WHEN DARKNESS FELL

RF Lucchetti
EEdition: Marco Aurélio Lucchetti

In 1920, the lunatic Dr. Caligari uses the sleepwalker Cesare to spread death and terror throughout the cities of Germany.

Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss) and Cesare (Conrad Veidt), in a scene from one of the great works of German Expressionism, The Office of Dr. Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), written by Carl Mayer (1894-1944) & Hans Janowiz (1890-1954) and directed by Robert Wiene (1873-1938).

Cesare has the pale complexion of a corpse, dresses entirely in black, and sneaks stealthily through narrow streets lined with houses whose walls and fences are deformed..
A product of a madman's mind creating a fantastical world, Cesare was the first creature to truly darken the screen, terrifying viewers huddled in the darkened theaters..
Two years after Cesare's appearance, Count Orlok emerges, the first incarnation of Count Dracula (created by Irish writer Bram Stoker) in cinema..
While the light of day shines in the sky, Count Orlok rests in his coffin. But as soon as darkness covers the world, he rises from his coffin and sets about his work of destruction, spreading evil through the night and sucking the blood of beautiful and unsuspecting maidens.

Count Orlok (Max Schreck), waking from his sleep, in Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror (Nosferatu, Eine des Grauens), by FW Murnau (1888-1931).

Dead for three or four hundred years, this being who inhabits a sinister castle has acquired vast wisdom over the centuries. Only the dawn or a stake driven through his heart can destroy him.

Count Orlok, being destroyed by the light of dawn, at the end of Nosferatu.

Count Dracula, who made his first appearance in US cinemas in 1931, shares the same knowledge as Count Orlok. And, in the cinematic mythology of horror, both merge into a single, terrifying figure..
Dracula's preferred victims are also beautiful and defenseless women.

Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi), about to suck the blood of a sleeping beauty (played by Helen Chandler), in the classic Dracula (Dracula, 1931), directed by Tod Browning (1880-1962).

Countless vampires, both male and female, many lacking the intellect and nobility of Counts Dracula and Orlok, have emerged and been destroyed, exposed to the light of dawn, pierced by a stake…

Ingrid Pitt (born Ingoushka Petrov, 1930–2010), portraying the vampire Carmilla [a character created by the Irish writer Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814–1873), author of Gothic short stories and mystery novels], in The Vampire Lovers (The Vampire Lovers, 1970), a film produced by Hammer and directed by Roy Ward Baker (1916-2010).
Na review published on May 23, 1973 in the newspaper The Globe, Valério Andrade, from Rio de Janeiro, said the following regarding The Vampire Lovers:
“"The narrative is conducted by Roy Ward Baker with dignity and consistently good aesthetic taste.".
Resisting the temptations and risks of the script, Baker never allows crudeness to creep in, maintaining the film at a high erotic level and giving a new allure to the traditional horror film formula..
From a technical point of view, The Vampire Lovers It reveals the usual polish of Hammer's best productions, featuring photogenic set design and a musical score where screams serve as a dramatic element..
For fans of the genre, The Vampire Lovers "It's a must-see program."”    

Even today, Dracula and his ilk continue to infest cinemas, terrifying and seducing viewers..
In Germany, the birthplace of superstitions that enabled the creation of dozens of the most terrifying creatures, Dr. Henry Frankenstein planned and executed the construction of a monster formed from the brain of an anomaly and pieces of various corpses..
Enormous, with a hideous face and a limping gait, the monster created by Dr. Frankenstein kills people like a scythe reaps plants. Deeply gloomy, he roams the vicinity of his creator's castle; and his lack of pity is total. However, sometimes he displays disconcerting behavior and can be seen, for example, by the edge of a lake, playing with an adorable little blonde girl.

Conceived – in the shadows of damp basements – by the insane mind of a scientist who wanted to play God, this monster haunted, or rather, still haunts the world with its wickedness. And, since 1931, when it appeared in its most famous version on screen, it has been slain countless times and returned to life countless times, as it is formed from a large number of corpses.

Boris Karloff (stage name of William Henry Pratt, 1887-1969), portraying Frankenstein's Monster, in Frankenstein (idem, 1931), a film directed by James Whale (1889-1957) and based on the novel Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus (Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, 1818), authored by the English writer Mary Shelley (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 1797-1851).

Beginning in 1932, on the scorching, ancient sands of Egypt, mummies begin to rise from the dead, seeking revenge for the violation of their eternal tombs and searching for the women they loved more than thirty centuries ago.

And it all started with the movie. The Mummy (The Mummy).

Original (American) poster of The Mummy, the first film in a long series of mummy films.

In his excellent book The Dracula Book (1975), the writer and comic book scriptwriter Donald F. Glut (I corresponded with him for a period in the 1970s) referred to the film as follows: The Mummy:

“To a certain degree, The Mummy, directed by Karl Freund and starring Boris Karloff in the lead role, was a ‘'remake'’ of Dracula (Freund, incidentally, was the cinematographer for DraculaKarloff portrayed Im-Ho-Tep, a mummified Egyptian who was revived in the 20th century..
Disguised as Ardath Bey, the living mummy seeks to recover his beloved, Princess Anck-es-en-Amon, reincarnated as Helen Grosvenor (played by Zita Johann).
Edward Van Sloan played a sort of Dr. Van Helsing (the famous vampire hunter), Dr. Muller, an archaeologist with knowledge of the supernatural and a burning desire to destroy Ardath Bey before he can transform the reincarnated princess into a creature like himself. The battle of wits waged between Ardath Bey and his opponent is similar to that waged between Count Dracula and Van Helsing (coincidentally, in the film). Dracula, In Tod Browning's novel, Dr. Van Helsing was played by Edward Van Sloan.”

Edward Van Sloan and Boris Karloff, in a scene from The Mummy.

On full moon nights, in several countries (especially in Central Europe), when the twelve strokes of midnight sound, a sinister howl can be heard. Then, the gypsies silence their voices, quiet their guitars, and retreat fearfully to their tents, because they are aware that this howl indicates that the horrifying werewolf, a creature with sharp teeth and a hairy face and body, is ready to attack night travelers.

The following morning, the werewolf transforms back into an ordinary man and, realizing the evil he committed during the night, is filled with anguish. His anguish intensifies as he remembers that he will only find peace in death, and that death must be by a silver bullet..
The werewolf lineage is extensive. However, none was more terrifying and tortured than one of the first werewolves on the silver screen: Larry Talbot, who appeared in 1941.

Transformed into a werewolf, Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) is on the lookout, in a scene from The Werewolf (The Wolf Man), by George Waggner (1894-1984).

In London, the kind Dr. Jekyll conjures up a monster of wickedness and fury, the disgusting Mr. Hyde, who is, in reality, an extension of his own personality.

Original (American) poster of The Doctor and the Monster (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1941), one of the numerous film adaptations of the famous novel written by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894). 

Also in London, a cruel killer, the infamous Jack the Ripper, spreads panic among the prostitutes of the impoverished Whitechapel district.

One of the most memorable films featuring Jack the Ripper is Hate That Kills (The Lodger, 1944), based on a novel written by Marie Belloc Lowndes (1868-1947).
This novel was first published in installments in 1913 in a London newspaper. The Daily Telegraph. Later that same year, it appeared in book form, published by Methuen Publishing Ltd.

Original (American) poster of Hate That Kills.

(Open a parenthesis).
One year after the launch of Hate That Kills, A classic of horror and suspense was arriving in US cinemas: Macabre Concert (Hangover Square, 1945), whose story revolves around a renowned classical composer (Laird Cregar) whose career is destroyed by successive memory lapses and by falling in love with an ambitious and self-serving cabaret singer (Linda Darnell).

Macabre Concert It was directed by the same director as Hate That KillsJohn Brahm (born Hans Brahm, 1893–1982).
Close the parenthesis.
In the flooded cellars of the Paris Opera House lives a disfigured man who loves a young singer and desires to make her the star of the Opera company. To achieve his goal, he does not hesitate to kill all those who cross his path..
Also in Paris, an orangutan commits a series of murders on Rue Morgue..
Meanwhile, in abandoned cemeteries, the dead rise from their graves and begin to walk in the darkness of the night, driven by strange forces of Nature. They are zombies, the undead, who pollute the night with their stench from beyond. Silent and with bulging eyes, they attack, destroy, and kill.

On mysterious, lost islands in the seas, the sounds of Voodoo drums and agonizing laments fill the solitude of the night with horror; carnivorous plants greedily devour their victims; a film crew makes contact with a gigantic gorilla who will fall in love with a beautiful actress and spread terror among the population of New York..
In desolate locations, doctors driven by madness conduct bizarre experiments, transforming ordinary people into tiny beings or into creatures that are half human and half animal; a group of scientists discovers a unique species of amphibious creatures..
Thus, we see that ten decades ago the world of horror began to invade cinema. It was a disguised invasion, initiated with the sleepwalker Cesare and gradually intensified with the emergence of the most bizarre and terrifying creatures.

RF Lucchetti (Rubens Francisco Lucchetti, 1930-2024) was a fiction writer and screenwriter for Cinema & Comics.