No desert is so dreary, monotonous and boring as evil. With fictional good and evil it is the other way around. Fictional good is boring and flat, while fictional evil is varied and intriguing, attractive, profound, and full of charm. Today's horror films can leave you stranded in a threatening universe where good is confused, God is gone, and evil is on a rampage. Marx is Dead.
Terror alone seems to shape otherwise shapeless lives.
For three decades we've had an increasingly strong diet of cinematic worms, gnawing away at peoples' ability to see evil in proper perspective. In the world of postmodern film, evil's on the loose and good is running for its life. All of these elements are present to an extent in classic Gothic horror films from Bela Lugosi's Dracula to Gary Oldham s recent portrayal of that classic. Evil is certainly real and powerful, but also defeatable by a power more powerful. My, how the themes have changed in 40 years.