The Fearless Vampire Killers DVD Review

The Fearless Vampire Killers (Or: Pardon Me, but Your Teeth Are in my Neck)

Reviewed by Hammer1

DVD released by Warner Bros

Cast:
Jack MacGowran..........Professor Abronsius
Roman Polanski..........Alfred, Abronsius' Assistant
Sharon Tate.............Sarah Shagal
Ferdy Mayne.............Count von Krolock
Alfie Bass..............Yoyneh Shagal, the Inn-Keeper
Jessie Robins...........Rebecca Shagal
Iain Quarrier...........Herbert von Krolock
Terry Downes............Koukol, the Hunchback
Fiona Lewis.............Magda, the Maid
Ronald Lacey............Village Idiot
Sydney Bromley..........Sleigh Driver
Andreas Malandrinos.....Woodcutter
Otto Diamant............Woodcutter
Matthew Walters.........Woodcutter

Originally released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer >1966
Running Time - 107 minutes (1 hour 47 minutes)
Original Aspect Ratio - 2:35:1 (Panavision) MetroColor
Anamorphic for widescreen tv's
EXTRAS:
Theatrical trailer
Featurette - The Fearless Vampire Killers: Vampires 101

"You poor victims of your own cowardice!"

The Movie:

Of the Roman Polanski-directed films I have seen - Repulsion (1965), Cul-de-sac (1966), Rosemary's Baby (1968), MacBeth (1971), Chinatown (1974), The Tenant (1976), Tess (1979), Pirates (1986), Frantic (1988), The Ninth Gate (1999), and recent Oscar-winning The Pianist (2002), The Fearless Vampire Killers (1966) has always been my favorite. I don't care for Rosemary's Baby [horror-movie fandom seems bitterly divided on this one] or Chinatown at all - the former's storyline was old hat and I didn't care for the cast, the latter had good acting but the story wasn't of interest to me. For me, The Ninth Gate and Frantic are mildly entertaining but not "the great film," whereas I was enormously entertained by The Pianist, which once again I don't see as a "great film" - just a solid movie, well-acted but without a Polanski "feel." His most monumental works are Tess, MacBeth, Repusion, The Tenant, and TFVK; films I see as making for big chapters in the history books. So now you know on which side of "the line" I come down on Polanski's movies, buyers, so you can either identify with, reject, or be indifferent to my tastes for making your decision on whether to purchase this marvelous movie. Note that I haven't read Polanski's autobiography or any full-length book on his work - I'll defer to the professional film historians to make the call on his psychology or his status as an auteur. Whatever his personal faults, his great films are landmarks.

As a young teen in the mid-Sixties, I missed TFVK on the cinema circuit - I first saw it first on television, probably in 1969 as I recall. This would have been in the "butchered" version, which the reader may investigate more in an outstanding on-line review by Glenn Erickson / DVD Savant: "TFVK: A Tale of Two Versions." So while I have "seen" the US-version in all it's choppeditude, I don't currently have a tape-dub of it nor do I remember the specifics of what it did or didn't have from all those years ago. More on this later. Cut-up or not, it still had a profound impact on me that winter in '69, where I was living in Indiana - Indiana winters are cold, and there was a substantial amount of snow on the ground. So the atmosphere (literally) of TFVK was something I could identify with, and the fact that it came on a late-night "creature feature" only enhanced the pleasure of watching the movie. Anyway, the film made a profound impression on me, and was one I was thinking about constantly for several days afterward, and off and on for months afterward. Not the least of its impact on this viewer was the first major debut of the incredibly lovely Sharon Tate, who as everyone knows would meet a tragic end. Reared on a diet of films by Hammer/Bava/AIP/etc., men such as I had a certain viewpoint of feminine beauty that was impressed by how women were portrayed in these films. Today's era of punk tattoo'd women is anathema to us. Tate was a beauty icon, like Hazel Court or Barbara Steele in their day. The absence of the movie in video rental stores was acutely felt. The release of the MGM laserdisc of the unedited film was a godsend, bringing back those youngster memories and enriching them.

The basic plot of Polanski's black comedy involves the adventures of a "keystone cop" pair of bunglers, an elderly absent-minded professor of the occult/vampire lore played by Jack MacGowran, and his young assistant, played by Polanski himself, who are on a quest to find actual vampires. Upon arriving at a village inn in Transylvania, they meet up with a frightened populace who are trying to pretend they aren't aware of what they clearly have taken precautions to protect themselves from - hanging up strings of garlic, etc. The inn-keeper Shagal (Alfie Bass) and his wife (Robins) are Jews that use Yiddish exclamations in a very amusing manner that today might be vented upon by the "politically correct" (lighten up.) Bass virtually steals the show with a marvelous performance. Polanski's hormonally-charged Alfred is finding the lovely maid Magda (Fiona Lewis) and Shagal's beautiful daughter, Sarah (Sharon Tate) more than a little distracting. When the inn is invaded by Count von Krolock (Ferdy Mayne,) the clumsy duo set out to rescue Sarah by infiltrating the Count's castle, where he and his very effeminate son are watched over by a hunchback (Downes.) Many amusing moments follow, including their uninvited attendance at a ball for the vampires (reminding one of Hammer Film's Kiss of Evil/Kiss of the Vampire from 1964.) The denial by the villagers that they have a "problem" also harkens back to many Hammer vampire films - Horror of Dracula, Brides of Dracula, and to Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, made two years after TFVK. Is the falling snow shown so often in the film a motif for dripping blood? I'll let you decide. Finally, everyone in the film - from the bit part players to the leads - are just fantastic in their roles; one can't point to a "dud" anywhere.

More of a sit-through-it-with-a-big-grin than a side-splitting barrel of laughs, Polanski's farce on the golden-age of Hammer Films would have been a quite good horror movie if it had been played straight. The cinematography and sets would have made Bernard Robinson proud. Polanski lets the camera dwell on a trapdoor with snow falling through it where the stars are plainly beautiful - the wind blows - in the first attack scene that is just beautiful to look at. In another, he lets the camera roam over a cobweb-shrouded castle archway that could be considered eerie. The script was by Gérard Brach and Polanski himself, and their labour of love was released in Europe as Dance of the Vampires. It was severely altered for American release, much to Polanski's displeasure. But this was the pre-Manson tragedy era for Polanski, and it is quite clear his growing-romance for Sharon Tate shines through in their scenes together, and on the whole, the film radiates with optimism. Far superior to earlier attempts at humor in horror such as Hammer's The Old Dark House or Rank's Carry On Screaming, nothing would remotely approach it until 1979's Love at First Bite, which was very funny, but clearly didn't have a Polanski at the helm! (By the way, WB, where is that DVD?)

The music score by Komeda is one of the most memorable in the genre - note the cue when Krolock's castle is first seen, for example, immediately familiar - and the inventiveness of Andre Francois titles is outstanding. This film was a class production from start to finish. Finally, the film is in my opinion the greatest performance by Ferdy Mayne - whose Lugosi-like stereotypical vampire accent/manner of speech in the film and Christopher Lee-reminding presence is the centerpiece in many ways. Sharon Tate would make for good performances in several other films, but it is here that all her magic is encapsulated.

The DVD:

Which brings us to this DVD. Well, collectors, don't sell your MGM Deluxe 2-disc laserdisc of The Fearless Vampire Killers. The DVD is missing the black-and-white featurette "All Eyes on Sharon Tate" from that release, as well as the alternate animated credits prologue of the American release that is on it. The featurette may arguably be more associated with Tate's previously shot movie Eye of the Devil, but that is a poor excuse for dropping it here. The alternate credits sequence was important for fans of the film and would have been very nice to have here. Perhaps it was a rights issue, but that should have been noted on the DVD sleeve. Surely by now, with all the letters-campaigns to WB, they are aware of what the fans want and who their customers are - at least in the horror genre - and should provide at least a casual explanation.

Warner Brothers-Seven Arts was a great studio in its day. That logo on credits sequences of the Sixties and Seventies stood for quality more often than not. But today's company is not THAT company, and WB has been severely criticized for many of its DVD releases of older films for being skimpy or for poorly made decisions in framing. Which makes this release so frustrating, because they have gone to some lengths to do a lot of things right. The print is in it's correct aspect ratio, and the print is in all in all good shape - colors are fine, and print damage is limited to mild speckling, especially in the first half-hour of the film. However, as acceptable as the condition of the print is, other - much smaller - companies like Blue Underground and Anchor Bay have gone to great effort to digitally correct blemishes from their releases, and WB has many more resources than them to take the same care (which they did, to their credit, on 95% of the prints for Horror of Dracula and The Curse of Frankenstein, for example, whatever else the faults were on those DVD's.) Audio is fine, with hiss at a bare minimum. The DVD is subtitled in English/French/Spanish, but the English subtitling is not accurate, and the dropping of a key word here and there severely impacts the subtle flavor of many scenes, as well as mistakes in the (computer program's?) translation - for example, "Š crucifixes, err, here, there Š" becomes crucifixer. Just a little sit-down with a knowledgeable fan of the film could have corrected this easily. And WB could have found more than a few who would have done it without fee - perhaps a small acknowledgement beside the copyright, if even that. In WB's defense, they are not that much better or worse in this department generally compared to the market.

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Extras:

The two-minute trailer here looks in better shape - especially in hue - than on the MGM deluxe laser. And Warners has dug up a ten-minute period promo featurette, The Fearless Vampire Killers: Vampires 101, starring Max Wall as your instructor for the class, Professor Cecil Havelock-Montague, Ph.D., LL.D, and, in keeping with the humor of the film, B.A.T. The featurette is in great shape, but not subtitled. I'd not been aware of this promo before, and it is very much appreciated. Good work there, WB. There is no commentary track (which may have been very difficult to accomplish considering Polanski's current legal issues in this country) but surely some of the cast and crew could have been tracked down? Alternatively, they could have engaged a good film historian, such as Mark A. Miller, for example, to provide a commentary. Lovers of the movie's poster art will be chagrined that there is no gallery on the DVD, nor a text booklet inside the jewel case where they might have been reproduced. On the plus side, an alternate movie poster is used for the DVD sleeve, and the Frazetta art of the 'best' poster is partially reproduced on the painted disc inside.

Additionally, the DVD menu's impressive animation incorporates the sleeve poster art and uses a majestic sound clip inspired by the score to great effect. The scene selection is broken into 26 chapters that, for once, are not idiotically titled.

Therefore, due to the film's importance in genre films and Polanski's work, this is a must-buy, and what is here is fine indeed. But what the release is missing makes this reviewer and thousands like him not content; however, a thumbs-up (with reservations) is my stamp on it.

You are very close to the goal-line, Warner Brothers - now let's go for the touchdown!

To buy this DVD click on the Cover:

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Background / unconscious information for this amateur review based on the esteemed Video Watchdog by Tim and Donna Lucas;
Horror (The Overlook Film Encyclopedia Series) Overlook Press; Reprint edition (December 1, 1995)by Phil Hardy, Tom Milne, Kim Newman, Paul Willemen;
David Pirie's The Vampire Cinema, ç1977