Vampirina – review

Director: Michele Pacitto

Release date: 2000

Contains spoilers

Ian spotted Vampirina on Amazon video and it took only a little bit of time to discover that this is a re-edit of a film previously released as Mistress of Seduction and also Dracula’s Dirty Daughter. The previous release versions came in at around 83 minutes and were essentially softcore flicks from the Seduction Cinema stable.

Vampirina cuts out most of the softcore elements (leaving some nudity, soaping and some really low key seduction/lesbian vampirism aspects). The aim, clearly, was to make it story focused, rather than sex focused but you can’t magic story where there was very little before.

out of the car boot

So, the lead character is Vampirina (Alysabeth Clements) who emerges out of her car boot and rings the number with a classified ad – a girl, Tanya (Michelle Tebow), who is seeking another bi-girl and goth. Despite the late hour, and the fact that she has woken Tanya up, Vampirina suggests going out to a horror movie the following evening. Tanya counters with a suggestion of Ally McBeal on TV (Vampirina then wonders about the goth aspect of the ad). She demands the girl’s address and goes over, breaking in to her bedroom. Tanya pulls a gun, realises it is the woman from the phone and Vampirina puts the bite on her.

Alysabeth Clements as vampirina

Vampirina is looking for a specific man. He killed her father (presumably, but never confirmed as, Dracula) in a past life. She has a picture of him in his new incarnation but doesn’t know where he is. Tanya recognises him as John (Thomas Martwick), the brother of her ex Corina (Gentle Fritz). They visit the sister and, whilst telling them to bugger off, Vampirina is able to make eye contact and get the address through telepathy. They go to the house – note it is daylight.

Thomas Martwick as John

John shares the house with Matt (Justiz Donaldson) and Pat (Josh Dirmish). Matt has put farmyard orientated porn on the telly and Pat is disgusted. After an argument, he moves out of the house – leaving them a roommate short. That’s when Vampirina and Tanya arrive. Tanya introduces Vampirina as Ally and the vampire suggests moving in (after almost breaking Matt’s fingers when she shakes his hand). She then arranges to meet another girl – making Tanya jealous and they leave for Tanya’s house.

sun trap for Tanya

On the way home Tanya is unwell and she vomits blood when she gets home. When she gets back downstairs Vampirina’s guest, Kristal (Kellie Brown), has arrived. Vampirina explains to the dying Tanya that vampires cannot stand sunlight (unless they are of a certain age) and her innards are “on fire” and liquidising. She allowed this to happen partly because Tanya has outlived her usefulness and partly because of the Ally McBeal (though she has arranged for the episodes to be ready for Tanya to watch when she gets to Hell).

vampire coven

Vampirina’s plan is to make John fall in love with her as it would be easy to kill him, or even to turn him, but she wants to steal his soul and for that she needs his love… But, believe me, I can’t see you really caring. The film is clearly done on the cheap and the storyline is perfunctory at best. There is, for example, a trip to a strip club, which fails to have the camera enter the establishment (whether it did in the original edit is not clear but as we get a 3-minute scene in this of the stripper (Diane Skiba), who Vampirina picks up, soaping her boobs in the shower, I doubt the strip club interior location was ever used as there would be little point cutting it). We do discover in that section that vampires dislike blood with steroids.

bloody maw

The acting is, at best, amateurish. Alysabeth Clements does her best to vamp it up but faces the difficulty of making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear of rubbish dialogue, plot, direction and filming, I’m afraid. The original aim of the film was low budget cheap sexual thrills and the story, acting and photography matched the original aim. All in all not a great film. 1.5 out of 10.

The imdb page (for the Mistress of Seduction cut) is here.

Death Walks – review

Director: Spencer Hawken

Release date: 2016

Contains spoilers

I found this film on Amazon Prime and took it to be just a zombie flick, unaware that there is a vampire element. Unlike, say, Kill Zombie! this is not an extraneous vampire section tagged on, leading to an Honourable Mention, but is an integral part of the film. And that is almost a spoiler at the level of the Hamiltons, in other words spoiling that there is a vampire aspect at all. Unfortunately, that is the nature of the blog but I believe there are far more major spoilers within the film and I shall leave those be.

they're behind you

One reason why I wanted to watch the film, beyond the fact that I like a good (or even a rubbish) zombie flick, was to see what the filmmakers achieved. The film is zero budget… absolute zero… cast and crew donated their time, locations were borrowed gratis and anything used in effects were donated. I see a lot of films (especially free streaming ones) that are clearly shoestring and, frankly, unwatchable. This has issues, don’t get me wrong, but the fact that this was watchable (enjoyable even) is a testament to the filmmakers. There was a Kickstarter but this was for money to submit the films to festivals, I understand.

nightmare

It opens with a scene of a hooded figure walking along and, bar some vibration wobble on one angle on a bridge shot, I was struck by the professional quality of the photography. The hooded figure bookends the film and I won’t spoil who or why. We then see a face in the dark and John (Jon Guerriero) bolts awake from his nightmare. He is a security guard at a shopping complex and is due on the nightshift with Kris (Kris Tiwari). Apparently the two actors were actually security guards at the location – hence their dialogue sounding natural. Actually, Jon Guerriero stood out for me, and he seems to have gone on to other acting work. Why he had these nightmares isn't explained or examined at all.

sexual harassment at work

As the film opens and the centre closes for the night we meet other characters. These include the over-sexed store manager Louise (Lucinda Rhodes-Flaherty, Dead Cert) keeping naive worker Steve (Daniel Smales) behind for some “how’s your father”. Rhodes-Flaherty is clearly having a whale of a time. We meet Simon (Jordan Grehs), Paul (Samuel Window) and Lucy (Kaylee Pleasance), whose role in the film felt a bit on the padding side, to be honest. We also meet Chloe (Holly Boeva) who had her first day working in a store – she spends the film wandering the non-public corridors of the centre lost and nattering on her phone – oblivious to everything that is going on.

Jessie Williams as Poppy

Some strange occurrences happen before the primary events occur. A strange Italian woman, Lucrezia (Francesca Ciardi), draws symbols on the floor at the entrances (being moved on several times) and warns that *they are coming*. Then John finds a strangely silent girl with heavy and unnatural veins (or scars perhaps) stood at a locked door. When she doesn’t respond he brings her in to the centre and radios for an ambulance to be called for. He is sure he recognises her and gets one word out of her, her name is Poppy (Jessie Williams). He then realises that she is the girl in a newspaper, thought missing her DNA had been found at a scene but nothing else.

commandos in Romford!

So, strange figures start to move through the complex. These are our zombies, veined around the head they might just stand perfectly still as someone walks amongst them. Often we don’t see them move and certainly don’t see the attacks (mostly). I say mostly as we do see one explicit attack on John. However when a group of commandos investigate them we don’t see the attack at all, just the bodies of the soldiers on the floor after being dealt with – our zombies still again.

attack

This brings me to issues. I could handle the relatively poor zombie makeup – we are in zero budget land and it is addressed in film. The acting ranges from poor to good – but some of our cast aren’t actually actors and others have a wealth of experience – so the variance was natural and expected. However it was in the plotting I felt somewhat let down. Aspects such as the soldiers being called in when the police don’t appear to take Alice (Joanna Finata) the centre manager’s call seriously seems bizarre to me. Why would the centre have access to mercenaries? How did they drive through London with a machine gun on their truck and assault rifles ready to go? It was too far out for my disbelief. Further, we don’t see them killed but as they all have fingers on triggers I can’t believe that not a shot would have been fired (and heard right through the centre).

fangs on show

As for the source of our zombies. It was interesting and a nice (and unspoiled twist) – whilst I was watching the film. It doesn’t stand up to thinking about it however, though to explain why would move me into spoiler territory again. So, leaving that behind, what about the vampire? Well, if you remember Lucrezia from the beginning of the film and her warnings… she returns towards the end having had perhaps a little more of a hand in some aspects than we knew and she is a vampire and does bear fangs (cgi). What did she have a hand in? That would again spoil too much but the meaning of and reason for her occultish graffiti is never explored.

Bloody mouth

Am I being overly critical of the story aspects that I had a problem with? I don’t think so, they are there and it would be remiss of me not to mention them. Viewers of zombie films might want to see a bit more action (mostly we see the zombies stationary and menacing in their stillness) however I recognise that there are story and budget reasons for couching those aspects as they have been. The bottom line is I enjoyed this as I watched it, I wanted to know what was happening and why it was happening. Not perfect but for the budget impressive. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Blood Dynasty – review

Director: Chris Alexander

Release date: 2017

Contains spoilers

The third Irina film, following the movies Blood for Irina and Queen of Blood, I should probably say that this felt like the most experimental of the series and if you are not into arthouse/euro-horror films you might want to look away now.

The blurb for the first film mentioned Herzog, Rollin and Franco – and, if anything, the Rollin inspiration shined through the first film and was more than apparent in the second. I felt less so with this. Almost devoid of dialogue (there are two words spoken in all), with experimentation with filters and a lack of any in-depth narrative (as though a narrative might undermine the atmosphere), this felt more like it took its inspiration from Jess Franco (though I haven’t mentioned it in the previous reviews, Irina is a name bestowed upon some of Franco’s vampires). Indeed, it felt like Burlington Ontario carried a weighty presence as much as locations such as Málaga had in some of Franco’s work. There are still nods to Rollin, for instance within a clock motif and perhaps even a touch of Vadim in Irina’s dress – reminiscent of Blood and Roses and Carmilla.

Irina with child

Spoiler for Second Film: This film starts with Irina (Shauna Henry) coming out of a pond, her dress awash with blood, holding a baby, its umbilical still attached. This was part of the climax of the second film, Irina giving birth, and I avoided that entire story thread for fear of a spoiler too far in the last review – so apologies if you haven’t seen Queen of Blood yet. The music is ambient with the cry of the baby accompanying the music. The scene ties this film to the previous however, unlike the previous film, we are clearly (by the next scene) in a contemporary time.

the vampire is summoned

In a room, in a motel is a girl (Cheryl Singleton) – note she is only credited as the girl. We follow her as she walks empty streets. Eventually she gets to the edge of the Great lake where the husk of a ship lies in the shallow. She breathes the word Irina. The vampire comes out of the water, curled, almost a rock, she rises and walks through the waters to the shore, towards the road and then the motel. The music leaves ambience behind becoming heavier, discordant, as Irina moves towards the hotel, seeming almost ethereal as though juxtaposed against the soundtrack. The girl reaches her room, dropping her glasses to the floor as the vampire reaches for her.

bite

I should say here that Alexander has chopped the film into un-titled chapters by deliberately fading into black at places. Out of the black and into the bite – Irina feeds from the girl, taking her blood. She allows the girl to feed from her wrist and drips blood from her mouth to the girl. There are deliberate uses of filters through the feeding scenes, which scream Franco. The girl perhaps becomes vampire or becomes mad – maybe both.

attracting a victim

She then goes out and finds victims. The first (Holly Riot) approaches her at a picnic bench outside the motel. She ignores the blood across the girl’s face and reaches out to her, going to the room. She seems to back away as Irina reaches for her and then goes to her. Both vampires bite her (in heavy filters). It is this unreal luring of the prey that helps – along with the filters and the evocative soundtrack – to give the film a dreamlike quality. In this Alexander is probably more successful than Franco ever was, the Spanish auteur never capturing such an ethereal feel. Alexander mixes this with nightmare both through discordant music and moments when Irina seems to lunge at the camera.

Irina and the girl

However, there is little more than this (baring a coda that will lay unexplored) and whilst the lack of narrative offers an aspect of a dream it might be too much for those who dislike arthouse filmmaking, those wanting more substance and those uninitiated into the earlier films. I am, of course, very aware of the previous films in the series and felt that this perhaps didn’t carry me as much as Queen of Blood did. That said, it did still carry me in an almost hypnotic way and it says much for the film that after a gap of a couple of years I was pulled straight into the director’s world. I understand there is to be a fourth film in the series and I think Alexander needs to pull the best from the experimental aspects of the films as they have developed but also look backwards and offer more of a solid narrative to drive his story forward. 6 out of 10 (with caveats).

The imdb page is here.

Vidocq – review

Director: Pitof

Release date: 2001

Contains spoilers

Not a traditional vampire film, my friend Leila suggested that this might be suitable for a ‘Vamp or Not?’ I believe that the central villain of this – the Alchemist – does fall into the Vamp area and decided to plump straight for review.

My main disappointment is that I had not heard of this before. A French fantastique rendered to film – there were moments that reminded me visually of City of Lost Children (unsurprising given director Pitof was on the visual effects team for that film, as well as the underrated Alien Resurrection – though we should also note that he went on from this to direct Catwoman!) I was also reminded of the sublime Brotherhood of the Wolf – though this was more urbane (set in Paris rather than the countryside) and had a dirty gothic undertow.

chasing the Alchemist

More fascinating was the fact that Vidocq is a historical figure who was a criminal who went on to create and be head of the Sûreté and, later, formed the world’s first detective agency. He is known as the father of criminology. In this he is played by Gérard Depardieu, the year is 1830 and Vidocq is racing through a glass blowing factory. He passes through to a more quiet area and sees a cloaked figure and gives chase. He and the figure eventually fight and we see that the Alchemist (as he is known) wears a mirrored mask. Vidocq finally falls into a pit furnace, clinging to the side. The Alchemist (out of the viewer’s sight) lifts the mask to show Vidocq their face and the detective falls.

 Gérard Depardieu as Vidocq

Vidocq’s partner, Nimier (Moussa Maaskri), is clearly upset at the death of his partner (of whom there is naught but ashes left). He takes to the bottle when there is a hammering at the door. The young man introduces himself as Etienne Boisset (Guillaume Canet, Love Bites) a journalist and biographer who was to write Vidocq’s biography. Nimier doesn’t believe it but Etienne insists that it is true and suggests that if he finds and names the killer it will avenge Vidocq.

stealing a soul

The film then shows flashbacks to Vidocq’s last investigation entwined with Etienne’s own search for the truth. Eventually he discovers the name of the villain – the Alchemist – and uncovers a strange truth. The mystery, of course, is around the identity of the Alchemist and so there is little spoiler in revealing the vampiric aspect. The Alchemist turns out to be a half-myth boogieman who is said to be able to steal souls within the mirror of the mask. The mirror for the mask is made using the blood of virgins – for the purity thereof – and the Alchemist then feeds upon the stolen souls maintaining eternal youth. The film does other interesting things with mirrors that, given the vampiric aspect, is really rather special but also too much of a spoiler to relay.

pigeons

The Alchemist also seems to have a range of movement that far exceeds human, moving with a fast fluidity that seems preternatural, is able to survive massive falls, and displays the ability to vanish and reappear elsewhere. At one point the cloak is opened and a flock of pigeons is released (rather than bats). The fast movement of the character suits the fast and idiosyncratic filming style that lends the film its own particular atmosphere.

opulent style

The film has a core talent at its heart that would always help elevate it. Visually it is stunning, although I can imagine the unusual camerawork and breakneck speed will not be to everybody’s taste. Apparently, it was the first feature film shot with the Sony digital 1080p 24 fps cameras to reach the screen. For me, however, it was a piece of cinematic gold and well worth watching. 8 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Van Helsing – season 1 – review

Director: Various

First aired: 2016

Contains spoilers

Okay, let’s get this out of the way. This is a SyFy product and you have to temper your expectations accordingly. Also it is based on the Zenescope’s comic Van Helsing – so your primary character is going to be a woman.

I have seen a lot of negativity around this one and, to be fair, if you only watched the first episode I can understand where this was coming from. It almost seemed that the makers wanted to do the Walking Dead but, because zombies had been done, they called them vampires.

Jonathan Scarfe as Axel

The ferals we first see are zombie like. Burnt by sunlight (or UV units) and killed by piercing the heart or the brain (or decapitation), beyond this we see little difference. In a hospital a marine, Axel (Jonathan Scarfe), cares for a doctor (only ever called Doc (Rukiya Bernard)) who has been turned and is now in a cage. When I say he looks after her he feeds her blood through an IV line. His primary mission is to protect a woman he calls Sleeping Beauty. It is three years since the rising (when the vampires attacked) and she has not moved in those three years. Not alive, she is not exactly dead. Later we will hear that she is called Vanessa Seward (Kelly Overton, True Blood) – it is towards the end of the series that we discover that the adopted Vanessa was of the Van Helsing line.

Doc feeding

At the start of episode 1 we hear Doc exclaim that *they* are here (so maybe not as zombie like as we thought given the ability to communicate) but when Axel goes to the fortified door there are survivors at his threshold. He isn’t going to let them in until one identifies himself as fellow marine Ted (Tim Guinee, Vampires). Against his better judgement, he lets them in. One, John (David Cubitt), realises his wife is out there but Axel won’t open the door again and knocks the civilian out.

Vanessa awakens

That night a group of vampires get in. Three of them make a bee-line for Vanessa. One, Flesh (Vincent Gale, Bloodrayne 2: Deliverance), bites her and then falls, choking. Vanessa awakens and fights the other two. By the time it is all over her neck has healed and Flesh is dead. All Vanessa wants to do is find her daughter, Dylan (Hannah Cheramy), but Axel won’t let her leave (partly because of his mission and partly because she has no idea what is out there). And it was there that episode 1 ended and I wasn’t sure...

during the rising

Episode 2, however, showed us the rising and what exactly had happened to Vanessa. Pre the rising it showed her selling blood and, when accidentally bought by vampires, it turning the drinker human. Then a volcanic eruption in Yellowstone caused a super volcano to blow, the resultant ash turning day into a vampire friendly twilight (which is still in evidence three years later). One of the vampires, we see, started randomly attacking people. This caused a virtually immediate turn and those vampires attacked others. So with a bite and turn (and a tremendous initial hunger) we get something like a zombie apocalypse.

Vanessa stabbed

Vanessa is attacked in her home and her corpse taken to the hospital (the morgue is full). Doc notices something odd about the corpse and takes a blood sample. This is so strange she sends it to her sister, a military boffin who sends the marines in. The marines get there at just about the time civilisation crashes down around their ears. When it comes to Vanessa we discover that she heals remarkably quickly, she can see in the dark (though is fine in UV) and either drinking her blood or her biting a vampire turns it back to human. Flesh, for instance, “dies” and then is reborn human again – however this is not a constant.

Rebecca, an elder vampire

The primary types of vampires we see are feeders – vampires with their minds intact (although stripped of emotion). These fed after turn. There are also ferals who are mindless creatures (a bit like fast zombies I’d say and definitely going along the zompire line). These failed to feed on a human in time (which the series suggests will kill the turnee) but did get animal blood (which is described by a feeder as poison). We also meet elder vampires – hundreds of years old – and hear talk of ancient vampires. It seems the government knew of vampires as they had a file on Vanessa but the vampires had a hand in her genesis (how much is still up for disclosure). Vanessa is described as biologically a negative image of a vampire.

post volcano USA

The series grew on me, it really did. The first episode I really wasn’t sure and throughout the subsequent season I was frustrated by some very poor character reactions to situations. However the central story bobbed along nicely and the makers took a leaf out of the Walking Dead playbook by being liberal with who they would kill – meaning any character (bar Vanessa, obviously) could cop it (of course, they could always come back too, as a vampire). They also threw a serial killer sub-arc and that meant there was always unease amongst the survivors. However most of the characters were not too sympathetic, which worked against all of that.

Is it the best thing ever… God, not by a long shot but it doesn’t deserve the scorn it has earned. The complaints all read like the viewer never got past the first episode. Once past that there is something worthwhile – as a syfy release, of course, but worthwhile nonetheless. 5.5 out of 10. The imdb page is here.

A Night in the Lonesome October – review

Author: Roger Zelazny

First Published: 1993

Contains spoilers


The Blurb: Loyally accompanying a mysterious knife-wielding gentleman named Jack on his midnight rounds through the murky streets of London, good dog Snuff is busy helping his master collect the grisly ingredients needed for an unearthly rite that will take place not long after the death of the moon. But Snuff and his master are not alone. All manner of participants, both human and not, are gathering with their ancient tools and their animal familiars in preparation for the dread night.

It is brave, devoted Snuff who must calculate the patterns of the Game and keep track of the Players—the witch, the mad monk, the vengeful vicar, the Count who sleeps by day, the Good Doctor and the hulking Experiment Man he fashioned from human body parts, and a wild-card American named Larry Talbot—all the while keeping Things at bay and staying a leap ahead of the Great Detective, who knows quite a bit more than he lets on.

Boldly original and wildly entertaining, A Night in the Lonesome October is a darkly sparkling gem, an amalgam of horror, humor, mystery, and fantasy. First published in 1993, it was Zelazny’s last book prior to his untimely death. Many consider it the best of the fantasy master’s novels. It has inspired many fans to read it every year in October, a chapter a day, and served as inspiration for Neil Gaiman’s brilliant story “Only the End of the World Again.”

The review: Spread over 32 chapters (an opening and one per day of October), A Night in the Lonesome October is both a revelation and a joy to read. The blurb quoted above gives a good idea of the characters involved (none, bar Larry Talbot, are directly named but the reader knows exactly who the Count, the Great Detective, the Good Doctor etc are) as they prowl an October in Victorian London.

The story is told from the point of view of Snuff – the familial creature, in dog form, of Jack one of the players of the Game. The Game occurs in an October where the full moon falls on the 31st and players are drawn in. Some are Openers, others Closers, some may switch sides. What the blurb doesn’t overly highlight is the Lovecraftian mythos that all this is based on (indeed there is a sojourn within Lovecraft’s Dream Worlds at one point).

The writing is crisp and the characterisation excellent – especially the voice of our narrator. From a TMtV point of view we, of course, have the Count (Dracula) and his familiar Needles, a bat. The Count’s gypsy servants also pay a visit. This is a must read for fans of the classic monsters and Lovecraft alike. 9 out of 10.

Holy Virgin Vs the Evil Dead – review

Director: Tony Liu Chun-Ku

Release date: 1991

Contains spoilers

Holy Virgin vs Evil Dead is one of those films that makes it onto vampire filmographies but, for a moment, I wondered whether this should be a ‘Vamp or Not?’ rather than a review. Ultimately I thought that it does enough to warrant the vampire label and is probably vampire enough to dispense with questioning the film and thus I should get on with reviewing it.

It is a strange one, clearly aping – at least in title – the cult Sam Raimi film from ten years before. In reality there is only some POV moving camera work and some wind machines that truly ape the classic film. It is, however, a film in which we play the game "spot the virgin". In fact this is a bit of an exploitation flick. There were two releases, a domestic one and an international one and the latter covered up nudity whereas the former revelled in it. I used the domestic version for review.

bite

The film opens with a view of the monster of the piece – the moon monster (Ken Lo Wai-Kwong) – he is bathed in red light, his eyes flash green lightning and he bites into a woman’s neck, lifting his head to show his blood-soaked mouth. That is our primary vampire trope, right there, and whilst it isn’t clear at this point that he is drinking the blood some dialogue confirmation later spared this from investigation. We then see a woman, Shamen (Chui Hei-Man), walk naked to a pool. The camera explores and lingers, we say sexploitation, and then she goes skinny dipping.

Donnie Yen Ji-Dan as Shiang

Shiang ( Donnie Yen Ji-Dan, Painted Skin) is a teacher and is out having a night time barbeque with several of his female students… as you do. Suddenly, out of their sight, a figure bursts from the earth (it is the Moon Monster). Two of the girls go off as one needs a pee and the moon turns red. Suddenly there is mayhem as the Moon Monster starts ripping off clothes and rending flesh. Shiang tries to fight him but is knocked out.

Ben Lam Kwok-Bun as Chen

Shiang is being held by the police. There are two police Sgts on the case of the “sexual maniac” as they are calling it. One Sgt Hu (Sibelle Hu Hui-Chung) believes him guilty but… could she be our Holy Virgin… the answer is, no. The other Sgt Chen (Ben Lam Kwok-Bun, Mr Vampire & the Romance of the Vampires), well that’s where it gets complicated. You see he is Shamen’s boyfriend and Shiang is her ex-husband – Shamen is clearly not our Holy Virgin.

vampiric possession

Shiang is released on bail – paid for by Chow Yuan-Fat (Robert Mak Tak-Law, the First Vampire in China), a PI friend who wants to help prove his innocence. Cut to the evening and we see a couple bonking in a car. They finish, the moon turns red and her eyes flash green lightning as she tears out her lover’s throat. The Moon Monster is in a shrine to a hermaphroditic god. She goes to him and he rips her throat out… why exactly this happened, what her relationship to him was and how the apparent possession came to pass… none of this is answered.

non-human hair

For the cops the shrine murder adds further questions. They find hairs with the victim that turn out to be of non-human type and eventually blows up (along with the rest of the evidence gathered). However it puts Shiang on the case and he realises that it has something to do with obscure folklore and visits Director Cho (Kathy Chow Hoi-Mei, Vampire Controller). She recognises the God description as being one from Chinla – a predecessor kingdom in Cambodia. But, could she be our Holy Virgin? I thought so at first and it would have been a great move to take the bookish academic and make her a kick-ass evil dead killer. Sadly, it wasn’t to be.

Chui Fat as Ma Tian

However it is at this time that the true villain of the piece, Ma Tian (Chui Fat), makes himself known. He owned the shrine and chastises Moon Monster for killing there. Ma Tian then tells him that he needs a woman born in the time of Yin to achieve his full powers and gives him an artefact that will bleed if she’s near. Cho has gone to visit Chen and Shamen, to tell the cop what she has told Shiang. Moon Monster’s artefact starts bleeding and the lucky winner is… shamen. He tries to kidnap her but is stopped by Chen unloading his gun into him and Cho electrocuting him in the pool. However he is soon up and out of the morgue and kills Cho (we are told that, off screen, he removed her head and ripped her heart out).

Pauline Yeung Bo-Ling as Princess White

Shiang, Chen and Chow Yuan-Fat decide to go to Cambodia then and Shamen insists on coming too (our female cop has dramatically quit the force to become an actress and so doesn’t travel with them!) The viewer's first glimpse of Cambodia is of the Wind Tribe – whose lineage goes back to Chinla – and a visiting Prince Wolf who wishes to marry the Princess White (Pauline Yeung Bo-Ling). To win her hand he must defeat her and her awesome wire-fu and, ladies and gentlemen, we finally have our Holy Virgin. After Prince Wolf fails to win her hand the village is hit by a mysterious wind, warning her father that the evil of the Moon Monster has returned. He equips her with a magic sword, that fires lightning and, of course, she ends up meeting, and working with, the Hong Kong posse.

Moon Monster

The only other vampire related moment to mention is when the HK guys are discussing Moon Monster with Princess White and one calls him a vampire. She hasn’t heard of the term and so Chow does an impression of a kyonsi (which he clearly isn’t, however the idea of mentioning the Chinese specific vampire type when the vampire on screen is not of that type runs through several Hong Kong movies). As for the rest of the film, some wire-fu, machine gun battles (with endless henchmen in poor uniforms, who are terrible shots) and nudity… more nudity.

kick ass evil dead killer

It really is a hotchpotch of a film that perhaps could have done with more explicit violence – rather than explicit (and often not plot necessary) nudity. The concepts, characters and fights come thick and fast and prevent us from thinking too much about a plot that really is thin (and has no motivation, especially where the main villain is concerned). Ideas like the woman becoming possessed by the Moon Monster and acting as a proxy for a kill came out of leftfield and then left unexplained and essentially ignored. Not the greatest movie, but with a few beers and a hankering for some wire-fu and some nudity, well you could do worse. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Blood Shackles – review

Author: Rosemary A Johns

First published: 2016


The Blurb: What happens when SPARTACUS meets VAMPIRES? In a divided paranormal London, Light is the rebel bad boy vampire of the Blood Lifer world, with a talent for remembering things. And a Triton motorbike. Since Victorian times he’s hidden in the shadows. But not now. Not since someone hunted him down. When he’s bought by his alluring Mistress, Light fights to escape. Even if he can’t escape their love. But if he doesn’t, he’ll never solve the conspiracy behind the Blood Club...

WELCOME TO THE BLOOD CLUB

Who are these ruthless humans? Who’s their brutal leader? And who betrayed the secret of the Blood Lifer world?

WHERE THE PREDATORS

London, Primrose Hill. Grayse is the commanding slaver’s daughter. The enemy. She buys Light, like he’s a pair of designer shoes. So why does Light feel so drawn to her? Can a slave truly love his Mistress? Especially when his family is still in chains. Will he risk everything – even his new love – to save them?

BECOME THE PREY

Does a chilling conspiracy lie behind it all? A stunning revelation leads Light to an inconceivable truth. To the dark heart of the Blood Club. If he can face his worst terrors, he can save his family and his whole species from slavery.

Maybe he can even save himself.

Blood Shackles is the shocking second instalment in the compelling new fantasy series Rebel Vampires from the critically acclaimed author Rosemary A Johns. Experience a thrilling new twist on urban fantasy with vampires, Rockers and dark romance.

The review: Is hosted at Vamped.

Dracula Incarnate: Unearthing the Definitive Dracula – review

Author: Andrew Struthers

First published: 2016

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Dracula has long been considered the most popular horror story ever written, though the origins of the character have never been investigated further than the point of disproving a definite link with Vlad III The Impaler (The Historical Dracula). What if we were to find positive proof that Stoker's story was in fact based on real events which have been hidden within an unholy grail of code embedded in his research papers for over a century. What if we were to find absolute proof that Stoker was indeed acquainted with the infamous shadowy figure they called The "Ripper" and had wrote his novel Dracula as a direct response to this shocking fact? In short, the true identity of Count Dracula has been discovered, and he was not lying alone in his grave!

The review: It pains me to be negative about someone’s book – especially when it is clear that they have poured heart and soul into it. However I can’t help but be negative around this volume – partly through the construct of the book, which I hope that the author will take constructively and also take into account for a further edition, and partly because of the theory.

That said the author has corrected some aspects of Dracula studies in a way I'd agree with. For instance, he identifies the houses in Whitby that Stoker placed some of his characters in and which are often taken to be elsewhere in the town. The only criticism here would be that a map – for those who don’t actually know Whitby – might have been useful. Indeed there are aspects of worth in the opening sections of the book but the book itself has prose and content failings as a reference book.

Prose wise the book is written in a very chatty way – which might make the book more accessible to some, others will find it overly familiar – but often it feels that we are less reading prose and more reading bullet points, unfortunately. The author's overwhelming use of exclamation marks makes the book feel unprofessional, I’m afraid.

The book has no index but, worse, it has no referencing (to be fair some entries regarding Stoker’s notes are at least signposted, but these are few and far between). This lack of referencing is a real issue within the book and frustrating. At one point the author refers us to Leatherdale, suggesting we read his thoughts on a point, but fails to reference which Leatherdale volume he is referring to.

The main area of my concern around the book is the supposition that Stoker knew the identity of Jack the Ripper and encoded his identity within the book. We know that Stoker drew a parallel with the Ripper case due to the introduction he wrote to the Icelandic edition of Dracula. That introduction was not for a straight translation but for the (soon to be released at time of this review) edition entitled Powers of Darkness – where a third party, Valdimar Ásmundsson, considerably rewrote the novel including new characters and plot. Note that Stoker clearly approved the edition but it was Ásmundsson who rewrote it.

However Struthers believes that Stoker encoded things about the Ripper case in his notes and then made four characters in the novel different aspects of the murderer. The latter is problematic if only for the fact that two of these so-called aspects are part of the Crew of Light – Van Helsing’s helpers and co-conspirators.

More problematic, for me as a reader, was the use of Stoker’s notes. The notes are available, however they were not made available by Stoker and one wonders why he would have put encoded secrets for future generations in working notes? Worst still is the shoehorning of anagrams to prove a point.

Let us take a couple of examples from the text and note that the author believes the identity of the Ripper to be Francis Tumblety. The author takes the phrase “Undertakers Man” and rearranges it to ARDENT UNMASKER, suggesting that Tumbelty could be the undertakers man and he is, therefore, being unmasked. However run the phrase through an anagram app and we also gets “Eastman drunker” and “errant unmasked”. Indeed there are hundreds of possible outcomes (the free software I used only gave you the first 400 outcomes). Nowhere is it suggested that there was a key in the notes to allow decoding and so it appears that the author ran phrases from the notes through an anagram programme and then picked the outcomes that would lend credence to his theorem.

Indeed the "meanings" are often cryptic and have to be explained by the author. So “Bells at Sea” becomes SELL A BEAST and this is interpreted as advertising a murder. The author ties the Ripper murders with another serial killer in the US – “The Servant Girl Annihilator”, who allegedly killed seven women (and allegedly injured a further 6) and a man (and allegedly injured a further 2). He then draws attention to part of a line in the notes that says “Rage twice Xmas and midsummer”. The US murderer is thought to have killed two women on Christmas eve 1885 (and seriously injure the husband of one) however the author fails to mention that none of the Ripper victims or those unfortunates in the US were killed in June (midsummer falling between the 19th and 25th of June).

The interpretation of the line would seem to be selective and it isn’t mentioned that the line comes from Stoker making several notes (on that specific page) from Baring-Gould’s Book of the Werewolf and relates to Polish werewolves. The full line from the notes is "White Russian wawkalak is fatherless ww. sent among relations—must keep moving. Polish ww. rage twice Xmas & midsummer p. 114–6". Stoker actually referencing the pages in Baring-Gould that the note came from. As a further point we should mention that Tumblety was not a Pole. In fact, we know why Stoker researched werewolves – it was because he saw no difference between vampires and werewolves and says as much in the Lady of the Shroud.

The author also points out a strange line “Cattle endowed with speech on Xmas night” from the notes – informing us that Tumblety called women cattle (without a specific reference to show that this supposition is true) and thus this is what Stoker referred to. He fails to inform the reader that all the notes on that particular page comes from Emily Gerard’s The Land Beyond the Forest (the speaking cattle can be found on page 195 of Gerard) and Stoker was listing various Transylvanian superstitions from Gerard, which makes the entry less strange to my mind.

There are many other issues I had with the theory, but the idea that Stoker would present a hidden truth to the world in papers not designed to be seen is an initial stumbling block I can’t get past. The book is further marred by lack of referencing, the prose needs work and the excessive exclamation marks need expunging. 4 out of 10.

Note: I examine the revised edition here.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: El Camino de los Espantos

Directed by Gilberto Martínez Solares and released in 1967, El Camino de los Espantos (literarily the way of the scared but also known as The Spectres Road) was a vehicle for comedy duo Capulina (Gaspar Henaine) and Viruta (Marco Antonio Campos). The duo worked together extensively in TV and film between 1957 and 1967 and this was the last production in that franchise. Gaspar Henaine would go on to have a long solo career as Capulina.

Whilst there is some evidence that the pair were really not getting along by the time this was made they had carved a style by this point, which was their own but owed something to Laurel and Hardy – who they emulated quite strongly early in their career – and probably a little to Bud Abbott and Lou Costello as well. Viruta was the skinny clever part of the act and Capulina the big and dumb one.

I am possibly really pushing it to give this a mention here.

stranded

This sees a railway station with a group of passengers all desperate to get to the city. There is the businessman Serapio (Mario García 'Harapos') who needs to stop a business deal (why he doesn’t ask for a telegraph to be sent is not explored) and his wife (Consuelo Monteagudo) and adult son (Arturo Ripstein) who have a social engagement to get back for. There are two ladies, Adelita (Elsa Cárdenas, El Pueblo Fantasma) and Valentina (Salome), who have won a competition to audition for a film. Finally there is a cop (Guillermo Rivas) who has captured the infamous murderer Zopilote (Crox Alvarado) and is taking him back to stand trial. The telegrapher (Nathanael León, Santo en la Venganza de las Mujeres Vampiro) tells them the bridge is out and the train won’t come for at least a week.

Viruta and Capulina

Around this time Capulina and Viruta show up to pick up haulage from the train. Serapio begs for a lift in their truck but is refused as they do not have a passenger license. This fact becomes ignored when the businessman offers 500 pesos for their trouble (and that gets inflated to 500 per head). The girls are offered a free lift because they fancy them and the cop and his prisoner a free lift because he is a cop. However, because of the license issue they can’t take the main highway, due to a checkpoint, and must therefore use the Spectre’s Road.

into the haunted house

En route Viruta sees a skeletal apparition and stops the truck, Capulina gets out and is left behind (and menaced by ghosts) and eventually they have to go back for him. This leads to Zopilote escaping and the truck being stolen and, therefore, them heading to an old house they have spotted (as it looks like the trucks headlights were on nearby). The house is – it appears – haunted and here we have the reason for the Honourable mention.

fanged mask

The house once belonged to a reclusive occultist (who believed he had found evidence of oil at the location) and is a vast gothic pile with trick drawers in cabinets and secret passages. The guys soon discover they are not alone but to us the ghosts look like men in sheets with masks on. And, of course, they are... but the masks are as good a quality (for that read really poor quality) as masks used for actual monsters in other Mexican films of the period. Although they are referred to as ghosts, one has obvious fangs. So we have a person acting as a vampire in a fleeting visitation (though never referred to as a vampire).

And that, as they say, is that. The film is passably watchable with Gaspar Henaine’s Capulina stealing the show. The imdb page is here.