Screening Log

This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.

April 2006 activity

Total Log Entries: 73

Total Comments: 32

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Condemned to Live / USA / 1935

In the long and colorful history of the vampire film, many intriguing and not so intriguing reasons have been offered to explain exactly how a person becomes a vampire. You can be bitten by a vampire, of course, or voluntarily drink or inject the blood of the living. Or if you find yourself in David Cronenberg’s universe, you can develop an insatiable lust for the red stuff after bits of vampire bat innards are spliced with your own. But Condemned to Live must be given credit for offering the world the most outlandish reason of all: exhaustion. Yes, when poor Professor Kristan, the town’s overworked doctor, doesn’t get the proper amount of rest, he loses all sense of who he is, turns into a bloodsucker, and terrorizes the hapless townsfolk.

To be fair, the film does try to justify the absurdity of this plot point through a brief flashback scene in which Kristan’s pregnant mother is attacked by a giant, and we must presume evil, bat. The fact remains, however, that the professor’s inherited affliction is somehow triggered by a lack of sleep, and it is quite wonderful that such a central circumstance of motivation is incorporated into the film with complete seriousness. This terrific vampire-transformation explanation aside, however, the film is a bit on the trite side: lots of stilted conversations about the evil besetting the town, lots of villagers carrying lanterns and shouting, lots of feeble women swooning at the first mention of trouble. But with a run time that is just over an hour, the film is short enough, and audacious enough, to warrant a watch.

by Thomas Scalzo | Source: Platinum Disc Corporation DVD
06 Apr 2006 10:28 PM | Submit Comment

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