A Movie You Liked/Loved The First Time You Saw It, But......

Horror of Dracula and indeed most of the Hammers fit this category for me, unfortunately. I saw when I was young, after the buildup of reading them about them in the Crestwood Monsters books (details here). I still remember that the entry about HoD had a terrifying picture of Chris Lee as Drac, baring his fangs, and said that he was so scary, he didn’t need to turn into a bat. Little Salzmank shuddered and told himself that he’d never, ever see that horrible Dracula movie—he’d stick with Béla Lugosi, thank you very much. So, naturally, he was fascinated by the concept of seeing something so scary and, when the flick finally showed on television one Hallowe’en, he coweringly watched with Mom and Pop. And, boy, he was duly terrified!

Then I saw it years later, and it lost all its power and, I am sad to say, has not regained it since. I’ve tried to rekindle that feeling, but the whole thing comes off as so slow, stately, badly-lit, and (oddly enough) buttoned-up, despite showing blood and bosom more than the ’31 version. As if the fast-paced scenes are to make up for the largely dull whole. Yet I loved the ’31 version ever since I first saw it and love it still… I think it has far more staying power.

OK, that was off on a tangent, but it does explain part of where I went wrong…

American Beauty.

Dead Poets Society

I have not had this particular experience.

I can`t think of any movie that i liked the first time i watched it and disliked the second time i watched it.