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Currently at Vamped
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Interesting Shorts: the Story of Baelbrow
The story takes place at Baelbrow, ancestral home of the Swaffams. The mansion had been known to be haunted but the family were proud of their ghost and it was little more than a presence – until the time of this story that is.
The mansion had been loaned to professor Jungvort and suddenly the ghost became violent and able to touch the corporeal. The Professor had seen the ghost and it had grabbed his daughter Lena and several others. They are reported as being left weak but eventually a maid, Eliza Freeman, was found dead.“There was a little blood upon her sleeve but no mark upon her body except a small raised pustule under the ear. The doctor said the girl was extraordinarily anæmic…”
When Low meets Lena it is noted that she is pale and has a circular patch of pink behind her ear. She reports that it had a bandaged arm.
It eventually turns out that the Professor had taken possession of an Egyptian mummy and Low eventually rationalises that,"It is held by some authorities on these subjects that under certain conditions a vampire may be self-created. You tell me that this house is built upon an ancient barrow, in fact, on a spot where we might naturally expect to find such an elemental psychic germ. In those dead human systems were contained all the seeds for good and evil. The power which causes these psychic seeds or germs to grow is thought, and from being long dwelt on and indulged, a thought might finally gain a mysterious vitality, which could go increasing more and more by attracting to itself suitable and appropriate elements from its environment. For a long period this germ remained a helpless intelligence, awaiting the opportunity to assume some material form, by means of which to carry out its desires. The invisible is the real; the material only subserves its manifestation. The impalpable reality already existed, when you provided for it a physical medium for action by unwrapping the mummy's form. Now, we can only judge of the nature of the germ by its manifestation through matter. Here we have every indication of a vampire intelligence touching into life and energy the dead human frame. Hence the mark on the neck of its victims, and their bloodless and anæmic condition. For a vampire, as you know, sucks blood."
So the ghost, created through the psychic field of a barrow and belief, became an incorporeal entity and then took possession of the body of a mummy when it was unwrapped from its outer bandages and acted as a vampire.
The story wasn’t the best from that particular era but what was interesting was the combining of the ghost, vampire and mummy elements. You can read the story here.
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Runaway Nightmare – review
Release Date: 1982
Contains spoilers
There are some moments that take your breath away for all the wrong reasons and this film adds up into just under an hour and a half of such moments. This is pure grindhouse without the grind. A film that hints at violence but fairly much avoids it, a film with nudity but that depends on the version you see – as it seems to have been added in by a vhs distributor to spice up Mike Cartel's vision.
As for the vampirism aspect, as that is why we are here… well, let us just say it is casually strange and potentially non-existent! You’ll see what I mean.
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| burying the crate |
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| Fate in crate |
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| Ralph and Jason |
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| held at gunpoint |
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| Alexis Alexander as Vampiria |
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| strange ending |
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| posing as a portrait |
The imdb page is here.
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New Blood Rising – review
Release date: 2014
Contains spoilers
So, when I write a review I like to get actor details from IMDb but avoid the other reviews until I’ve written mine. However, having noticed the rather high rating and having just seen the film, thus knowing what my rating was going to be, it all seemed, shall we say, incongruous. This time I decided to read the reviews anyway.
Well bless me, they must have all, each and every one, been seeing a different film because they were kick ass reviews. I don’t know what actor Nathan Pelland had done to offend, however, as he seemed to be the one bad thing (according to a couple of reviews, anyway). To be fair to the gentleman, he wasn’t any worse than anyone else in the film.
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| Brie speaks to Archer |
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| the last vampire family |
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| Thomas Sloan as Karver |
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| using mojo |
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| bloodied chin |
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| Eric Badik as Brackos |
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| a (deliberate) stake in the stomach |
The imdb page is here.
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Interesting Shorts: Good Lady Duncan
As such she goes to an agency that arranges work as a companion but, given her lack of education and young age, she really has little chance of finding a position with anyone. That is until the agent has her meet the wizened Lady Duncan who, having checked that she is healthy, immediately hires Bella for a princely salary of £100 per annum. Within a week she is to travel to winter in Italy with the woman.
She only makes one friend, Lotta, who is in Italy with her brother Mr Stafford (despite their friendship Lotta does warn her brother off romantic thoughts, given how destitute Bella is). As time passes Bella feels a lassitude coming over her and also finds that she is prone to a strange dream – the description more a whirling sensation than substance – and disposed to mosquito bites, which are treated by Lady Duncan’s Doctor, Dr Parravicini. Whilst her friend is away, touring Italy, she hears rumours of other companions whose health failed and who died. Although other guests gossip about the elderly lady, mainly due to her advanced years, her retinue refer to her as good Lady Duncan due to her kindness.
When Lotta and her brother return to where Duncan’s retinue are staying they are shocked by the deterioration in Bella’s health (though she insists she is not ill). Stafford knows that the “mosquito bites” are actually lancet wounds and suspects that her strange dreams are actually her succumbing to chloroform.
He confronts Lady Duncan and she all but admits that her Doctor has been drawing blood from her companions so as to treat her – against, we assume, old age. Duncan herself suggests she was born the day Louis XVI was guillotined (in 1793). Presuming a contemporary date for the story this puts her at just over 100.
This was nearly a ‘Vamp or Not?’ as we do not know what Parravicini was doing with the blood – there is a mention of blood transfusion, but no definitive confirmation. The story is, however, widely recognised as a vampire story – though in this case the vampire is living and it is science using the blood to create longevity. We do know from the narrative that Lady Duncan wants more years (she asks if Stafford has heard of any new longevity developments) but she also seems remorseful with regards the girls who died, and so orders Stafford to take Bella away and gives her a very generous £1000 gratuity.
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Grimm: Mommy Dearest – review
First aired: 2014
Contains spoilers
I have to admit that I don’t watch Grimm (see NOTE below). I am aware of it though; a series about a hidden world of creatures – collectively named wesen and based on the Grimm fairytales and other popular monster myths – and the hunters of such creatures known as Grimm.
In essence it is a police procedural drama with a supernatural twist. Detective Nick Burkhardt (David Giuntoli) is the Grimm, blessed with the ability to see the creatures’ true form, with them becoming visible to him when their emotions peak, and the programme charts his adventures with his partner Hank Griffin (Russell Hornsby).
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| David Giuntoli as Nick |
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| at the window |
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| extended tongue in stomach |
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| Reggie Lee as Wu |
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| Sam in aswang form |
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| Russell Hornsby as Hank |
The episode’s imdb page is here.
NOTE: When I drafted the review of this episode and Season 4’s Chupacabra episode I had not seen any more of the series but, becoming intrigued, by the time of posting I had caught up as far as Season 3. The body of the review was left as drafted to capture my uninitiated thoughts.
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Grimm: Chupacabra – review
First aired: 2014
Contains spoilers
I previously reviewed the season 3 episode of Grimm, Mommy Dearest but before that a friend, Everlost, warned me that there was a chupacabra episode (which had just aired in the UK).
The big difference (beyond myth type) between these two episodes was the fact that this barely teetered on two feet as a standalone episode. It brought in the doubts being felt by Sgt Wu (Reggie Lee) by the end of Mommy Dearest (indeed there were scenes from that episode in the “previously on”) and there was the ongoing saga of the baby we saw born in that episode but – as well as that – there was a lot of other background material that meant very little to a casual watcher (See NOTE below).
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| medicine sans frontier |
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| changing |
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| the morning after |
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| attack |
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| victim |
The imdb page is here.
NOTE: When I wrote the review of this episode and Season 3’s Aswang episode I had not seen any more of the series but, becoming intrigued, by the time of posting I had caught up as far as Season 3. The body of the review was left to capture my uninitiated thoughts.
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Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zweiback – Book 2
First published: 2015
Contains spoilers
The Blurb: PANDORA ZWIEBACK IS DEAD...OR IS SHE?
She was stabbed in the heart with an ancient mystical spear. Her mother was kidnapped by a band of vampires led by a fallen angel. Their goal: unleashing hell on earth. And every living creature on the planet faces extinction at the hands of biblical monsters. But for Pandora Zwieback, the worst may be yet to come.
In this terrifying next chapter of the story begun in the critically acclaimed novel Blood Feud, join the teenaged Goth adventuress as she discovers that death is only the beginning of her saga...
The review: I looked at the first volume in this series some time ago but was excited to get opportunity to look at book 2. The series is, I would say, most definitely Young Adult in tone but it contains a knowing edge that allows the more mature reader purchase to the world created by Roman.
The probable reason is the sassy voice offered to character Pandora, whilst chronologically sixteen her background allows the author to add a maturity to her voice that does not feel out of place but also keep a seam of youthful vulnerability running through her. Said character died at the end of book 1 – a cliff-hanger that is open for spoiling given the blurb to this volume tells us as much. Her resurrection probably has a lot to do with her power as a healer but, in many respects, remains a deliberate mystery.
If the first volume took some deliberate pacing steps to build Pandora’s character, this volume eschews that as it thunders along at breakneck speed, barely pausing for breath at any given time (and, I must say, the volume was devoured at speed as well). The book doesn’t suffer for this, our characters are known and the action distracts from the trait that might be deemed by some as an underlying flaw (common in young adult books) namely how are the adults letting the kids go off and put themselves in danger? Of course there is some mystical sneaking out (as it were) and ultimately there has to be a suspension of disbelief.
This is made easier to achieve by, beyond the breakneck pace, the knowing edge to Roman’s prose. He openly flaunts things such as the super-villain’s need to indulge ego rather than simply destroying his arch-nemesis. That knowingness lets us in on the joke, and being in on it we accept it. Roman throws in a Vlad Ţepeş cameo, short enough to be amusing, indeed all his Vampire House names are recognisable and it is telling as to the quality of the prose that this does not seem clichéd – we even hear about House Karnstein having been formed by Carmilla. The sly, fanboyish humour eventually coalesces in the form of sugar-zoms – zombies that desire confectionery as much as human flesh.
I thoroughly enjoyed this volume, it didn’t suffer from mid-trilogy-itus (probably down to that pace again) but rather drove the reader forward and deposited us on the last page to impatiently await book 3. 7.5 out of 10.
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Vamp or Not? The Tomb
More recently a friend asked me my thoughts on the film and suggested that it might be an energy vampire story. I decided to watch the film again.
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| spirit leaves |
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| Wes Bentley as Jonathon |
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| spirit capture |
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| Sofya Skya as Ligeia |
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| spirit in a tube |
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| Kaitlin Doubleday as Rowena |
The imdb page is here.
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Honourable Mention: Ultrachrist!
Via his association with marketing man Murray Klein (Marty Grillo), and the fact that he watched some anime, Jesus decides he needs to change image. Through seamstress Molly (Celia A. Montgomery) he gets a superhero costume (he is not too happy about the crucifix on the front, however, as he hates those things) and tries to connect with the youth of today through the Ultrachrist persona.
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| Jonathan C. Green is Ultrachrist! |
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| Michael R. Thomas as Vlad |
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| Death by virtue |
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Marvel’s Avengers Assemble: Blood Feud – review
First aired: 2013
Contains spoilers
Of course, the Avengers (2012) was a must see super-hero movie and so it is little surprise that it spawned a cartoon spin-off. (Confusingly the movie was released in the UK as Avengers Assemble making the cartoon series carry the same name.) Being set in the Marvel universe also means, of course, that Dracula (Corey Burton, the Amazing Screw-On Head, Hotel Transylvania & Vampire Secrets) could appear.
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| Dracula |
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| vampire Black Widow |
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| Iron Man |
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| vampire hulk |
This was a nice piece of superhero cartoon – probably better as part of a whole, I enjoyed watching it in isolation too. 6 out of 10.
The episode’s imdb page is here.
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The Things that Fly in the Night – review
First published: 2015
Contains Spoilers
The Blurb: The Things That Fly in the Night explores images of vampirism in Caribbean and African diasporic folk traditions and in contemporary fiction. Giselle Liza Anatol focuses on the figure of the soucouyant, or Old Hag—an aged woman by day who sheds her skin during night’s darkest hours in order to fly about her community and suck the blood of her unwitting victims. In contrast to the glitz, glamour, and seductiveness of conventional depictions of the European vampire, the soucouyant triggers unease about old age and female power. Tracing relevant folklore through the English- and French-speaking Caribbean, the U.S. Deep South, and parts of West Africa, Anatol shows how tales of the nocturnal female bloodsuckers not only entertain and encourage obedience in pre-adolescent listeners, but also work to instil particular values about women’s “proper” place and behaviours in society at large.
Alongside traditional legends, Anatol considers the explosion of soucouyant and other vampire narratives among writers of Caribbean and African heritage who in the past twenty years have rejected the demonic image of the character and used her instead to urge for female mobility, racial and cultural empowerment, and anti-colonial resistance. Texts include work by authors as diverse as Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, U.S. National Book Award winner Edwidge Danticat, and science fiction/fantasy writers Octavia Butler and Nalo Hopkinson.
The Review: When I saw that this volume, which carries the secondary title “Female Vampires in Literature of the Circum-Caribbean and African Diaspora”, was due for publication I became very excited as the soucouyant myth receives little attention (in Europe anyway). The name (or a variant thereof, namely soucriant) is used for the vampire type in the film Byzantium but the vampires are whitewashed racially and the core lore of the creatures (shedding their skin, becoming balls of fire and being destroyed in the sun if their skin is not back on by the morning light) is lost. It did not surprise me, therefore, that the film was not mentioned in the book.
The Byzantium vampires were, of course, most definitely vampires (and the film drew inspiration from both Byron and Polidori) but some might question the vampire pedigree of the soucouyant (both students of vampire folklore and scholars of the very circum-Caribbean literature examined in the book). Anatol admits, in her lengthy introduction: “I have also been asked by numerous African Studies Scholars: “Why are you using the word ‘vampire’? Isn’t that a European tradition?”” And suggests that, “I would argue, however, that failing to use the word “vampire” confines the African Americans’ traditions to a marginal status, perpetuating the idea among majority populations that the only “true” vampires – the only “real” vampires – are White/European.” Of course, here at TMtV we use the broadest church of the term vampire.
The book itself is scholarly, with extensive references and indexing. If there was a fault it was with me rather than the book. The majority of the literature looked at was unknown to me and has shown a gap in my reading that I am going to look to fill; certainly I now have a desire to read Oyeyemi’s White is for Witching and Hopkinson’s Brown Girl in the Ring. However that gap in my reading made the book that little more difficult to work through than if I had been more familiar of the sources discussed. Of course not all the books were unknown to me, for instance Blood of the Vampire was examined.
I will add that Anatol does not mention the 1819 story The Black Vampyre: A Legend of Saint Domingo, and whilst not based on the soucouyant it was an unfortunate omission given that the 1819 story is the first American vampire story I am aware of, it is the first instance of a black vampire and it is apparently the first story to argue universal emancipation.
There is also no mention that the old hag folklore is not simply Circum-Caribbean and African Diaspora and has a lot of European equivalents (and the use of the same name of hag). Perhaps that is an indication of myth bleeding between the African slaves and the European slavers or perhaps just evidenced of it being a more universal figure. The Old Hag (like the soucouyant) is the outsider, at the edge of society and reviled as a symbol of the female fight against the male dictated “proper place” (and, as much as Byzantium whitewashed race, it did very much base its story on a level of misogyny that saw the two heroines hunted through the centuries by the otherwise exclusively male vampire society).
This is not the easiest book to plough through if the reader is unfamiliar with the majority of sources but it is still a necessary and welcome addition to vampire studies. 6.5 out of 10.
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Bikini Vampire Babes – review
Release date: 2010
Contains spoilers
I must admit to having approached this with trepidation… I mean the title alone was enough to cause that. It just summoned memories of films such as Vampires on Bikini Beach (which in turn summons the foul stench of Malibu Beach Vampires) and so I put it into the DVD drive and waited…
And despite the fact that it is rubbish, it is certainly no-where near the train wreck I suspected it might be. It was, dare I say it, amusing in places and certainly not as awful as the two films I linked above. Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t make this a great film – although the unashamed crap bat moments rank high in the so bad it's good category – but it wasn’t as bad as I feared.
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| Puerto Rico |
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| JoJo as Bree |
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| Bree and Tom |
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| Sharis Fajardo as Lizette |
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| instantaneous immolation |
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| vampire sunblock |
The imdb page is here and a homepage here.
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Honourable Mention: Vampir, Zan-e khoon-asham
Vampir, Zan-e khoon-asham, or the Vampire Woman, is (as far as I can gather) the first example of an Iranian vampire film and I must warn you I will spoil the main twist.
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| first appearance |
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| Jahangir and Bahram |
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| Mahindokht as Golnar |
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| Mostafa Oskooyi as Jahangir |
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| the kiss |
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| Homayoondokht as Parvin |
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| found bitten |
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| Golnar as a vampire |
The imdb page is here.
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A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night – review
Release date: 2014
Contains spoilers
Sometimes the buzz around a film threatens to overshadow the film itself. When I first started hearing about this it was suggested that it was the first Iranian vampire film, this was amended to the first western Iranian vampire film. As far as I know the first Iranian vampire film was Vampir, Zan-e Khoon-Asham (1967). The added descriptor “western” was better, but not just because of the western genre, because this seems to be where East meets West.
The dialogue is in the Farsi language but the content seems very American (rather than simply western genre) Iranian, drawing in influences from the wild west, rock n’ roll and industrialism (to name a few) – fitting as writer/director Ana Lily Amirpour is Iranian-American (Amirpour was born in England but then moved to the US when young).
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| Arash Marandi as Arash |
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| Marshall Manesh as Hossein |
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| Dominic Rains as Saeed |
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| fangs |
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| stoned out of his gourd |
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| Arash and the girl |
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| an expression of unspoken truth |
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| Sheila Vand as the girl |
The film is slow, almost languid, in places but suits the pace. 7 out of 10. The imdb page is here.
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Di Gal Bite Mi – review
Release date: 2013
Contains spoilers
I stumbled across this movie on YouTube and that’s all I have been able to find. There is no IMDb page, no homepage for the film, no page I can find for Wah Gwan Family Entertainment but director (and writer and producer) JC Money does have the linked YouTube channel with several of his filmic efforts.
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| dialogue swear words vanish in subs |
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| fangs |
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| grandma |
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| oxegentman |
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| Rastaman's run |
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| the hero packs a peg |
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| staked and in the sun |
So without the soucayant myth, we are left with a film that could have been a great exploration of multiculturalism in modern London but was actually a bit of a plastic fanged mess. 2 out of 10.
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Teeth and Blood – review
Release date: 2015
Contains spoilers
There is a lot to say about premise. The premise of a set of a vampire movie being haunted by actual vampires is a good premise, or at least I think so. It has a potential for a post-modernist take on the vampire movie itself. Here at TMtV we approve of this premise.
That said, good execution is also a key requisite and so Teeth and Blood may well have a good premise but I knew from the very beginning of the film that the execution had left a lot to be desired. This is perhaps a tad unfair. I began to suspect, as I watched the film, that it was actually designed as a comedy – though there is no indication of that on the Homepage or the Facebook Page. The trouble was, I didn’t find it funny.
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| Chinatown attack |
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| priestly vampire |
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| Mike Hung and Sasha Colfax |
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| King Kedar as Tyrese |
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| staked |
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| breath mojo |
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| bite |
3.5 out of 10.
The imdb page is here.
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Vampires Everywhere; the Rise of the Movie Undead – review
First published: 2012
Contains spoilers
The Blurb: Vampires Everywhere is a review book that concentrates on the vampire movies that inspire fear. From The Cabinet of Dr Caligari to 30 Days of Night, with inroads to the discussions of TV classics, The Night Stalker and Salem's Lot.
The Review: I have previously looked at Charles E Butler’s volume the Romance of Dracula and found the overwhelming impression I took away was Butler’s love of the genre. That love continues here (and in two more volumes) and the same frustration of it not actually being a conversation holds true but, of course, does not take away from the book.
The volume follows the same format of each section being about a specific film and illustrated by an original piece of artwork. There was a reader's comment, on the review of the previous volume, about lack of page numbering; this volume is page numbered – though there still isn’t referencing. It contains some none vampire input. I was intrigued to discover why the Cabinet of Doctor Caligari was included. Butler sees a model for future vampires in Cesare and vampire movies in the (admittedly wonderful) expressionist film. I’m not too sure. Though I can see his argument Cesare was very much a slave whereas the model for the vampire that would follow was, of course, the master. I appreciate the argument however.
Later Butler looks at films inspired by I am Legend and covers Omega Man. In honesty I had watched it again, some time ago, wondering whether I would feature it here – I decided against it but Butler’s logic works as it is a bridge between the Last Man on Earth and I am Legend.
I did pick up on a few factual errors but have contacted the author directly and so won’t reproduce here and they are few and far between, and this is an independently published volume so some things will slip through the gap. If I had a real problem then it is towards the end of the volume. Casting an eye back to I am Legend, Butler covered the three films I mentioned above as separate entities. Later sequels started getting lodged into fleeting comments within the first film’s review. It just felt a little rushed to me – and in the “epilogue” the author admits he had set himself a tight deadline and also had an unfortunate data loss during the writing process. This is a shame but also is what it is. 7 out of 10.
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Honourable Mention: Ruddigore
Stuart looks at Ruddigore, first staged in 1887, within that volume and informs us that it was originally entitled Ruddygore, “The title was a major problem. “Ruddy” had become rather too close to “bloody,” and, amazingly, this was enough to prevent many “nice” people from attending.” (p170) So the title itself could be read as bloody gore. In many respects the opera was a parody of, or play on, melodrama – and of course the vampire had played its role in melodrama – and Stuart offers a convincing argument that it was (mostly in the second act) a direct skit of Boucicault’s The Vampire.
Probably most telling was the appearance of the character Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd – correctly pronounced in production as Riven. Of course Ruthven was the vampire from Polidori’s the Vampyre: A Tale and he had reappeared in various plays, operas and prose through the 19th century. Erik Butler also looks at the opera in his volume The Rise of the Vampire, referencing Stuart.
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| Robin and Rose |
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| Vincent Price as Sir Despard |
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| getting a light |
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| in a coffin |
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| ancestors come from the paintings |
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| held back by the Union Jack |
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Vamp or Not? Knights of Badassdom
This was a 2013 movie directed by Joe Lynch, though I understand that the final cut might have been somewhat out of the director’s control. It was mentioned to me by Everlost as having definite ‘Vamp or Not?’ potential.
It starts with a prologue voiceover that suggests that Dr John Dee created a way to summon angels but got, instead, demons. He tried to destroy the tome of spells he created but failed – however the tome has been lost through the centuries…
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| spell tattooed on face |
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| Ryan Kwanten as Joe |
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| Eric and Hung |
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| flesh eating |
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| demon form |
I’m going to give this one a pass, on the basis of the dialogue. The film itself is ok but could have been so much better. The imdb page is here.
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