Lilith, a Vampire who Comes Back – review

Director: Gianni Virgadaula

Release date: 2008

Contains spoilers

Originally called Lemuri – Il bacio di Lilith this is an Italian black and white (and at times dyed, including into sepia) silent film. There are some critical issues but mostly it does what it wants to do rather well. The blurb of the DVD suggests that it pays homage to A Fool there Was (1915), which I didn’t overly see bar in a flashback, and even then any connection in my mind was probably more to do with the suggestion in the blurb rather than an overt homage. The blurb also likens this to the works of Jean Rollin though I’d contest any direct correlation.

Lemur

The vampire type mentioned through the film is the lemur (in the English intertitles and in-film book translations). This is not to be mistaken for the Madagascan primate. The type does not have its own entry in Bane’s Encyclopedia of Vampire Mythology but is given as an alternate name for the Roman Larva. Associated with the Feast of the Lemuria, the Larvae were malevolent household ghosts – which Bane suggests were a “hungry ghost”. From the (English) title of the film you can see that Lilith has also been attached to the lore of the film though she is both a (long dead) character and referenced in respect of the Jewish mythology.

nice imagery

The film begins with images of the Tower of Wolves, a ruin, and tales of attacks by wolves – though some say the attacks are by a vampire who has returned centuries after her death in 1370 (the film is set in 1928). The intertitles suggest that her unpronounceable name is unknown – which makes little sense as the surrounding area has the myth of Lilith Helm (Cinzia Susino). A little word about the intertitles; there were occasional typos through the film but worse was the fact that they (at times) felt like direct translation and therefore clumsy – this is one area where the film struggled. The imagery of the vampire in her coffin, however, was effective and evocative.

Lusilla and Ludwig

We meet the Baron Ludwig Von Reder (Tanino Golino), the last of his line, who has been widowed. We see the memories of his last days with his wife Lusilla (also Cinzia Susino) – whose maiden name was Helm – and the images show a happy couple, she had just planned on them having children, when she collapses, struck down by an unknown disease said to be consuming her, but which the doctor, Ugo Kier (Salvatore Amenta), cannot find the source of. She dies.

Denise Uccello as Astrid

Following this we get to meet some characters. There is the crippled and unscrupulous Balduin (Emanuele Giammusso), the town mayor Gustav (Giacomo Barletta) and his eligible daughter Astrid (Denise Uccello). During a religious procession we meet Father Gerard (Walter Maestosi), the chaste Angela Ruth (Eleonora Morello) and the gypsy fortune teller Siria (Giuliana Accolla).

Emanuele Giammusso as Balduin

Here we have another issue with the film. There is little information online about it (as I write this, there is no IMDb page for instance) but from what I have found this was originally a 17 minute short that has been extended to an 82 minute feature. There is more than one issue with this but for now I’ll mention the superfluous stories. For instance the actions of Balduin, who kidnaps, brutalises and murders Angela and another woman, seems superfluous, they are bits of story not expanded on nor justified within the greater story.

a vampire haunts the land

The core story for us is that a vampire starts haunting both Baron Ludwig and the surrounding lands (kidnapping and killing children); Lusilla is blamed as is Lilith. There seems to be the familial connection between the two women and the baron finds a letter allegedly written by Lilith secreted within a book, which in turn had been hidden by Lusilla.

from the book

The book is the “Book of Vampires” and we read the following from it: “Lemurs. Souls of the dead all ready (sic) mentioned in the Old Testament. Wandering spirits who subsided in Lemuria’s feasts, celebrated in May in Rome whith (sic) purification rituals. At night people would throw animals to them in order to feed them and keep them away from their houses, as lemurs love sucking blood of the living, even from their families, and conduct them to the underworld…” the book goes on to mention Philip Rohr’s Historico-Philosophica de Masticatione Mortuorum.

Lilith at the stake

We get the back history of Lilith from Father Gerard, who spins a tale of a wanton seductress and witch who brewed potions and cast spells from a location near the Tower of Wolves. She was arrested by the inquisition and tortured until she confessed and was then put to death by being burnt at the stake. Her ashes were then scattered. It seems that she fed upon Lusilla – this would fit in with the vampiric ghost as her ashes were scattered – but whether the vampire we see is lusilla or Lilith the film isn’t clear on (not that it matters). As predicted by Siria, the presence of the vampire causes other dead persons (spectral, rather than vampire, one assumes) to appear.

religious procession

I mentioned issues around the running time and it did feel to me that there were aspects that could have been edited down a bit or excised from the film altogether (especially the Balduin parts that seemed superfluous, not only his attacks on women but also his forcibly bringing a peasant girl as a breeder to Baron Ludwig and being sent away). Other parts might have been slightly expanded – for instance Astrid’s attraction to the Baron. Perversely, given this, the ending seemed rushed. However the imagery was wonderful, the filming mostly felt authentic (though there were occasional moments that felt a tad idiosyncratic) and the musical score was evocative, appropriate but could have been edited to the film better in one or two places.

posed in attack mode

The frustrating bit about this is that with accurate and better translated intertitles and some editing this could well have been a classic film. Unfortunately, given the fact that it was recreating a silent film, these elements are absolutely key. That isn’t to say the film is not worthwhile, for such an obscure film that I simply stumbled over it was a revelation. It deserves 7 out of 10 in its current state but some editing work could push it higher.

At the time of writing there was no IMDb page.

Dracula Reborn – review

Director: Attila Luca

Release date: 2014

Contains spoilers

Not to be confused with the 2012 film, this was originally called Drakula XO but was subject to a name change for the UK DVD release. At the time of writing the review there is no IMDb page.

You’ll see that the cover was designed to cash in on Dracula Untold by using a design reminiscent of the bigger budgeted film’s poster, which should have started alarm bells ringing.

grabbing a jogger

We begin with a jogger (Shauna Baker) taking a morning run. She is grabbed by a cloaked and hooded figure who drags her to one side and bites her. We get to see nothing of his face bar his chin. A note about the blood effects used through the film. The physical blood effects used were rather good. However there is a reliance on cgi blood for spray and splatter that is incredibly poor, often not leading to a splatter on nearby surfaces – they’d have been better having no effect at all.

Syrup of Figs

We see a guy, Cristian (Eric Kara), and woman, Hannah (Tina Balthazar). He’s bought wine and asks “your place or mine”. The answer is hers and the fact that there is zero chemistry and she appears utterly disinterested helps distract from the fact that he is wearing an incredibly bad wig. He tells her he is an investor in mines (with a comment about people that seemed odd to us and ignored by her). He comes from Paris he says – they kiss, the chemistry stayed at zero and his wig stayed on.

disgraced

The next day, or another perhaps, there are news reports about killings in Paris tied in with Drakula and the Drakula cult, a girl called Veronique (Aniko Petho) has also gone missing. {The spelling of Dracula is per the spelling shown in film as opposed to the rename for release.} We also see that Hannah is a disgraced journalist who is obsessed with vampires. She phones her friend Emmy (Chloé Dumas) to say that she is on her way to Paris. Now we get the main problem with the film – narrative.

Chloé Dumas as Emmy

Hannah, Emmy and fellow journalist Nate (Michael Maricondi) are investigating the Drakula cult with the help of Hannah’s ex-boyfriend Xavier (Yannis Baraban) and Cristian (using his French and Romanian contacts). We know that vampires are a reality in this world but the accusations on the news towards the Drakula family does not sit with the idea, also presented in dialogue, that the press are too scared to accuse them. Further to this the idea of a publically known cult doesn’t sit at all comfortably within the premise of the film.

Yves Carlevaris as Corvinus

The film spends a lot of time following a man, Corvinus (Yves Carlevaris), who in turn is following our intrepid journalists. He is a bald vampire and is portrayed with melodrama affectations that seem bordering on Vaudeville. When he vanishes, reappears in a cloak and walks holding it out to the side, like a refuge from a lost comedy sketch show, one wonders at the film all the more. His laughter seems comic, but there are no laughs. He seems to answer to the hooded man from the beginning of the film… hold on, perhaps all head vampires are bald… who do we see with a bad wig again? Yeah, the twist was spotted from a mile away.

bite

Sad to say the plot wasn’t. In fact even now I’m struggling to piece together what the plot was. The vampires kill the journalists’ leads for talking to them – but they could have just killed the journalists and have done. They get further leads that are plucked from encrypted files and hidden websites but the film fails to draw us into the investigation. Elizabeth Báthory (Ferencz Rozalia) comes up but, for the life of me, I couldn’t tell you why. There isn’t any lore I can really give you: vampires like cloaks, can walk in daylight and have a human and fanged/clawed form.

walking the cape

The acting from Tina Balthazar seems so distant that it might come from a few miles outside the boundaries of the film – but that might be a fault of the material, which just doesn’t manage to tell a story. To be fair, it isn’t as bad as some films but that just means it fails that aspiration too! Altogether 2.5 out of 10 seems about fair. I think there was probably a good idea before they started but the idea became lost, or maybe totally left behind.

At the time of review there is no IMDb page.

Vampire Wars – review

Author: Perry Lake

First published: 2014

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: For thousands of years, ancient vampire lords ruled the Night. Their queen, the coldly beautiful, immortal, and all-powerful Lilith, ruled them distantly, ignoring their squabbles over territory and victims. Then came Vlad the Impaler, once history's most bloodthirsty fiend, now reanimated as an undead creature of the Night. Facing the vampire legions of the brutish Vardalekos, the loathsome Viy, the diabolical Jhiang-Shi, the monstrous Mmbyu, the cunning Erlik, and the seductive Nycea, Vlad Dracula seeks out allies, be they undead or lycanthropic or mortal.

You've read Bram Stoker's “Dracula”. Now see how Vlad the Impaler fought and struggled to become Dracula, the King-Vampire. A part of THE LEGEND OF DRACULA trilogy, this book is a collection of twenty short stories about the infamous Count and his undead legions as he strives for the ultimate goal—the throne of the supreme King of the Vampires!

The Review: It’s frustrating when I read a book like Perry Lake’s Vampire Wars. In the first instance I have to say it was filled with fantastic ideas but I also felt it a little lacking in the prose style – though I trust my criticisms are constructive.

The book itself is made up of vignettes, shorts if you will, which cover an expanse of time from Dracula’s resurrection through to the nineteenth century. Being shorts (and the book being one of three, which I am assured can be read in any order) there is some degree of narrative repetition but that is to be expected.

It runs on the ‘Vlad Ţepeş was Count Dracula’ premise (calling the castle “Castelui de Vlad Ţepeş” jarred as the man wouldn’t have referred to himself by the sobriquet Ţepeş) but how did he become a vampire? The beginning of the book suggests he was resurrected by Faust and held as a slave for over a decade until he seduced Gretchen, turned her and became dominant over Faust who was turned also. I liked the idea, and I do like drawing Faust into the vampire realm – a trend (I believe) begun by Paul Féval in the book the Vampire Countess. Then a later story mentioned he was turned in the Scholomance and these separate origin stories appeared to jar until I realised that he was killed post the Scholomance and it was his vampiric form that was brought back by Faust – the full story isn’t within this volume.

The vampires in this are burnt by the sun (mostly) though they can stand some exposure as they age. I liked the fact that they died during the daylight hours. There was an interesting lore around reflections, that the true state of the vampire was seen – Gretchen seeing a decaying corpse, Vlad seeing a ghostly skeleton and the reflection fading to nothing as their true form completely decayed. The invitation rule is deemed not to hold true if the house bears the vampire’s blood (ie if it is held by their mortal family). The ability to transform is not something all vampires can do and also relies on their true form to be sufficiently decayed to allow the dissolution of their body.

Holy items burn but it is not denominational – the Ganges, being a sacred river, would burn a vampire. Vampiric resurrection is achieved by applying human blood (preferably virginal and certainly not undead) to the remains under the light of the full moon. If a victim is preyed upon by a vampire and that vampire is destroyed, an occult law prevents the victim being further predated by another undead for seven years.

As well as these ideas – all of which I was impressed with – there are a cornucopia of vampires from myth, legend, literature and movies. Mostly this extended cast works, some of whom are active characters and others who are mentioned in passing. We get Ruthven, Carmilla, Erzsébet Báthory, Viy and Lilith (who is the vampire Goddess Strigoica, also called Kali). In passing we get such characters as Angelus (from Angel) and Mamuwalde (from Blacula). We get different vampire types mentioned including a vampire horse, vetal, and penanggalen. Most of the cornucopia worked well – though the tying in of Lord of the Rings was perhaps a conceit too far.

However, I said I had issues. Firstly it was within some of the language used. Lake deliberately chose to use thee and thou’s in the dialogue and, to be honest, they didn’t work, were inconsistent with the other language used for dialogue and just felt forced. Better to have avoided them in my opinion. I think the greatest failing of the book was, however, based within the short story style.

It was clear that many of the stories could and, more importantly, should have been expanded on. There was, because of the brevity of the prose, a dearth of descriptive prose and even more so a lack of characterisation. Some characters appeared to only die again in the same vignette, unfortunately still two dimensional. Others died off page (such as Faust). But there was an inability to really care as there was never a connection built with the characters. Of course they are all villains (the vampires are not good guys) but expanding the story and characterisation within the vignettes, indeed expanding the book to several volumes, would have made the reader care. At times I felt I was reading an extended summary rather than the final prose.

This is unfortunate because, as I said, there are fantastic ideas in volume and Perry Lake has a lot of story to tell… I just think he needs to take his time and tell those stories more fully. 5 out of 10 balances great ideas with a need for expansion (and the need for the loss of the cod-archaic dialogue). The homepage with an excerpt is here.

Dead but Dreaming – review

Director: Jac Avila

Release date: 2013

Contains spoilers

Dead but Dreaming is from the same team who would later bring us Olalla, with Jac Avila at the helm, rather than Amy Hesketh, but with some of the same primary players (including Avila and Hesketh).

This is a period piece, rather than primarily contemporary, and is Bolivian in origin but set in Peru. There are some earlier scenes (Greek and earlier again), which underlines the ambition of the film.

Jac Avila plays Asar

Indeed we begin in the earliest time frame (I assumed South American but that isn’t revealed) with a traveller called Asar (Jac Avila). We also see, in the primary timeframe, an Irish traveller called Moira (Amy Hesketh). As she rides she seems unaware of the cloaked figure, Nahara (Veronica Paintoux), who follows her. Moira gets to town after nightfall and searches for an innkeeper and Nahara isn’t far behind – we see she has fangs. A second vampire, Aphrodisia (Mila Joya, also Olalla), feeds on a passing stranger leaving him for dead.

Veronica Paintoux as Nahara

If we look at the stories within the three time frames then, in the earliest time frame, Asar has been adopted (as a God, it appears) and sacrifices are made to him. A girl is to be sacrificed when Nahara appears through a stone portal and takes her place. The killing blow does not kill her and she feeds on Asar, turning him into a vampire before leaving him. The second time frame, in Greece, shows us Aphrodisia’s turning story, at Asar’s hand.

Amy Hesketh as Moira

The last time frame has Moira working with the Peruvian rebels, trying to defy Spain. A priest is concerned about the intrusion into the town of a Lamiae but his niece (who may be a novice nun but who hasn’t taken her vows) does not believe in such supernatural creatures. He offers several names for the Lamiae, most familiar being empousa and Lilith. His niece is more interested in helping Moira and the rebels than searching for what she assumes to be a fantastical creature.

Aphrodisia feeds

The actual vampire who is killing people is Aphrodisia. Asar is also in the town, hunting down Nahara – to gain powers from her. Nahara has chosen Moira to be a vampire but Moira gets accused of the murders (and being a traitor) and is sentenced to flogging and execution. The film draws parallels between Aphrodisia and Moira, intercutting between the two either to see their execution and subsequent turning or to witness their degradation (scenes of Aphrodisia being punished by Asar whilst Moira is being gang raped by soldiers are intercut).

share and share alike

The vampire lore is sparse. There has to be an exchange of blood for turning, Nahara cannot die, they have mind control powers and they can walk in daylight. Asar can cause Aphrodisia to go into a “sleep” where she is dead but dreaming. They can raise victims as, I am guessing, revenants, move with superhuman speed and heal with their blood to hide fang marks. That was about all we got.

Asar searches for Nahara

If I had a criticism it is around the ambition the film shows. The Greek sections perhaps felt less convincing (and could have been curtailed a tad) and perhaps (as director/writer) Jac Avila bit off a little more than could be comfortably chewed. That is not to say it wasn’t worthwhile – it was – but the story felt sparse, despite characterisation and detail, and it felt more like a prologue to a larger narrative at times.

attack

This was also reflected in a tendency for scenes to be dragged out. The flogging of Moira, for instance, and the scene depicting her rape were perhaps longer than they needed to be. That said I could also see what Avila was doing with these scenes. I have seen a comment suggesting that this is the first of three vampire movies that Jac Avila intends making and, assuming they are related, that might reveal why the film felt as it did; that it was, indeed, an opening gambit of a larger story. The locations, incidentally, were sumptuous.

6 out of 10.

The film can be purchased via Amazon (link below) but can also be found at Vermeer Works and rented to stream from Vimeo

On Demand @ Amazon US

On DvD @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: Die Einsteiger

Directed by Sigi Rothemund and released in 1985 this German comedy was a vehicle for Thomas Gottschalk and Mike Krüger, who had become stars due to their popular radio show. The resultant film (one of several) was, unfortunately, not that funny.

The basic premise was that Mike (Mike Krüger) had invented a device called the video integrator that allowed him to project himself and Tommy (Thomas Gottschalk) into movies that are playing on video cassette.

Tommy and Mike

The process has dangers, beyond the fact that, for instance, in the Western they enter – which is their first adventure – we see them appearing on a gallows with nooses round their necks. The remote control that allows their entry and exit in and out of the film needs to recharge for three minutes between uses (until it’s convenient to forget that) and should the power go or the machine be switched off whilst in a film they will be trapped forever. Meanwhile Tommy has used the machine as a talking point to a woman he fancies and that has led to news of it leaking and a Japanese company trying to steal the idea.

Udo Kier as Graf Frackstein

From our point of view it is the vampire film they enter that is important, and not just any vampire film – this is clearly a spoof of the Fearless Vampire Killers. Tommy and Mike arrive at the castle (the process clothes them appropriately) and are mistaken by Graf Frackstein (Udo Kier) and Gräfin Frackstein (Thea Gottschalk) as guests and are taken through to the vampire ball, where the Graf curses the name of their enemy Professor Liborius (Ossy Kolmann) of the University of Karlsbad.

who ordered a bloody Mary?

Having turned down a drink containing offal as garnishes (and asking for a bloody Mary, which leads to a woman being carried in to drink from), Tommy ends up dancing with the Gräfin and Mike with a gentleman vampire (Kurt Weinzierl) – this is an on-running joke as the same actor appears in every film they enter and is always attracted to Mike. During the dance the lack of scar bite marks on their necks, their warmth and a reprisal of the dancing alone in the mirror gag, get them spotted as human. In his escape from the Gräfin’s bite, Tommy wedges the remote in her mouth – reminiscent of a similar escape using a book in the original film.

mallet rather than cross

They are chased until they run past Professor Liborius and his assistant. It has to be said that Ossy Kolmann’s Liborius looks spot on in a Professor Abronsius kind of way. The Professor asks for a cross and tries to ward the vampires with a mallet. When the right instrument is passed to him, the cross causes the vampires to freeze in place. The cross is left in place allowing the two hunters to chase after the two escaped “vampires”. Tommy and Mike hide in a crypt and, after the staking of a genuine vampire, do manage to escape the clutches of the hapless hunters and lock them in the crypt. They get the remote back from the Gräfin but the cross falls over unfreezing the vampires. In the confusion Tommy holds hands with the Gräfin (the two men have to hold hands to enter and escape the video) and brings her into reality. He immediately remote controls her back into the film and then gets Mike out – completely ignoring the three minute recharge rule.

dancing in the mirror

The film clearly had some budget but it, as a whole, did nothing for me – using the song Agadoo in a set piece didn’t help either! That said the vampire section did actually amuse me. The imdb page is here.

Please note the DVD on Amazon does not have English subtitles but there are fan subtitles on the net.

Hiatus

It’s time for that annual, work-related hiatus and there won’t be a post on Taliesin Meets the Vampires until the 23rd May 2015. I will do my best to moderate comments during the week, however.

Highlights when I get back will be a look at Dracula making an appearance in early Doctor Who, Udo Kier parodying the Fearless Vampire Killers, a review of Bolivian film Dead but Dreaming and a look at Sabine Baring-Gould’s Margery of Quether.

Taliesin Meets… …Wiktor Plitz

Today on Taliesin Meets the Vampires we meet Wiktor Plitz, a French artist who produces vampire killing/hunting kits and makes them available to buy.

TMtV: Can you tell us a little about yourself?

WP: I am a multidisciplinary visual artist working under the name of Wiktor Plitz, in France. On one hand I work on pictures of visual communication of my clients (graphic design, videos, organization of exhibitions and events). On the other hand, I work for myself by producing artwork and handmade boxes – especially the kits of vampire hunters.

TMtV: How long have you been making vampire hunting kits?

WP: I have been creating those kits for a year. Their conception needs a lot of time, especially to find the best price for each component, in order to offer to the public the most affordable prices. That’s why I can’t work all year long on those boxes. I work on them each for three months in my workshop. Generally, it takes almost a month to create a few pieces to add to the rest of the collection.

TMtV: What inspired you to start making them?

WP: By organizing the third edition of the Salon du Vampire (Vampire Show) (the only show with this thematic in France) with the association to which I belong The Lyon Beefsteak Club (chaired by Adrien Party, from the website vampirisme.com) we noticed together that it would be good to have a stand with the vampire hunters' kits. We didn't know anyone who could make the coffers, so I threw myself into the adventure and I found I enjoyed the manufacture of the kits.

TMtV: Do you make the exterior boxes yourself?

WP: It depends. Some of the boxes are handmade, others have been found through antiquing and recovered or bought nude. According to the theme I use this or that coffer. Sometimes a given box is needed, sometimes the box offers inspiration. A big part of the process is to restore and customise the boxes when I don’t make them.

TMtV: How many of the components do you hand make and what pre-made components do you use?

WP: The principal handmade work is the formwork for the kits' components, and the customisation of the coffer. I mostly use balsa, fabric, and leather for the formworks. I use antiquing, find, and recover the rest.

TMtV: Do you ever use antique materials in your kits?

WP: I try to incorporate a maximum of antique materials in the kits. There are 130 year-old missals, 90 year-old vials, 100 year-old rosaries. It all depends what I can find. But when I don’t find what I am searching for, I turn to others directions, which lead me to buy some new parts.

TMtV: What do you think about the supposedly antique kits on the market?

WP: Although based on the beliefs and oldest folklores, the first vampires we could meet in society were in the books from the first half of the 18th century (like "Der Vampir" by Heinrich August Ossenfelder in 1748). It seems logical to me that some kits could be manufactured when the vampire myth mingled into public perception, and it could be possible that some of them are still intact today. Although I think that a part of the population could find truth in these stories and would like to defend themselves by fashioning their own kits. I also think that those kits are close to mine; they reflect the mutual passion between creator and the public for this vampire myth. However the oldest boxes seem to be fake, to me. The vampire myth as we know it, and as it was reflected in the antique coffers, is based on the literary development of the vampire’s figure, and they are essentially big hoaxes if they are older than the first apparitions in books.

TMtV: Can you tell us about the different styles?

WP: It’s true that there are different types of coffers, they range across medieval boxes, through Victorian and the beginning of the 20th century, to steampunk. There are coffers for everyone: family kits, travel kits, and personal ones for the sailors, for the scientists, for the Christians and for the atheists… but I, above all, separate them into the categories : protection kits, defense kits and attack kits. Each one has his utility and his own function.

TMtV: What is your personal favourite kit?

WP: Without hesitation: the Blood Sucker! It’s the only one I made that can be used by the vampire himself. Although it finds inspiration in Victorian medicine, with the procedure of extracting and studying the vampire’s blood, it’s perfect for a 19th century vampire who wants to go party with his humans friends with no risk of hurting anybody. It’s a coffer whose principal function is to hide from human eyes. Indeed, what’s better than to come equipped with this one when he accompanies his guests? A sip of absinth for you, a sip of A+ for me. After a few absinths, I think everyone will want to give his blood to his vampire friend, who has all the equipment to behave like a perfect gentleman.

TMtV: I noticed you have a fang extractor kit, what inspired you to create that?

 WP: The kits have been created on the basis of a character that I create in my mind. I imagine myself being a sailor crossing the seas who needs a defense kit in case a vampire comes on board, at night or on a dark dock (Ocean’s Hunter). I imagine myself being a Christian family father, deep in the countryside, who needs to protect his family for a possible vampire threat (Christian Protector). I imagine myself being a soldier fighting through Europe who all the time has his kit on hand to fight against a vampire that he could encounter (Gun Fighter). For the Fang Extractor, I had in mind a vampire hunter, a former dentist in the early 1900s in France who the police have asked to study a headless body. I imagined that this former dentist finds out the existence of the vampires and becomes a vampire hunter using his kit to extract the fangs from the vampires that he kills. That’s why this kit consists of two authentic dentist pliers of the early 20th century, contained in a carrying case.

TMtV: Are you a fan of vampire movies and which is your favourite?

WP: I am actually a big fan of vampire movies. I like everything in the vampire genre, from Count Dracula played by Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee to the romantic vampires from the Anne Rice books. From the blood contaminated vampires of Guillermo Del Toro to the ridiculous vampires in teen movies. But the one that I prefer is my childhood's first love : Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola. The dark world, violent and Victorian... It’s the one I like most in all the vampire world. This is related to my passion for the Universal Pictures classic monsters movies, and also to uchronies like Steampunk and Dieselpunk. The adaptation to our world is a recurrent theme when we talk about vampire, but in this film, I found an animal side and a madness which is beautifully incarnated by Gary Oldman. Even if I like to see the vampire myth move together with the zombie myth - from an esoteric and mystical creature to a victim of a blood contamination - it’s the dark side of mankind, the psychological appeal of the vampire and our own personal questioning as we face this character, which I prefer. The atmosphere of this movie has always fulfilled my expectations.

My thanks to Wiktor for his time. You can check out his kits here and they can be purchased here.

Sexandroide – review

Director: Michel Ricaud

Release date: 1987

Contains spoilers

This is strange, so very, very strange. From what I can work out French (the very sparse dialogue is in French, though the lack of subtitling isn’t an issue as it is that sparse and there is little in the way of story) but I have seen claims that it hails from Belgium.

What it is, very much, is Grand Guignol… and, if we want to give it a cinema label, torture porn. But I actually think the former is the more accurate descriptor. It is an anthology of “acts”, unconnected (except thematically), and it is the third one that concerns us. However to mention the first one has a drunk woman stripped and tortured by voodoo. The second is the most Grand Guignol of the three and has a woman sadistically tortured by a monster (I’ve seen him described as a zombie, but I wasn’t so sure about that). Interestingly, despite the screams she also seems to garner masochistic pleasure from the events.

the mourner

Number three is our vampire section and I kind of lied about the thematic connections in that, whilst there is a little bit of sexual violence towards the head of the piece, it really isn’t the theme of this last scenario. It starts with an unseen person removing the lid of a coffin. Inside it is a man. A woman enters in mourning clothes and sits by the coffin. We see his fingers twitch and his eyes open. She stands and leans over the coffin.

the vampire

He starts leaking a milky fluid from his mouth as he grabs at her. He’s out of the coffin and starts violently ripping her clothes off (although, as a tell, we can see the actress actually tries to accommodate this at times). He holds her from behind and we notice that she already has a heavy makeup to imitate the living dead she will become – unnoticed really under her veil but too obvious here. He bites her, blood spills and then he leans her against the coffin and he gets back in.

do not disturb

She awakens as a vampire and… starts to dance… to (a very muffled) Tina Turner (2 tracks)… oh Lawdy, its bad. Despite her nudity it is probably one of the most unerotic dances you are ever going to see and it goes on and on and on. This is what I meant about this not being thematically the same as the previous sections. In those torture was inflicted on the female lead, to which we were voyeurs, and whilst the effects weren’t always the best per se they were quite effective. In this we are tortured by bad interpretative dance. However the vampire seems to appreciate it. She climbs into the coffin, dry humps him and the lid is lifted back on. The last thing we see is the hanging of a ‘do not disturb’ sign on the side of the casket.

blood at mouth

That’s it. The first two parts were disturbing in their sadistic edge, and effective at what the film maker was trying to do (whether that’s your cup of tea or not). The third piece was just poor, from the makeup to the dance. As its an anthology I’m only scoring the vampire section, as per normal, and that can’t deserve more than 1 out of 10. The imdb page is here.

Me and the Devil – review

Author: Nick Tosches

First published: 2012

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: An aging New Yorker, a writer named Nick, feels life ebbing out of him. The world has gone to hell and Nick is so sick of it all that he can't even have a glass of champagne. Then one night he meets a tantalizing young woman who agrees to come back to his apartment. Their encounter is the most strangely extraordinary of his life. Propelled by uncontrollable, primordial desires, he enters a new and unimagined dimension of the forbidden and is filled with a sexual and spiritual ecstasy that is as intense as it is unholy.

Suddenly Nick's senses are alive. He feels strong, unconquerable, beyond all inhibition and earthly morality. He indulges in life's pleasures, pure and perverse, sublime and dangerous, from the delicate flavors of the perfect tomato to the fleshy beauty of a woman's thigh. But Nick's desire to sustain his rapture leads him to a madness and a darkness far greater and dreadful than have ever ridden the demon mares of night.

Writing in a lineage that includes Dante, William S. Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, Hubert Selby, Jr., and Hunter S. Thompson, Nick Tosches may be America's last real literary outlaw-a fearless, uncensorable seeker of our deepest secret truths and desires, from the basest to the most beautiful. Me and the Devil is outrageous, disturbing, and brilliant, a raw and blazing novel truly unlike any other. Like the man said: Read him at your peril.

The review: The third paragraph of the blurb offers Nick Tosches prose an enviable lineage. As I read this novel I must admit that Bret Easton Ellis came to mind as did Burroughs. Perhaps Burroughs was the most obvious, on a superficial level – and I say that not to denigrate this novel but because the rhythm of the prose, the background music found in the sentences and structures, was actually very different.

What we have is a fictional biography – the main character is a writer called Nick Tosches – an exploration of aging, addiction and the seedy underbelly of human desire. The addiction, by the way, is alcoholism more than it is blood. The observations around the displacement of the need for alcohol to the need for sobriety that are made within are insightful. That said Nick does discover the joys of blood play within this and in doing so Tosches explores some of the sexual and sensual themes of the vampire genre and, in doing so, I was reminded of the excellent novel Throat Sprockets by Tim Lucas.

The character of Nick is not a pleasant character, casually racist, misogynist at times and self-centred. The imbibing of blood would seem to have physical effects on his libido and his physique, making him feel younger and causing his muscles to tighten, shifting his blood type (from A to AB), causing his eyes to change colour. Nick’s ego is shown in the fact that he feels he is becoming a God, however we become unsure as to what is reality and what is not. The apparent murder of two women, that he cannot remember, may or may not have occurred (or had his involvement). Nick’s beliefs and actions might all be part of a psychotic break.

If I had a complaint about the book it is that, towards the end, I felt it lost its way. Meandering where it had strode purposefully, the direction becoming almost lost. However that might have been a reflection of what Tosches was doing with the character, but for me it just felt a little adrift. That said the whole experience was very worthwhile. 8 out of 10.

Olalla – review

Director: Amy Hesketh

Release date: 2015

Contains spoilers

One of the interesting things about this film is it is Bolivian in origin (though star/director/writer Amy Hesketh is, I believe, American). I ordered the DVD direct from Vermeer Works as it was a touch cheaper than the Amazon US price (especially when shipping to the UK was taken into account) but was slightly disappointed that it arrived without packaging of any sort – not that this has affected the score or takes away from the film, and it will have saved on shipping I’m sure – but if you like DVD packaging you might want to take it into account.

The title might be familiar to you. Olalla was a story by Robert Louis Stevenson, from 1887, and has been translated into film before as Black Passage, an episode of the TV series Suspense. This was another reason to become excited about the film, as it isn’t an often shot story.

Olalla and her boyfriend

The film begins with a couple, Olalla (Amy Hesketh) and her boyfriend (Pablo Paravicini) sat watching Nosferatu. He begins to speak, mentioning aspects of the film, whilst she sits in silence. He notes this eventually and suggests that she has been silent through the film and seems fascinated by it. When Hutter cuts his finger on screen she climbs onto his lap and they kiss, he begins to carry her but she bites him, shocking him, and then viciously bites at his neck – spitting a plug of flesh away.

phone home

The attack is visceral and violent. She coughs, almost choking on the blood that sprays copiously from the damaged artery and blood spills out across the floor. Her white dress becomes red stained and, as she stops, she appears scared and panicky. She picks up the phone receiver and dials. When it is answered she says “It’s me” and “I did something”. She arrives bloodstained in her family home. Her sister, Ofelia (Mila Joya), slaps her and then warns that they have a guest, Nathan (Luis Almanza). We should stop a second and look at the family.

the family home

Living in the house with Ofelia are a collection of uncles and an aunt. We have Aunt Aurora (Maria Esther Arteaga), Uncle Bruno (Erik Antoine) and the “twins” Uncle Edgar (Roberto Lopez) and Uncle Aurelio (Fermin Nuñez). Nathan is there recovering – from PTSD one would guess, the film is not explicit but he was a photo journalist covering war stories – and is unaware of the family’s nature. It is clear that Nathan is due to be on the family’s menu, at some point. Ofelia calls their Uncle Felipe (Jac Avila), the family patriarch, to come and deal with Olalla.

the priest and Roberto

The film then tracks two parallel stories. The modern one with Olalla and the story of her mother, also called Olalla (and also played by Hesketh). In the historical story – set one would guess around the time of Stevenson’s story – a young man, Roberto (Christian Del Rio), is sent by his doctor to stay with a family. The local priest (Rhobess Pierre) warns him generally to keep a distance from Olalla. The family consists of her, her brother Felipe (played young by Alejandro Loayza) and her two children Olalla (played young by Valeria Huanca) and Ofelia (played young by Rosario Huanca).

Felipe arrives

In the modern day we see that Felipe has aged but not dramatically so (given the time that must have lapsed) and that the two young girls have only aged as far as being young women. The story follows parallel tracks with the mother and Roberto being attracted to each other and her daughter and Nathan suffering the same attraction. When Felipe arrives at the family house Ofelia’s first reaction is to kiss him deeply – we thus get an understanding that the family is incestuous. His method of re-educating Olalla – so her actions don’t draw attention to the family – is to keep her bound, whip and rape her.

a wee dram of blood

The vampiric lore is sparse. They are clearly long lived, blood drinkers (though such drinking doesn’t seem to need to be as often as many vampire films portray). They can certainly be in sunlight, and they both photograph and cast reflections. The vampires seem to be born as such, and Olalla and Ofelia are looked on to carry on the family line. It would seem they can die through methods that would kill any mortal. In Black Passage the children did not drink blood, something that only began in adulthood. In this we see the aftermath of the child Olalla (younger, clearly, than Ofelia) drinking the blood of a dove, in other words we see a dead bird and blood at her mouth. This went to underscore the fact that, even as a child, Olalla had self-control issues.

the 'twins'

The film is in Spanish with some English – Olalla and Bruno both speak in English (Olalla preferring to communicate to Nathan in that language) and we do hear that she and Bruno had spent time with another part of the family in the North (presumably the US). And this brings me to one of my frustrations with the film. There was a huge amount of expansion that could have been drawn around the family, we get to see Felipe and Ofelia’s sexual proclivities and we know that Bruno likes to bake but little else. I called the two uncles twins because they dress the same, groom the same and move the same – but we find no more out about them. Aurora seems to be a matriarch – but again the film is frustratingly silent. This sits with the fact that the two stories were actually fairly simple and a deeper exploration of some of the side characters would have off-set this. I found the climax of the 19th century section was perhaps a tad drawn out and could have been edited down.

attack

There were some technical issues as well. There seemed to be a degree of wobble on depth of focus, mainly on outdoor shots. There was also a point where a scene got a little choppy film wise as the dialogue continued – but that might have been a dvd issue. On the other hand I was rather taken with the very Spanish soundtrack, which suited the film very well indeed.

young Olalla post dove

The technical issues I have mentioned were not enough, I do have to say, to lower the score and the simplicity of the stories was offset by the atmosphere. I was reminded a little of La Maison Nucingen, this probably was down to the eerie family members as much as anything and, for some reason, the film brought Tremendo Amanecer to mind also. The pace of the film was languid at times but it suited that pace and the atmosphere of the house, which seemed out of kilter time-wise, with only Nathan's tablet (and the contents of Olalla's flat) betraying the true date of the modern setting.

I have been a little torn, score wise. I settled on 7 out of 10 but with a caveat that it nearly dipped just a little lower. However there is a style to this and with some further characterisation it could have built itself to being a classic. As well as Amazon and Vemeer Works the film is available on demand at Vimeo.

The imdb page is here.