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Snake Plotzkin, reporting from Fantastic Fest 2024, where I got to see the biographical documentary, The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee. I’m a big fan of Hammer horror, and I will watch literally any Hammer film with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in it. One of my favorite Hammer films is Rasputin the Mad Monk, which, if you haven’t seen it, is one of Lee’s best performances. The gigantically tall Lee stalks around St. Peterburg as the mad monk, hypnotizing women, seducing them, and then yelling at them to get out of his room and leave their money on the bed. It’s amazing.
If The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee had been made up completely of anecdotes about Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing on the Hammer films, I would honestly have been very satisfied with it. But the movie unexpectedly goes much further, revealing not just another side of the actor, but multiple facets. For instance, did you know that Christopher Lee fought Nazis? That he may have been the inspiration for James Bond (which was written by his cousin)? That he released two heavy metal albums? Well, this movie goes where no marionette-narrated biopic has gone before, using a mix of interviews, animation, and puppetry to bring Christopher Lee to life (the man himself passed away in 2015).
Yes, I said puppetry. The movie is narrated by a marionette of Christopher Lee – who, in an uncanny imitation of Lee’s sonorous voice (played by Peter Szymon Serafinowicz, an English actor who, in addition to playing the Tick in the live action series, voiced Darth Maul in the Star Wars films), walks us through Lee’s life from his early years as a soldier and a day player, to his career-defining success with his absolutely iconic and mesmerizing performance as Hammer’s Dracula, and to his final performances in two of the biggest franchises of the 20th (and 21st) centuries – Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars.
I was touched to learn that Lord of the Rings had a particularly special place in Lee’s heart, as he was a lifelong fan of Tolkien, and he was proud to be part of bringing a story to life that meant so much to him. In addition to his onscreen deaths – which are many – Lee seems to constantly be reinventing himself, and striving to escape from the role of Dracula, which I was surprised to find out was not as beloved to him as it clearly is to us, his audience. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I’ll just say that in addition to being creative and informative, in the end, the movie is unexpectedly poignant and sweet.
Featuring interviews with his dear friends and collaborators, Joe Dante, John Landis, Caroline Munro, and animation from such luminaries as Dave McKean (whose work you may know from Grant Morrison’s Arkham Asylum book as well as covers for Neil Gaiman’s Sandman), this is definitely something for any Christopher Lee fan to put on your watchlist.