What's up with Christopher Lee? He always struck me as a dignified...

What's up with Christopher Lee? He always struck me as a dignified, talented actor but then you look at his filmography and it's basically nothing but schlock. How did he come to be so respected as a serious actor when his roles are mostly stuff like... well, this?

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Because he took schlock and elevated it with superb acting.

In that case, can it really even be called schlock?

Usually he's the only one elevating it, so it's still schlock.

He killed people

??

>
Hammer Studios, you little bitch.
You can't possibly understand.
You weren't even alive in the 70s.

>How did he come to be so respected as a serious actor

Age and acting chops.

He stabbed a Nazi so he knew exactly the sound to make when Saruman got stabbed.

Found the video.
youtube.com/watch?v=5TQARRckm6U

Mmmm.

He hated it, but was really good and didn't want to upset his fans. Plus he would only leave if his best bro 4 lyfe Peter Cushing would go with him, which he never fully agreed on

Mmmm?

He didnt like the script in one of those vamp movies so he straight up refused to have any dialogue for the entire movie

Cool, kind of like Refn.

>disrespecting the Hammer Dracula

How stupid are you? It's a very respected film and a great performance. Bela Lugosi is the all-time great Dracula. There's no question about it. You think Robert Englund is iconic as Freddy and you think Doug Bradley is iconic as Pinhead, but Bela Lugosi as Dracula is far beyond that. With this in mind, it's astounding that people consider Christopher Lee the #2 Dracula, or in some cases - better than the iconic Bela Lugosi. That's a great feat.

Hammer's Dracula, Frankenstein and Mummy were all very influential on later horror such as Halloween, Friday the 13th and Hellraiser. The landscape of horror would be very different without it.

What exactly makes Dracula respected? I guarantee if those films came out today Sup Forums would call them "capeshit" for "manchildren" and whine about a certain website. Because Dracula literally wears a cape.

It's just a classic story. It's very familiar. Blood and guts weren't common in horror back then, so it was also somewhat of an innovator. Christopher Lee (and Hammer, really) made vampires into sex symbols. It set the tone for what was to come in terms of vampire films.

Saying, "if X came out today, we wouldn't like it" holds up for any movie. If Terminator came out today, would people really like it? Not really, because they've already seen a million other action movies.

No one thinks of Dracula as capeshit or a movie for manchildren. I don't know where you're getting this from. If Horror of Dracula came out today, people would just say, "looks outdated" and not much else. Like I said, if Scream, Blair Witch Project, An American Werewolf in London, etc came out today, no one would care. You could really say it about any film or almost any music, really. It's about the right time at the right place.

I mean, I wouldn't say it or anything, but I just think people would shitpost it hard because they have this obsession with appearing "mature" (then when you ask them what their top ten films are they never have an answer). I get what you mean though. You can see it happening when something from like the 80s gets adapted, people find it unoriginal because they've seen all the stuff that was inspired by it.

>Christopher Lee (and Hammer, really) made vampires into sex symbols.
Wait, so you could also say that Christopher Lee is essentially responsible for Twilight? That's pretty funny.

No one thinks the Hammer films are that dignified, necessarily. Any fan knows they're a little low brow, but that's what makes them entertaining. They appear classy on the surface, but as time goes on, the gore starts happening. We all know they're not 2deep4u mature films. No one would really shitpost Horror of Dracula if it were released today, though. I think people would see it as a nice change of pace, actually. Vampires have never been any less scary than now. I get why they're romanticized, but they started out as ugly creatures of the night. A return to roots is needed, I think.

I'd say Anne Rice's novels are responsible for Twilight. Going further back, Anne was inspired by Dracula's Daughter, so I'd say that movie indirectly started it. If you watch the movie, it probably is the first time a vampire was portrayed as sad and not 100% evil.

>I don't know what it's called, I just know the sound it makes when it takes a man's life

Ass man

It’s like Jeremy Brett in Sherlock Holmes. Phenomenal actor, dreadful production.

Has he ever been in a good thing?

john laroquette was best dracula

That's exactly he reason why he was so great.

He showed that anything can be kino if you're a good enough actor.