In the run-up to Halloween, I'm going to share some readings and short films etc. I'll start with this oddity - the first feature written by the legendary Leigh Brackett (1915-78). For those who don't know, Brackett was a very successful sci-fi writer of the pulp era. Brackett excelled at 'space opera' adventures with tough heroes battling long odds on Mars or Venus, but was recruited by Hollywood to write a horror movie - so far as the studio was concerned, genre fiction was all the same stuff, basically. So she came up with a vampire story, but set it in Africa and threw in some interesting plot twists. It's very much of its time, of course, but enjoyable. Brackett went on to work with Howard Hawks on classic Westerns such as Rio Bravo, plus the thriller The Big Sleep. Her last contribution was as co-writer on The Empire Strikes back, coming full circle back to space opera.
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