One of the joys of writing a whole new Cthulhoid core book (The Fall of Delta Green, and thank you for asking) is attempting yet another take on the old familiar Mythos legendry. The technothriller tone of Delta Green cries out for specifics and details and connections to our real world of war and terrorism, […]
Author Archives: Kenneth Hite
In the shadowy world of The Fall of Delta Green, you never know who’s got clearance, not to mention who’s got your back … and who’s got your back in his sights. The Company man – the man from the CIA – might fit any of those descriptions, or any other. That’s kind of the point, […]
“Knowledge was knowledge a hundred thousand years ago, when our especial forbears were shambling about Asia as speechless semi-apes!” — H.P. Lovecraft, “The Last Test” It’s a new year, and time for the “Call of Chicago” column to seamlessly shift from endless iterations of Stuff We Left Out of The Dracula Dossier to endless iterations […]
“Behold a great Mystery which I reveal to you without an enigma; this is the secret of the two Mercuries which contain the two tinctures. Keep them separately, and do not confound their species, for fear they should beget a monstrous Lineage.” — The Six Keys of Eudoxus (date unknown, first known publication 1689) The […]
“Look! It burns clear, but with the air around, Its dead ingredients mingle deathliness.” — Robert Southey, Thalaba the Destroyer, a.k.a. “The Other Other Romantic Vampire Poem, You Know, The One That Gets No Respect” From Gerard de Nerval to Harry Potter to the pub-rockin’ Smithereens, the Hand of Glory knocks so sneakily at our culture that […]
Horror of Dracula (1958) Director: Terence Fisher Dracula: Christopher Lee Consider this film (just called Dracula in the UK) the anti-Coppola Dracula. Relentlessly modern (it was the first Technicolor vampire film) and breathlessly paced yet luridly Gothic to the core, carving to the heart of Stoker’s novel while discarding its plot almost entirely, it would […]
Dracula Untold (2014) Director: Gary Shore Dracula: Luke Evans Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a shooting star! It’s a FIST OF BATS! This latest effort by Universal to revitalize their once-glorious monster universe franchise casts a cape-bedecked Vlad the Impaler as half combat-god Batman (“sometimes the world doesn’t need a hero […]
Nosferatu (1922) Director: F.W. Murnau Orlok: Max Schreck To sum up: F.W. Murnau illegally adapted Dracula, changing the names (Harker becomes Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim), Mina becomes Ellen (Greta Schroeder), Dracula becomes Orlok) and location (1890s London becomes 1838 Wisborg, Germany) while adding an apocalyptic plague element missing entirely from the novel. This fooled nobody, […]
Dracula 3000 (2004) Director: Darrell James Roodt Dracula: Langley Kirkwood A Warning to the Curious: This is the worst film I have watched for this project. By far. Compared to this movie, Billy the Kid vs. Dracula is Unforgiven. IMDB users have rated it the 37th worst film of all time. It is not “so bad […]
Dracula (1931) Director: Tod Browning Dracula: Bela Lugosi Is it possible for a film to be simultaneously iconic and bad? Not “iconic for being bad” but plain old iconic — establishing the rules for cinematic Draculas to respond to or rebel against for the next century. In the first act of Dracula, Browning (and cinematographer […]