Blood Kiss – review

Director: Michael W. Johnson

Release date: 1999

Contains spoilers

The DVD of Blood Kiss suggests that the quality of image may vary as the film is taken from different sources. How true this is I don’t know but it doesn’t really vary as it is all pretty poor. Film shot on cheap end video equipment, with no inherent photography expertise, is about the best thing I could say about it.

That could be the message of every aspect of the whole flick – cheap end and no inherent expertise. It’s sad, it’s unfortunately also true.

Steve Lee as Adam Mortis

The film background is told in flashback through the piece but, essentially, it runs a little like this. A man, Danny Dodd (Jeff Murphy), has a wife Elaine and daughter Trudy. When driving along one day they come across a yard sale and a dodgy (in terms of acting as much as anything) gypsy sells her a book that purports to be the true tale of a vampire, Adam Mortis (Steve Lee). She works out where his remains are meant to be and is going to, with her occultist friends (or should I say friend, singular), bring him back. Danny doesn’t complain about her drugging and taking their daughter as a sacrifice because he doesn’t believe it’s real.

bite

It’s real. His wife is killed and his daughter lost (he presumes eaten). Ten years later (according to the DVD blurb – I am sure that the film suggests sixteen but I haven’t got the gumption to recheck) the vampire is back in town. Danny is on his trail (and also beheads at least one corpse of a victim down the morgue) as is a cop (Steven Mark Hahn). The vampire has a human disciple called Miranda whom he is grooming for undead life (guess who she might be) and a taste for strippers and prostitutes.

stalking and blood soaked

That’s about all the story but the film – which clocks in at a monumental 2 hours – trundles on and on through a turgid sea of woeful acting and copious amounts of not particularly erotic nudity. There really isn’t much more to add. A short review for a long film with little in the way of positive aspects to wax lyrical about. I will dare you to watch the scene of the cop and a homeless lady who screeches, on repeat, “Naked and dead” and not want to throw something at the screen. There is a 'shocking' sexual coupling that you can see coming, with its associated plot twist, a mile away (even though it makes little sense in a plot way, probably because the entire act of seduction is simply disrobing in a non-erotic manner and that’s about it).

Bad.

1 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On VHS @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Will the real Count Dracula please stand up?

A sketch artist rendition of Count Dracula

There is controversy surrounding the connection between Voivode or Prince Vlad Dracula, also known as Vlad III, the Impaler or Ţepeş (hereafter referred to as Prince Vlad), and Count Dracula. As such I have decided to address this connection and will say, as a starting point, that Count Dracula – the Bram Stoker creation – is not Prince Vlad.

It is true that Bram Stoker took the name Dracula, referred in book to him as a voivode and lifted a smattering of biographical data (which was thin, to say the least, and not all of it was actually about Prince Vlad) and used said data to expand the background of the character. However this was part of an amalgam and the more explicit connections between Prince Vlad and Count Dracula came in the twentieth century.

I will offer at this point a debt to Elizabeth Miller and her book Dracula: Sense & Nonsense (D:S&N) from which many of the arguments have been gleaned.

Prince Vlad III

You might ask how we would know that Stoker’s knowledge of Prince Vlad was limited? That is easy, we have his novel and we have his notes. We know that he consulted William Wilkinson’s An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia and we know of no other source researched that contained reference to Prince Vlad EDIT - there was actually a second confirmed source that mentioned Prince Vlad and this is addressed at the addendum dated 07/06/19 at the foot of this article. 

Wilkinson’s detail was scant, indeed it only refers to a Voivode Dracula – never Prince Vlad or Ţepeş – and we know that the novel never mentions the names Vlad, Ţepeş or Impaler, it never refers to the title of Prince and it never mentions the atrocities that Prince Vlad is infamous for. Stoker does mention the rank of voivode but never tackles the fact that Count is a lower rank. It may be helpful if I repeat verbatim what Wilkinson said about the Draculas (and there is a reason for pluralisation) as cited in D:S&N (p155):

“Wallachia continued to pay it [tribute] until the year 1444; when Ladislas King of Hungary, preparing to make war against the Turks, engaged the Voivode Dracula to form an alliance with him. The Hungarian troops marched through the principality and were joined by four thousand Wallachians under the command of Dracula’s son.”

This is later: “Their Voivode, also named Dracula*, did not remain satisfied with mere prudent measures of defence: with an army he crossed the Danube and attacked the few Turkish troops that were stationed in his neighbourhood; but this attempt, like those of his predecessors, was only attended with momentary success. Mahomet, having turned his arms against him, drove him back to Wallachia, whither he pursued and defeated him. The Voivode escaped into Hungary, and the Sultan caused his brother Bladus to be named in his place. He made a treaty with Bladus, by which he bound the Wallachians to perpetual tribute.”

Most importantly (and we know it is most important because of the capitalisation used by Stoker in his notes) was the footnote to the second passage: *Dracula in the Wallachian language means Devil. The Wallachians were, at that time, as they are at present, used to give this surname to any person who rendered himself conspicuous either by courage, cruel actions, or cunning.

Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula

What can be taken from this? Firstly that there is no mention of a name other than Voivode Dracula but, in fact, Wilkinson has conflated Prince Vlad II and Prince Vlad III – the first entry certainly refers to the elder, more properly called Dracul, hence my pluralisation. Stoker did not necessarily know these were different men but, from this passage, he certainly will have thought that the sobriquet Dracula was commonly used. He also believed it meant Devil and this is important as we touch on how Dracula became a vampire. He also knew that Voivode Dracula had a brother but, of course, many voivodes would have had brothers. Wilkinson names him Bladus, most assume this refers to Radu – Prince Vlad’s younger sibling – but I am not proficient in names from the region nor their potential Anglicisation so I couldn’t say if this did actually refer to Radu – though I suspect it did.

So where did the connection come from? Clearly from Stoker, in the first instance, as he made a casual connection to “Voivode Dracula”. However the more explicit connections seem to start in film with the Turkish film Drakula Istanbul’da, which in turn was based on the 1928 novel by Ali Riza Seyfi entitled Kaziki Voyvoda, which was a reworking of Stoker’s novel but with greater play on the Prince Vlad connection and moved the action from England to Turkey. Given the history of the Ottoman Empire and the apparent impact of Prince Vlad during his reigns this seems hardly surprising at all.

From an academic point of view we can look to Bacil F Kirtley’s Dracula, the Monastic Chronicles and Slavic Folklore in 1956. However it was Raymond McNally and Radu Florescu who really brought the connection to popular Western attention. However their theories were, shall we say, flawed by some dubious academic assertions. Indeed as time moved on, later editions of their work would soften some of the looser evidence they offered regarding the connection. Eventually they would step away from the connection and the following choice quotes by Florescu are cited by Miller: “the connection between the historical Dracula and the novel… beyond the title, is limited to four short references from a single book” (p 155) and that any connection between fictional and historic Dracula is a “Unique and extraordinary accident” (p 182). She suggests that McNally has called claims that Stoker was inspired by Prince Vlad’s atrocities as “silly”. (p 153) However that connection was made by the two academics in the first instance and the behemoth-like concept was out of control and became “fact” within popular concept.

Prince Vlad full length

Some suggest that Stoker heard about Prince Vlad, in detail, from Arminius Vambery, the Hungarian scholar, who is replicated in the novel as Van Helsing’s source of information Arminius, of Buda−Pesth University. Stoker, like many writers, did use names of friends and acquaintances however. The first detail that Arminius, of Buda−Pesth University offered Van Helsing, however, is clearly lifted from Wilkinson as well as from Transylvanian Superstitions by Emily Gerard (a source we know Stoker consulted) mixed together with an author’s imagination and creativity.

We also have details from Stoker’s Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving (1906) of two meetings with Arminius Vambery, neither of which suggest they discussed Prince Vlad or vampires. In fact Stoker states that - in the first meeting - the conversation was about Vambery's travels in Central Asia and makes specific reference to Tibet. The second occurrence was upon seeing Vambery receive a degree at Dublin University and mentions Vambery's role as a speaker - where he spoke against Russian aggression. There are also no references to correspondence with Arminius Vambery in Stoker’s notes. Later in the novel we get more detail from Arminius, of Buda−Pesth University that suggests Count Dracula “was in life a most wonderful man. Soldier, statesman, and alchemist”. That does not match the infamous Prince Vlad – especially from the Saxon propaganda that earned him the sobriquet Ţepeş – given he was writing a book of Gothic horror, had Arminius Vambery told Stoker of anything about the reputation of the Prince Vlad you would have thought he would have used it, or at least place it in his notes for potential use. Of course I could be wrong about Vambery but there is no evidence to the contrary.

If we look to the history that Count Dracula gives us, as noted by Jonathon Harker, we hear: “We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows the blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, for lordship.” Prince Vlad was not a Szekely, Count Dracula clearly was. There are enough misunderstandings flying around about the difference between a Wallachian (Prince Vlad) and a Transylvanian (ie they are two separate principalities). Being a Szekely Count Dracula admits to actually being a Hungarian.

He also suggests, “What devil or what witch was ever so great as Attila, whose blood is in these veins?” Prince Vlad was not descended from Attila.

Why is this important? Because it underlines the fact that Count Dracula is an amalgam character, that Stoker invented a character and then added details from a variety of sources to make the character interesting. I would argue that no single part is any more important than any other.

Gary Oldman as Count Dracula

Looking at Count Dracula’s description further we see he says “Who was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground? This was a Dracula indeed! Woe was it that his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them!” This is pure Wilkinson but also the Count claims it as an ancestor, “one of my own race”. It could be argued that Count Dracula is plying his own past but disguising his identity and we could argue that the detail by Arminius, of Buda−Pesth University to Van Helsing suggests this. However we do not know that for certain – it is supposition – and the Van Helsing character does contradict himself at times and forget things (such as they could have destroyed the vampiric Lucy with a simple sacred bullet rather than go through the (wonderfully harrowing) staking and subsequent corpse mutilation). On face value Count Dracula suggests that he is related to the Dracula from Wilkinson not actually that Dracula.

I want to touch briefly on how Count Dracula came to be a vampire as, in order that Prince Vlad can be tied in, there are some confusing aspects to this suggested. As far as I can tell there were no legends surrounding Prince Vlad and vampirism until the connection between Count Dracula and Prince Vlad became popular. Indeed, Prince Vlad is regarded as a national hero in his homeland (though there may have been some manipulation of this during the communist era). However a whole cottage industry seems to have developed suggesting that Prince Vlad was connected with vampirism in legends from his homeland. It has to be said that, even if he had been, no source consulted by Stoker mentions this (as the only source re Prince Vlad that we know of is, of course, Wilkinson).

woodcut of Prince Vlad

One popular suggestion is that Prince Vlad was excommunicated and this is used directly or indirectly to suggest how Prince Vlad became a vampire and thus tie the historical man in to Stoker. Firstly I have to say that I do not know if Prince Vlad was excommunicated or whether this is a modern invention, but it is the implied source of vampirism used in the “biopic” (and very historically inaccurate) film Dracula the Dark Prince.

If he was, it was not because he “turned his back on the church” but because he turned from the Orthodox Church to the Roman Catholic Church for political reasons. As such I doubt that he would have been bothered by his excommunication as he still was a member of a Christian Church (indeed the Holy Church of Rome). It has been suggested to me that all those who followed the Pope were deemed excommunicated by Orthodox churches by rote and thus there would not be a specific excommunication. Taking that on face value it would mean that (if all excommunications lead to vampirism) that we would be overrun by our toothsome friends – there have been a lot of Catholics over the centuries.

However Stoker implied how Count Dracula became a vampire – for that we return to Emily Gerard and note that Arminius has told Van Helsing, “They learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil claims the tenth scholar as his due.” Note now that we know that Stoker believed Dracula to mean devil, he also has the Count using the pseudonym of Count de Ville, and we read “The Draculas were, says Arminius, a great and noble race, though now and again were scions who were held by their coevals to have had dealings with the Evil One”. The evidence stacks up that it was at the Scholomance that Count Dracula consorted with the devil and I do not think that it is such a stretch to offer the theory that it is the attendance at the Scholomance that was the source of the Count’s vampirism. It is therefore logical that Stoker’s use of the name Dracula had more to do with the meaning of the name that Wilkinson suggested rather than the scant history he offered.

Finally, I’d like you to look to the picture at the head of this essay. This is a sketch artist’s rendition of Dracula as described in the novel (I am unsure of the artist or the ownership and use it only for illustrative purposes under fair usage). Compare that picture to Prince Vlad’s picture further down. They are not the same man – of course they are not for Stoker never saw a picture of Prince Vlad that we are aware of.

Christopher Lee as Count Dracula

So what does it all matter? In the grand scheme of things not much, Count Dracula and Prince Vlad are so conflated in the popular mind that you can point out all the evidence for the thin connection, as well as the lack of factually accurate evidence for the deeper connection, and people will ignore it and dogmatically stick to the view that they are one and the same. When that is an artist – be it an author, screenwriter, illustrator, director or actor – then that is fine. They are creating their own image of Count Dracula. When it is an academic it is problematic – as such works should strive for accuracy. However when someone suggests that it is what Stoker had in mind then I feel we are doing the man, and his remarkable creation, a disservice.

Ahh, you may say, but you yourself have looked at the 1982 (possibly 1976) absolutely vampire free biopic Vlad Ţepeş on your vampire blog, and I have. I looked at it as an honourable mention because the two figures (literary and historical) are inextricably conflated. However, Count Dracula, as written by Stoker, is not (in my opinion) Prince Vlad though there is a little Prince Vlad (II and III) in him.

EDIT 12/4/18: For clarification: whilst I know Voivode was akin to warlord and its meaning hovers between warlord and our understanding of Prince I deliberately used the title Prince as it has more of a sense of meaning given warlord, in the Western European/UK language, has little meaning when it comes to rank.

As I gird my loins in preparation for the comments I would suggest that should you want further details on much of the nonsense talked about Count Dracula and, of course, the novel itself you should see Elizabeth Miller’s Dracula: Sense and Nonsense:

In Kindle @ Amazon US

In Kindle @ Amazon UK

An Addendum – 07/06/2019

Since I wrote this piece there have been discoveries/theories that have led to the question of the inspiration for Dracula being reopened. One is set around the text, which we know Stoker consulted, entitled Roumania Past and Present by James Samuelson (the text of which can be read here).

The reason for the excitement is that the book does mention Vlad the Impaler several times. Indeed Vampires.com suggest that it amounts to “proving that Bram *did* know about “the Impaler” when he wrote his book!” (citation from here) Frankly it proves only that Stoker had consulted the book, but not that he read all of it or, indeed, knew the connection between the sobriquet Dracula and Prince Vlad III. His consultation of the book was known, however, and so it behoves me to address the fact that Samuelson does mention Vlad the Impaler and his actions within his volume. We do know that he put one thing in his notes from the book – the only part of the book he does cite. Stoker wrote “In 376 A.D. Huns subdued Dacia driving out the Goths—Huns at Attila’s death 543 A.D. by the Gepidae—a tribe of Goths. Country was afterward held by Lombards, Avars and Bulgars. Last named driven out of Thessaly etc. and back to Dacia where obtained ascendancy over Avars. 678–680. See Samuelson’s Roumania. P. 146.” (Stoker, Notes, pp220-221) We can note that page 146 of Samuelson does not mention Vlad.

Map of Roumania from Samuelson

Remembering that Wilkinson refers to Dracula I can attest that there is only one instance of the word – actually Dracul rather than Dracula. This does not, however, refer to Prince Vlad’s father as it is a reference to ruling from Tirgovistea, which was where Prince Vlad III's court was based. It does not, however, mention the Impaler as the other entries about him do, rather it states “Dracul (the Devil)” (p180). We know, as mentioned above, that Wilkinson suggested that Dracula meant Devil (and that does draw a connection between the two texts) but we also know that Stoker wrote the Wilkinson footnote out in full. Had he read, or noted, the Samuelson reference to Dracul as Devil he might have mentioned it in his notes or, perhaps, did not feel as though he had to because Wilkinson suggests it is a commonly given name.

Stoker placed one direct citation to Samuelson in his notes and thus we can say that he did read that page and found the historical insight potentially useful. Vampires.com quote Dacre Stoker as suggesting, “One must realize that Bram did not include a lot of things in his Notes for Dracula which appeared in his novel.” (citation from here) I do concede the point but equally it also means that we simply do not know whether he read any other part of Samuelson and, if he did, whether he paid heed to the references to the Impaler. Often when we research something texts are not fully read but selectively examined (Samuelson does have an index) and often skimmed rather than thoroughly read. To decide that reading any part (or even all) of that book means that he was aware of Vlad the Impaler being Dracul is to impose a theory as fact when we can, ultimately, only know for certain what is in the novel and in the notes (unless a new primary source appears). We should also note that Stoker did take copious notes and it seems more unlikely than likely that he would have neglected to note Prince Vlad’s “horrible cruelties” (as they are indexed in Samuelson, p288) if they were forming a baseline for his fictional antagonist.

It would be remiss if I did not mention that Hans Corneel de Roos has put forward a counter-theory on the inspiration for the Count and suggests that Stoker actually had Michael the Brave in mind. Michael was of the Drăculești branch of the Basarab family – in other words a Dracula – and is mentioned in both Wilkinson and Samuelson, and is mentioned within Stoker’s notes also:

“1600. After abdication of Sigismund of Transylvania, this principality became tributary to Emperor Rodolphus who appointed Michael VOIVODE. Transylvanians revolted & wished to recall Sigismund but were defeated by Austrians and whole province subjugated” (Stoker, Notes, pp246-247)

Statue of Michael the Brave

It is interesting that Michael, unlike Prince Vlad, actually “commanded nations” (Stoker, Dracula, p167) as he did reign over Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia. It is also worth noting that Samuelson actually included an illustration of a statue of Michael (p176). I am not personally convinced by de Roos argument (though it holds as much, if not more, water as the Vlad argument) as I still believe that, at his heart, Count Dracula is an amalgam character – not based on any one person. If you wish to examine more of de Roos theory, however, he published his paper within Dracula: an International Perspective.

Psych: This Episode Sucks – review

Director: James Roday

First aired: 2011

Contains spoilers

Psych is a favourite series of my better half’s and I must admit it is one that I really enjoy too, though I don’t watch it with the same regularity. This episode was the third of season 6 and it was when the series did the, apparently, mandatory vampire episode.

The show itself centres around Shawn Spencer (James Roday), a man with heightened observational skills and a gut instinct for detection and his best friend and business partner Gus (Dulé Hill). Shawn pretends to be a psychic, as the police thought he knew too much and might be a suspect, and the tagline on the DVD set sums it up, “fake psychic, real detectives.” Psych is good at throwing geek orientated trivia and references in and so I will try and point out much that is there and said references actually starts with the opening of the episode as the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” plays with the lyrics, “The world is a vampire, sent to drain”.

the pendant 

We see Lassiter (Timothy Omundson) a taciturn, old fashioned cop (and very suspicious of Shawn), go into a bar and order a drink. He is approached by a woman, we find out later she is called Marlowe Viccellio (Kristy Swanson, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), she knows his name but doesn’t say how and wears an unusual pendant. She goes to the bathroom and, when she doesn’t return, Lassiter goes looking for her. The bathroom is empty.

Maggie Lawson

In a car park a man gets to his car but it won’t start. He pops the hood but can’t see the problem. A cloaked figure goes over the roof of the car and jumps on him. The next day cop and, at this point in the series, Shawn’s girlfriend, Juliet (Maggie Lawson) reaches the car park, which is now a crime scene as the attacked man is dead. Shawn and Gus followed her there and Lassiter, for the first time ever, is last to arrive. He is preoccupied by Marlowe and distraught when he finds her pendent in the dead man’s hand – he later discovers he is her alibi as she left the bar but watched him from afar. With puncture wounds on the victim's neck and both wrists and paleness of his skin, Gus and Shawn are convinced they are dealing with a vampire.

As Lestat and Blacula

Following this we get the investigation and, as it is whodunit, I won’t spoil that. I will look at the further references that are in the show, however. When Shawn declares it is a vampire, Gus shouts out, “Sookie is mine!” referencing True Blood. Shawn likens Gus to Omar Epps in Dracula 2001, though the US title of Dracula 2000 is used. When checking out a vampire bar, Shawn dresses as Tom Cruise’s Lestat from Interview with the Vampire and Gus dresses as Blacula - though no one seems to remember the film and he is called Count Chocula on occasion.

Cory Feldman as Thorn

In the bar – whilst Cry Little Sister plays – the barman is played by Cory Feldman (The Lost Boys, Lost Boys: the tribe, Lost Boys: The Thirst & Bordello of Blood) and his character is credited as Thorn – the name of the vampire’s dog in the Lost Boys. Two unmet housemates of Marlowe are called Jake and Eddie, after Jacob and Edward from Twilight and the third housemate, Lucien was played by Tom Lenk who was a regular in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series, reprising the character in Angel and was in the Thirst (2007).

Dracula (1979) on TV

At one point Shawn takes a phone call and in the background we can see the eerie Mina as a vampire scene from Dracula (1979). Let the Right One In, Queen of the Damned and Quantum Leap are all mentioned and whilst a rhyming couplet is made of Blacula and Quantum Leap’s lead Scott Bakula we should also remember that Quantum Leap had a vampire episode.

safety first

As I say, I enjoy Psych and know the characters so they really do work for me. I also enjoyed the geek fest of references. The actual plot of this episode was perhaps a little thin but funny – especially when the prime suspect is arrested and it is a cat that Shawn and Gus believe to be a shape shifted vampire. One issue was, however, that the plot revolved around the scarcity of type O Negative blood but, even though it is a rare blood type, it is not as rare as the show made out - that said it may just have been an excuse for another reference, to the band of the same name.

Enjoyable stuff though. 7 out of 10.

The episode’s imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: The Dragon Lives Again

Also known as The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, released in 1977 and directed by Kei Law, to say that the Dragon Lives Again is most definitely an understatement.

This is an example of a Bruceploitation movie – one of a series of films that were made with Bruce Lee look-a-likes to cash in following the great martial artist’s untimely death. This is perhaps more of a homage than many given that it actually features Bruce Lee (Siu-Lung Leung) as a full on character. It is also a weird, psychedelic mess of a film with Kung Fu.

Bruce as Kato

Essentially Bruce Lee has died and his body appears in the afterlife. The King of the Underworld (Tang Ching) sees something strange with the body (looking, for the world, like Bruce has an erection under the sheet that covers him). The concubines of the king certainly seem interested and through their conversation we discover that the faces and bodies of those who have died change and this explains much that we will see through the film I guess and is, of course, awfully convenient. The protruding article is actually his nunchaku and when it is taken he awakens. The king shows why he is the king (he can cause earthquakes) but Bruce is allowed to keep his weapon and go and live peaceably in the afterlife.

Eric Tsang as Popeye

Unfortunately the afterlife is not particularly peaceful. The triad own a lot of the action, led by the Godfather (Ie Lung Shen). He has minions in the form of James Bond (Alexander Grand), Emmanuelle (Jenny), Clint Eastwood (Bobby Canavarro) in the guise as the Man with No Name and Zaitoichi (Mei Wong). He is working with the Exorcist (Fong Yau) in order that they might depose the King. From our point of view their alliance with Dracula (Hsi Chang) and his army of zombies is the important part of the film. Incidentally Bruce gains allies on the form of Caine (from the Kung Fu series), Popeye (Eric Tsang) and the one-armed swordsman (Lik Cheung).

Hsi Chang as Dracula

During the film Bruce decides to take it to the bad guys, as it were. For some reason he does this dressed as Kato – which, of course, was the character that Bruce Lee played in the Green Hornet – and goes after Dracula. He fights the vampire and his zombie minions (who are guys masked and dressed in onesies with prints of skeletons on them). The fight is shorter than many in the film and Dracula is very quickly defeated with a boot into the face.

mummies assemble

Later in the film we do get a horde of mummies fighting Bruce, but they have nothing to do with Dracula. With some saucy nudity, fighting, crazy characters and interludes where people talk about Bruce Lee’s manhood this is a crazy, crazy film. The presence of Dracula gets it a honourable mention but be warned it is probably one of the most surreal martial arts films you’ll ever see.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: Red Scare

Why IMDb list the Lee Citron directed web series as 2011 is unknown – as it aired from Halloween 2013 over 8 episodes and gets an honourable mention due to the fact that it’s out there free to watch…

And watch it you should because it is great fun.

empty classrooms

We are in Plainview Connecticut in 1956 and the web series starts with a siren as we see the deserted class rooms, basketball court and corridors of Plainview West. It was the match between East and West, schools set either side of the town, when an air raid siren announced the apocalypse.

Judy, Johnny and Audrey

A group of people get to the shelter, which officer Hoover (Dominic Conti) then closes. There is some panic, fear for families left outside and cynicism – believing it is a drill and the folly of mutually assured destruction. The people in the shelter are cheerleader Audrey Stone (Brianne Howey) and her boyfriend and Jock Johnny Clemens (Kevin Joy), East Plainview cheerleader Irene Miller (Chelsea Alden) and her dorky brother Huey (Ellington Ratliff), 1950s atypical mom Vivienne Lee (Heather Howe, Vamps and the City), Romanian foreign exchange student Gert Bumbescu (Nathaniel Weiss), bad boy Dino DiGiulio (Jordan Stavola), good girl Lois Henrickson (Brittany Ross) and Ginsberg reading socialist Judy Graves (Teresa Decher).

The first victim

When they awaken after the first night they find the body of Officer Hoover, two marks on his neck and his corpse rather pale. It is Huey who realises there is a vampire in their midst. Dino grabs Hoover’s gun but Huey points out it will be no use against a vampire and that the legends suggest sunlight and a stake to the heart will be the only way to stop him… or her. He tells them that lack of reflection, and the apotropaic effects of garlic and crosses are unproven. With Hoover’s body placed in the walk in freezer, Huey offers to take first watch and Irene offers to sit up with him. Whilst the others sleep he whittles a stake but she falls asleep and in the morning Huey is dead – a victim of the vampire.

Gert staked

The group’s general opinion starts to turn against Romanian Gert – despite the fact that (as he points out) Transylvania is a different region to where he is from, he is accused of being both a communist and a vampire. There is a vote on whether they should deal with him, which ends up tied. It is down to Johnny to cast the final vote and he is erring towards accusing Gert when Irene stakes the Romanian. That night they are attack free but, as you can imagine, Gert wasn’t the vampire as we are only at episode 3.

there is an underlying wackiness

We are in a version of 10 little Indians but it is great fun mainly due to the brilliant caricature 50s characters, an underlying wackiness and some very believable acting. The fact that they are in a shelter – in the first few minutes they broke the radio and so assume that the world has ended outside – will have helped limit the cost to budget but the series really doesn’t suffer for being set in such a limited stage.

I’m not going to spoil any more of the serial. You can catch it at their homepage. The imdb page is here. Thanks to Everlost who put me on to the series.

Dracula: The Dark Prince – review

Director: Pearry Reginald Teo

Release date: 2013

Contains spoilers

Not to be mistaken with the year 2000 semi-biopic, this is a film that snuck out on VoD and a Walmart only DVD release.

The problem, however, is it is about the same level of quality as a SyFy original – which is a shame really because setting a vampire film in a fantasy location (believe me this is nowhere near a historical film, fantasy would be the best description for it) is too little often done.

lovers

The film cast Prince Vlad Dracula (Luke Roberts) as our vampire and the opening scenes that build the background for us heavily borrow from Dracula (1992), though there are some differences. The Prince, who is beloved of his people yadda, yadda, yadda is a direct descendent of (the biblical) Abel and when his bride Elizabeta (Kelly Wenham) dies it is at the hands of his own advisers. Dracula turns against God, slaughters them and layers the cross with their bodies whilst renouncing God.

Kelly Wenham as Alina

Jump forward a century and a carriage is being escorted through the Romanian night by a group of crusaders. The creatures are coming and so sisters Alina (also Kelly Wenham) and Esme (Holly Earl) are told to ride ahead with a box containing the lightbringer (I’ll explain that shortly) and meet up with Leonardo Van Helsing (Jon Voight). The knights fight against undead creatures known as the Scourge, who are led by a black Knight called Wrath (Vasilescu Valentin), and the good guys are slaughtered.

Ben Robson as Lucian

Meanwhile Esme and Alina arrive at the rendezvous but Van Helsing is not there. They hear movement and are surrounded by a group of brigands led by the charismatic Lucian (Ben Robson). They steal the box containing the lightbringer (the girls defence of it being rather unimpressive given they are demon hunters in training). So as not to lose it Alina offers to pay the brigands if they give them passage to the next village. Lucian agrees.

the lightbringer

At a camp Lucian breaks into the box and discovers what looks like an old walking staff. The girls, who you wouldn’t trust on a secret mission, blurt out that it is a holy relic and the only thing that can kill Dracula. At that point Van Helsing appears but the Scourge arrive also. The brigands are being decimated but Lucian touches the lightbringer with a hand covered in his own blood and it suddenly transforms into a scythe with whirly blades. He, the girls and Van Helsing beat off the Scourge but Alina is kidnapped by Wrath.

Stephen Hogan as Renfield

So Alina is taken to castle Dracula where she realises that Dracula isn’t all bad, after all she is the princess reincarnated. This does distract the Prince from his duty as evil overlord, which irks his servant Renfield (Stephen Hogan). Meanwhile, as well as meeting up with a random Norseman called Andros (Richard Ashton), Van Helsing, Lucian and Esme try to find the magically hidden castle to rescue Alina and destroy Dracula’s evil reign.

Jon Voight as Leonardo Van Helsing

So lightbringer, apparently it is the first weapon, the weapon that Cain used to kill Abel. Lucian is of Cain’s bloodline (hence him being a thief as Cain’s descendants are all murderers, brigands and thieves, just as Abel’s are all royalty) thus it works for him. The logic of Cain’s weapon being able to destroy Dracula because of his ancient bloodline was interesting and almost too clever for its own good. When it starts with nifty devices such as a compass that points to Dracula and the ability to dispel the castle’s illusionary camouflage we really begin to wonder as the cleverness falters and stupidity overtakes it. Making the descendant of Cain the vampire hunter was pretty neat though.

after sun exposure

Dracula is the font of the region's undead and so when he rests they heal. If bitten by a vampire you have three choices; pray for a quick death, drink his blood and serve him or, if you don’t get his blood, become Nosferatu – a twisted creature in eternal agony. Sunlight kills, turning the vampire to stone and then they crumble. Dracula’s only weakness is the lightbringer but, should he get it, he can use it to end death on Earth and make everyone undead.

Luke Roberts as Dracula

As I say the tone of the movie is SyFy, as for the acting... The girls do what they can with what amounts to two pretty shoddily drawn warrior women. Luke Roberts works well as the misunderstood Dracula but pretty poorly as the monstrous creature. Stephen Hogan is literally channelling Wormtongue. A lot of the film is built in cgi, its ok but it does show. I kind of feel it wanted to be castlevania but didn’t quite work out how to be epic. Nude boobs on show, for titillation purposes, just seem gratuitous. The film wanted to do something different, kudos for that, but it seemed to throw a lot in the mix, gave it a quick shimmy and hoped for the best. Its best was about 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

AS:VS At Stake: Vampire Solutions – review

Director: Jim Weter

Release date: 2012

Contains spoilers

If you look at the AS:VS homepage (EDIT: homepage has now gone) you will see that the creators class this as a dark comedy and it is. However, to start off I have to say that I didn’t find it a laugh out loud comedy – which is not to say that it isn’t a good film, on the contrary I found it to be an excellent film, nor is it to say it isn’t a comedy, there is a vein of black humour pulsing below the surface of the film. However its strength is in its almost poignant undertones and satirical social commentary.

even the sign is economically depressed 

If I had to liken  the film to anything it would be the series Death Valley though there was an underlying zaniness to the series that would have been inappropriate in this. The series, you might recall, followed a police undead task force. This follows a civilian crew of vampire hunters in a world where vampirism is real and the police would rather a company like AS:VS puts themselves in jeopardy.

the media circus

The film begins with media about vampires, news reports, science shows, a cacophony of data. The professional shows are not what we are interested in, however, we are travelling with Evan Shandling (Jimmy Patterson), a film student whose thesis for graduation is based around the working class and the economy and he has decided to showcase the company At Stake: Vampire Solutions as an example of a small company and its working class employees.

The AS:VS team

The crew seem less than friendly at first but owner Carl Bishop (Carl Pfeiffer) explains that they had been betting on whether Evan would even show up – a news crew arranged to travel with them once and never actually appeared. Carl also wants to know whether Evan has a death wish. As the film progresses we meet the rest of the team, Kevin Embry (Jerry Kimble) the second in command, redneck Roy Pickett (Joshua Brunson), Amy Scott (Anastasia Gale) and new team member Eddie Gamble (Michael Goff). As we follow them around the low budget filming never feels wrong as it is a student film essentially and the actual filmmakers were able to use this in order that they could hide many budget born sins in the dark of the Mississippi night.

vampire staked on tree

As for the vampires… Vampirism is passed through bite or scratch and it is essentially a virus but it mutates, hence a cure or vaccine has not yet been developed. A cop who is filmed suggests that, following a vampire injury, there are three likely outcomes – loose a limb (if that is where you were bitten), die or, worse, die and turn. On the first hunt we go on we hear the vampires growling gutturally – the sound selected works really well. We discover that the team uses paint ball guns with glass marbles as it is cheaper than firearms (this is an aspect of the social commentary, of course) and the vampires have soft dying tissues that the marbles rip through. When we see a vampire he ends up impaled on a tree branch and then killed with a headshot.

camp attack

Wait a second, you might say, headshot – that sounds very zombie. Well there is a zombie element to this I would say. Whilst the world debates whether vampires are just instinct or whether there is an intelligence and memory, Carl has noticed four basic vampire types. One type he describes as splotchy, there is another that travels on all fours, the mindless types (I guess we could go down the zompire line) and the intelligent vampire – later we discover that the intelligent ones can use the net to select prospective victims, for instance, and it is suggested you wouldn’t know it was a vampire if stood next to you – until it attacked.

restrained and turned

We do see a girl who is bitten and restrained by Roy until she turns (and then they kill her again), she is either feeding from her restrained wrist or literally trying to chew out of her restraints. We hear about unscrupulous funeral homes who charge double for a second burial. Vampires do not have fangs but they will chew anything (a vampire will devour the whole victim) and so often have broken shards of teeth – they are likened to komodo dragons for the toxic nature of their bite at one point. Garlic does little (though AS:VS worked, previously, with a vet who was trying to develop a garlic solution) however silver works well.

night hunting

I liked the thoughts around sunlight. Carl points out that sunlight itself does nothing to a vampire, after all, if it did, they wouldn’t go out at night as moonlight is reflected sunlight. Rather, it is the heat that gets them. Carl likens them to a sponge but, rather than being hydrated with water, it is blood they need. Too long in the heat and they start to dry out – it was a fairly unique idea. So the film actually looks at vampires in a clever way but juxtaposes this with a stinging satire around economics and vocation versus employment.

vampire horde

I was really taken by this film and I always love to find a leftfield film, independent by nature, that manages to rise above the obstacles born of budget and produce a really worthwhile addition to the genre. From the very beginning the low budget was forgotten and I knew we had a winner. The acting was natural, which was what it needed. You believed these were ordinary working Joes and that carried the film well. There is a sequel – not yet released – and I am really looking forward to it. 7.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Crimson Throne – review

Director: Bryan Ferriter

Release date: 2013

Contains spoilers

Also known as Crimson Winter, this film has had a UK DVD release as Crimson Throne (note it has been rated as 18 and not 15 as per the sample cover) and, with vampires and medieval warriors, I really wanted to love it. I really did. It was a pity it was just so… well nothing really.

That’s not to say that there wasn’t effort put in, that there weren’t good ideas (if under-explored in important places) and that cast and crew didn’t make an effort – for an indie flick there was clearly effort – but I think that one of the problems with the star, writer and director being the same person can make a film suffer through lack of a natural check and balance.

Bryan Ferriter as Elric

Essentially the film follows Elric (Bryan Ferriter)- a vampire Prince who believes in the prophecy given to his people by the Oracle (Patrick Gorman). This prophecy sees a time of unity between vampire and human. The prophecy suggests the interactions of three figures, a lion (Elric) who will lead, a wolf who will challenge and a falcon who will carry out the dream. Elric’s father, King Aldric (David Lee Smith), is unsure and has fought humans for centuries. Elric’s brother Auberon (Nathan Mills) hates humans.

David Lee Smith as Aldric

Now Elric’s mother believed in the prophecy but she died and it is as good a place as anywhere to bring the first vague aspect of lore. The vampires have their own land, Sub Mundus, walk in daylight and refer to humans as another race. So they are a separate species then? Well the film ranges in date from (dated) 1095 to modern day so they are “immortal” and eternally young but do have families. Yet we discover later that humans can be turned (the vampires changed their genetic code aeons ago a hunter says in a meaningless moment of techno-babble). Is it a retro-virus, supernatural, another species that can reproduce through genetic alteration, a sub-species of humanity, the undead? We just don’t know. But we can ask, what did she die of? The question remains unanswered and could be anywhere between them being a species who can contract disease and die (not suggested at all), or there was an accident (surely it  would have been mentioned) or she was killed by humans (thus bringing the survivors' attitudes into question). Unfortunately she apparently just randomly died.

Elric escaping prison

The film follows Elric in flashback as he fights in the crusades (we see very little in the way of sweeping vistas in the various flashbacks, just glimpses of a handful of knights/vampires, clearly a budget thing), fighting with the French against the English (and killing a vampire fighting for the English, not that the event really impacts the film after being specifically pointed out), falling in love with a human, Isabelle (Paulie Rojas), impregnating her, refusing to turn her, being imprisoned by his father and brother (as she is killed for the crime of being different), the bloody revolt (again involving half a dozen people) to free him and them fleeing to the new world – him swearing revenge. In the American Mountains he is building an army; vampire hunters (a family trade) are there and he allows them to live and hunt as they hone his recruits.

Dylan and Roxanne

Into this come young lovers Dylan (Nick Milodragovich) and Roxanne (Kailey Michael Portsmouth) who are researching the mysterious deaths of deer in the mountains, with fellow students Kurt (Benjamin Dawley-Anderson) and Pam (Julia Porter). Their guide is Dylan’s best friend Will (Dave Noel) who is pissed off as his friend is getting married and thus becomes even more down when he hears that Roxanne is pregnant. At this point I would actually hope that you are thinking that this film is sounding good…

hunters

Not so, unfortunately, you see nothing really happens. The background flashbacks take up most of the film; they are languid and fail to build a depth of story particularly. They also suffer from the fact that there wasn’t really the budget to achieve visually what such a vast story needed. The stuff with the humans is almost crowbarred in and is not nearly tense enough. You have a survival aspect but they are essentially wiped out in a few scenes – not unrealistic to the scenario but un-cinematic. Then, for the climax, we find the falcon and the film ends. No conclusion, no ending to the substantive story. We are about 1/3 to ½ through what I would say the substantive story should amount to – sacrificed to backstory that gives a background to Elric but not the other vampires really.

Patrick Gorman as the Oracle

We don’t really know what Auberon’s problem was. We do not see his hinted at Wormtongue influence over the father. We don’t know how vampire hunters started emerging or why. We don’t know why Auberon made sure his story got to the hunters (except it means that one of the students can read about the story background). We don’t get a unification or otherwise, we don’t even get the necessary battle between the vampire factions. We don't find out why it appears to have taken more than a hundred years to build his army. We hear of something called the link (which is the Oracle’s mystic mojo, a connection of empathy between him and Elric) but it’s never really explained.

Ryan Pfieffer as Guiscard

I have intimated that cast and crew made an effort and they did. The cinematography looked professional, the costumes worked well, the odd bit of gore (very sparsely used as it was) worked well enough and the acting seemed ok. I say ok as most of the actors had very little to work with. We get a trusted lieutenant, Guiscard (Ryan Pfeiffer), who seems to be a force of chaos at the end but he isn’t given the scenes or dialogue to make us understand why – and the film (and Elric) never really resolves his actions. I didn’t think Bryan Ferriter particularly projected great leader – though his performance was perfectly okay, the character came across as a bit of a drip – despite trials and tribulations.

sloppy drinker

Then we get the Deus Ex Machina, a connection between the humans we meet and the vampires, which was never once hinted at until revealed in a flashback that was laughable in its convenience. It was actually unnecessary, just really convenient. I don’t know whether the writers (it was a team effort given that there was more than just Bryan Ferriter involved) convinced themselves that it was clever, but it was ill-conceived I’m afraid.

a flash of fang

This should have been good. Of course the budget restraints would have always held it back from being what it wanted to be – had it wanted to be more than 1/3rd of a story. 4 out of 10 recognises that efforts were there and this was not just some cinematic tat flicked off but they really need to think about what they are doing and where they are going.

The imdb page is here.