Monster Mania has returned!

After taking a year off, it is time to unlock the crypt, emerge from the fog, and bring life to the dead. Film Enigma has officially returned and what better time to make that return than the greatest month of all, October. It's a month filled with nostalgia, primal fears, costumes, unhealthy brightly colored food, and the finest in horror schlock. What more can a grown kid ask for? Well, this year for Monster Mania I'm coming in hot! I'm reviewing one of the darkest games I've ever played, some of the darkest films I've ever seen, and even some goofy Halloween specials you've probably forgotten about.

So get your costumed chicken nuggets and Elvira Coors light ads ready, it's time to dive into the 2018 Monster Mania!

31 Days of Monster Mania: Day 12: Bram Stoker's Dracula The Game

Written by Stu Cooper

For today's Monster Mania entry I am going to take a look at the games based on the 1992 Bram Stoker's Dracula film. In the 80's and 90's it was not uncommon for virtually every big budget film to get some type of video game interpretation. Everything from "Top Gun" to "The Untouchables" got a video game. It should come as no shock then that the 1992 Coppola movie got a series of games. The game was released on pretty much every platform available at the time. All of them were platformers, and most of them were piss poor platformers at that. The NES and Gameboy versions were very simplistic and similar to Mario. The SNES and Genesis versions were actually pretty fun and nicer looking than the NES, but still far from a good game. Then there was the Sega CD version which is such a mess, it's been ripped to pieces by virtually every game critic. Today I'm going to focus on the Super Nintendo version of the game.

Now immediately the game opens up with a rather beautiful and creepy cinematic of the knight version of "The Count" standing on a hill of destruction. It provides you with some pretty creepy imagery and a good start. Once you get to the menu screen I will advise you to go to the options and make sure you are playing on at least Normal or Hard, because if you choose "Trainee" you will not get the full experience of the game. I beat the game in about 20 minutes on "Trainee" mode and the game ended after I killed the witches, there was no confrontation with Dracula. If you play on Normal or Hard, you should be able to access the full game and get the final battle with Dracula. Several games did this at the time as a way to extend the life of a game. In some cases you would go through the entire game, but because you did it on an easy difficulty, you would get a weaker ending or no ending at all. Dracula doesn't quite go that far, but it's a nice tip to have going into it.

Once the gameplay begins you will notice it's a pretty basic side scrolling platformer. You play the character of Johnathan Harker (Keanu Reeves). The sprite for the character does look just like Keanu Reeves, so they did good there. In terms of weaponry you are armed with a sword/dagger type weapon that looks more like a whip when you use it. The weapon is quite weak and has short range, but it will get the job done. You start out in a tavern beating up peasants,cougars, and bats. Then you move around the maze like level, until you find Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins) who tells you what kind of new weapon you need to advance to the next stage. The next couple stages range from dungeons within Dracula's castle, to rocky mountains that surround the castle. You continue to fight off mostly wild animals, but later you battle skeletons and spiders. Basically a whose who of random "spooky" enemies.

At the end of each stage you will have to battle one of Dracula's minions such as a giant knight with a whip, the witches, a dragon (I don't remember that in the movie), and then of course Dracula in all his various forms. The sprites for Dracula actually look pretty spot on and quite good. For some reason tho every boss is gigantic, including Dracula. So you will better prepare yourself to fight a 12 foot Dracula. Taking small liberties with the movie there. The game is obviously nothing like the movie because let's face it, the film is not really an action film. You may see a character doing something action oriented twice in the whole film. If you can get over that and just play the game, you will probably have a bit of fun.

The big issue the game has is that it is painfully easy. You can beat the entire game on Hard mode within about 35 minutes. It's similar to the Power Ranger SNES games if you've ever played those. You go through a stage, fight a boss, go through a stage, fight a boss. Occasionally you'll be treated to some kind of transitional image taken from the movie, explaining where in the movie you are but not much else. If you manage to complete the game you will be rewarded with a very poor quality image of the aging Dracula, and a text crawl story telling you what happened. Then like Mario, you see the castle crumble.

For what it is, it's not bad. It's certainly not as bad as movie games like Cliffhanger, Last Action Hero, or Terminator 2. It's quite playable, and it's fun. The big downfall is the incredibly easy difficulty. If you paid full price for this game when it was first released, you'd probably be pretty upset. If you rented it, maybe not. I picked the game up for about 5 bucks off ebay, so it wasn't hurting me too much. From what I've seen this is the best version of the game they made, and if that's the case, it's not saying much. I would just make sure to avoid the Sega CD version of the game, which is an epic gaming failure.

31 Days of Monster Mania: Day 11: Horror of Dracula

Written by Stu Cooper

We are getting closer to Halloween and it's time to whip out the big guns. Let's talk Dracula. My personal favorite Dracula is Christopher Lee. I absolutely love the Bela Lugosi version and the Gary Oldman Dracula, but there is something about the brutality of Hammer films that gets me interested. Not only do you have Christopher Lee playing a remarkably creepy Dracula, but you have the acting legend Peter Cushing as the Vampire Hunter Dr.Van Helsing. The pairing of the two ends up being movie magic and is still talked about by horror fans today. The film I'll be talking about today is Hammer's "Horror of Dracula" which went by just "Dracula" outside of the U.S. but "Horror Of" was added to the title to avoid confusion with the Lugosi version. Like the Lugosi version, this one was loosely based on the concept of the original novel. This would be the first Christopher Lee Dracula film ever, tho Cushing and Lee previously worked on Hammer's "The Curse of Frankenstein".

The film was released in 1958 and Directed by Terence Fisher. Fisher would go on to direct several Hammer films starring Lee and Cushing. The plot revolves around Dracula's reign of terror moving from Transylvania to London. The film opens with a man named Johnathan Harker arriving at Dracula's castle and he is apparently there to serve as The Count's official book keeper and Librarian. Secretly Harker is actually there to kill Dracula and declares himself a vampire hunter in his diaries. Tho we don't really know what kind of qualifications he has to be such a thing. Immediately you can tell something is up with Dracula because he locks Harker in his own room, despite telling him he is free to explore the castle. Obviously he is not THAT free. Harker is confronted by a crazed woman inside the castle who asks him for his help, but a midst the craziness she decides to bite Harker. Dracula pops up out of nowhere and takes the woman off. The next day Harker discovers the coffins where Dracula and his minions sleep. Harker has time to kill the female minion, but Dracula is able to get away. The next day Van Helsing discovers a vampire Harker and is forced to kill him.

As a result of Harker's death Van Helsing is forced to deliver the news of Harker's fate to his widow Lucy, his brother Arthur, and Arthur's wife Mina. Together the four of them plot to track down Dracula and make him pay for what he did. Unfortunately Dracula has already gotten to Harker's wife and bitten her. Talk about a dick move, first you ruin a guy's life and turn him into a vampire, then when the guy dies, Dracula goes after the dead guy's wife! Dracula has never heard of bro code, that's for sure.

After Van Helsing finds out about Lucy's health, he attempts to cure her, but his attempts fail. After Lucy turns into a vampire and attempts to take the life of a child and Arthur, Van Helsing hits her with a cross and drives her off. Later Helsing stakes Lucy and continues his quest to track down Dracula. After Arthur's wife Mina is taken by Dracula, the final straw is broken and Arthur helps Van Helsing locate Dracula. Dracula has infected Mina and is attempting to bury her, but Van Helsing and Arthur save the day! This results in an epic final showdown between Dracula and Van Helsing. The fight ends when Van Helsing exposes Dracula to sunlight and the audience is treated to a gory body melting sequence. Dracula's body crumbles and Dracula is defeated...for now.

This film marked the beginning of the Hammer Dracula era and it was a fun ride for horror fans. Christopher Lee seems to not share the fond memories, probably a result for him getting such low pay for his appearances as Dracula. Still, the man returned to the role 6 times after this, so some part of him must have loved it. Lee actually only had 16 lines of dialogue in the entire film and most of it takes place in the beginning of the film when Harker arrives. The scene where Dracula decays at the end was actually edited because of the intense violent nature of the effect. The footage of the extended cut was thought to be lost, but was found in Japan and added to the newest version of the film on bluray. Audiences were quite shocked by the film due to it's gore. Cushing and Lee would team up for several sequels, but you are best sticking with the first 3 films in the series. It starts to get a bit weird once the series enters the 70's. If you have a way to watch this film, I highly recommend it. The Hammer horror films are a nice break from the tame nature of the early Universal Monster films. Hammer pulls no punches and it can get weird, but that's part of the charm.

31 Days of Monster Mania: Day 8: Retro Halloween Commercials

Written by Stu Cooper

One of my favorite parts of the Halloween season is the series of Halloween commercials TV viewers are treated to. It seems like as the years have progressed, the commercials have become less frequent and less about the special holiday that people like me live for. So let's hop into the time machine and take a look at some classic Halloween commercials that you may remember from your childhood!

Mcdonald's Halloween Commercials

Pizza Hut's Pizzahead on Halloween

Elvira Coors Light Halloween Commercial

Frankenstein Reese's Commercial

Dracula Pepsi Commercial

Clarence Clemons Miller Lite Commercial

Easter Seals Vincent Price Commercial

Diet Coke Haunted House Commercial

Fruity Pebbles Halloween Commercial

Taco Bell Goosebumps Commercial

31 Days of Monster Mania: Day 3: The Beetlejuice Graveyard Revue

Written by Stu Cooper

It's October 3rd and it's time for another installment of Film Enigma's Monster Mania! For Day 3 I thought I'd change it up a bit and dig up something that you may have seen if you've ever made your way down to Orlando, Florida. If not, then you're in for quite the surprise. If you've ever gone to Universal Studios you know that the theme park is based around films, and rides or shows based on those films. We all know the classic rides like JAWS, Back to the Future, and King Kong. But what about the stage shows? Well as a child I vaguely remember seeing the Ghostbusters stage show, and it was somewhat entertaining, but I had no idea there was actually other stage shows going on as well. The one I'd like to discuss today is "The Beetlejuice Graveyard Revue" or "The Beetlejuice Mash-up" as it's now known.

The Beetlejuice Revue debuted at the theme park in 1992 and took the place of the CONAN The Barbarian stage show (which I would have loved to have seen). The show used a castle theater as it's backdrop, which was apparently leftover from the Conan set. The show featured a Beetlejuice impersonator coming out and riffing with the crowd. He makes some jokes, does a little bit of stand-up (which changed based on whatever was hip in pop culture at the time) and then he introduces some of his monster friends. Since the show took place at Universal Studios, all of the monsters were the classic Universal creatures. You had the likes of Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf-man, Bride of Frankenstein, and The Phantom of the Opera. This is where the show gets weird. For whatever reason, Beetlejuice convinces all of the monsters to form a rock group, and perform music. The remainder of the show is then each monster singing their own song. The songs each creature sings have changed throughout the years, but were usually just random pop songs that had little to do with the character. It's not until the new 2014 version that the songs actually reflect the characters. I was a bit stunned when I watched a 2013 version that featured Dracula singing Van Halen...for whatever reason. The show itself is quite goofy and really has very little to do with the Beetlejuice universe, so don't expect to get any Tim Burton vibes. Beetlejuice is merely the host of what is essentially a monster musical.

The show has undergone a few cast changes throughout the years. The original line-up featured The Phantom of The Opera, but he was swapped out for "The Mummy", who is later swapped out for some undead cheerleaders that sing back-up. The newest version features the Phantom's daughter Fantasia, and bizarrely also features Cleopatra. I must have missed the Universal horror film about that menacing Cleopatra! But regardless of how goofy the show is, it's pretty cool to see the character of Beetlejuice continue to live on. But just remember he won't do two shows a night babe, he just won't do it.

Checkout some incarnations of the show I found:

Monster Mania Day 24: NBC's Dracula Premiere

Written by Stu Cooper

One week ago NBC debuted their new take on the DRACULA mythos in the form of an episodic drama. This is following FOX debuting their new "Sleepy Hollow" show earlier this month. I'm a huge fan of the Universal horror franchises and Dracula has always been a favorite of mine. I'm very partial to Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee portraying Dracula who would be impossible to top. I tried to approach this series with an open mind and what I found was a mildly enjoyable vampire show with potential. Let's dive right into it.

Dracula is played by Johnathan Rhys Meyers of "The Tudors" fame and he brings a unique presence to the character that doesn't exactly scream classic monster. He plays a metrosexual industrialist version of Dracula, which is hard to wrap your brain around at first. This incarnation of Dracula is revived at the beginning of the series by Van Helsing (for reasons you will discover later) and goes on to become an industrial/electrical engineer in the United States. He develops technology that is almost identical to Tesla's work. Dracula plans to market this and have his way with the economy I suppose. It's an interesting take on Dracula's journey. Dracula has his assistant Renfield, and the two work together to manipulate the people around them. The focus of Dracula's efforts seems to be on a protagonist by the name of Johnathan Harker. Harker is about as cookie cutter and boring as it gets. I really just wanted to see this guy die in the first episode, but sadly it looks like he will take the hero role at some point. Van Helsing is actually somewhat of a villain and the morality of Dracula seems to be up in the air. So the show takes the roles we are used to and basically flips them. It's a good way to make the Dracula premise fresh but i'm curious to see how it goes over time. The villains in the series seem to be a cult like group called The Order who hunts down Dracula and his associates. I'm not sure why they are the bad guys, other than the fact that they kill people occasionally. I was actually rooting for them when they attack Dracula at one point.

Overall the show has a nice pace and provided enough classic Dracula moments mixed in with new Dracula moments to keep me entertained. I am not a fan of the actor who plays Dracula. I'm a bit burnt out on the sexy vampire stuff after Twilight and True Blood. I'd rather see a guy who was creepy and had a menacing screen presence. This guy just looks like a model with fangs and that is not Dracula worthy. The storyline elements seem interesting tho and I am going to keep watching to see where it goes. I'd love it if they involved other Universal Monsters at some point.

Monster Mania Day 13: Ultimate Spider-man: Meet Blade And The Howling Commandos

Written by Stu Cooper

It's time to discuss the first Halloween special of the season! This one came on Disney XD last week and should be repeated several times before Halloween. The special was called "Ultimate Spider-man: And The Howling Commandos". It was actually just a two-parter of the actual Ultimate Spider-man cartoon that is on it's third season. The show itself is actually really good and high quality. The stories are pretty intense and it has a lot of humor. The artwork and effects are also top notch. The guy who plays Agent Coulson even voices himself on the show. It's not quite as good as the Avengers show that ended a year ago, but it's easily the best superhero show on TV right now.

The two-parter starts off with Spider-man and his friends (Luke Cage, Iron Fist, etc) all goofing off late at night when they are suddenly attacked by vampire like monsters. The monsters keep coming and coming and are putting up a pretty good fight. The group investigates where these vampires are coming from and that leads them to the one and only...the man, the myth, the legend...DRACULA! Dracula doesn't exactly look like his Bela Lugosi self. He actually looks more like a form of Dracula from one of the Castlevania games. He is covered in armor and has long white hair. Pretty menacing looking and of course he thinks Spider-man and his friends are mere peons. Dracula's plan is to basically turn the entire world into his army of vampire minions, and he is also looking for some kind of device to help him. It's soon after we meet Dracula that things pick up even more when BLADE shows up! That's right, the Daywalker is in town. To be honest this Halloween Special was about 10x better than Blade Trinity.

What unfolds after this is absolute madness. Many of Spider-man's friends (Iron Fist, Luke Cage, etc) get put under Dracula's spell and start fighting on his side. This leaves Spider-man and Blade outnumbered but don't worry Nick Fury has a plan! He introduces Spider-man to another super hero group that most of us probably don't know about, The Howling Commandos! Yeah I haven't heard of these guys either, but apparently they are real and are all marvel characters. The team is made up of Man-Thing, Werewolf by Night, The Living Mummy, and of course Frankenstein's Monster! The group is almost identical to the Universal Monsters we all know and love, except they have amped up powers or in Frankenstein's case...MACHINE GUNS! At this point the story gets pretty goofy, but I don't want to spoil it. Let's just say the special is essentially Spiderman vs. The Monster Squad. If you like either one of those things, you will be very pleased. The special is set to air 2-3 times between now and Halloween, so I highly suggest DVRing it. It's nice to see shows still doing original Halloween Specials instead of just replaying old stuff. Upon doing a bit of research I actually found out Spider-man and Dracula have interacted a few times in the past, in the comics and in the old "Spider-man and His Amazing Friends" cartoon (which is GOLD). I believe the Dracula episode of the old cartoon is on Netflix, so you could always check that one out.

Monster Mania Day 3: Monster in my Pocket

Written by Stu Cooper

If you grew up in the 80's and early 90's you most likely encountered one of the many tiny toy franchises. "Micro Machines", "Z-bots", "M.U.S.C.L.E.", and of course "Monster In My Pocket" were all the rage! I wanted to focus on the "Monster in My Pocket" franchise since it's that time of year. I mainly remember the franchise because of the video game but it was most famously known for being a line of tiny rubber horror/science fiction characters. Most of them were based off of pre-existing horror genre archetypes but after the first series they started going pretty crazy with it. Board games, lunch boxes, t-shirts, and even an animated TV special followed. The only thing missing was it's own cereal, tho Frankenberry would probably have none of that shit!

Since I mainly remember "Monsters in My Pocket" from the video game I'll focus on that. The game was for the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) and was released in all it's 8-bit glory in 1991. It was apparently similar to the comic book and animated series pilot that had already been made. The game followed two characters by the names of Vampire (basically Dracula) and Monster (basically Frankenstein). Not exactly the most creative character names, but they obviously couldn't call them by their traditional names. The characters are of course micro sized, so most of the levels take place in random parts of a house. It's almost like a horror version of Toy Story. You have to fight a wave of zombies and various other memorable monsters from the toy line. As a child I had fond memories of fighting one named Spring Heeled Jack. One of the few monsters whose name I actually remembered. I absolutely love the mythos created with these little things. The idea of a massive universe of monsters all fighting each other in the creaks and crevices of your home is disturbing but awesome. The gameplay is pretty smooth and is a basic side scroller with a few puzzle elements mixed in. If you play two players you each take the monster of your choice and you will fly through the game twice as fast. You can really finish the whole game in about 40 minutes if you've practiced. The game brings back a lot of nostalgic feelings and is a great example of a classic NES game. You have straight foward controls, colorful characters, fun boss battles, and as a game where you get to play a tiny version of Frankenstein and Dracula. It's a winning combination.