Honourable Mention: Doctor Who: Journey into Terror

I have featured plenty of Doctor Who episodes on the blog, however this is by far the earliest being part of season 2 of the original Doctor Who and featuring William Hartnell as the Doctor. Directed by Richard Martin and airing in 1965, this was an episode in a 6 episode sequence called the Chase.

The Chase was bizarre in the humour it added into the series. We had stammering daleks who had trouble adding up, for instance, and a *comedic* Alabama resident in New York that was more Beverly Hillbillies than anything else.

the tardis

The basic premise was that the Doctor and his companions, Vicki (Maureen O'Brien), Ian Chesterton (William Russell) and Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill), were being pursued by daleks who had created their own time machine that could track the Tardis. In this episode they land in what looks like a gothic monstrosity of a castle. We get a moment with a very crap bat and Vicki suggests it might be a vampire but the Doctor says nonsense, they are South American and the architecture looks European (referencing, of course, the natural bat).

Malcolm Rogers as Dracula

The women are too nervous to explore and so the Doctor and Ian go off alone – eventually finding themselves face to face with Frankenstein’s monster (John Maxim, Dracula, Prince of Darkness). Meanwhile, downstairs, Vicki and Barbara are approached by a man who states that he is Dracula (Malcolm Rogers, the Blood Beast Terror) – he vanishes almost as quickly as he appeared.

the monster

Of course the daleks show up and we get the joy of seeing the Frankenstein Monster grappling with a dalek and Dracula being shot at, to no avail… except they aren’t real. The Doctor has a theory that they have landed outside of time and space and that the place is a construct born of the fears from the minds of humanity. Ian thinks there is a simpler solution and there is – it is a haunted house attraction and the monsters are (I guess) animatronic. It is nice to see the Doctor being wrong, even if he never gets to know this.

Dracula meets a dalek

The monsters are on set so fleetingly that I felt an Honourable Mention was the way forward on this. Plus the episode is actually part of a larger sequence and really shouldn’t be watched in isolation (and the sequence is the form of the DVD release). So, an animatronic vampire but it does have Dracula vs a dalek.

The episode's imdb page is here.

The Vampire Almanac vol. 1 – review

Edited by: J-M and Randy Lofficier

First published: 2015

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Stories by Matthew Baugh, Nathan Cabaniss, Matthew Dennion, Win Scott Eckert, Brian Gallagher, Martin Gately, Rick Lai, David McDonald, Frank J. Morlock, Christofer Nigro, Catherine Robert, Dola Rosselet, Frank Schildiner, Michel Stéphan and Artikel Unbekannt.

Featuring Alinska, Elizabeth Bathory, Captain Vampire, Carmilla, Nadine Carody, Dracula, Koschei, Lenore, Orlok, Ruthven, the Vampire City and the Vampires of Mars.

This dual nature of the vampire, stretching between love and death, creates a moral ambiguity which is omnipresent in its literary treatment, incorporating and contrasting seduction and horror, heroism and villainy. It only reflects the nature of life after death, and how it is perceived by its surrounding culture. Is it a desirable dream, or a hateful abomination? A reward or a punishment? And what price must one pay for such survival?

The stories contained in this collection, featuring some of the most famous vampires in literary history, incorporate all of these contradictions; in them, vampires can be both super-human and sub-human, sexual predators and impotent, romantic and passionate, and yet devoid of soul. Ultimately, the vampire is our own face, reflecting in the mirror of our beliefs, the incarnation of our spiritual choices.

The review: Blackcoat Press rapidly became one of my favourite publishers due to the obscure 19th century text they release (for me, of course, especially those centred on the vampire) making translations available often for the first time.

They also publish original material and I have had their annual anthology series, Tales of the Shadowmen, on my wishlist for some time. Whilst I haven’t yet read those, this collection (the first of two) dedicated to the vampire and reimagining many of the Blackcoat stable and others was irresistible. Actually, some of the stories herein were first seen in the Shadowmen series.

There is a wide variety of vampires captured from Lenore (who was not originally imagined as a vampire and, indeed, was not in a vampire poem – but who appears in Matthew Dennion’s Hope for Forgiveness, as a vampire, alongside the Scarlett Pimpernel and Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter) to Dracula himself. I’ve captured in the review some of my favourite moments.

Nathan Cabaniss wrote the story Schodinger’s Blood and features the vampire Alsinka from the Virgin Vampire but it is the clever premise of Alsinka’s curse that captured me, as she avenges the wronged woman, devouring her victim’s blood through Quantum Mechanics as she reaches from the past and drains his blood in the future.

Whilst the book is split into sections based on the primary character that character might also appear in other tales (and very few of the tales follow on one from another so continuity is not an issue). There were three Carmilla orientated stories. Martin Gately’s the Moon Hag needs mention for not only telling the story of Lafontaine’s cousin as mentioned in the original story (“Mademoiselle related that her cousin, who was mate of a merchant ship, having taken a nap on deck on such a night, lying on his back, with his face full in the light on the moon, had wakened, after a dream of an old woman clawing him by the cheek, with his features horribly drawn to one side; and his countenance had never quite recovered its equilibrium.”) but also for the creation of a vampire living in utero, which would emerge from the mother only to feed before retreating back into the womb.

However it was Dola Rosselet’s To Die For that stole the show of the Carmilla tales, for me at least, which makes a beautiful coda to the Carmilla story.

Those who have read Paul Féval’s Vampire City will be aware of the interesting lore of dividuality, where a vampire can absorb a victim and then make them a duplicate of themselves or change their appearance generally, whilst making them part of their collective whole. Brian Gallagher’s City of the Nosferatu interestingly takes this concept and then makes Graff Orlok an abandoned aspect of Count Dracula. Gallagher also has it that if one takes the heart of a vampire and burns it before it is dead (not all the vampires die due to heart removal) you can put the ashes into a bullet to make it a devastating anti-vampire weapon. Later on, in a section introduction, the editor’s describe the Orlok of Nosferatu as an anti-hero, which I think is a stretch – to me he is most definitely a villain.

It is not, however, just 19th century (and very early twentieth century) characters that get a look in. I mentioned the appearance of Kronos and Win Scott Eckert’s Les Levres Rouges is based on Daughters of Darkness. The story Blood and Fire, by Artikel Unbekannt, is based on Vampyros Lesbos and is probably my favourite story in the collection, simply because of the beauty of the prose.

I have barely scratched the surface, there are tales of vampiric possession and there are tales that connect in to the Lovecraft mythos. There are stories of love and stories of hate. This is a fine collection of stories that are based on the characters created by others but that are strangely refreshingly original because of this. 9 out of 10. The Blackcoat Press page for the volume is here.

Strange Blood – review

Director: Chad Michael Ward

Release date: 2015

Contains spoilers

The vampire created by science, it’s a nice route to tread at times. It makes me think back to the vampire bat and deranged experiments involving blood as well as hypnosis and village hysteria. None of which you’ll really find here. Ok, you will find deranged experiments…

It is a film on a budget and it does try to rise above that, yet I was left with some doubts around the plot and a lack of belief in the characters (despite the actors’ best efforts), which all in all left me a tad underwhelmed.

police interrogation

The film begins with the wreckage following a fire. A hard drive is found amongst the debris. In a room (which looked less like a police interview room and more like the dingy warehouse reserved for interrogations by B movie villains) a cop (James Adam Lim) interviews Gemma (Alexandra Bard). She’s not under caution but the cops have found twelve bodies and all paths seem to lead back to Dr Henry Moorhouse (Robert Brettenaugh). Gemma, having been threatened by the cop, tells their story.

Henry and Ella

Gemma starts a job as Henry’s assistant. He was a scientist with a pharmaceutical company (Baxters) but was dismissed due to emotional instabilities. He reveals to Gemma that he took with him Ella. Ella is a genetically created living tissue mass, non-sentient (apparently), that he bred to be able to infect with everything (essentially) and through some mumbo jumbo of pseudo-science back engineer a retrovirus that will be the cure for everything – from the common cold, through cancer to HIV/AIDS. Ella is maturing at a rate that he did not expect.

quills

They begin to introduce pathogens to Ella and it seems to go wrong at first but then she stabilises. However when he tries to extract some lymph fluid she spikes him, injecting his hand with quills that stick him in, the rest retracting back into her mass. He assumes it to be a completely unexpected defence mechanism that has evolved and is even more shocked when she develops hard masses and fluids. Gemma wonders if it is a sign – that humans are meant to become sick, grow old and die. We see that Henry is haunted by the figure of a child (Thomas O'Halloran) and later we hear that it was his son who died of a strain on meningitis. His now ex-wife somehow blamed Henry (and given his ‘haunting’ he also blames himself).

downward spiral

Gemma and Henry go to a diner – already Henry is craving very raw burgers. Gemma needs to leave to visit her father and we later discover that he has Parkinson’s and early onset dementia. Henry’s behaviour becomes odder and odder and here we get an issue with the film. Whilst Brettenaugh displays a man sinking into madness well he has little to work with. The plot becomes secondary to the visual displaying of this downward spiral. We do discover that the spines were not defensive, they were genitalia and Henry has been infected with Ella’s offspring.

bitten

It eventually comes around that the (now shaven headed) doctor has been “cured”. He is filled with parasites and he must drink blood to feed them so they don’t consume him. He describes it as being a prisoner in his own body as it now belongs to them. Ella seems to be communicating with him but that might just be his madness. The way he treats Gemma is awful, with violent mood swings and taunts as she is “just a girl” and has confessed that during high school she ended up in rehab. Yet she then strips her pants to let him extract blood from her leg (not realising he’ll drink it), jumps into bed with him (and he gives no thought as to whether these parasites are in his sexual secretions) and gets bitten savagely by him. Yet later she still comes back to his lab! I didn’t buy the relationship at all.

blood spattered professor

He also goes out hunting girls – we see one such encounter and he manages to pick up a girl in a bar by looking at her for just a moment and taking her off for sex in the toilet (it appears). The fact that she went off with this hooded, creepy bloke with dirt encrusted teeth was a real push at credulity. Perhaps if they had suggested that he was able to release powerful pheromones, but they didn’t. The fact that he then killed her in the toilet and managed to leave, covered in blood, and get home left a sour “bad plotting” taste in the mouth.

self mutilation

The other problem was it was the only hunt (bar him killing a PI (Scott Harders) who was working for Henry's erstwhile employers and who came into his home) that we see. We get a flash of dead bloodied women but by missing the hunting of these women (or at least some of them) the filmmakers have missed what might have been the point of the film – horror. Yes, the decent into madness was worth capturing but it shouldn’t have been the only real facet of the film. In fact I wonder how the police tied the killings to him – this was set up at the head of the film but not followed through. As for his vampirism, well he might regenerate - at one point he apparently ripped his own tongue out (or so it appeared) but was able to speak normally thereafter. The only other lore we get, by the way, is apparently sunlight is an issue – but in a blinding way rather than him burning and that might simply be because he was hiding away in his windowless home.

haunted

As I say, the two leads bravely did what they could with what they had. Ella looked suitably icky and mad sciencey but perhaps was underused as well (maybe they could have introduced a voice for her rather than just the insect like buzzing that Henry answered – they could have still maintained the “is there communication or is he mad” aspect). This needed something more – and at least part of that was more vampire action. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Brides of Dracula: the legend of Dracula: Book 2 – review

Author: Perry Lake

Release date: 2014

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Vlad the Impaler was once the most fearsome ruler in Europe. His armies marched against both Turks and Saxons until his enemies assassinated him. But Vlad Dracula rose from the dead, ready to wrest control of a new kingdom, that of the undead legions of the Night.

To his surprise, he discovered the Undead of Europe to be bestial, scattered, and nearly mindless; more akin to zombies than vampires. So he set out to replace them with a new breed of Undead, borne of his blood and taken from only the finest noble houses. Thus Dracula became the sire not of warriors, but elegant and seductive noblewomen whom no man could resist: Lady Katya, Countess Elizabeth Báthory, Countess Mircalla Karnstein, Lady Lenore, Countess Ulrica Dolingen, and others.

You've read Bram Stoker's “Dracula”. Now see how Dracula assembled the most powerful and famous members of his entourage. As part of THE LEGEND OF DRACULA trilogy, this book contains thirteen short stories about the infamous Count and his seductive children of the Night.

Vampires are scary again!

The review: If I came across as harsh when I reviewed book 1 of Perry Lake’s Dracula series then I have to say that it is because I see much potential within the series and hoped by being constructively critical that I might help the author tap that potential.

I have to say that, as a collection of shorts, this volume held itself together more than the first volume. I think the narrow focus on the various brides helped. Indeed one short section, Immortal Love, was impressive as Lake changed voice and showed to advantage the skill in prose that the author is capable of. That’s not to say that I don’t still think that some of the stories suffer from brevity, they do, but many are fleshed further and has allowed Lake to develop the characters in a much stronger way and some sections felt more like longer prose than shorts, which was positive.

I am still not impressed with the cod-mediaeval dialogue that we occasionally get (much less in this volume I thought) but the author commented on my previous review that they are to stay and that is the author’s prerogative.

The volume explores Carmilla’s background, which was done in an interesting way and it is worth looking at the volume for this section alone. The cornucopia of references and borrowed characters continued apace.

The improved characterisation and the more focused knitted plotlines pushed this ahead of book 1 in my opinion and made it a more satisfying read. 6 out of 10.

Honourable Mention: Brood of the Witch-Queen

Brood of the Witch-Queen was a 1918 novel of supernatural adventure written by Sax Rohmer, the author better known for his creation Fu Manchu.

The story follows Dr Bruce Cairn and his son Robert as they become embroiled in the machinations of Antony Ferrara, the adopted son of Dr Cairns' colleague and friend Sir Michael Ferrara. Antony Ferrara murders his adopted father through occult means and, as the book progresses, we discover that his powers reach back to Ancient Egypt.

Though Ferrara’s goals through most of the book involve either the marriage to, or death of, Sir Michael’s ward Myra Duquesne he does deviate from this as he turns his attentions to a certain Lord Lashmore’s young wife. Of course the presence of Lord Lashmore, and thus the fact that she is not a wealthy widow yet, stands in the way of his ambition.

Lord Lashmore is directed to Dr Cairn and has scars on his neck that look to have been made by fangs. We discover that in his ancestral seat of Dhoon there is a dark secret. One of Lashmore’s ancestors, the third Baron, brought home a beautiful woman from the continent – a Polish Jewess called Mirza. There was a child from their marriage, Paul Dhoon, though he was passed off as a child of a subsequent marriage after Lord Lashmore despatched Mirza.

At the coming of age the heirs of the family were taken to a secret room in Dhoon castle to reveal the family’s dark secret. In that room was Paul Dhoon’s body, still with flesh on his bones, gleaming “wolf fangs” and an aspen stake driven through him – which was done a whole year after his death.

Cairn concludes that “Mirza… …practised sorcery in life and became, after death, a ghoul—one who sustained an unholy existence by unholy means—a vampire.” She was decapitated by her husband, which prevented her return as a physical vampire as the body was no longer a suitable vehicle but her spirit was bound to Earth. Ferrara discovered that Lady Lashmore was, unbeknown to herself, a sensitive and ensured that the spirit of Mirza could possess the woman – allowing Mirza access to the two things she desired, blood and vengeance against the family Dhoon.

Cairn realises that they have to find a cavern that houses the body of Mirza and finally release her through a wooden stake. Before they get chance to do this Lord Lashmore dies, following an attack where he struck his attacker, realised it was his wife and suffered a fatal heart attack. Whether they subsequently went to the cavern to aid Lady Lashmore is not covered in the book and the entire Lashmore sub-story is dropped and forgotten at that point.

According to the book’s Wikipedia entry, Lovecraft compared this novel to Stoker’s Dracula and Les Daniel deems it Rohmer’s best novel. For the former I doubt I would go anywhere near that far. The book proves itself to be a fair romp but somewhat unsophisticated. The vampire section was interesting but suffered for the lack of conclusion. That said, it is an interesting use of vampiric possession.

Tales of Dracula – review

Director: Joe DeMuro

Release date: 2015

Contains spoilers

If we class Tales of Dracula as a fan film – which it most assuredly is, given that the film has clearly been created with a fan’s touch – then it isn’t a bad effort. If we view it through the same critical lens we’d reserve for more professional fare then perhaps it struggles a tad. But with an estimated budget of $20,000 they have managed to pull off more than one would expect.

The film harks back to the Universal pictures of yore and there are plenty of references for the fans. The use of black and white probably hides some issues, the physical effects can be surprisingly good and whilst the cgi is obvious it is better than some.

tales of the smoking cross

The film starts with a voiceover by Von Helsing (Mickey Ray) who relays how he was called to England to help a family plagued by Dracula (Wayne W. Johnson). We see a ship, the Chamberlain, sailing. Dracula is racing home but concurrently, in Transylvania, one Father Boris (Jay Novelli) is trying to destroy the last of Dracula’s brides – Ingrid (Laura Brink). We see a cross pressed to her head and it begins to smoke. With her driven back to her coffin her father, Fritz (Doug Hess), stakes her.

manbat

On board the Chamberlain, Dracula feels her death. A storm begins to lash the ship (and stock footage is added of sailors in peril) and Dracula flies as a bat back to Transylvania. It is here we start getting the cgi, indeed bats, manbats and the castle are done in cgi and whilst it looks pretty cool it is too graphic (and not dirty/organic enough) to actually fit in seamlessly EDIT 27/6/15 - as per comment by Dan Cziraky it should be noted that the castle Dracula is a minature, not cgi however my thought of it not fitting seamlessly in to the core film stands. Dracula crushes a cross in hand as he despatches the hunters.

Daniel and Creighton

Ilona (Greta Volkova) is off in her riding hood to make deliveries. She is told by her dad, Daniel (David Merrell), to be careful and to meet him at the tavern before nightfall. After she leaves a stranger approaches the house. He introduces himself as Creighton Reed (Tom Delillo). A few points here. Creighton, for those who don’t know, was the actual forename of Lon Chaney Jr. Belillo carried an air about him that was reminiscent of that surrounding Chaney when he played Larry Talbot. It will come as no shock then to discover that Reed is our wolfman in this. Whilst this worked I did feel that for these two characters, for some reason, the costuming felt just too modern – especially given the costuming used by the other characters. There wasn’t anything definitive, it just niggled that way.

Wayne W. Johnson as Dracula

Reed is en route to Peter Frankenstein’s home (looking for a lycanthropy cure). Daniel suggests he go to the tavern as he will not get to Chateau Frankenstein before dark. Out in the woods Ilona stumbles across a body, bolts, falls and knocks herself out. Reed does go to the inn (innkeeper Anton (Dwight Kemper) is drawn as a comedy character) and checks his moon chart – the night is clear, it is the next night that we are to have a full moon. Daniel, of course, becomes worried when Ilona doesn’t show and we see her approached by Dracula.

the Monster

The next day they find her semi-conscious body and she is taken to Frankenstein. Frankenstein is not there, however, but his daughter Victoria (Courtney Bennett) is. She is less concerned about Ilona than she is the monster (Joe DeMuro), which is in her lab. However when she realises that Ilona is a vampire victim she draws off some tainted blood to inject into the monster and make him invulnerable. Ilona dies, Dracula realises that his blood has been given to the monster (and is not best pleased) and, of course, it is a full moon that night…

the wolfman

One thing the film got very wrong was time. The action takes over a couple of days but it felt wrong. Ilona must have been buried with great haste as that happens before the moon rise. This is possible I suppose but Von Helsing (travelling towards Transylvania) also manages to get a letter, about events so far, before the moon rise and that timing was just off and jarred. The acting varied, some of it seemed a little amateur and some of the dialogue seemed a little stilted in of itself. The physical effects, as mentioned, were quite good – I was most impressed with the look of the monster and the wolfman given the indie nature of the production.

enter the bride

The story itself just seemed to end with little conclusion, and it wasn’t particularly satisfying but I could see that it was meant to feed straight into a second film. The nods to monster movies of yore were fun and the fact that they managed to pull this off on so little a budget (despite some issues) is to be praised. All in all I think 5.5 out of 10 is fair for this.

The imdb page is here.

Demon – review

Director: Mark Duffield

Release date: 2012

Contains spoilers

When is a vampire film not a vampire film? Perhaps when the V word is not used, when there is a direct statement of identity – demon… incubus… these are both used. However the incubus myth is related to the succubus myth (obviously) and, as we know, the succubus myth and vampire myth have much in the way of crossover.

This would perhaps lead us to explore a film under “Vamp or Not?” but, to be honest, this film so readily uses vampire tropes that it wasn’t worth framing this article in that sense. It is – whether the film recognises it itself – a vampire film. It is also a low budget period piece, with some very clever tricks to capture that period within the budget. At heart, however, it is a tragic love story, a gothic romance that still has some gore but is not a horror film.

Andrew Mullan as Lorcan

So we begin with a voiceover offering the baseline mythology. It talks of the incubus, of its nightly visitations to women and how it would return to devour the soul of the infant born of those visits. However should the infant live then it would be cursed and should it love or be loved the child of the incubus would transform into a demon itself. I should mention the soundtrack at this point, lush orchestral scoring was reminiscent in part to the soundtracks utilised by classic Hammer.

Clare Langford as Amy

Through the credits we see bloody scenes from a hospital and a man, Lorcan (Andrew Mullan), arriving. The nurse at the desk is Nurse Amy Harper (Clare Langford) but before he can ask for help his bags are brought in and the Matron (Jackie Haliday) takes control having Amy show Lorcan to Dr Edward (Tom Hall) whilst his bags are taken to his room (involving a slyly romantic-comedic moment with Amy and Lorcan on the stairs and his hat). When he meets Edward we discover that Lorcan’s uncle had written to the doctor some 6 months before but died in the intervening period. Lorcan was brought up by his uncle (in Ireland) and it is hoped that Edward’s revolutionary work with blood transfusions can help the young man. He passes Edward some papers his Uncle had wanted to pass on but they are in a language the doctor doesn’t recognise and illustrated with demonic forms.

dream of sunlight

The relationship between Amy and Lorcan quickly blossoms. When in his room together, we see a sequence where they kiss. It is a daydream rather than reality and the film is deliberately obtuse over whose daydream it is, hers or his. We see a moment, on waking, where sunlight streaming through the window causes Lorcan’s arms to bleed profusely. He awakens and discovers that, whilst a dream the sun is indeed having such an effect on his skin. We also notice that he has lost his moustache.

outside the church

Following this Amy comes to his room and he has blocked the window with his coat. She moves this but the sun has gone in. She accidentally cuts her finger and he sucks at the blood – then passes out. He is sent to the general ward but soon claims to be feeling better. He and Amy go for a walk and she takes him to a nearby church. He leaves rather abruptly, saying that the air is stifling. A reaction to holy icons and hallowed ground is understandable – given his demonic heritage, but also fits with general vampire tropes. It is interesting that the filmmakers decided to make it oppressive only, and not more dramatic.

Christopher Ettridge as Darkwood

Also involved in looking to diagnose Lorcan and then provide a cure is Edward’s mentor Professor Darkwood (Christopher Ettridge). He announces porphyria as he enters the room. Of course the folkloric link between vampirism and porphyria has been debunked thoroughly, however the media link once established is always there. Darkwood mentions that transfusions are not so much a new technique but safer – and blood types are mentioned. This might guide us towards dating the film. On the hospital general ward there is a picture of Queen Victoria – she died in January 1901, so it would seem that this is in a late Victorian period. Blood types were first discovered in 1901 (with the discovery of Hemagglutination occurring in 1900), so one must guess the film to be set in 1900/1901.

reaching the heights of love

It seems that Lorcan has an unknown blood type but it transfuses with other types without a problem. Soon he is taking blood through ingestion as well as transfusion and Amy actively helps him with this. Following them making love – which involves some levitation and sprouting of wings, as well as him biting Amy – he fully transforms. He loses body hair, his ear take on a pointed shape, he can develop talons and sharp teeth with prominent front fangs. All in all he looks very much like Nosferatu (especially when in his suit with top hat, not that Orlock wore a top hat). It is suggested that he is a carrier of a virulent plague – again much like Orlock – indeed the big difference between the two is in the wings. That said, wings had been a part of the vampire genre going back into the 19th century – famously Alexandre Dumas, père gave Ruthven wings in his 1851 play the Return of Lord Ruthven.

in the sun

Darkwood has the manuscripts translated and gives us the stages of Lorcan’s transformation (though Lorcan was drinking blood earlier than the order given) and also gives us the killing method, which is only listed as sunlight. I did like the way that the sunlight made the incubus bleed to death, though fire was also involved. There was a use of hypnosis, from the doctors to hypnotise the victim to confirm what was happening.

bite marks

The acting was very good, especially from the two main parties who were understated rather than over the top, adding a subtlety to the proceedings. I was also rather taken with Andrew Cunningham in his role of Rook – a hospital worker with a criminal streak. Even more impressive was the clever way Mark Duffield used sets. Never at any point where we jolted from the idea that we were in late Victorian London and a trip around the sights cemented that feel and gave the illusion of a much bigger collection of sets than there actually were. Judicious camera angles were used to show London without allowing the modern in.

fanged

If I had a complaint it is in the fact that I felt that the film dragged a little bit towards the end. Given the fact that the film aimed for a gothic romance feel more than horror it didn’t need to hurry the pace, per se, but it perhaps could have shaved a tad away from the final act. A minor complaint, however, for a film about a demon that really was about a vampire and, I’d say, one of genus Nosferatu as much as being an incubus. 6.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Vampires Under the Hammer – review

Author: Charles E Butler

First Published: 2013

Contains spoilers

This is the third book of movie reviews (with original illustrations) by Charles E Butler. Having concentrated on adaptations of Dracula in the first volume, the Romance of Dracula, the author spread his gaze wider for the second volume, Vampires Everywhere. In this the view narrows a little, again, as he concentrates on the films from the Hammer stable.

Of course this is a highly legitimate direction, given the enduring impact of the studio on the genre. If the previous volume felt a little rushed then this did not but it did feel a tad lighter, I suspect because of overlap between the films and their casts and crews. Charles splits the films into three categories (as I did when I reviewed the classic oeuvre) – Dracula, Karnstein and Miscellaneous. A difference between the approaches is that I classed Brides of Dracula as a Dracula film as it is a direct continuation of Van Helsing’s story from Horror of Dracula, Butler chose to place it as a miscellaneous film as Dracula does not feature in the movie – both viewpoints are valid I think.

As in the first two volumes this could have done with citations, a bibliography and an index. What I did feel was missing, however, was a look at Hammer’s modern output. Let Me In is mentioned in passing but it is a Hammer product and as such deserves to be reviewed (not least because it is, for me, the best vampire genre movie produced under the Hammer banner). Hammer’s introductory film from their modern output, Beyond the Rave, fails to get even a mention.

As for the extant reviews themselves, I suspect that the author and I will have to agree to disagree over Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter, but that is the nature of taste and review. This was a nice little sojourn in Hammer territory, however. 7 out of 10.

Honourable Mention: El Vampiro Negro

This was an Argentinian film from 1953 and directed by Román Viñoly Barreto. It is a remake of the classic Fritz Lang movie M and, in honesty, it isn’t a patch on that classic film – though it is a strong piece of cinema in its own right.

It begins with music over credits that seemed cheesy now and reminded me immediately that Lang’s film used sound in a way that was, frankly, mind blowing. And you know what, it is unfair to this film to be comparing and contrasting to Lang but, unfortunately, it feels impossible to do otherwise.

in the court

After images of Rorschach tests – with the subject, Teodoro Ulber (Nathán Pinzón), saying that he sees nothing in the images but the viewer seeing that he is thinking of women – we cut to his trial and the defence and prosecution summing up. The defence suggest that there has been enough evidence to indicate that his dark soul can be reached for rehabilitation and recommending that he be confined to a mental institution and the prosecution calling for the death penalty. The jury is not deciding on guilt (that is established) but on the penalty to be given.

Nathán Pinzón as Teodoro Ulber

The film then goes back to chronicle his crimes. The police are looking for a child killer (as in Lang’s film the murderer targets children rather than any age as per the real life criminal(s) that allegedly inspired the screenplay) who is known as the Black Vampire. In a club a torch singer, Rita (Olga Zubarry), finishes her song and (after throwing a drink in a customer's face) heads down into the club’s basement where her dressing room is.

scream, and scream again

Outside Ulber is disposing of a victim’s body by throwing her into a storm drain. Rita sees this through a high window and catches a view of his eyes. She screams and the club owner (and ne’er do well) comes down. He tells her not to report what has been seen – even when the papers the next day confirms it is an attack by the Black Vampire. His reasoning is based on using the club as a front for drug trafficking. For her, she doesn’t want undue attention – being a singer is apparently no career for a single mother (her daughter is in boarding school).

Olga Zubarry as Rita

Hunting the Vampire is Bernar (Roberto Escalada). He mentions the mediaeval fantasy which produced a spectre, a horrible entity that would suck its victims blood little by little until they were dead, and thus ties the vampire myth into the film in a much more obvious manner than Lang (with whom the vampire connection is almost hearsay, as it was the nickname of the alleged model for the film). Bernar is obsessed with the vampire, but perhaps that is a way from distracting him from the frustration he feels at home as his wife (Gloria Castilla) is paralyzed.

the black vampire stalks

Now, I said that Lang’s film is superior, and it is, but this is still a great film and takes itself down a different path to that taken by Lang. The killer – nicknamed the Professor by those who know him – is a quiet gentleman and actually knows one of Rita’s friends, Cora (Nelly Panizza). The film explores his character much more and the interaction (or lack thereof) he has with adult women feeds his frustrations that in turn excite his murderous urges. In a chilling scene we see him take Rita’s daughter out to a fair and then have to fight his own urges. Like the earlier film there is a theme used of the killer whistling Hall of the Mountain King, however in this he actually blames the music for his crimes.

the empty mirror

This film does deserve to be seen but try, if you can, to divorce it from Lang – difficult when they actually call one of the characters Lange (Mariano Vidal Molina). Of course the vampire tag is a nickname, and this becomes simply something of genre interest as it does not actually contain any of our toothsome friends. However… In a scene we see an empty room in a hand mirror that Ulber is using, but it is held up to comb his hair… was the lack of his reflection deliberate, was the director showing us that, in his delusions, he really thought himself to be a vampire?

The imdb page is here.

The Carriage or Dracula & My Mother – review

Director: Benjamin L. Gordon

Release date: 2014

Contains spoilers

I’m often in a quandary when it comes to short films, should I review them or just give them an Honourable Mention. The short film is an art form in its own right, like the short story. The pressing of character, story and lore into a very limited amount of time takes a consummate skill. We can also forgive more in a short, I feel, for the very same reasons.

Ben Gordon as himself

Nevertheless, sometimes a short comes along and bam… this was a bam moment. I had approached Ben Gordon, from La Zona Productions in Spain, having spotted his short, and he was good enough to allow me early access to it (the film is now on YouTube and is embedded below). I had a read through the press pack and discovered that he had “inherited” the actual carriage from a commercial shoot and decided to film a story, with his family and a family friend as the talent, over Christmas – the vampire sections were reshot later and, given the really interesting thing he did with lore in the re-shoot it was well worth it.

investigating the carriage

The opening premise is that Ben Gordon’s (himself) mother (Charlotte Gordon) discovers that someone has parked a horse-drawn carriage (sans horses) outside her Spanish home. She phones Ben and tells him as he and his wife Laura and baby daughter Cloe are flying over for Christmas. On arrival he and Charlotte go to look at the carriage but the door is locked. Charlotte mentions Dracula in connection with it. The genius here is the Ben is recapturing older vampire movies where, to one degree or another, the carriage is more than just a conveyance. In Nosferatu, for instance, the shrouded carriage is a sinister omen and in Dracula Prince of Darkness it is a driverless honey trap.

bait

The family dress the Christmas tree but, early the next morning, Laura becomes freaked out when she hears something on the roof of the house. Ben becomes obsessed with the carriage. He has Laura pose before the carriage, holding Cloe, as a lure for anyone inside. He then suggests that as Cloe is sleeping she go for a walk. With her out of the way he parks Cloe’s pram near the carriage and waits, a piece of string attached to pull his daughter away! When Laura returns she sees this, realises what he is doing and understandably leaves the country! That leaves Ben and (an unimpressed) Charlotte plus whatever is in the carriage.

Francisco Aguirre as the vampire

It is actually a vampire (Francisco Aguirre) within the carriage and, when we finally get to see the inside of the carriage, we see it is filled with earth. This reminded me of the Night Flier, in which the vampire’s plane was filled with earth also. However it is the vampire that is the most fascinating character. Almost hobo like in attire he is capable of acts of shockingly physical violence but it is his method of feeding that I have to spoil as it is so unusual.

roots retracting

Tendrils of roots emerge from his mouth and sprout from his hands reaching to the victim and burying into the flesh to suck the blood. This almost plant like attribute feels natural given the earth in the carriage. It also reminded me of the quote from Mansfield I read cited in Michael Bell’s Food from the Dead (pg 219), “Among the superstitions of those days, we find it was said that a vine or root of some kind grew from coffin to coffin, of those of one family… …and when the growing vine had reached the coffin of the last one buried, another one of the family would die…” The vampire can be warded by religious iconography, in this case Jewish, and seems to have some form of psychic connection with his victims. He can also turn into a bat.

Ben's mother

This was a fantastic little short, well shot and able to both summon reminiscences of genre staples and also very fresh ideas (such as the feeding method). The acting was naturalistic and the dialogue free-flowing often (the bickering over the cooking of Christmas dinner was actually real, the press release reveals). Gordon describes the film as a “self-portrait taken to a fictionalised realm of perversion.” I describe the film as a cracking little vampire piece. 8 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.