Hoffman/Lambert:  The Doctor and The Vampire

By Jessica Dwyer

Vampires are attractive for many reasons.  There’s the immortality aspect, the power that comes along with it.  In some cases they dress really well and have a lot of money due to having lived for so damn long.  But in even more cases there’s the tragic “I need to save him/her” aspect.

I’m going to focus on the women here who find themselves drawn to the dark side when it comes to these creatures of the night.  We are legion and that’s 100 percent fact.  But there are a lot of people who like to say that the woman who are enamored of vampires are just complete idiots or unrealistic.  That the characters that find themselves in love with them are all heaving bosom daughters of lords.  They are themselves some sort of half breed vampire/fairy/insert supernatural creature here freak of nature that finds another outsider in the vampire.  Or they are a completely clueless teenage girl who for some reason is irresistible to the vampire.

But in the annals of vampire entertainment there are two very different women who fell in love with two vampires.  These weren’t young pining females.  These were mature and smart women who were for the most part, unrequited in their feelings.  Yet they stood by their vampires and proved that loyalty and love were admirable and that intelligent, strong women could also like the dark side of life.  Julia Hoffman and Natalie Lambert were both doctors who discovered that vampires were real.  Each of them would fall in love with their respective discovery.  Each would also try to find a way to cure their vampire of the curse that plagued them using science.

Years apart in terms of airing on television, Hoffman and Lambert were more alike than not, and yet both of them were rarities in the realm of vampire storytelling….a world not known for having much in the way of originality that often.  Even more amusing is the fact that both of these characters began life written as males.  Hoffman was changed before airing of the episode of Dark Shadows in which we meet her to be tailored to the late, great Grayson Hall.

Natalie Lambert’s character was actually played by actor Robert Harper in the 2 hour made for TV movie of Nick Knight starring Rick Springfield.  The name was Dr. Jack Brittington at that point.  It wasn’t until CBS’s picked up Forever Knight as part of CrimeTime after PrimeTime that the role of the kind coroner who is helping the vampire detective to try and become human was retooled for actress Catherine Disher.

Both characters were isolated due to being dedicated to their work.  Hoffman a doctor of psychiatry and Lambert a forensic coroner who worked long hours.  They were also each in very male dominated fields.   Hoffman was almost rude in her reactions to many people.  She had a stony personality, a detachment no doubt from the years she’d spent working with patients that had emotional trouble.  But when she discovers vampire Barnabas Collins a whole new world is open to her.  He represents a way to prove herself to everyone.  He needs her more than any other person has ever needed her.  He’s a mystery that shouldn’t exist but he does.  He’s also overflowing with emotions that are out of control; when he rages he rages, when he loves he loves, and when he hates he hates passionately.  How could Julia Hoffman not eventually fall in love with a man such as that to the point that she risks her life to help him and keep him safe….even going so far as to help him when she knows that he loves another.

Natalie Lambert’s relationship with Detective Nick Knight was the same way.  Nat, as Nick called her, was a typical modern career woman with a cat at home and no social life to speak of.  Just as Julia did, when she discovered the handsome blonde and heroic vampire on her morgue slab that night (after he nearly died saving someone) she’s lost.  She starts working with him to cure him and he creates a career as a police officer to be near her as well as work towards repaying his debt for his misdeeds through the centuries.  In their story though it isn’t that Nick doesn’t love her in return…it is for her safety that Nick will not reveal the truth of his love for her.  And so it is that they only have a deep friendship until the very last episode…when things go badly.  It is interesting to note that Sam Hall, Grayson’s husband said that after the events in Dark Shadows that Julia and Barnabas finally did admit their love for one another and left he country to keep Angelique’s curse at bay.  Viewers of Dark Shadows know that Julia certainly earned that happy ending.   Sadly, we can’t say that Natalie got a happy one.

I feel that Natalie and Julia deserve some recognition for what they represent within the realm of the vampire.  Many female fans that I know of vampires and certainly these two shows related more with Nat and Julia than any other characters in these series or any others.  They were real women.  They weren’t perfect, they weren’t angels or some damsels in distress.  They were smart (evilly cunning in Julia’s case sometimes) fearless, and they were loyal.

I think it’s time they got their due, their happy ending.  Because even if the Nick and Barnabas weren’t quite smart enough to figure out how good they had it with them, we do.

 (other Grayson Hall Blog-A-Thon links for Dark Shadows fans)
The Collinsport Historical Society
Jonathan Frid was the face of Dark Shadows, but Grayson Hall was it’s soul. Even though nobody ever made action figures or board games baed on her characters, Dark Shadows wouldn’t have been the same without her.  Plus fan art, vintage newspaper clippings about Hall’s stage career and more throughout the day!
http://www.collinsporthistoricalsociety.com/search/label/The%20Grayson%20Hall%20Blog-a-thon

The Performance Art of Grayson Hall: Life On Two Levels
Using lines from her Oscar-nominated film Night of the Iguana as thematic bookends, Frank Jay Gruber discusses the differences between Grayson Hall’s film and television performance styles, and why each is distinct and memorable.
http://thewearyprofessor.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/the-performance-art-of-grayson-hall-life-on-two-levels-2/

The Collins Foundation 
“If you have to choose between real and interesting, choose interesting.” According to Patrick McCray, Grayson Hall gives us both in Dark Shadows.
http://collinsfoundation.net/2012/06/21/grayson-hall-dsxp/

The Classic Movie Lady
At age 13, this blogger’s favorite actress was Grayson Hall … and she had never seen Dark Shadows.
http://classicmovielady1985.tumblr.com/

The Drawing Room (Home of the Dark Shadows podcast)

On the latest installment of The Drawing Room podcast, Chrissy recites her poem, Ode to Hoffman, 1967, which celebrates Grayson Hall’s contribution to the early episodes of Dark Shadows. The poem is also available to read at the website.

Guest: Sam Witwer (Aiden from “Being Human” (US), “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed”)

Guest: Joshua Hale Fialkov (Writer of The New 52 “I… Vampire”)

Guest: Steve Niles (Creator of 30 Days of Night)

Dark Shadows Episode, the First- Special Guest Host: Lee Ann Borgmeyer (Jessica’s sister)

Thanks to http://warmingglow.uproxx.com/ and Deadline we now have word on a new possible pilot for NBC.  And get this!  It’s combining Zombies and Vampires.

This has hit written all over it right?

Zombies vs. Vampires is described as a “fun buddy cop procedural.” It is set in a world where zombies are a part of society, controllable with medication. The show’s two leads (one secretly a vampire) are cops assigned to a squad specifically formed to deal with “zombie crime”

Buddy Cop Procedural (which we already have a glut of,) vampires (that’s not everywhere,) and zombies (because that isn’t already on AMC and every other horror film out right now.)

Is this their hopeful replacement for Law and Order Criminal Intent which is on the downward spiral?  They screwed up Fear Itself and let it wither on the vine.  Ugh.  If this gets a greenlight and something funny and different like “Rex is not your lawyer” doesn’t then letters need to be written.

I went into this movie knowing it would be bad.  Beyond bad, into the ridiculously funny realm of stink bomb even.  I did this for two reasons.

1. I had to see for myself a film that was so painful for an actor to make that he would drink himself drunk the entire shoot.  (that actor would be Michael Madsen, who I love and respect for this reason and many others)

1. To save you, my dear readers, the pain and agony of being duped into seeing it on the pretense that this is being marketed with the phrase “Academy Award Winner” and things like that attached to the title.  Because I know some of you out there might not know what baggage comes with the name Uwe Boll.

Ah, Uwe Boll.  A name that has become linked forever with movies that are beyond shit.  Beyond this worlds comprehension of awful.  And they all tend to be video game based films because the man has no talent for creating anything original or of his own.  No, he has to take things that are good and pure, like say the Bloodrayne video game series (which is really fun) and make it some lame attempt at a Red Sonja wannabe kind of EuroTrash fantasy thing.  Or something.  But I digress.

Dr. Boll has made some of the biggest stinkburgers to come out of Hollywood in awhile.  He has actually inspired what I call my “shitty movie dance” that was born from his first foray into Video Game Film “House of the Dead”.  Good ol Uwe, he never lets you down…you have to say that for him.

Bloodrayne takes his crap level to a new high, or low depending on how you want to look at it.  It’s as though he went out of his way to really make it suck, the casting alone is good for a laugh.  Let’s break it down with a few key players shall we?

Michael Madsen:  One of my motivating factors as you saw above.  They’ve cast Michael Madsen (who probably lost a bet and that’s how he got cast in this) as a European (I’m guessing some sort of Transylvanian) vampire hunter named Vladimir.  That’s right, you read that correctly.

Madsen as I have said was drunk during the shooting of this.  And it shows, Oh boy does it show.  His eyes are glazed and he looks totally out to lunch in EVERY scene he is in.  We know the guy can act when he wants to after seeing Reservoir Dogs and the fact he’s been in over 100 movies.  But he has a certain kind of character that he plays and let me tell you it doesn’t scream Transylvanian warrior of the people.  Not only that, he looks like the hair people took their cues from Dog The Bounty Hunter.  The best part is Madsen doesn’t even try for an accent.  He sounds like he just walked out of some Chicago deli with a smoke in his mouth after downing a six pack of Budweiser.  It’s hilarious, but made even more so by the fact he’s saying his lines like he’s reading them off a teleprompter.

Now on to the next casting miracle.  This one makes Madsen seem Academy worthy.

Michelle Rodriguez and Billy Zane:  They are father and daughter.  Yes you read that right too. FATHER AND DAUGHTER.  Did he have her when he was 10?  And oh yeah, Michelle Rodriguez has an English accent..  Yep, an English accent.  It makes me wish for Kevin Costner, which is something I never ever thought I’d say.

Zane and his daughter (excuse me while I laugh a kidney out my mouth) are part of the Brimstone society as is Madsen.  They fight the vampires, but Zane has been bitten and made into one. So he’s fallen out of the society.  He also has a wig that looks like someone found on the side of the road after it was hit by a car.  I’m not sure what animal it used to be, but it needed some conditioner in a bad way.  He shows up for about oh, 2 or 3 minutes during the movie and then just kind of leaves.  You don’t really know what happened to him, he just leaves.

Rodriguez is her typical tough Latin chick…I mean English Lords Daughter.  Seriously, I don’t even know if they are supposed to be from England.  I think she just picked that out of the blue for her character.  But what’s funny is it comes out as this sort of Jersey/Brooklyn/British hybrid thing that just doesn’t belong in any film ever again.  Neither does Rodriguez but as long as there are movies about street racing or hard core gun toting police chick roles out there she’ll have work.

Now the people who should REALLY be ashamed for having been part of this mess.

Geraldine Chaplin and Ben Kingsly:  Chaplin has been in films like Doctor Zhivago.  She’s the daughter of Charlie Chaplin, one of the greatest film stars of all time.  What the hell man?  What’s she doing in this.  Granted she’s in for all of 5 minutes, but still.

But Kingsley…oh yes.  Ben Kingsley is no stranger to crappy sci-fi/fantasy.  He actually co-starred with Madsen in the oh so glorious Species (another movie about a tall willowy gal that goes around killing people…I see a theme here) as well as A Sound of Thunder, Thunderbirds.  Rumor is that he was one of the reasons Madsen was drinking.  They don’t really like each other that much.  But Ben’s “Oscarness” was no where to be seen for this royal poopfest.  He spends nearly every shot he’s in sitting on a  throne (no not that throne) and being stiff.  He speaks his dialog even WORSE than Madsen does.  He has the appearance of a man that just REALLY doesn’t want to be there.

Kingsley is no Sexy Beast.  Nope…not at all.  It’s actually painful and uncomfortable to see him because it must have been painful and uncomfortable for him to be acting in it.  He must have needed the money…that’s the only thing I can figure.

Kristanna Loken who plays the title character you may remember from Terminator 3 as the emotionless Termanatrix.  She’s not come very far with her performing and emoting.  With what she brings to the role anyone could have been Rayne.  She and Matthew Davis who plays her love interest have absolutely no chemistry.  In fact, there was a very weird love scene between the two of them that happens in a sort of dungeon.  It just sort of happens, and goes on for a VERY long time to some really dramatic music.  Dr. Boll has some issues me thinks.

Meat Loaf shows up as a vampire ?pimp? named Leonid.  The reason I say pimp is that Boll, instead of hiring actresses for his harem, actually hired prostitutes.  So in those scenes with Mr. Loaf and his gals, those are really hookers.  Yep, class act all the way our Dr. Boll.  He ticked off the Actors Union with that decision as you can imagine.

Udo Kier, he of the bulging blue eyes and Andy Warhol’s Dracula fame, shows up as a priest for a brief time.  He’s actually a touch of class to this debacle.  He’s not around very long though and I cried when he left because he took with him the only bit of soul I had left after the first half of the movie destroyed it.

Notice I didn’t give you much in the way of plot.  That’s because there isn’t any that I could discern.  Something about destiny and stopping the evil vampire Ghandi.  But that’s about it.  You don’t really care and neither did the writers apparently.

So in closing, Uwe has done it again.  He’s taken a great video game and made a movie that would cause Satan to repent.  It’s fun to see actors trying so hard and failing to cover the fact they want to kill the agent who got them the job.  But for the love of God don’t waste money on this.  Wait for it on cable and make sure to follow Madsen’s example and be REALLY drunk before viewing.

The first Underworld was nothing new, as I’ve said in a previous review of an Underworld related item.  But it did do a neat job slicking up the vampire and werewolf genres.

Some of the performances were great (Michael Sheen as Lucian was a particular stand out, as was Bill Nighy), some were alright ( Kate Beckinsdale and Scott Speedman weren’t too bad), and some were just downright awful (Shane Brolly as Kraven will go down as the man who nearly disgusted me out of my love for vampires.)  But as a first attempt at a horror action flick, this one was pretty good.

The inevitable sequel was just a matter of time, and here it is in Underworld: Evolution (not to be confused with The Matrix:  Revolutions)

The film picks up immediately after the events in the first movie.  Selene and Michael are on the run and being chased by the vampires due to Selene making the booboo of killing their leader.  But it’s not just the vampires chasing them, but a group of commando types in black riot gear.  Who are these guys?  And what’s going on at the coven house?  We find this out pretty fast.

Kraven discovers much to his dismay, and everyone else’s at the mansion that Marcus, the last remaining vampire elder, is awake.  He’s also mutated thanks to that mingling of werewolf blood and his own ancient blood, into a hybrid.  Marcus is quite the bad ass, and thanks to flashbacks we find out that he’s the original vampire and that Viktor somehow managed to boss him around.  Not sure how that works, but he ain’t being bossed around anymore.

After some messy and gory battles Marcus figures out that he needs to get a hold of Selene.  She’s the key to a mystery it seems, or at least her blood is.  Off goes the bastard offspring of the bat creature from Bram Stoker’s Dracula in search of Leather Girl.

Meanwhile, after a long and unnecessary nookie session between Selene and Michael (I have nothing against sex scenes, but when I feel like Speedman should be buying me dinner or Kate should be giving me a cigarette there’s something wrong) we find out who these guys from SWAT are.  Oh and there’s some hybrid man-battle going on too.  Lots of that actually.

The guys in black are actually part of Marcus and William’s (the first vampire and first werewolf respectively) father’s army.  Their dad is still alive (they never explain how this could be…is he a vampire or what???)  and has been watching and cleaning up the exploits of his sons for a very LONG time.

What follows is Selene and Michael trying to stop Marcus from finding his brother William.  William was also quite the badass, and beyond being able to change back into a human.  He’s stuck in Lycan mode forever.

I can’t give much more away without ruining the movie.  So I’ll stop there and let you know what I thought about it.

Underworld:  Evolution was a decent sequel, and one that in some ways improved on the original.  I liked the fact there was more gore in this one.  I thought the first was lacking in a major way when it came to blood, especially for a vampire film.  This movie has jaw ripping, neck tearing, and all sorts of bloody fun.  The special effects have also improved, thanks no doubt to more of a budget.

Another great thing about this movie is Tony Curran who plays Marcus.  He shows up in a lot of genre films lately (he was the Invisible Man in LXG and was Priest in Blade 2) and is very entertaining.  He sells the role of Marcus and looks damn fine in a pair of flaming blue contact lenses.  I really enjoyed him in the part.

The flashbacks to the days of Viktor and Marcus leading the vampire army against the Lycans were also fun.  We get to see Amelia in full on battle armor along with Viktor (who sports a very mullet looking haircut)  In fact, one of the major problems I had with the movie are there weren’t enough of these flashbacks.  When the film was announced it was rumored that the first half of the movie was going to be set in these past times.  Maybe it is because the better actors were the older vampire and lycans (except for Kraven) and this was their time, but I would have been happier with a film set entirely back in those days.

And yes, I’m a Lucian fan.  So I was very VERY disappointed to see that Michael Sheen’s credited role in this movie was entirely derived from flashbacks to scenes from the first movie.  If he did anymore than that, it must have been cut because Lucian had absolutely nothing in this film.  Which is sad, because his character was one of the most interesting in the entire film.  I’m guessing that the whole Kate and Len thing may have had something to do with this (this is pure conjecture on my part) so I can’t really blame him…but it still sucks.

Also underused was Bill Nighy.  Viktor is another character who really blows everyone else out of the water.  I would really enjoy seeing how his relationship as a father figure in Selene’s life began and was grown.  It would be great story.

Another problem with this film is the lack of explaining on how Corvinus was still around.  You never really learn what he is or how he has lived this long without any other vampires or lycans finding out about him.  It’s rushed and sloppy story telling in that regard.

I have some other problems with the convenient forgetting of certain points that occurred in the first film and this one, but I’ll let that go…for now.

Underworld: Evolution with all its faults is fun and better than the first in some regards.  I can only hope the newly circulating rumors are true, that the next film will be set in entirely in the past.  I would hope that the great characters that this series has given us will return.  In other words…BRING BACK MY LONG HAIRED LYCAN HOTTIE WISEMAN!!!!!!  Okay…I feel better now.

This is NOT the Nicole Kidman vehicle of the early 90′s.  No, this is a vampire romance from the late 80′s.  It’s actually one of those movies that surprised many people who saw it, thinking that it wouldn’t be more than a b-grade piece of fluff.  To Die For is actually a well photographed, well acted piece of drama that has a lot going for it.

Directed and styled with a bit of Michael Mann Miami Vice gloss and set in LA, To Die For tells the story of real estate agent Kate who at a yacht party meets a mysterious stranger with dark hair and piercing eyes.  They quickly wind up hot and heavy, but before she can run off with a man who hasn’t even told her his name, not so tall, dark, and handsome disappears.  Kate leaves the party, much to the disappointment of her friend (who wants to be more than a friend.)

Later on we meet Kate’s roommate Celia, who is engaged to a med student.  Celia is sweet, blonde, and tries desperately to see the bright side to everything.  Can we say repressed?  Oh yeah. 

So, Kate’s boss (played by the late Duane Jones of Night of the Living Dead, one of his last roles) tells her she’s got a new client.  He’s only able to meet her at night (uh oh) and he’s very rich.  His name is Vlad Tsepsh (double uh oh).  Vlad appears that night and surprise, it’s her mysterious stranger. 

They go to see what is practically a castle in the hills above LA.  Of course Vlad, being the vampire he is loves it.  He tells Kate that he needs an assistant and Celia gets the job.  Kate and Vlad banter and flirt and she sells a house.

Celia is now working at Vlad’s and winds up getting seduced and bitten.  She starts making a turn for the worse as all those repressed desires and emotions start coming out.  You have to give it to Amanda Wyss, she kicks ass in this role.

We also discover that Vlad’s brother Tom is stalking about.  He doesn’t like Vlad since Vlad took the life of the woman he loved.  So Tom wants to even the score with Kate. 

Drama, romance, comedy, and horror all meld together in To Die For.  It shouldn’t work, but it does. 

Brendan Hughes, who made a bit of a career acting in b-grade horror films in the late 80′s early 90′s does a surprisingly good job as Vlad.  He’s short and he’s got a face that belongs on the cover of a Duran Duran tribute band (and the hair to match) but he’s a good actor.  He’s got an old world courtliness and charm that makes him perfect for these roles.  He played pretty much the same character in this film as he did in Sundown: The Vampire In Retreat and Howling 4: The Freaks (the difference in the Howling movie being he was a werewolf and not a vampire.

Sydney Walsh who plays Kate is a great as well, having just enough strength of character and innocence of what is going on that she isn’t annoying.  She’s trapped in this craziness and you really want her to be happy and have a happy ending. 

Amanda Wyss, who many know as Freddy’s first victim in the first Nightmare on Elm Street (Tina, who gets tossed around her bedroom and sliced open) is icy fury as Celia.  When she starts to become a vampire, her skin becomes alabaster and her eyes shark black.

The entire cast does a great job and the music and cinematography are perfect.  For a film with no budget, this one pulls off some great special effects (for the time) and a great movie.  If you are a vampire fan, you should catch this one.  You can find it on DVD on Ebay! for around ten bucks.  There was also a comic book adaptation released when the film was originally.

For more information on To Die For, and other vampire films check out this great site:

http://www.vampiremovies.co.uk/