's best film but it clear he was having fun with the film and it shows. This would make for a good double feature with his other horror related film Gothic. Highly recommended.

I grew up on this version of Godzilla and it would be decades before I had the opportunity to see the original. Of course the Japanese version is the superior of the two but the Americanized version does have a few good moments. I actually prefer the opening of the latter. It begins with that slow tracking shot of Tokyo in ruins and Raymond Burr (as Steve Martin) hints at what caused tbis devastation. Given that this film was released a decade after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki it is this version that drives the theme home that this is more than just a monster movie. We see the survivors being cared for in makeshift hospital space, tested for radiation. These images might just as well be documentary footage of those events which laid to waste two cities. This is more serious than any other monster movie released at this time. Unfortunately it is the clumsily inserted footage of Burr that is the biggest problem. I imagine that to sell this to a wider American audience it was necessary to shoot these new scenes. Watching it now makes one cringe a bit. Burr often looks so out of place as he pretends to be involved with the action, gazing off into the distance whenever Godzilla is sited. Although not intentionally funny they make you chuckle. I cannot bring myself to hate this version as it played such a huge role in my youth.

"I don't know how World War Three will be fought," famously said Albert Einstein , "but I do know that World War Four will be fought with sticks and stones."

the Day After was a television event in 1983 and we watched as the effects of a nuclear war would have a devastating impact on humanity that it is unlikely to recover from for a very long time. It's a little slow to get started as we are introduced to the various characters, but once those bombs detonate it becomes a nightmare, especially when we witness being vaporized where they stood-they are the lucky ones. For those who survive the initial attack it is a hellish world where survival surpasses all other impulses. The film might have been more effective had it not cast so many familiar actors-it becomes very distracting after a while. A year after this film was released came the British version of the same story but it is vastly more frightening. I watched it recently and will never watch it again-that's how freaked out I was and it took days to get over it. The Day After suffers for its big names, big budget, and big effects. But it still has many good aspects and tries to show a world following these events.