30 days of Halloween October 17 I watched two documentaries a genre I am a fan of and thats something that there is a pretty good selection of on Netflix streaming. Especially since you can find docs on DVD and some on blu-ray but you do have to look around just to find retailers that sell them. The first is the American scream. I did give this 3 stars on facebook because I thought it was well made but I probably would wait until next October. The documentary does though have some heart and explore some interesting ordinary people who really get into the holiday and turn there homes into basically something that you might see at an amusement park for Halloween. The documentary looks at a couple people within a neighborhood in a Massachusetts town who are into it. The movie does also show the construction and planning of these home haunts, how there is a convention or it and people are interested in it all over the country. I think that is the one area the documentary could have spent more time on but thats my only complaint. So while I would not rate this documentary as highly or say its as important as other documentaries I have seen such as gasland, no end in sight and so forth it is still interesting, well done and I enjoyed watching it. The movie is actually mostly available electronically through netflix streaming, Itunes and amazon instant video and the movie is available in a blu-ray DVD combination pack but just exclusively through the movies website. The other documentary I watched is Dracula the vampire and Voivode. The movie is a fairly academic look at Bram Stoker, the novel he wrote Dracula, Vlad the impaler and the parts of Europe that inspired and are used in the novel. The only thing that might turn off some viewer is while parts of Europe are filmed and shown the movie is little bit like a lecture and part it of it is archival (old maps, photos, documents, etc). However I didnt mind and I remember that the history channel used to have shows like that instead of just deciding to film lumberjack, pawn store employees, swamp people, etc. The documentary also has Dracula enthusiasts and educated people who talk about Dracula, the novel, Romania and other topics. So even though this is a more educational academic documentary I recommend it and I would bet anyone who watches it will learn at least one new thing from it. Like Bram Stoker the writer of Dracula actually never went to Transylvania and instead relied on travel books with written accounts of the area. Even if it would have upped the running time I think it could have dug deeper into Dracula and vampire movies, other novels, comic books, TV, etc. The movie does somewhat but its a brief look just mentioning the 30s silent Nosferatu, Dracula with Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee who played Dracula in several Hammer Dracula movies and the 70s Nosferatu remake. I watched it on Netflix streaming which it is expiring from soon but the movie is also available on DVD.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 03:34:09 +0000