Reviews of Old and New Stories. Mostly Old

Review of “The Beast Weeps with One Eye” by Morgan Al-Moor

Image by My pictures are CC0. When doing composings: from Pixabay

Regarding PodCastle

I’ve been considering adding to the media that I draw reviews from. Some time ago, I stumbled across PodCastle, which, true to its name, offers fantasy stories via podcast. They also have online text versions. They solicit paid subscriptions of various levels, but the podcast and online versions are readily available without cost. The podcasts appear on Tuesdays and last roughly thirty and sixty minutes. I’ve heard stories by contemporary authors as well as Charlotte Perkins Gilman—and not “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

Many stories seem to have an element of magical realism and draw from non-Western tradition traditions and settings. This is refreshing, particularly if the story itself is new or lends a new twist to an old story. Of particular note along this line is “South China Sea” by Z.M. Quỳnh, a fantasy-imbued recounting of people fleeing by boat a land they can no longer live in.

On the News section of their page, they note they’ve been nominated for the inaugural Ignyte Awards.

The first review is “The Beast Weeps with One Eye,” by Morgan Al-Moor:

Plot:

The Bjebu people have spent three days fleeing through the grasslands after an attack on their village by murderous ravens. The ravens have destroyed the village, and thirty people have died during their flight. Three hundred remain, overjoyed now to see the Nyamba River and give thanks to the Elders.

Word from Mkiwa, the chief huntress, passes the shamaness (“High Sister”): the ravens are returning. They’ve never left. The shamaness communicates with the earth to seek shelter. She’s told they are within the abode of the Keeper of Sorrows. Despite warnings, she begs the Ancient Land to open a sanctuary.

The earth trembles, and the people see a stone structure that wasn’t there before. With the ravens pursuing them, they follow the shamaness into the structure. She realizes it’s the sanctuary of Babawa-Kunguru, the Keeper of Sorrows and the Father of Ravens. He offers the shamaness and the people not only their lives but a home—in exchange for three offerings of sorrow.

What choice does she have? She agrees.

Thoughts:

No setting is ever specified, but Eastern Africa is implied, with descriptions of landscape and clothing. The shamaness wears a khanga (also spelled kanga), for example. In his notes, Al-Moor said that he is originally from southern Egypt, near the Nubian border, and that this story was intended to reflect folklore from his country of origin.

The story contains some lovely, evocative language. When the Bjebu people arrive at the Nyamba River, the reader is told:

The grasslands stretched around us, bathed in the early rays of dawn — a rippling ocean of green in the fresh wind. The blue mountains guarded the horizon, gathering around their highest peak — Mount Wawazee, the abode of the Elders. I caught a breath of the dewy air. Deer grazed in the shadow of a far tree, oblivious to our clamor.

This scene-setting might seem out of place after a harrowing escape from a deadly attack and a three-day flight, but the shamaness is taking stock. Are they safe yet? It works. The shamaness spends more time talking to the powers of the otherworld—the earth and the Elders and later, Babawa-Kunguru— than she does to human beings. This also works. She’s fighting a battle on an unseen plane. The rent is coming due, and the landlord has hinted at the deepest of miseries to follow.

In the meantime, the Bjebu start to rebuild their lives. The farmers dig an irrigation canal. The shamaness leads a trading party to a nearby village. These steps forward do not come without setbacks, of course. Babawa-Kunguru wants his offerings of sorrow.

What good do the offerings of sorrow do for Babawa-Kunguru? How does he benefit? This is part of what lends the story its strength. He’s not merely out to conquer the universe.

Laurice White, who does the narration, seems to take the many unfamiliar words in stride. That she can do so is one reason why she does this sort of work for a living, and I don’t. She reads at a majestic pace, making sure her words come into your earphones clearly but not too quickly.

Overall, I enjoyed this tale.

This story can be read (and heard) here.

Bio:

According to the author’s blurb, Morgan Al-Moor is a doctor, a writer, and a translator from Toronto, Canada, who can sometimes be found dabbling in cartography or admiring another guitar in an old, forgotten store. On Twitter, Morgan noted that this is a first pro short story.

Title: “The Beast Weeps with One Eye”
Author: Morgan Al-Moor
Narrator: Laurice White
Host: Setsu Uzeume
Audio Producer: Graeme Dunlop
Duration: 1 hour, 2 minutes
Rated: PG-13
First published: January 3, 2019, Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Listened to: October 15, 2020, PodCastle

Review of “A Kept Species” by Jamie Wahls

Plot:

The story looks back at the alien invasion:

The aliens [sic]ships deployed missiles the size of roses’ thorns, and sleeted down over our cities. They interfaced with the internet, uploaded themselves into our computers and phones, and seized control.

When people cry out, asking what the aliens want, the only answer they receive is not to be afraid. “We love you.”

Thoughts:

Of course, the aliens aren’t entirely altruistic, though humanity benefits from the invasion. There is a price to pay, both for the favored and for the cast aside.

Wahls draws a parallel between the alien “love” for humanity and human love for pets. Is it, indeed, love? Even if dogs are happy, are they in some way less whole animals than the wolves they evolved from with the selective breeding they’ve endured at the hands of humans? They were once independent creatures, but are now largely dependent on humans. What’s it like to be a dog? What’s it like to be a dog who doesn’t make the cut?

I don’t know if any of this was in the author’s mind, of course. I’m reading a lot into a short short. The little tale says a lot in a few words.

Bio:

According to the bio on his page, author Jamie Wahls is a writer, programmer, pianist, suicide counselor, voice actor, massage therapist, mime, model, ex-millionaire, Krav Magi, scuba diver, game developer, neuroscience enthusiast, dance instructor, vegetarian, and very cautious driver. His short story, “Utopia, LOL,” published in Strange Horizons, was nominated for a Best Short Story Nebula Award in 2017.

“A Kept Species” can be read here.

Title: “A Kept Species”
Author: Jamie Wahls
First published: October 11, 2020, Daily Science Fiction

Review of “Tarantula” (1955)

Saturday pizza and bad movie night with Svengoolie featured a 50s black-and-white mad scientist and monster flick—and some unfortunate sheep.

Plot:

The opening scenes show a deformed man (an uncredited Eddie Parker) stumbling through a desert. Dressed in striped pajamas, he’s obviously near death and soon collapses near a highway. The camera pans away from him, and then, the title Tarantula appears.

This is odd. What has one to do with the other?

The action then switches to the return by private plane of Dr. Matt Hastings (John Agar) to the fictional small desert community of Desert Rock, Arizona. Despite being tired from his trip, he answers the summons by the local sheriff, Jack Andrews (Nestor Paiva), to examine a body at the morgue. Dr. Hastings says the body looks like that of Eric Jacobs. However, the deformities on the face and hands appear to result from acromegaly, a pituitary gland disease, and would take an extended period of time to develop. Jacobs seemed fine when Hastings saw him a couple of days earlier.

Professor Gerald Deemer, Jacobs’ boss at the research lab outside of town, shows up and declares the condition to be acromegaly. He is clearly upset at the news of Jacobs’ death. (… Could there be an underlying reason…?) Because Jacobs had no family, Deemer offers to arrange for the funeral. None of this sits well with Hastings, but since Deemer is a highly-esteemed older man, the sheriff takes his word over Hastings’.

Back at the lab, the viewer watches Professor Deemer prepare and note injections for various animals, including a guinea pig of unusual size and a tarantula about the size of a Doberman pinscher. He is attacked by his other research assistant, Paul Lund (Eddie Parker, uncredited yet again). In their struggle, the lab catches fire, and the large tarantula’s enclosure is broken. Lund injects Deemer while he lies unconscious on the floor and expires soon afterward. The tarantula/Doberman saunters out the back door. Deemer revives in time to put the fire out before it spreads. He buries Lund in the backyard.

The sheriff soon receives a complaint from a farmer about some predator attacking his cattle and leaving only bones.

Thoughts:

The mad scientists aren’t all that mad. They were trying to devise an all-in-one nutrient to feed the world’s three billion (and growing) people before we run out of food. (There are approximately 7.7 billion people today.) It caused animals and arachnids to grow rapidly. Why it would act differently on humans as opposed to other mammals is never addressed.

The nutrient is explained to the viewer and to Dr. Hastings by way of a new lab assistant, the comely Stephanie ‘Steve’ Clayton, whose services Eric Jacobs arranged for before his untimely demise. Dr. Hastings likes her, and even arranges a sort of date after his tour of the lab. Professor Deemer, aware Jacobs was expecting an additional assistant, welcomes her, but tells her she doesn’t look like any biologist he knows of. Nevertheless, perhaps aware his own clock is ticking, he shows her the ropes. The fire in the lab he explains as an electrical short. And Paul Lund—uh, uh….he had to go out of town. The Professor is not sure where he is or when he’ll be back.

Steve gets to walk around the desert in a calf-length pencil skirt and spike heels, unaware that a giant tarantula is about to try to topple boulders onto her and her beau. Those 50s women’s styles might look elegant, but they’re not the kind of thing you want to be wearing when you’re running away from monster spiders.

But look, my god, a giant spider is coming over the hill! It’s attacked cattle and left nothing but bones! It’s picked up a truck transporting sheep and—oh, you don’t want to know.

There’s a pretty high body count in this flick.

All the dynamite in town doesn’t stop this now building-size monster. What’s left? Call out the Air Force, which leads to a pleasant surprise. The jet squadron leader is an uncredited twenty-five-year-old-ish Clint Eastwood, though it’s hard to tell with the oxygen mask on his face.

From the perspective of 2020, the special effects are unconvincing. For example, Professor Deemer never interacts with the guinea pig. Nevertheless, on its intended medium—the movie screen—this could be striking.

The exteriors were shot around Apple Valley and Dead Man’s Point in Lucerne Valley in California, the filming site for westerns such as Stagecoach (1939). The dearly beloved recognized Bell Mountain in the background, a landmark that bears an uncanny resemblance to those bell curves teachers used to talk about.

Like so many movies of its type, this movie was fun. You just can’t take it seriously.

Title: Tarantula (1955)

Directed by
Jack Arnold

Writing Credits
Robert M. Fresco…(screenplay) and
Martin Berkeley…(screenplay)
Jack Arnold…(story) and
Robert M. Fresco…(story)

Cast (in credits order)
John Agar…Dr. Matt Hastings
Mara Corday…Stephanie ‘Steve’ Clayton
Leo G. Carroll…Prof. Gerald Deemer
Nestor Paiva…Sheriff Jack Andrews
Ross Elliott…Joe Burch

Released: February 20, 1956 (Sweden)
Length: 1 hour, 20 minutes

Review of “Oblivious Obsolescence” by Don Nigroni

Plot:

There isn’t a plot to this one. The narrator is reacting to a November 1980 article he (?) read, presumably in 2019, about occupations that became obsolete in the twentieth century: switchboard operator, elevator operator, iceman, cigarette girl, and pinsetter. The narrator and generations of his family have followed one now-obsolete occupation—yeah, thanks very much, modern technology!— which was once invaluable to humanity and for which they are uniquely qualified.

Thoughts:

As for obsolete jobs, I worked as a switchboard operator for some years after the putative article was written. I had to spend a couple seconds thinking about what a pinsetter is. Was.

In the narrator’s case, it’s not merely a matter of learning new skills and getting a new job. The family has a unique talent for obtaining material necessary for human life, yet it’s no longer needed.

Times change. Memories fade.

This tale is short, all leading up to a single punchline. I liked it.

Bio:

According to his blurb, author Don Nigroni received a BS in economics from Saint Joseph’s University and a MA in philosophy from Notre Dame and worked as an economist for the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. He has been published in Ambit, Asymmetry Fiction, Mystery Tribune, 365 tomorrows, and 50-Word Stories. In addition, his poetry has appeared in Candelabrum and Mystery Time.

The story can be read here.

Title: “Oblivious Obsolescence”
Author: Don Nigroni
First published: October 9, 2020 Theme of Absence

Review of “The Capes We Wear” by Avra Margariti

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

Plot:

Wonderboy, with his sidekick (and uncle), the Shield, defends Trafalgar Square against an attack of flying robot monkeys. One of the monstrosities bites Wonderboy, who calls out to his Uncle Elijah before he blacks out.

The Shield removes a glove and blasts the monkey into oblivion. He sees the attack as the sloppy work of the Twisted Twins, the latest supervillains to arise.

He sighs, picks up Wonderboy, and brings him home to the lab. He has an antidote to the robot monkey venom. Long ago, he developed it.

Thoughts:

Elijah narrates the tale. For much of the story, it’s as if he were speaking to his nephew, whose given name is Nico.

The opening paragraphs are a little confusing. It took a second reading for me to get my bearings as to what was going on. The story pokes a little fun as superhero tropes. It does not, however, denigrate them. This is not satire. It seems to primarily address the redemptive power of love.

Bio:

According to her blurb, author Avra Margariti is a queer Social Work undergrad from Greece. She enjoys storytelling in all its forms and writes about diverse identities and experiences. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Flash Fiction Online, Lackington’s, Vastarien, Asimov’s, and other venues. Avra won the 2019 Bacopa Literary Review prize for fiction. You can find her on twitter @avramargariti.

The story can be read read here.

Title: “The Capes We Wear”
Author: Avra Margariti
First published: October 5, 2020, Daily Science Fiction

Review of Island of Terror (1966)

As promised, monsters and cheesy specials effects. Saturday night pizza and bad movie night with Svengoolie.

Plot:

On isolated Petrie Island off the Irish coast, Mrs. Bellows (Joyce Hemson) notices her husband Ian (Liam Gaffney) hasn’t come home. She contacts Constable John Harris (Sam Kydd) and asks him to go look for him.

Meanwhile, oncologist Dr. Lawrence Phillips (Peter Forbes-Robertson) is holed with his research team in a laboratory in a castle on the island. Dr. Phillips is hopeful they’re on the verge of discovering a cure for cancer.

Constable Harris finds what remains of Ian Bellows in a cave. There doesn’t appear to be a mark on him. He is, however, missing every bone in his body.

Suitably spooked, the good constable turns to physician Dr. Reginald Landers (Eddie Byrne), who is dumbfounded. Dr. Landers goes to the mainland for a specialist, Dr. Brian Stanley (Peter Cushing). Stanley further complicates things by seeking out brilliant Dr. David West (Edward Judd).

Stanley and Landers arrive at West’s place while West is entertaining a lady friend, Toni Merrill (Carole Gray). She volunteers the use of her daddy’s helicopter in return for the privilege of tagging along.

Once they reach the island, they learn the helicopter must fly back to the mainland, effectively stranding everyone there for several days.

What could go wrong?

By this time, farmers have started to lose livestock. The assembled doctors decide to contact the research team in the castle to seek their assistance. Stanley knows Phillips.

Unfortunately, the whole team is dead, deboned. It looks like there was a struggle.

Thoughts:

The monster accidentally created by the cancer research team is a silicon-based life form, originally designed to destroy cancer cells. Instead, it develops a taste for calcium phosphate. The monster bears an uncanny resemblance to the silicon-based rock monsters of “The Devil in the Dark” episode of the original Star Trek series, a ground-sweeping lump of amorphous lava-ish goo. The movie monsters, called “silicates,” differ in appearance by having a single tentacle to attack prey. The silicates are also nearly indestructible and reproduce by fission. Dr. Landers learns to his dismay that axes do nothing. Later, the viewer sees them brush off Molotov cocktails and even dynamite. They can climb trees—somehow.

I could find no connection between Star Trek and this movie. The only Petrie Island I could find was in Ontario, Canada. Unless the whole island immigrated, I’d hazard a guess the name is fictional. Nevertheless, it’s a good name, given the goings-on

This has a rather high body count for a sci-fi/horror flick. The discovery of poor Ian Bellows occurs early. It’s just a rubber suit with clothes, but Constable Harris’ reaction serves to add the horror. What can he tell poor Mrs. Harris? What could cause such a thing? Later, the viewer sees a sinister tentacle.

A scene late in the movie has the townspeople gathered in the city hall, awaiting the onslaught of the creatures. The important men of the village have told the villagers they will be safe here. Probably. The offensive measures they’ve worked against the creatures might take a while to take effect. All the usual horror movie happenings occur: glass breaks, silly women scream, those-who-didn’t-listen meet their well-deserved fate, and our heroes prevail, broken but unbowed. It was a lot of fun.

One fly in the ointment was the character of Toni Merrill, Dr. West’s girlfriend. We first see her wearing nothing but a man’s shirt. Oh, dear. What has been going on? No, not that. Clumsy Dr. West spilled wine on her dress, and it’s hanging in the bathroom to dry.

Later, she provides the helicopter that allows them to get to the island. She’s pretty useless once they arrive. Dr. West assigns the job of calming the villagers in the city hall, and she nurses Dr. Stanley when he’s wounded, but aside from that, she’s the stereotypical hysterical female in the face of danger, who imperils those around her. She clings to the lapels of the menfolk like a piece of lint. ARGH.

Overall, I enjoyed this movie notwithstanding its flaws. It was fun.

Title: Island of Terror (1966)

Directed by
Terence Fisher

Writing Credits
Edward Mann…(original story) (as Edward Andrew Mann) and
Al Ramsen…(original story) (as Allan Ramsen)
Edward Mann…(screenplay) (as Edward Andrew Mann) and
Al Ramsen…(screenplay) (as Allan Ramsen)

Cast (in credits order)
Peter Cushing…Dr. Brian Stanley
Edward Judd…Dr. David West
Carole Gray…Toni Merrill
Eddie Byrne…Dr. Reginald Landers
Sam Kydd…Constable John Harris

Released: February 1, 1967
Length: 1 hour, 29 minutes

Review of “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century” by Timothy Snyder

I’ll say first the title is a little misleading. It should be “Against Fascism.”

This is a quick read, some 130 pages in print, apparently intended in its size and format, for the reader to carry in a pocket or purse. The twenty chapters—twenty lessons—boil down to twenty “things to do to be a pain in the ass to Fascists that could actually slow them down.” (A noble endeavor, in my humble opinion.)

Its intended audience appears to be younger people, for whom names like “Mussolini,” “Tito,” and “Francisco Franco,” if they’ve heard of them at all, are little more than names that might ring a bell from a European history book.

The book does not pretend to educate about history or current events in the broad sense, though the author references events as examples of what can go wrong. To cite one case, he describes how the Nazis used the 1933 Reichstag (Parliament Building) Fire to oust their rival Communist Party members from Parliament and clamp down civil liberties. This is an earmark of Fascism: eliminating political rivals and tightening or suspending civil liberties.

“Who set the fire that night in Berlin?” asks Snyder. “We don’t know, and it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that this spectacular act of terror initiated the politics of emergency.”

The Reichstag Fire crisis was more complex than portrayed in the book. Snyder knows this, of course. His point is: beware those who use crises to seize power. Not a bad one at that.

While the book is not a rigorous history lesson, the author attempts to do something perhaps more important, that is, to motivate the readers to educate themselves and take what action they can.

Typical is lesson 11:

Investigate.

Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on the internet is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate propaganda campaigns (some of which come from abroad). Take responsibility for what you communicate with others.

For the old and jaded like myself, this just reads like common sense, and I don’t need anyone to tell me what to read, dagnabbit. I do this sort of stuff all the blessed time. But Snyder isn’t talking to me.

I do have to ask whom he is talking to, though. The engaged know these things already. Will the unengaged read what he has to say?

I hope so. You wouldn’t think we’d be talking about an authoritarian/fascist resurgence in the twenty-first century, but there they are again, like mold on the bathroom ceiling that you have to keep scraping, bleaching, and painting over. If you ignore it, it will only grow, and the roof will come crashing down.

Bio:

According to his blurb, author Timothy Snyder is Housum Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences. He received his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1997, where he was a British Marshall Scholar. He has held fellowships in Paris, Vienna, and Warsaw, and an Academy Scholarship at Harvard.

His most recent work is Our Malady: Lesson on Liberty from a Hospital Bed.

Title: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
Author: Timothy Snyder
First published: 2017

Review of “Kings of the Universe” by Chris Dean

Plot:

Chancellor Dunt has called a meeting with the xenobiologist Andha to discuss a species the Imperium wiped out more than a texacycle earlier, specifically, Homo sapiens. The Imperium is the only power left. Andha doesn’t think much of Homo sapiens. They named their planet “Dirt.” Who does that? And they look like… sea sponges.

Nevertheless, Dunt is seeking Andha’s expertise. Some artifacts have recently been identified as belonging to H. sapiens. It seems they were quite the inventive bunch. Could Andha possibly figure out what these things were for? One item is of particular interest.

Thoughts:

The meeting between Dunt and Andha, although exaggerated, read like so many meetings I’ve sat through it was scary. I don’t recall many with tentacles or eyestalks, moving around, but if I closed my eyes—

After an abrupt scene change, it’s not immediately clear was part one has to do with part two. The mystery is solved up by the time the reader reaches the last line, however.

What holds the reader’s attention is this mystery: what is this object? Why is it important, if indeed, it is important?

None of the characters comes across sympathetic, as quirky and striking as they are. The description of the room where Dunt and Andha meet is brief and off-kilter enough to alert the reader they’re not in Kansas anymore.

While the ending was not a surprise, this was a fun little tale.

Bio:

According to the author’s blurb, Chris Dean travels the American West as a truck driver and adores Yellowstone, the Klamath, and anyplace the sequoias brush the sky. A Chicago native, Chris currently resides in Iowa.

This writer’s work has appeared in Bards and Sages, Page & Spine, and other places.

“Kings of the Universe” can be read here.

Title: “Kings of the Universe”
Author: Chris Dean
First published: Theme of Absence, October 2, 2020

Review of “The Judas Goat” by K.S. O’Neill

Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay

Plot:

This visitor tells the story of the Judas goat. It’s not the goat’s fault. It knows no more about radio collars than it does about God or quantum physics. It just knows that it likes to be with other goats.

The goats are invasive on the Galapagos. As bright as men are, they can’t eradicate them. The Judas goat helps.

People like to be with people, too, across the great expanse of space.

Thoughts:

Reading the story got me wondering if Judas goats were real. They are, but not exactly as depicted in the story.

The author’s take on it is more layered. Simply being around other goats brings destruction down on the whole group, but only because goats are destroying the habitat of native species.

While I can’t say I was surprised by the ending of this sad little story, it engaged me to the end. It also brought my attention to something I didn’t know about.

Bio:

Author K.S. O’Neill has had at least four other pieces published in Daily Science Fiction. In a blurb that accompanied earlier work, he said he lives with his lovely wife, the writer Joy Kennedy-O’Neill, on the Texas coast, where he teaches math at a small college.

“The Judas Goat” can be read here.

Title: The Judas Goat
Author: K.S. O’Neill
First published: Daily Science Fiction, September 28, 2020

Review of “Son of Dracula” (1943)

Saturday pizza and bad movie night with Svengoolie. Yum

Plot:

Katherine Caldwell (Louise Allbritton) is teased by her family and long-time beau, Frank Stanley (Robert Paige), about her interest in the metaphysical and all things occult. During a trip abroad, she met Count Alucard (Lon Chaney Jr.) and has invited him to visit her family home of Dark Oak Plantation in Louisiana.

When the day of his arrival comes, his baggage—including two extremely heavy, long boxes—appears on the train, but there is nary a sign of the Count. Katherine asks the servants to put the Count’s things in the guesthouse. She throws a successful reception for the Count, despite the no-show guest of honor. Katherine herself is dismayed. As Frank consoles her, she tells him that whatever she does, it’s all for him.

Later that evening, her father, the Colonel (George Irving), dies of a heart attack. Count Alucard arrives at the door. The servant informs him of the death in the family and that “the family is not receiving.”

The Count roars: “Announce me!”

Upon the reading of the will—not the one that’s been in lawyer’s office, but a more recent one—it’s learned rather than splitting everything, Katherine will inherit Dark Oaks, and her sister Claire (Evelyn Ankers) will inherit everything else. Katherine won’t have to worry about paying the servants because they took off the night the Colonel died, and the Count arrived.

By the way, isn’t that Count hanging around a lot? He and Katherine call on the justice of the peace in the middle of the night. When a distraught Frank visits them, he demands that Katherine annul the marriage. The Count begins to choke him and hurls him into a corner. Frank pulls out a gun and shoots him repeatedly, while Katherine hides behind him. The Count is unfazed. Katherine falls to the ground, dead.

Thoughts:

What does Count Alucard have to do with the Count Dracula the movie title? He kept the same rank, and spelled the name backward. Apparently, he’s deep undercover.

Lon Chaney Jr. plays a menacing vampire. When Frank or various town dignitaries come to check on Katherine’s welfare, he tells them he’s now master of Dark Oaks in tones that brook no argument. He’ll bully anyone, not just servants.

The special effects might strike the 2020 viewer as hokey, but for 1943, they were striking. A bat transforms into Alucard on screen. Alucard dissolves into mist and back again, once even interrupting a conversation the learned Hungarian Professor Lazlo (J. Edward Bromberg) is having describing the abilities and vulnerabilities of vampires. Whip out that pocket cross, Professor!

In many ways, this is an abbreviated retelling of the novel Dracula set in Louisiana of the 1940s without all those interminable letters and diaries. The eeriness of the bayou with its moss-draped trees adds a sinister atmosphere (even if it’s a sound stage) as effectively as any Transylvanian woodland.

Everyone is concerned for Katherine, or Kay as her friends call her. She seems to have come under undue influence of this… Count. Who is he? The Hungarian consulate knows nothing of him. He’s an imposter. But is Kay as innocent as she looks? Frank turns himself into the police for killing her. She’s later seen alive. The authorities then find her quite dead, in a coffin in a mausoleum. Frank’s goose appears to be cooked. Or maybe he’s nuts. He seems to talk to himself in two voices in his jail cell.

Two of the actors who played servants were a brother and sister of Hattie McDaniel, the first black actress to win an Academy Award. (Gone with the Wind). Brother Sam was the lucky servant who opened the door to Count Alucard and sister Ettie was Sarah, a maid to Doctor Harry Brewster (Frank Craven). There just weren’t a lot of roles open to black actors in the 40s.

And hey, there was a war going on. The movie ends with a request to buy war bonds.

While there were some silly things in this movie, and some ooppsies (a hall mirror catches the vampire’s reflection!), this was an enjoyable telling of the tale.

Title: Son of Dracula (1943)

Directed by
Robert Siodmak

Writing Credits
Eric Taylor…(screenplay)
Curt Siodmak…(original story) (as Curtis Siodmak)

Cast (in credits order)
Robert Paige…Frank Stanley
Louise Allbritton…Katherine Caldwell
Evelyn Ankers…Claire Caldwell
Frank Craven…Doctor Harry Brewster
J. Edward Bromberg…Professor Lazlo

Released: November 5, 1943
Length: 1 hour, 20 minutes