Tag Archive: Dracula


The elevated horror of Robert Eggers

Filed under: Books, Gender, Movies, Politics — Leave a comment
January 5, 2025

Nosferatu directed by Robert Eggers (USA, 2024)

‘Elevated horror’ is a term used to distinguish artier cinema from the cruder slash and gore brand of bloody horror mayhem. It’s a pompous label which suggests that an arthouse aesthetic raises films above the baser (and more mainstream) characteristics of the genre. This is akin to those snobbish readers who make a point of distinguishing between old school Sci-Fi novels and the weightier sounding ‘speculative fiction’.
Essentially, ‘elevated’ films are those that pay tribute to their sources but add a knowing modernist slant – The Bababook, Get Out and any recent folk horror would fit this bill. Robert Eggers’ homage to FW Murnau’s 1922 silent classic can confidently included in a list of ‘horror with something to say’ movies.
But what can be added that is truly fresh or original to a story that has been told so many times? Not much, seems to be the answer since although the bloodthirsty undead anti-hero goes by the title of Conte Orlok he is still Dracula by another name and the story faithfully follows the central plot of Bram Stoker’s classic Gothic novel published in 1897.

Continue reading →
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

Fishermen of Whitby

Filed under: Poetry — Leave a comment
August 15, 2007

Whitby Graveyard

While I am away #1 – a poem for the day:

I wrote this poem in 1985 and found it again recently. I wrote it while on holiday in the North Yorkshire town of Whitby after visiting St Mary’s graveyard near the Abbey (where Lucy met Dracula in Bram Stoker’s famous novel). This is dramatically located on a hill top overlooking the sea and the town. Most of the grave stones had been rendered illegible by time and the wind.

Fishermen who stood with full manly pride

Were battered by time and each of them
died,

Age ravages all who once stood bold and strong,

And joyful ballads can become sad songs

Now time has erased the names of the
dead,

Wind has washed the stones leaving waves instead,

Marks of remembrance stand over each grave,

Signs of the men that the earth couldn’t save.

And yet folk still live and laugh by the sea,

Telling tales of the past in old Whitby,

Stories and songs of what brave folk they were,

Of times when all seemed simple and pure.

For time cleans minds leaving the best intact,

Fond images of ages past replace dull facts,

Remember what’s good – paste over the bad,

Man has too much that can make him feel sad.

What matter that grave stones now go unread,

Who really cares for the names of these dead,

Only let it be known they were men like me,

Who laughed and told tales with those by the sea.

Tags: , ,
Comment