The Commercial Vampire: Sonic Burgers

I am guessing that Sonic Burgers are a US chain – we don’t have them over in the UK. However it is clear that this might have been a salient lesson in what would happen if you get in a muddle with regards your apotropaic of choice… well it would be if it wasn’t such a forlorn, sad vampire.

Hero – review

Director: Kim Hong-Ik

Release date: 2010

Contains spoilers

Hero is a Korean movie that purports to be a teenage vampire flick that has a romance element, but don’t let thoughts of Twilight influence your expectations of this film. Whilst there is some creepy stalking, the vampires in this have fangs and drink blood and the baseline is that it is a teen orientated gentle comedy with vampires in it.

The film actually looks rather classy through its running time but I did – as I will highlight later – feel that it lost its way towards the end. The film begins with a man stumbling through a high rise construction rather drunkenly.

Han Ye-won as Lee Yoo-ri

He stops for a pee and, whilst emptying his bladder, notices something drip onto his head. He puts his hand up and, when drawing it back, sees blood. He looks upwards and sees a body with a ripped throat hanging over the edge of the building work. Up there a man watches in horror as a woman, Lee Yoo-ri (Han Ye-won), feeds on a third. She lifts her head and runs at the man, picks him up by the neck, throws him and attacks.

the good vampires

We see Sim-dan (Kim Hyeong-gyoo-I), or Dan to his friends, atop a building talking of loneliness. Cut back in time and he and his friend Eun-seok (Han Jeong-woo) are nerds and the subject of constant bullying by Cheol-seung (Kwak Min-ho). Eun-seok does seem to get the worst of it but they are pretty much set upon (by the teaching staff it would also appear). Also at the school is Mi-ah (Lee Da-in), who was Dan’s first love (they shared a bath 10 years before) but who seems oblivious to him. Dan illicitly films her and here we have the creepy stalker element that was mentioned.

stylish shot

Indeed, when he is filming her in school, he sees her take a phone call that clearly upsets her and follows her through the city. He does suffer however, his asthma causing him to struggle through the city. Mi-ah goes to a hotel and confronts a woman, who turns out to be the girlfriend of her seriously ill father (Jo Deok-ja, Thirst) who is seeing another man. All this is filmed from afar and then he follows her again, as she leaves, but his inhaler runs out and he collapses onto a street corner, gasping for breath.

blood bath

He hears a noise and sees a woman in an alley, apparently drunk and being sick. Men approach her and, seeing she is insensible, drag her off. He follows them and enters the construction site they drag her to. He is looking around when he spots her, she vomits (we see it is blood), and then attacks him – biting his neck. We then cut to him in a room somewhere, he has been placed in a bath of blood – she then feeds him her blood. We should note that the bath of blood was used for stylistic reasons – simply taking vampire blood (orally or intravenously ) is enough to turn in this.

bite marks

He awakens in his own room. The sunlight irritates him. He looks in the mirror and sees the bite marks on his neck and remembers what happened. He struggles to school (sunlight doesn’t kill but does make him feel ill), where he ends up with the nurse who at first suspects rabies and then says it is probably a result of excessive onerism. He actually begins to stand up to Cheol-seung but, unfortunately, Mi-ah discovers that he has taken the film of her.

awkward but sweet

She accuses him of being creepy stalker guy and actually suggests he should commit suicide. Due to her reaction he goes to the train station to kill himself. However a mental patient pushes a blind woman (Kim Ah-hyeon) onto the tracks. He saves her and is called a hero on TV – hence the name of the film, however this is the only overt act of heroism he indulges in. Mi-ah then realises, of course, that she loves him and the romance builds slowly, awkwardly but very sweetly. He still acts like crazy stalker guy – using his vampire powers to sit by her in bed (ala über-stalker Edward Cullen).

vampire disintegration

Lee Yoo-ri goes to the school, posing as a teacher, to teach Dan the ways of the vampire. They must drink blood – chicken blood can be a substitute but they need human blood. Fail to feed and his asthma will come back. The only way to kill a vampire is for another vampire to suck all their blood – not entirely true as we do see another vampire, weakened through a failed cure serum, who is stabbed in the heart by a silver cross and disintegrates. Exactly which part of this was the fatal blow is not clear – though it probably wasn’t the use of a cross as Lee Yoo-ri and her former lover (Son ho-young), who is also a teacher at the school, are/were both Christians and the cross does not bother them. We also note that the expressed killing method - sucking all the blood - does not lead to such disintegration (that we see).

bad vampire

The film moves along swimmingly, a gentle comedy that is genuinely funny because of the three young leads and their amusing and quirky characters. To this end the film was going to get a higher score than it ultimately received from me. However the ending was rushed and didn’t, for me, work too well. It turns out that the vampire who turned Lee Yoo-ri, whilst he was slaughtering Christians, was buried and not killed. Grave robbers release him and he enters the story – but that entry is fractured and his actions seem motiveless. There are aspects of this that I won’t actually spoil – as they are integral to the ending – but they left me cold and unsatisfied.

raiding blood packs

Up to that point I was enjoying the film and whilst it wasn’t a totally terrible end it lacked narrative and the score has dropped because of it. The cinematography was professional, the young actors were fun and produced quirky characters. All told, however, I’m holding this down to 6 out of 10.

At the time of review I couldn’t find an IMDb page, however there is a Hancinema page here.

Honourable Mention: Casper’s Scare School

This was a 2006 3D-animated film directed by Mark Gravas and starring Casper the Friendly Ghost (Devon Werkheiser). The film begins with Casper at home, missing the haunting of a supermarket by his three ghostly uncles as he is busy, in his friendly manner, teaching the human (or fleshy as the creatures call humans) boy Jimmy (Brett DelBuono, Let Me In) how to play soccer.

Worse than that he was actually scared by Jimmy and this ended up on the ghost TV show Scar Centre. Casper is sent, by leader of the creatures Kibosh (Kevin Michael Richardson, the Batman Vs Dracula,Scooby-Doo! And the Legend of the Vampire ), to Scare School where he will be taught to be scary. If that fails he’ll end up being banished to the Valley of the Shadows, a place all creatures fear.

Thatch the vampire

He reaches the school by flying pirate ship and from that moment the story and surroundings become very Harry Potter. He makes friends with a Mummy called Ra (Kendre Berry) and a zombie called Mantha (Christy Carlson Romano) – essentially Ron and Hermione – and quickly becomes the enemy of school bully Thatch (Matthew Underwood), a vampire and, of course, the reason for this mention.

Thatch in his coffin

Thatch has some standard vampire traits, he has fangs (and claims that a bite will make someone his slave), he sleeps in a coffin and turns into a bat. The sunlight element is removed as we see him in the human town, during the day, scaring fleshies. Whilst he is set up as the antagonist for Casper on a daily basis the real baddy is the headmaster – the two headed Alder (James Belushi) and Dash (Bob Saget).

Thatch in trouble

The film was one that I felt was probably great for the kids but lacked the nuances an adult audience would look for in a kid’s film that would make it enjoyable at both levels. However it did feature a vampire (and a vampire who bites his own tongue at one point, for that matter).

The IMDb page is here.

;)Q

Vamp or Not? La Maison Nucingen

Back when I looked at la Belle Captive I received comments about this Raoul Ruiz film from 2008. Edna Sweetlove firmly put the film on my radar by suggesting that it was an avante-garde film that had Carmilla inspired vampiric ghosts.

It is also a film that has defied viewing by not appearing on DVD. As I type this it has now, at long last, appeared on DVD in France. Judicious searching can find English fan-subs on the net and the film is now viewable! And what a film; confusing, beautiful, thought-provoking and lyrical. It is based on Balzac, but whilst I haven’t read the source work I suspect it is only loosely based on it and I could certainly see traces of both Le Fanu and Poe peeking from behind the curtain.

It begins with a meal; William Henry James III (Jean-Marc Barr) eats a meal with his companion and listens in to a conversation, though we never see the speakers as they are in another area of the restaurant, separated by a curtain. They are actually telling the story of his life – though it is more fiction than fact. The film, then, is his story… as he remembers it, as they tell it? It isn’t explained and, in reality, it doesn’t matter.

Whilst still in Paris

It is 1925 and William, or Billy as his wife Anne-Marie (Elsa Zylberstein) calls him, is a writer. He is also a gambler. He goes to his wife, laid in bed and not well, and tells her that he has been gambling again, despite his promise not to, and he has won. He takes her to the house he has acquired in Patagonia as a rest cure for her, a belated honeymoon and so that he can complete his novel.

Léonore's reflection

As they move through the countryside in a carriage, the vehicle slows and stops as the driver announces that there is a swarm of bees. We see the couple looking out of the window and the reflection of a woman, Léonore (Audrey Marnay). As the carriage moves away William mentions the woman but Anne-Marie did not see her. She wonders why there would be a swarm of bees in winter.

when they have first arrived

They are greeted at the house by the maid, Ully (Miriam Heard), and slowly meet the strange inhabitants of the house and discover its unusual house rules. The inhabitants are of Austrian descent but speak only in French – you must go to the yard or the toilet to speak other languages. Religion is also banned. Ully is an insomniac who sometimes is asleep and awake at the same time. There is a doctor (Luis Mora) who visits and is prone to falling asleep for spells.

Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre as Lotte

Living in the house is Bastien (Laurent Malet), the head of the house and whilst apparently the most normal he is full of odd habits. There is Lotte (Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre), who is apparently eighteen but with a mental age of eight and also Dieter (Thomas Durand) who is always busy and is also, according to Lotte, heartbroken following the death of Léonore.

the skeletal leg

The house is full of ghosts, we never know if someone we see is real or not. Workers in ponchos observe the inhabitants from vantage points in other rooms, a child called Angel – because he sees angels – hides under a bed. Léonore follows people around and is sometimes interacted with and sometimes not seen – they say you cannot see and hear a ghost at the same time. At one point she lifts her dress to William in order to reveal that one leg is skeletal – he takes the bone and beats her with it. Weird, yes, but not very vampiric at this point.

Léonore with Anne-Marie

She does, however, seem to haunt Anne-Marie, whose behaviour becomes stranger and whose health deteriorates. Early on William enters the bathroom to find the toilet, sink and bath filled with blood as Léonore stands by an insensible Ann-Marie – he is ushered away by Ully who, off camera, cleans the room. The doctor is called to look in on Anne-Marie and Léonore won’t leave her side.

vampiric feeding?

It is Lotte who has insisted that Léonore is dead, even suggesting where she she is buried. However, later in the film, William is taken to the catatonic Léonore, who lies in the basement – her temperature low and her heartbeat barely registering. They say she projects herself, or materialises – so she is more like a living ghost or spirit, moving through the house without actually moving in or from her room. At this point the doctor suggest that whether she kills stray travellers is legend as is her stealing children for their blood. The idea that she foretells earthquakes is dismissed as nonsense. William sees her, at one point, through a keyhole and it appears she is feeding on Anne-Marie, in a vampiric way.

attacking Lotte

At another point she attacks Lotte and we are told that she eats her – this is discussed over what might be the remnants of Lotte’s brain or simply a lamb’s brain. Another victim seems to simply die peacefully in their sleep. William tells us that in his novel (he writes crime thrillers) the murderer isn’t a vampire rather the murderer is actually him. However, as well as the idea of spirits and the consumption of life in order to live (and remain young, the final scenes would suggest), I felt there were overtones of faery, of that otherworld hidden from the eyes of most but interfacing with the world within the house Nucingen.

a view of the Andes

I have spoiled enough, I think, within my quest to look at the vampiric aspects of the film. The film is an astounding piece of avante-garde cinema, multi-layered with excellent acting teasing out remarkable, if strange, characters. The cinematography is breath-taking and the framing of many of the shots is exceptional. The story itself keeps you pondering its strange twists and turns long after the film has ended but, of course, our question is, "Is it Vamp?"

the bone flute

Certainly, the fact William mentions the word vampire is designed to lead us in that direction. The house is full of voices and visions, ghosts who are as much inhabitants as the living are – of not more so. Léonore is the projection of a spirit, the body lying sleeping-beauty-like, feeding off the living in the house. I would say there is enough to count this as vampire – however there is also the health warning that this is not a horror film; it is an astounding piece of cinema but if you approach it expecting standard ghost or vampire fare then you will be disappointed. I loved it.

The IMDb page is here.

New Blog: The Daily Fang

The social network Get Fanged have asked me to mention that they have a new blog entitled The Daily Fang and if you bob on over there they have an interview with Mick Scott from See Spot Kill – who are featured in the 4th season of True Blood.

Honourable Mention: The Ghost and Master Boh

The Ghost and Master Boh is a Thai comedy directed by Worapoj Pothineth and released in 2008. It follows the misadventures of a guru named Master Boh who, through the help of his sister Bua and his assistants Ver and Grang, has convinced his local village that he actually possesses spiritual powers.

Also living locally is a mobster named Aoo who, at the head of the film, sends his men to dig up the corpse of a girl named Whan who died a violent death. They bungle, dropping the corpse which roles down a hill, leaving the shroud behind and falling into the river. There she revives and becomes a vengeful ghost – albeit a physical one – and wants revenge upon her killer. The killer (and rapist) happens to be Aoo.

Of course Boh gets drawn into this situation but this is not the reason for the honourable mention.

the fake krasue

Also at the head of the film, a farmer is with his wife, who is heavily pregnant. He hears a noise from outside and goes to investigate. He sees a figure moving through his chicken coops, feather’s fly and then it reveals itself as a Krasue – though the face seems heavily painted. Despite the fact that no chickens are dead (it could have brought its own) he complains to his neighbours. One suggests it wasn’t after chicken but blood and placenta from his wife.

the real krasue

They go to see Boh but we know he will already know – as it was a faked haunting set up by his assistants to drum up some trade! That night, however, Boh and the village are on a hillside when there is a meteor shower. One of the meteors moves strangely and seems to come nearer, until it reveals itself as a real Krasue – it should be noted that the face is very painted like the fake. All the villagers run… and so does Boh. It is the fact that it becomes caught on the thorns of a tree that saves Boh.

He does ‘exorcise’ the fake Krasue later in the film. A rather silly film, humour wise, but it has the appearance of a Krasue and so deserves a honourable mention. At the time of writing there is no imdb page.

The Moth Diaries – review

Author: Rachel Klein

Release date: 2002

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Ernessa is a vampire. She wants me, and only me, to see it. Her hand is guiding mine as I write these words

At an exclusive girls’ boarding school, a sixteen-year-old girl records her most intimate thoughts in a diary. The object of her obsession is her room-mate, Lucy Blake, and Lucy’s friendship with their new and disturbing classmate. Ernessa is a mysterious presence with pale skin and hypnotic eyes. Around her swirl dark secrets and a series of ominous disasters. As fear spreads through the school, fantasy and reality mingle in a waking nightmare of gothic menace, fuelled by the lusts and fears of adolescence.

And at the centre of the diary is the question that haunts all who read it: Is Ernessa really a vampire? Or is the narrator trapped in her own fevered imagination?

The review: This was a recommendation by Halek and, I have to say, it might have been easy to dismiss the novel – based on the blurb – as just another adolescent-school-vampire-drama. However that is doing the novel a grave misservice and I hope this review might place the novel on a few radars.

This is far from a teen novel. It might feature a nameless teen narrator and her friends, it might be set in a school, but it is a dark gothic traipse through a mind perhaps fractured by psychosis. It might be fair to suggest that this is the love child of Carmilla (which is actually cited within the book) and Some of your Blood (or at least a twist thereof).

From the preface, in which the narrator, as an adult, explains why she has re-read and released the journal she had kept during her sixteenth year – at the urging of the psychiatrist she used to see, we get a sense that the contents may not be real. He suggests that she had been "suffering from borderline personality disorder complicated by depression and psychosis". It is true her sixteen-year-old self had still been recovering from the suicide of her father two years before.

Her mother had shipped her off to boarding school but the world she had built around Lucy, her room-mate during that school year, fell apart as Lucy seemed to drift to the new girl Ernessa. The picture of the narrator is not a pretty one, she is clearly jealous and petty with a general superiority complex with regards some of the girls. However Klein builds a complex character and so we do develop a genuine sympathy for her as well.

By the end of the book you are left with possibilities. That she was obsessed and jealous of a friendship with an innocent (at least of vampirism) girl, that perhaps Ernessa – who looks a little like her, is Jewish as she is and has lost her father also – was never real and was a psychotic externalisation or that Ernessa was really a vampire. The book leaves you to make your own mind up. Was, for instance, the school as rife with anti-semetic feeling as the narrator sometimes maintains? Was Lucy predated upon by this new girl or did she simply become ill? Was the death of as student a result of a sinister act or simply a tragic accident? Did the narrator project the idea of vampirism onto her rival due to jealousy and latent lesbian attraction?

The book takes adolescent struggles and amplifies it through the narrator, it takes the bourgeoning sexuality of a teen and questions it through friendship, through the Electra complex and through the vampire. Well worth a read. 7.5 out of 10.

Queen of Kings – review

Author: Maria Dahvana Headley

Published: 2011

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Once there was a queen of Egypt… a queen who became through magiuc something else…

What if Cleopatra didn’t commit suicide beside her beloved husband, Mark Antony, in 30 BC? What if she couldn’t die? What if she became immortal?

A dazzling debut novel, Queen of Kings tells how a queen’s desire to protect all she holds dear – the soul of her dead husband, her children, her kingdom – leads her to make a mortal bargain with a god. And how not even the wisest of Egypt’s scholars could have foretold what would follow…

For her help, Sekhmet, the goddess of death and destruction, demands something in return: Cleopatra herself. Transformed into a mythic, shape-shifting, not-quite-human manifestation of a deity who seeks to destroy the world, Cleopatra desires revenge, longs for her loved ones… and craves human blood.

Blending historical fiction and the darkest of fantasy, Maria Dahvana Headley’s extraordinary reimagining of the story of perhaps the most famous woman in history is a spellbinding feat of the imagination.

The review: Queen of Kings is certainly an unusual vampire story but, in real terms, a vampire story it is. For a start off the vampire is Cleopatra, however the way Headley sets this up has a logical sense. Indeed the ultimate fate of all the historical characters within the book are pretty much as happened (as pointed out in the historical notes at the end of the book)… it is just that the road to them is very, very different. In this way the book manages to dovetail with historical thinking – but then fills the ancient world with the myths, monsters, Gods and witches that classical mythology would have within that setting.

The result is a fantasy novel par excellence, with a real world setting, well-built and believable characters and Cleopatra as a vampire – her soul sold to the goddess Sekhmet and her body (undead as it is) a physical manifestation of and link to the Goddess.

Many of the normal vampire rules apply. Silver burns (not explained, but presumably due to purity), sunlight burns (as Ra exiled his daughter) and blood must be drunk, which strengthens Cleopatra and serves as a sacrifice to Sekhmet. Cleopatra can shapeshift – a giant snake and a lion are two of the forms she takes. Fire, however, does not destroy her – as Sekhmet is a daughter of Ra she is born of fire – and Cleopatra’s control of animals is wider than the control that other vampires might have had in stories, encompassing most beasts.

The story was well written, and a great read. Recommended. 8 out of 10.

Beetlejuice – Hotel Hello – review

Director: Various

Release date: 1991

Contains spoilers

The cartoon series of Beetlejuice was, very much, a different beast to the movie that spawned it. The Maitlands do not appear in the series at all, Beetlejuice (Stephen Ouimette) and Lydia (Alyson Court) are best friends and the afterlife setting is replaced by the neitherworld .

Delia and Beetlejuice

In this episode Charles (Roger Dunn) is electrocuted by Beetlejuice when trying to change a lightbulb in the cellar. To help him recuperate Bettlejuice takes Charles, his wife Delia (Elizabeth Hanna) and Lydia on a vacation to the Hotel Hello. The hotel is, of course, in the neitherworld and filled with monstrous entities that somehow Charles and Delia are able to rationalise.

Fleago

Delia loves Charles, not because he is heroic but because he is a gentleman. Charles wishes he was heroic, however, and thus Beetlejuice hatches a plot to make him seem heroic. Unfortunately a vampire, Count Mein (Don Francks) is staying at the hotel with his henchman Fleagor (Michael Stark) – who is infested with fleas – he spots Delia and takes a liking to her neck.

nocturnal visit

After a nocturnal visitation during which he tries to bite her neck, misses and punctures the waterbed, he decides to kidnap Delia away to his castle in order that he might have his toothsome way with her. This leads to Charles showing his bravery as he rescues his wife, although the Count is forced to back down by Beetlejuice, who turns into a stake – the inevitable sight gag of turning into a steak first fell flat as you knew it was going to make an appearance at some point during the episode.

Count Mein

Strangely, the neitherworld has day and night cycles and the vampire avoids the sunlight (wearing sun-block at one point). The vampire can turn into a bat and his carriage is bat drawn. The neitherworld also has blood banks with an atm/dispenser accessible in order to make withdrawals. The Count’s bed is an earth filled coffin and he appears to have eye mojo also.

The movement away from the structure and tenure of the film was a problem for me with regards the show, however this wasn’t bad for a wacky cartoon. 5.5 out of 10.

The episode’s IMDb page is here.

;)Q

Guest Blog: Blood For the Living - review

Welcome back to Clark Nuttall with another guest blog, this time looking at a futuristic vampire science fiction novel.

Author: Kate Nevermore

First Published: 2010

Contains spoilers

In the near future, an experimental study alters gene therapy subjects into living vampires, giving them superhuman strength, speed, stamina and senses, yet leaving them dependent on blood for survival.

I first came across this book on Facebook, and on reading the blurb was intrigued enough to order a copy. It combines sci-fi and vampires, but in an effective way.

The author flips time periods throughout the book, from the near future to a point some 350 years in the future, to describe how the treatment for Porphyria altered the DNA makeup of the test subjects into vampires, and the formation of the secretive V Society.

This society is made up of the Founders (first test subjects), Seniors and Juniors, and we are introduced to a vampire society that has been corrupted over time by a reigning triumvirate, leading to a vendetta against one of the families, namely the Ricos family. This, of course, is where our main protagonist, Eliza Ricos, comes in.

The story follows her as she is aided and abetted in her attempts to outwit the seemingly all powerful rulers of the society, who have over the centuries grown the society's holdings, under the guise of Fourth Planet Farms into a corporation reminiscent of the Umbrella Corporation, from the Resident Evil series, with regards to its power and secrecy, whilst trying to discover the reason behind the assault on her family. I won't go into too much detail as to what happens, since that would spoil things completely, suffice to say Eliza is discovered by the Founders, who all the Seniors and Juniors had assumed to be dead, aiding her and even coming to her rescue when she is captured by the ruling Seniors and transported to their refuge.

The problems regarding blood supply are amply addressed within the book, so let's just say Fourth Planet Farms has a lot to do with it.

The book races towards its inevitable showdown between the Founders and the dishonest reigning Seniors, bringing with it an insight into the corruption rife within the society, at which point we also find more about Eliza herself that is hinted at throughout the story. How the tables are turned on the Seniors.......................buy it and read it to find out.

The characters may not be vampires in the conventional sense, not having fangs, but are easily identifiable as such, having superhuman strength, stamina, speed and senses, as well as an aversion to sunlight which is shown throughout the narrative. I have to be honest, I really enjoyed this book and hope that the promised sequel isn't too long in appearing. It's not particularly long at just shy of 200 pages but shows a lot of promise, weaving vampirism and science fiction into a thoroughly entertaining read.

A well-deserved 7.5 out of 10

First Impression: Stake Land

Last night I took an impromptu trip to the cinema to see Stake Land as I noticed it showing locally… impromptu as I have been looking out for the film but it didn’t seem to be appearing in my local region and then suddenly the local Odeon had it on.

This is not going to be a film that wows those looking for action films or pretty boy vampires. That has to be said at the beginning and, in a moment of public complaint, perhaps if that had been explained to the four ‘selfless’ individuals, who clearly were not impressed with the film, before they entered the cinema then they might not have proceeded to talk through the film until I shushed at them and they left the cinema.

Now, winding back from that and focusing on the film, it is worth reminding ourselves that the post-apocalyptic vampire story is, in the form of I am Legend, the spiritual progenitor of the zombie genre, inspiring as it did Night of the Living Dead. Thus this is a vampire film that goes back to those post-apocalyptic roots and creates a vampire that is a snarling, blood lusting killer running on instinct and spreading its plague across the planet. As per more modern infected/zombie conventions it is a creature that can run, however it is not just a vampire that is kind of like a zombie. Vampire lore holds and it is killable by stake through the heart, sunlight and severing the spinal column – Mister (Nick Danici), the vampire hunter of the piece, suggests that the vampires use the reptilian part of the brain and cutting it off is like throwing a kill switch.

Connor Paolo as Martin

The film begins with the aforementioned Mister and Martin (Connor Paolo) traveling together and the film is about Martin. Indeed, if it is anything, at its heart it is a coming of age story concentrating on the young man and it is Martin who narrates the story for us. We cut back and get Martin’s history. A moment with his parents as they get ready to try and escape the horror of the viral (we assume) outbreak building around them, preparing their truck so that they can run. The dog runs off and Martin chases after it and this moment saves his life. A vampire is in the garage and Martin sees it grab his mother, he runs back and is intercepted by Mister. As they enter the garage his mother is dead, his father dying and the vampire is up near the rafters draining Martin's baby sibling, which it casually tosses to one side after devouring. In this moment, with the baby, director Jim Mickle tells us that he is not prepared to soften the blows in the film; life in Stake Land is depressingly cheap. After a brief but violent tussle, Mister has the vampire held down and a stake held over the heart. It is Martin who has to strike the killing blow. Thus begins his apprenticeship.

are vampires the real monsters?

Mister teaches him about vampires as they travel, zigzagging East and West but always heading North to New Eden, a supposed human colony in Canada. Mister tells Martin that the vampires are cold blooded and thus cannot function in the cold but early on we hear a rumour that New Eden has no food and the colonists have become cannibals. The truth of New Eden is something we never actually discover, it is very much a representation of hope, a goal to attain and perhaps an outward representation of Martin’s own inward journey. As they travel, avoiding cities which are deemed death traps we discover towns in lockdown – the residents barricaded in the night, bartering for survival. We also discover that an apocalyptic Christian cult has appeared called the Brotherhood. This cult believes that the vampires are sent by God and that killing them is a sin. It is also an excuse for their own brand of survivalist fascism. When we first meet them, two of the Brotherhood are trying to rape a nun, known only as Sister (Kelly McGillis), and Mister kills them – slitting one’s throat and leaving one to die with a stake in his back. It turns out that the one he left to die was the son of local Brotherhood leader Jebediah Loven (Michael Cerveris, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant) thus the hunt for Mister is more personal on his part. The Brotherhood are the focal point for the negativity in the film, which suggests that, despite the creatures in the night being real, the actual monsters are still human – with all their bigotry, hatred and fundamentalist zeal.

Counterbalanced against that is the hope that exists, be it in the thought of New Eden, the pockets of community still managing to exist and in some cases flourish, and in the camaraderie that builds between Martin, Mister and the various rag-tag travellers that travel with them. However the film isn’t content for us to have hope. The Brotherhood will, by breaking through barriers or using choppers to drop them, destroy these pockets of hope using vampires and the film itself will take these fellow travellers away from Martin with little or no sympathy.

a berserker

Vampire-wise the majority of the lore has been given – however there are different types of vampires beyond those simply infected. Two other types we meet are berserkers, which are the older vampires who have developed bony armour over their heart, rendering stakes useless and thus they must be killed by severing the spinal column, and child vampires that Mister calls Scamps. The scamp we meet was played by Elis Cahill, whom we previously met in Thicker than Water: The Vampire Diaries part 1. Mister alludes to having seen other vampire mutations.

The acting and casting was bob on, especially in respect of Nick Damici who, despite his character’s background remaining mysterious (though more is offered in an official, online, character portrait), manages to draw a hard, world weary but caring character. We do get a cameo from Larry Fessenden who was also a producer of the film and was himself behind the genre films Habit and I Sell the Dead. The soundtrack was an interesting part of the film, mournful would be the best description and it really set an atmosphere that suggested that the film wasn’t meant to be the action or horror picture that some might have expected.

I thoroughly enjoyed Stake Land (ill-mannered cinema patrons not withstanding), though I could understand why it might fail to hit the buttons for other viewers. The IMDb page is here. (Article images sourced from Google images)

(Luis Scafati’s) Dracula – review

Author and art: Luis Scafati

Release date: 2008

Contains spoilers

Artist Luis Scafati brings a new slant to the Dracula myth in this book of art, where the text is almost supportive of the pictures rather than the other way around.

This is not a faithful rendering of Bram Stoker’s novel, rather it is an amalgam of various sources including the novel, the historical Țepeș, the romance introduced in the 1973 Dracula and a large dose of Nosferatu. This list is not exclusive and, indeed, Scafati adds some of his own lore. In a description of anti-vampire devices we get (with my highlight): “’Vampires, the professor continued, ‘feed off blood. They live in the dark and hate sunlight, which is lethal to them. They have sharp fangs and mysterious powers, such as the ability to control certain inferior beasts and change shape at will. They also fear the smell of fruits and the sign of the cross. They are immortal. To destroy them it is necessary to pierce their hearts with a stake made from wild rose or ash.’”

Dracula and Mina

The Count of this story is a ravenous beast, with a host of victims through the city all of whom are awakened sexually, hiding the evidence of his nightly visitations and the animal awakened within them. It is also a circular journey, an investigation into the maze of Harker’s mind.

The story itself is an interesting, if brief, reimagining but it is the artwork on which the book succeeds or fails. I was taken by the stark, nightmarish style and to me it worked really well. The score is actually based upon the art primarily, and the volume as a collection piece. 8 out of 10.

Honourable Mention: Lamia Vol 2.

I have previously looked at Hushicho Phoenix’s Lamia: Baroness of Blood and was taken by the crisp art and tongue-in-cheek, camp humour of this fumetti homage, featuring the vampire Lamia and her gay sidekick Antonio.

Hushicho is soon to launch the second volume of the duo’s wacky and eroticised adventures over at the Lamia homepage (note, Lamia is not safe for work). The comic will be free to read and released over a period of time. If you can’t wait for the next instalment it will be sold in book form as well.

I have been lucky enough to be sent an advance viewing of the volume and thoroughly enjoyed it. In this volume Antonio is upset as characters are being killed in his favourite comic book and so he and Lamia employ the help of a witch to enter the comic book world in order that they might save two of his heroes. Whilst in there they make the acquaintance of the Disco Queen and…

Well, you are just going to have to wait but make sure you keep an eye out for the series launch and even, perhaps, pick up a printed copy too. But rest assured there is plenty of superhero satire and fumetti cheekiness that is sure to keep you entertained.

Gypsy Vampire: The Final Bloodlust – review

Director: Conrad Brooks

Release date: 2009


Contains spoilers



There were three Gypsy vampire movies that I was aware of (follow the links for the reviews of films one, two and three) – altogether they achieved a combined score of 2 (out of 30). Was I harsh? If you watched the films you'd say no.

arrival

Thus, the discovery of a fourth film really did not raise hope for a good film, nor did it offer much in the way of hope that it would raise the combined score (or the series average of 0.6 recurring) by much at all. The series is by Ed Wood's cohort Conrad Brooks and features the adventures of Count Lugo (Bruce “Porkchop” Lindsay). This film John Raider (Mark Byrne) arrives at a building (a poorly shot, strangely coloured cabin that apparently is a funeral home). He tells Princess (Erika Faunce) – the maid – that he is there to see the funeral director Mr Margo – who is really Count Lugo.

Meeting Mr Margo

This funeral home is a place of Halloween props (the film was shot in two haunted house attractions). Raider seems less than bothered by this, he is a ghost hunter who writes novels based on his researches and has been directed to Margo. Margo, however, is somewhat busy with a body – and stopping Max (Matt Burns), a zombie, from having a fondle of the corpse. As such he sees his guest but briefly and then offers him a bed for the night.

Count Lugo

Raider goes wandering through the house and sees a corpse sit up. Margo appears and shows him a corpse of a woman – Gabriella – a road traffic victim who the characters all suggest is beautiful and incorrupt but who is never shown to the viewer. Margo reveals that he wants Raider’s friend Dr Cabasa (John Durham) to help him revive the girl from death and then reveals that he is Lugo. Finally, given that this is the fourth film, we get some background on Lugo.

Like me, he prayed for it to end

He says that he was a soldier in the Civil War and in 1864 he was injured when shrapnel from a cannon blast took his eye. He crawled to a cave to die but met the Grim Reaper, who made him an offer – he could get his revenge on his enemies as a vampire… But wait… in the first film the love of his life was a vampire called Ilsa who was turned into a skeleton in 1727 when she drank the blood of a holy man… that is over a century out… “Wait”, I hear you ask, “You don’t expect consistency in these films, do you?” Of course I do… nah, just kidding!

criminal acting

We then get a scene with Conrad Brooks and John Faunce as a pair of escaped convicts who wander into Lugo’s home. This contained some of the worse acting I have actually seen… ever… trees were crowding around demanding their wood back. They die, nuff said. Eventually Cabasa and his assistant Grace (Gail Maureen Hanson) arrive. Lugo isn’t around and they haven’t seen Raider in the house for a month. Cabasa looks at the corpse and declares that it cannot be revived – so is murdered, which leads to Grace murdering a scene with histrionics when she finds the body… Bear with me, almost there…

Max the zombie

Turns out that Max has actually put Lugo on ice – literally. He intends to marry Grace (whilst hypnotised) and then cremate Lugo, freeing him and his zombie minions (well, they’re not actually going to be free, the power will transfer to Max). His dastardly plan is ‘defeated’ by Raider, who is now a zombie too and loyal to Lugo, who blows the entire place up (less an explosion actually and more a sound effect over a black screen) by ripping open a gas pipe… the end… and the most positive thing I can say is that it was only, roughly, 40 minutes of your life that you lost to the viewing experience.

I’ve said it all as I went through the scenes… this was a poorly acted, poorly shot, poorly scripted flick and it had no actual redeeming qualities. 0 out of 10. At the time of review there is no IMDb page.