Honourable Mention: Blood Lust

This Benedict Mart film from 2016 was one that I really wanted to be a straight-out vampire flick – though I know before watching it that it features sirens. Unfortunately, it came out a little less than a definitive genre pic, despite flesh eating. Maybe it was the hastily explained lore vs very little observable flesh eating. It is certainly of genre interest but just missed out having that definite V factor for me.

It starts with an artist, drawing on a rocky shoreline as he narrates for us the legend of the sirens – this fellow narrates a few times through the film. With sketches and some stills of the sirens themselves we are told of three sisters, in film revealed as Callie (Rikke Leigh), Lydia (Eloise Juryeff) and Tess (Helen Rule), tasked with accompanying (and, through that company, protecting) Persephone. But they abandon her and Hades kidnaps her and so the Gods fling the sisters to a distant island (somewhere off Britain) and turn them into the “ravenous” sirens. Whilst the sketches show them with wings, in film they only have human form.

Rikke Leigh as Calie

We get a scene with Chef Annie (Chloe Partridge) who is cooking whilst husband Dan (Matt Silver) looks on. He drops a heart she asks for and his comment makes it clear they have had relationship problems. He goes downstairs to throw the heart in the bin and someone clubs him from behind with a wrench. When he eventually comes round, in hospital three days later, he discovers that Annie is dead, murdered. Sometime later he is struggling with his job as a food critic as he can only face vegetarian food (much to his editor’s chagrin), not even when cooked by friend Ryan (C. Thomas Howell, Kindred the Embraced, Blood Wars, Mutant Vampire Zombies from the Hood & Justice League: Gods and Monsters). He has met and is falling for a woman online – she happens to be Callie.

the sisters together

So, long story short (though to be fair the film is quite short at 74 minutes), he becomes concerned when he hears strange things when Callie is on the phone to him and then cuts off contact. Then he gets a text message from her saying ‘Rescue me’ and so goes to the island where she runs a guest house with her sisters. It is readily explained that Lydia sent the text (and we also discover that should one of the sisters leave it will mean the death for all three – though I suspect that actually meant their immortality would end, otherwise why would any of them choose to leave). The sisters feed a drink to guests, which causes their secrets to come out, though they can also charm the stories with song, and they then eat the evil-doers.

the bite

There has to be more that isn’t explained as Lydia also lures Ryan to the island and so she must have some insight, though apparently not enough to simply know who is definitely bad and who is good. The issue is that whilst we get to see some stalking, a few (not overly gory) attacks and them cutting up meats, we get little in the way of horror level gore and no real feeding scenes (though we see them serve a cooked heart to hotel guests). We do get one neck bite – but it is more in anger than for feeding. It is within narration we are told by the narrator that they are “feasting on the guilty a little too eagerly” and so we know the fate of their victims through this but it all seems a little too shy, like the filmmakers pulled back from a horror that could have given us a vampiric narrative and failed to properly display the trope. The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Short Film: Rick and Ruby

This 14.5-minute short from director Scott Woodburn was released in 2019 and is billed as a horror comedy, though through the opening set up you’d be forgiven for wondering at the comedy label as, to a point, the film is quite harrowing. Then the film turns round and, as all Hell breaks loose, the darkly black comedy streams on in.

A car dies and the driver, Ruby (Ellie Lee), manhandles a large trunk from the boot and drags it along with her. She eventually gets to a place called Larry’s bar and goes on inside. The bar is sparsely occupied. Larry (Chip Ramsey, Jug Face) is working the bar and Lou (Doug McCue) and Chick (Kyle Minshew) are his only customers.

the assault

Ruby, at this point, is already coming across as bad-ass, taking a shot of whiskey as she tries to ascertain where there might be a tow company and/or a motel. Larry insinuates that she should take a cot out the back but she refuses, saying she needs her amenities but the situation quickly escalates and she is manhandled to the pool table where the ‘good ol’ boys’ mean to gang rape her. She is fighting back and manages to scratch Larry deep enough to draw blood.

Samuel Dunning as Rick

So far, so harrowing – the acting and direction makes this pretty darn visceral. However, the spilt blood seems to be the catalyst for the case opening and a figure in Hawaiian shirt emerges, unfolding in a way suggesting that it is not a comfortable place to be holed up. Meet Rick (Samuel Dunning), wise cracking, with a droll humour he actually reminded me of Cassidy from Preacher. He has an illness that gives him an unrelenting thirst and an allergy to sunlight, as well as shrugging off the impact of a gunshot wound, and he and Ruby are searching out the one who made him ill. But, for now, the game is on.

stump fountain

The moment Rick appears the black comedy flows, both through his dialogue and also the very bloody action that follows. Rick feeding from the stump left by a rather vicious decapitation is gory as Hell and yet played for (dark) laughs. The film develops a backstory but the narrative itself is an excuse for an action piece that works well. I would love to see more of the adventures of Rick and Ruby.

The imdb page is here.

Kizumonogatari Part 3: Reiketsu – review

Directors: Tatsuya Oishi & Akiyuki Shinbo (chief director)

Release date: 2017

Contains spoilers  

The last of the Kizumonogatari trilogy (you can read also the reviews of Part 1 and Part 2) this was the longest of the three features and, for me, spent too much time on character. This might seem an odd thing to say but as it only contained (essentially) the characters we already knew from the first two films there might have been a view that less is more. However the final fight – which was well done – was not enough in and of itself to carry the film and perhaps a cut of the three films together might have got the balance a bit better. I also felt this episode didn’t make use of the art (especially around the backgrounds) as well as the previous instalments.

Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade

Nevertheless it does bring us to the end of the origin story of Araragi (Koyomi Araragi), which will take us into the Bakemonogatari story. It starts with Araragi sat with Meme Oshino (Takahiro Sakurai) – the aberration specialist who has been helping him through the films. He has won Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade’s (Maaya Sakamot) limbs but something worries Araragi.

vampire's heart

He cannot fathom how he was able to best the three hunters and yet the older vampire was defeated by them. Meme reveals that she also lost her heart – something he had taken and gives this to Araragi also. The young vampire restores the older one and we get a story within a story as she reminisces over her previous minion (entitled Furukizomonogatari). Araragi suggests eating before he is restored to humanity and goes to the store. When he gets back Kiss-Shot is eating the dead Guillotinecutter, who came for her when he was out.

beheaded

It is all too clear that when she referred to rations she meant people and expected him to bring her Hanekawa (Yui Horie) as a meal. It eventually transpires that the only way to restore Araragi’s humanity is for him to kill Kiss-Shot (her previous minion was a suicide when she would not restore his humanity). This keys us up for the battle at the climax of the film with two vampires who can instantaneously regrow, not only limbs, but heads.

Kiss-Shot, again

Necessary to finish the series (and the final battle is great) it seems almost churlish to have looked at the three films separately. However, that is what I’ve done and this felt padded, certainly compared to part 2. Nevertheless it isn’t a bad anime – though it would be difficult to watch out of context (whereas I think you could watch part 2 as a standalone). This one I’ll offer a score of 6 out of 10 to.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK

Essential Literature: The Vampire; or, Detective Brand's Greatest Case

The Blurb for the 2022 edition of this book is as follows: Horror historians Gary D. Rhodes and John Edgar Browning present a long-lost slice of American literature: The Vampire is a detective dime novel that predates both Dracula and the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes, and it's sure to thrill audiences today just as it did back in 1885! The front of the book goes on to suggest that it is America’s first vampire novel.

That last sentence is both exciting and partially true – it is likely the first novel (as yet discovered) from America that centres around a blood drinking vampire. However, the claim for first US novel may well go to C W Webber for the novel Yieger’s Cabinet, the sub-title of that 1853 novel being Spiritual Vampirism: the History of Etherial Softdown, and Her Friends of the ‘New Light’. In fairness, that book is on my kindle but hasn’t been read as of yet* and I will return to it here at some point in the future.

I mention Yieger for completeness’ sake but it is clear that it is a very different beast, looking at spiritual vampirism. This is a detective genre dime novel with a view towards vampires of the blood drinking kind, as mentioned. There was no author name on the original release – just a treasure hunt by mentioning other books written by the author. The editors have narrowed it down to Hawley Smart but offer the health warning that they cannot be certain. The case sees a slew of murders where the victims are stabbed in the heart and have two punctures in the neck, as though made by animal teeth. The neck wound clearly alludes to fangs, but the heart wound may invoke thoughts in a modern readership that were not explored in novel – we may be want to think that it is to prevent turning but this is never considered in book and it is simply a method of murder.

What is interesting is the fact that the vampire wears attire (when we initially see them) that is reminiscent of a bird and a description of vampire legends later mentions that on Java a vampire will “fan him with his wings so as fur to keep him from waking, and suck his blood at the same time.” The vampire steals life from the victim – so if the victim was destined to live another forty years the vampire will steal that much life. I did like the following description of vampires: “The human who leads an artificial life – who lives on the blood he extracts from his victims – that he sucks from their very veins, drawing the red life-current directly from the heart!”

Brand, the detective, comes into the story part way through – the original police detective on the case is killed by the vampire – Brand is not a member of the police and was a, self-confessed, opium eater. The prose is light and sprightly as one might expect from a dime novel and lively enough to keep the reader interested (despite questionable dialects and more misogyny than you can shake a stick at). Worth a read in its own right, as well as an early piece of vampire related literature. You should also note (and this is a huge spoiler) that like much of the French 19th Century vampire fantastique literature, which at the very least left a question over whether a vampire was or was not supernatural, this is a mortal killer who thinks (at least at times) that they are a vampire.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

*I have part read Yieger’s Cabinet in the past but it was an awful electronic scan and unreadable in places (here's hoping the mobi file I found is in better shape), however there is a definite theme of spiritual vampirism, rather than it just being an allegorical title.

Kizumonogatari Part 2: Nekketsu – review

Directors: Tatsuya Oishi & Akiyuki Shinbo (chief director)

Release date: 2016

Contains spoilers

The second of the Kizumonogatari trilogy, this follows directly on from Tekketsu and has a tad more substance. In that first film the vampire Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade (Maaya Sakamot) had lost her limbs and was near death when she was saved through the self-sacrifice of Araragi (Hiroshi Kamiya), who was turned into a vampire and made her servant.

Hanekawa and Araragi

In this Araragi must defeat the three vampire hunters who took her limbs and return them to her. To do this he fights them one at a time. In the meantime, we see a relationship develop (albeit doomed, given we know the monogatari story and the fact that Araragi will fall for another) between him and Hanekawa (Yui Horie).

Miyu Irino voices Episode

So, the three hunters, in order, are a vampire called Dramaturgie (Masashi Ebara), a half-vampire called Episode (Miyu Irino) and a human priest called Guillotinecutter (Hôchû Ôtsuka) – it is interesting that the power we perceive they might hold (vampire being the strongest and working down the line) is suggested to be reversed given the order he fights them. The fights themselves can be quite bloody – in the first seconds against Dramaturgie he loses a limb, only to discover that he can regenerate limbs almost immediately (with the lost appendage dissolving into blood).

losing a limb

This is because he is of Kiss-Shot’s lineage and a powerful vampire, although he has not turned full vampire yet, despite his newly turned status. Araragi asks the question, why Kiss-Shot did not regenerate her limbs and the answer seems to be that she is reaching the end of her immortality and that the hunters somehow preserved them to steal what was left of it for themselves. He must avoid losing self-control, or he might turn full vampire, and when he returns each limb Kiss-Shot eats them and matures from her little girl form.

Yui Horie voices Hanekawa

The developing relationship starts with antagonism, as Araragi tries to upset Hanekawa (in an attempt to get her away and thus protect her), but develops past that. The Hanekawa character is used to provide some fan service, again, and the flirtation is perhaps a little creepy (and involves panties). There was always an element like this within the various monogatari series, however. When Hanekawa is accidentally injured we see that Arargai’s blood can be used to heal. There isn’t necessarily more solid story building here – but the various fights add an entertainment angle that the first part perhaps didn’t have. The artwork, again, works really well and this adds a satisfying chapter into the Kizumonogatari trilogy. These are quite difficult to score stand-alone but I found this (which was a tad longer than part 1) an entertaining watch. 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK

Short Film: Ayuda

This eleven-minute short film was directed by Patrick Mason and released in 2018 and is a neat little film. Ayuda is Spanish for help.

A car drives along a road surround by forest. In the hatchback is a crate and Tomas (David LaMorte) and Leo (Caleb Vasquez), a pair of day labourers. They are suspicious of the driver (Thomas K. Belgrey, Fright House & its recut Vampires (1986)) and Leo tests that he cannot understand their Spanish.

They pull onto a service road and drive into the trees. When they stop the driver picks up a pistol but we also see he has an injured arm. Leo is listening at the crate when the driver opens the hatchback. The two labourers carry the heavy crate (Leo convinced there is a body in it) whilst the driver carries a pair of shovels. When they get deeper into the woods he sets the labourers to digging a hole, clearly to bury the crate.

Tomas and Leo

The two labourers debate in Spanish what is happening, a theory that the driver aims to kill them comes out. Leo eventually takes a break as Tomas continues to dig. There is movement in the crate and he looks to open it but Tomas stops him. He will distract their employer and Leo can open the crate but then reseal it once he sees there isn’t a person in it. Leo heads to the man and gets him to return to the car with him.

sharp teeth

Leo prizes the lid and finds a woman (Laura Ruperez) inside, blood on her blouse and her mouth taped shut. Leo reaches in and gingerly removes the tape, whilst assuring her that he will help her. However, as soon as her mouth is uncovered her face changes and a row of sharp teeth are revealed. To find out what happens to the three you’ll have to watch the short but there is always a temptation with films such as this to wonder did they intend the girl to be viewed as a vampire – the stakes we later see in the car suggest yes (though the short is too short to explore why one had not been used on her).

Thomas K. Belgrey as the driver

There is mileage in this story – I could see a very neat feature that starts with the short and, within a non-linear structure, captures both what led to the short and what follows. But, whilst there is further story to be had here, for now we just have the short and it is a fine one.

The imdb page is here.

Kizumonogatari Part 1: Tekketsu - review

Directors: Tatsuya Oishi and Akiyuki Shinbo (chief director)

Release date: 2016

Contains spoilers

The Monogatari series has produced several anime series and the first, Bakemonogatari introduced us to a character named Araragi (Hiroshi Kamiya) who – as the series began – was a young man who had been attacked by a vampire, turned and then returned to his human state. This was stated openly but the series never showed us that backstory in its running time.

The Kizumonogatari (which means wound story) trilogy of films tells that story and this is the first of those films.

Hiroshi Kamiya voices Araragi

The film is not long (just over an hour running time, and actually doesn’t do too much in its running length and yet it is a captivating anime. The opening (6 minutes worth) sees Araragi in a building, moving through corridors. It is clear he is a vampire and the scene is without dialogue. He eventually exits through a door onto a roof. The roof – indeed the surrounding area – is covered in crows. He ignores them but the cloud cover breaks and he sets on fire and falls from the roof…

fan service

After the credits we are back in time and Araragi is walking down the street with a girl (and class representative) Hanekawa (Yui Horie) walking towards him. She is drawn in an exaggerated, sexualised way and the blowing up of her skirt is pure fan service and embarrassing to Araragi. She speaks to him, tells him about a rumoured golden-haired vampire – who we later discover to be the outrageously named Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade (Maaya Sakamot). She purposefully puts her name and number in his phone, forcing him to have a friend.

wounded vampire

That night, in a train station, he sees blood trails on the floor. Following them he finds the vampire, her limbs cut away by vampire hunters and close to death through loss of blood. She wants to feed from him but he runs and yet, as he considers things, he decides that he will feed her (knowing he will die). What he doesn’t know is that he will turn and he awakens, after feeding her, a vampire. She has taken the form of a young girl – the form we know from the previous series and called Oshino Shinobu. To get her power back, Araragi must defeat the three vampire hunters and retrieve her limbs, following which he will be turned back to human…

chibi styling

As you can see there is very little story in this first film and yet the film manages to captivate. There is little dialogue (a use of chibi styling often codifies emotion) but the animation, often incorporating photography, is lovely to look at. Unfortunately it might mean more to those who have seen at least the first series (despite being a prequel) and will stand poorly if watched in isolation to its other two parts. For this episode I am suggesting 6 out of 10 is fair (given it’s reliance on other films and its lack of story), but I think that does give an indication of how captivating it is despite this.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK

Short Film: Habit (1981)

Larry Fessenden’s Habit is a favourite vampire film and I knew that he had based it on a previous short. The Blu-Ray of the feature, in the Larry Fessenden Collection, features the short as an extra.

A note about the release date. IMDb suggests 1982 and the date on the Blu-Ray box also says this. However, there is an errata sticker with the Blu-Ray that then corrects the date to 1981. The Official Site says 1981, but conflates the run-time with the feature. The date is, therefore, contested but I have settled for the corrected date as per the Blu-Ray.

Larry Fessenden as Sam

The short isn’t a great quality recording, clearly from a video transfer but offers a unique look into the genesis of the fabulous feature. It begins with Anna (Anne Phelan, though IMDb says Meredith Snaider who was Anna in the feature) and Sam (Larry Fessenden) coming into shot, chatting about the party they have left, he is drunk. This mirrors their meeting in the film, though we don’t see the party itself.

more Sam

The film then follows the two, she a vampire who feeds upon her new lover. The scenes are familiar, they will make their way into the feature in one way or another, but with superior cinematography and much more consistent acting. This feels like the student film that it was, so may not appeal to the casual viewer, but for the student of the film it is an essential little short, giving an insight into how the concept developed.

The imdb page is here. 

The Larry Fessenden Collection can be found at Amazon US and Amazon UK (be aware it is region A).

Use of Tropes: Hellbender

A Family project, Hellbender is a 2021 release that was written and directed by John Adams, Toby Poser and Zelda Adams (being, in order, a dad, mom and daughter team). They also star in the film and were also behind the interesting horror The Deeper You Dig. Hellbender has a folk horror feel but is also a clever take on the witch movie. It also, as you can tell with me featuring it here, uses tropes familiar in the vampire genre.

It begins with a hanging – having seen the victim bloody and, one might suggest, feral, we see her (a sack over her head) hung from a tree – interestingly those doing the lynching are all women. She appears to die and then starts twitching again. One woman pulls a gun out and starts shooting her, once in the head, but the woman doesn’t seem to die. A dagger is drawn when suddenly the woman launches into the air and seems to set on fire.

property line

In the modern day, a mother (Toby Poser) and her daughter Izzy (Zelda Adams) have their own band, Mother plays the bass and Izzy is the drummer and singer. After their rehearsal Mother suggests she is going into town, Izzy asks to come but is ignored and so asks for some new drumsticks and art charcoal. We see mother reach their property line (they live on and own a wooded mountainside) and signs warn people away. In town an elderly man suggests he knows her, she was his grandmother’s nurse – she denies it. Izzy meanwhile is in the woods and follows the sound of a laugh but can’t find the source.

magical drone

Izzy, we discover, is home-schooled and has been told she can’t meet people due to an auto-immune condition. We see, on another day, mother create a symbol in twigs, hair and blood – she causes it to fly into the air (I imagined it to be something like a magic created drone). Meanwhile Izzy, walking in the woods, finds a man (John Adams) who is lost whilst hiking. Mother comes along and, sending Izzy home, offers to take him back to the road but, when out of sight, she uses magic to grab the man, levitate him and then turn him to dust – the effect somewhat like dusting in some vampire films.

Lulu Adams as Amber

Izzy eventually finds Amber (Lulu Adams) at a summer house and befriends her. Amber and her friends use the pool when the owners are away and, when Izzy is introduced to them, one of the friends pulls a prank by putting an earthworm into a tequila and forcing the vegetarian Izzy to swallow it. Thinking of films such as Raw, this is the trope where a person who is brought up vegetarian is (through hazing in Raw and prank here) forced to eat meat/a creature and this awakens something. In this case she involuntarily screams (though it is primal and not one of terror) but then the owner returns and the friends have to run.

Hellbender face

The eating of the worm unseals her power and heritage as a Hellbender. Hellbenders are witches (or, as Izzy later describes it “kind of a cross between a witch, a demon and an apex predator”). Their power comes through feeding on blood, or more accurately the fear infused in it – again Izzy states, “they live off the fear that pumps through human blood” and whilst we know that they can feed on any living creature (and Mother states it is specifically the magic that comes from the fear), Mother specifies that the larger the creature the more power and confirms that human blood offers the most power. It is this use of the blood that is the base of recognisable tropes in the film. As well as this we see their inner faces emerge and there is much in the way of fangs – a look that skirted both the demonic and the vampiric.

the monstrous feminine

The Hellbenders present as female and they reproduce asexually. Of course the repression of the feminine is also an underlying trope within the film and it is telling that Izzy builds a fleshy tunnel, her “happy place”, this was vaguely reminiscent of the constructed cave in We are the Flesh. There is also a thread the explores nature vs nurture – Izzy is brought up to be ‘good’ but her nature will out and she resents the choice being removed – her mother, of course, did not hide her away because she is ill but rather because she is dangerous – and there is much to be said here of the othering of the dangerous female. It is interesting that the film choses to have those who repress the feminine to be women (be it the women who hang the Hellbender at the head of the film, through fear, or Mother who does so to try to be protective). Speaking of mother there is also a discussion of the aging female body being replaced by the younger and this is cyclically drawn.

finger food

The film is character driven, rather than gore driven, and much of what the Hellbenders do is off-screen and revealed after the fact. There is a psychedelic aspect to the film that works very well also. Some of this is magic (such as a room opened by a key that emerges from the flesh), and some of it hallucinatory such as Izzy daydreaming that the wood she eats (their vegetarian diet consists of forage from the forest) is actually a finger or the forest bending as power courses their body. With the primary leads being actually mother and daughter, the dynamics feel natural. A slow burn, for sure, but I liked it.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Shudder via Amazon US

On Demand @ Shudder via Amazon UK

Urban Horror Series – review

Director: Jordan Gouveia (segment)

Release date: 2021

Contains spoilers

Another short anthology film that pulls in a few short films rather than making something bespoke, this was an odd mix but it did include a vampire segment (or, at least, a vampiric segment).

That segment was called Sangre De Vida (Blood of Life) and centred around a wine tasting.

The film starts with a group of women gathered at a vineyard (one assumes) run by Marcos (Cisco Reyes) and Ivonne (Leticia Perez). He talks about how the women have been selected to help with the launch of the new wine Sangre De Vida and not only will they be involved in the launch, but they will help to prepare it too. But, for the moment, the wine is flowing and the women enjoying themselves.

tasting wine

We see snippets of conversation and also one of Marcus’ staff putting something in a glass before filling it with wine and taking it to a guest. One woman asks Ivonne how long she has been with Marcus and she responds with an answer of thirty years. The answer confounds as she looks much too young, but Ivonne counters with the idea that she is older than she looks. We also get a couple coming to the house – too early, suggests Marcus. When she (Rebekah Dean) says she wants to see who she is going to drink she is told to trust the process and they are sent away and told to return just before sunrise…

blood into goblet

So, as became clear very quickly, the women’s involvement in the preparation of the wine is to be an ingredient and the wine itself is literally the blood of life… It is a brief, but fun enough short – it is odd that there is a scene of a cut wrist and goblet – it seems wasteful, though a comment about free range rather than factory processed would have been interesting at that point – especially given some of the genre films where vampires factory process their victims…

Over all this probably gets a 4 out of 10. At the time of writing there was no IMDb page for the anthology.

Dracula: His First Centuries: The Legend of Dracula, Book I – review (& revisit)

Author: Perry Lake

First Published: 2021 (2nd edition)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: All men know the LEGEND OF DRACULA. Since the publication of Bram Stoker’s novel in 1897, the name of Dracula has Inspired terror. Yet between the death of Vlad the Impaler in 1476 and his invasion of England in 1890, there lie four centuries. So what was Dracula doing during the time?

In these nineteen stories, you will see Dracula hack and slash and plot and scheme his bloody way to the top of the undead hierarchy.

Beginning with a quartet of tales about the historical Vlad the Impaler, you will see the depths to which human depravity can descend.

Then meet Doctor Faust, the arch-sorcerer, who makes a deal with the forces of Darkness, to give him power and knowledge. Demanding a devil to serve him, Faust becomes the greatest wizard of his time. But in the end, who will end up serving whom?

Read of Dracula’s battles with the ancient Chi You, the seductive and mysterious Nycea, the cunning Erlik Iblis, the brutish Vardalekos, and the even more brutish Torbalan! Stand beside him in his struggle against those myriad vampire lords who had ruled the Night for centuries—even millennia—prior. Then watch Dracula make an alliance with Ivan the Terrible.

The origin of DRACULA lies within these pages.

The review: Perry Lake had previously published three books in his The Legend of Dracula series (you can access the original reviews for book 1, book 2 and book 3) and had provided the three for review. He contacted me recently with a fourth book and then mentioned that he had substantially changed the first three volumes. The books contain a series of short vignettes concerning Dracula and, in his words, the author has “thoroughly reworked my previous Dracula books, this time assembling the stories in chronological order and adding over 75,000 words of new stories.” I was keen to look over the reworked volumes as, whilst the series grew stronger over the volumes, the first volume was a collection of great ideas hampered somewhat within the style, as the book did jump across time periods in a jarring way. I’m glad I did and this is the new edition (also renamed) of the first volume of the series.

The prose has been corralled, offering a more linear narrative that serves to inform the reader, leading them into the world the author is building. In this world Vlad Ţepeş is the vampire we will come to know within the Stoker narrative. I need to repeat here that whilst Stoker did not base his character on Ţepeş, the concept is part of the Dracula megatext and I have no problem with other authors making the connection for their versions of the story. In this case he, as a mortal, does attend the Scholomance but, whilst aided by the terrible knowledge he accesses within the Devil’s school, he is still ultimately assassinated, his head taken to Istanbul but, decades later, the wizard Faust reclaims body and head and then resuscitates him as one of the undead. Faust’s mastery of the vampire is relatively short-lived and he ends up Vlad's slave. The volume then follows Dracula’s struggle to become ruler of the undead. The stories in this volume (bar the prologue) go up to 1578.

The vampires have to sleep in native earth but can, if well fed enough, daywalk. Mirrors hold their true face (as in what their corpse should appear as) and it is when they would have decayed far enough that they can start to shapeshift. Vlad, having been rendered down to dust in the restorative process can shift immediately. Shifting incorporates clothes into the new form but not metals (so no armour, for instance).

If I had a complaint, it isn’t a new one, and I don’t think it would surprise the author. There is a use, in dialogue, of Elizabethan pronouns. I understand some writers think it makes the language sound more authentic but to my ears – unless the writer is intimate with the rules around them (and I am not by any stretch, myself) – they can be jarring – especially imposed over a prose that feels of a modern style by dint of the author’s natural voice. I do have to make the point again as other new readers can be put off by it too but it soon faded into the background for me and didn’t overly disturb my immersion. The use has not impacted the score.

As for the score, I am pleased to say that the work Perry Lake has put into tidying and updating the volumes has paid dividends. 6.5 out of 10 for a stronger opening to the series

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK.

The United States of Horror: Chapter 1 – review

Directors: Simon Phillips* & Various

Release date: 2021

Contains spoilers

This is another anthology made up as shorts and *noting that Simon Phillips is listed as a creative director).

For the most part the shorts are filmed in a consistently professional manner and I was impressed that, for the most part, they were not already seen (until towards the end of the film when a couple of already known shorts snuck in – one of those being the vampire short Elysia, which I won’t examine again but it was the best of the vampire/genre orientated segments on offer. Unfortunately, a lot of the shorts failed to capture a succinct storyline and were more just a moment in time, a concept rather than narrative if you like.

Brianna McKee as Joy

After opening narration by Doug Bradley (Hellraiser, Hellraiser II: Hellbound, Umbrage & The Reverend).The opening film is entitled Dark Lights and was directed by Deborah Richards. The film has a very stylistic opening, the camera panning through a penthouse that is filled with signs of violence and decadence before resting on Joy (Brianna McKee) who lies in bed and whose dreams are filled with blood.

the drug den

We see her out and about in Las Vegas, at one point as she stands on a street, about to smoke, a man, Roy (Mark Rebstock), approaches and offers her a light – she comments on the zippo and he says it is his lucky lighter. He suggests she looks like she likes to party and is explaining where he lives when he realises that she has walked away from him. He calls her a c*nt. The film then sees her walking into a drugs den.

vamp face

Inside a woman is lolling with a needle in her arm, whilst a man gets ready to inject himself. He sees her as the drug takes hold and she approaches him, and whispers an apology. She starts to change, her skin greying, her eyes flooding blood red and fangs appearing. The female junky comes round enough to scream as she bites him and feeds – continuing to push the drug left in the syringe into his bloodstream. As the short ends we see her light a cigarette with Roy’s lighter, making it clear that off screen she killed him. However, as stylish as this is (and it is), as you will be able to tell there is little in the way of story – just vampire goes out and feeds on junky. It is a shame and, as a result, this feels like an opening for a larger thing.

the succubus

Then next short to mention was The Succubus, which as mentioned was directed by JD Allen, and this was incredibly simple. A couple (Lacie James and Chris Bonnett) get it on in a hotel room. Afterwards he is led asleep and then awakens unable to move and sees a demonic form come to him. She straddles him as he begs for his life (they communicate through thought), he is married with a kid and another on the way – through her we also discover he is a detective. She rips the flesh from his mouth – for fun it seems – before drawing his soul (we see it as very thin whisps of smoke). And that’s it – again there is style here (though the dark lighting possibly masks all sorts) but no real story – just a feed.

the witch

I will mention Dirigo, directed by Noah Bessey – a trip to the woods takes a deadly turn when a woman (Melinda Nanovsky) stumbles out of the trees. She is taken to the cabin but is soon killing the group of friends (and this pretty much crams a slasher type film, with a supernatural element, into 7 minutes). The woman turns her eyes misty, is able to make others see her as someone else (their eyes go misty too) and we see her biting (a neck at one point, a crotch at another). She is credited as a witch but, at the very least, the biting makes it feel like a familiar trope being used.

from Elysia

So, as I mentioned earlier, Elysia is the best of the vampire bits on offer – with a fully realised story in its short run. The other definite vampire offerings have style but are lacking story and push the score down (simply because they are style over substance) – remembering I only score the vampire parts and this anthology, whilst using pre-existing shorts, is well worth a watch. 6.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Vamp or Not? The Wasp Woman

A 1959 film from director Roger Corman, I decided to look at this as a ‘Vamp or Not?’ following a conversation with Simon Bacon who said “It’s very much in the mold of Leech Woman… so a woman obsessed about staying young to the point where she kills others.” He did recognise that the consumption we see in this film is less obviously tied into her quest for youth (as we’ll see) and also managed to find a paper that ties the two films together.

So the logical connection between the two has been stablished elsewhere and the Leech Woman is a vampire film, or at least I think so (albeit she drinks hormones and not blood). That said, whilst there are violent attacks and victim consumption within this it is not the source of the youthfulness – hence the ‘Vamp or Not?’

Michael Mark as Zinthrop

The film starts with one Eric Zinthrop (Michael Mark) approaching a tree, with the sound of buzzing, wearing beekeeping gear and carrying a smoker – as an aside, I did a very miniscule amount of research on this and it is unlikely that the smoker would have worked on wasps as it would on bees. Bees communicate through pheromones and the smoker blocks these and causes them to not be able to swarm, when isolated they become docile. Wasps do not become docile when isolated from the swarm but the smoker might work by suffocating the wasps – not the result Zinthrop wants as he is relocating the nest to where he works.

Susan Cabot as Starlin

Zinthrop is employed to research royal jelly on a honey farm. He has turned his attention to wasp royal jelly. Unfortunately his employer does not agree with his research direction and sacks him – despite him showing them a pair of dogs, one older but the other a puppy though they are apparently the same age. Elsewhere at Starlin Cosmetics, boss Janice Starlin (Susan Cabot) is asking her executive team why sales are dropping. Only Bill Lane (Anthony Eisley, Dracula vs Frankenstein) has the hutzpah to tell her – she was the face of the company but is no longer, retiring from modelling as she gets older. Unfortunately, their customers trust her rather than the brand.

hmmm....

Zinthrop has arranged a meeting with Starlin, though she suspects he is a crackpot. He shows her the use of the enzyme he has extracted from the wasp’s royal jelly – injecting a Guinea Pig, which grows younger in front of them… Now, gentle reader, park your disbelief a good distance away as the Guinea Pig actually turns into a rat but no-one notices that! She gives him all the resources he needs to continue his experiments but he must do human testing on her. Eventually he does, giving her a weak version of the enzyme, which has a very slow effect.

changes

She is impatient though and decides to break into his lab and inject the more powerful version (that he has suggested for external use only) – the results are much more marked. However, a cat he had reverted to kitten has suddenly mutated and become aggressive and then he is run over and ends up a John Doe in hospital, in a coma. Starlin does hire a PI to find him but also continues to use the material and starts to mutate into an angry insect hybrid (at night it seems, and note she is the exact opposite of the creature on the movie poster) and also suffering debilitating headaches when human. So the enzyme makes her younger and also an insect creature – is it vamp?

neck wound

After off-screen attacks (and the victims going missing) we see her attack a nurse she hired to look after the rediscovered Zinthrop. She pierces the victim’s neck and then we see her move to drink from the wound. Zinthrop suggests that, like a queen wasp, she would devour her victims (so it isn’t just blood drinking). We can note that the film doesn’t suggest that this human diet is the source of her stolen youth – that is from the royal jelly. It is, however, a symptom developed through the process.

precursor

This is one where I can certainly see the connection between the films mentioned and, as Simon pointed out, the fact that it would seem to precursor films such as the Blood Beast Terror and she certainly becomes a blood drinker (and flesh eater) as part of the age defying process (though as stated, it is symptomatic). If this isn’t Vamp, it is certainly of genre interest and the outcome, I guess, depends on how liberal you are with the vampire label. There is a colourised version of this on Amazon Prime.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK