A Love Like Blood – review

Author: Marcus Sedgwick

First published: 2014

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: I've chased him for over twenty years, and across countless miles, and though often I was running, there have been many times when I could do nothing but sit and wait. Now I am only desperate for it to be finished.

In 1944, just days after the liberation of Paris, Charles Jackson sees something horrific: a man, apparently drinking the blood of a murdered woman. Terrified, he does nothing, telling himself afterwards that worse things happen in wars.

Seven years later he returns to the city - and sees the same man dining in the company of a fascinating young woman. When they leave the restaurant, Charles decides to follow...

A LOVE LIKE BLOOD is a dark, compelling thriller about how a man's life can change in a moment; about where the desire for truth - and for revenge - can lead; about love and fear and hatred. And it is also about the question of blood.

The review: A love Like Blood is a book that works precisely because it steps away from the atypical vampire tropes and delivers a first person account of obsession and blood with a wonderfully strong narrative.

Charles Jackson, the narrator, was called into active service towards the end of the second world war and was a doctor in the RAMC (Royal Army Medical Corps). Whilst stationed outside Paris, following the liberation, his CO takes him to a private museum as he wishes to see a piece. Whilst in there Charles sees an Assyrian bowl that depicts a man copulating with a decapitated woman – the woman having been identified as a vampire and the image serving as a talisman against such creatures.

Charles has already confessed to having a strangely obsessional reaction to blood and when he looks inside a bunker in the museum’s grounds he sees a man apparently drinking the blood of a woman. The RAMC were unarmed but, rather than go to her aid, he backs away. By the time he returns the man and the woman(‘s body) are gone.

It is the first time that he crosses paths with the vampire but not the last and he, meanwhile, returns to civilian life and takes up haematology as a specialism. When he falls for a woman who is involved with the vampire (identified at that point as a Estonian Margrave of considerable private means) disaster follows and, following disaster comes obsession.

The vampire is, more properly, a living man suffering from clinical vampirism. All in all it is the voice of the narrator (who himself is of flawed character) that carries the novel but I did like the way Sedgwick played with the sexual and obsessional tropes associated with the supernatural vampire. Definitely worth a read. 7 out of 10.

Being Human (US – Season 3) – review

Director: Various

First aired: 2013

Contains spoilers


Whilst Being Human was a brilliant concept, the BBC production went steadily downhill season upon season. The UK Season 3 had me stating, “when it is good it is very, very good but when it is bad it is a little like snogging a rotting, animated corpse, leaving a bad taste in the viewer's mouth.” Not so its American doppelgänger, which is consistently high quality.

Sam Huntingtin as Josh

Let me take my quote as a point in case. The reason I mentioned the rotting corpse was down to an episode that featured a zombie character (and a necrophilic rotting kiss). It was an excellent episode that was a one off and entered into for comedic effect. The reason that the zombie came to be was roughly story related but didn’t stand too much scrutiny in the grand scheme. The US season 3 also features zombies but their introduction is entirely story based, entered into for dramatis reasons, makes sense in the universe and is a featured plot point.

Sally in Limbo

So, Season 2 left us with Sally the ghost (Meaghan Rath) banished to limbo and Aidan the vampire (Sam Witwer, Angel & Dark Angel: Love in Vein) buried alive as a punishment. This season starts 18 months later. Josh (Sam Huntington, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night) is no longer a werewolf, having killed his maker (Andreas Apergis) but the lifting of the curse has not passed down the line to his girlfriend Nora (Kristen Hager, Valemont). They have spent the last 18 months going from psychic to psychic trying to get a line on Sally to no avail. They have also been questioning vampires to try and find Aidan.

Henry contracts the virus

Unfortunately the vampires have had their own problems – in that they are dying out as a race. A flu strain has swept across the world and it seems it was mild from a human point of view (if a pandemic) as we get the idea that it knocked an infected person out for a couple of weeks but no sense that it was deadly. Unfortunately it has left the blood of any infected person poisonous to vampires. They contract the disease and quickly, over a matter of days, turn to dust. Taking advantage of this, the werewolves are hunting the remaining vampires down whilst they are weak with hunger. Aidan finds himself dug out of the ground and turned into a one-man blood farm as there is a thought amongst the vampires that his missing of the pandemic event will cure them – it does not. Once liberated Aidan meets with his vampiric son, Henry (Kyle Schmid, Blood Ties), who has a unique method of staying fed – until Aidan wrecks it and Henry becomes infected.

Amy Aquino as Donna

Meanwhile Josh and Nora have been directed to a witch, Donna (Amy Aquino), who can return Sally from Limbo but not as a ghost. Using the heart of someone Josh has killed and Sally’s exhumed body Donna is able to return her to life. There is a catch, however, Sally cannot see anyone from her life and a complication in that she pulls her friends Stevie (Robert Naylor) and Nick (Pat Kiely) out of limbo too (they awaken in their coffins off screen and are rescued by Josh). Sally soon finds that the catch is very real as anyone she meets, from her life, dies.

Sally is feeling zombiefied

What Sally dies not know is that Donna consumes their souls – she is over three hundred years old and essentially an energy vampire. When Sally sees her brother (Jesse Rath, My Babysitter’s a Vampire) she begs Donna’s help and Donna cuts her a deal, allowing her to see people from her past in return for her soul. The curse is also lifted from Nick and Stevie, as they are all connected, but all three begin to suffer an insatiable hunger and then start to rapidly rot from the inside out. Only live flesh satisfies the hunger and soon only human flesh will do – they are the zombies I mentioned and they are full on flesh eaters but with enough sentience to be tortured over it.

Aiden's past

I don’t want to spoil how the season goes any further (I needed to touch on the zombie issue though) but I will say that we get to see Aidan’s mortal life and turning, a pureblood werewolf comes into Josh and Nora’s life and the season ends up with the genesis of a brand new monster. However, all this goes to explain why this holds together so much better than the UK version, the storylines are thought through and clearly tested against the series’ own internal logic. For instance the entire thing with Sally and Limbo matches the Annie storyline from the UK except why Sally goes over makes more sense (Annie’s plight was caused by guardians who were then steadfastly ignored) and how she came back made more sense too.

The acting, throughout, is good. The production values high. But it is the ongoing strong storyline and internal logic that makes this one of the best (and most underrated) supernatural shows on TV. 8 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

The Strain: Volume 1 - review

Author: David Lapham

Art: Mike Huddleston

First Published: 2012

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: When a Boeing 777 lands at JFK International Airport and goes dark on the runway, the Center for Disease Control, fearing a terrorist attack, calls in Dr. Ephraim Goodweather and his team of expert biological-threat first responders. Only an elderly pawnbroker from Spanish Harlem suspects a darker purpose behind the event--an ancient threat intent on covering mankind in darkness.

Adapting the first novel in Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s New York Times best selling The Strain Trilogy, this horrifying first chapter introduces an outbreak of diabolical proportions that puts a terrifying twist on the vampire genre!

The Review: With the TV adaptation of the Strain not too far away I decided to have a look at the graphic novel adaptations. This first volume contains the comic books 1 – 6 and is actually the first half of the first novel’s story.

All in all it is pretty much a straight adaptation. The writing has suitably transferred it to the graphic format but for anyone who has already read the novel there is nothing unexpected. You can follow the link to the novel review if you wish to pick up more about the very unique vampire lore.

The artwork for the covers is superb. However I was not sold on the artwork for the actual story. It seems a little clean, a little too functional but without atmosphere for my tastes. It isn’t bad art but it doesn’t rock my world.

Of course the main thing has to be the story, but I can’t see this being a huge draw for those who have read the novel already – it is probably more for those who haven’t and/or prefer their literature graphic rather than prose. 6 out of 10.

Grimm Fairy Tales: Unleashed Volume 1 – review

Writer: Pat Shand & Ors

Artists: various

First Published: 2013

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Earth and the Four Realms that surround it have been witness ro great evil over the centuries. The Dark One, the Dream Eater, Helios and the Jabberwocky are just a few of the entities that have attempted to corrupt and destroy humanity. But none of them has been a greater threat than The Being.

Now, the guardian of the Nexus, Sela Mathers, must join forces with four monster hunters in a battle against this powerful entity and the hordes of vampires, demons, werewolves and zombies that he has unleashed upon an unsuspecting Earth. Part One of the Greatest Grimm Fairy Tales Event yet begins here!

The review: I was not aware of the Xenescope Grimm Fairy Tales series before reading this, but from what I can see it is a far ranging and large series of independent comics that takes Fairy Tale and mythological characters and spins stories around them. Many early editions had Sela Mathers showing people fairy tales as lessons for life and the concept expanded from there.

This is an event drawing in many threads of the expanded GFT universe and there is the danger, of course, that a new reader could be lost. The volume does contain a character bio section that helps, and the fact that, for instance, part of this includes Greek Gods and Liesel Van Helsing (of the famous family) also helps. There are cross references to mini-series and full series that promise expansion of story background but, all in all, that is not going to help the casual reader. Some of the inter-personal antagonism was lost on the new reader.

However the story was fairly simple – incidentally, the vampiric element coming in the form of a lot of vampire cannon-fodder and Samira, The Being's main Lieutenant. It was pretty much end of the world stuff and this volume actually only really puts the pieces into play and into order – I’m guessing volume 2 will contain the meat of the story.

I enjoyed the artwork – there was a slickness to the house style and an outlandishness (with what amounts to a misogynistic view of female body image if I'm going to be honest) that fit in with a “superhero” vibe and – despite the body image issue mentioned – it was nice to see so many female protagonists included. The artwork did make my mind did spin off to Heavy Metal to some degree too.

All in all a good comic book romp, slightly marred by the need to know some background (but not catastrophically, and it did its best to bring newer readers to speed). 6 out of 10.

V-Wars – review

Editor: Jonathon Maberry

First Published: 2013

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: They are already here.

They hide among us.

They hunt us.

They feed on us.

They ARE us.

V-Wars is the chronicle of the first Vampire War. From the savage murders committed by the patient zero of the plague to full-out battles with vampire terrorist cells, these are the stories of the most terrifying war mankind has ever faced!

The review: With a comic book currently available and a potential TV series, I thought it time I finally got around to V-Wars. The original book is a collection of shorts edited by (and contributed to by) Jonathon Maberry but the authors all had a common world and backstory to stick to. This backstory is shown to us by Maberry in a story entitled Junk. In Junk a b movie actor named Michael Fayne starts having blackouts. Fayne was patient zero for a flu virus known as ice flu (or I1V1), one that had been trapped in ice and released through global warming and that Fayne had contracted whilst filming on location in Alaska.

The blackouts occur as Fayne mutates, the virus causing junk DNA to activate and turn him into a vampire – he is caught because of the trail of decimated bodies he leaves behind but, of course, he is only the first. I would suggest that there is nothing supernatural about the vampires in V-Wars but that wouldn’t be strictly true. Whilst they are mutated individuals, and living rather than undead, they take on the vampiric form that their ancestry correlates with. We get a wurdulac, the woman being of Russian extraction, who can only feed on those she cares for and can turn victims, we get a snake vampire, we get a Jiangshi (Kyonsi) who has to do stretches each day to stop his tendons from becoming taut (the kyonsi is drawn folklore accurately; covered in white hair and has a monster face) and a Hsi-Hsue-Kuei that takes the form of a green haired ogre. Essentially every vampire type is catered for in this universe. As well as this some turn into Loup-Garou and others more traditional werewolves that are natural enemies of the vampires.

The transformations I mentioned (that do obey the law of mass and thus the mass remains constant) seem more supernatural (or praeternatural at least). When it comes to feeds we have similar. Whilst the wurdulac’s feeding seems almost a hard-wired psychological imperative, the kyonsi’s energy draining ability is again much more supernatural. The majority of vampires are blood drinkers, however, though some are flesh eaters and many have a need for human blood/flesh specifically.

Many of the stories are split into parts and the stories intermingle as we jump to just before the V-event to sometime after. We see the reaction of Government, US Homeland Security and the electorate. We see towns become lawless, or controlled by gangs. What we don’t see, I don’t believe, is all out war – but we see the start of such an event and the universe really does have legs enough to go on and on.

There isn't a bad story in the collection, and there isn’t any bad prose. It is all crisp, powerful stuff. Some of the vampires do become guilt-ridden but others revel in their condition. The only real shame of this volume is the time it has taken me to get to it. It is highly recommended and makes me really look forward to the release of the graphic trade paperback and the potential TV series. 9 out of 10.

Honourable Mention: Chappaqua

This 1966 film was written and directed by Conrad Rooks, who also starred in it as Russel Harwick – a young man who is both an alcoholic and drug addict and who travels to Europe to take a cure. As such the film is semi-autobiographical as Rooks (who was a heir to the Avon cosmetic products fortune) was himself a troubled young man, who became an addict and then travelled to Switzerland to take a “sleeping cure”.

It is the sort of film that is not going to be popular with many, it is somewhat of a psychedelic mess as Rooks tries to explain addiction visually. However, for fans of the Beats especially, the inclusion of Allen Ginsberg and William S Burroughs in the cast will be a draw. It also has a vampire.

the vampire

Harwick is the vampire in a couple of scenes. With his top hat and bat wing cloak he seems like something from Victoriana. We see him bite the once but it generally isn’t standard vampire stuff as it is steeped within Rooks’ own symbolism. A fleeting visitation but a visitation nonetheless.

The imdb page is here.

The Stress of her Regard – review

Author: Tim Power

First Published: 1989

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Lake Geneva, 1816

As Byron and Shelley row on the peaceful waters of Lake Geneva, a sudden squall threatens to capsize them. But this is no natural event - something has risen from the lake itself to attack them.

Kent, 1816

Michael Crawford's wife is brutally murdered on their wedding night as he sleeps peacefully beside her - and a vengeful ghost claims Crawford as her own husband.

Crawford's quest to escape his supernatural bride takes him to the edges of Europe: a journey shared by other victims of the ghost’s embrace. The greatest poets of the day – Byron, Keats, and Shelley – embark with Crawford on a desperate Grand Tour through Europe, seeking to outrun the demonic presence who takes her pleasure in their ravaged bodies and imperilled souls.

Telling a secret history of passion and terror, Tim Powers recasts the tragic lives of the Romantics in a gripping and Gothic feat of imagination.

The review: Regular readers will recall that I have already reviewed Tim Powers’ novel Hide me Amongst the Graves. Set amongst the Pre-Raphaelites it was a stunning novel that spun an interesting and unusual take on vampirism – where the vampires were the Nephilim. I explained in that review that it was actually the sequel to this book. The main points of connection between the volumes being the Nephilim themselves, that the character Michael Crawford of this book is the father of one of the primary characters of the next and, of course, that Polidori is a living person as this volume begins, whose ghost becomes the integrated mask of a Nephilim and who becomes the primary vampire of Hide me Amongst the Graves.

I was so impressed with the second book that I ordered the Stress of Her Regard as I read it and it jumped to the top of my “to read” pile. This proved to be... not a mistake so much, but had I read the books in the correct order I don’t think I’d been as quick to read the second book.

Don’t get me wrong this is a finely written book, Powers is a consummate word-smith, and should actually draw me in more as I have always had an interest in Byron, to a lesser degree Shelley and, of course, Polidori is the English prose source of vampirism in literature. Perhaps this was part of the problem – they were personalities that I have already read about in many forms, and yet I wasn’t as drawn into the story as I was by Hide me Amongst the Graves. Perhaps it was because the sequel was so well written that this volume was always in danger of struggling in comparison? I didn’t feel that Powers had rounded his mythology as well as he later did – note that another name for the Nephilim in this is Lamia, by the way, and they can take the form of winged serpents.

Part of me was disappointed that Polidori’s role was so small in many respects (of course he and Byron did part company and the book was more interested in Byron and Shelley). The fact that he would be such a major part of the subsequent novel was likely unknown or embryonic for Powers as he wrote this, but the impact that Polidori ultimately had on the vampire genre is known and the Vampyre; a tale does not feature enough for me.

Not a bad volume, by any stretch, but not as good as the sequel and, for me, a slog in places. 7 out of 10.

Bela Kiss: Prologue – review

Director: Lucien Förstner

Release Date: 2013

Contains spoilers

Regular readers will be aware that I will look at films that are about real world serial killers, if they have been called vampires for some reason. Béla Kiss was one such serial killer.

Living in the small town of Czinkota near (and now part of) Budapest he had a farm on which he seemed to be stockpiling barrels of petrol. He was drafted into the First World War and, in 1916, soldiers went to his property to appropriate the petrol. Rather than fuel, however, they contained the bodies of women preserved in alcohol. The vampire connection comes in because, according to Charlotte Greig’s Evil Serial Killers: In the Minds of Monsters, there were punctures on the necks and they had been drained of blood.

soldier

As such, when I sat down to watch this I thought it likely to be an honourable mention. As it turned out, it is most definitely a vampire movie – albeit one that suffers from trying to be a bit of all things to all people. It begins with images of soldiers attending the Bela Kiss (Rudolf Martin, Dracula – the Dark Prince & Buffy the Vampire Slayer) property, accompanied with a tape recording of one of them describing what they found. The opening is effective in generating an atmosphere for the film.

Kristina Klebe as Julia

After some (frankly confusing) images of an attack (possibly sexual) the camera cuts to the woman, Julia (Kristina Klebe, Buffy the Vampire Slayer – season 8 motion comic), who is daydreaming the attack whilst playing with a pendant and looking out of a VW van’s window. Driving the van is her boyfriend Felix (Ben Bela Böhm) and the other passengers are Sophie (Janina Elkin), Peter (Angus McGruther) and Nikolai (Fabian Stumm). Nikolai is a childhood friend of Julia, they were in the same orphanage, and demands that they take a back road.

Fabian Stumm as Nikolai

By doing so they get stuck as a land rover blocks the path. They hear a gunshot and a man (Roman Leitner) comes up to the van and says he’ll move his vehicle out of their way. His battery is flat and he asks for a jump start. Reluctantly they agree and Felix asks about blood on the man’s hand – he killed a deer he says. When his vehicle starts the radio comes on in the middle of a news report about bank robbers (3 men, 2 women) in a VW van. Now I have to say that they look the most unlikely bank robbers in the world, but it is they. There is a standoff that ends with a ringtone, the startled man accidentally fires, winging Julia - in return Nikolai shoots him; this is to the chagrin of the others as the guns used in the robbery were meant to be replicas only. Nikolai drags the man into the woods but he is still alive and so he bludgeons him to death.

Pester-Haigh and Jakubec 

They reach a hotel, which is their hideout destination as it is a getaway for illicit lovers and no names are given. However the hotel staff seem somewhat weird. The two we meet are Ms Jakubec (Julia Horvath), the proprietoress, and a waiter named Mr. Pester-Haigh (Peer Martiny). There is a house red wine that is suspiciously red (little further mention is made of this) and the menu only contains meat – Sophie is a vegetarian and this causes Mr. Pester-Haigh some consternation. Nikolai is the go-between with the gang's mysterious crime boss who phones occasionally, but Nikolai is lying to his friends by suggesting (as he has the only radio) that the police are actively looking for them, when in truth the search has been called off, and suggesting, therefore, that they remain in the hotel.

Death comes for Bela

Whilst all this is going on we get flashbacks, via a researcher (Jörg Koslowsky), to the story of Bela Kiss. Whilst the film suggests, due to the scenery etc, that the researcher is working contemporary to the original events, he is actually in the modern setting. We discover that Bela Kiss was married, that his wife (Claudia Jäger) was having an affair and that, when following them into Budapest, Kiss was shot "dead" by a robber. We get a scene where Death hovers above him before being pulled away.

time took the bullet

His life was saved by his pocket watch, which took the bullet, and he later lets the locals know that his wife “ran away” with her lover. He hires a housekeeper, Ms Jakubec, and then starts luring women under the pseudonym Hoffman. Of course, as per the real live Kiss, he goes to war at which point his murders are discovered but he is thought killed in action. The film keeps the features of the housekeeper Ms Jakubec hidden but it is clear she and the modern hotelier are the same person hence the vampire aspect. It is a spoiler, but not too much of one, to be told that Kiss discovered the secret of immortality through blood. Like, a character later says, a vampire but without the fairytale (sunlight for instance) or the fangs. As for the form of vampirism; we know they are living rather than undead from what they say and we don't actually see any obvious blood consumption, bar a lick off fingers. However we know it is consumed as mention is made of a certain paralysing agent leaving a bitter after-taste in the blood.

the film is part slasher

The trouble with the film is that it puts too much in, beyond the fact that our bank robbers look more like college students. Ms Jakubec has a clear interest in Julia and Nikolai (telling the latter that she knows who they are), there is a weird and creepy hotel vibe that needed further follow through (recurring vibrating liquid, as though a Jurassic Park T-Rex is nearby, might suggest the supernatural - rather than dinosaurs - but is not really followed up on). Then there is a slasher aspect that takes way too long to come to fruition to be really effective. Then there is a Hostel type vibe but the film shies away from torture and so it doesn’t become torture porn. There perhaps needed to be an establishment between the researcher, the research and the present sooner and Bela Kiss himself needed to be in it more.

in a bloody bath

Julia Horvath is fabulous as Ms Jakubec walking the line between predatory seductress and ultra-creepy really well. Her performance could have been exploited more (as the best in the film) had the film concentrated on the creepy hotel vibe more. Most of the cast is otherwise unremarkable but I have to mention Rudolf Martin who has little to do through the flashbacks – they are done stylistically (and I was impressed with the look and cinematography of these scenes) with his voiceover – but then gets a choice line to camera towards the end and chews the scenery so much that there seemed to be teeth marks in the DVD! This could have been so much better than it was but it does have some sense of style and the post-production seemed excellent. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable mention: Il Prato Macchiato Di Rosso

Let’s get something straight from the get go. There is no vampire in this Riccardo Ghione 1973 film, which was internationally called The Bloodstained Lawn. Certainly nothing supernatural goes on and the blood draining (which is there) is for profit. There is no suspicion of a vampire and so you might wonder why I am looking at this.

Sometimes a film uses tropes that are recognisable from the vampire genre and it is enough to see it as a take on the genre. I felt that this did, but it is entirely up for debate and I expect that many will disagree. The film is also very surreal – and I don’t just mean the flamboyant ties, tied as bowties, worn by Enzo Tarascio’s character Dr. Antonio Genovese.

checking the bottles

The film starts with two men carrying crates onto a ship. When they are on-board a man, credited only as UNESCO Agent (Nino Castelnuovo), picks up a crate and wanders off with it. He gets to his car and opens it up. Inside are wine bottles. He smashes the neck of one and pours the contents out, it contains blood. The blood, incidentally, is rather vivid red.

Claudio Biava as Alfiero 

A man drives his car, his name is Alfiero (Claudio Biava). We see him pick up a prostitute (Dominique Boschero) and then, with the prostitute gone from his car, we see him stop for a gypsy girl (Barbara Marzano). He goes to a wine sellers and asks for Genovese and is directed to a back room but he is looking for Nina (Marina Malfatti), his sister, rather than his brother-in-law Antonio. They leave the place, taking a drunk (Lucio Dalla) with them.

Max and his unnamed friend

Max (George Willing) and his unnamed companion (Daniela Caroli) are hippies who are hitching. Alferio gives them a lift. As they reach a town he suggests that, if they have nowhere to stay, they could stay at his sister’s home. He takes them there, through an electric security gate, and to a very posh home. In there are the gypsy, the prostitute and the drunk. Essentially what then goes on is that they are wined and dined for some time, but can’t help but feel that something nefarious is going on. Of course, it is.

drained bodies

Actually (beyond the occasional bout of foreboding) their sense of danger is right off: they take the rather camp looking robot as nothing more than a statue and they hardly blink when they see the gypsy tied naked on a bed and gagged – because she is epileptic. They find a skull in a garden oven and do not try to escape or make mention of it. They find the obvious hatred between Nina and her husband amusing. However they do eventually wake up to the danger enough to start searching through the house, and discover a walk-in freezer full of exsanguinated corpses with wounds on their necks.

blood draining robot

This forces them to face their fate – amply demonstrated on the prostitute when the robot uses a clawed appendage to pierce her neck and then suck out all her blood. The family are draining those who won’t be missed but it is not for sustenance in the standard vampiric sense. Rather they are smuggling it out of the country in wine bottles (apparently without refrigeration) and selling it on the black market in war zones. Nina married Antonio for his money (he also invented the robot) but has turned on him because she now makes enough money through the blood.

Marina Malfatti as Nina

Whilst it isn’t traditionally vampire we have the blood sucking, through the robot, the position of the wound, the need to drain for money (rather than sustenance), the fact that Nina is vampish in the wicked woman version of the word, the incestuous undertone between Alfiero and Nina and the mysterious man taking travellers to the mansion (rather than castle). It all felt like it owed a debt to the vampire genre. I got a vague feel of Hanno Cambiato Faccia though the earlier film is better than this as a film and more clearly vampiric.

Certainly of genre interest. The imdb page is here.

Young Dracula – Season 4 – review

Directors: Various

First aired: 2012

Contains spoilers

The path of the Young Dracula series has evolved from being a predominantly kids’ show, with adult nuances and a dark heart, through Seasons 1 and 2 to a less comedic, more young adult orientated show in Season 3. They have continued along this path in season 4.

Robbie Gee as Ramanga

There is still some comedy in the form of Renfield (Simon Ludders) and that comedy tends towards the physical and juvenile gross out comedy. Also Keith-Lee Castle is still suavely brilliant as the Count, under cutting his performance with a rock star performance that teases out the comedic nuances of his character. However, beyond this much of the lightness has been removed.

Gerran Howell as Vlad

Vlad (Gerran Howell) has brokered a fragile peace between the Vampires’ High Council and the Slayers and this season sees political machinations, dynastic marriages (or not), blood farming and general intolerance between two groups of people neither of whom can seem to control their (homicidal) tendencies. Vlad also discovers In this that he has an illegitimate older half-brother.

political games

The series actually uses the Vlad character as the centre of its renewed dark heart. He has gone from an idealistic lad, for whom things tended to go right in the end, to a young man struggling with responsibility, desire and power. We see him having to destroy his own kind, betray the girl he loves (by turning her when she is dying) and have her turn on him, challenged for his power, slipping into the use of real blood and becoming more and more paranoid, untrusting of those around him.

blood farming

However it seems less a power corrupts (though there is a degree of that) and more a loneliness of power. He hasn’t quite reached the level of political animal and thus finds himself out of his depths and fighting against the various currents. The fact that the central character is so conflicted, angsted and emotionally vulnerable gives the season a much darker edge and it struggles to maintain the excellent balance between kids TV and drama that previous series achieved. Combine this with storylines including kidnapping breathers and placing them into blood farms and some of the lighter moments start seeming rather misplaced.

Clare Thomas as Ingrid

This is reflected in the fact that the Wolfie (Lorenzo Rodriguez) character, Vlad’s vampire/werewolf younger half-brother, is virtually sidelined out of the show. If he seemed an inconvenience to the scriptwriters in season 3, he is even more so in this. A young child character does not seem appropriate in the show somehow. There was an excruciating love triangle added in between the Count, the mortal Miss McCauley (Letty Butler) and science teacher Bertolini (Simon Lawson), which was never raised above a kid’s script and thus felt awkward against the darker direction.

bat at the window

But in this lies the problem. The balance was (as mentioned) brilliant in the first couple of seasons, was slightly off kilter in season 3 perhaps, but it left this season feeling unbalanced and less fulfilling somehow. It’s still worth watching, mind you, but it appears the creators are struggling to keep their creation as balanced as it deserves. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

I, Vampire: Volume 3 Wave of Mutilation – review

Writer: Joshua Hale Fialkov

Artists: Various

First Published: 2013 (Trade Paperback)

Contains spoilers

The blurb: Andrew Bennett is a very unusual vampire. For hundreds of years, he’s avoided feeding on humans and has attempted to use his powers to stop those vampires who prey on humanity, including a monster of his own creation – his former love Mary, Queen of Blood.

But now everything is changed. To stop Mary, Andrew took the power of all the vampires into himself, turning them all mortal… but in the process, turning himself into the most powerful, most evil vampire to walk the earth.

Now, as Andrew begins building a team of new vampires, Mary will have to unite with Andrew’s former allies – many of whom have a good reason to despise her – to stop him before its too late. But more than Andrew’s soul lies in the balance. If Mary fails, the entire world will fall to the mad vampire who once protected it.

detail

The review: The first two volumes of the New 52 reboot of I, Vampire (Volume 1 & Volume 2) were consistently good graphic novels, though I felt the Justice League Dark sections of volume 2 were weaker art-wise. The story of volume 1 was perhaps a tad simplistic but the breakneck speed of volume 2 made up for that.

Volume 3 was fabulous, the artwork was produced by several artists but was more consistent and suited the story and atmosphere. We get Andrew Bennett’s turning story, we meet both Cain and Lilith (Lilith is Cain’s wife in this universe), we get a brick from the tower of Babel and Constantine is in the story (though the other DC crossover characters from earlier volumes are missing). The switch around in characters was really nice, Bennett becomes thoroughly evil (and not too bright, to be fair, having relied on the wisdom of others before) and Mary becomes… well not good as such, but on good’s side at least.

The volume neatly ends the story (I understand that it was meant to run for some 5 more comics but Fialkov was given enough notice of the early series cancellation to be able to draw everything in neatly). 8 out of 10.

Honourable Mention: the Beast and the Magic Sword

It feels sometimes that I will forever be finding "just one more" Paul Naschy film to feature on TMtV. The truth is, of course, that it can’t be... but, for now, turning over the cinematographic rocks and finding these euro-horror films amounts to little bubbles of joy in my life (even if the films aren’t that great sometimes).

The Beast and the magic Sword was a Japanese/Spanish co-production from 1983 and was written and directed by Naschy. In truth, though it was the V word that brought it to my attention, it nearly didn’t qualify for even an honourable mention. Vampires are literally mentioned in passing and their mention is at the head of the film.

Paul Naschy as Irineus Daninsky

The king Otton the Great (Gérard Tichy) is in a quandary. He has defeated the Hungarians and captured their leader Bhulcho. However, despite the fact that they died like any other men, the people believe that Hungarians are “Devils – insatiable vampires who seek out victims to steal away their blood and souls.” They are thought to bring plague and ruined harvests. Indeed if Bhulcho is executed, rather than die in single combat, it is believed he will return from the dead, as will all the Hungarian soldiers who have been killed. To solve this thorny problem, Otton invites the Polish knight Irineus Daninsky (Paul Naschy) to challenge the Magyar to single combat.

defeating Bhulcho 

The fight happens and Daninsky wins. To make absolutely sure, Otton orders the Magyar’s heart to be pierced by a silver cross and his remains burned. However Bhulcho’s mistress is a witch and curses Daninsky’s pregnant wife so that all their descendants will become beasts if born the seventh son on the full moon (and it did strike me that such curses are a bit too specific to be overly effective). Thus it takes six hundred years for one of the line, Waldermer (again, Paul Naschy), to become so cursed. He goes to a wise man for help but when the inquisition’s thugs kill said sage as a heretic, Waldemar is forced to seek help from a Japanese wise man called Kian (Shigeru Amachi, Onna kyûketsuki).

wolfman

So it is a werewolf in feudal Japan and vampires are never mentioned again. I did learn, however, that if a woman is pierced in the breast by a shuriken she will immediately die and we do get a fight between a wolfman and a tiger – filmed using real tigers. The imdb page is here.

Nosferatu – the Vampyre – review

Author: Paul Monette

First published: 1979

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Nosferatu… The Undead… Count Dracula… a name that will always whisper of the unspeakable, of sensuous evil, of the pinnacle of the sado-erotic, of death that travels on silken batwings.

A lonely, wraith-like figure, doomed to wander forever in the realm of twilight in search of the alluring and lovely woman, whose destiny is to defeat him only by submission… the giving of herself from the dusk until dawn.

Nosferatu – the name under which the vampire myth first reached the screen – is now recreated by Werner Herzog as a sensual and haunting masterpiece of cinema. Eighty years after Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Paul Monette’s outstanding novel once more breathes life into the ultimate myth of evil…

The review: If Dracula, the novelisation of the 1992 film seemed pointless due to its alleged closeness to the original novel then this novelisation was welcome as the film ploughed its own furrow distinct from the original novel.

The book is as evocative as the script it is based on and, like many novelisations, one wonders whether those aspects different to the film were born of an early script draft or the imagination of the author. I liked the idea that the affected perfection of Wismar (a false perfection as we scratch at the surface) almost causes its own downfall. The letter from Dracula employing Renfield’s firm is delivered by raven, which made me wonder whether it was Dracula in animal form – especially as Harker sees a strange man in black at the same time. However the raven remains on the outskirts of Wismar, a servant of the vampire, we discover.

The character of Mina is much more developed in the book (Mina and Lucy’s names are swapped, so Lucy is Jonathon’s wife). We also see more into Van Helsing’s actions, though he is still too blinded by science to see what is happening in the town (the film makes Van Helsing impotent). Dracula seeks out Lucy because there is a link, beyond the fact that she is Jonathon’s wife. Lucy is, Dracula believes, destined to be his queen.

It is an interesting companion to the film, though the evocative prose can, at times, drift languidly like a dream (the same could be said of some of the more picturesque scenes within the film, especially the longer German edit) but it may only be of interest to the fans of the film rather than a wider readership. 6.5 out of 10.

Nosferatu in Love – review

Director: Peter Straughan

First aired: 2014

Contains spoilers

Nosferatu in Love is a short that was part of the Playhouse Presents series (actually season 3 episode 2). Shot in Black and White and filmed in Czech it doesn’t actually feature a vampire.

Rather it features an actor, Mark Strong (himself), playing a vampire – indeed playing Count Dracula in a remake of Herzog’s Nosferatu – the Vampyre. The film sees him in makeup through its length.

Klára Issová as Luna

It begins with the fictional director (Zdenek Maryska, Bathory) suggesting that they were waiting on set for Strong to come out of his trailer. In the trailer his wife, Luna (Klára Issová), faces a closed door and tells him through it that she wants a normal life again. She has rented an apartment for her and their son and discards her wedding ring as she leaves (and as a runner tells him he is wanted on set). Strong leaves the trailer and starts to run, whether after her or simply away is not clear. As he runs he steals a moped off someone.

Fonso and Mark

We see him in town being refused entry into a restaurant – he has money, just not on him, he says. He turns to see a petty thief, Fonso (Petr Vanek), trying to steal the moped. Fonso makes an excuse about thinking it was his but Strong suggests that he might buy it. Fonso has no money but does know a man who might. Having sold the moped Strong wants a drink and Fonso agrees to be his guide. This leads them into a series of misadventures (mostly surrounding Strong’s desire to release a truck load of rats – for the film – into the town).

dancing Nosferatu

The film watches two disparate characters, who have more in common than they might think. The fact that Strong is in makeup throughout (which is rarely commented on, except that it leads Fonso to believe that Strong is the lead singer of death metal band Anus) leads to some of the comedy. The sight of Count Dracula dancing really tickled me. At one point Strong tells a barman that he is Sean Penn. The film leads them both to their individual catharsis, in a way, and leads Strong to give a stunning performance in his next scene (we are told).

on set

I rather liked this. The odd couple aspect of the two men worked well and there was a genuine comedic vein underpinned with a sadness. It is not a short that will change the world, but for its 24 minutes it entertained. 6 out of 10.

Thanks to Raven and Everlost for their assistance with this TMtV entry.

The imdb page is here.

Tiktik: The Aswang Chronicles – review

Director: Erik Matti

First released: 2012

Contains spoilers


Released on Australian DVD as the Aswang Chronicles, Tiktik was (I am led to believe) the first Philippines green screen dominant film and this lends the film a graphic novel feel that actually lets the film’s more outlandish aspects off the “suspension of disbelief” hook.

see, he's armless

The overall look is perhaps more professional than other offerings from its home country – though there are some CGI aspects that look very cheap (we’ll get there). In the film’s prologue we see a motorbike and covered sidecar that is being used as a means of transportation. We meet Makoy (Dingdong Dantes), a passenger, who is not happy with the delay at an armed checkpoint and comes across pretty much as an arrogant dick. The checkpoint chief (Roldan Aquino) predicts that he will meet his match. Then we hit the credits, which I mention as they were an excellent animated affair.

Dingdong Dantes as Makoy

Makoy is looking for his girlfriend Sonia (Lovi Poe, Aswang) who has, following an off screen argument, gone home to her parents – Nestor (Joey Marquez) and Fely (Janice de Belen). Sonia is heavily pregnant and Fely gives Makoy short shrift. However Nestor seems to be more sympathetic to the young man and asks him to come along as he and his help, Bart (Ramon Bautista), deliver (what I assumed to be) moonshine, and pick up stuff for a birthday feast for Sonia. They leave Bart at the market and go to a nearby settlement to get a pig for roasting – Bart has suggested it as his uncle should have a pig for sale and they’ll get it cheap.

sparkling?

The settlement is some distance into the mountains and, as they pull into there, Makoy gets annoyed with some youths and honks the car horn, which just attracts their (rather mild) juvenile delinquency. Now, it might have just been me, but a sheen of sweat over one youth almost made him sparkle! The kids are sorted out by Ringo (Mike Gayoso), Bart’s cousin, but Makoy is not impressed with the price he wants for a pig. During the conversation, however, Nestor has mentioned Sonia’s pregnancy. As they are leaving, Ringo’s son Kulot (R.J. Salvador) offers them a cut price pig. They wait outside the settlement for him and Kulot's friends eventually show with a pig (apparently without Kulot himself).

tongue

Of course Aswang can take the form of pigs and the pig is Kulot looking to snack on the unborn baby. Ringo turns up, near the house, wanting to stop the errant Aswang kids as they are going to get the settlement moved on/attacked. However Kulot is already in the house and has snuck up to Sonia’s room and is ready to use his long Aswang tongue to get to the baby. Sonia awakens, however, screams and brains him with a lamp. Makoy kills the aswang, the nearby Ringo swears revenge and, eventually, the whole aswang settlement is trying to get them.

in half and still going

The lore we get is a little confused in one respect; Bart, who never shows his aswang aspect and remains on the humans’ side, suggests that if they last to daybreak they’ll be safe as the aswang will lose their power – but, of course, it was day when Kulot transformed into a pig. Beyond this, garlic and salt repel and will burn an aswang – indeed it was a young lad shooting Aswang down, with deadly efficiency, using a garlic peanut snack and peashooter that was the outlandish moment I mentioned earlier. They can take some major punishment before dying (one loses her arms, is cut in two and still needs to be shot). A stingray’s tale cuts through Aswang like a hot knife through butter. If an Aswang bites and gets saliva in the wound it will cause a spreading infection that will kill the bitten person.

dog form

They are closest when their call is faintest and they can transform. As well as becoming pigs they can grow claws and fangs and run on all fours (and also appear to have no genitalia). Having drunk the saliva of the head aswang (who has a toothed bird living within him, this being the tiktik I assume) they can become demonic dogs and the leader can transform into a bat-winged monster. The CGI for the creatures was a little poor, especially the matting, but the graphic novel aesthetic let them get away with that to quite a degree. However, all told they are fairly easily killed by Makoy and his compatriots and the film is much more action than horror.

bird in the mouth - the tiktik

The acting works. Lovi Poe is subtly understated as Sonia, Dingdong Dantes plays Makoy as a complete ass and thus his redemption is all the more interesting. Janice de Belen is brilliant in a comedic sense as Fely. If you have a soft spot for Aswang (I do) then this is quite an accomplished little action film about Aswang. You can suspend disbelief and just enjoy it – even the more rubbish CGI won’t dim the film too much. There was a direction moment that annoyed, this was the slo-motion climax to the film that just went on and on and on and on – the scene could have been edited to around an eighth of its length. Other than that the direction captured the desired graphic novel feel. All that said, there is very little to the story (essentially a monsters laying siege trope). 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.