Happy Halloween

It's that time of year and I want to wish you all the best on the best holiday of the year. To mark the occasion I’ve embedded a video by Lesbian Bed Death – I use my Powers for Evil. I have mentioned the band before and the song is great fun. Okay it’s not really vampiric, but there is some blood at the mouth – close enough for today. It’s also a tad gory in places – viewer discretion is advised.

Have fun and stay safe.

Underworld 3 – Rise of the Lycans

According to Bloody Disgusting Underworld 3 has been officially announced. A new director at the helm, but some old familiar faces in the form of Bill Nighy as Victor and the welcome return of Michael Sheen as Lucian. I’m not sure but it will probably, unfortunately, mean the return of Kraven also.

It is, as suspected, a prequel and so no Kate Beckinsale as Selene will not have been turned and it will be filmed from the Lycan point of view. More info in the future, I’m sure.

I Love Halloween...

...even when it is tacky...

Blood+ - review

Directed by: Junichi Fujisaku

First aired: 2005

Contains spoilers

This is a series adapted from Blood: The Last Vampire and spans a massive 50 episodes. I say adapted because as we shall see, this may have Saya as a main protagonist and she may fight Chiropterans, the core background has changed. We will explore this, as we explore the lore, and it is not clear as the series starts – for all intents and purposes it seems like a modern day follow on – and so massive spoiler warnings must be issued.

Saya is a teenage girl who lives with her adopted father George and two other orphans, Kai and Riku. As the story starts she is an almost ordinary girl who must undergo regular transfusions for anaemia and has amnesia, remembering nothing before a year earlier. Her world is shattered as a chiropteran – the name of the vampires in this – attacks her and she escapes with the aid of a mysterious man named Haji.

She discovers that she was placed with George by an organisation called Red Shield – namely by an operative called David – whose purpose is to fight chiropterans and the reason for her amnesia is that she came out of a hibernation just a year before. George becomes infected and Saya must kill him, using her blood, which crystallises the chiropterans and ends up travelling around the gobe with Red Shield. Of course Kai and Riku are drawn into this world also.

When we look at this we must look at the fact that the tag the Last Vampire has been removed. This seems sensible to me because Saya is anything but the last vampire. There is a hierarchy of vampires. There are two queens – Saya and her twin sister Diva – the knights who have fed directly from a queen – Haji is Saya’s knight – and then the rank and file chiropterans – all of which are derived from one of the queen’s bloodlines. The blood of the queen of one line is poisonous to the other line.

Saya’s amnesia through the beginning of the series and the slow realisation of what she is leads to a very different character than the one we saw in the previous incarnation of the story. As the series starts she is carefree and happy, one can say innocent – rather than the battle weary, stoic warrior from the Last Vampire. That, of course, shifts as the series develops.

The reason for Saya’s amnesia is tied into the fact that she (and Diva) must enter into a thirty-year hibernation after every few years of living amongst humans. During the Vietnam war Red Shield noticed a high concentration of chiropterans at the battlefield and woke Saya early, using Haji’s blood. She awoke enraged and without reason and slaughtered everything in her path, be they human or chiropteran, before falling back into hibernation. This utterly changes the narrative of the previous manifestation of the story.

The main enemy in this is Diva and to understand why I must spoil the story further and look at Saya’s birth in the 19th Century – don’t worry I won’t spoil the main story arc. A man named Joel created ‘the Zoo’ a place filled with examples of unusual species. He discovered a mummified female of an unknown species, humanoid but with bat characteristics, that he called chiropteran. Dissecting the mummy he found two cocoons, the creature had been pregnant. He couldn’t open the cocoons but cut his finger and the blood was absorbed by one of the cocoons, causing life to stir within. Two human looking females were born. One he named Saya and raised as a human, though he noticed her aging halted in her teens and she healed with miraculous rapidity. The other he did not name and kept locked away as an experiment. Saya heard her sister singing and released the girl, whom she named Diva, to disastrous results. She vowed to halt Diva.

In the time of her last hibernation, Diva’s knights have been busy and have taken major holdings in world business. They are creating Chiropterans and creating ways to artificially produce the creatures. One experiment resulted in the Schiff – more like standard vampires as they shun the sun or explode into green flame. The Schiff are dying and believe that either Diva or Saya’s blood is the key to gaining longevity.

This is a twisting, turning series with betrayal and loyalty at its heart. The animation looks good, though it isn’t half as good as its predecessor – however, given the amount of animation necessary to produce the series it is hardly surprising. The music through the episodes is excellent, and creates a major plot theme, and one of the credit pieces was performed by Hyde who was in Moon Child.

As an animation I wouldn’t hesitate to give this a high score, if I was only scoring for when it is at its best. However, the series is slow in places and perhaps the length of it was too long. There are plenty of moments where the series becomes too introspective; concentrating on minutia that might be claimed to be character development but in fact seems overtly filled with melodrama. This is a shame, as this had the potential to be one of the best vampire animes produced, but these moments (Kai and Saya go fishing comes to mind) slowed the whole thing to a snail’s pace in places. Perhaps some of the fault lay in the subtitling of the Asian imported set I bought, which is weak and too literal, and those issues might lessen in the version produced for the US market.

I must also say that, despite an excellent overall plot arc, some of the aspects of the lore did not have a sound logic – we do not know why the blood of one queen is poison to the line of the other, and this is passed off simply as ‘we do not know’ by the characters. We do not know why the Schiff are killed by sunlight – I have assumed it is because they are artificially created.

That said, one cannot take away the fact that it has a massive story – unlike its predecessor – that twists and turns and, when it is at its best, is a fine example of anime. 6.5 out of 10, to me balances my concerns regarding the slower aspects with the excellence of the series at its best.

The imdb page is here.

A Phobic few Days

My desk calendar at work, this year, has been the Year of Fear Calendar by Susie Behar and Tonwen Jones. This handy little calendar offers a brief description of a phobia each day. The days 28th – 30th October all featured potential phobias suffered by vampires.

The 28th was hierophobia – a fear of priests or scared things and asks if it is “the phobia of vampires?”

The 29th was alliumphobia – a fear of garlic, the calendar goes on to inform “Another phobia of vampires? Hanging garlic in the home or wearing it is, of course, believed to give protection from these creatures of the night.”

Finally, the 30th is phengophobia – fear of daylight or sunshine and the calendar asks if it is “yet another phobia of vampires?”

Incidentally, samhainophobia is a fear of Halloween – which I suppose is the ultimate point of this long standing pagan holiday, so long as the fundamental Christian groups don’t get their way! (I typed that bit having watched some Bishop or other, on TV, spouting off about Halloween and how we should veer away from the horror and gore – killjoy.)

The Year of Fear Calendar was published by the IM press and has proven informative through the year, though not as much fun as my 2003 Discworld (reformed) vampires desk diary. The still is from Dracula, Prince of Darkness.

Counter Destroyer – review

Director: Edgar Jere

Release Date: 1989

Contains spoilers

Where to start, where to start? Also known as “The Vampire is Alive” this film is flimsily connected to the cinematic junk that are known as Devil’s Dynamite and Robo Vampire in that the andriobot returns, ish, short of… but I am way ahead of myself.

Like the two other films this has two disparate films merged into one, with the added bonus that one character actually moves between the stories.

Plot 1 begins with Joyce and her PA Cindy going off to a remote house to work on the script of a film, The Last Emperor of China. As they walk, with their driver, towards the house they see a Taoist performing rituals. Warned not to get too close, as they might be possessed by spirits, they get too close anyway. A bit of a chat with the Taoist and then a skull follows them to the house!

They get there and Joyce feels freaked by a picture of the last Emperor (whose eyes move when the girls aren’t looking). The phone goes and it is her boyfriend Dixon. After taking the call she rips the phone out of the wall and tells the driver to take it with him, so she has no distractions. He gets in the car, the disconnected phone rings and then the wire strangles him.

Let us leave plot 1 for now and go to plot 2, you see whilst the plots cut to and fro we have neatly set up Joyce’s predicament and this kicks off the entire second plot. The driver is also a bodyguard and works for film producer Lawrence. He has hired a PI, Jackie, to look into things as he believes the driver was killed by a rival producer – there are several versions of the film destined to be produced. Jackie is driving down the road and sees a woman, Fanny, chased by a guy with a gun. She picks Fanny up and takes her to a restaurant, where she recognises another producer and assassinates him.

At this point you’d be forgiven for believing that Jackie is a baddy, but the real baddy is Jackson – a third producer. He orders Jackie killed and ends up kidnapping Fanny and some guy called Roman – who the Hell he was I couldn’t work out. In the meantime Jackie has met policeman Paul (Sorapong Chatree) and got him to help investigate Jackson.

The fact that she appears to be on the side of law and order is irrelevant to the number of people she kills. One man is killed by being smeared with poison lipstick that corrodes his hand. Another is blown up by flowers – I kid you not. She slits one man’s throat with a knife – and she is the goody?

Meanwhile Dixon is off somewhere when he is randomly attacked by a pair of kyonsi and a western ghoul that looks more like a zombie with fangs (that didn’t fit properly). Having fought them for a while he transforms – no not into andriobot – but into a white robed ninja – as you do.

This entire plot line ends up with an extreme prejudice attack by the police and Jackie on Jackson’s boat. Huge shoot outs occur.

Back to plot 1. Joyce is working when she notices that Cindy has gone and something blood like is dripping from the ceiling. She investigates the house and spooks herself. We see Cindy being carried by a figure who looks like a Chinese Freddie Kruger. He has sharp razor claws – on a glove when we see it clearly, and rather than a burnt face it looks like he has oatmeal over it. Actually, much later, we discover he is the vampire beast – just as well that he lost the gorilla mask he wore in Robo Vampire.

A pair of kyonsi watch as he guts Cindy and starts to feast, commenting on how hungry they are – yes they are talking kyonsi, they also have the worst fangs in vampire movie history. The Taoist comes along and fights the Chinese Freddie (it is a more descriptive name than vampire beast) but it is pure slapstick and not that funny. Whilst he does this the kyonsi are feeding. Eventually the Taoist is defeated and chased off and Chinese Freddie gets his meal back. However Joyce wanders along and sees this, screams and… falls off her chair – it is all a dream.

The next day Cindy and Joyce are in the pool but Joyce’s lilo is punctured by a clawed hand. They end up being attacked and Joyce is raked by the glove. She pushes the Chinese Freddie down and runs, not seeing him turn into Joyce (is this getting confusing yet? Good). Joyce is now acting odd – like she is possessed.

You’d have thought so anyway but that night the Chinese Freddie attacks Joyce again, an attack that involves razor glove out of mattress, and tells her he needs a human woman to escape the spirit world, he was the last eunuch in China (go figure). He pushes her down and lies on her, vanishing. Cindy comes in, Joyce’s arm turns funky, rake and then bite of the neck. She kills Cindy. He leaves (in spectral form) saying that Jackson has ensured the script will not be written.

Later Dixon turns up and Joyce is all upset. Suddenly she has decayed razor arm again and tells him to keep away, she can’t control herself. She runs off into the night. He chases after her and tries to help but she expels the spirit of Chinese Freddie and he attacks.

Poor old Dixon! The woman he loves passed out on the floor and faced with oatmeal boy. What could he do? Well he spins around and transforms… no not into the white ninja but into andriobot – complete with gun. Fair enough. As the two fight the talking kyonsi reappear to feed on Joyce. They back off a bit when her belly grows and she births a child kyonsi. The child and the adult kyonsi fight.

Confused… you should be. The child kyonsi is upset as they killed his mother. The Taoist turns up and child kyonsi asks him to save his father – Chinese Freddie - but the Taoist sets his kyonsi onto Chinese Freddie. Once he is defeated he tells andriobot that Joyce’s spirit has been set free. Somehow, however, she is not dead as Joyce, Dixon and Lawrence visit Cindy’s grave.

Good Lord… what a mess. This film with no discernibly good dialogue, bad dubbing and plot holes has no ability to hold a story together coherently and shamelessly rips off more movies than you can count. A really poor film, with no redeeming features, except perhaps a drunk guy crying over the kidnapped Fanny and exclaiming “Fanny, my poor Fanny!” Avoid it like the plague… 0 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Sundays with Vlad - review

Author: Paul Bibeau

First published: 2007

Paul Bibeau, as he tells us in this exploration of Dracula as pop-culture icon versus both historical and literary figure, has had a life-long fascination with vampires – due to a childhood prank pulled by his older sister involving plastic fangs. In the prologue of this volume he explains how that fascination led to an ill-conceived detour to Romania, specifically Walachia – on his honeymoon no less – and a realisation that as widespread as a pop-culture icon Dracula had become in the West, the land of the historic Prince hadn’t seemed to embrace the literary figure at all.

The prologue actually made me want to pause in reading for a moment. I wanted to pass the book to my own long-suffering wife and have her read the prologue – just so I could say “See, I’m not that bad. After all, we went to Whitby for our honeymoon”. However, as the book was firmly glued into my hand at this point, such an event didn’t happen.

The reason the book was glued into my hand had much to do with Paul’s writing – a writing style that makes you feel, as you read, that you are on first name terms with the writer. He marries what seems like a genuine affection for the genre, with a wickedly irreverent sense of humour. He looks at the subject through the eyes of a journalist and yet adds a layer of true confession. He might be making a journey through an internationally known genre but it is a personal journey also.

I said the writing displayed a wickedly irreverent sense of humour and regularly I found myself sniggering aloud into the pages. Now this is actually a major feat – no matter how amusing I find a book it is rare that one physically makes me snigger, I guess I’m not wired that way and more often than not the laughter is all internal with naught but a wry smile. I dare you to read about his encounter with American missionaries in Curtea without sniggering, if you’re like me, or guffawing if you’re wired in a normal way.

The book takes us on a strange and twisting tour, through the twisted machinations that surrounded the concept of Dracula-land all the way to a New Jersey boardwalk. We get a 48 hour vampire movie marathon, for the sake of work – though to be frank he picked many of the worst films he could have done! I mean, I’m surprised he survived Dracula 3000, Vampiyaz and Vampires: The Turning (amongst others) in one marathon sitting. Honestly Paul, if you are going to repeat such a task please, email me and I’ll give you some better suggestions!

The book takes a darker turn as he inevitably looks into the gothic scene, vampyre sub-culture and looks at some of the cases involving so called vampire killers. This was the aspect of the book that perhaps would have been harder going for me. I like goth music but have no burning desire to read about the ‘scene’. I am a fan of vampire movies, books and folklore but I am not an aficionado of, or participant in, the vampyre scene. However the writing kept me engaged throughout and those chapters were as worthwhile a part of the journey that the book took us on as any other, even if the scenery became steadily that much darker.

Things lighten up again as we move through Dracula scholarship, which has its own darker aspects, and straight into the tacky world of what he describes as a “Wal-mart Halloween”. The book goes full circle with a return trip to Romania, this time heading into Transylvania rather than the Walachia region.

This was a great read and whilst the book reaches a conclusion, to my way of thinking, it was not the main point of it. Sometimes the point of a journey is not the destination but the journey itself and this was a fine journey in good company. Do not get me wrong, however, whilst the expedition we are taken on is rewarding and filled with humour it does have some poignantly sad moments as well – it’s all part of the journey. I also have to say that I didn’t always agree with some of the thoughts and musings, for example I personally (just) prefer the Lugosi Dracula to the Spanish Version, but these things are simply a matter of taste and it was nice to read another person's view.

I will end my review here as it is pointed out in the book that bloggers “just can’t shut the f*ck up.” – not that I take any offence at this observation as it was delivered with that wicked, irreverent humour I mentioned, because it is actually true and because it had the rider that bloggers are also “smart and educated”.

Except… Well I can’t shut up yet as I should mention that there is a website here and offer a score. This is a weirdly wonderful journey that takes us through various incarnations of the Count, and vampires generally, both in pop-culture and in sub-cultures. 8.5 out of 10.

Vamp or Not? el Chupacabra

As we look at this 2003 film, directed by Brennon Jones and Paul Wynne, we will examine two questions. Firstly should this film be classed as vamp? Secondly, should the el Chupacabra myth itself fall into the vampire category?

I am sure many of you will be aware of el Chupacabra. A favourite of Fortean magazines and websites, el Chupacabra are creatures, often filed under crypto-zoology, that hail mainly from Puerto Rico and Mexico and are known for sucking the blood from goats – indeed the name means goat sucker.

In this movie we see a truck pull up, the driver is met by Mason (Layton Mathews). The truck itself contains a sedated el Chupacabra, which has been fed on chickens. The truck interior is dark. The driver makes a comment about light bursting their eyes (not precisely true) and then adds that the light is broken anyway. He enters the truck and we hear sounds of an attack. The driver tries to escape and a grey, almost primate hand emerges and pulls him back in. We see a side head shot of el Chupacabra – though not in detail.

A radio broadcast is overhead by Pablo (Victor López) about animal attacks and mutilations. He tells his cousin Navarro (Eric Alegria) that *it* is here… referring, of course, to el Chupacabra. Navarro works for animal control and doesn’t believe in such things. Pablo tells him that its m.o. is to “suck blood like a vampire”. He also says that it should be treated with respect and to mention its name is a curse. Pablo has scars from when he survived an attack by el Chupcabra whilst living in Mexico.

Starlina Devine (Elina Madison) is signing copies of her book about el Chupacabra. The next man in queue, we later discover to be Goodspeed (Treach), rips into her beliefs and causes an altercation that leads to her expulsion from the store. During the altercation Goodspeed denies the existence of such creatures and brings Dracula into the discussion – but introducing Stoker's book was a dialogue stretch.

Navarro is looking into the attacks on animals and is approached by Starlina – though he doesn’t want anything to do with her. When the attacks escalate to people two cops, Noriega (Jerry Rodriguez) and Sophia (Calvi Pabon), are drawn into the plot – cynics who want Navarro nowhere near their crime scenes and who do not believe in el chupacabra, until the very end when suddenly Noriega wants to capture the beast for the $5m reward.

Of course Navarro and Starlina end up working together and find their investigation hindered by Mason, who works for Goodspeed. Goodspeed works for the CDC and already has a female captured, the one on the streets is a male and he wants it.

The film throws everything except the kitchen sink at the myth. What we actually establish are that they are nocturnal, they suck blood – leaving traditionally vampire like fang marks, and they tend to use claws to rip open the stomach – a non-fatal (immediately) but disabling attack and shredding the arm and leg muscles – preventing escape and fighting back.

Most other lore comes from Starlina and may or may not be accurate. She states that they are telepathic – hence the big heads. There is very little evidence of this although the two el Chupacabra do appear aware of each other nearby. Indeed she states that the creature is migratory and it seems that only the presence of the female has kept the male in the city.

She also mentions the idea that they might be related to grey aliens. What the filmmakers are doing is throwing in every bit of conspiracy and Fortean lore they can get their hands on as either they think it sounds cool or to highlight the many urban legends building around the myth – I’ll let you decide what you believe their reasons were.

So should the el Chupacabra - the real world myth - be classed as part of vampire lore? I’d say yes. The myth itself seems very like the European peasant myths that birthed the traditional vampire, in that a creature is invented so that something can be blamed for their woes. It may, myth wise, or may not be supernatural and it has a chapter dedicated to it in “Vampires: a Field Guide to the Creatures that Stalk the Night.” In that book the creature is tied, by author Dr Bob Curran, to the Zuni Indians’ ‘Devil Men’ myth, a vampiric race of little grey men that attacked herds and were first documented in the 16th century.

However, the myth has spiralled out of control with ties in with aliens, cattle mutilations and so forth. Thus any movie based on the el Chupacabra should be looked at individually on its vampiric merits. In this case we have a low budget film, poorly acted and using very shaky camera work, which throws in every permutation of the myth. What we see, however, is a fanged, blood sucking, vaguely humanoid creature – natural not undead – that shies from light and is fast and strong. It just about falls into the vamp area – it’s just not a good film.

The imdb page is here.

Devil’s Dynamite – review

Director: Joe Livingstone

Release date: 1987

Contains spoilers

When looking at the DVD release of this, as part of the Eastern Horror franchise, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this was the sequel to Robo Vampire, not only is this the second disc but quoting the blurb: “The Andriobot returns! The fearless half man/half machine is back…” we needn’t go on.

Fact of the matter is that this was released a year before and it is not the same andriobot – bear in mind I only took the name andriobot for this and the other film from the blurb, as the name is not mentioned in either film's dialogue. This is more a sister film.

Like the other film this is two plots spliced together, with a bizarre sub-plot, at least this film has mention of the two plots in both of them – if that makes sense. Actually one character from one plot does speak to one from another by telephone – though as it seems dubbed (and terribly at that) who knows.

Plot 1 – the andriobot plot sees a Taoist priest doing his stuff. A western drugs Lord called Ronald comes in and pulls out a voodoo doll, causing the priest much pain. This shows he is under control, thus the kyonsi (Chinese hopping vampires) are slaves to the drugs lord. They get stronger each feed and so are fed some prisoners.

Cut across to ninjas, the shadow warriors, attacking a compound (probably a prison) looking to assassinate Steven Cox (a main player in the other plot). They have been hired by Ronald but he tests the kyonsi on them – killing the ninja – Cox isn’t there as he has been released.

Alex is asking questions about Cox when a kyonsi attacks the restaurant. Now in the next film the andriobot is Tom, who died and was changed into the android. Alex is the andriobot in this, though you wouldn’t notice until it comes time to fight and then he turns into the ‘futuristic warrior’ ala power rangers. The look is even worse than the next film but at least the awful robot sound effects have gone.

Story long cut short, we see nothing of the kyonsi for a while as andriobot injures them. He goes hunting for them, trying to track them down and ends up getting hold of a Taoist to help him defeat them – which involves painting him ala Spooky Encounters.

The sub-plot – if it warrants the title – sees a young boy dressing up as a kyonsi to scare the bejezzus out of a young girl. Every time he does this real vampires attack and andriobot rescues him. This would be so much fluff, and is to be fair, but the girl – in the first of two scenes – vanishes in a supernatural way. Makes you wonder, but not too much.

Plot two has gambling king Steven Cox released from prison. He has a stash of gold hidden and everyone wants it. Everyone are the Fox, built as a big time gangster but comes across as a small time crook and Madame Mary.

Madame Mary was his gal; he left wife and child for her. She had him put away for ten years, took his house and now wants him dead. She runs all the gambling and is about to marry Louis, a cop who believes her to be an upstanding citizen. It would have worked better if Louis was Cox's son, and I kept waiting for that twist but it never came.

All told the story hangs together better than Robo Vampire, but that really isn’t saying much. There are many less explosions (though there is a fire – nice to see the police being even handed as they set the inferno to smoke Cox out), and the story, as thin as it is, verges on melodrama. That said – it is better than the second film. There is a third film, Counter Destroyer, which I believe is a Nightmare on Elm Street rip off (with kyonsi) in which andriobot appears in the final reel – could my sanity survive watching that one too. We’ll see very soon. 0.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Vamp or not? Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy

This was a 1964 Mexican film directed by René Cardona. Just by the title I’d expect you to wonder what I am doing investigating this under a ‘Vamp or Not?’ In fact I’d not be offended if I was accused of stretching things so that I can add another Mexican wrestling movie to these hallowed pages. However, if you scratch the surface of this film there is something at least a little vampire like going on… eventually…

You see if you didn’t know the title of the film you’d be forgiven, when watching the film, in wondering whether there was anything supernatural going on at all. I should also warn that I have tried to work out the names as best I can to correspond with the actors but in the awfully dubbed US release the names were not just Anglicised but sometimes utterly changed – if I make an error I apologise in advance. The film, after a ponderous look at an Aztec pyramid, shows a body being thrown from a car. It seems the mysterious Black Dragon, also known as Prince Fujiyata (Ramón Bugarini), is offing archaeologists with the help of his gang.

Cut to a wrestling match starring Loretta (Lorena Velázquez) and Ruby (Elizabeth Campbell). Yes this is a Mexican wrestling movie and so settle back to watch the match for a while. At least there is a crowd, unlike the matches featured in Santo and Blue Demon Vs Dracula and the Wolfman, and Loretta and Ruby are easier to look at than their male counterparts. Anyway, after winning the match they go back to their dressing room but see a man lurking – we saw him enter the arena.

Dr Sorber has come looking for Keith, Loretta’s fiancé. He has been sent by Keith’s uncle, Dr Luis Trelles (Víctor Velázquez). These two are the last survivors of an archaeological expedition that found a codex that should lead to the Aztec treasure and the Black Dragon wants it. As Sorber tells them he doesn’t have the codex he is murdered by blow dart. Off to see Uncle then.

Trelles explains that Black Dragon has part of the codex. He will divide the bit he has into three and send a piece to our two wrestling women and the third to Charlotte, daughter of one of the murdered men. The codex, you see, is not in stone or on metal but is on paper! He goes off to divvy it up whilst Black Dragon kidnaps Charlotte and uses hypnosis and drugs to brainwash her. The chase is on to find the pieces.

By the third piece the bad guys and good guys decide to have a wrestling match, the gals against the Black Dragon’s two sisters, for all the pieces, which our gals win – and being an honourable sort (other than theft, brainwashing murder and torture) Black Dragon hands the pieces he has over. We are 54 minutes into the running time and so far it has been a crime ‘thriller’ with wrestling.

Trelles deciphers the manuscript and we get a cut back to Aztec times as we hear the story of a virgin sacrifice with whom a nagual – a shapeshifting sorcerer – fell in love with. He took her from the temple but they were both caught. She was killed and a breastplate put on her, which marked the location of the treasure. He was buried alive and cursed to guard said breastplate. It seems, when captured, his eyes were covered which robbed him of magical power – interesting fact but not used later in the film. According to Trelles’ sources, and this is important, he can shapeshift into a serpent, a jaguar or a ball of fire.

Off they go to find the breastplate and when they do the mummified nagual rises. Oh goody, 1 hour nine minutes in (out of 1:28) and supernatural activity at last. It is here that we will look to see whether this is a vampire or just a mummy. Well, to start off he looks a bit worn and shuffles and groans like a zombie or mummy. However he does have powers.

Well, I say he has powers but for a sorcerer they seem limited; he shapeshifts. We get transformations into spider and bat – though neither form was mentioned by Trelles’. Later in the film, in bat form, there is the exclamation “Look Loretta he is a vampire now!” Of course that might refer to the type of bat or be a result of bad translation for the dubbing. This was the second scene with a bat transformation and the first one allowed for a superb crap bat moment. He flies as a bat to the apartments, kills the Black Dragon Gang members (whilst in mummy form) who are after the breastplate (they hadn’t really gone away) and then flies into the apartments. Back into mummy form but he beats a hasty retreat (I’ll get to why very soon) transforms again and the bat flies out backwards – yes the film is reversed!

The reason for his retreat… The sun is coming up. He throws his arms up like any common vampire and legs it. This mummy cannot be around in daylight and must retreat to his sarcophagus. Indeed Charlotte tells us that they are safe during the day, though I’m not sure how she’d know. I’m not that up on mummy lore but such a trait is certainly out of the cinematic vampire handbook.

Possibly tied into this is his fear of fire. Of course, being old and husk like, that fear might be explainable but it does show more awareness than perhaps one would expect. Strangely, the legend states that his attacks would stop once the breastplate was returned. Not so, it seems he wants to find a new bearer – well the body of his love is looking worse for wear.

He manages to get Charlotte (who seemed to go through quite a lot of abuse in this film, loosing a father, being brainwashed and then captured by a mummy) tied to a sacrificial altar, wearing the breastplate that she was returning. He is about to sacrifice her, when… well lets not go into that (the film has only four more minutes to run) but this is the only hint of blood shedding. There is no mention of blood drinking either, which is less than vampiric.

This seems strange as, if we look to the wikipedia entry for nagual we can see that, “In modern rural Mexico the nagual is often the same as "witches" or "brujos" who are thought to be able to shapeshift into animals at night (normally into an owl, a bat or a turkey) and suck blood from innocent victims, steal properties from others, cause disease etc.” Hmm… shapeshifting into bats, causing disease and sucking blood… we, almost, have a winner.

I say almost because, whilst the nagual myth has many overlaps with the vampire myth the film only partially hits the target. Safer to say that vampiric elements were incorporated into a mummy film, making it of interest to a genre fan, and fans of Mexican wrestling movies, but ultimately it is not vamp.

The imdb page is here.