I went to bed at about 12:30 a.m. last night and got a good, solid one hour of sleep before I woke back up. Yawning, I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep but to no avail. After the alarm clock said "2:00 a.m," I realized I wasn't getting sleepier, I was actually more awake and alert than I was when I first started trying to go back to sleep. Laying there longer wasn't going to help, I reasoned, so I got up to watch a little t.v., tire myself out a little more, and then go back to bed.
My timing couldn't have been better, because when I turned the television on, I caught the opening credits of Hammer Studio's 1960 classic, Brides of Dracula.
On one level, it's not a very good movie. It doesn't add anything to the Dracula legacy. In fact, the count isn't even in it - "Dracula" is just a titular euphemism for "vampire." And it's not particularly scary. When the lead vampire turns into a bat, it couldn't more obviously be a puppet on a string - they weren't even trying to make it look realistic.
On another level, it's an absolute masterpiece of set design, atmospherics, and period costumes. It's almost post-modern in its absolute disregard for trying to tell the story yet its total commitment to surface appearances. It's as if the creators were more interested in still shots and frames than the actual movie itself.
It's also ponderously talkative at times, which had the unintended but beneficial effect of putting me back into sleep mode. I must have watched the second half of the film in some sort of hypnagogic daze, as I can't precisely recall the details of the film yet when I did go back to sleep (at 4:30 a.m.!), I had lurid dreams about the actresses who played the brides.
Earlier this year, as a project to fill some time during this pandemic, I explored the extensive discography of the prolific French lo-fi drone band Natural Snow Buildings. The whole exploration is documented over on Music Dissolves Water, the sister, music blog. NSB are heavily influenced by all manners of horror genres, from Aztec to Inuit mythology, from Lovecraft to Appalachian folk tales, and cinema - grindcore, slasher flicks, and, yes, Hammer Studios. Their 2009, six-disc album Daughter of Darkness, pays explicit tribute to Hammer, including Brides of Dracula.
Here's standout cut Carnal Flowers from DoD, with an excellent albeit fan-produced (not me!) video.
Carnal Flowers, or some variation thereof, was the soundtrack of my lurid, early-morning dreams last night, and the video is not unrepresentative of the contents of those dreams.
As per habit, the alarm went off at 7:00 a.m., so I got at most maybe 3½ hours of sleep last night. It was rainy and overcast all day today, and as a result I spent much of the day groggily managing to stay barely awake, my nose just above the surface of consciousness. I took at least two naps today, and now I'm worried that with such a low-effort day if I'll be able to fall asleep tonight.
Maybe there's another Hammer Studios film on late-night t.v. tonight.
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