Taliesin Meets… …Mark Devendorf and Mauricio Chernovetzky

T_ttlg: Hi Mark and Mauricio, welcome to Taliesin Meets the Vampires.

What inspired you to look to making a vampire movie and more specifically one based on Carmilla?

MC: When we first decided to team up and make our debut feature, we didn’t set out to make a vampire film, we just wanted to make a compelling film. But "Carmilla" really captivated us. And when we saw the movies based off of it (Vampiros Lesbos), we realized the aspects that most interested us about the novella had never been put on screen: the teenage romantic obsession with death, the atmosphere, the parasitic relationship between the two girls.

MD: When we started working on the script, we were told several times, “don’t do vampire films, no one sees vampire films.” In fact, someone at HBO said this to us, a couple of years before True Blood came out.

T_ttlg: Where you a fan of the LeFanu story before embarking on this project?

Mark Devendorf

MD: I’m a bit of an antiquarian, so I enjoy reading bygone authors, like Arthur Machen, M.R. James, and Sheridan Le Fanu. Mauricio and I had been looking for a project to do together. We’d pass short stories back and forth, to see if there was mutual interest. We couldn’t find the right project until I read “Carmilla.” I passed it to Mauricio, who was intrigued as well. That started the conversation that led to the research, the script, raising the money, and ultimately the film.

T_ttlg: When was the decision made to base this in a contemporary setting rather than the period setting of the story?

MD: We set it in 1989 for a few reasons. 1. It feels a little pre-modern, but is still hovering at the edges of everyone’s memories. 2. That was when we were teenagers. 3. We thought journeying behind the Iron Curtain would make the film more compelling.

Mauricio Chernovetzky

MC: Setting it behind the Iron Curtain gave us a chance to explore the atmosphere of an authoritarian world on the brink of collapse. But we also wanted to capture a story that had a timeless quality to it. Our main location, the mysterious Schlossberger Castle provided that environment. Its decaying gothic atmosphere helped us tell the story of "Carmilla" as a recurring phenomenon, a cyclical myth playing itself out at that specific moment in time.

T_ttlg: I understand you researched the background and found information that Carmilla was based on a reported event. Could you tell us about that?

MD: "Carmilla" was based on a couple of recorded incidents that took places in the 18th and 19th Century (click here and here). Taking this as starting point, we made remarkable discovery: "Vampirism" is real!

MC: Let us clarify, "vampires," are not real, but the phenomena of "vampirism," is real

suicide clusters

T_ttlg: Your research tied suicide with vampirism… more specifically mass suicides. Could you tell us more about that?

MC: Yes, what Mark and I realized was that Vampirism not only occurred in the past, but it still happening today. Sociologists and psychologists have simply given it a more scientific name: "Suicide Clusters."

MD: These cases all follow a similar pattern: In a small community or town, one person dies or commits suicide. Soon another person, usually a friend or relative is haunted by the dead person until they fall ill or kill themselves. Soon, then the "infection" spreads until dozens are dead. Barring communicable diseases, the only explanation pre-modern villagers had was the supernatural notion they called "Vampirism."

MC: Modern psychology attempted to wipe these supernatural explanations away, supplanting them with new names and new theories. Yet, this same exact phenomenon is still occurring today. In Wales, a few years back one teenager killed herself, then 18 followed, often hanging themselves from the same tree as the original girl. (click here)

MD: And just recently, Australia has been experiencing an inexplicable wave of suicides. (click here)

MC: What's really remarkable is that psychologist still can't really explain the cause of suicide clusters, so it in a way, they've just changed the name, but have done little to discover the root problem. The mystery remains.

film still

MD: When we realized no one else put this together, it gave us another reason to make the film.

T_ttlg: So in your film the vampire tries to push the victim towards suicide. Do they prey on their victims in any other way?

MC: Carmilla turns out to be a very sophisticated seductress. She will resort to an all out psychological warfare to get Lara to join her. And this is what STYRIA is ultimately about; it depicts the nightmare that threatens to consume Lara Hill.

T_ttlg: I know that Mark has shot documentaries in the past, are there any plans to make a documentary about what you found in your research at any point?

MD: Both of us have a background in documentary. Part of me is really tempted to explore this subject further, perhaps in a documentary. But I want to finish Styria first.

inside the castle

T_ttlg: The castle the film used as the primary location looks amazing, can you tell us about the castle and how you came to find it?

MD: We searched as much as we could remotely, looking at different castles online and in books. Then we traveled to Poland, Austria, and Hungary. In Hungary, we spent a long weekend just driving to 10 different castles. Most of the places we visited were either in too good of shape, or completely in ruins. Then we saw Schlossberger Castle in the small town of Tura, about 45 minutes outside of Budapest and we were blown away! It was this amazing piece of crumbling architecture, which is exactly what we wanted. The place was perfect!

T_ttlg: It sounded very much as though the castle is as much a character as the people in the film.

MC: When you spend time in this castle, you get the sense that the architect had gone mad. There are these spiraling stone stairs that lead into the castle’s basement, which is laid out like a labyrinth. There is so much mystery to the place, it’s palpable.

T_ttlg: I’m a big fan of Stephen Rae, how was he to work with?

Stephen Rae

MD: Stephen Rea had all the qualities we wanted for Lara’s father. He's a great actor, with a strong on screen presence. He was very particular about his character’s outfits. He also wanted all of his dialogue and actions to feel real. This gives the film a great deal of naturalism. Also, his being so well regarded amongst actors meant that all the other actors wanted to step up their game.

MC: Yes, Stephen helped raise the stakes for everyone else. I think his presence inspired the rest of the cast. He was a great asset for the film. Since at it's core Styria tells the of the intense and fractured relationship between two teenage girls, the soul of the film rests on Eleanor Tomlinson and Julia Pietrucha, who both gave absolutely wonderful performances.

T_ttlg: Are there any on-set anecdotes you’d wish to share with us?

MD: On set was a controlled kind of chaos, with us trying to get as much quality out of the little money we had everyday. It was really an international set, we had a Hungarian, Polish, American & Mexican crew with an Irish, English, Hungarian & Polish cast. We heard horror stories of runaway budgets, but our crew worked very hard in cold, sleet, and snow.

Julia Pietrucha

MC: Just as we were securing our main locations, we found out that Angelina Jolie's film crew wanted to shoot in our castle. This pushed our start date back a week, which was a concern because winter was fast approaching. And with two more days left to shoot, six inches of snow fell in one day. We did our best to dig out sets and shoot as much as we could, but for the car accident scene that introduces Carmilla, we had to wait a year, and then shoot it in Poland.

MD: The locals, many of whom were extras were an amazing group. Everyone was very friendly. On our one day off a week, when we got breakfast & coffee from the town market, one man stumbled up to us, drunk, at 9am, demanding to be in the film, or he would kill himself. We were a little worried at first, but we were told that he'd been threatening to kill himself everyday for the past 40 years.

Eleanor Tomlinson

T_ttlg: You are currently running a kickstarter pledge to finish the film, could you tell us a little about that, what the money would go towards and what they’d get in return?

MC: The film is locked, but we are doing a kickstarter so that we can finish a few things, namely, sound design, score, vfx, color correction and music rights.

MD: Yes. Music rights are very expensive! We feel strongly about connecting the 80s goth sound to the gothic storyline, so hopefully we can keep that vision alive.

MC: All of the pledge categories and gifts are listed on our kickstarter page. We hope your readers will watch our video (which talks more about our research), the official movie trailer and then decide to be part of STYRIA.

T_ttlg: Thanks for your time.

Tabi Po Volume 2 – review

Author/artist: Mervin Malonzo

English Adaptation: Adam David

First Published: 2012

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: A young man wakes inside the hollow of a tree in the middle of a forest with no memory of who he is or where he's from or even how to speak. The only things he knows are the image of the young woman he sees every time he closes his eyes, and the maddeningly painful hunger that grows inside his navel-less belly—a hunger for flesh... and blood.

And as this hunger overwhelms the young man, two personages walk in out of the wilderness and into the young man's life bearing vital knowledge about the hunger he's feeling, leading him to take the first few steps towards understanding his origin...

The Review: I adored the First Volume of Tabi Po. The artwork alone made it a must have work and the fact that it was a piece of Philippine literature about aswang made it so very desirable.

detail

This is the second volume and, like the first, I have the kindle edition. It has to be said that, again, the beauty of the art demands that it is viewed in colour (e-ink is great for novels but for this just doesn’t cut it).

Story wise we begin were we left off, following the birth of Elias (who is unnamed in the timeframe this volume is set in) and his first tentative steps into the world, the meeting of others of his kind, the discovery that the flesh and blood of bovines is not palatable but that of a human is a revelation in itself. If I had to complain it is the same complaint as I had for volume 1: I wanted more. Patience, they say, is a virtue and I will have to patiently wait for volume 3.

Mervin Malonzo’s art, again, is beautiful the beauty belying the violence that bursts from the page and these are fast becoming some of my favourite graphic pieces. 8 out of 10.

Guest Blog: Will Blesch

Hello fellow vampire fans!

First off, I want to say thank you to Taliesin for allowing me to address you all on his blog. Taliesin, you have my thanks.

Secondly, I'd like to introduce myself and the new independent vampire film project I'm working on. My name is Will Blesch, and I am an American/Israeli film producer, director, and writer.

Big deal! You say.

But, wait a second. Let me explain why this is significant?

There has never been an English language (or any language) vampire feature film made in Israel. Moreover, there has never been one that was designed specifically for an international audience.

We aim to change that.

Now, you may or may not care about Israel... but I am pretty sure you care about vampires. And one thing many people believe is that there are few new twists to the vampire mythos. There's not a lot of stuff that's truly innovative. Seriously, you've got the basics covered in practically every vampire novel or film since Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Vampires all drink blood, can't stand mirrors, garlic, crosses, holy water, and they can be killed by having their heads chopped off, having a wooden stake driven into their hearts or by chaining them outside as the sun rises.

Come on. There has to be more. Right? What if ALL the tales about vampires were simply... wrong? What if everything you thought you knew about them was just one way of looking at things? What if there were other tales? What if the true origins of vampires was really, and truly, more horrifying than you ever imagined?

We're planning on creating something through "Requiem for the Night" that takes on the "What if" questions asked above and we plan on answering them.

Now, we're raising some initial funds through Indiegogo.com, a great crowdfunding website. (If you don't know what crowdfunding is, you can check the term here)

I could go into a lot of depth on the wherefore and the why in this blog posting, but I won't bore you. Instead, I'll point you to our campaign home where you can learn more about the project and why we believe you should help us out... either through donating to the campaign... or simply by spreading its link around.

You can check out our efforts here.

Before you do though, there is some cool stuff that you should know. And, you are getting some of this news first. We've just added some new videos to our campaign, but there's more coming... and I'm sharing some news with you here that hasn't hit the campaign website yet.

So what's that news?

We have letters of interest from some prominent actors such as Ami Weinberg (Steven Spielberg’s “Munich”), Alon Dahan (“A Matter of Size”, and “The Syrian Bride”), Shlomit Mandel (German director, Maria Schrader's "Liebesleben") and Yinon Sapir (Adam Sandler’s “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan" ).

In terms of myself and my credentials, I am currently directing another documentary feature film produced by one of Israel's top producers: Mr. Ilan Moskovitch (worked with famous Israeli director, Amos Gitai on over 22 well-known films including Free-Zone with Natalie Portman and more).

Now, we're in talks with some other, higher profile actors than even these fine actors listed above. And, we're moving forward with product placement and a lot of other things that people who aren't filmmakers probably don't really care about but that are essential to getting fans the films they crave.

Bottom line is that we're on the hunt for fans like you. We want your blood...so to speak. Or... your hard-earned money and your support. We need it and we're asking for it. We want you to be a part of making history!

Come join us in creating a new, exciting, and never before done take on the vampire mythos. And remember, it's very easy to get in touch. We don't bite (hard). You can E-mail us at any time here: OverseerOfMinions AT gmail DOT com.

Oh! And, join our Facebook Page here.

Let’s give the vampire genre a kick in the ass and show the world that our blood suckers come from a place viewers have never been before.

One last thing before I go…check out Shlomit Mandel's message to fans regarding "Requiem for the Night" here.

-Will Blesch

Honourable Mention: Folklore

Folklore is a 2012 film written and directed by Justin Calen Chenn and had a simple, yet effective premise. The Quartz Agency is a multi-national Government Agency that tracks and monitors the creatures of folklore (be they supernatural, extra-terrestrial or science adapted) that live on earth.

The primary purpose of the Agency is to ensure that they are assimilating into human culture and to offer help as necessary. The creatures must submit to interview every two years and the film follows the relatively new Agent, Collins Jahn (Brad Roller), as he interviews a series of folklore creatures ‘ably’ assisted by co-worker Merle Eppis (Laura Waddell).

Subjects for the day include alien twins Risa Elizabeth Ipsitt (Sherill Turner) and Collees Genoviva Ipsitt (Rachel Rath), who used to be part of one creature and are now trying individuality, Yofino Gunlauggson (Garrett Liggett) an Icelandic troll and Eatha Haemm (Maria Olsen) a unicorn. That’s right… a unicorn and this shows the strength of the film. Clearly filmed on a budget the folklore creatures all look like you or I (to an extent at least) with minimal makeup effects on some to give us an impression of their otherness. However the film concentrated on script and characterisation in order that it might work and work it does.

Classification: vampire

Our interest, however, is round MaryLane Heth (Ruth Connell) the vampire he sees that day. She is a Scottish vampire who left her farm having been given the sucker (never say vampire) curse by a midget sucker and has come to New York as there is rumour of a cure in Brooklyn. She is a dominatrix, in return for blood, and a self-defence instructor – using the art of the Slap.

fangs on show

Lore we pick up on include the facts that she can retract her fangs, her eyes are light sensitive and she is telepathic. She dislikes the interviewers calling Merle ugly and addressing Collins as wiener-boy. She also introduces him to the Slap. At the coda of the film we discover that she eventually did discover a herbal cure.

Folklore was one of those surprising films that was genuinely funny due to its weird and wonderful characterisations and is worth catching. The vampiric involvement is a fleeting visitation only, however. The imdb page is here and the film’s homepage is here.

Sudden Death Overtime – review

Author: Steve Vernon

First published: 2012

Contains spoiler:

The blurb: Meet Sprague Deacon - one of the toughest old-time hockey players who ever skated upon a rink of hand-poured ice. Sprague was born and raised and he expects to die here on the Northern Labrador coast. What he did not expect was a tour bus full of vampires - none of whom glitter in the least bit - to pull into his town and begin lowering the population level - one corpse at a time. Sprague and his three best friends - an over-the-hill never-say quit bush league hockey team from Northern Labrador go toe-to-tooth with a tour bus full of vampires in an immortal-stakes showdown of street hockey? For the answer - throw Paul Newman's Slapshot into a blender with Steven Niles’ 30 Days of Night and hit frappe!

The review: Hockey and vampires… rather rare, though not totally unheard of as the sport features at the head of the film the Deaths of Ian Stone. I only, however, know a little of the game and worried that, perhaps, my lack of knowledge might be a disadvantage with this novella... It wasn’t.

Indeed, whilst the hockey makes a nice little background and is a fundamental part of the lives of some of the main characters it was just that, a background to a short, blackly funny novella.

A bus appears in a small Labrador town, a bus that transports vampires. There is a degree of ‘Salem’s Lot as the vampires seem to issue a siren’s song of seduction for the townsfolk they initially take, though the action heats up as they take out the local church and then Sprague (the primary character) and his buddies see the vampires for what they are. What was refreshing was there was very little confusion… the old timers see their first vampire, its open maw giving the game away as “its jaw dislocated and its gums seemed to peel back and its teeth grew icicle-long, winter-sharp and hungry…” and they know immediately what to do… and, of course, they would. In a world where vampires are on every TV and movie screen with regularity the basic rules would be known.

Not all the lore is standard. The tour bus itself seems to be sentient and vampiric. Whilst it is not affected by sunlight, it is affected by garlic (which will melt the flesh of a vampire or the paint of the bus). The vampires are susceptible to a stake through the heart also and holy water. Speaking of which, the actual religion is irrelevant so long as it is vaguely a religion and a minister thereof does the blessing – something Vernon uses to irreverent comic effect.

For, essentially this is a comedy (though a black one as I suggested earlier) and it is driven by some great characters, caricatured enough that this would translate well, I feel, to the screen. 7 out of 10.

The Moth Diaries – review

Director: Mary Harron

Release date: 2011

Contains spoilers

Whilst it might not be everyone’s cup of tea, I really rather enjoyed the novel the Moth Diaries and looked forward to the film. I did worry, however, as to whom such a film might appeal.

Despite the involvement of vampires and teenage girls this was no tween book or story. The story, however, was more cerebral than gory… an exploration of cracked psyche and (possible) delusion. A tough nut to crack as a screenplay and even an tougher one when it came to target audience.

Sarah Bolger as Rebecca

Complaints circulated quickly. Book fans complaining that the unknown narrator now had a name, Rebecca (Sarah Bolger) – to which I suggest you get over yourselves… with a few notable exceptions the movie form names the characters and it is no big deal. Also from horror fans, and vampire genre fans, as there is little horror. This is more coming of age with a psychosexual viewpoint and works perfectly well like that.

Rebecca and Lucie

Sixteen years old Rebecca is returning to Brangwyn School, an all-girl boarding school that she has attended since she was fourteen. She had been placed in the school by her mother (Anne Day-Jones) after her poet father (Julian Casey) committed suicide. Her world is now focused on her best friend Lucie (Sarah Gadon) and this year they have adjoining rooms. As they arrive the excitement is around the fact that they now have a male teacher, Mr Davies (Scott Speedman, Underworld & Underworld Evolution)

Lily Cole as Ernessa

Early on, the Head Teacher Miss Rood (Judy Parfitt) introduces new pupil Ernessa Bloch (Lily Cole, Snow White and the Huntsman), an intense looking young lady, and asks Rebecca if she would show her around – something that does not happen. We also notice tensions, a little later, when Rebecca speaks to Lucie and Lucie suggests she is going to see mutual friend Dora (Melissa Farman). Rebecca whines that it is the first day back and they should spend it together and we see an uncomfortable look pass over Lucie’s face. Ernessa notices it too and asks Lucie, once Rebecca has gone to class, to show her around.

could this show Ernessa?

An animosity is quickly built by Rebecca towards Ernessa. She insinuates that the girl must have an eating disorder (as she never sees her eat) and resents the time she spends with Lucie (helping Lucie with German). The resentment is drawn into something otherworldly as Mr Davies is teaching Gothic literature and they are studying Carmilla. She becomes convinced that Ernessa is a vampire, her nocturnal walks not helping, and it does seem as we look through Rebecca’s eyes that she disposses of many of Lucie and Rebecca’s friends – for instance encouraging friend Charlie (Valerie Tian, Jennifer’s Body & The Boy Who Cried Werewolf) to act in a way that gets her expelled.

Ernessa walks the guttering

When it comes to Lucie, Rebecca is convinced that it is Lucie’s fault for being weak but also that Ernessa is fixating on her in a way mirroring the text of Carmilla, “The vampire is prone to be fascinated with an engrossing vehemence, resembling the passion of love, by particular persons. In pursuit of these it will exercise inexhaustible patience and stratagem, for access to a particular object may be obstructed in a hundred ways. It will never desist until it has satiated its passion, and drained the very life of its coveted victim. But it will, in these cases, husband and protract its murderous enjoyment with the refinement of an epicure, and heighten it by the gradual approaches of an artful courtship. In these cases it seems to yearn for something like sympathy and consent. In ordinary ones it goes direct to its object, overpowers with violence, and strangles and exhausts often at a single feast.” However, we are never sure of whether Ernessa does all that Rebecca 'sees'. When with Rebecca, Dora sees Ernessa pass through glass but then denies it immediately, stretching for a rational explanation.

floating

Indeed there is a reading of the film in which it is Rebecca who is actually the vampire, but we will look at the lore as laid before us. Rebecca claims that Ernessa’s room has a sickly sweet smell, she sees her floating with Lucy and become a flock of moths. She also sees moths within Ernessa’s room and, we note, she associates moths (specifically a lunar moth) with her father. Her father committed suicide, as did Ernessa in the early 20th century when the school was a hotel. She connects suicide with a line that “a person may become a vampire if he dies unseen.” Dying unseen was a traditional route to becoming a vampire, as was suicide, and Rebecca believes Ernessa is intent on driving her towards suicide.

blood shower

As for the type of vampire, it seems unconnected with blood. We do see Rebecca have a nose bleed and Ernessa seems to lick some of that blood from her finger and we also see Rebecca have a rather messy period. However the main association of blood is with suicide (in flashbacks of both Ernessa’s and Rebecca’s father's suicides) and we get a scene with Ernessa being showered with blood but it is clearly in Rebecca’s mind – a (day)dream, supernatural communication or psychotic vision we can’t say. At one point we see Ernessa and Lucy together and it could be a feed, but it could also have been sex that Rebecca looked in upon. Lucie wastes away, to be sure, and we see flowers fade quickly. I would say there was as much chance that Ernessa (or even Rebecca) was an energy vampire as a standard one. There is also some evidence that Ernessa might be spectral but I won’t go further into that as it is tied with a spoiler.

feeding or sex?

The film was well enough acted, but the show was stolen by Lily Cole who was marvellously eerie. I felt the whole Mr Davies aspect was a waste of celluloid, other than introducing Rebecca to Carmilla. In the book his role is part of a secondary storyline but rather sinister, in this it felt clumsy. That said I really rather enjoyed this and will buck against the trend giving it 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Scent and Shadow – review

Author: Mercy Loomis

First published: 2011

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: No soulmates. No love triangles. No sparkles.

Madison, WI. 1999. When vampire Gabriel Chapel decides to take on a fledgling, he knows not just anyone will do. Newly-turned vampires kill at least one person a night for the first decade or so--a fate most humans could never adjust to.

For college student Amanda Bairns, nothing is more important than finally taking control of her life. But when Gabriel forces her to drink his blood, Amanda is pulled deeper and deeper into a supernatural underworld she never knew existed, where mages have their fingers in local government, shapeshifting faeries control infrastructure, and aether-rich ley lines attract a host of creatures welcome and unwelcome.

With the vampire's blood coaxing her to become a murderer, Amanda has four weeks to discover which means more: her freedom and humanity, or the power Gabriel offers. But neither Gabriel nor Amanda realize Amanda is a pawn in a much bigger contest--one which could have lethal consequences not only for the two of them, but for the entire city.

The Review: Wow… looking at the cover you’d mistake this for a paranormal romance but nothing could be further from the truth. Mercy Loomis absolutely eschews romance in this book – to quote the vampire Gabriel, when asked if he feels love, “No. Nor compassion or empathy. I sacrificed those emotions millennia ago.”

Instead Loomis has created a sexual, erotic creature who is most definitely a sociopath. Indeed she wraps a veneer of evil around him but with a savvy, snappy character that is inhuman and yet captures the reader as a good character should and then she tops it off with a heady dose of very well written erotica. Indeed the writing throughout is wonderful and captivating illustrating some of the best of what e-publishing can offer.

There are essentially two games of cat and mouse going on, that between Gabriel and Amanda and a larger game that Loomis reveals in the background until it comes crashing into the main plot, exploding across the prose.

As I said, the vampires are most definitely monsters, as for lore... fire or destruction of their heart can kill them as can sunlight – though there are other, rare, types of vampire that can stand the sun or (in the case of one that is a turned faery, change their shape). As well as feeding on blood (and only human blood will do) they can feed on emotions as well, making them part energy vampire. There are dedicated vampire hunters and also furies – vampires dedicated to hunting vampire hunters. Vampires feel a deep-seated urge – every couple of hundred years – to create a fledgling vampire.

Whilst there is a degree of urban fantasy in the book, with the addition if mages, psychics and faeries, it does feel more a traditional vampire novel, concentrating heavily on the relationship between the vampire and his prospective fledgling and is, all in all, a damn fine read 8 out of 10.

Honourable Mention: Glee: Theatricality

I am not a fan of Glee, indeed this is the only episode that I have watched and goes to show my dedication – I believe – to tracking down all things vampire. The episode was #20 of season 1, aired in 2010 and was directed by Ryan Murphy.

Glee follows the fortunes of a school’s Glee club as a teacher, Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison), attempts to revive the club to its former glory and, as the episode starts, he has accompanied one member of the club, Tina (Jenna Ushkowitz), to see the school’s principle Figgins (Iqbal Theba).

He confirms she is in trouble for her goth attire and has tied the look in with vampirism and, from there, Twilight. Scenes, from another school, of high school girls wearing capes and fangs and attacking a geek, in order that they might attract Robert Pattinson’s attention, appear. It becomes apparent that Figgins believes in vampires. Transforming into a bat is mentioned. She must change attire or be suspended.

Tina as a vampire

At the end of the show Tina explains how she approached Figgins wearing fangs and confirmed that she was actually a vampire and that her father was king of the vampires – Asian vampires being the most dangerous type of all. If he would not rescind his decision about her clothes then her father would fly through his window at night and attack. Figgins capitulated.

So a fleeting visitation, but there nonetheless. The episode's imdb page is here.

eBooks at Blackcoat Press

Many of you will be aware that I am a rather large fan of Blackcoat Press… Why? Because they have made many early examples of early French vampire literature available to the English market. Classic works by Paul Féval and others are now available translated and in print.

I have just been informed that they have started making their catalogue available in eBook format in pdf from their own site, from the Amazon kindle store and B&N for nook. All eBooks are $5.99.

Evan more exciting – from my point of view – is their next vampire release will be Leon Gozlan's Vampire of the Val-de-Grace, due in December. I have the book as a facsimile, in French, but am really looking forward to the translated version.

Scary or Die – review

Director: Igor Meglic (section Taejung’s Lament)

Release date: 2012

Contains spoilers

Scary or Die is a rubbish name, however it was not a rubbish film. It is a portmanteau where five separate stories overlap casually as they are watched on a video web site called scaryordie.com (actually the film’s homepage). Even the portmanteau section is connected to the other sections.

Of the other sections, The Crossing is an unusually framed zombie tale that I thought might have been rubbish, as it started, but had a nice little twist. Re-Membered is a tale of necromancy, Clowned involves flesh eating clowns and Lover Come Back is a short little voodoo piece.

Charles Rahi Chun as Taijung

The section we are interested in is entitled Taejung’s Lament and begins with Taejung (Charles Rahi Chun) in a bar. He leaves, perhaps looking a little too long at a girl who is kissing another man. The man’s hackles raise but, ultimately, there is no harm in Taejung. He walks drunkenly home, calling in a flower shop to buy a rose. At home he replaces a dead rose at the shrine to his wife. Taejung lives in an emotional twilight as his wife’s shade looks sadly on at the lover who cannot let go.

tracking the kidnapper

Indeed we see that he obsesses, from a distance, over women he sees but it almost seems like he sees his wife in them and he is almost a ghost himself. Watching the world go by. As he sits on a bench at night he sees three women pass by; one of them, Min-ah (Alexandra Choi), looks to him and smiles. Suddenly a man (Azion Lemekeve) jumps out, chloroforms Min-ah and (as her friends flee) bundles her into a minivan. Taejung rushes to help and is smacked down by the man. He puts his iPhone inside the vehicle’s petrol cap before it drives off and then tracks it via his laptop.

on the verge of stabbing

He eventually tracks the minivan, which is being carjacked by a couple of gangbangers who chase Taejung away. He sees the man in the distance, carrying Min-ah towards a flood-control channel. We cut to him on the channel, about to stab the woman in the chest. Taejung knocks the man out with a rock, rescuing the girl. He walks her home, his jacket round her shoulders, and begs her to go to the police. She can’t, however, as she is an illegal immigrant – though she feels she has been in LA for eternity. She is being bundled into her house by her friends when she gives Taejung his jacket back and a note, inviting him to a party.

Min-ah's nature is revealed

He does attend but the party is lacking in guests, there is Min-ah and several girls who surround him seductively and – not surprisingly – Minah produces fangs… Meanwhile we see the staff up to the apartment door dead, all staked. We see the man and, when he gets to the apartment, we see him put a bag down containing stakes and garlic and decorated with the name Van Helsing (of course Min-ah is Mina). The screen goes dark and there is sound of slaying before we cut to the next story.

Van Helsing's bad

The film doesn’t do anything particularly new with the genre – bar the transposition of elements of Dracula into a Korean/US setting – but the section was really quite pleasing. This was down to the air of melancholia that director Igor Meglic installed into the sequence. We genuinely feel for Taejung a living spector who emotionally died with his love and desperately seeks life again.

Van Helsing's handy work

The actual film as a whole worked rather well, I thought, especially for what seemed a fairly low budget portmanteau flick. It was rather left-field in places (especially Clowned) but this worked well adding a bizarreness crawling just under the skin of Los Angeles. The interlocking elements helped the film weave around the viewer. The score, however, is for the vampire section only. 6 out of 10 for the atmosphere and for the character Taejung himself.

The imdb page is here.

Bram Stoker International Film Festival

It’s that time of year when the Bram Stoker International Film Festival movie playlist is revealed and there really are treats for Vampire Movie fans this year. Whilst there is nothing new for me to explore (baring Dracula’s Phantasmagoria – which isn’t a vampire film as such but an exploration of the environment that surrounded Victorian phantasmagoria, something Stoker would have been well versed in) there are some newer films that I have already seen but not on the big screen and some classics too.

The first film of the festival is Midnight Son, which I scored at 7.5 out of 10. On the Friday we will see both We are the Night (TMtV score of 6.5 out of 10) and the classic the Lost Boys (TMtV score of 8 out of 10).

This year is the 100th anniversary of Bram Stoker’s death and so a version of Dracula was almost a legal necessity. In fact we get two. On the Saturday (and I am most excited about this on the big screen) we get the Spanish version of Dracula (TMtV score of 7.5 out of 10) and the final film of the festival is Dracula (1992) (TMtV score of 8 out of 10).

The Festival runs from 25th – 28th October and the full film listings are here. If you are attending this year then do come and say hi.

The Vampire of Highgate – review

Author: Asa Bailey

First Published: 2012

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Kathy is an innocent – an outsider – who longs to belong somewhere. Anywhere.

When Kathy starts having vivid dreams of her lost sister, Amber, she finds herself called from her New York home to London – Amber’s last known whereabouts. Convinced that Amber’s disappearance is entwined with the legend of the Highgate Vampire, Kathy begins a deadly search to uncover the truth about her family’s past, little realizing that she is being drawn in to the final resting place of London’s most ancient and powerful vampire…

Inspired by actual events that took place in and around London’s Highgate Cemetery, The Vampire of Highgate is a bone-chilling tale of dark secrets and deadly intentions.

The review: Whether you believe a vampire did haunt London’s Highgate Cemetery (and the testimony of one or the other of the main protagonists of the real world claims) or you think it a load of old tosh that was either cynically manipulated by sensationalists or simply the delusion of fantasists, the fact of the matter is there is precious little in the way of literature and films that have been directly inspired by the accounts/myths of the Highgate Vampire.

This book is part of the ‘books with bite’ range, a children’s series from the publishers Hodder and, perhaps, the blurb’s sensationalist “inspired by actual events” might have been toned down to “alleged events” given the target audience.

Now I do not mind, as an adult, reading books aimed for a younger audience, but I did find this one particularly unchallenging, perhaps even bland, in its language, which was a shame. I also wondered at the heroine’s casual use of anti-anxiety medication and considered whether I was being a little too prissy thinking that it was a wee bit too blasé – though I was glad to see a positive portrayal of someone with mental health issues and the association of such issues with the heroine of the piece. Negatively I found some of the character motivations under-explored – for example a character, Antwain, who seemed to have been around since at least 70 AD was still only half vampire, was subservient to a vampire created in the nineteenth century and was a little too eager to help the mortal Kathy (who we discover is from a race born to be vampire slayers). This might have worked if the motivation of characters had been explored in depth. Many other characters were little more than line drawings they were so thin.

The author did look to explore the alternative history of the vampires and whilst the vignettes through time certainly worked (adding, at least a little, much needed depth to the narrative) I found my suspension of disbelief challenged by the aforementioned 70 AD section that seemed to confuse gospel writers with disciples (that may have been purposeful and in need of narrative expansion) and suggested Muslim involvement some five hundred years before the birth of Mohammed.

When it came to vampire lore the author drew in Christian mythology and suggested that the vampires (or at least one) attended the Last Supper, with a further inference that several of the disciples may have been vampires but shying from a full blown ‘Christ the vampire’ line. By not exploring this in depth I was left wondering at the connections. Vampirism is passed through a bite and yet the vampires are also described as a separate race – indeed the hunters are “a race of people related to the vampires… …our races have been fighting each other since the dawn of time.” Vampires and hunters seem to have access to magic to one degree or another – the Highgate Vampire held in the cemetery by glyphs. Lore-wise, it was all a bit of a confused mess to be honest, though I liked the idea that the Highgate Vampire could move from one host to another and thus had to be trapped rather than slain.

Asa Bailey has done something positive in that the Highgate Vampire deserves to be the subject of stories and films. Whether one believes is irrelevant, there is a marvellous core tale to be exploited. There are also good ideas within this book but it is let down by under exploration within the narrative and uninspired prose. 4 out of 10.

First reviewed on Amazon UK as part of the Vine Programme.

Soulless – review

Author: Gail Carriger

First published: 2009

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Alexia Tarabotti is labouring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.

Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire - and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.

With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London's high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?

The review: I have had the first three books of “The parasol Protectorate” series on my ‘too read pile’ for some time, having picked them up at a publishers’ clearing house and this being the first book of the series, and actually I’m kind of kicking myself for not having read it sooner.

It is, I suppose, in the realm of urban fantasy, but then lifted and placed into a Victorian alternate steampunk universe. It is a world where the supernatural are well known, where they are accepted in Britain (for the most part) and hated in the US (the puritans having gone there to escape the supernaturals in the first place). As well as the great dollop of Vernian steampunk, there is a streak of social niceties as High Society in London follow very precise rules of etiquette. This lends the book a great deal of its humour.

What I loved about the book, however, was the premise behind the supernatural creatures. There are three main types, ghosts (tethered to a geographic radius from their body), werewolves (able to change at will, but becoming feral on the full moon) and vampires (territorial and mainly based around hives). All three come about – through whatever method is applicable – because the human they were had a surfeit of soul. Those with less soul will not survive the turning process.

Looking back to the blurb, you’ll see that the heroine, Alexia, is soulless. To ghosts she is known as an exorcist, to werewolves a curse-breaker and to vampires a soul-sucker. The polite term is preternatural and if she puts her hand on, say, a vampire then they become human and vulnerable again (for the length of the contact). Their fangs would vanish, they could stand in sunlight but anything that would kill a human would also kill them.

A fascinating lore basis and we begin to see a vampire society where the vampires are mostly in hives, though there are loner vampires called roves, and only queens are able to turn humans. Their helpers are known as drones and both vampires and werewolves tend to choose arty types as their human aids because they have more soul – on the other hand poor old Alexia, with no soul at all, struggles with the more arty concepts throughout the narrative.

Great fun, 7 out of 10.

Night of the Vampire Hunter – review

Director: Ulli Bujard

Release date: 2000

Contains spoilers

This is a no budget indie film, hailing from Germany, which was shot over three years as the filmmakers could afford to make the film. One thing that can often make an indie film stand out is story and I was really taken by the story idea behind this one, a clever little concept dwelt at its core – as we shall see.

It starts in an industrial landscape. A man is in his car and when he exits the vehicle and pops the boot we see he has a body in there. He leans over and we hear slurping and an animalistic growl. On the radio the presenter talks about the serial killer being dubbed the night stalker as the man gets back in the car and flosses his fangs – the boot pops open again. He gets out to look and we see a blade stabbing at him. He falls and the blade is used to curl his lip back, the fangs have vanished.

Stefan Keseberg asJens Feldner

Jens Feldner (Stefan Keseberg) is dressed as his alter-ego Henry Gloom, vampire author, and is being interviewed by Franco Herkenrath (Peter Schrader). As Henry, Jens has written a series of vampire stories, the Night Shade series. His vampires are affected by crosses, holy water and garlic but have reflections and, though long lived, they are not immortal. Thus they can be killed by a stake through the heart, as a human can, but also by knife or gun. A bite turns but most victims simply die.

bar vampyr

Jens gets home to his partner Selin (Nicole Bujard). She is getting ready to go to work; she works in a photo processors at night. She gets to work and changes into going out clothes. She makes a call, but the line is engaged, and then goes to a bar called vampyr. Whist in there she sends a man, Teddy (Erich Amerkamp), a drink and, within minutes, they are going to his place.

time to snack

Suddenly, as he develops fangs and his eyes glow, she exclaims that he was meant to be her dinner. They talk, embarrassed, and he tells her of other vampires in the area. She gets out a knife and kills him, stating that she hates vampires. She then notes the names she got in a notebook. At this point the film has played with our expectations… she is a vampire… she is a hunter… we quickly discover she is actually both – and whilst Jens knows she is a vampire (and his inspiration for Night Shade), he doesn’t know she is the night stalker – whose victims are all vampires. The reason for her nocturnal activities? Jens discovered, through his research, that if she can kill the vampire who turned her without having bitten a human she will revert to human. The trouble is, she doesn’t know who turned her.

vampire in the sun

As the story goes on she meets a human, Arnold Zahn (Alex Kaese), who wants to be turned and stalks her and, of course, the vampires are looking for the one killing their brethren. Also, Jens might be closer to the one who turned Selin than he thinks. In a nice bit of character development the phone call Selin tried to make was to her mother, whom she can’t speak to but can’t stop calling – freaking her poor mother out.

an ancient face

The rules that Jen uses in his fiction aren’t quite right, they are not affected by crosses at all (unless you happen to stab one through an eye socket!) They are affected by sunlight, however. Whilst vampires lose their fangs when killed, older vampires may rapidly decay and a dead vampire in the sun might rot and develop pustules that pop. We also see an older vampire looking worse for wear naturally (as it were). The effects aren’t fantastic, but they function and a lot of sins are hidden within the very dark and grainy photography that actually suits the dark mood of the film.

The film isn’t perfect, some of the performances are better than others but I really did like the story and the dour atmosphere. There was a genuine attempt to build character – especially around Jens and Selin. It wouldn’t win an award but it is worth catching. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

The 6Th Extinction

Director: John Vincent

Release date: 2012

Contains Spoilers

In science, the 6th extinction is the next cataclysmic species extinction event on the Earth – scientists have produced dire warnings that the 6th extinction is fast approaching and the agent of destruction is mankind. Not in director John Vincent’s world view… the 6th extinction will be caused by vampires (and a major moon catastrophe, which I assume was supernatural in origin because otherwise it was blooming convenient) and we are the main victims thereof. The 6th Extinction, as used on the German DVD, is a better title than the domestic US Vampireland – obviously a cash in on Zombieland and Stake Land.

Unfortunately the film is flawed – and fatally so – and I say unfortunately because there is the kernel of a good idea in here.

run Shelly, run

The film begins in a washed-out post-apocalyptic future that mentions vampires and Renfields – the human servants of the vampires. It suggests that the plague began in Harper’s Grove, Michigan, a town known for ritual sacrifice of children. We see Shelly (Mahssa Rashidy) a survivor who is scavenging, crosses drawn roughly on her clothing. Renfields spot her and chase after her – she runs, trying to escape, and the scene freezes.

being watched

We are then back in time, the day before the night the world ended. Through the early part of the film we meet those who will star in this drama and some who will not… For instance, we meet a priest called (in credits) father Zachery O'Leary (Zach Zaitonia) and, in a badly paced scene, we see him going to his church, being watched (by a Renfield), and reading a treatise on the child sacrifice in the area. Seems important but, as all Hell breaks loose, he will have no more role than being summarily executed in a fairly pointless scene. Given we hear that all the churches in the area have been burnt down over a couple of days, why his was left flame free only for him to be executed as the night descends is one of those ineffable mysteries.

Mahssa Rashidy as Shelly

Other people we see include a volunteer fireman who isn’t getting much sleep with all the call outs. We meet Rick (Eric Jaan), who’s saying farewell to his lover (Amy Lynn Bulmer) just before his wife Pam (Misty Mills) arrives home, none the wiser with regards his infidelity. We meet a pre-apocalypse Shelly who is going on an internet arranged date with Michael (Michael Bugard). We also meet a load of guys with white sheet robes emblazoned with Day-Glo sigils – yes Renfields. So how does the world end?

raising the Vampire Lords

Well, as night falls one of them goes off and does a summoning ritual at four graves and resurrects the four vampire lords – essentially the four horsemen or they would be if they had horses. What they did have was really poor costumes. Honestly, if the dark Lord of the apocalypse comes knocking at my door and he is wearing a cheap paper mask… well let’s just say I’d find it a pretty disappointing apocalypse. That aside, other Renfields are going House to House executing the inhabitants via the medium of automatic weapons. There must have been other lesser vampires around because we hear later that, at the fires, people were dead who got up, attacked others who, in turn, become infected.

Michael, turned

Meanwhile, Shelly has nipped to the loo when a vampire attacks Michael. By the time she leaves the loo he has turned and wants a Shelly snack. The resultant chase shows us a lot about the vampires. At one point he throws someone and they turn into a bad cgi body as they fly with tremendous velocity through the sky and hit a nearby building. Likewise when a tank blows a hole in his chest he flicks it in a flurry of poor effect and bad cartoonish sound clip. Am I being hyper-critical… possibly… after all it was brave to try and put such effects in but they were obvious and detracted ultimately. As he chases her we discover he can’t cross a bridge over running water (though he can fly over it). He collars her at a house but she is saved as the fireman axes him and he turns into a flock of bats.

4 pedestrians of the apocalypse

Shelly and the fireman get in the house and Michael can’t follow. However, it is Rick’s house and he emerges from his cellar (where his wife and kid are hiding) with a shotgun and tells them to get out. They are, ironically, saved as Rick’s now vampiric lover walks in (called succubus in the credits, though she is just another vampire from what I can see). In a neat little twist the invite he gave her for rumpy pumpy, when human, holds true now she is a vampire. With some seeds thrown on the floor we discover that these vampires must compulsively count. When Rick tells her forcefully to get out (thus rescinding his invitation) she has to leave. With sunlight immolations, eye mojo and garlic burning the vampires I was impressed with the use of lore and the way the film went back to basics. Incidentally we see, during the course of the night, a meteor hit the moon, split it, sending debris to earth as part of the apocalypse – the physical impact being, one would guess, of supernatural origin. However, for the humans the trick will be surviving the night…

physical reaction

If I was impressed with the use of lore (and that is the good part of the film) and sympathetic of the effort they went into to make the effects – but not the results, I was less impressed with the rest of the film. The pacing was off but the acting was really off. Physical reactions that were simply pantomimic and dead dialogue delivery in what seemed to be poor post-production dub took the film and strangled much of the life out of it. The end sequence made little sense as it was too rushed and there were logic holes. If we have returned to a lot of the genre standard lore then one assumes (as we never see it) a stake to the heart would do the biz. Think back to Michael having a hole blown in his chest by tank shell… Now… what would have happened to his heart… obliterated… (Okay I accept they might have decided that only wood would do the job, but the film is silent and the point is fair I think)

There is a kernel here, but that is all it is. In general this was a fairly amateurish effort and the acting really did kill off any sympathy I might have had. 2 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.