Cuadecuc, vampir – review

Director: Pere Portabella

Release date: 1971

Contains spoilers

In the introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Dracula, editor Roger Luckhurst talks about Cuadecuc, vampir and calls it “probably the most provoking adaptation of Dracula you have never seen”. He describes the reception thusly, it “was shown at the Cannes film festival to acclaim but was immediately banned in Spain. Although there is nothing explicitly stated, the fascist authorities that tightly controlled cultural expression got the message loud and clear. Count Dracula is meant to represent the undead dictator Franco”.

fascism drains Spain's vitality

This rebellion is difficult to see as a viewer not part of the region, nor under the regime, over forty years after its release. To this outsider, it is in the title that the rebellion of the film is revealed. I watched the Blu-ray release of the film in preparation of the review – and that is titled Vampir Cuadecuc, but I have used the original inverted title for the review. The word cuadecuc means ‘worm’s tail’ in Catalan but it also describes the unexposed end of a film reel. When it was filmed, the Catalan language had been brutally banned by the Fascist regime in Spain and using it (or even reading it) could be punished by a public lashing or jail sentences.

high contrast black and white

For those who are unaware of this film then you must understand that when Jess Franco made Count Dracula (1970) he allowed Pere Portabella and a small crew to film the filming. This does not make Cuadecuc, vampir a ‘making of’ Franco’s movie. It is much more (and less, in some ways) than that. Portabella makes a movie of Dracula, vampirising Franco’s production. However, he films in a high contrast black and white and this brings Dreyer’s Vampyr aesthetically to mind. The use of film as the medium of vampirism also brings Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens to mind, in which the death of the vampire is reminiscent of the death of film exposed to the sun.

Christopher Lee

But as well as telling the story – visually, the majority of the film is without any dialogue, only changing at the end where Christopher Lee speaks to the camera, explaining the run up to the death of Dracula in the novel before reading that extract. However it is the moments that are behind the scene where the film finds its deepest expression. An actor plays to the camera before Franco’s filming starts, Lee removes his face covering (as the coachman) and gives the camera a cheeky grin and a wave, we see someone with a smoke machine walking the path before Harker’s coach thunders along the (now) foggy road to be filmed. One of my favourite images was Lee led in his coffin as a crew member sprays fake cobwebs up his body.

spraying cobwebs

The film has a near perfect crap bat moment as Portabella films Franco’s bat effect, making no effort to hide the wires the rubber bat flies along. Bizarrely Klaus Kinski does not appear in the film (he plays Renfield in the parent production), which seems odd given the power of his performance. There is no dialogue but there is sound. Carles Santos creates a soundscape of tonal and ambient movements, sometimes taking modern (at the time) pieces and letting them play as a theme and then destroying them. Industrial noises invade the scenes and the soundtrack is strangely very modern (to now) in an avant-garde, experimental way.

a bride

Now you might be thinking that it sounds awful and on paper it might be that it should be, or at least be nothing more than a fleeting curio of cinema. However, it is a mesmerising mood piece that sucks the viewer in – or at least it did with me. I will say its likely to be a love it or hate it art film, but I was taken by it, I found it a much stronger piece of cinema than that constructed by Franco. Perhaps the music, the black and white and the stronger photography in general, the post-modernism that doesn’t recognise that a fourth wall even exists, the underlying rebellion. I don’t know. But for me this gets a strong 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Short Film: For the Road

I’ve finally been able to see the short film directed by Simon Scott called For the Road, which is great as I backed the production of it as a kickstarter and its always nice to get to the finished product.

The story is based on the Stephen King short story One for the Road had previously been turned into a Bulgarian short film entitled Wrong Way and then as One for the Road.

Booth and Sam

After a top down shot of a stretch of road cutting through thick woods we find ourselves in Took’s Tavern. At the bar sits Alex Booth (Gwyn LaRee) with a short and a cigarette. Its clear the barkeeper knows her. A man, Sam (Jeffrey Arrington) comes in and orders coffee. This is a pitstop to help keep him awake as he goes to pick up a rig – he’s a long-distance trucker. The normal route is closed off and he has found a quicker route than the official diversion by nipping through the town. Alex realises that his route will take him through the Lot.

remembering Lumley

She tells him a potted history of Salem’s Lot, now a ghost town – though no ghosts live there, she says – but then, when he asks when she was last there, she tells him the story of her and the previous tavern owner, Herb Tooklander (Eric Newsome), and what happened when a city guy, Gerry Lunley (Patrick Green), stumbled into the bar. He had taken a route similar to Sam and hit something just outside of the Lot. He had turned left (into the Lot) and his car had packed up. He had left his wife (Amber Stonebraker) and son (Brady James) in the car and walked back for help. Unable to raise the sheriff or towtruck, Took and Alex decide to help him.

beware the Lot

Of course, there’ll be vampires involved, you already knew that. Also, if you’ve read the story you’ll know how the Lumley’s story will pan out but, of course, there is Sam’s story layered above that one. Professionally shot, not for profit, the filmmakers are looking to get the short on the festival circuit. You can go on over to their Facebook Page and show them some love. At the moment there is no IMDb page that I can find.

The Cambridge Companion to 'Dracula' – review

Editor: Roger Luckhurst

First published: 2017

Contains spoilers

The blurb: Bram Stoker's Dracula is the most famous vampire in literature and film. This new collection of sixteen essays brings together a range of internationally renowned scholars to provide a series of pathways through this celebrated Gothic novel and its innumerable adaptations and translations. The volume illuminates the novel's various pre-histories, critical contexts and subsequent cultural transformations. Chapters explore literary history, Gothic revival scholarship, folklore, anthropology, psychology, sexology, philosophy, occultism, cultural history, critical race theory, theatre and film history, and the place of the vampire in Europe and beyond. These studies provide an accessible guide of cutting-edge scholarship to one of the most celebrated modern Gothic horror stories. This Companion will serve as a key resource for scholars, teachers and students interested in the enduring force of Dracula and the seemingly inexhaustible range of the contexts it requires and readings it might generate.

The review: The first thing I noticed about this volume was the inclusion of some of (for me) the genre’s heavy hitters: Stacey Abbott, Ken Gelder and Carol Senf. However, before I look at the volume specifically I beg your indulgence as I touch on a tangent thought reading the volume spawned.

Many of the articles noted the place held by Dracula as part of the fin-de-siècle (that is related to, or characteristic of, the end of a century and, in art, most specifically the end of the nineteenth century) and rightly so; but this made me think about dates.

Dracula is an epistolary novel but the documents that make up its body of text are dated to the month and day but nowhere is the year mentioned. In the New Annotated Dracula Klinger admits that the years 1882 and 1893 had the corresponding day/date combination (p517), before choosing a different date. Personally I subscribe to the 1893 theory as Charcot died on 16/8/1893 and, in a diary entry dated 26/9, the novel references his passing.

So, as well as written, published and being part of the fin-de-siècle, it was set within it, and it struck me that the coda to the novel, which begins, “Seven years ago we all went through the flames,” was significant. Stoker imbued Dracula with all the trappings of modernity and, consciously or subconsciously, addresses many of the moral and social concerns of the late Victorian period. However his optimistic coda to the horror revealed is set in the new century. Perhaps a subject for exploration?

Enough of that, however. What I did like about the collection of papers in the book was that, until the final section on adaptations, most of the writers attempted to look firmly at the novel, rather than allow themselves to be swamped under the various re-interpretations.

The one who, comfortably, stepped out of that mould was Ken Gelder whose paper explored the transnational vampire, reconnoitring the American South, Sweden and Japan. This was interesting but too vast a subject for a short paper/chapter. Gelder also missed some tricks. Talking about vampires and slavery in the American South, a reference to the first US vampire story the Black Vampire: A Legend of Saint Domingo would have been poignantly ironic calling, as it did, for universal emancipation, given the slavery associations he highlights.

The other missed trick was around Japan. There were other Japanese vehicles that could have been mentioned, in which Dracula (and in some Draculina for the feminine) has become a genus and this would have brought the discussion back around to the novel that was the focus of the volume and its enduring impact. To miss the Toho Bloodthirsty series, and their loose affiliation to Dracula, was a grievous omission. However, criticism aside, Gelder was as fun to read as ever.

A volume highlight for me was Matthew Gibson’s Dracula and the East. I did not necessarily agree with the idea that Stoker made the Count a Székely as a deliberate change for premeditated reasons but rather it was further evidence that his amalgam character was a pastiche of sources, but the paper as a whole was a joy.

The weakest chapter for me was Nick Groom’s Dracula’s Pre-History; The Advent of the Vampire. If, later, Stacey About repeated the conflation of Count Dracula with Vlad Ţepeş, she at least recognised that many scholars disagree with the depth of the conflation (I would say have outright debunked). Groom did not touch on this.

Indeed he associated both Ţepeş and Báthory with Count Dracula stating “Elizabeth Bathory was reputed to bathe in the blood of young girls in order to retain her youthful beauty, and the fifteenth-century Wallachian warlord Vlad Ţepeş allegedly executed tens of thousands by torture and impalement: roasting children and feeding them to their mothers, forcing husbands to devour wives, and ultimately impaling all of his victims. Stoker would have been familiar with this material through Victorian surveys such as Sabine Baring-Gould’s Book of Werewolves (1865)” (pp 11-12) I take issue with this.

Whilst Stoker did use Baring-Gould’s book as reference (and took some of the Count’s appearance from the book) what are these other surveys? Groom doesn’t say. Báthory (named only as Elizabeth ------) is described by Baring-Gould but Ţepeş is not. Given we know Stoker's research volumes, we know that the only reference he had to Ţepeş was from Wilkinson and the paragraph I have quoted above might be described, if one were being harsh, as academic sleight of hand. As an aside, given that he mentioned Baring-Gould, it is a shame that Groom – when mentioning Draugr – didn’t mention that Baring-Gould specifically named them vampires in Curious Myths of the Middle Ages (1876).

However, in the main I was impressed with the argument and academic rigour in the volume as a whole. I did think, as I read, that Roger Luckhurst might have mentioned Psychopathia Sexualis in his paper/chapter Dracula and Psychology but this is picked up in the next chapter as Heike Bauer discussed Dracula and Sexology. Likewise Bauer might have picked upon the continental (or French, at least) association of vampirism and necrophilia as highlighted in volumes such as Là-Bas.

As a whole, however, this volume is necessary for all serious students of Dracula and the wider genre. 9 out of 10.

Vamp or Not? Near Death

I was surprised to discover that this Joe Castro directed B movie dates to 2004 as the VHS quality print belied that and made one think of the “golden age” of VHS horror Bs. Certainly the acting and much of the effects made one think of a less sophisticated time, which was a bonus because it allowed the viewer to be more generous to the film.

However, the creatures within this film are well and truly ghouls – eaters of the dead. They are named such within the film and that begs the question, why look at it here? Simply put, there is a correlation between ghouls and vampires due to conflation of the two in the 19th century and early 20th century. Before this, ghouls are mentioned several times in the Arabian Nights, as translated into French by Antoine Galland in the 18th Century. The story of most interest is The History of Sidi Nu’uman, which tells of a man suspicious because his new bride never seems to eat. Long story short, he follows her to a cemetery and witnesses her indulging in eating the dead with the other ghouls.

Cut forward to 1821 and E.T.A. Hoffmann published a story entitled Vampirismus as part of his Die Serapions-Brüder. There is every chance that the story title was added by an editor as the story is essentially a reworking, into a modern Western setting, of The History of Sidi Nu’uman. Jump forward a century and Dudley Wright adds the same (Arabian Nights') story into his reference book Vampires and Vampirism. So… Near Death…

death of Priscilla

It starts with a shoreline and a shadowy figure of a man shouting, “Maria” in an all too gravelly voice. He vanishes. Cut to a bar and a rather drunk woman, Priscilla (Vida Ghaffari), is coming on to barman Markie (Joseph Commesso). He’s off in five, takes her out of the bar, they grope in an alley and then he suggests driving out to a party. The drive is long and she freaks out so he gets violent with her. He drags her to a house with a group of unsavoury looking individuals (all of whom seem to have blackening on their teeth and lips). One cuts her throat and they pay Markie a gold coin.

Tammy and Billy

A car drives down the highway. In it are Billy (Scott Lunsford) and his girlfriend Tammy (Ali Willingham), with their professor June (Perrine Moore). Billy and Tammy bicker as he drives. June is a parapsychologist and they are going to a house owned by deceased film director Willie Von Brahm (Carl Darchuk) who was said to have murdered his maid and unrequited love Maria (also Perrine Moore) and suffered the “curse of Maria” cast by her mother (Jacqueline Benton). Billy doesn’t believe in the paranormal and has “ghost detecting” computer programs that will prove nothing is there.

June and Tammy

They get to the house and, of course, it is the same one we saw earlier. The same guys are there and they are Harlan Montgomery (Brannon Gould, Blood Sisters), Doctor Blanchard (Joe Haggerty, Bloody Tease & Kiss Me if you Dare), Heinrich (Marieno Savoie) and Vena Marshwood (Darlene Tygrett, also Blood Sisters). Tammy claims she wrote to arrange coming to the house and, with the thought that others might come if they are sent away, the residents allow the investigators to stay so long as they eat elsewhere and do not come out of their rooms between midnight and dawn.

feeding

The latter rule is because that is when they supposedly feed, but they actually seem to feed at any given time, down in the basement and it looks as though they are cramming cubes of jello in their mouths. Paranormal things start to happen straight away and Tammy gets horny (more for Harland than Billy). June sees the house’s residents in the mirrors, is accosted by the spirit of the Director and soon June and Billy are off to a motel (where they suddenly get it together) whilst Tammy gets with Harland and is ready to become a house resident.

souls in the mirror

So, lore. They call themselves undead (originally coined by Stoker – prior to that it had a theological meaning – for vampires but now a catch-all for restless corpses) and say that their bodies are alive whilst their souls are trapped in the mirrors of the house. This keeps them safe from being Willie’s slaves but means they cannot leave the house (hence paying Markie to bring them food). Their hands are cold to the touch. They can only eat the flesh of the dead.

melting

That all seems fairly ghoul – bar the unusual mirror lore – indeed the word ghoul is actually used. They are immortal, unless they starve. If they leave the house they begin to melt and then explode – the effect was actually quiet cool until the rubbishy explosion. As we see this during the day it is easy to conflate with the vampire sunshine rule but it is definitely locational. Breaking the curse will allow them to actually die and that means finding Maria’s remains and returning her heart to her.

not quite fresh

All in all this is a rubbishy B movie that has some amusing bits and a hell of a lot of overacting – and some wooden performances. But is it vamp? It is definitely ghoul but as for vampire? Well they eat flesh (though the flesh is of the dead and so corpse freshness is not, it appears, a necessity but is desired). We get lore that is unusual for ghouls (the mirrors and location rules) but they would be as unusual for vampires – though mirrors tie with vampires much more. It all depends on how much you conflate ghouls and vampires. If you follow Dudley Wright’s logic then yes. If not then the conflation makes the film of genre interest but ultimately not actually vamp.

The imdb page is here.

Constructing Horror in Dracula: Novel, Stage & Screen – review

Author: Wayne Pigeon-Coote

First published: 2016

Contains spoilers

The blurb: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) creates a set of horrors that elicit a range of disturbing interpretations from readers, and in turn the novel poses significant challenges for the shaping of stage and screen adaptations: it is however a durable and versatile cultural commodity. This work identifies the horrors of vampirism in Dracula and how these are constructed to engage with themes of sexuality, disease and race. It shows that Dracula’s horrors are defamiliarizing, foreign and supernatural, yet came uncannily close to home for contemporary readers. It demonstrates the impact of the novel’s violent and sexualized content, and ponderous epistolary form, on the process of adapting it for the stage. It also evidences the tradition of including a love-story component between vampire and victim, and how this impacts upon the construction of horror in film adaptations.

The Review: This reference work by Wayne Pigeon-Coote straddles a line between an academic paper and full-length work, coming in at just 50 pages.

It is perhaps in this limited size that a weakness creeps into the work for the book is unable to fully take in the breadth of Dracula studies (though even a fuller tome would struggle to do that), especially as the author bravely tackles the novel, stage versions and films over the three chapters. Indeed it is difficult in the allotted space to take in the breadth of the topics identified within the blurb, so rich is the material and discourse.

The book is well referenced and the arguments crisp and thought through – not that I agreed with every assertion but I could certainly appreciate the arguments behind them.

When it came to Stoker’s novel, the author’s look at New Woman is interesting, however I would have liked to have seen an exploration of Mina as New Woman as well as Lucy – the two characters offering different sides of the movement’s coin. I’ll add that I subscribe, personally, to the reading of the staking of Lucy as an act of symbolic sexual violence – underpinned by the multiple paganic hammer blows – but understand why this author focuses on it as more of an ordeal for the men, even if my reading differs.

I have to admit that I am less than familiar than I would like with the form of Dracula as a staged production and I found the chapter enlightening. However, I am, of course, very familiar with the films covered. Those being Nosferatu, The Horror of Dracula and Dracula (1992).

Within a thoughtful discussion there was perhaps mileage, when discussing Horror of Dracula and “the enemy within”, to draw the reader's attention to the cultured tones of Lee’s English accent delivering Dracula’s dialogue.

When it came to the 1992 film I think a trick was perhaps missed – whilst exploring the love story side – by not also touching on the 1973 Dan Curtis’ directed Dracula, which introduced the trope of reincarnated love into the cinematic Dracula lore and, itself, sourced that from Curtis’ own Dark Shadows. Perhaps then, just as Dracula (the novel) can be identified as a primary progenitor of the vampire genre going forward, we can also identify Dracula cannibalising aspects of its media children to evolve and develop new tropes?

If I have mentioned missed opportunities, perhaps an area of exploration or two, it is because this work demands a larger study by the author. However, within the self-imposed limitations I was very impressed and it deserves a solid 8 out of 10.

Short Hiatus

Hi guys, Taliesin here.

I'm taking a short blog hiatus for a week. You'll get more toothsome goodness soon.

In the meantime keep the comments coming. Authorisation is on, but I'll be checking periodically whilst on break.

See you in a week.

The Strain: Season 3

Directors: Various

First aired: 2016

Contains spoilers

It is true to say that I fell behind with the Strain, having watched Season 1 and Season 2 this season just seemed to slip off radar for some reason.

That has been made up for and I did really enjoy this third outing into the world based on the books by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. I say based on because, more and more, the seasons slipped away from the exact story – keeping the shape but not the detail. This was a deliberate move to keep those who had read the books engaged, I understand, and it works. No character is safe, no character sacrosanct (though perhaps not to the standard of the Walking Dead).

Fet and Dutch

In looking at Season 2 I complained that things felt too stretched out but the balance was that much better in this season with a real sense that society was crumbling and a ride along with those trying to prevent its decent into chaos by any means necessary (in stories that were new to the reader of the novels). As such this worked well. Further, a sidelining of one of the more annoying characters and some deliberate focusing on better characters (specifically the backstory material for the born strigoï Quinlan (Rupert Penry-Jones)) helped carry the viewer along.

core anatomy

There is little to say about the core lore that hasn't been covered in previous reviews – however this season did introduce us in detail to strigoï anatomy – and we get to see how (physically) they are able to hive mind (through a concentrated ball of blood worms in the brain) though ultimately this is a physical manifestation of the supernatural. With the season ending on a cliffhanging plunge into disaster, the dark hue of the programme’s heart is well and truly on show. 7.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Anno Dracula 1895 – Seven Days in Mayhem – review

Author: Kim Newman

Artist: Paul McCaffrey

First published: 2017 (tpb)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: It is 1895, Count Dracula is Prince Regent and undisputed ruler of the British Empire, his power is supreme and unchecked. The curse of vampirism has spread far and wide through all levels of society and through all ranks of the British government. Now, on the verge of Dracula's 10th Anniversary of rule, anti-Dracula forces in the guise of the Council of the Seven Days are gathering. The Council - a secret cabal of free radicals, made up of vampires and humans alike have sworn to overthrow the Crown Prince of Darkness at any cost. They plan to sabotage the Jubilee with a devastating bomb attack. Now vampire journalist Kate Reed must uncover the truth and unmask the true conspirators behind the sinister plot or risk plunging both human and vampire kind into ruin and disaster from which no side will recover...

The review: I mentioned when reviewing Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters that it was good to get back to a nineteenth century timeframe. In this graphic novel we not only do that but also return to Victorian London and spend the story with vampire Kate Reed – a character cut from Stoker’s Dracula, she appears in the author's notes as a friend of Mina, but is made a wholly rounded journalist character through Newman’s series.

We also see Princess Christina Light – a light based vampire – in her revolutionary role that is alluded to in One Thousand Monsters – the hypocrisy of this is touched upon in both this and the prose volume. This, therefore, gives an in-depth backstory for one of the primary One Thousand Monsters characters.

If I struggled at all, it was with the artwork. Not that it is terrible, in fact it is rather good. However it felt a little well-lit, colourful even. In my mind’s eye the Anno Dracula universe was dark, gloomy, oppressive. This never felt so. Clearly Titan (who produced the book) and Newman as author were happy with the direction and it is a very personal gripe but it just took a little away from the whole thing for me. That said, in our brief meeting with Dracula, I was impressed with the look he was given. 6.5 out of 10.

My thanks to Sarah, who bought me this for Christmas.

Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters – review

Author: Kim Newman

First published: 2017

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: “There are no vampires in Japan. That is the position of the Emperor. The Emperor is wrong...”

In 1899 Geneviève Dieudonné travels to Japan with a group of vampires exiled from Great Britain by Prince Dracula. They are allowed to settle in Yōkai Town, the district of Tokyo set aside for Japan’s own vampires, an altogether strange and less human breed than the nosferatu of Europe. Yet it is not the sanctuary they had hoped for, as a vicious murderer sets vampire against vampire, and Yōkai Town is revealed to be more a prison than a refuge. Geneviève and her undead comrades will be forced to face new enemies and the horrors hidden within the Temple of One Thousand Monsters…

The review: Kim Newman hit on a fantastic concept in 1992 when he published Anno Dracula, a revisionism of Stoker’s novel in which the vampire won and subsequently married Queen Victoria and vampirism mainstreamed. The first novel took place in 1888 but subsequent novels decamped from the nineteenth century and were based through the twentieth (there were short stories set in the nineteenth).

This novel returns to the nineteenth century (or the very last gasp thereof) and the opening was published as a teaser in Anno Dracula 1899 and Other Stories. It sees a group of vampires, exiled by Dracula, appear as refugees in Tokyo. Offered sanctuary of a sort (the Emperor refused to accept that there are vampires in japan thus there are not) the vampires are taken to Yokai Town, a walled off ghetto where yokai are placed. In this Newman reimagines the various yokai as vampire types (not all blood drinkers, one subsists on tea that he has stolen – and it has to be stolen).

As in his other books in the universe Newman mashes up (alternative) history, mythology, literature and movies – drawing from all areas. Therefore one of the primary vampires in this is Drusilla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the book contains the origin story of Popeye (not named that) and a kyonsi. The vampire Christina Light is a Princess (originally an American who married into nobility) and a revolutionary. Interestingly her vampire character is light based, being almost luminescent she is described at one point as sparkling. From a Japanese point of view there are appearances of characters/creatures as diffuse as Goke from Goke: Body Snatcher from Hell to various traditional yokai such as kappa, Kasa-obake and Rokurokubi. The primary yokai (though hidden for much of the book) is the Yukki-Onna – the legendary Snow Woman literally consumes heat (sometimes blood, but preferred cold) and the backstory we are given is the folkloric one, which was filmed in Kwaidan. This level of mash-up is a strength but, in this volume, it teeters on being a weakness.

The writing is as crisp as one would expect from Newman but the primary narrative is perhaps less convoluted than in other volumes and this gives more room for mash-up and one felt, just on the odd occasion, that perhaps a level of geek fan-service was being applied too thickly. That is a matter of taste and opinion, of course, and was only a minor grumble. Newman is a fantastic storyteller and strong composer of prose and so for the most part this is all you would wish for in an Anno Dracula book – especially as it moved back into the origin century (even if the setting was somewhat more exotic) 8 out of 10.

Mr. Higgins Comes Home – review

Author: Mike Mignola

Artist: Warwick Johnson Cadwell

First published: 2017

Contains spoilers

The blurb: Preparations begin at Castle Golga for the annual festival of the undead, as a pair of fearless vampire killers question a man hidden away in a monastery on the Baltic Sea. The mysterious Mr. Higgins wants nothing more than to avoid the scene of his wife's death, and the truth about what happened to him in that castle. However, these heroic men sworn to rid the world of the vampire scourge, inspire Higgins to venture out and to end the only suffering he really cares about--his own.

The review: Professor J J Meinhardt and his assistant Mr Knox are heading into the Carpathians to deal with the vampire Count Golga. Their plans discovered. Meinhardt refuses to retreat but the Count Golga – who is due to have his annual Walpurgisnacht celebration – is also concerned and decides to invite the Professor as a guest.

The professor has taken it upon himself to recruit Mr Higgins. Now living as a patient in a monastery, a younger Higgins and his new bride Mary, were ‘guests’ of the Golga’s whilst on their honeymoon, a situation that ended with Mary preyed upon and Mr Higgins become a werewolf. The Professor cuts a deal with him that if he, as a survivor of the castle, leads them to the crypt, then he will give Higgins the death he craves.

This was a beautifully realised short Graphic, with beautiful, appropriate artwork (noting that Mignola produced the cover art but Cadwell’s art comprises a more delicate style that worked ever-so-well) and a story that owed much to the vampire films of yore – especially films such as the Fearless Vampire Killers, to which the story owes a very specific debt and would seem to be a love letter to.

If there was a complaint it would be in the length. Coming in at 49 pages, this is almost a single-issue comic in a hardbound cover. There was much that could have been expanded on but, you know what, I think if Mignola had stretched the story out and lengthened the novel then an essential element might have been lost. Sometimes less is more and this would seem to be the case here.

My thanks to Dave, who alerted me about the volume, and Sarah, who bought it for me for Christmas. 9 out of 10.

Honourable mention: Lore: They Made a Tonic

This was the first episode of the first season of a made for Amazon series (based on a podcast, I understand) and directed by Darnell Martin. It is, going by this episode, a dramatized documentary and this episode roots us into the folklore of the vampire – specifically the folklore (and events) emerging from 19th Century New England.

As it opens a simple animation takes us through the story of Mary E Hart who died but was disinterred (due to a dream, apparently) and was found to have been buried alive – if the scratches on the coffin and the horror etched into her features were to be believed.

The fear (and reality) of being buried alive was fascinating, of course, but had little to do with the case the episode goes on to explore – that of Mercy Brown (played age 10 by Pamela Riley Sauve and age 19 by Hannah Culwell). I assume most readers will know the story but for those who don’t Mary’s mother and sister (Mary Simmons) died of consumption (tuberculosis). Her brother (Connor Hammond) later became ill and was sent away for treatment. Whilst he was away Mercy sickened and died.

Ill again

On his return he became Ill again and her father (Campbell Scott) was approached with the idea that a demon could rest in the heart of a person, kill them and then have them continue to kill from beyond the grave. If the corpse of a recently deceased was found to be fresh – with blood in the heart – then the demon resided there. Reluctantly he allowed his wife and daughter to be disinterred and then they opened Mercy’s coffin, declared her the one (despite, as he points out in the dramatization, that she died after her mother and sister), cut out her heart and liver, incinerated them and gave the ashes in water to the sick brother as a tonic – he died despite this (unsurprisingly).

a spectral Mercy

Mercy’s case made American newspapers and so is rather famous – though the idea that it inspired Dracula is a stretch. Stoker certainly knew about the case (and had a press clipping in his notes for Dracula) but the likelihood is that the writing of the book was well underway when he found the clipping and, whilst it may have played a little into the novel's ideas, its role of “original inspiration” is unlikely. The dramatization does see a spectral Mercy walking the halls and grounds of the family home but the episode does not suggest this is actually happening and is for atmosphere (nothing I have read suggests that her father was anything other than sceptical but resigned about the desecration).

checking the corpse

The actual dramatization moments are well shot but I found the veering off onto concerns about being buried alive to be superfluous. The narration by Aaron Mahnke was nothing special but did what it had to do. There was more that could have been explored around other acts of disinterment of suspected American vampires – the excellent work of Michael Bell indicates this was not an isolated case, just the most publicised.

The imdb page is here.

Vampire Wars (2016) – review

Director: Craig Ross Jr.

Release date: 2016

Contains spoiler


Whilst also going under the name Dead South, I’ve used the title that the Region 1 DVD I own runs with. The fact that this has a tagline of “Lincoln’s army battles the undead” is both misleading (there is one civil war battle, not involving vampires, whilst the main film takes place after the war has ended and focuses on two members of the Confederate army) and a desperate attempt by the distributors to grab the coattails of Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter.

Forgetting the box what we end up with is rather confused as the film really doesn’t know what it wants to be – drama, horror, action, romance, damning historical rhetoric? The film doesn’t know and neither do we. There was, however, one communicated piece of vampire lore that I found rather interesting.

a vampire attacks

We begin with brothers Hildegard (Matthew Marsden) and Beauregard (Samuel Hunt, Blood Ransom) with their family, wearing confederate uniforms and preparing to go to war. We see a battle (more a skirmish) and Hildegard is shot, not fatally. The brothers are captured and they, and several other confederate soldiers, are chained in a camp. A thing comes out of the dark to attack and feed on them. A Union guard takes aim at it but is stopped from interfering by his superior. Hildegard pulls the thing from Beauregard (who is bitten) and is bitten for his troubles. Beauregard pulls the heavy metal stake, which their chains connect to, from the ground and kills the vampire with it.

the brothers

They awake in a Union field hospital – apparently the war having now ended. The doctor (Rusty Jenkins) tells them that they have been unconscious for five days and they have an infection. There is no cure, the doctor says, and soon the sunlight will burn like fire. However he had heard rumour of a potion man (Myke Michaels) who – for a generous donation – is said to know a cure. They head back South but one of their compatriots, whilst dying, has given them his deed for a piece of land.

Nathanyael Grey as Royce

It is night and they follow a group of soldiers but, when the soldiers are approached by members of the “home guard”, the brothers hang back. It turns out that some men, because food was so scarce, tried cannibalism and are now addicted to it. The film calls these guys eaters. The “home guard” are eaters and kill the soldiers and start biting them where they lay. Meanwhile a landowner, Stokes (John Savage, Club Vampire), is laying out a truce to Lester (V.J. Foster), sheriff and leader of the eaters, and Royce (Nathanyael Grey), leader of the vampires (known as Nightwalkers) of the area. Stokes insists that the eaters can have the vampires’ cast-offs but no one should be attacked without his authority (targeting only those he deems as malcontents).

John Savage as Stokes

The brothers return to their house, but hide in camouflage (which I suspect is historically inaccurate), they watch as the eaters are driven off. Meanwhile Stokes implores the freed blacks to stay in the area and work the fields for pay. One, Griff (Ray Stoney), argues against this, suggesting that they should band together and get their own land. Stokes orders him killed. The eaters are after him but he fights back and then the brothers intervene and save him. With him, some of the black workers and a group of white squatters, the brothers look to farm their new land. They intend to make money to pay the potion man and then pay the workers by giving them the deed to the land. However Stokes had claimed it as a flood plain and isn’t happy.

Matthew Marsden as Hildegard

So, there is a lot of drama about the unrest between the freed slaves and white landowners in this period, interspersed with vampire stuff. There is a doomed romance between Beauregard and Stokes’ daughter, Philomenia (Elizabeth McLaughlin), that comes virtually from nowhere and is underused (it is used in the finale but could have been a source of dramatic tension and wasn’t). The other vampires in the area stay pretty much out of the story, with Royce being gentlemanly and little else.

All vampy

So what about the vampirism? The brothers have daylight sleeping boxes (read coffins, essentially) but do actually fight in daylight and their reaction to it varies from pain and collapse to very little. They get veiny at the head, grow fangs and that’s about it. A stake kills, making their skin turn grey before they turn to gloop (not that we see the latter happening, just the aftermath). To be honest the same film could have been made without vampires and cannibals and it would have been much the same. The one piece of lore I did like is it is said (but not shown) that when a vampire becomes hungry the vampire becomes more and more beautiful, luring their prey to them.

actors Ray Stoney and Samuel Hunt

There were some good performances in this with Samuel Hunt and Ray Stoney standing out. But it wasn’t performances that let this down, it was lack of direction – the film just not knowing what it wanted to be. Ultimately it would have been better as a drama without the supernatural element attached to it. As it was it was slow in places, almost thick, or soupy, in quality and was paced just off. If sticking with the supernatural then doing more with the other vampires might have helped. The eaters felt less a menace and more like cannon-fodder. It didn’t have the action chops of the film the distributors have tried to tie it to. 3 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Slumber – review

Director: Jonathan Hopkins

Release date: 2017

Contains spoilers

So, we have another Mare movie – the energy vampire or demonic creature, which comes to a person petrified with sleep paralysis, sits upon the chest and draws the life energy away. Another name is the Hag, and, of course, the Hag appears in various mythologies and Old Hag is closely linked with vampiric activity in the Circum-Caribbean and African diaspora. This film also uses the name nocnitsa – another version from Slavic mythology (that can be warded by a stone with a hole in the centre or a knife, indeed even a circle drawn by a knife – not methods of protection tried (or even mentioned) in film).

you're with my sister

The film starts with two children sleeping in a room. The boy, Liam (William Rhead), sits up whilst still sleeping and starts speaking to something we cannot see. He introduces his sister, Alice (Zahra Wardhana-O'Reilly), and says that she is six, he then suggests that he would like to play. Alice awakens to hear him say “coming, ready or not”. She looks for him, telling him that he is sleep walking again. He asks where it is and then realises it is by Alice – we see a tall shadowy thing – Liam becomes scared, backs away and falls through a window.

meeting the Morgans

After a credit sequence that has various people talking about night terrors, sleep paralysis and shadowy creatures and the Hag, Alice (Maggie Q, Priest) wakes up. An adult, married with a daughter but still haunted by her brother’s death. To cut quite a slow character building session down a bit she is a sleep doctor and meets a family, the Morgans. Son Daniel (Lucas Bond, Lady of Csejte) is suffering from sleep paralysis, whilst sister Emily (Honor Kneafsey), mom Sarah (Kristen Bush) and Dad Charlie (Sam Troughton) are all suffering nightmares whilst sleepwalking.

Maggie Q as Alice

The first night in the clinic sees all three sit up at the same time and move away from Daniel – but both Alice and colleague Malcolm (William Hope, Dark Shadows & Hellbound: Hellraiser II) are both out of the monitoring booth. When they hear screams they intervene with the sleep paralysis and Alice goes over to the sleepwalking Emily; still asleep, Charlie grabs her by the throat. Now, at this point (having been rescued by janitor Cam (Vincent Andriano)) the cops turn up and Charlie is hauled off.

Sylvester McCoy as Amado

This just didn’t work for me. There is a bruise on Daniel’s chest in the shape of a hand but it is blatantly too small to be Charlie’s and they have cameras and so the entire night’s events could be reviewed. Even if he were initially restrained, I couldn’t buy the arrest and holding. Cam resigns, warns Alice to stay clear of *that* family and hands her a piece of paper with the word nocnitsa on it. Now, I can buy the fact that an obscure Slavic myth form might be unknown to her but, as a sleep expert, I’m sure she would know about the Mare and the Hag myths – this seems to be news to her. The only hope for a solution seems to be known by Cam’s mad grandpa, Amado (Sylvester McCoy, Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric), who survived a nocnitsa as a child.

the Nocnitsa

I really wanted to like this but it felt as though they struggled to get to the horror and the cgi creature at the end looked a bit rubbish. They built the characters but then didn’t use them (for instance Alice’s daughter draws dream pictures – this could have been exploited in narrative but wasn’t really). The idea of the Mare drawing the family away from the feast (and the word feasting is used in dialogue) was good but the reaction of the sleep experts to three people simultaneously sleepwalking was worryingly pedestrian. The myth of the nocnitsa has wards that folks versed enough in the Slavic myth to know the creature's name didn’t apparently know (and I know through a google, the resource the good Doctor seemed to rely on).

All in all, there are better Mare films out there, a pity as this felt like it really could have been better. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.