Honourable Mentions: Reaper – I want my Baby Back

Reaper is one of the best shows on TV at the moment and this John Fortenberry directed episode (number 5 of season 2, aired 2009) has finally allowed me to feature the show on the blog.

The base story is that Sam Oliver (Bret Harrison) awoke on his 21st birthday to discover that his father (Andrew Airlie) had sold his soul to the devil (Ray Wise, yes Laura Palmer’s dad) – by the end of season1 we have also discovered that the devil is Sam’s actual father. The devil owns Sam’s soul and has decided that he will be a reaper – a bounty hunter who has to capture souls that have escaped from Hell. He ends up trying to capture souls in vessels (objects designed to capture a specific soul) with the help of his two friends from his dead end job at the Work Bench, Burt ‘Sock’ Wysocki (Tyler Labine) and Ben (Rick Gonzalez). Also involved is Sam’s true love Andi (Missy Peregrym).

In this episode the soul is a vampire (Heather Doerksen) – or at least she was a murderess who drank blood and believes herself to be a vampire. When the devil hands Sam his task he also hands over the vessel – which in this case was a wooden stake – with a quip about Sam looking like Buffy (referring, of course, to the vampire slayer).

Sam, Sock and Ben enter the mansion to get her, and whilst it is daylight she is likely around as she is a soul rather than a real vampire (the devil has said there is no such thing and yet at this point Sam has been reunited with his earthly father, who died at the end of season 1 and is now a zombie). The guys are impressed with the Emo look of the place. When the vampire appears she is protecting something and has a maw of fangs (souls take on chosen forms and abilities).

She attacks but Sam manages to stake her when she is on Sock’s back, going for the neck. This is very early on in the episode as the main thrust does not surround capturing her soul but the thing she was protecting – a baby. The baby is an iboh (intentional birth out of Hell) and thus the episode only gets an honourable mention as the vampire aspect was within the first 10 minutes or so. However the show is really worth watching, laugh out loud funny in places with some seriously weird supernatural aspects that make it one of the most original shows being aired. All the acting is very good, but especially look out for Tyler Labine as Sock and Ray Wise who easily ranks up there with the best on-screen portrayals of Satan.

The episode’s imdb page is here.

Fang Face – review

Author: Norm Cowie

First published: 2009

Contains spoilers

Norm Cowie’s fang face is a young adult book and it is one the firmly wields comedy as a weapon of choice.

In this vampires have come to town and the master vampire is looking to get a foothold by taking key areas – for instance the hospital and doing this via the kids of the employees. For this reason teenager Erin is targeted by the master’s rotund minion – though he has his own agenda running also. Why Erin? Because her mother, Beth, works in the local hospital. The family, which also includes dad Bill and younger sister Alex, have to deal with her turning into a vampire. She has to cope with school and the rather unfortunate taunting nickname, fang face.

The lore in this is interesting. Vampires cast no reflections and have no shadows, they must be invited into a home but they each gain a bat familiar (which is where the myth of turning into a bat came from) and they can fly. To turn another they must resist feasting on all their blood and inject their saliva into the bite as they drink. There must be three bites (on seperate occasions) to fully turn a vampire – vampirism can cure blindness. Holy water and items seem to have no effect on them but garlic certainly does. Stakes are mentioned, but we are unsure as to the effectiveness – however electrocution and decapitation seem to be effective in despatching the living dead.

I said this was a young adult book and it certainly would seem to appeal to the age group it is aimed at, tackling various peer group issues in a comedic way. For an adult reader it perhaps lacks a certain mature nuance that some young adult authors are injecting into their works but the humour works regardless of age and ensures it is readable, with the pace bobbing along at a rate of knots.

Also, from an adult’s point of view, and as a parent, I liked the way that Cowie insidiously planted an educational element as he played with English, in a comedy way. So, for instance we get ‘"I don't want to suffer," the younger vampire wined. No, he didn't wine, he whined.’ Moments that play around with multiple meaning/spelling words, like this, pepper the book and enables it to casually tutor the reader in the nuances of English.

It is, for an adult, quite difficult to score. It certainly hits the mark for the target audience I think, it takes vampires to the kids and these ones certainly don’t sparkle and do maintain evil agendas. It is genuinely funny and the score I am offering is what I feel it deserves as a young adult book. I’ll add the caveat that adults may pronounce it just a little lacking for more mature tastes (though you could buy it for the kids, then secretly read it and no one would be the wiser). 6.5 out of 10.

The Strain – book trailers

Now I know I have already reviewed the book The Strain but when Zahir at Undead Whispers found these trailers I knew I had to share.

Now I have to say that to make even a one minute film of a Del Toro book takes a brave director but… wow… give us a movie, now, we demand it!

Honourable Mention: Cutie Honey

This was a 2004 live action film directed by Hideaki Anno and I received a mail from Leila suggesting I track it down and watch it as it was worth an honourable mention.

Cutie Honey itself was less a manga and more a franchise dating back through various media from 1973. This filmic version was madcap – and a guilty pleasure as Leila described it. However it did have moments that dragged and the pacing was inconsistent. It had elements that were reminiscent of Power Rangers (or vice versa to be fair) and a wonderfully madcap sense of humour.

In the film Cutie Honey (Eriko Satô) is up against the sinister organisation Panther Claw and, like herself, the four generals of Panther Claw have all been enhanced. We are concentrating on Cobalt Claw (Sie Kohinata) who is actually more a spider like creature (at one point opening zips on her fetish costume to reveal extra arms). It was pointed out to me that in look she was somewhat like the spider like creatures we came across in Death Trance - which is true.

However the fang and fetish look is rather vampiric and she does bite Cutie Honey on the neck in a vampire norm way. She is also defeated via heat – okay so it was the heat of Cutie’s own hatred manifested by the nano-technology built into her, but nonetheless it was reminiscent of the vampiric weakness to fire. Was she a vampire… most probably not, but the vampire archetype influenced (possibly subconsciously) her look it would seem.

The imdb page is here.

Tale of a Vampire – review

Director: Shimako Sato

Release date: 1992

Contains spoilers

In a blatant act of false advertising this film was also known as “Warlock: Tale of a Vampire” – to tie the film into star Julian Sands' more famous Warlock movie. This film has, of course, nothing to do with that film. In fact you could say that it wasn’t even aimed at the same audience. This film is a homage to the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe – indeed the poem Annabel Lee takes a prominence in the movie (and a quote from it makes the first lines of the movie). Poe even gets a writing credit.

The film is rather slow and dreamy and – to be fair – has very little in the way of complex story. What it does have is characterisation and atmosphere aplenty. As we hear Annabel Lee we see a crashed car consumed in flames and a mysterious man watching, his name is Edgar (Kenneth Cranham, who previously played a bit role in the awful Vampira but we shouldn’t hold that against him). The car belonged to the significant other of Anne (Suzanna Hamilton), who has to go to the morgue to view the body.

In a disused factory is a bed. It is a stunning visual juxtaposition, the factory is a tomb (of industry) a decaying hulk and yet within it is a bed that looks almost pre-Raphaelite in its romantic design. Upon the bed is Alex (Julian Sands, who would go on to play an immortal vampire hunter in Blood Ties). A cat comes up to the bed and Alex awakens. He lifts the purring creature and then bites it. As he feeds we get glimpses of a woman whom we later find to be Virginia (Also Suzanna Hamilton), she seems to be in orgasm. It is a well done cat biting scene given that the entire ‘bite the cat’ motif became old after Count Yorga, Vampire.

Alex attends a library where he does research on religious martyrs for a thesis – I have read that it is an occult library but in no part of the film is it actually suggested that it is anything more than a well stocked reference library, which in itself might have carried occult books. Denise (Marion Diamond), the librarian, has got him a book he needed. He seems distracted by the book to the point of being rude and this is the Alex we see develop. He is distracted, dreamy and often rude (though perhaps without malice and more without thought). He actually reminded me in demeanour (not purpose) of the character Martin from Brimstone and Treacle – interesting as the comatose Suzanna Hamilton was the subject of Martin’s obsession in that film.

Alex leaves the library and ends up sat on an embankment, above some playing children, giving a homeless man cigarettes. Meanwhile Edgar has stolen the library’s letter headed paper and an envelope. Anne receives a letter inviting her to interview at the library but Denise knows nothing about it – however she is in dire need of an assistant and so Anne gets the job. As Anne goes home she is, unbeknown to herself, followed by Alex. From then on the film concentrates on building their characters and relationship. She is grieving still for her lover, perhaps to the point that she will open up to another just to distract herself from the pain, and he is still in pain over the loss of Virginia, whom she looks very much like.

Is she the reincarnation of Virginia? No, but there is something odd going on. When we see her walking home she sings ‘boys and girls go out to play’ – a song that Alex had sang to Virginia when she was five years old (he was already a vampire). That might indicate past life memory but things we hear later indicates that it is just a physical resemblance. He notes that she reads Forneret and she states that she has only known one other who likes his work (presumably her dead lover). Alex tells her that his favorite poem by Forneret is "Le pauvre honteux", about a starving man who eats his own hand (a dismembered hand motif appears later). Clearly Edgar has manipulated them together for a purpose. But what…

Here we get a spoiler folks and it is part of the film’s twist – however I do not think that it was too much of a twist (you can see it coming) and it leads into some nice discussion about the meaning of the film. As the film moves along Alex is manipulated by an unseen person; who kills a child that Alex is following, for instance, and then drops the bloodied corpse at Alex’s feet just in time for a local criminal (presumably, as he had a shotgun on him) to see Alex with the body. Clearly Anne has been manipulated by Edgar and (whilst watching) it was not much of a leap to pre-empt the twist and assume he was doing all of the manipulating.

At some point in his life Alex met Virginia as a child and clearly befriended her, we even see him bring her a veil when she is due to marry a man named Edgar. She believes that Edgar will share their friendship. Later, Virginia is dying and Alex turns her but they end up pursued due to the killing of a villager (she says she didn’t kill him and asks whether it could have been another of their kind). That was the last time he saw her, he left her to hide as he drew them away and she was intercepted by someone she clearly knew - it becomes clear it is Edgar and she turned him.

Given the poem Annabel Lee (which is recited in film by Edgar), could it be that Edgar is meant to be Edgar Allan Poe and Virginia his wife? Certainly the character Edgar says he is a writer and that he has been published, though he also states that he is studying more occult matters – vampires interest him. One of the library’s stranger customers, the Magazine Man (Michael Kenton), knows his face – he saw his picture in an old (19th century) magazine. She dies with blood at her mouth – due to being turned – the real life Virginia died of tuberculosis. It all seems to fit except for the fact that a casket with her name on it is given to Alex with the date 1890 on it – unless the indication was this box (that contained her dismembered hand) was created some time after the events we see then the date was not contemporary with Poe and Virginia.

There isn’t much in the way of lore. We see no fangs and there is no indication that garlic or religious icons will affect the vampire. They can come out in daylight. They do have to drink blood, they are turned by a blood exchange and they may be truly immortal. Alex assumes that a stake through the heart will kill him but he doesn’t really know. Alex does have trouble disassociating love and blood. At one point Anne cuts her finger and he suckles on it (in that clichéd vampire manner) but then attacks her quite violently, repeating as he does that he loves her – until we realise it is fantasy and he is still sucking on her finger.

The film’s story is rather thin. It relies on character, on acting and on atmosphere. The three principle leads are great, each taking their characters and making them real for us. The actual shots and lighting are fantastically done and draw you into the film. The story has a sense of mystery, if you care to look, but it is not casually obvious. It is, however, Tragic – and I capitalised the word purposefully. This is not a happy tale by any stretch of the imagination. The story pace is lethargic at times, but the beauty of the filming keeps the viewer’s attention. However, should you want something with pace, obvious story depth or should drawing a poem visually not be your thing, you are going to dislike the film. I can see why people do.

However, for me, this is worth 6.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Interesting Shorts: Count Magnus

Count Magnus was a short story by M R James that was first published in 1904. On reading it (found online here) you’d be pushed to wonder, at the very least, about its vampiric heritage but there are aspects that seem vampiric in this story about a Swedish Count.

The story is written as though pulling the papers together of one Mr Wraxall, an Englishman who was himself compiling a travel book about Scandanavia. As part of this he was examining the papers of a manor house near Vestergothland that was built originally by one Count Magnus de la Gardie. He sees a portrait of the man and is struck by the power his visage exuded – rather than his looks as he “was an almost phenomenally ugly man.”

We hear of a so called black pilgrimage that he took and also discover that the Count had been an alchemist and wrote “if any man desires to obtain a long life, if he would obtain a faithful messenger and see the blood of his enemies, it is necessary that he first go into the city of Chorazin, and there salute the prince…” Chorazin was the accursed place where Middle Ages scholars felt the antichrist would be born.

We hear tales of hunters entering his woods, after his death, having been warned that they would “meet with persons walking who should not be walking. They should be resting, not walking.” Whatever they saw out there left one insane and sucked the flesh from the face of the other. The locals clearly blamed Magnus.

His coffin, in an octagonal mausoleum, is covered with garish engravings and is locked with three great padlocks – though Wraxall notices that one has come off the first time he visits the tomb and, subsequently the others come away on further visits and the coffin opens. Wraxall flees but feels he is pursued…

Whilst there are vampire overtones, and certainly a hint of the undead in the wider sense, this might seem a stretch. However we note that this has had an influence on the vampire genre. Of the influences that spring immediately to mind there is the name of the vampire in the first feature length Vampire Hunter D. Count Magnus Lee is an amalgam of Christopher Lee and Count Magnus. More so Count Magnus is mentioned within the Colin Wilson book the Space Vampires and is directly called vampire. The book went on to inspire the sci-fi vampire movie Lifeforce - though mention of Count Magnus is expunged.

So, a little bit of vampiric overtone and a small but definite impact on the genre.

Dracula’s Widow – review

Director: Christopher Coppola

First Released: 1988

Contains spoilers

Familial ties seem to be everything when it comes to Dracula. We have had films about the Son of Dracula and Dracula’s Daughter – both from the Universal stable and only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Dracula’s extended family on film. I’m only surprised that we haven’t had a film entitled Dracula’s Cousin (by Marriage) Eight Times Removed – go on, I dare you to show me there was one with that title!

Given that the 'brides' who appear in the novel seemed more like concubines, it is with some surprise that Christopher Coppola informs us that Dracula had a ‘true wife’, Vanessa – the eponymous widow. Now Vanessa is played by Sylvia Kristel and so I have to state, yes *that* Sylvia Kristel but get your mind out of the gutter, the film has very little nudity – and not from Ms Kristel – and no sex.

I wanted to like this, but it is so referential and (other than in one respect) not in a good way, as well as being so full of plot points so ill explained and fantastical that we could only call them craptacular. Despite that I do think it inspired another moment in a later vampire movie. The film starts off with a voice over by police Detective Hap Lannon (Josef Sommer), convinced he was in a film noir. He draws our attention to where it all started – the Hollywood House of Wax, and already we have a narrator who we know will survive. Actually the fact that he seems to be the world’s worst detective, or at least the world’s most laid back detective, is part of the craptacular plotting.

The fact that we are in a House of Wax immediately brings to mind Bud Abbott and Lou Costello meet Frankenstein, especially as the proprietor, Raymond Everett (Lenny Von Dohlen) is setting up a Dracula exhibition and has received crates from Romania – expecting five only, number sex contains Vanessa. Two things – both craptacular plot points – how did she get shipped over? Why was she in a crate? These are not answered. Also, what was with Raymond’s affected accent – he sounded like a right dick… that said I now feel certain that Coppola’s brother, Nick Cage, took said accent for his character in the next year’s Vampire’s Kiss, and this is the inspiring a later film that I spoke of… The problem is Nick Cage was meant to be annoying and irredeemable in his film, in this Raymond is the nearest thing we get to a central hero.

He retires upstairs and, as he does, we see the crate rattle and glow red. A note re the lighting. There is some unusual lighting work through the film. Bold reds are often used with Vanessa and there are some strange uses of green, quite a neon feel that to be honest felt like it was lifted directly from the film Vamp. Anyway, Raymond thinks he has heard something and goes downstairs – the door is open and he exclaims about the spate of recent break-ins. At a jazz bar one of the regular’s notices a woman (Vanessa) walk in – he doesn’t however seem to notice or care about how stiffly she walks. He takes her off to the park and after some brief fumbling on the grass she attacks.

In a moment of craptacular plotting the House of Wax is broken in to. I mean, he assumes a break-in earlier due to the number of them, one supposes, this place must have the worst locks and alarms ever. One of the robbers goes through to find the cash register when he hears his partner, Dave (J Michael Hunter), scream. He runs into a bloody mess, with Vanessa feeding, and legs it. Bizarrely Raymond, upstairs, hears nothing.

Vanessa goes upstairs and Raymond is watching Nosferatu (so, to reiterate he heard nothing this time - despite hearing her break out earlier - possibly it was drowned out by the soundtrack of the silent film!) This film really does reference the 1922 classic a lot, which is the good referencing. From a shadow moment in this scene, to the behaviour in the next scene of Raymond’s girlfriend Jenny (Rachel Jones), there is a reverential referencing of Murnau. The way Kristel moves and acts mimics Max Schreck so that, when I hear complaints about her performance, I feel the point has been missed. She even carries her crate, at one point, in a reproduction of Orlock carrying his crate through Bremen.

However, even here the plot becomes craptacular. Vanessa decides to make Raymond her slave and then force him to take her back to Romania and her husband, Dracula. Raymond states that Dracula is dead – killed by Van Helsing – and she does not believe it. Later, Van Helsing’s grandson (Stefan Schnabel), reveals that his grandfather killed off all the vampires bar Vanessa, so what happened to her? Where has she been for just shy of 100 years (her clothes look non-contemporary but newer than the 19th century)? How could she not know that Dracula was dead? We come back to the question 'just what was she doing in that damn crate?'

As Raymond is attacked Jenny begins to sleep walk and her walk takes her out of her house and she looks up at a neon cross on a church. This sleepwalking as a telepathic reaction to his danger was very much like Ellen in Nosferatu but there really is no comparison character wise. Ellen was drawn as a self-less woman, whose act of self sacrifice at the end of the movie was both noble and touching. Jenny is a cipher, whose seemingly psychic ability is there only to pull us to the final frames of the film but who, as a character, is empty and devoid of personality.

The lore is fairly standard, Vanessa avoids the sunlight (though we never witness exposure to sunlight in the film). Bitten victims turn but it takes time – allowing Helsing time to get to Hap and take him to a morgue so that he can stake a vampire (who unusually doesn’t rise when they get there) so that Hap can see the corpse react to staking (open eyes and yell out). However, when a bite could put a hero in jeopardy by turning the victim immediately it does. The cross is a definite deterrent and, in one moment that actually makes this film partially worthwhile, when Vanessa is confronted by a cross she sheds one solitary blood tear (whilst saying she is cursed). The fact that the tear was a delicate pink worked really well, as though the tear was simply stained with blood.

Vampires can become ravening beasts and seemed to attack at random. Vanessa spots a pentagram and takes Raymond to a satanic ritual where the leader of the Satanists seems to sense her power. She suddenly goes nuts and kills them all. Why? A throw away comment about them not being worthy, perhaps, or just playing at Satanists might have been useful. It would have been interesting if she was opposed to them because of their blasphemy of a God she was unable to worship but still loved. However, it is just silly and random and an excuse for gore.

The main killing technique we hear of is staking and should one bitten but not yet fully turned stake the one who bit him/her, by their own hand, they will be freed from the curse. Vampires can turn into bats and part of me wishes they couldn’t in this movie, whilst another part of me revels in the absolute audacity of the Crap Bat Syndrome they throw into this. The filmmakers spare us this one until the very end and, first of, we get a flying bat that is so badly imposed onto film it is untrue.

Vanessa (for it is she) then flies round a warehouse or factory and we get an over shoulder point of view of some bad creature creation that then attaches itself to hapless victim’s neck and looks so bad it beggars belief. Not since the invisible bats and hand puppet bats of the Devil’s Plaything has a moment of Crap Bat Syndrome been so crap and thus so worthwhile.

The film is, in many respects, horrible. Badly plotted, no atmosphere and no protagonist we actually care about. But it has moments shining through, even if they are just moments. 3.5 out of 10 is bolstered by the moments that are worthwhile. The imdb page is here.

A Right Nice Pair

Many thanks to my friend Ian who spotted this little set for me. It is the DVD of the 1931 Dracula and the original Stoker novel integrated into one funky hardback style set.

Of course I have both individual items already but combined they make a very nice little addition to my collection, especially as Ian found them in a publishers’ clearance outlet at the bargain price of just £2. Cheers mate.

Poll Results

Despite a lower turnout than the last ‘Vamp or Not?’ poll I ran – the results are in and the decision of the Taliesin Meets the Vampires readership – by a clear 50% - is that A Chinese Ghost Story should be deemed an honourable mention in the vampire genre.

Thanks to those who voted.

Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust – review

Directors: Yoshiaki Kawajiri & Jack Fletcher

First aired: 2000

Contains spoilers

This was the second D movie, not a direct continuation from where Vampire Hunter D left off but a film set in the same post apocalyptic distant future (it was actually based on the third D book).

The difference of fifteen years can be immediately seen with vastly improved animation. That said good animation means nothing without solid story, pacing and direction.

The film starts within a town. After we see a skyline pull shot of a castle with rooftops filled with crosses, we see a dog peering out of a basement grill – something scares it. A carriage travels through the town, as it passes the crosses on the roof twist and melt, flowers wither and fountains become ice. I loved the opening and it was reminiscent of Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter, in which the vampire had a similar ability with crosses and flowers.

The red eyed and fanged horses (that were probably cybernetic) pull to a halt outside a house. A girl, Charlotte (Emi Shinohara/Wendee Lee), lies in her bed. As the latch of her window turns the roses in a vase wilt and her mirror cracks. We see a cloaked figure, the vampire Meier Lee (Koichi Yamadera/John Rafter Lee), though we do not see him in detail. The cloak swoops into the room and we see her in the mirror, lifted by invisible hands (as these vampires cast no reflection). Charlotte is taken.

After hearing that the vampire nobles are dwindling and that the bounties on their heads have caused a new breed of hunters to emerge we see a desert ruin, men watch, through scoped rifles, D (Hideyuki Tanaka/Andrew Philpot) ride up. To me this was a slightly different D. He seemed that bit more stoic than perhaps he was in the earlier film and that stoicism worked well. He still has Left hand (Ichiro Nagai/Mike McShane) – though the animation for Left Hand and the voicing are different the character seems the same and we hear in this that it s a parasite (it even mentions that it has always been a friendly parasite).

He meets with Alan Elbourne (Koji Tsujitani/John Demita) – Charlotte’s brother – and her father (Motomu Kiyokawa/John DiMaggio). He is offered $10M to find her but refuses until the price is increased to 20. He asks what to do if she is turned and her father is practical enough to ask him to kill her. Alan is more upset and refuses to accept that she might have turned. He lost 50 men chasing after Link and Charlotte and has also hired the Markus brothers to hunt her down.

The Markus brothers are leader Borgoff (Yusaku Yara/Matt McKenzie), Nolt (Ryuzaburo Otomo/John DiMaggio), Kyle (Hochu Otsuka/Alex Fernandez) and the sickly but psychic Grove (Toshihiko Seki/Jack Fletcher). Also part of the troop is Leila (Megumi Hayashibara/Pamella Segall), a woman who was orphaned when her father was killed by a vampire and her mother turned. We see them as their tank enters a village were all the inhabitants have been turned. Whilst they have been bitten and have vampiric features they are referred to as zombies – possibly due to their slave like nature.

The film follows the chase of Link’s carriage, with D and the mercenaries crossing paths quite often whilst they also battle those who would stop them getting to Link. A moral dilemma enters the equation when Link suggests to D that Charlotte came willingly and that she truly loves him. Indeed Link and Charlotte are trying to get to the castle haunted by the spirit of Carmila (Bibari Maeda/Julia Fletcher), as there is a working spacecraft there. In a brief line, which filled the mind with visions of what the past of this world might have been like, it is mentioned that at one time the castle of each noble vampire contained a spacecraft that could take them to a city that sounded like a vampire space colony (out of the glare of the sun).

I mentioned that Carmila is in spirit form. It is mentioned by Left Hand that she was killed by D’s father due to her excesses. She can manipulate people’s minds and cause them to see illusions and, through this ability, we see D’s mother. We also see Leila as a little girl, through her own eyes, as Carmila influences her. The entire Leila and D dynamic was really well done. With Leila much less likely to fall for D immediately (unlike Doris in the last film) the filmmakers allowed the relationship to build, based on a grudging respect as more of D is revealed to her, leaving the two hunters as friends rather than lovers.

Link himself is not the ultimate evil he is made out to be by Charlotte’s family. He will do what he deems needs to be done – so he did turn a village full of people to protect himself. However he refuses to turn Charlotte as she should not have to lead a vampire’s life, he fights his own desire to feed from her and wins due to the love he feels for her, in an act of courage he leaves his carriage to rescue her from the Markus brothers even though it is still day and the sunlight burns him.

We discover a little more about D and his abilities/weaknesses. Too much time in the sun can cause “heat syndrome” making D weak (and it is potentially lethal). The cure is to be buried in the earth – of course this fits in with the native earth type traditions. We also discover that D does not age – leaving us with the question of just how long he has been doing this. We meet someone D rescued as a child who is now elderly, and the coda of the film jumps two generations on. Through Link we see that a vampire sees a human as a network of veins, when hungry at least.

This is what anime should be, an engrossing story with moral and plot twists. There were nice back story elements, neatly introduced and the actual quality of the animation was top notch as was the voice acting. Famous vampire figures were used – a hint of Dracula and a touch of Carmilla and, yet, it was never cheesy for using them. Excellent stuff, 8.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Vampire Knight Guilty – review

Director: unknown

First aired: 2008

Contains spoilers

Vampire Knight Guilty is the second series, following on from Vampire Knight. We are back at the Cross Academy where the day time students are human and the night students are vampires (though none of them seem overly bothered by daylight, it has to be said).

We left off, at the end of the last series, with school prefect and son of slaughtered vampire hunters Zero (Mamoru Miyano), turning into a level E vampire – a human bitten and turned by a pureblood vampire who becomes a ravening beast. The only cure is for him to drink the blood of a pureblood – in this case the blood of Kaname Kuran (Daisuke Kishio), who is the night school president and his rival for the affections of his fellow prefect Yuki Cross (Yui Horie).

The first series was very much a Shōjo anime, in other words it is an anime aimed primarily at a female audience age approximately 10 to 18 but mostly the teen section of that demographic. Whilst those fan-girlish aspects were still evident at the head of this season they quickly vanished leaving us with a story that dripped in melodrama.

As things progress through this season the plot begins to twist and turn like a twisty turny thing, with plots and counter plots, familial secrets and betrayals. There are incestual themes introduced and these are based heavily on the vampiric lore and it is within the lore backstory I found myself a little disappointed. We discovered in the first series that vampires could be split into three levels – the purebloods, the vampires who had human and pureblood ancestry, and level Es. To keep themselves pure it is not unknown for siblings in pureblood families to marry. Pureblood vampires, and this was a frustration, appeared at the point when humanity was on the edge of extinction… How? For what reason? We had a glimpse of a concept that was a throw away line and I wondered why we didn’t get more.

But these unexplored glimpses did not spoil the show for me, the frustration was minor. The action aspects of the series are sparse – even in the finale, compared to boy's animes at least – and it relies on plot and drama. The only problem with that is the dripping melodrama as the main characters become more and more devolved into a depressive cycle – can we say über-emo. However, if you can live with that then there is much to be gained plot wise.

The main animation is beautiful and, I felt, slightly more washed out in colour than the first season – adding a coldness to the animation that works rather well. There was, unfortunately, a continued use of chibi style that I still do not feel works in something that is pretty much comedy free – okay headmaster Kaien Cross (Hozumi Gôda) doubles as a comedy character but his antics are less apparent and we see more of him as the legendary vampire hunter he used to be.

Strong drama, but overt melodrama might put some viewers off and the chibi style is misplaced to me. 6.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is, at time of review, for season 1 only but, for reference, can be found here.

Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase – review

Director: Akiyuki Shinbo

First aired: 2004

Contains spoilers

This is an anime series of 25/26 episodes – the original TV series was comprised of 25 episodes but there was a 26th ‘encore’ produced for the DVD release. This was one that I wasn’t too sure about at first but was kind of sucked in to.

The main reason for this was not just the fact that it was, in places, rather weird but because that the weirdness stemmed from the conflicting styles that make up the show.

The best way to explain this is to look at the opening episode. We are at the Schwartz Quelle Castle in Germany. We see the castle, twisted statues drawn in earthy reds and browns. A beautiful refrain plays, haunting in its melody, as we hear a girl – later revealed to be Hazuki (Chiwa Saito/Monica Rial) – talking of her loneliness and how it will end soon. It is a beautiful, moody opening that promises a dark, Gothic cartoon. And then…

Then we get the opening credits. A bouncy synthesised pop piece plays, concerned with entering ‘cat ear mode’, and we see Hazuki wearing nekomimi, or cat ears. The imagery is bright and cutesy, Hazuki pops from a turtle shell, out of a bear suit (still wearing the damn ears) or bounces across the moon in a space suit with cat ears built into the helmet. Suddenly you are thinking, “What the Hell am I watching?” and yet it is strangely engrossing.

Kouhei (Hiroshi Kamiya/Jason Liebrecht) is, despite being psychically retarded – as his family calls it, on a photo assignment for a psychic magazine. He is there with his friend Hiromi (Michiko Neya/Laura Bailey) and his cousin Seiji (Takahiro Sakuurai/Sonny Strait) and they are looking at the castle. He has taken pictures the night before – getting spirits in shot even though he cannot see them – but missed the shot he tried to get of the girl on the castle roof – Hazuki.

As it turns out Hazuki is a vampire and is trapped in the castle. Originally from Japan, her mother was taken from her and her father – who happens to be king of the vampires – had her locked away. To try and keep control of her he created, through hypnosis, a secondary personality – Luna – a detached and unfeeling creature. Luna’s appearances seem controlled by a pendant Hazuki has to wear, itself becoming active on the full moon. Why the full moon? Because that is when vampires have to feed.

She uses Kouhei to try and escape and bites him to make him a blood slave. Any human bitten by a vampire immediately becomes that vampire’s devoted slave. Except for Kouhei. He is what is known as a vampire’s lover – he is immune to the enslaving properties of a vampire’s kiss, as the bites are called, and also any vampire who drinks his blood will be freed from the servitude ties that they have to their masters. Later this makes him a target, obviously, as he threatens the established vampire hierarchy.

Despite not being her slave both Kouhei and Seiji help Hazuki escape. This is achieved through a combination of Kouhei’s psychic ineptitude making him immune to some attacks and Seiji’s magic. Once escaped she follows Kouhei back to Japan, ostensibly looking for her mother but also to be close to her slave – though he keeps denying her belief that he is a slave. Kouhei’s grandpa, Ryuuhei (Mughito/Randy Tallman), allows her to live with them and work in his antique shop so long as she wears nekomimi (!)

The show then fluctuates between being rather dark and rather silly and cutesy. The dark aspects follow the attempts by various vampires to get Hazuki back to the castle. The silliness often surrounds the relationship between Hazuki and Kouhei which ranges from annoyance and bickering to true friendship with hints of a romantic direction later. We meet other members of Kouhei’s family and discover that the whole clan are great psychics, except for him.

One of the reasons the show really worked was characterisation. Hazuki could have been nothing but a brat but the show develops her character well, as it does with most of the primaries. Some of the story aspects are under explored – such as the fact that Kouhei’s mother vanished (he has been told she died) and it had something to do with vampires – indeed her spirit guardian, Akuda, was somehow involved with Hazuki’s mother and the guardian is reassigned to Hazuki by grandpa (and changes form from a standard cat to a cat creature named Haiji (Vanilla Yamazaki/Luci Christian)). This seemed important and yet was just left hanging as a plot point. There was also the moment when we were led to believe two main characters had died, and then they returned later. The principle I could accept but, as the audience, I wanted to know how they escaped their certain deaths – this was never answered.

The lore is varied. (Incidentally, we get a Christopher Lee looking vampire when we get a slideshow of images during a discussion of vampire lore on the show.) Vampires have a power based hierarchy with born vampires at the top and made vampires – known as ludo – below. The main ludo we meet is Elfriede (Yumi Kakuzu/Stephanie Young) tasked to bring Hazuki back but freed from servitude through Kouhei’s blood and, eventually, the family’s ally. She was, as a mortal, the daughter of a pure blood vampire – Count Kinkell (Takashi Matsuyama/Troy Baker) – proving that vampires can reproduce sexually though there is no indication that she was dhampier.

All the vampires have different powers. Elfriede can summon creatures and monsters. Kinkell can manipulate light, allowing him to take on other forms and also daywalk by bending light around himself. One vampire can drain the power from another, if they are strong enough to best them, and Hazuki has a power most would want – one of the reasons she was locked away by her father was to prevent other vampires discovering it and trying to steal it, thus being able to challenge him. Vampires can be destroyed by a stake through the heart or by sunlight.

There are some genuinely funny lines in the show – the build up to, followed by the cry of “This cat has no rectum”, and the reaction to such a pronouncement, was rather amusing; to me anyway. I have to mention the last episode (26). This has nothing to do with the show and its story – though it features the main characters, and the house afloat in the ocean. Its serious weirdness can be summed up with the image of grandpa in a tutu fitted bathing suit resplendent (or just disturbing) with its swan neck.

Cute and dark – nasty and silly, they all clash in this strange, strange show – and the clash works. 6.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.