Bela Lugosi's Dracula and other adaptations

Nobody's interpretation of Dracula is quite so famous as Bela Lugosi's, Famous for his 1931 film Dracula the man instantly perpetuated this idea of the well dressed Romanian vampire who feeds on people's blood and battles wits with Van Helsing. there have been many other interpretations that are also near as famous, or infamous as it were. Nosferatu is another one of the more well known examples of the vampire and one of its earliest interpretations. Vampires seem to be one of those monsters that will get interpreted over and over throughout the years much like zombies or werewolves.

The Unnameable

H.P. Lovecraft, at this point, has more or less become a household name; however few of those people may actually read his books, they at least know of his work and what it has accomplished. His creation of cosmic horror is one that would spur on thousands of more ideas to come from other writers, however, cosmic horror is hard. Not only is it hard but it's even harder to adapt to film mediums. One of H.P. Lovecraft's greatest examples of cosmic horror lies in 'The Unnameable" a short story, but it perfectly encapsulates the idea of this unexplainable force that occurs in cosmic horror, not only are the characters distraught and terrified by what they see, they cannot even describe it, it is the unnameable. Perhaps the greatest examples of film adaptations of cosmic horror are found in Alien and The Thing, these two movie perfectly encapsulate this idea of this unknowable force.

The Pit and the Pendulum

The Pit and the Pendulum is probably one of the most iconic tales by Edgar Alan Poe in existence, it is a very tense story that really keeps you waiting on the edge of your seat. One of my favorite parts of the story is that it really puts you in a very unfamiliar setting, the very idea of being tortured in such a strange and frightening way is quite disturbing and the fact that there is not only the constant threat of torture but also as we get to the part of the story with the titular pendulum the tension is cranked up to a ten. All of this comes together to make the ending quite dissatisfying in my opinion, having the character escape at the very last second seems to annul this sense of mystery and dread.