Taliesin meets the vampires

Director: Don E. FauntLeRoy

Release date: 2013

Contains spoilers

I don’t know why Syfy do what they do. If they have money to make films then why, oh why not make good ones. When I heard they were going to do a fish/vampire crossover (sharknado gathering some cult following, of course) I did despair. When the title isn’t even right (because they are plural not singular) you know things are going to go horribly wrong.

Perhaps I do it a disservice. Perhaps, had I watched the film with companions of a like mind, with foaming beverages to hand, then it would have been so bad it was worthwhile. However I don’t think so and, even if it were the case, I watched it on my lonesome and it was simply so bad, it’s bad.

Donna and Owen

A guy, Owen Powers (Brandon Beemer) wanders up to a quayside looking for Glen Hunter (Kevin Dobson) and meets his hard-assed daughter Donna (Cassandra Scerbo). He is put to work on the boat with hand Jonas (Michael Papajohn) until Glen and son Joe (Jonathan Lipnicki, the Little Vampire) show. It seems that Glen and Owen’s dad new each other but that isn’t really expanded on.

Jonas is the first victim

The ship – the Black Drum – is a dredger and dredges the Bering Sea for gold. Glen sends the kids, Owen and Jonas out to a midnight dive to check out an area he wants to buy a claim for. Jonas and Joe dive and something is disturbed. Joe finds Jonas’ body, maskless and drained, on the seabed and surfaces. They assume shark, see a fin and go hell for leather back to shore, leaving Jonas’ body at sea.

Joe and Donna

As Glen doesn’t want to tip his claim area off (especially to local n’er-do-well Thorne (Lawrence Turner, Angel& Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter) until he wins the auction, Glen decides that they won’t inform the authorities until after said auction (which they lose because Joe has tipped Thorne off). Meanwhile the body is found by marine biologist Megan (Jaqueline Fleming, also Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter & Vegas Vampires) as it has washed to shore. She doesn’t inform the authorities either, but tells the crew that she has taken Jonas’ body to her lab. This is because she has been tracking a creature that has been exsanguinating seals up and down the coast and wants to run tests on the body. How his body conveniently washed up from the sea to that bit of coast isn’t answered.

in flight

Anyway… sea vampires… manta ray looking sea vampires. These little buggers have spines on their wings with which they hold their prey like a living iron maiden and siphon them dry. They also have somewhat sharp teeth and can function on land, and fly as well – in a move that goes to make them look like crap bats. They seem a damn sight more clever than they should as they are able to track, apparently, the crew and Megan wherever they happen to be.

exploding sea vampire

Allegedly sunlight is an issue – despite seeing one on the deck of a ship in the sun. Bright light (such as from a camera – or the sun, dagnabbit) stuns them and high intensity light, say from a sunlamp, causes them to explode into a cloud of blood. Being poked through with a large stick/pipe, when they are bloated from a feed, also causes them to explode into a cloud of blood. The modelling, mapping and cgi is bloomin’ awful.

chest burst

Their method of reproduction is interestingly unoriginal (in movies, at least, for a ‘vampire’ film it is fairly original). They implant their offspring into a chest and, after a couple of hours, they pop out like a low-rent Alien. Meanwhile the cast are stumbling over poor story, ineffectual villainy and plot holes that a bus could drive through. There seem to be hundreds of these little buggers, they’ve been the stuff of sea-faring legend (so they’ve been around) but no-one has seen them before.

in the sun

The film is rubbish. There is little more to say. I didn’t think it managed a “so bad it’s good” saving grace either. More a let’s throw concepts out and see what sticks than a seriously thought through film with lore to match, I really can’t recommend it. 1.5 out of 10.

The IMDb page is here.

The Batman Chronicles Volume 1 is the first volume of a series that contains the very first adventures of Batman. Contained within the volume are the first appearances of Hugo Strange, Robin, the Joker and the Cat (a precursor to Cat Woman).

Generally I was taken by the fact that batman was more than happy to kill the criminals – indeed in the first few stories he kills someone in virtually each one.

Our attention, however, has to be directed to a two part story dated from September and October 1939 in which Batman faces against an enemy called the Monk. It starts off with Batman interrupting a murder, about to be committed by Bruce Wayne’s fiancée Julie Madison. Julie has been hypnotised and so, when Bruce takes her to the doctor, she is advised to go on holiday (the hypnotised doctor suggesting an ocean voyage to Paris and then on to “Hungary – the land of history and werewolves.”) Despite the odd suggestion they go along with it, Bruce packing the little lady off and then following as Batman.

The monk then accosts her on the voyage and in Paris, with Batman fighting for her (and against a gorilla at one point). This seems to be a convoluted plot in order to feed Julie to his werewolves (although at another point the Monk suggests she will become a werewolf). Batman uses knockout gas and captures a woman named Dala who turns out to be a vampire (and bites Julie) and a double-crossing accomplice of the Monk. We see the Monk turn into a wolf to call his werewolves but he too is a vampire and Batman kills them by shooting them, whilst they sleep in their open coffins, with silver bullets as “Only a silver bullet may kill a vampire!”

So we have a cross-over of werewolf and vampire mythology within the story but it is interesting to note that Batman faced off against vampires so early in his career (the first Batman story in Detective Comics appeared in May 1939 and the stories were monthly), but of course the Comic Code Authority, which effectively banned vampires (amongst many other things) in comics, wasn’t introduced until the 1954.

Story and Art: Matt Wagner

First published: 2006-2007

Contains spoilers

This was the second reimaging of Batman’s encounter with the Mad Monk – we looked at the original story here. Between this version and the original there was a storyline in 1982 establishing the Monk character within the DC Multiverse.

This was the second of a two-part series called Dark Moon Rising, the first trade paper back (tpb) being Batman and the Monster Men, a Hugo Strange story. Batman is at the start of his career and the relationship between him and Jim Gordon is just beginning. As in the original version Bruce Wayne is in a relationship with Julie Madison, but she is a law student and her father, Norman, is a psychological wreck terrified of Batman.

The Mad Monk goes by the name of Niccolai Ţepeş, though Batman comes to believe he is Richard Rallstone, a bad-boy heir to the Rallstone Castle (a blooming great castle in Gotham). A pictogram at the end suggests that Ţepeş possessed the body of Rallstone. Whilst Ţepeş clearly believes he is a vampire (drinking blood, having hypnotic powers and sleeping days in a coffin) the storyline keeps the actuality of this fluid and it may have been delusion rather than him actually being a vampire.

Of course the hypnotic powers are real enough and he uses them on Julie to get at her father’s fortune whilst he poses as a self-help guru. We also see that she has been bitten and the bite marks are of the two puncture variety. Batman may not believe that he really is facing a vampire but errs on the side of caution and creates some silver batarangs. The monk’s end (oh that wasn’t really a spoiler) comes about in a Hammer way.

Ţepeş is creating a vampire cult called the Brotherhood, though none of the members are actually vampires. He has wolves guarding the castle, but they are natural wolves and werewolves are not mentioned within the story. In the original story Dala was a vampire, in this she is a servant who has been recruited with the promise of being turned and ruling at his side. Dala actually will appear again as a vampire in the Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode Shadow of the Bat.

The tpb is rather good, not too stretching in concept, rather it has solid storytelling and the art is rather fine too. 7 out of 10. Thanks to Dave for the loan of the tpb.

Director: A Neal

Release: 2006 (re copyright notice)

Contains spoilers

I found this film on YouTube and, to my knowledge, it has not had a DVD release nor is it on IMDb (at time of review). It does an awful amount wrong but there are moments within it. For instance it might be down to the low resolution on the YouTube upload or the film may just look washed out, but that – if deliberate – does give the film a feel of a 1970s movie. Something rediscovered (a claim made at the head of the film that suggests this is a “lost” movie). That said there is no excuse for the title banner that sits across the film like a bird of doom.

We are in the realm of the vampire western, though this is a western with biblical pretentions, quoting through its length passages from the book of revelations and, so, we are also in the subgenre that ties vampire and antichrist together.

Armando Creeper as Von Strom

It begins with a man, Harley (Gregg Griffin), at a campfire – on his way home from cattle market. His horse threw him at the campsite and he has stopped to warm himself, a cup of coffee is desired. However, instead, he finds a book filled with prophecy – it claims in companion to the book of revelations – a book that mentions his name. Out of the dark comes a creature, Eric Von Strom (Armando Creeper), a grey faced, drooling monstrosity with a buzzard on his arm. He attacks Harley and, as he feeds, he infects him with a fever.

Gregg Griffin as Harley

Harley awakens in daylight, naked bar a cross at his neck and a brand on his chest. He stumbles back to his home town where he collapses. He is placed under the care of his bride to be, Belle (Michelle Calhoun), meanwhile her best friend (and his secret admirer) Sally (Shellene Stindle) goes to see the sheriff (Hal Whamsley). She wants to see what he will do about the bandits that robbed Harley (his story as he believed no-one would believe the truth) but the Sheriff is lazy and corrupt and is only interested in being lecherous. His lechery leads to a fight between Sally and his wife Louisa (Sarah Duke). This shows one of the big problems with the film. They fight in the mud for four minutes, it is a boring and pointless sequence that adds nothing to the movie (not even offering titillation).

wedding

Harley and Belle get married but, on their wedding night, Harley dreams that Von Strom appears (and indeed he did). In the dream Von Strom feeds from Belle’s side as Harley lies immobilised. When he awakens to find her dead she has a mark at her neck (it didn’t make a lot of logical sense). Anyway, Von Strom resurrects her, as his helper, but of course she is now vampire. She also ends up being pregnant (this would be the antichrist but really the film just mentions it once and then again in the epilogue). For the return of his wife Harley agrees to help, kidnapping townsfolk for Von Strom and for his wife (though they are both capable of hunting their own food).

More like zombies

There is one part where Harley asks Belle to show strength – he has the fever but doesn’t feed. Nonsense as we have already had a scene where they feed together. It grinds inexorably on to the point where they decide to do away with Von Storm but it might be way too late, as most of the town are turned. In reality they do very little and the master vampire is brought down by a horde of vampires who shuffle more like zombies than anything else.

feeding together

The film is slow. I can forgive the film quality on the basis that it looks like a relic from the seventies but not the pacing of a film that feels at least an hour too long (it runs at 1 hour 45 minutes). The acting is am-dram, though the Von Strom makeup is surprisingly effective when the film is running (again, the poor resolution might have been the cause of this, working in the film’s favour). The sound is poor, with dialogue shifting from having hisses over it to being clean depending on the direction the camera (and thus the mike, I assume) is facing – or perhaps some was redone in a studio, who knows. The soundtrack was effective in places and missing in other places.

All in all this wasn’t brilliant but I could see something worthwhile in its core, a should-be-gleaming gem that you won’t want to watch it for as the slow pace strips it of any lustre. 1.5 out of 10.

Director: Jay Mackenzie Roach

Release Date: 2010

Contains spoilers

This was one of those frustrating films that, for everything it did right, it managed to make a mistake also. Probably unavoidable, to some degree, when you are making a low budget movie but some of the issues were avoidable.

Let us take the location of the film – Roach City. Creating your own city for the location offers a freedom next to a real world location in that you can design the city as you want it and not have to worry that someone who knows the location will know that the locations are fictional. On the other hand, calling it Roach City makes the viewer start – it makes you wonder who would call a city that, even when you realise the director used his own name.

opening scene

The film starts with a voice over, from main character Jaq (Elle LaMont, who is the new Satanica Pandemonia in From Dusk till Dawn the Series), as she talks about no longer seeing the sun. It’s a little play with expectations. We see a woman, with dried blood at her mouth, and will soon discover this isn’t Jaq. Jaq says that she does not have the disease that goes through *their* veins. She follows their patterns because she is a hunter and it is a male vampire she has come for.

fanged and bloodied

She shoots him twice with a shotgun but then he overpowers her and starts to choke her with a belt as her fingers grasp a nail gun – a nail in the temple and three in the side is followed by a pickaxe (the filmmakers choosing, wisely, not to tackle that effect and so we see the swing). Realising that the vampire was lonely, rather than hungry, she turns on the victim who has been infected. The implication as we move to title screen being that Jaq has killed her.

attacked in the stall

We get a sequence that that is treated to add wear lines into the film and give the impression of a Grindhouse flick, whilst we hear Jaq’s thoughts about “the Scarlet Stalker” (Reece Rios , After Sundown) a serial killer (who she knows is a vampire). We also see black talons being cut and false, human normal nails being applied. This was clever but never actually followed up. We see him on the hunt, a forgettable, normal looking guy – he follows a woman into a bathroom, removes his clothes and then rips the stall door off and attacks. Outside Jaq sets up a high powered sniper rifle down an alleyway and, after speaking to him on the phone, puts a couple of bullets in him. She then gets up close and personal and eventually does overpower him but is stabbed for her trouble also.

Elle LaMont as Jaq

She tortures him to try and get information (overlooking how she managed to get the vampire back and chained down, especially with her injury). He was created by a vampire called Catherine (Mila Moravec), a vampire who lived to turn men into monsters. Jaq has previously disposed of her and it is one of creations she is after, Jaq’s erstwhile husband Cale (Niko Red Star). As the film progresses we discover that his first victim was their young son (Connor Hill). When the injured Jaq gets home we see her shooting up drugs, fixing the stab wound with superglue and setting up a homemade IV as she tries to get through the next day.

Maggie Alone

When she awakens a cop, Dick (Joe Nemmers), is sat there and he brings her into his world. He has watched her for years (he was on the crime scene, when Cale killed the kid) but things have gone strange. We have seen a woman, Maggie (Kristin Sutton), in a wedding dress and she is alone and upset, as well as Cale, in a tux, committing suicide before a church; both scenes in snippets explicitly without referencing. It turns out that Maggie was just married to Cale (not knowing he was a vampire) and he vanished off after the ceremony. Then she was attacked and raped by something, though there was no physical evidence of anyone else there. Three days later and she is in a coma and heavily pregnant.

experimentation

Dick has taken her to an abandoned building where his friend, Doc (Grant James), experiments on vampires – we see one which is missing everything below the abdomen, chained to a table. Interestingly none of the primary “good” characters see anything wrong in this. The film then takes us down two lore routes. Doc’s experiments have shown that the vampires are stronger and heal fast because their systems are on overdrive – heart rate, immune system, muscles and tendons are all beyond human normal. This burns blood off as fuel and so the body has adapted, linking the digestive system and circulatory system. The appendix becomes a conduit between the systems (one wonders whether that means vampires who have had appendectomies will die – there is a sideswipe comment from Jaq about this). Jaq had already told us that the way to kill a vampire is either massive blood loss, or major trauma to the heart or brain.

Cale's sacrifice

The above is interesting, if a little bit technobabblish. The other lore line goes on about the church, the True Covenant of Christ, which believes that Jesus was Lucifer (in other words the bible is the biggest con job of all time) and a prophecy that a vampire will father a second son (having eaten the first), who will be God’s Shadow. Vampires are sterile, it appears, and the act before the church was Cale’s self-sacrifice to the devil – he does get a body back later. This was also interesting but suffered for two reasons. Firstly there wasn’t the budget that would allow a full representation of this (for instance the invisible sexual assault is not particularly shown), Secondly the film was gritty and down to earth, with a viral/disease explanation and an attempt to draw science into the feeding cycle and the two sides sat uncomfortably with each other.

Doc and Dick

That said, it was ambitious for such a low budget film. The acting was hit and miss all the way through. Jaq’s film noir voice overs worked and you began to get a feel for her and Dick as characters, especially after you let the noir aspect of the film take hold. Grant James offered an idiosyncratic performance that grew on you. Nico Red Star didn’t work for me as Cale, however. There were aspects that made me startle that I won’t reveal due to them being a spoiler too far but brought a serious story faux pas to light. The effects weren’t bad for a low budget film, but the 70s-esque filming hid a lot of issues. The story didn’t flow in places but ultimately kept my attention. I did like the fact that the good characters were absolutely fundamentally flawed.

Cale turned

So, not bad for an indie effort, but it had issues. Some of those were budget based (the range of the storyline somewhat outstripped the budget on hand, though they did a lot with little). Some were down to expectation – the in-half vampire I expected to have some form of role, other than showing the main characters’ absolutely degenerated level of morality. Some could have been solved by the filmmakers – such as the poorer end of acting. All in all it probably deserves 5 out of 10, but with a caveat that it is worth seeing as an indie offering. The IMDb page is here.

Director: Hollingsworth Morse

First aired: 1965

Contains spoilers

I must admit that I was unaware of the series McHale’s Navy. As I settled down to watch this vampire orientated episode from the third season that fact left me at somewhat of a disadvantage, I think, and I came away with the impression that it was essentially Bilko at sea (or at a naval base at the very least). I wasn’t far wrong.

From what I gather McHale’s Navy started off as a drama (with comedic elements) in its original pilot form with Ernest Borgnine playing Lt. Commander Quinton McHale one of 18 survivors of a Japanese attack during World War 2 and their struggle against a Lieutenant parachuted in to get them up and running as a fighting force, as they had gone native and were content to just try and survive the rest of the war on the island. However, when it became a syndicated series it was under the producer, Edward J. Montagne, who had been behind the Phil Silver’s Show - making it Bilko in the navy (but in war rather than peacetime).

Benson and Parker

To the specific episode then: Ensign Charles Parker (Tim Conway) is a klutz, when he meets new nurse Lt. Melba Benson (Ann Elder) they are instantly attracted to each other and she is as big a klutz as he is. On their second date they go and watch the vampire movie “Vampire’s Revenge”. We do not get to see the film but we do see the audience reactions and hear parts of it – and the vampire’s faux-Lugosi accent. Following the viewing Parker manages to trap the hand of commanding officer Captain Wallace B. Binghamton (Joe Flynn) in a chair and then knock supply boxes over him with a jeep.

Ernest Borgnine is McHale

Binghamton decides to ship Parker off to a coast-watching location, an assignment that is essentially a suicide run, and thus be done with the clumsy ensign. However he then discovers that Parker has the same incredibly rare blood type (AA6 –ve) and rescinds the order, instead closeting Parker away to keep him safe. Whilst Parker milks this quite a bit, he wants to get back to his mates. Worse they discover that Melba faked the blood records to save him. McHale comes up with a plan to get him back.

our fake Vampire

How the plan was actually meant to work in any meaningful way outside of the fuzzy world of the sitcom was beyond me, but they have Parker dress as a vampire and lie in a coffin. He then menaces Binghamton until McHale and mates come in to the rescue – saying it is Parker’s secret and he turns into a vampire every full moon! Parker then suggests (in an equally faux-Lugosi accent) that he has brought some friends along and in walks the Phantom of the Opera, the Mummy, the Hunchback of Notre Dame and the Wolfman. Binghamton soon sees through the scheme, as well as the disguises, but sends Parker back to his friends anyway.

plus Mummy too

With a quick visit from the Creature from the Black Lagoon as a coda piece, that was about all – so, as in Bilko, it is a fake vampire. I apologies now to fans of the series but I wasn’t aware of it before and won’t be watching more. To me it was just a facsimile of the Phil Silver’s Show, without the distinct advantage of having Phil Silvers in the cast. 4 out of 10.

The episode’s imdb page is here.

Author: Remy Porter

First Published: 2013

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: There's a murderer loose in Greystones, a small estuary village tucked against the wintry, wooded trails of O'Halloran Hill. The gory body count begins to rise, sending the media into an all-out feeding frenzy. The village is swamped with police and onlookers, and everybody wants to catch 'The Vampire Killer'.

While the hunt is on James Stixx and his partner-in-crime, Faye Burns discover that beneath the surface is a whole different story, a mystery that goes back decades. The teenagers find everyone has something to lose, or secrets to bury.

And all the while the vampire is waiting ... choosing its moment to strike...

The review: You should never judge a book by its cover, so they say, but can we take a moment to revel in the glory that is the cover of Stixx. A cracking piece of cover art that totally sells the book to me.

The book itself is a piece of crime fiction set in the English countryside, a rural landscape that is haunted by lumbering shells of derelict buildings as sepulchre as a tomb. Winter beaches, uninviting woodlands and fields on which there is no place to hide. In this bleak, winter scene we are witness to a double murder and the killer seems to be a vampire. This is not the suave vampire flitted out of some City goth club and wintering out in the sticks. Nor is it a cloaked member of the gentry, using his mesmeric gaze to trap the fluttering heart of a damsel. The vampire is naked and a ruthless killer and the police can’t seem to catch him.

In this village lives Stixx and he has just met Faye Burns who has recently moved to the village (and has a boyfriend overseas). They begin to try and investigate the attacks but what was great about the primary characters was just how damaged they all were. Stixx works a dead end job (though he may have just lost it), is known to the police due to a bad habit he used to have of setting fires and is a small time drug dealer. Faye has massive psychiatric issues – stemming from her dad having a psychotic break and cutting her twin sister into pieces. Porter writes a great character as they are damaged, sometimes petty, but you still sympathise with them.

Is it a vampire – now that really is a spoiler too far though certainly there is belief that a vampire is out there. I will say that there is a deeper plot aspect, a dark mystery at the heart of village life that, if I had a complaint, seemed just a tad convoluted. However that is a minor issue as the story certainly did keep me with it, but it is those characters that really hook you.

Not a heartthrob vampire, a Count or an angst-ridden vampire in sight, rather a ruthless monster and a novel that is definitely worth your time. 8 out of 10.

Director: Bret Wood

Release Date: 2013

Contains spoilers

Director Bret Wood was the man behind the magnificent Indie flick Psychopathia Sexualis and, indeed, I interviewed him about that film. So when I was contacted by him and told he had a new film, it was based on Carmilla and would I like to view it… Well, let us just say I almost gave myself whiplash replying in the affirmative.

Of course the level of excitement I felt, as the film began to play, could have left me disappointed once the film was over – it didn’t. Rather it left me, with a smile playing across my lips, cogitating about a very fresh take on the Carmilla story. It also left me knowing that I had to write these two first paragraphs as a preamble, thus warning you that I am somewhat taken by the Unwanted.

Christen Orr as Carmilla

It has also left me with a quandary, how much of the film do I spoil? After all, the basic Carmilla story is well known but it is the revealing of the layers, the interactions and development of the characters (past and present) that make this film and I hope to not stray too much into spoiler territory with regards that. However I do want to discuss a fascinating story choice that Bret decided upon. I have to say at the outset that this is certainly not a horror film, I would say that it is a psychosexual drama set within a Gothic Americana landscape. It all begins as Carmilla (Christen Orr) arrives in a rural American town by bus.

Troy denies knowledge

She walks out into the country, looking for a specific address. She knocks on the door and a timid young lady, Laura (Hannah Fierman, V/H/S& the Vampire Diaries), answers. Carmilla says she is looking for someone who used to live there but Laura’s family have always lived there. Her dad, Troy (William Katt), takes over the conversation. The person Carmilla is looking for is Mircalla Karnstein (Kylie Brown). Troy denies knowledge of anyone with that name but does offer Carmilla a lift back into town.

Hannah Fierman as Laura

Carmilla goes to the police department to look at the public records of calls regarding Troy’s home, but it will take 2 days for the records to be found and compiled. She then goes to a diner and is handed, when she sits down, a cold drink. She looks up and sees the waitress is Laura. She orders coffee but Laura brings some food over. It is clear that Carmilla doesn’t have the funds for food by her reaction but Laura insists she has it. Laura asks about Mircalla and we discover that she is Carmilla’s mother – though she never saw her. Carmilla is both guarded (indeed, in an interesting costuming choice she wears a breastplate through much of the film) and a little touchy about her mother.

Tell me my life is about to begin...

Laura suggests that her father may not have technically been lying (about her living in the house, he was lying about not knowing her) but may know more than he let on and suggests Carmilla meets her back at the diner at 3. In the intervening scene we see Laura’s hand languish over a carving knife. Laura takes her to a trailer that her father used to rent out. Laura doesn’t know if he rented it to Mircalla but he may of, she tells Carmilla. She offers Carmilla the trailer as a place to stay for a couple of days. When she speaks to her father he admits he lied about Mircalla but says he did it for the best of reasons. He intimates that no good could come of knowing about her.

blood is involved

That is about as far as I want to go re their story but you will be aware that Carmilla and Laura do develop a relationship and it does involve blood. Troy believed Mircalla was a vampire and Laura cuts herself. The relationship, as it grows, does involve blood-drinking. I mentioned a fascinating story choice and that appeared within the subtleties of the character portrayals, as the dynamics between Laura and Carmilla were in some respects – as I saw it – inverted to the way they were in Le Fanu’s original. This is despite the fact that Laura seems very fragile in many ways (beyond the obvious reliance on cutting) and Carmilla seems strong.

car crash

It is also interesting that the carriage crash, from the beginning of the original story, does remain in the film but in the form of the historic car crash that brought Mircalla into the family’s life. The car hit a bridge support and Mircalla was the most injured being the passenger. The driver, Dwight (Neal R. Hazard), left by bus for their original destination whilst she was taken to hospital and he never came back. Karen (Lynn Talley), Laura’s deceased mother, took Mircalla in. Carmilla knew Dwight’s surname but we never discover how she knew it, presumably through her research into her mother but we can look to her being something more than just a character, a living symbol within the psychosexual landscape.

in the field

The acting was superb. I immediately recognised Hannah Fierman from V/H/S and have to say that she is a very striking looking young woman, with astoundingly large eyes – and that element gives her face an otherworldly quality and adds to her characterisation. Christen Orr was excellent also as Carmilla and the two actresses worked well together generating a real chemistry. It seemed to me there were some referential nods to the genre. For instance, one scene seemed to subtly parody and subvert the Twilight“lying in a field” scene, and there was a brief moment, through a music box, of Swan Lake that immediately summoned thoughts of Dracula (1931). Talking of music the piece of music over the opening credits was superb.

Kylie Brown as Mircalla

As I suggested, I really liked this. Carmilla is a piece that lends itself to being the basis for psychosexual drama but I was taken very much with the journey this took the Laura character on, the play with the genre (that was very knowing) and that reversal of dynamics I mentioned. 8.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

The Pink Panther is a cultural classic, a series of cartoons based on the opening credits of the live action crime comedies of the same name and featuring the always cool Pink Panther (character, not diamond). This episode came from the series The Pink Panther and Friends, was directed by Art Leonardi and first aired in 1975.

Dracula

It features the Pink Panther backpacking through Transylvania when he spots what he takes to be a lodge but is in fact Dracula’s castle. He decides to stay the night and the five minutes of the cartoon is taken up with encounters with an invisible, squeaky footed yeti and a disembodied, knife throwing hand and – of course – Dracula, who is recurring character The Little Man in a vampire get up.

The coffin

PP finds Dracula's coffin and, assuming it to be the coffin of a really dead man buries it. When the sun sets the coffin rises out of the ground and Dracula is on the hunt for some pink plasma. Of course hunting PP is never going to be that easy and there are irate spiders plus a moat living shark for the bungling vampire to contend with. Dracula can always assume the form of a crap bat, of course. When day breaks vampire, castle and all the other inhabitants vanish.

The imdb page is here.

Editors: Robert Eighteen-Bisang & Richard Dalby

First Published: 2011

Contains spoilers

The blurb: Long lost to the public in out-of-print pulp magazines, dusty Victorian anthologies, and the pages of now defunct newspapers—these vintage vampire stories have truly proved immortal. Resurrected now for the year 2011, this is a stunning collection of nineteenth-century vampire stories by heavyweights such as Sabine Baring-Gould and Bram Stoker. These rare stories are arranged in chronological order from 1846 to 1913 and are compiled by two of the world’s leading vampire anthologists and experts. Also included are rare images of Bram Stoker’s handwritten manuscript pages for Count Vampire (1890) courtesy of the Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia.

The review: I am really torn over this one. It does contain some very important early vampire stories – indeed I specifically featured the Vampire; or, Pedro Pacheco and the Bruxa (1863) and the Blood Drinking Corpse (1679). As such I would be straying towards this being essential, but there are problems.

Putting in a handful of Stoker’s notes does not make for them being a story in their own right, for instance, and whilst interesting for some, for other readers I can imagine they were just padding. More so for those of us who have the facsimile of all the notes. The story A Kiss of Judas (1893) by Julian Osgood Field was, debatably, not actually a vampire story – though it did carry some tropes. Equally the story Herself (1894) by Mary Elizabeth Braddon had some aspects that might have equated to energy vampirism but would definitely need a ‘Vamp or Not?’ That said I could see arguments as to why they both deserved inclusion.

What was unforgivable, however, was the endless parade of typos that stood glaringly from the page. Typos happen, I understand, but the editing process was clearly slipshod, and if the book is going to be of use to a student of the media vampire then accuracy should have been strived for. That pushes the score down, I’m afraid, to 5 out of 10. Get the volume, I say, to get these rare stories together. But beware the typos and, if the editors read this, you need to do a second edition with a decent proofreading process.

The Vampire by Jan Naruda is an odd little story, which appears in anthologies from time to time. I wanted to look at it here as, despite various sources suggesting it was published in 1920, it is a piece of pre-Dracula 19th century literature and one that hails from the Czech Republic.

Naruda was born in 1831 and died in 1891 and was a journalist by trade. I have seen an approximate date of 1884 for his tale. The vampire of the title does show supernatural powers but is not your typical undead. He is a Greek artist, perfectly at ease in the sunshine. The story takes place on the Island of Prinkipo (off the coast of Turkey, near Istanbul) and the narrator is holidaying.

The boat the narrator arrived on also carried the Greek and a Polish family. The daughter of the family is ailing. An hotelier tells the narrator that the locals call the artist the Vampire as “he sketches only corpses”, however he always sketches them immediately prior to their death. In this case it was the daughter of the Polish family.

Is the man simply, and unerringly, drawn to the dying? Or, perhaps, it is he who kills them, an energy vampire maybe? The story is silent and so it could be either. I did like the fact that the author was Czech and it was an interesting pre-Stoker dip into vampirism.

You can read the story here.

Author: S W Best

First Published: 2013

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: "MURDERED on her wedding night."
"BETRAYED by her sister."
"FORCED to make a deal with the Devil to become a vampire."
"LOST in darkness . . ."

By the hand of her jealous sister Lucinda, Jennifer Sal Vinci is thrown into a dark dangerous world she did not choose.

The vampire houses of New York are at war. They police the cities, looking for stray vampires to wipe them out permanently.

Jennifer must battle her own demons if she is to win her sanity when all else crumbles before her like the shifting sands of time. Her true maker holds the key to her survival, but will she have the courage to follow her heart?

In Pennsylvania, Green Hill Lakes, three people go missing, feared dead. There is something sinister about this quiet mountain town. Why have routine disappearances been accepted for so long? As the mysteries surrounding this sleepy town unravel, you are dragged into a world far darker and ancient than you could have ever anticipated.

But when a new Sheriff James Hall arrives, his family get caught up in the web of lies ranging back over hundreds of years. He must fight back against the town and demands answers to the terrible questions that everyone is too afraid to ask. But will his sense of duty be at the cost of his family? Intertwining conflicts bring two worlds crashing together with deadly consequence . . .

The review: I find no sense in not being honest in a review, it does you the reader and the author, to be candid, no favours. But whilst I do have a couple of criticisms regarding this novel by S W Best I also, positively, found it an engaging story – as I’ll get to.

However the first criticism is a strange one – and one that has not impacted the final score. That is within what amounts to a very odd formatting choice (or, potentially, error). I bought the book on Amazon Kindle and have a basic model kindle (grey screen). For some reason an effect was added to the page that made it much darker than standard. This wasn’t a file error as I deleted the book and redownloaded it and the effect was still there.

The impact was that (as well as allowing ghosts from previous eink pages to show in certain lights) the book was dark text on dark background and – candidly – a bitch to read. I could find no way of changing the contrast on the basic kindle. I struggled to read, fighting through chapters (and the fact I wanted to tells you something about the story) and then switched to my phone. Now I hate reading backlit ebooks (and the screen of the phone is smaller), but the kindle android app allowed the page colour to be set and thus I used the phone as my reading device.

As I say, I do not know if this was a choice or an error and if you own a kindle fire I assume that (as on Android) you’ll be fine. However the format undermined accessibility for those who use the basic kindle’s accessibility functions. I don’t know what the effect would be on paperwhite. I repeat that this issue has not been reflected in the score.

The story is one of vampire clans and revenge and the core character Jennifer Sal Vinci comes across as a likeable and interesting character. There is some degree of vampire angst reflected but it is tempered and doesn’t get in the way of a good smackdown. We hear something of vampire society and I am sure the author will expand this further in future volumes, though I’d have a liked a little more in this.

Indeed the author created a working world around us that he can further hone as he goes along and the story rattled along at a good old pace. The vampires are not too powerful (at least the younger ones aren’t, older vampires with purer blood do have access to powers) and there is a Satanic element (though I didn’t notice holy items being used as apotropaic). The sun is deadly – though there is one exception.

Prose wise however there is room for improvement. Don’t get me wrong, the prose was strong in places and shows that when Best hones his skills he will have much to offer. Good story also counts for much and my mind goes to Laurell K Hamilton who had some pretty shoddy prose at the start of her Anita Blake series but it just got better and better (though her stories started to vanish more and more). Best does use some turns of phrase that seem clunky, at times, and I was going to suggest that what the book needed was a professional edit through.

However the author’s note at the end suggested he had paid for a professional edit. I would have said that I would hope it was actually just a proofread (though there were some typos clearly missed as well). However a professional (good) edit should have knocked away the clunkier corners.

That sounds harsh, I know, but I say it for a reason. There is a talent here and it needs to be developed, but ignoring problems is not the way to do that. The author will develop. His story will grow. Perhaps he will return to this volume himself and hone those edges (and sort out the formatting too). I can certainly recommend the book both as a story and as the start of something I hope will develop into a respectable career. 6 out of 10.

Director: Rob Burrows

Release date: 2010

Contains spoilers

I feel incredibly mean. Dead Frequency is an independent movie (with all the issues that can carry with it) and director Rob Burrows was specific in mentioning that it was a comedy and not a horror, when he made the screener, which I had asked for, available to me.

Now, personally I would not be too concerned that a vampire film is a comedy rather than a horror – after all there are plenty of vampire comedies out there, ranging from hilarious to atrocious. I would, of course, have to bear in mind that comedy is very subjective and – as such – what tickles one person does not tickle another. Dead Frequency did not tickle me at all, I’m afraid.

Stephen Mason as Sam

The film is set in Newcastle – something I liked – and starts off in a radio station as night DJ Sam (Stephen Mason) is holding a dial in, where a woman (in London) is telling him about pigeons in the loft. She has phoned in because he and she share a trait she won’t mention. Meanwhile new station manager Diane (Faye Ormston) is getting ready for work. She complains to boyfriend Roger (George Collings) that there is something wrong with the kids in the station. He would seem to be a loan shark (though he is simply described as a debt collector later).

Sam and Emily

Wayne (Robin Bayne), a radio technician, complains about staying behind and covering some of the day shift – the sun gives him a headache. Sam and friend Emily (Michaela Marshall) are reminded about a meeting with Diane, but they leave anyway. When they get to the building that they (and Wayne) all live in Emily suggests to Sam that he spend the day with her. He refuses and she states she knows he loves her. It ends with him in his room sobbing and smashing an empty bottle as she walks the streets of Newcastle barefoot in the rain.

Jenny and Kevin

Here is one of the problems. The reactions seemed too extreme and overtly angst filled and the montage over a ballad felt out of place within something billed as a comedy (there is another ballad scene later and both could do with complete expulsion from the movie). Even if you wanted to keep these scenes in we don’t know enough about the characters to actually care at this point. The film less builds and more implants a love triangle between Emily, Sam and Sam’s ex-wife Jenny (Cheryl Moody). However it is clear that everyone, including Jenny’s new husband Kevin (Simon Hodgson), already know each other’s denied feelings and it seems somewhat pointless.

chow time

Anyway, Dianne is a complete neurotic, it seems, but she is also part of a hunter organisation (that acts like an arm of the police) and is undercover trying to expose Wayne, Sam and Emily as vampires. Jenny is also a vampire – apparently Kevin is not but is aware of their nature. Things take a turn for the worse when Emily loses control and chows on Dianne, turning her into a vampire – and a horny alcoholic apparently. There is slapstick humour en route with Roger and his heavies, who are unable to physically best Wayne or Emily. It wasn’t very funny (or particularly convincing within the fight choreography - when we actually see a fight).

hoodies

Here lies the hub of the problem. The acting, in the main, was amateurish – a group of hoodies planning an attack on an old lady displayed some of the worse dialogue delivery I have heard in a long time. The trouble, of course, is that comedy is often about timing and that is a specific skillset that I didn’t really see. I did think Stephen Mason came across as very personable – especially in the DJ scenes – and Cheryl Moody wasn’t too bad either. The story seemed shoehorned into place, rather than organically building. The idea of a group of vampires living in plain sight, assimilated into society but still hunted works (even if it seems a tad Being Human). However they were never properly hunted and the film, when it winds to its conclusion, felt more like a prologue than a feature.

seductive powers at work

The vampires are blood drinkers and flesh eaters – they tend to eat raw cow’s liver and, occasionally, suckle a rat. The attack on Diane, it seemed, wasn’t guaranteed to turn her. They are apparently very strong, can move super quick, have seductive mesmeric powers and other powers were hinted at. They are apparently endangered by silver bullets, fire and mobs – but not sunlight, as mentioned earlier. The vampirism took a long time to emerge in film and when it did we got a one minute scene of a lodger who was human obviously knowing that Jenny is a vampire and Sam’s worry about this but nothing done with the character or scene. Like the caller at the head of the film (who I assume was a vampire in London) she is simply forgotten and that was sloppy within the script.

Diane and Wayne

There was a potential here and I desperately wanted to like the film. But its comedy was unfunny (though that is subjective), its pathos misplaced, the ballad scenes stomach churning (quite frankly) and opportunities were missed. 2 out of 10 but note a re-edit that simply removes the ballads and the hoodies scenes would probably up the mark.

The imdb page is here.

Director: Rogelio A. González

Release date: 1960

Contains spoilers

Some Mexican cinema is crazy; that’s a fact and La Nave de los Monstruos is a prime example. In this we manage to get a sci-fi, monster, vampire, singing cowboy mashup. Now if that’s not crazy I don’t know what is. The film is on DVD in Spanish only, but there are fan subtitles out there on the web.

The voice over at the head of the film clarifies for us that an atom is infinitely small (I don’t know that we can admit to that being strictly true) and the universe infinitely big. The voice then goes on to talk about the destructive forces of the atomic bomb and this segues into…

the ship

Venus. It seems that the men of Venus have all died out and so an expedition is launched to find men to replace them. The mission is to be commanded by Gamma (Ana Bertha Lepe) who is to be ably assisted by the non-Venusian Beta (Lorena Velázquez, Wrestling Women Vs the Aztec Mummy& Santo Vs the Vampire Women) – apparently Beta is from Ur, the Planet of Shadows but is also the best navigator around.

in flight

Through the opening credits we see the ship land on several planets and then, after the credits, we cut to the two women in the ship, now accompanied by a robot (we later discover to be named Thor and captured on one of the planets visited, but one where all the men had died out also). The robot warns that there is a problem with the left engine. They ignore him and listen at a door where the men are stored – Gamma preaches patience as they are all kidnapped and therefore prone to be cranky. The engine gives out, whilst a break out involving one of the galactic men (all designed as monsters) allows us to see that the women have a freezing device at their disposal.

Eulalio González as Lawrence

Beta goes out to try and repair the engine but they are advised to make an emergency landing on the nearest planet – which happens to be Antarsis 13 or (in our parlance) Earth. Now the names are a nonsense, of course, we get details about Venusians and Martians, at one point someone is said to come from Saturn, but ultimately they are just names. If you think about the plot (such as it is) and then wonder why they didn’t realise that their galactic neighbour had men on it (of the same human looking design) then the whole tissues of lies comes crumbling down. Meanwhile cowboy Lawrence (Eulalio González) is singing a song when he sees a shooting star (the ship) and wishes to meet a nice girl. At the cantina that he then goes to we discover that he is a teller of tall tales; weaving one about being attacked by numerous bandits, splitting a bullet for two enemies by placing a knife in his gun barrel and marauding dinosaurs.

Lawrence (frozen) and the space babes

Not too long a story even shorter; Lawrence meets the two girls (who have gone exploring whilst Thor repairs the ship) and both of them decide to fall for him. Beta vocalises her desire but Gamma says that he is for the whole of Venus (they have decided he is a prime male specimen). That’s all well and good you might say but then legitimately ask, where does a vampire come into it.

vampiric attack

Beta, upset by the fact she can’t have Lawrence (presumably) becomes a vampire and drinks a man’s blood. Now this must be a not too uncommon occurrence out in the universe as the leader of the Venusians (Consuelo Frank) – by intergalactic communication – says that “To drink human blood is the worst crime as stipulated by Galactic Law” and orders Beta disintegrated. Gamma sends Thor to bring her back but proves herself too soft hearted and Beta tricks her.

some of the galactic men

Beta wrests control of the ship and Thor from Gamma, unfreezes the monstrous alien males to wreak havoc (the main havoc being the devouring of Lawrence’s cow leaving just a skeleton on an obvious frame) as she plans to take over the world. She suggests that one – a high priest of Mars with an enormous brain on show – already knows the pleasure and immortality available through blood drinking. She also suggests that she will create a race of vampires as this was the wish of her ancestors.

the pathetic demise of Beta

Clearly the good guys will win but I want to spoil the ending further and offer you the pathetic demise of Beta. In the finale, as Lawrence, Lawrence's little brother and Thor battle monsters, Beta and Gamma fight. The fight consists of this: Beta flies at Gamma, misses and impales herself on a branch! And that, as they say, is that. We get some robot love when Thor falls for a jukebox with lovely valves. We get song and dance moments. We get some hokey monster suits. We get a really bad script.

alien vampire

Unfortunately this one doesn’t manage to fall into the “so bad it’s good” category. Lawrence is more a comedic foil than a lead hero (though he does step up to the plate). Gamma fails to show any real strength (Lawrence steals the ship’s control belt and Lawrence fights one of the monsters. On the other hand Gamma's raison d'être is to be missed by Beta who accidentally kills herself). The whole thing seems a bit… “Right, we have a spaceship/footage thereof, fangs and some monster suits (plus a monster skeleton that we can control like a puppet)… let’s just throw them all in and see what comes out…” “Shall we put a singing cowboy in?” “Why not.” 2 out of 10

The imdb page is here.

Please remember the DVD is not in English and has no built in subtitles.

I was half a breath from just reviewing the 2005 Tibor Takács' movie Mansquito, also known (as can be gathered from the screener packaging still used by Amazon) as Mosquito Man. Ultimately I decided that it was probably of genre interest, but the creature of this creature feature only has basic drives and is essentially a man sized mosquito as opposed to the hybrid creature shown in the packaging.

In fact, perhaps a ‘Vamp or Not?’ would have been more apt but an Honourable Mention it is.

Mamsquito

The film begins with news footage, over the credits, about the Gillan virus, a mosquito borne virus that is pandemic in the States and the fact that a research lab is looking to genetically modify mosquitos to create a breed that will not carry the virus and will replace the common mosquito. Lead scientist on this project is Dr Jennifer Allen (Musetta Vander, Transylmania) . Her boss, Dr. Aaron Michaels (Jay Benedict) wants to go live but she isn’t ready. As she works with lab assistant Liz (Christa Campbell, Revamped) we discover that they are putting mosquitos into a mutagenic fluid and then bombarding them with radiation.

Corin Nemec as Randall

Meanwhile convict Ray Erikson (Matt Jordon) is being transported to the lab. Coincidentally it was Jennifer’s lover Lt. Thomas Randall (Corin Nemec) who finally arrested Erikson after he murdered twelve people. He is on Death Row but Michaels has arranged to be able to do human testing on him. We see him picking the cuffs on the transport and he gets free in the lab and starts blasting his way out, taking Liz hostage, killing her and having a shoot out in the lab. Queue explosion of the reactor that manages to get him covered in the mutagenic gunk and floods the chamber with radiation.

changing

When all is clear we see that he escaped down a vent but Jennifer got a little of the gunk on her. We see him as he starts to mutate; open sores on his face as one arm becomes a clawed insect arm. He manages to get to the home of his ex, Tia (Svilena Kidess), before fully transforming into a man sized mosquito who then sucks Tia’s blood. The mansquito hangs around the area killing people (the attack on a club where Tia works and an attack on Michaels both seem deliberate but then it all becomes random), whilst the cops hunt for him and Jennifer realises that she is mutating too, just at a slower rate.

Red eyes

She does go through more traditionally vampiric moments whilst more human than mosquito; her eyes flash red at times and she does get a hankering for blood (and bites Randall’s neck during lovemaking). Ultimately she is turning into exactly what Erikson has become – a giant mosquito. She realises there is nothing of the man left and his only drives are feeding and mating (he is waiting for her to fully transform). A major problem here is that only female mosquitos drink blood, as a male mosquito he should have been brutalising trees and other forms of plants for their juices.

feed

He is a tough hombre though, bullets (including armour piercing ones) ping off his carapace and he survives an explosion. He cuts through cops and swat like a hot knife through butter and yet cannot manage to kill Randall. Ultimately it is a good old fashioned blast of electricity that does him in. As for the film… well it’s just a bit rubbish, after all it is a film called mansquito… of genre interest.

The imdb page is here.

Can there be a better marking of the years than a cake? Especially when it looks like this.

Arranged by Sarah, my better half, and crafted by the talented Jennifer Ireland this wee fellow has me wanting to dig out my Masters of Cinema edition of Nosferatu. My thanks to both of you.

Director: Richard Griffin

Release date: 2006

Contains spoilers

This is a low budget film that hasn’t, perhaps, had the greatest distribution. I found it on a US DVD two movie set. It is a comedy, the humour sometimes straying into the not too PC arena (a joke about retard porn for instance). Indeed, talking about porn – it is set in the porn scene (though is tame when it comes to sexual imagery).

All that sounds bad but I was really taken by it. Despite some over the top moments – the performance by Salvatore Marchese (Raving Maniacs) as the Mayor, for instance, walked a line between poorly played histrionics and genius performance and didn’t always stay on the correct side of the line – it certainly tickled my funny bone.

eating the pizza... guy

It begins with a voice over, reading a letter to an adult magazine, about a pizza delivery. The delivery guy (Patrick Pitu, also Raving Maniacs) takes the pizza to a hotel room – his encounter with the clerk and denizens of the hotel leaving us in no doubt as to the comedic nature of the film – where the girl, Shelby St. Exxmin (Ashley Eaton), admits she has no money. Payment in kind by her and her friend Jennifer Bond (Danielle Lozeau, the Black Water Vampire) is the order of the day but then they bite – Jennifer bites the neck, whilst Shelby apparently bobbits the young man with her teeth. They keep him alive awhile to play with, the man crucified against the wall, and Shelby feeds him some of her blood and tells him to look her up when he returns.

the vampires

Jennifer and Shelby go to a club to meet up with their friends. Rex Van Horn (Ross Kelly) has a girl he is discretely feeding on whilst Shane Starkweather (Jason Witter) dances with a young man. The man recognises Shane, he has the gay porn tapes Shane made – these are all retro but the fact that people seem so nonplussed when they realise the porn films the vampires made were thirty years ago that they just accept their maintained youth actually fits with the undercurrent of the film. Shane takes the guy to a toilet and kills him in a stall.

Shane and Shelby play with food

So, we have a group of vampires, all who were porn stars thirty years before. Jennifer, approaching her fiftieth birthday, is unhappy with her lot – at one point carving a stake. The others are very comfortable in their vampirism and the trail of bodies they are leaving (being attributed in the press to a Providence Ripper) have the beleaguered mayor hot under the collar. Jennifer misses her boyfriend, porn director John Welles (William DeCoff, Lesser of Two Evils). He hasn’t worked for some time and is looking for a new angle to make his comeback.

The pizza delivery guy wants revenge on the vampires for turning him. Presumably this is down to his major injury pre-turning, as much as anything. Whilst the film never explicitly states that his tackle is missing, he does still have the holes in his hands from the crucifixion and so we assume he didn't regrow his manhood. That’s about it for story, it is fairly simple in its own way and I think, more than anything, it is the performances that made me enjoy the film before as the actors playing the vampires are clearly having a whale of a time. Special mention goes to Ashley Eaton as Shelby and Jason Witter as Shane as those characters really came off as great fun.

back foul beast

The lore is fairly standard. The vampires feed on blood, blood must be imbibed two ways to turn and they do reflect in the mirror. There is a cross moment that carried a Jewish vampire punchline – though the joke itself was nicely understated in the dialogue – and holy water burns. Sunlight is deadly but decapitation isn’t. The film addresses the idea that a decapitated vampire can speak without lungs by simply brushing over it.

staked

The primary way of killing a vampire is a stake to the heart (actually any amount of wood – even a cocktail stick – penetrating the heart). We do get a vampire who is saved from the stake by a breast implant! In fact fire will only kill a vampire if it consumes the heart. The blood of a vampire can be used to make someone their slave also. That about covers the lore (despite the bats on the DVD cover, they do not come into it) and with the lore covered that’s about us… simply put the film is genuinely funny and this flows through good comedic performances. It isn't the greatest film in the world and some of the jokes fall back on shock humour but, all in all, it gets a respectable 5.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

A couple of projects to tell you about, as always these are for information only and backing is done at your own risk.

The first is a film being made by Richard Griffin called Sins of Dracula and the plot looks a little like:

As the star of his church choir, there’s nothing that brings Billy more joy than the opportunity to sing for an audience. However, as his desire to perform grows, the stalwart youth finds that waiting until Sunday to get his fix just simply isn’t enough. Going against the advice of his pastor, Billy follows his girlfriend into the world of secular entertainment, joining the local community theatre troupe. There, Billy is introduced to a whole new world, where his fellow thespians dabble in drugs, sexual perversion, and table-top game-play. Yet, for all the newly minted depravities Billy encounters, none could prepare him for the darkest truth of them all: The theatre group is actually a front for a Satanic cult intent on raising Dracula from the grave!

A tongue-in-cheek tale that satirizes the Christian scare films of the 70s and 80s, The Sins of Dracula is a story of sex, sacrilege, and sin. It’s a world where Sondheim is Satan, Broadway means blasphemy, and where taking the stage just might mean curtains…for your eternal soul

The film has a Facebook and can be backed at Go Fund Me.

The second is a little unusual as it isn’t a film but a whole film festival.

I was contacted by the organisers of the 5th Annual New York City Independent Film Festival, who asked whether I could mention them on TMtV. They are looking for funding to support a higher number of free film submissions and to bring selected filmmakers to the festival. They also suggest that funding will help them pay for theatre space, office space, screening equipment and advertisements. It will let them hire crews and technicians to film the festival events, and buy coffee for the volunteers who work long shifts making the festival happen. It will enable them to give out better awards and it will keep them in business for the next year!

The campaign can be found at Indigogo and I have embedded a short video about the event below:

Author: R. Chetwynd-Hayes

First Published: 1976

Contains spoilers

The blurb: Hidden beneath the streets of London is a dark and dreadful establishment known as The Monster Club, where vampires indulge in a rather different kind of Bloody Mary and ghouls tear into their gruesome repasts. Here, along with the usual monsters - vampires, werewolves, ghouls, and some of Dr Frankenstein's more freakish creations - you'll find other, less familiar ones. You'll meet the frightening Fly-by-Night, the hideous shaddy, the horrible mock, and the dreaded shadmock, perhaps the most terrible of all.

When Donald McCloud offers a starving man a meal, he unexpectedly discovers that the man is a vampire - and he's the main course! Accompanying the vampire, Eramus, to The Monster Club, Donald encounters a whole host of strange monsters, who, in a series of five linked stories, recount to Donald their monstrous exploits. But as Donald is regaled with these tales of monsters and their unfortunate human victims, it gradually dawns on him that as the only human in a club full of bloodthirsty monsters, he might be in a bit of a predicament. . . .

First published as a paperback original in 1976, R. Chetwynd-Hayes's The Monster Club was adapted for a 1981 film starring Vincent Price, John Carradine and Donald Pleasence, and both book and film have gone on to become cult classics. Told in a wry, tongue-in-cheek style, the tales in The Monster Club are simultaneously horrific, comical, and curiously moving. This edition is the first in more than twenty years and features a new introduction by Stephen Jones and a reproduction of John Bolton's painting from the comic book adaptation of the film.

The review: Though I gave the vampire section of the film the Monster Club a respectable 6 out of 10, the film as a whole is a favourite from my youth and is more than the sum of its parts. Readers may not be aware, however, that the film was based on this book. Or should I say in part based, whilst the film section the Village of Momsters was a rather accurate filming of the story in the book the Humgoo, the Shadmock section of the film was more a very loose adaptation seemed to borrow elements of a couple of the stories within as well as make much up and the above mentioned My Mother Married a Vampire was actually based on a story from a different Chetwynd-Hayes anthology.

The book takes the form of a portmanteau, with prologue, epilogue and interludes introducing human Douglas to vampire Eramus and then to the monster club itself. Within are five stories. The first is the story of the Vampire and the Werewolf, told by their hybrid offspring Manfred the werevamp. The next three stories centre on hybrids of one sort or another (though the story of the Mock involves some full on vampire characters too) and the final story is of the Fly-by-night, an Australian monster now found as an immigrant in Britain.

The joy of R. Chetwynd-Hayes is in his inventiveness and also in the actual prose. It is a sprightly style with an ever present undercurrent of humour that works especially well for its dark nature. The book was devoured by me in a day and left me hungry for more of Chetwynd-Hayes’ prose.

The vampire lore is fairly standard – sunlight burns, crosses repel and a stake through the heart followed by decapitation finishes one off. The main piece of lore however is a cross-monster rule that suggests “vampires sup, werewolves hunt, ghouls tear, shaddies lick, maddies yawn, mocks blow, but shadmocks only whistle”. To get to the bottom of that lore I’ll direct you to the book and say no more as I really don’t want to spoil the stories at all. Of course the book does come highly recommended. 9 out of 10.

The Blurb: My name is Peter Grant and until January I was just probationary constable in that mighty army for justice known to all right-thinking people as the Metropolitan Police Service (as the Filth to everybody else). My only concerns in life were how to avoid a transfer to the Case Progression Unit - we do paperwork so real coppers don't have to - and finding a way to climb into the panties of the outrageously perky WPC Leslie May. Then one night, in pursuance of a murder inquiry, I tried to take a witness statement from someone who was dead but disturbingly voluable, and that brought me to the attention of Inspector Nightingale, the last wizard in England.

Now I'm a Detective Constable and a trainee wizard, the first apprentice in fifty years, and my world has become somewhat more complicated: nests of vampires in Purley, negotiating a truce between the warring god and goddess of the Thames, and digging up graves in Covent Garden . . . and there's something festering at the heart of the city I love, a malicious vengeful spirit that takes ordinary Londoners and twists them into grotesque mannequins to act out its drama of violence and despair.

The spirit of riot and rebellion has awakened in the city, and it's falling to me to bring order out of chaos - or die trying.

The Mention: It is almost shameful that this book by Ben Aaronovitch (called Midnight Riot in America) sat languishing in my “To Read” pile for over two years. Not for any other reason than I didn’t get around to reading it. As you can tell from the blurb, vampires do appear in the book but they only have a bit role.

The book itself follows Peter Grant, policeman and – having spotted a ghost at a murder site – the newest recruit into the Metropolitan Police’s occult section. This section is made up of Grant (as the apprentice) and Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, Britain’s last officially sanctioned wizard. The book can’t help but garner comparisons with a certain boy wizard’s series as it has a quintessentially English soul that sets it apart from more standard urban fantasy. It also reminded my tonally of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.

As for the vampires, they are an enigma not studied but we discover that, “According to Nightingale, vampires were ordinary people who became ‘infected’, no one was sure how or why, and started feeding off the magic potential, including the vestigial, of their surroundings.” This includes sucking the energy out of electronic devices and reducing the silicon inside to sand. They are dealt with via phosphorus grenades and a cover story by the local fire chief.

There is also a character, Molly, who is an enigma but does have some more traditionally vampiric traits – or perhaps even the traits of a lamia but, from what I can gather, Aaronovitch has so far kept her genus secret through the ensuing series.

Beast of the Bering Sea – review

Honourable mention: The Batman Chronicles Volume 1

Batman and the Mad Monk – review

Armando Creeper’s Valley of the Vampire – review

The Devil’s Gravestone – review

McHale’s Navy – the Vampire of Taratupa – review

Stixx – review

The Unwanted – review

Honourable Mention: The Pink Panther and Friends – Pink Plasma

Vintage Vampire Stories – review

Interesting Shorts: The Vampire

Eventide: Lost in Darkness - Review

Dead Frequency – review

The Ship of Monsters – review

Honourable Mention: Mansquito

Let Them Eat Cake

Pretty Dead Things – review

Crowd Sourcing News

The Monster Club – review

Honourable Mentions: Rivers of London