RECOVERED FILE#001 – Gavin's Graveyard

Filename: VAMPYRE_1959.draft.01.07.2005.html
Recovery Log: Partially restored. Corruption detected.

Ghoulish Gavin here again, giving a little update on my blog recovery journey. After GavinsGraveyard.com went down, I lost everything – but luckily, I found an old zip drive with drafts of my posts. Ah, zip drives – remember those? And once I’d hunted down a cable that would actually connect to my computer, the old girl roared to life.

Alas, the years have not been kind to the old drive – and maybe storing it in a mouldy bottom drawer didn’t help. But the files are there. A mess of corrupted code, but the posts are hidden beneath. So, using some open-source software and the help of my daughter’s friend Dev – who is a genius coder – I managed to slowly recover some posts.

Viktor Crowe was a huge part of what drew people to the blog, so it feels only fitting that the first post Dev managed to recover was a review of his first feature Masque of the Vampyre, which I wrote way back in 2005.

I hope you enjoy it, and Dev and I will keep uncorrupting and posting.

Never have I been more blown away by a horror film than the first time I watched Viktor Crowe’s 1959 gothic fairytale – Masque of the Vampyre. Maybe it was to do with the smoke inhalation I suffered at the time, but that is a story for another post. I want to take the time to concentrate on the fact that Viktor was only 21 when he wrote, directed, and played the lead role of Count Orloch. 21! I was only managing to get out of bed in the afternoon at 21, not crafting a masterpiece.

I didn’t expect to care for this ruined vampyre that hides his face behind a Zanni mask from Commedia dell’arte. But Viktor acts his socks off behind layers of prosthetics and a mask that only comes off three times in the film – each time more effective and horrific than the last. Nor did I expect the heroine Ingrid, played by first-timer and former Blackpool beauty queen, Constance Trewfall, to give depth to a role that on the page reads busty Bravian milkmaid.

Seeing these two perform off each other and light up the silver screen was a revelation. Their chemistry was undeniable, and it was no surprise that a mere three months after filming wrapped, they were married. During the climatic chase up the crumbling castle tower, you see ░▒░▒░▒ Corrupted░▒
01000001 01110100 00100000 01100110 01101001 01110010 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100001 01110011 01101011 00100000 01110011 01101100 01101001 01110000 01110011
░▒/Corrupted.

Lighting, set design, and camera framing work in tandem to create a gothic fairytale that, like the best of the Grimm brothers’ tales, ends in tragedy – Ingrid tumbling to her death from the high tower. Her sacrifice breaks the Count’s heart, and he removes his mask one final time to feel the dawn sun on his scarred face and crumbles to ash. Poetic. Beautiful. Horrific.

On reflection – once I’d watched all ten of Corvus Call Pictures’ films (the production company of Viktor Crowe) – I would rank Masque of the Vampyre as my 4th favourite. It’s not as sharply written as some of his later work – and doesn’t have the batshit visual style of the films he made during the 1960s. But I will say again, as it’s worth reiterating – Viktor Crowe was 21 when he made this! He had written and directed theatre shows before, but he took to filmmaking like a corpse duck to a fettered pond.

So, if you can track down a copy of Masque of the Vampyre, it’s well worth a watch. It launched Viktor Crowe and Constance Trewfall’s careers, and I’ll be writing more about how one ascended and another fell. Until next time, crypt keepers – do have nightmares.

There you have it, my dear deadheads. Sorry, the middle part has been lost to mould and corruption. Dev is hard at work trying to recover the missing part and resurrect more of my old blog, so keep your eyes peeled on the graveyard.