FILM REVIEW OF "TRANSIT" (2012)

“Seconds Apart” director Antonio Negret generates some genuine adrenaline-driven thrills, chills, and spills in his second feature length release. The rural crime thriller “Transit” (**1/2 OUT OF ****) qualifies as a tense road picture about four murderous thieves who tangle with an innocent family in backwater Louisiana over a fortune in stolen loot. The only shortcoming of this above-average but formulaic melodrama is its lackluster ending that deprives the protagonist of any reward for his heroic deeds. Fortunately, the cast is convincing, particularly Jim Caviezel as the devastated dad and James Frain as the desperate dastard. Of course, the authorities are clueless about what is happening between the heroes and the villains. Ironically, the law only complicates the situation and imperil our hero and his family. Frain looks particularly degenerate as the sleazy gang leader, while Harold Perrineau works up a lather as a trigger-happy henchman. “According to Greta” scenarist Michael Gilvary has cross-stitched the plots from the Dana Andrews’ epic “Hot Rods to Hell” (1967) and the Audrey Hepburn nail-biter “Wait Until Dark.” In ‘Hot Rods to Hell,” rebellious teens terrorized a family on a deserted stretch of highway. In “Wait Until Dark,” a deadly drug dealer stashed his narcotics in the blind heroine’s luggage for a transoceanic flight and the villains invaded her New York City apartment afterward to retrieve it. “Transit” received an R-rating for violence and terror, profane language and brief teen drug use in marijuana.

“Transit” opens with an armored car robbery. Indeed, it is an inside job, but the traitor doesn’t get a share of the loot. Instead, he takes a bullet. Afterward, the quartet of armored car robbers needs to figure out a way to get past a police roadblock without getting caught. They replace the camping gear strapped down atop of the Sidwell family SUV with their ill-gotten gains. Initially, the family has no clue about the villains have done. Marek (James Frain of “Titus”), Arielle (Diora Baird of “Wedding Crashers”), Losada (Harold Perrineau of “The Matrix Revolutions”), and Evers (Ryan Donowho of “Broken Flowers”) have fooled themselves into believing that they can retrieve their loot from the unsuspecting family before they realize that they’re  being used as a mule. Predictably, nothing goes as planned for either side, and those are the best dramatic moments. The conflict emerges from the situation. Our hero Nate (Jim Caviezel of “Outlander”) has just been paroled from prison. He served 18 months in a Federal Prison for real estate fraud. Now, poor Nate is struggling to get his wife Robyn (Elisabeth Röhm of “Abduction”) and his two sons together for a vacation when they run afoul of the bad guys. Some of the action will take you by surprise. Neither Negret nor Gilvary make it easy for either the heroes or their adversaries to achieve their respective objectives. No sooner do the villains have the loot than they lose it. Not long after the hero appropriates the millions, he loses it in the swamp. Could a suspicious looking fellow riding around the swamp in a boat have anything to do with the missing loot? If this weren’t enough, the hero’s wife mistakenly believes that Nate is involved with the villains.

The black 1972 Chevrolet Chevelle that the villains drive assumes a character of its own, and the long shots of it hauling down the highway look as cool as the spinning tire shots. Negret handles the chase sequences with aplomb. The car crash involving the Deputy Sheriff's Crown Victoria is pretty awesome. While nothing about this cat and mouse thriller is remotely original, the action is swiftly paced, and the acting is sturdy. Jim Caviezel turns in a good performance as the harried head of the family. No, he doesn’t get escape from this close encounter without sacrificing some flesh. Most of the action was lensed on location around Praireville, Louisiana. Clocking in at 88 minutes, “Transit” doesn’t wear out its welcome.

FILM REVIEW OF "SON OF DRACULA" (1943)

Although I'm a super big fan of Lon Chaney, Sr., I've never admired his son Lon Chaney, Jr. While Junior fared better as the sympathetic Lawrence Talbot in "The Wolf Man," this big, burly individual is woefully miscast as the urbane, sophisticated Count Dracula in Robert Siodmak's "Son of Dracula." Okay, I'll give Chaney credit for being the first Dracula with a mustache. Was it Chaney's idea or Siodmak's? Other than John Carradine and Christopher Lee, most Draculas are smooth-shaven gents, but Junior needed more than a mustache to make himself a menacing bloodsucker in this otherwise imaginative but flawed chiller. Junior constitutes the chief flaw. His delivery is stilted beyond belief. When he utters 'decadent' as de-kay-dent, you want to chuckle. Chaney's dialogue delivery doesn't sound scary.  Perhaps he should have adopted a strong dialect.  In any case, he doesn't radiate that evil Bela Lugosi glint in his eyes. Moreover, he doesn't send a chill either up or down your spine. He looks handsome in his outfits, but he lacks the arrogance of immortality. The lack of aristocracy in his conduct doesn't help. Oddly enough, Dracula comes off as somewhat of a chump. Moments of atmosphere, particularly the off-beat setting for this second sequel, and the strange nature of the screenplay compensate for some of the weird things. The sight of Dracula and his bride letting a Justice of the Peace marry them is faintly amusing. On the other hand, the Count's emergence from the swamp is a nice touch.  Dracula's ability to turn into mist and bats before our eyes makes "Son of Dracula" worth-watching.

Appropriately enough, "Son of the Dracula" opens with a pair of hands clearing out cobwebs. Remember eight years had passed since the release of "Dracula's Daughter." The Southern Gothic setting with the moss covered swamp lands is wonderfully sinister. Initially, Frank Stanley (Robert Paige of "Flying G-Men") and Dr. Harry Brewster (Frank Craven of "Barbary Coast") arrive at a railroad depot to greet Count Alcuard. The Transylvanian nobleman, however, is nowhere to be seen. They spot the railway luggage cart stacked high with two chests and other assorted luggage bearing the family crest of Alcuard. Immediately, Brewster notices when he spells Alucard backwards that it reads Dracula. Dracula (Lon Chaney, Jr.) makes his first appearance outside 'Dark Oaks,' the antebellum planation where Katherine 'Kay' Caldwell (Louise Allbritton of "Parachute Nurse") eagerly awaits his arrival. She has thrown a dinner party for him, but he arrives too late to participate.  She plans to marry Dracula.

Katherine's elderly gray-headed father, Colonel Caldwell (George Irving of "Coquette"), is Dracula's first victim.The Colonel's death is the catalyst for the plot.  Initially, when Judge Simmons reads the Colonel's will, Katherine and her sister Claire receive equal shares of everything.  This will is dated August 24th.  Katherine produces a newer will.  She inherits Dark Oaks, while Claire gets everything else. Frank Stanley is madly in love with Katherine, but she only has eyes for Dracula. She met Dracula during a trip to Budapest and hasn't been the same girl.. Meanwhile, Dr. Brewster summons a renowned vampire hunter, Professor Lazlo (J. Edward Bromberg of "Invisible Agent") from Memphis. Like Van Helsing, Lazlo knows everything about Dracula, especially how to destroy him. Frank shoots Dracula with a revolver after he learns that Kirby married them. He flees in horror when his first bullet penetrates Dracula and kills Kay. Frank fires two more shots, discards the revolver, and charges through the dark swamp. He takes refuge in Dr. Harry Brewster's house. Later, Frank surrenders to the authorities and takes the blame for Kay's murder. Dr. Brewster visits Dark Oaks but finds Kay alive. She carries on a conversation with him from her bed.

Dracula's first rendezvous with Kay in the swamp is truly atmospheric. The Count's coffin emerges from the watery depths like a submarine. A mist percolates out of it and turns into Dracula. Literally, Dracula levitates himself across the water to Kay. They drive off to the Justice of the Peace with a jealous Frank shadowing them. The special effects transformation where Dracula turnS his back to the camera and then turns into a flying bat is impressive for its day. It looks cool when the lady vampire dematerializes as a fog bank in the jail cell. The burning of Dracula's coffin as a way to destroy him was a new one on me. Mind you, every studio that has ever made a vampire movie

tampers with the formula. The premise that a woman would flirt with Dracula to obtain immortality then double-cross him is interesting. Dracula cuckolded!? Indeed, "Son of Dracula" seems more like film noir than horror. Things get pretty complicated and these complications make "Son of Dracula" worth watching.

The gimmick of spelling Dracula's name backwards is clever. Anybody but Lon Chaney, Jr., would have made a serviceable Dracula. The guy looks like he ought to be stuffing baloney into his big hammy jowls instead of draining bodies of blood with his fangs. Incidentally, you never see his fangs, but then you never saw either Lugosi's fangs or Carradine's fangs. The Production Code Administration (PCA) probably ruled out such a toothy display on the grounds that it was too repellent. George Robinson's white photography is textbook perfect. He takes a two-dimensional format and gives it a three-dimensional look by bringing out the foreground from the background and the mid-ground.

Altogether, "Son of Dracula" surpasses "Dracula's Daughter." Nevertheless, you have to overlook the obvious lapse of continuity in "Phantom of the Opera" scenarist Eric Taylor's screenplay that he

derived from Siodmak's story. Basically, the studio maintained no continuity for Dracula. Siodmak and Taylor make no references to previous "Dracula" movies. Universal Studios observed far greater

continuity in the "Frankenstein" and "The Wolfman" franchises. Doesn't it say something when the second "Dracula" sequel appeared eight years after "Dracula's Daughter?" The latter in-name-only sequel without Lugosi and only a glimpse of the infamous Count in a coffin with a stake driven into his heart amounted to a letdown compared with the vintage original. The change in the character of Dracula is even more apparent in "Son of Dracula." Perhaps they simply couldn't conjure up a reasonable excuse about how to keep reviving the count. Of course, Universal should have brought back Lugosi. Presumably, studio politics kept Lugosi from encoring in the role until "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein." "Daughter's Daughter" and the remaining "Dracula" movies qualify as stand alone sequels. Remember, Countess Zaleska burned Dracula's body in "Dracula's Daughter." In "Son of Dracula," however, the vampire expert states the Dracula died in the 19th century.