Contribution to vampire movie mythology - crosses don't work against Jewish vampires
Until I saw the Rob Lowe remake of 'Salem's Lot (2004), I'd never really been confronted with the idea that a cross doesn't work if the user has no faith. Following this logic, a cross shouldn't work against a vampire that has no faith either, but I'd never seen a movie bring this up until I watched The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967). Perhaps you've never imagined a religious vampire, but seeing as how all vampires start off as people, and the majority of people in the world are religious, a newfound thirst for blood shouldn't change that. Only a religious person would consider it a curse. At the end of this movie, it's suggested that the curse of vampirism gets spread throughout the world. To a religious person, that might mean something as simple as unbelief. To Polish director Roman Polanski, it could be a metaphor for Russian communists or German Nazis (all Godless). All I know is you have to sit through 45 minutes of slapstick just to get to a place where some fearless vampire killing can begin, and then it just switches from straight sex farce to gay sex farce. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind horror-comedy hybrids. One of my favorite movies of all time is The Monster Squad (1987), and that had its fair share of raunchy humor. It's not that this one's not funny, it's just not funny enough. The Professor character looks and acts just like Mr. Bean, assuming that you find that funny. The professor's assistant, played by the director himself, reminded me personally of Scrat, the "saber-toothed squirrel" from Ice Age (2002), although I'm sure I'm forgetting some well-known, wimpy sidekick. It's sweet that actress Sharon Tate got to know her future husband while working with him on The Fearless Vampire Killers. It's tragic to know that she was murdered exactly two and a half years after its release. I don't want to end on a melancholy note, even though that's what the movie does, so I'll add that it includes animated bats over the opening credits, similar to the ones featured a year earlier on Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (1966; you've got to see that one to believe it).
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