Why do horror and romance seamlessly complement each other from the beginning of storytelling? It can be scary to put one’s heart on the line, especially when you fall for a complete stranger. They could be Prince Charming—or a blood-sucking vampire—or, most terrifyingly, both.
With Valentine’s Day coming up, I’d like to recommend three movies I’ve seen recently, which may be classified as horror flicks, but on a deeper level, they’re really about love. Two are reimaginings of monsters that often appeared in my childhood nightmares, “Frankenstein” and “Dracula”. The third involves a human monster, who leaves her lover, Matt (played by Kevin James), at the altar. (BUT no judgement, are you really a monster?) Although it’s technically a romantic comedy, what could be worse in this situation than a groom-to-be?
Sometimes we like our love stories to be cute, complete with “meet cute” where a boy and a girl fall in love, get married, and have a family, but we know that life isn’t always like that. Charles and Daniel Kinnane, co-directors of “Solo Mio,” start their picture by showing us all the wonderful events leading up to the ruined marriage of Matt and Heather (Julie Ann Emery). They seem so in love that we are surprised when he ties her up on their wedding day. However, he decides to fly alone to Italy, which was supposed to be their honeymoon, and that’s where most of the story takes place.
Even with the theme of a broken heart, there is a fun and freshness about the film, perhaps because it takes place mostly in Rome and its beautiful surrounding countryside. Perhaps my memories of watching horse races in Sienna, and listening to opera in the hills of Tuscany. Or maybe the fact that I wanted Kevin James out of this is okay. Is it a good movie? Not really. This may sound strange for me to say, but to me, it doesn’t matter how one would rate certain films. Sometimes you just want to see good things happen to good people, and in the case of “Solo Mio,” that alone makes it worth watching.
As a child, I was afraid of three monsters—Frankenstein, Dracula and The Wolf Man—in part because they all had human qualities. The monsters that scared me the most were the swamp creatures or the Creature from the Black Lagoon. A character like the Wolf Man, he is frighteningly real. The fact that he can’t control his evil deeds after he teeths under the full moon makes his misery even more hellish.
I never thought that after all these years, I would see new illustrations of Frankenstein and Dracula that were so exciting. But in the hands of great filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro with “Frankenstein” and Luc Besson with “Dracula”, my interest was piqued. Like the Wolf Man, Mary Shelley’s original Frankenstein monster was a deeply sad character, brought back to life against his will and marked as an abomination in a world he only wanted to connect with.
Nominated for nine Oscars, Del Toro’s acclaimed adaptation stays true to Shelley’s script while casting “Euphoria” star Jacob Elordi as one of the most sympathetic—and certainly the most seductive—versions of the monster to date. Although he is treated cruelly by his creator (Oscar Isaac), the compassion he receives from Frankenstein’s soon-to-be sister (Mia Goth) forms the heart of the picture. As in Shelley’s novel, the first half of the film is told from Doctor Frankenstein’s point of view. When the monster takes over the central narrative duties, the picture comes to life with even more love.
In his four-star review, our critic Glenn Kenny wrote that Del Toro “tells the story in ways that make the film not only impressive and scary with a wonderful horror tradition, but also a tragic, humanizing one that James Whale achieved in his classic 1930s “Frankenstein” pictures. […] Elordi is wonderful in conveying the beast’s intelligence, sensitivity, yes, innate gentleness—his shot holding and stroking a rat is quietly shattering—but he conveys the power and rage well.”
The same can be said for Caleb Landry Jones’ tour de force portrayal of the title role in Luc Besson’s new screen adaptation of “Dracula,” which is, in my opinion, the most romantic of the three titles in this article. It’s love in the sense that it epitomizes the kind of love you hope to find one day—you meet someone and they fall for you and you fall in love with them—and nothing ever comes between the two of you. The kind of love that will last forever and ever—even if you don’t foresee it lasting for centuries. The picture begins four hundred years after Dracula lost the love of his life, Elizabeth, in 1480. When two fascinating women suddenly transform—the saintly Mina (Zoe Blue, daughter of recent Ebertfest guest Rosanna Arquette) and the amputated Maria (Matilda De Angelis), the vampire’s appetite goes into hyperdrive.
Almost any version of “Dracula” would make for a worthy Valentine’s Day viewing as the Count embodies, at his core, the forbidden sexuality that his puritanical target strives so hard to suppress. What I appreciated about Landry’s performance, and the film in general, was the way it made his illness seem lingering, palpable in a way that one could almost taste it.
“Frankenstein” is on Netflix; “Solo Mio” and “Dracula” in the theater.
