Necromance Movies - Loving the Dead

Ok, so we love dead things sometimes.  We love Dracula and vampires, zombies, werewolves, mummies, ghosts, and Frankenstein, who used to be dead, but now isn't.  I am going to run down my top five favorite movies about those who actually are in love with something that is dead or used to be dead and now isn't and is sort of undead or sorta alive, well, you catch my drift...

1.  Dracula - There have been probably more movies, books, comics, and adaptations of Bram Stoker's Dracula novel and the characters on which it is based than of any other horror character(s) besides perhaps zombies than we can count.  There is almost always some chick that is in love with Dracula or some other vampire that represents him or shares some of his characteristics.  Sometimes he has power over the person to influence them to fall in love with him and sometimes he doesn't, but either way, I know he's my favorite!  The two major films that I am totally in love with that are adapted from Bram Stoker's original novel, Dracula, are Dracula (1979), starring Frank Langella as Dracula and 1992's Bram Stoker's Dracula, starring Gary Olman as Dracula.  Christopher Lee was my favorite Dracula, but that's another can of worms.  I am just making mention today of my two favorite Dracula films.

You can watch Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) on Crackle here for free with nothing to download or sign up for.  The NBC Dracula series with hot ass Jonathan Rhys Meyers is available on Hulu, too if you are interested here.  You can watch 'em free and you don't need Hulu plus to watch, currently.

2.  Frankenstein - Frankenstein is a horror classic that has been adapted probably almost as many times as Dracula and has so many spins that can be taken on what it is based, its not even funny.  The Bride of Frankenstein is also a central theme in many of the films from the 1935 version of The Bride of Frankenstein to 1992's version of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which also adds Frankenstein's reanimated bride, which he loses when the creature kills her and makes him recreate her as his own with Frankenstein's beloved best galpal's heart added to the reanimated she creature, which was once his bride, Elizabeth.  1992's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is my favorite Frankenstein film ever made to date! 

 

You can watch Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1992), which stars Robert DeNiro, Kenneth Branaugh, and Helena Bonham Carter for free on Crackle here.  I bet you have no idea how much I am grateful that the year 1992 happened in classic horror film and book adaptations, none at all!

3.  Boy Eats Girl (2005) - Let's see, when you mix two of my favorite things, Irishmen (my favorite flavor of man--that makes me want a hot dog real bad...correct my English and I slap you, that was a movie quote a-holes--where is your sense of humor!???  I digress???) and Zombies, you get one of my favorite zombie flicks I have seen to date, Boy Eats Girl, which is a horror comedy about a girl, Jessica and her friend-zone "special friend", Nathan, who attempts suicide when Jessica stands him up by accident on the night he is to declare his love for her.  He sees her getting a ride home in the rain from a particularly douchy boy he goes to school with that picks on him.  He thinks they are doing sexy-time stuff when really, she is just reaching down to get something as she gets out of his car and decides to walk home, because he's perving on her.  Nathan hangs himself and his mom performs a ritual and turns him into a zombie.  Henceforward, all zombie hell breaks loose in their little regular Irish town.  It used to be available to watch for free on Hulu and Veoh, but now its only available on Hulu Plus and Netflix (DVD only).  You can watch it on Redbox Instant by Verizon, though.

4. Haekel's Tale (Masters of Horror Season 1 Episode 12 ) & Dead Alive (1992) - Haekel's Tale was a short story written by Clive Barker, this one hour short film, which was featured on the popular series features two stories in one about magical necromancy and medical resurrection as well as some literal loving of the dead.  I guess you would call them zombies, but I don't know that they are even that lively and one sure doesn't eat brains.  He likes getting jiggy, though.  I can't really say much more without spoiling it, but I guess the ultimate expression of love for the dead would be procreating with a creature once loved in life and still loved in death that is no longer alive.

 

Dead Alive (Braindead) (1992) - of course was a popular cult film made in New Zealand, which surrounds the circumstances created when Lionel's overbearing mother was bitten by an infected zombie monkey thing at the zoo, while trying to ruin Lionel's date with Paquita, his new love interest.  There is some love of the dead between two dead subjects that procreate and make a cute little zombie baby.

You can watch Haekel's Tale on Hulu for free here.

5.  Aftermath (1994), Dead Girl (2008) & Kissed (1996) - are two equally sick films.  Aftermath is sick in the fact that its just disturbing, even though there are barely words spoken throughout the entire short.  Its only a half an hour long, but defiling a corpse in the most intimate of ways is pretty creepy, especially while you are autopsying it in an actual medical environment and it is your job.  Kissed is unnerving in the fact that the main character actually falls in love with the handsome, young, and dead men she works on at the funeral parlor, where she secured employment for the purpose of meeting dead guys to love.  Dead Girl is pretty messed up in the fact that the chick is sort of a zombie thing bound and tied up 24/7 in an asylum, unable to die.  I'm not really sure what she is, but she is still conscious, though undead, and "loved" against her will by force.  I guess Kissed is the lighter of the three and maybe a little nicer, but they are both pretty messed up!

La Boda Negra - Dr. Karl Von Cosel & The Dark Wedding

A German immigrant, Karl Tanzler of Dresden, Germany, abandoned his wife and children in 1926 to relocate to Key West, Florida, where he changed his name to Carl Von Cosel and added "Count" as a nifty title. He claimed 19 different degrees, none of which were ever substantiated. Von Cosel worked for several years in a hospital that specialized in Tuberculosis, a then fatal and incurable affliction as a Radiologist.

In 1933, an attractive, 22 year-old Cuban-American girl, Elena Hoyos was admitted as a patient to the hospital by her mother with the hopelessly incurable disease, Tuberculosis, of course. She immediately caught the doctor's eye and he fell hopelessly in love. He showered the lovely girl with gifts of jewelry and clothing, and allegedly professed his love to her, but no evidence has surfaced to show that any of his affection was reciprocated by Hoyos.

He did all he could to try to rescue her form her most grave condition, but as aggressive as his treatments were, he was unable to save her from her dire fate. They young, beautiful woman died.

The Radiologist also paid for her funeral, and with the permission of her family Von Cosel got permission from her family to place Elena's body in a coffin that pumped constant doses of preserving formaldehyde to keep her tender flesh young ans beautiful for as long as humanly possible in a costly mausoleum so "the good doctor" might be able to gaze on her beauty for as long as time might allow.

People definitely noticed his evening visits and that the doctor creepily spent most of his time with the slowly decaying corpse. Oddly, or maybe not so much so, Dr. Von Cosel stopped coming to visit the deceased girl.

A private man, Von Cosel lived in a small house by the sea. He played his organ late into the night and came into the house often carrying large packages of perfumes and preservatives. Elena's sister grew suspicious and sought out Von Cosel when the cemetery reported that her coffin was missing.

Confronting the doctor at his home, she demanded to see her sister's body. He led her to it in his very own bridal chamber in his home.  Karl had attached Elena's corpse's bones together with piano wire and fitted what was left of her face with glass eyes. As her skin decomposed, he replaced it with silk cloth soaked in wax and Plaster of Paris.  As the hair fell out of the disinterred corpse's scalp, the clever Radiologist fashioned a wig from Hoyos's own hair that had been collected by her mother and given to him prior to her burial in 1931. 

He filled her corpse's abdominal and chest cavity with rags to keep its form, dressed her remains in stockings, jewelry, and gloves.  He used copious amounts of perfume, disinfectants, and preserving agents to mask the odor and counteract the effects of her corpse's decomposition.  He created a death mask in the likeness of her face as to preserve her beauty from beyond the grave.

During his childhood in Germany, and later while traveling briefly in Genoa, Italy, Tanzler claimed to have been visited by visions of a dead ancestor, Countess Anna Constantia von Cosel, who revealed the face of his true love, an exotic dark-haired woman, to him. 

Tanzler immediately recognized her as the beautiful dark-haired woman that had been revealed to him in his earlier "visions." He reportedly said that Elena's spirit would come to him when he would sit by her grave and serenade her corpse with a favorite Spanish song. He also said that she would often tell him to take her from the grave.

After Von Cosel's confrontation with Elena's sister, who survived her, he was subsequently arrested and given a psychological evaluation by Florida's appropriate authorities. He was found sane. He was never prosecuted as the statute of limitations on abuse of a corpse was only two years. It had been seven years.

 Shortly after the corpse's discovery by authorities, Hoyos's body was examined by physicians and pathologists, and put on public display at the Dean-Lopez Funeral Home, where it was viewed by as many as 6,800 on-lookers.

In 1972, it was made public that Von Cosel had stolen Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos' body and taken it home, where the whole debaucle with her sister happened.  The dead girl's body was reburied and encased in cement in an undisclosed, unmarked grave where Von Cosel couldn't find her again. The death mask was put on display in a local museum when the case became local folklore. It was stolen some time later and turned up in 1952 on the floor of Von Cosel's home lying next to his dead body.

Dr. DePoo and Dr. Foraker, who attended the 1940 autopsy of Hoyos's remains recalled in 1972 that a paper tube had been inserted in the vaginal area of the corpse that allowed for intercourse. Others contend that since no evidence of necrophilia was presented at the 1940 preliminary hearing, and because the physicians' "proof" surfaced in 1972, over 30 years after the case had been dismissed, the necrophilia allegation is questionable.

In 1944, Tanzler wrote an autobiography that appeared in the Pulp publication, Fantastic Adventures, in 1947. His home was near his wife Doris, who apparently helped to support Tanzler in his later years. Separated from his hot young corpse, Dr. Karl used a death mask to create a life-sized effigy of Hoyos, and lived with it until his death on July 3, 1952.

He was 75 years of age when he met his maker in Pasco County, Florida. His obituary recounted: "a metal cylinder on a shelf above a table in it wrapped in silken cloth and a robe was a waxen image".

Several bands have released musical interpretations of the Tanzler story. The Black Dahlia Murder released a song titled Death-mask Divine which tells the story.

The Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum in Key West, Florida, has an exhibit recreating Elena's body being cared for by Tanzler. Portions of the original memorial plaque that was commissioned by Tanzler and affixed to Elena Hoyos's mausoleum have been reassembled and are on display at the Martello Gallery-Key West Art and Historical Museum in Key West.