My Dearest Emily,

 

You may know of Alan Lomax, the ethnomusicologist who traveled the deep south, the wilds of West Virginia, even to Europe, the Caribbean, and Asia, for sixty years, recording the local folk musicians with his field recorder. He was the first to record Leadbelly, Muddy Waters, and Woody Guthrie and is credited with initiating both the folk movement of the sixties and modern interest in world music.

 

Inspired by his example, I have acquired meager funding and have set out on a journey to uncover whatever lost, forgotten, or unknown regional films I might. With the advances in consumer video cameras and digital editing made in the last several decades, certainly there must be some little-seen gem somewhere worthy of attention, study and  preservation.

 

Imaging my intrigue upon learning, while traveling deep in the wilds of Appalachia, of the existence of a most unusual feature film, apparently produced in 2002 in a town called Frostburg, Maryland (pop. 8000) with the unlikely title of Dracula Vs Frankenstein.

 

I am sworn to secrecy as to how I retrieved what I believe to be the last copy in existence, but, please know that the story would have you calling the authorities and questioning my will to live. Suffice to say, I barely escaped with the film and my life. Yet I hold few regrets.  This film, while clearly made with little means  for reasons on which I cannot begin to speculate, has a creativity, an ingenuity and propulsive force throughout which one rarely finds in the best of Hollywood product. The special effects, achieved through a variety of clever trickery and craft, while not "realistic" were fantastical, colorful, and fun.  The original film score is so lovely I believe Alan Lomax himself would have wept upon hearing it.  This is certainly the most ambitious "underground" movie ever attempted, and one of the best. 

 

Apparently, the film is somewhat inspired by some earlier film unknown to me, but I am positive that this is a transformative work, one that reimagines the source material so thoroughly that it becomes a wholly original piece

 

What strange creatures made this film and for what reasons I can scarcely imagine, a Herculean task that could only have been endured out of a pure love for film and filmmaking.  It is enough to report that I have secured a small commercial release for this criminally overlooked film that I believe deserves an audience.  Next, I shall dedicate myself to tracking down the mysterious artisans responsible and documenting their story. Watch this space for further developments.

 

 

I remain,

 

Professor Harold Monroe 

Dept. of Ethnofilmology

New York State University