Honourable Mention: The Phantom Eye

The Phantom Eye was a special made for AMC in 1999 and was part of their Halloween run, I understand. It was, all told, a clever little piece directed by Gwyneth Gibby and starring the legendary Roger Corman as Dr Gorman.

The story went a little like this, two interns at AMC, Catherine (Sarah Aldrich) and Joey (David Sean Robinson), are sent down to the horror archive to help Dr Gorman. He has to host the AMC horror special and is meant to be showing a film called the Phantom Eye at midnight. He sends them off into the archives to find the film.

three for the price of one

The two split up and start searching for the film but get transported into actual movies (remakes of horror films made for the special). Gorman informs them that they must survive to escape the movies they are in and move from movie to movie to find the Phantom Eye. Joey is first of all transported into a movie designed to look like a Hammer Dracula. Indeed, at first he meets three brides (Lisa Boyle, Bobbie Chandler & Dina Cox) – although Horror of Dracula, clearly the film being aped, did not feature three brides.

Francois Giorday as Dracula

When Dracula (Francois Giorday) rescues him from the brides he tries to place ‘Harker’ – as he refers to Joey – into a trance with some eye mojo and force him to name the vampire as master and offer him his blood. Joey keeps breaking out of trance, wonders why Dracula is English and then realises that he is carrying a cross, with which he defeats Dracula and escapes that particular movie. The other genre interest references occur later on when Horror at Party Beach and the Thing from Another World are given name-checks.

The imdb page is here.

High Stakes – review

Director: Peter Ferris

Release date: 2008

Contains spoilers

This was a British flick that was on the radar quite some time ago. It then fell off the radar (its homepage is dead now) and remained forgotten until I stumbled across it on YouTube. I have dutifully scrimped together screenshots from the web, watched its (not too high res) flv and can kind of see why it fell off the radar…. Sort of…

You see, whilst it isn’t the best film in the world it is better than many with DVD releases and it had a very interesting idea at its core. Perhaps it doesn’t pull it all off quite as well as it might of, but it had some fair effects and actually some characterisation.

Lydia bullied

It begins with a priest, Reverend Clegg (Jason Excell), handing out leaflets for a local blood drive. Meanwhile a car approaches the Welsh seaside town (in which the film is set) and a girl, Lydia (Charlie Bird), walks home from the shops. Let us follow Lydia first. She caries her shopping but when she walks down an alley a gang of kids confront her – clearly she is often the target of these bullies. On this occasion Reverend Clegg, returning to his church, intervenes. He knows Lydia as she has dance classes at the church.

She gets to her street as night fall and hears a noise. A young boy is crying. She finds him sat between two cars and he seems very distressed. He has blood on his hands. She immediately takes him home (invites him in) and leaves him with her father as she goes to get a first aid kit. The boy pulls out a knife. When she returns to the living room he is feeding on her father. She runs and eventually gets to the church. She seems to be haunted or followed, hearing a terible voice when Clegg is out of the room, and she is hysterical.

missed the heart

The car contained Guy (Jeff Higgins) and Eric (Daz Kaye) a couple of card players going to a local gambling den. Guy takes £10,000 in the first game and the owner suggests that a player coming called Cellano (Andreas Coshia) might provide a suitable match. Cellano arrives with an entourage and the den is cleared except for Guy and Eric. Guy is winning and, when Cellano accuses him of cheating, decides to leave. Unfortunately Cellano and his entourage are vampires and attack. Guy gets away as the injured Eric manages to pin Cellano by his cane – just missing his heart. The vampires chase Guy who takes shelter in Clegg’s church.

vampire kids under seige

The vampires have a fear of holy items and it is intimated that touching hallowed ground will kill them. They establish (by throwing one of their number onto it) that the churchyard is not hallowed but cannot enter the church. Clegg, however, when outside is attacked by Cellano’s Lieutenant, Spooner (Caroline Lees). He is recovered and dragged in by the kids in the church. Why there so late? This is the clever bit… they are vampires too.

Jeff Higgins as Guy

The church is a fake, a hiding place for them. Clegg has been their eyes, their grocer (the blood drives) and has restored their souls by turning them on to God. For this reason they can stand holy items when normal vampires can’t. So Guy and Lydia are stuck with vampires – whose names might have been indistinct but did display developed characters. Clegg turns and is consumed by the bloodlust – a rabid state new vampires go through.

looking for Lydia

Another interesting lore change was that vampires fail as they become ancient because nothing should live that long. One of the vampires inside uses walking sticks (and Cellano limps and has a cane) the child vampire has lost his mind, hence sneaking out of the church and killing people. So, of course, he can get in the church as he lives there and Lydia is still on his radar. Cellano is just waiting for an invitation.

The acting wasn’t brilliant, some worked ok but other performances seemed a tad am-dram. The story had holes (the idea of private, local blood drives is ropey – until the UK Blood Service is privatised, at any rate) and leaps of faith – finding God makes a vampire immune to religious artefacts. All in all I didn’t mind the film but it could have been sharpened up. The characters were developed but could have been explored more. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

The Close encounter of the vampire – review

Director: Yuen Woo-Ping

Release date: 1986

Contains spoilers

This was a kyonsi movie, though one feels that the vampire in it actually deserved the moniker of stiff corpse more than many – as we’ll see. It is set in Huan Wanling, a place where corpses are preserved to prevent them from rotting. However this means that an exorcism has to be performed every 50 years to prevent them rising as vampires.

broken pipe, fighting kids

The film begins with said ritual as a Taoist attempts to preserve safety for another 50 years. Something, however, isn’t quite right. He muddles through and it is assumed all has gone as planned. After he and the townsfolk leave a stick of incense splits. Elsewhere we meet a group of kids. Rather than concentrate on the Taoist and his pupils the film concentrates on an actor and his pupils; three young boys, a young girl and a teen girl. The kids, it appears, are orphans. In this scene two of the boys fight and the master’s pipe is broken.

ass kicking time

Back at the cemetery a grave opens. The corpse rises and we see how much the limbs creak as they assume the kyonsi potion. It hops off disturbing a further grave of a child, who rises also. Over at the house a thief enters and is caught by the teen girl who kicks his ass until he runs away. A couple of bandits are divvying up loot when they find themselves kyonsi bait.

Ku-su and the taoist

The film then follows three paths. A Taoist student called Ku-su comes to town, sees the kyonsi footprints, confirms what they are by sticking a coin sword in them and causing them to smoke and tries to warn the town. His belief in the vampire is scorned by the Taoist master and the village chief and so he hunts it on his own.

The kids are also concentrated on, as well as their relationship with the master – who is a drunk and far from a great role model. Once they are sacked from the production in town (due to the child kyonsi) he casts them aside but time makes him realise how much he loves the kids. Of course, by then they are in all sorts of trouble.

child kyonsi

Finally there is the child kyonsi. Injured by Ku-su, it gravitates towards the kids (who think Ku-su, rather than the kyonsi is the ghost). Interestingly its entire being seems tied into the adult kyonsi, hopping around and attacking (abortively) when the adult does. I assumed this was because his awakening was caused by the adult vampire.

underwear on head

Lore wise it is all pretty standard. Black dog blood fails to do anything to the child kyonsi – though he is scared of dogs generally having been chased up a tree by one. On the other hand, a girl’s underwear placed over his head causes smoke to rise from the kyonsi and leaves his disorientated when removed.

fangs

The comedy elements were wacky, and the kids became a focal point, but it wasn’t that funny. The occasional kung-fu worked well but the overarching story of the master and the kids wasn’t a brilliant focal point. That said I have seen much worse kyonsi films.

4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Vamp or Not? Erza: Fear of a faceless God

This was a 2009 film directed by Hugo Fernandez and co-directed by Pablo V. Chirinos. From what I can gather it featured the music of a band called Erza and I found the following on the band/album (fear of a faceless god)/film’s MySpace page, which will explain why I looked at this as a ‘Vamp or Not?’

” ERZA: fear of a faceless god is the portrayal of the real life serial killing spree in long Island, New York, clouded in secrecy by New York authorities. An account of a serial killer whose gruesome acts have been sporadic over 30 years, and never made public. A secret murderous sadist with links to a possible serial killer network shadowed by the image of the Hungarian vampire serial killer Erzsabet Bathory. (Erzsabet is factually documented to being the serial killer with the highest victim count since the recording of known history)...

“The Story…

“Davin Cortez (Adam Henry Garcia) searches for the truth behind his father’s bizarre past, from New York’s unsuspecting Long Island community to a dark decrepit hospital in Hungary. He unveils a debauched world of perverse bliss and sexual terror as depicted in horrid videos found in his father’s submersed lair archives...

Annet Mahendru as Erza/Lisa

“Davin gathers the possibility that his father (Oscar Maldonado & Christopher Loggia) may have been a Long Island serial killer, with a trail of death never discovered or connected by anyone before. He feverishly consumes his life with the sole task of revealing the hidden aspects of his father’s life. He travels to Debrecen, Hungary where his father had associated with an institutionalized disturbed girl named Lisa (Annet Mahendru). The Hospital director Dr. Verenicoff (Mike Irizarry) allows and closely monitors Davin’s meetings and interviews with Lisa...

“Davin finds that the mystery of his father’s past is immersed behind the lips of this hard hearted young girl, a sociopath vampiric vixen nicknamed Erza. A web of manipulation ensues. She goats him into her psyche while simultaneously haunting his sensibilities with aspects of her wretched vice for blood and butchery. ........ ..”

Adam Henry Garcia as Davin

Now, if only the film had been that easy to follow! After an opening that sees a typed thing about ignoring *the voice* and acting normally as a voiceover suggests the opposite, we see Davin finding his father’s secret. Two months later we see him with his daughter (Emendy Rosario) at a park. He explains that he is going away but will be back in two weeks. He meets a man who claims he is a Roma and has a connection with Hungary. He offers to read his palm, uses a scalpel as a pointer and cuts Davin’s hand before he leaves. His only advice was to not go to Hungary.

a toy vampire

We get a brief vampire moment, as he waits for Dr. Verenicoff, when he spots a soft toy Dracula and says to himself “I vant to suck your blood.” This, in truth, wouldn’t have been enough to get an honourable mention. Through the film we get cut scenes to murders carried out by his father, carried out by Lisa/Erza and also scenes of his father auto-erotically self-harming as he masturbates to the scene of Lisa torturing a girl – an act the ultimately causes his accidental death.

wash in blood

Essentially it is torture-porn, inter-spliced with quotes from real world serial killers including Peter Kürten, the Vampire of Düsseldorf. As well as this we get a moment where Lisa/Erza claims she is getting younger – something Dr. Verenicoff agrees with despite telling Davin not to feed into her delusions. We also see her wash her face with blood. But these are throwaways and without the description I reproduced I doubt a Báthory connection would be made by the viewer.

a victim screams

The film itself is unpleasant, poorly shot and confused. In an attempt to be arty, narrative is lost and, ultimately, I was glad I found it on YouTube and hadn’t parted money for it. Is it vamp though? Via the film you’d have to say no, though the description offers more explanation and narrative than any moment within the film. Bathory automatically gets at least an honourable mention and so there is a small amount of genre interest but ultimately the actual film is not vamp.

The imdb page is here.

Diary of a Wimpy Vampire: Prince of Dorkness – review

Author: Tim Collins

Release date: 2011

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Transformed into a vampire at the awkward age of fifteen, Nigel Mullet will remain this age for ever, and must spend eternity struggling through adolescence.

In his latest hilarious diary, Nigel starts the new term as one of the most popular pupils in school, and he’s finally got a girlfriend after more than eighty years of being single. But his life soon unravels when a new pupil, Jason, joins his school…

When Jason steals his girlfriend, Nigel vows to get revenge. But the more he discovers about Jason the more confused he gets, Who exactly is this mysterious new classmate? And how can Nigel win his true love back?

The review: Another in the younger aimed series about Nigel Mullet and when I reviewed the first of this series I suggested that “If it has a failing it is in the fact that it fails to extend to a wider (age range of) audience in the way it might of.”

I don’t know exactly whether it is because we have got to know Nigel through the first book, or if it is because Collins has succeeded in achieving more of the demographic spread in this volume but it worked a lot better for me as an adult reader – whilst succeeding, I believe, in not leaving its target audience behind.

Nigel, in this, is still having problems; not least of all when his vampire powers desert him. This was actually neatly done as a piece of lore. Nigel gained his powers, in the previous volume, when he got with Chloe. When they split he loses them. However, it becomes apparent by the end of the book that the true reason he loses and gains his powers is down to faith in himself as a vampire. I found this to be almost a turn around on a vampire hunter and their faith in a cross motif.

Add into the plot mix a vampire who claims that Nigel’s father turned him, is integrated into the house as Nigel’s ‘grandfather’ and is a bit of a shirker and sponger (to say the least), as well as Jason (a big lad for his age, hirsute with a perchance for eating raw meat) and you have a well written romp.

Some of the observational aspects are excellent, Nigel’s realisation of how much a mortal girl might want transforming into a vampire (and the commitment that entails) was a thinly veiled commentary on the present vampire obsession.

All in all a great little sequel. 6.5 out of 10.

*The review first appeared on Amazon UK

Demontown 3 – review

Director: Randall Zisk

First aired: 2002

Contains spoilers

Demontown was a short lived TV series originally entitled Glory Days. Scandinavian DVD releases of the series are split into three feature length ‘films’, each made by stitching two episodes together. One of the episodes that make up this feature was an episode entitled “the Lost Girls” and has a vampire related storyline.

So, the first thing to note is that, from a vampire genre point of view, you can ignore the first half of this, which involves a serial killer coming to the town of Glory and a couple of the lead characters becoming targeted.

Sonya Salomaa as Rosalind

The second half starts with writer turned reporter Mike Dolan (Eddie Cahill) and local Sheriff Rudy Dunlop (Jay R. Ferguson) in a bar bemoaning their lots in life. Mike has writer’s block and fears he will never write a second novel, Rudy is not making it with the ladies. He spouts a silly chat-up line and Mike promises to help him after a trip to the toilet. Whilst Mike is gone a woman, Rosalind (Sonya Salomaa, the Collector, Blood Angels), approaches him and uses his line. Then she hisses and reveals fangs.

Meghan Ory as Jade

The next day the two men are in the diner with pathologist Ellie (Poppy Montgomery) and Rudy mentions the fangs – though they are seen, by Ellie, as an externalisation of his own hang ups. Elsewhere teens Sara (Amy Stewart) and Zane (Ben Crowley) are fishing. He kisses her and she slaps him. Just then Rosalind and her two cohorts Jade (Meghan Ory, Vampire High & Sanctuary season 2) and Charla (Che Dorval) turn up. Jade makes insinuating noises towards Zane, mentioning that she appreciates his young, virgin blood. Sara gets a catch and it turns out to be a dead body.

out of the coffin

This then is the main story, an exsanguinated murder victim and, whilst the girls are suspects, I can safely say they have nothing to do with the murder itself. I won’t go into the murder part of the episode, as I won’t spoil it and it is not vampire based (despite the method of murder). It is, however, identical to another murder elsewhere and it was that murder that inspired the three girls to take on their vampire personas. Zane goes to meet Jade and is followed by Sara. They get to the house the girls are staying in and find three coffins. They open one and it is empty. Then the other two open revealing fanged and weird eyed Rosalind and Charla, a similarly made-up Jade comes through the door.

the jig is up

Back at the police station the girls come clean. They are studying fear responses for a college paper and this entire thing was an experiment – until the associated murder spoilt the experiment. They still pulled the stunt with Zane to try and salvage something. They were inspired by the other murder and felt that “vampires are allegorical counterpoints to a societal fear of mortality.” So, not vampires, nor those who believe themselves to be vampires. However it is an interesting thought that the vampire might be so embedded in culture and the subconscious that it could be used for such an experiment.

fake fangs and contact lenses

The trouble with scoring this is that I have only watched the two episodes on this DVD and so I am not bought into the series as a whole. That said I only score the vampire aspect as part of the genre but this was, in reality, background fluff. The murder itself was sold (sort of) as a vampire murder but in the end was nothing of the sort. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Guest Bloging

There’s no blog post today as I am guest Blogging over at Rebeka Harrington’s blog.

The blog article is called There’s Little New Under the Sun and it is about just that… Okay you want a little more detail. I was asked to write a blog about the changing face of vampires and decided that, whilst the genre is wide, there really isn’t much that is new under the sun. That new trends in vampire lore are rarely completely original – someone seems to have done something similar before. Disagree? Have a read and then comment, it’s something I hope will be a good place for debates to begin.

My thanks to Bek for having me.

Diary of a Wimpy Vampire – review

Author: Tim Collins

First Published: 2010

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: “Chloe smiled at me in maths today, but this made my fangs come out so I couldn’t smile back. If only I could express my true feelings for her. I Might write a poem.”

Nigel Mullet is just your average, everyday vampire. Transformed at the awkward age of fifteen, he will remain this age forever, being forced to spend eternity coping with acne, a breaking voice, and ineptitude with girls.

In this, his brilliantly funny diary, Nigel chronicles his increasingly desperate attempts to be noticed by the love of his life, Chloe, the constant mortification caused by his vampire parents (it’s so embarrassing when they try and bite your friends), and how unfair everything feels when you’ve been undead for over eighty years and you’ve never had a girlfriend.

Forced to hang out with the Goths and emo kids in an effort to blend in, and constantly battling his confusing desire to sink his fangs into Chloe’s neck, will Nigel ever get his girl?

The Review: Aimed at a younger market this is almost like the vampire equivalent of the Diary of Adrian Mole but without the edge. The pubescent and societal wonders that Adrian Mole brought to the world (God, was it really 1982) seem lost within the vampiric archetype - or perhaps it is just that the years have caught up with me?

That is not to say that it isn’t worthwhile. Nigel may be a wimpy vampire whose powers have failed to emerge (no super strength, vampiric beauty, speed or, in fact, self-sufficient hunting skills) but he is a proper undead vampire who drinks blood. Less a sideward look at the world around us and more a squint at some of the vampire genre’s recent, more popularist, trends. In possibly the funniest moment in the book he contemplates the cons of stalking one’s mortal love and watching her sleep.

For the market it is aimed at it will prove a hit, the book is a breeze to read with its diary format and plenty of Dahl-a-like illustrations. If it has a failing it is in the fact that it fails to extend to a wider (age range of) audience in the way it might of.

5 out of 10.

* review, before ammendments, first published on Amazon UK

Night Crawlers – review

Director: Benjamin Wilbanks

Release date: 2009

Contains spoilers

Sometimes I sit and ponder exactly how I am going to review a film. Some films just blow you away and others, quite frankly, stink. However there are films that you watch and think it was a good film, but…

This is one such film. It is a good film in that it is perfectly watchable, it has some good fx and a good lead duo but, at its heart, there were aspects that didn’t quite gel for me partly plot and partly tonal.

The film starts with a voice-over from Malachi (Mathew Greer) as we see cops outside a house. A body on the floor and a ‘Vote Coop for mayor’ sign. The cops pick up a scroll and we see it has arcane writings on it, though they are befuddled by it. It is taken off to evidence storage. The voice over tells us all about strange things happening, out of sight, and the universe changing and taking shape in an uninteresting small town.

Mathew Greer as Malachi

As the credits roll (and we see the blind Malachi walking down a night-time road) the twange of a country guitar sounds and I appreciated the soundtrack that added a nice layer of American Gothic to the film mixed with a cheeky comedic refrain. Eventually Malachi reaches a bench in town and sits. We notice he carries a dragon headed cane and he seems to hear something way across town.

Amanda Harris as Macy

In a diner the waitress Macy (Amanda Harris) takes a slice of cake with a candle over to Rob (Lee Trull). At first he seems unaware that it is his birthday and then Macy suggests they need to talk. She asks him about getting a job but the only thing he can come up with is that Coop (Gabriel Horn) has asked him to distribute material for his mayoral campaign. Macy clearly dislikes Coop (and wears a badge for his opponent). At about that time a man, Delacroix (Joel S Greco), comes in looking out of place with his sharp suit.

Tina meets her end

Macy goes to serve him and Coop comes in. He is a young man with, we hear later, a criminal past, he is also Rob’s best friend. Coop dislikes Macy and when Rob mentions Coop's squeeze, Tina (Eryn Brook, SideFX), we cut to seeing her leading a man (unseen) into a bedroom. They vanish off scene and then she falls back and is eventually crawling towards camera, bleeding from the neck, until she is draged back and the door shuts. It cuts back to Coop and Rob, with Coop (almost prophetically but ultimately inaccurately) suggesting he won’t be seeing her anymore.

Rob and Delacroix

Coop gives Rob a lighter for his birthday present but Rob does not smoke. Easily solved, thinks Coop, he can start but Macy rips a cigarette out of Coop’s mouth and starts in on Rob about smoking. Whilst Coop slopes off to buy more cigarettes, Macy drops the bombshell that she is pregnant. They end up in the alley discussing the future. After she returns to the diner, Delacroix approaches Rob – and offers him a job. All he has to do is meet him in an abandoned barn later. Rob arranges to go with Coop and, as he wanders home and passes Malachi, the blind man suggests he ‘not do it’ – run away from his problems, that is.

Joel Ferrell as Neiman

They meet Delacroix, who wants them to pick up the deeds from an abandoned house. The house has been in his family for generations but he needs the deed to prove it. It is in a safe (for which he has the combination) and, as payment, they may keep the tens of thousands of dollars that are also in the safe. Now, this sounds fishy to the most casual observer but Rob and Coop clearly aren’t too bright and agree. The ‘deeds’ however are an esoteric scroll (as seen at the head of the film) and a vampire, Neiman (Joel Ferrell), is resident in the house. Worse still, once they make it out they’ll have forgotten the scroll…

Tina returns

Why the scroll? Well it and Macy (who is a chosen bloodline) are central to Delacroix’s plans but it is only at the end of the film that we find out why and it didn’t seem overly thought through in a plot sense. However we can go with the chosen one and a magic scroll as general genre tropes. The film would have been strengthened by a stronger underpinning story – or more explanatory narrative during the film. I for one wondered why Delacroix would have the combination for Neiman's safe. The biggest problem, however, was the direction the film wanted to go in.

a whole lot of vampires

Horror comedy is not easy but Benjamin Wilbanks’ seemed to find his way with the mixture of American Gothic and the black humour displayed between Rob and Coop. They are not the brightest pair and they are morally dubious but the actors work well together and the dark humour in their banter worked. However other moments of comedy only served to  distract. We had the plain weird – in the form of a deputy and, for instance, him making the sound of his siren with a loudhailer as his siren was broken or using his sleeve as a radio. We also get a scene where half the town have been turned and chase Macy and Rob – it is straight physical comedy lifted from Benny Hill. To me those moments worked less well (though I liked Rob’s last stand).

Delacroix vamps out

The relationship between various vampires (or vampire factions?) wasn’t too clear. We do discover that they fear the cross (including a tattoo cross), a stake through the heart kills, one bite turns, they can leap far/fly and sunlight kills. In an interesting moment the sun simply kills – rather than produces a fiery death; good for budget but also refreshingly understated. The vampire effects were, in the main, rather good for what I assume was a low budget and the blood had a nice visceral quality missing in many a flick. I wasn't too sure about Neiman's look, it was unclear why he should look so decayed when Delacroix wasn't and perhaps the makeup for this wasn't quite as strong.

Gabriel Horn as Coop

If I sound too critical it is because the film frustrated me as I feel that, had it been tightened up, it might have been a cracking movie. As it is the film is worth watching – primarily for Rob and Coop – floats above average but could have been much more. 5.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Talk like a Vampirate…

Avast me vampire hearties and scurvy bilge rats, ‘tis international Talk like a Pirate Day. In celebration I’ve followed the map, ten paces due north an’ dug up a treasure from Davey Jones’ Locker… or YouTube. So splice the mainbrace and prepare for Vampire Pirates of the Caribbean, with respec' to the seadog who done carved the movin' pictures below.

Jus’ remember, ye lubbers, tha’ normal programmin’ will resume at eight bells… Arrr

Kermit the Vampire

This was posted over on the wall of the Facebook Page of the Uranium Cafe and I just had to yoink and share. The inimitable Vincent Price on the Muppet Show with Kermit as a vampire!!!

The Vampires of Mars – review

Author: Gustave Le Rouge

Adaptation: Brian Stableford

First published: 1908/1909

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: For the unhappy exile from Earth, everything increased the horror of this apparition: the dirty yellow color of the membranous wings; the face, similar in every respect to that of a man, which expressed cunning and ferocity; the protruding blood-red lips; and, most of all, the blinking eyes, scarlet-rimmed like those of an albino, set in a bloodless face with a short, upturned snout like that of a bulldog.

Sandwiched between Arnould Galopin's Doctor Omega (1906) and Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars (1912), Gustave Le Rouge's masterpiece, Le Prisonnier de la Planète Mars (1908) and its sequel, La Guerre des Vampires (1909), are a Martian Odyssey in which young engineer Robert Darvel is dispatched to Mars by the psychic powers of Hindu Brahmins. On the Red Planet, Darvel runs afoul of hostile, bat-winged, blood-sucking natives, a once-powerful civilization now ruled by the Great Brain. The entity eventually sends Darvel back to Earth, unfortunately with some of the vampires. The second volume deals with the war of the vampires back on Earth.

Le Rouge's Mars is elaborately described, with its fauna, flora and various races of inhabitants, à la C. S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet (1938). Planetary romance blends with "cosmic horror" as the characters switch from swashbuckling he-men to helpless bundles of gibbering terror.

The review: The Vampires of Mars was an early merging of vampire lore into science fiction and this modern press is made up by two books by le Rouge. In the first we follow the misadventures of Robert Darvel who creates a device, for a Brahmin, which can collect and amplify the will of his priests and fakirs. His reward is betrayal and he is sent (by the power of the Brahmins’ psychic energy) to Mars.

The Mars we find is no dead planet but a planet teeming with flora and fauna and many of the creatures he meets are vampiric in nature. In fact he meets three creatures described as vampires. The first being a human cephalopod, which was land based unlike the earth octopi and squid. Robert realises that “this creature must be avid for new prey; it doubtless intends to catch me in its sticky embrace and drink my blood through the thousands of suckers at the extremities of its tentacles”

The actual way it hunts involves mesmerising its prey and Robert is only saved when the cephalopod is attacked by the second vampire species – bat like humanoids called, by the Martian natives whom Robert meets, Erloor. It is these creatures who are described in the blurb. These nocturnal creatures are the primary enemy of the first book. In the second book we come across invisible creatures that Robert sees through the aid of a crystal mask. He describes one of these as “an enormous, hideous head set between two off-white wings; no body except playing the role of hands, a clump of palps or suckers, which were writhing at its base like a group of serpents.”

It is these vampires that arrive on Earth when he manages to get home. The book, itself, is pretty much as described in the blurb in that it vacillates between high adventure and horror and is all the more fascinating because of it. In his afterword, Stableford points out some of the incongruities in the plotting but as the story is told from perspective (both of Darvel and some of his friends on earth) we know that the narrative can be flawed – indeed Darvel is less hero and more a rogue (reading between the lines of his narrative we can see that he is a virtual tyrant to the Martians he ‘liberates’ from the Erloor, until he becomes bored of playing God-King).

Of course, alien vampires are not to everyone’s taste, indeed many might argue their place in the genre but, if you are of a mind to except alien vampires and want some great pulp science fiction spiced with cosmic (at times Lovecraftian) horror, then this is for you. 7.5 out of 10.

Honourable Mention: Ang Panday

This was a Philippine fantasy movie from 2009, directed by Mac Alejandre, and was based on the Panday comics. Panday is Tagalog for blacksmith and the title character is Flavio (Ramon 'Bong' Revilla Jr.). The film sets up a world in which the evil Lizardo (Phillip Salvador) is set on taking over the world.

Flavio is one of his victims – his mother and father having been killed by Lizardo’s warriors when he was a child. He was brought up by his grandfather (Joonee Gamboa), the older man blinded by Lizardo’s venom. Flavio does not believe in the prophecy of a saviour for the people. He does, however, meet Maria (Iza Calzado), a beauty who is displaced from her village by Lizardo’s attacks.

Flavio, his sword, and Maria

Flavio finds a meteorite and forges a dagger – refusing to make a sword, despite the fact that the prophecy says that a sword made from a meteorite will kill Lizardo. However when the village is attacked the dagger grows into a sword. Flavio repels the attack but Maria is kidnapped – Lizardo then senses a power in her that he intends to harness by marrying her. As Maria has been taken Flavio is spurred into action.

aswang

The reason for the mention surrounds a village that Flavio and his companions, Emelita (Rhian Ramos) and Bugoy (Robert Villar), stay in. Their hosts, as it turns out, are aswang and the blacksmith and his friends soon find themselves attacked. Of course they defeat the vampires and the incident is just one small moment in the larger epic. However it makes it worthy of a mention.

The imdb page is here.

Murdoch Mysteries – Bloodlust – review

Director: Gail Harvey

First aired: 2011

Contains spoilers

In my quest for all things vampire I was informed, a little while ago, that a series called the Murdoch Mysteries was to air a vampire episode.

Now, to be fair, I had never seen the show and so didn’t know what to expect. I tuned in to UK channel alibi and, a little while down the line, we have the review. But it is caveated with the fact that this is the only episode of this series I have watched, I was unclear about regular character dynamics or even the setting – the accents befuddled me until, part way through, I realised it was set in Canada. I was also befuddled by the approximation of forensic techniques, given this was clearly set in the Victorian era, but I have been led to understand that this is a trade mark of the show.

run for her life

The show starts with a girl, Amy, running through the woods, she is covered with scratches and it seems as though she is being pursued. When she gets to a pond she stops and collapses face into the water. We see a man (Kyle Mac, Valemont) reflected behind her, though his features are indistinct. In the morning the girl is found and the police are called. She was a student at the Tepes school for girls (and we’ll get to that in a bit). Amy has a boot print on her back, indicating she was drowned.

puncture wounds

Detective Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) questions some of the girls but they reveal very little. He also finds Amy’s diary, which reveals that Amy had an admirer. Dr Julia Ogden (Helene Joy) has done an autopsy on the girl and her blood – what’s left of it as she was about three pints short – contained alcohol and opiates and she has two punctures on her neck.

Brittany Brostow as Laura

The uniformed copper called George (Jonny Harris) suggests that it is a vampire; a vile creature, a corpse which rises from the grave and drinks the blood of the living. This is in the new novel by Bram Stoker, ie Dracula. He claims that the vampire has a peculiar power over women. Murdoch is approached by pupil Arlene (Holly Deveaux), who suggests that Laura (Brittany Bristow) was also seeing the man. She and another girl have punctures on their throats and speak of meeting the vampire in the Tepes family mausoleum.

the 'vampire'

Of course, it isn’t a vampire but someone pretending. However that doesn’t stop the press running with a vampire story and nor does it stop George concocting a theory concerning the Tepes family, tying his theory into Vlad Ţepeş. Now, we know that we cannot get away from the idea that Stoker based Dracula on Ţepeş, despite the evidence that it isn’t the case. What irked me with this was, of course, that two and two of that theory had not been calculated to equal five until chronologically much later than the date of this story, indeed when the series was set there was little to no chance that such a conclusion would be drawn.

Yannick Bisson as Murdoch

That aside, it was ok as a murder mystery, with some nice twists and turns but I’m not sure about the series itself, it just wasn't my cup of tea. However, as always, these are marked as standalone vampire episodes and it was possible to watch with no prior series knowledge. No Sherlock Holmes but 5.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.