The Vampire Happening

Last updated
The Vampire Happening
Vampire-happening-poster.jpg
German film poster for The Vampire Happening
Directed by Freddie Francis
Written byAugust Rieger
Karl-Heinz Hummel [1]
Produced byPier A. Caminnecci
CinematographyGerard Vandenberg [2]
Edited byAlfred Srp [2]
Music byJerry van Rooyen [2]
Release date
  • June 4, 1971 (1971-06-04)(West Germany) [3]
Running time
102 minutes [2]
CountryWest Germany [2]
LanguageGerman [4]

The Vampire Happening (German : Gebissen wird nur nachts, lit.They only bite at night) is a 1971 West German comedy horror film directed by Freddie Francis. [4]

Contents

Plot

Cast

Production

In the early 1970s, Italian producer Pier A. Caminnecci was looking for a film for his wife Pia Degermark whose previous film Elvira Madigan (1967) was a critical and financial success. [1] Caminnecci set up an international production for her in West Germany directed by British director Freddie Francis and written by German screenwriters August Rieger and Karl-Heinz Hummel [1] The script features a sub-plot based on Theophile Gautier's short story "La Morte Amoureuse." [1]

Francis later stated:

I was aware from the start of the difficulties in shooting a horror parody. I really believed that I was working with normal people in the movie industry, and thought I could have made a decent film. With time, I became aware that the producer was an imbecile who treated the project like a home movie. He wanted to do the casting, make cameos in the film, and wanted his wife as an actress. It was a disaster which I can't say anything serious about. [5]

Reception

The film was not well received. [6] Allmovie gave the film one and a half stars out of five, stating that it is "not considered to be one of the crown jewels of the genre" [4] In his book Comedy-Horror Films:A Chronological History, author Bruce G. Hallenbeck referred to the film as "sort of a ripoff of Polanski's The Fearless Vampire Killers " and "doesn't come within lightyears of Polanski's vision". [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Dracula: Dead and Loving It</i> 1995 film

Dracula: Dead and Loving It is a 1995 gothic comedy horror film directed by Mel Brooks and starring Leslie Nielsen. It is a spoof of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula and of some of the story's well-known adaptations.

<i>The Fearless Vampire Killers</i> 1967 film by Roman Polanski

The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck is a 1967 comedy horror film directed by Roman Polanski, written by Gérard Brach and Polanski, produced by Gene Gutowski and starring Polanski with his future wife Sharon Tate, along with Jack MacGowran and Alfie Bass, and featuring Ferdy Mayne.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vampire film</span> Film genre

Vampire films have been a staple in world cinema since the era of silent films, so much so that the depiction of vampires in popular culture is strongly based upon their depiction in films throughout the years. The most popular cinematic adaptation of vampire fiction has been from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, with over 170 versions to date. Running a distant second are adaptations of the 1872 novel Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu. By 2005, the Dracula character had been the subject of more films than any other fictional character except Sherlock Holmes.

<i>Nosferatu the Vampyre</i> 1979 film by Werner Herzog

Nosferatu the Vampyre is a 1979 horror film written and directed by Werner Herzog. It is set primarily in 19th-century Wismar, Germany and Transylvania, and was conceived as a stylistic remake of F. W. Murnau's 1922 German Dracula adaptation Nosferatu. The picture stars Klaus Kinski as Count Dracula, Isabelle Adjani as Lucy Harker, Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Harker, and French artist-writer Roland Topor as Renfield. There are two different versions of the film, one in which the actors speak English, and one in which they speak German.

<i>Flesh for Frankenstein</i> 1973 film

Flesh for Frankenstein is a 1973 horror film written and directed by Paul Morrissey. It stars Udo Kier, Joe Dallesandro, Monique van Vooren and Arno Juerging. Interiors were filmed at Cinecittà in Rome by a crew of Italian filmmakers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ferdy Mayne</span> German-British actor (1916–1998)

Ferdy Mayne or Ferdie Mayne was a German-British stage and screen actor. Born in Mainz, he emigrated to the United Kingdom in the early 1930s to escape the Nazi regime. He resided in the UK for the majority of his professional career. Working almost continuously throughout a 60-year-long career, Mayne was known as a versatile character actor, often playing suave villains and aristocratic eccentrics in films like The Fearless Vampire Killers, Where Eagles Dare, Barry Lyndon, and Benefit of the Doubt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comedy horror</span> Genre that combines elements of horror and comedy

Comedy horror, also known as horror comedy, is a literary, television, and film genre that combines elements of comedy and horror fiction. Comedy horror has been described as able to be categorized under three types: "black comedy, parody and spoof." It often crosses over with the black comedy genre. Comedy horror can also parody or subtly spoof horror clichés as its main source of humour or use those elements to take a story in a different direction, for example in The Cabin in the Woods, Trick 'r Treat, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, Shaun of the Dead, Beetlejuice, Gremlins, An American Werewolf in London and the Evil Dead franchise.

<i>Dracula and Son</i> 1976 film

Dracula and Son is a 1976 French comedy horror film directed and written by Édouard Molinaro. The film is about a vampire father and son. Christopher Lee reprises his role as Count Dracula from the Hammer Films Dracula film series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Count Dracula in popular culture</span> Appearances of Count Dracula in popular culture

The character of Count Dracula from the 1897 novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, has remained popular over the years, and many forms of media have adopted the character in various forms. In their book Dracula in Visual Media, authors John Edgar Browning and Caroline Joan S. Picart declared that no other horror character or vampire has been emulated more times than Count Dracula. Most variations of Dracula across film, comics, television and documentaries predominantly explore the character of Dracula as he was first portrayed in film, with only a few adapting Stoker's original narrative more closely. These including borrowing the look of Count Dracula in both the Universal's series of Dracula and Hammer's series of Dracula, including include the characters clothing, mannerisms, physical features hair style and his motivations such as wanting to be in a home away from Europe.

<i>My Soul Is Slashed</i> 1991 Japanese film

My Soul Is Slashed, also known as From Dracula with Love, is a 1991 Japanese comedy horror film directed by Shūsuke Kaneko. It stars Ken Ogata as a pharmaceutical company employee who finds himself in intensive care after a critical injury. During a transfusion,he is given the blood of Count Dracula.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pia Degermark</span> Swedish actress

Pia Charlotte Degermark is a Swedish actress. She is best known for her role as Elvira Madigan in the 1967 drama film Elvira Madigan, for which she won a Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress.

Tender Dracula, or Confessions of a Blood Drinker is a 1974 French horror comedy film directed by Pierre Grunstein. The film stars Peter Cushing, Alida Valli, Bernard Ménez and Miou-Miou.

John Edgar Browning is an American author, editor, and scholar known for his nonfiction works about the horror genre and vampires in film, literature, and culture. Previously a visiting lecturer at the Georgia Institute of Technology, he is now a professor of liberal arts at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta, Georgia.

<i>The Devils Wedding Night</i> 1973 film

The Devil's Wedding Night is a 1973 Italian horror film.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Hallenbeck 2009, p. 92.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Browning & Picart 2010, p. 91.
  3. "Gebissen wird nur nachts - das Happening der Vampire". filmportal.de. Retrieved October 24, 2012.
  4. 1 2 3 Fountain, Clarke. "Vampire Happening". Allmovie. Retrieved September 27, 2012.
  5. Zatterin, M., "Carreras, Francis, Guest, Lester", Fantafestival, 1986.
  6. Hallenbeck 2009, p. 93.
  7. Hallenbeck 2009, pp. 92–3.

Works cited