Short Film: Vamp Nite

This 2022 short film was directed by Roberto Lopez and comes in at about 21 or so minutes (with a mid-credit sequence) and my thanks to Everlost for drawing it to my attention.

The film starts with a cityscape and a car racing through the streets, after which we are in a warehouse with the surly, loud manager (Roberto Lopez) barking orders at security guards who are sat around and bemoaning the whereabouts of Luch (Luciano Acuna Jr.) a factory worker who, he makes it clear, he has no time for.

Roberto Lopez as the manager

Told to try the walkie talkie he orders Luch to go and change a lightbulb in the recesses of the warehouse and then, getting his lunch out of the fridge, proceeds to blame the worker for taking a bite out of his burger (Luch, we later hear, is a vegan and would not have done so). Luch gets to the burnt-out bulb and there are boxes in the way. Rather than move them he climbs over to the bulb from a cherry picker and falls – badly cutting his hand.

super soakers

Meanwhile the car from the head of the short reaches the warehouse and the passengers – a priest (Marcos Antonio Miranda, Habit) and nun (Kimmy Suzuki), wearing face masks – enter the warehouse. The priest is after his package and hired the armed guards (and is nonplussed at them not actually guarding the package). He wants it now and a worker is sent, followed by the manager when he doesn’t report back. Bursting out of the crates, awakened by Luch’s blood, is a vampire (Damali Ross) hungry after a centuries slumber…

the vampire

So, this had heart – though it perhaps lacked some logic due to its short length such as why the priest and nun were shipping her rather than just killing her and how another party (Kareem Walkes), later in the film, knew she was there. Not a lot of lore; priest and nun have holy water and holy water super soakers, a bite (and drain?) turns and crosses ward. The vampire sprouts large bat wings and flies. The film is clearly (especially with the mid-credit sequence) the start of something larger (potentially).

The film can be caught on Mometu, a free streaming service but be warned it is intrusively heavy with adverts (literally two long lots in a 20-minute short) and is US residence only (though VPNs work).

The imdb page is here.

Classic Literature: The Crimson Weaver

R Murray Gilchrist was an English author who perhaps isn’t as well-known as he should have been. He lived between 1867 – 1917 and there is a definite weird fiction to some of his work. Certainly, Gothic in nature, often, there is a lightness to the writing and a romanticism that pre-dated, of course, but reminded me in parts of some of the work of Tanith Lee.

He wrote several vampire or vampiric tales and the Crimson Weaver was published in 1895 in the Yellow Book vol. VI and is a fascinating tale.

The crimson weaver sees a narrator and his Master travelling and coming across the Domain of the Crimson Weaver, a place accessed across a bridge (being a threshold) and of which they are warned by an old woman not to enter – claiming to have lost a loved one who entered the Domain, with mention of her being beautiful once and hinting that it is because of the Domain that she no longer is. The Master does not believe that such evil exists and they pass into the Domain.

The Master’s resolve starts to wane and he comes to believe there is an evil in the Domain but they continue, at the narrator’s behest, and find a palace. The owner, the Crimson Weaver emerges in a tattered dress and says, “For lack of love I perish. See my robe in tatters!” This ties her robe to her lifeforce. They manage to leave her but after they slept by a pool the Master had vanished.

The narrator returns to the palace and the Weaver is wearing what he takes to be a new dress, “new and lustrous as freshly drawn blood”. He demands to see his Master and she acquiesces for the price of a kiss. Within her loom, which she keeps in the palace, is the Master’s head and heart, the loom spinning its threads from the heart. “I wear men’s lives” she explains. To escape he must kiss her again but she takes his heart also, and though he lives a halflife away from the Domain she steadily steals his life as she weaves. This idea of threads is reminiscent of the Fates but also is an interesting form of vampirism and ties in vampiric clothing. It should be noted that he discovers, during their exchange, that beneath her robe her feet are that of a vulture. In the volume I Am Stone, editor Daniel Pietersen suggests that this equates her to the harpies from Greek myth and there is a Classicist element to the tale – for instance when the Master and narrator sleep after meeting the Weaver it is by the Pool of Diana.

The Crimson Weaver is a remarkable tale and well worth seeking out. My thanks to Leila for putting me on to it and Sarah for getting me the Gilchrist anthology that I read it in.

Anunnaki The fallen of the sky – review

Directors: Joan Frank Charansonnet & Rubén Vilchez

Release date: 2018

Contains spoilers

I was contacted by a blog reader, some time ago, to suggest I look at this Spanish film, and I am going to have to beg forgiveness but I can’t remember who it was that gave me the tip – but thank you.

The Anunnaki were Gods described in early Sumerian texts but they also have become a focus for some conspiracy theories, with them offering their name to creatures controlling the world from a shadow government and being alien colonisers (ala Erich von Däniken’s crackpot, ‘God was an Astronaut’, theories). This is what they are in this.

Nibiru

So the opening of the film suggests they came from Nibiru (an invented planet tied into conspiracy and thought to be the cause of the apocalyptic catastrophe of 2003… wait... that didn’t happen, of course) and enslaved mankind as they used earth for resource. It suggests they merged human and Anunnaki DNA and eventually left, though some stayed. Apparently they stayed without their advanced technology (or ability to replicate it) as we never see them with sci-fi gubbins. They feed on human blood and suffering (so the later would indicate energy vampirism).

the Anunnaki anachronism

The film then moves to the 13th Century and a group of Anunnaki, led by Uruk, are in a chapel about to sacrifice a human woman. A group of knights are on their way to attack the monsters. The Anunnaki are able to kill her, gather her blood and drink it. The knights break in and there is a fight. Two things to note. Firstly, Uruk is able to “force push” the humans – this is an innate ability and not derived from tech. Secondly, he is wearing a modern leather jacket over a leather Brando jacket – as all the other outfits seem to replicate the clothes of the period it seems like the costume designers wanted to treat obviously store bought modern clothing as his and it looks awfully anachronistic.

Claudia taken

We then move to the modern day and we get a very confused plot around the sacrifice of the chosen one. They chose one victim, a model called Victoria, but soon swap her for a girl (who may or may not be her sister, that was unclear as I watched) called Claudia. All the clans have to agree but Uruk wants to sacrifice Claudia as she is a hybrid (her father was Uruk’s brother, who was executed for fraternising with a human). Claudia is sure people are following her but the police don’t believe her – until one detective does.

force push

Honestly, it’s a big old mess in a narrative sense and one never gets the feeling that the Anunnaki are in control of anything and one questions why they are against a hybrid if they were splicing the two species' DNA back whenever. Claudia is said to be the first human (or new species) who can see the fourth dimension (again, whatever that means) and can force push people also, she eventually discovers. There is another hybrid, but he is a sickly, green skinned creature who is kept locked up.

Uruk

The Anunnaki eyes can go red (and seems to be a telepathic link with each other, Claudia is confirmed as a hybrid when they cause her eyes to do the same), they can sprout fangs, appear to be extremely long lived and, as well as blood, like to eat meal worms and other creepy crawlies. They have horizontal slit eyes that they can cause to look like human round pupils. They, for supposed rulers of the world, all seem to congregate in one Spanish city and not rule very much.

Really, there isn’t much to go into with this, the film really is a bit of a mess. 2.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: Hawaiian Ghost Stories

This was a 2020 film directed by Blake and Brent Cousins and, at the time of writing, has no IMDb page. I don’t know whether the fact that this collection of campfire tales, told to a group of kids by an elderly gentleman, have the transnational focus because Hawaii is multicultural or because there aren’t that many local ghost stories to chose from (the term ghost is stretched here also as many of the stories include corporeal creatures)?

It is within that transnational focus that we find out mention. A pair of ghost hunters are investigating an abandoned asylum and the thing that allegedly haunts it. However before going there, they have had a message from a nearby village.

interview

When they roll the footage that has been shot we get the story of a village whose population are of a Philippine extraction and the event is said to have been caused by an aswang. Now one could argue that, if a supernatural event occurs and is seen by a group from a particular ethnic background then they will name the phenomena from the lore that is available to them. In this case there is a belief that the aswang are also called draculas and suck blood.

footage

Sort of… so the video footage shows some goats, when a noise is herd and the adult son, carrying the camera, goes to investigate and sees his elderly father struggling with something. That something is very pixilated and when we see it in still it is still almost featureless, poor cgi modelling. He eventually puts the camera down and they go and beat it together but, we can assume, it gets away. In interview the father says that aswang devour livers but the interview does touch on them being draculas. It is no more than a fleeting visitation.

in the cave

So, some poor cgi, shaky footage (of the found footage variety) and the use of Dracula as a collective noun. How this then fits in with the asylum isn’t clear. The cgi was so poor that it may or may not be the creature they find later (if it is, the visitation is still fleeting). However they refer to the creature both as a deformed (former) patient – and throw in an establishment cover up and a buried cadaver – and also a yokai. It is interesting that they used the Japanese term as it is a collective noun just as aswang can be (aswang can mean a specific, sometimes vampiric, type of creature and at others a generic collective noun for monsters). The film itself is pretty poorly pulled together, with consistently amateurish acting, bad cgi and little in the way of either cinematography or atmosphere.

Classic Literature: "The Wood Devil; or, the vampire pirate of the deep dell"

This short was reprinted in Night’s Black Agents and was originally printed in ‘The Penny Play-Book; or, library of dramatic romance: no. 6.’ In 1836. One reason for highlighting the story is to give some acknowledgment of the author Thomas Peckett Prest. Often associated with Varney the Vampire, I am very much of the school that Varney was primarily penned by James Malcolm Rymer (though sub-contracted writers will have been involved during its massive run). Editor of Night’s Black Agents, Daniel Corrick, is more generous when suggested Prest co-wrote the later Penny Dreadful.

This was, however, a Prest creation and was a prose version of a stage play. It follows the trials and tribulations of a poor pair of youths, Tom and Clara, who reside with the wizened Urilda – a morose 108-years old. Her missing husband was Genano – the vampire of the title. He has given long life, though not youth, to his wife.

Genano re-enters their lives when Tom strikes his tree with an axe and offers Urilda more years and even transforms her to look like a Countess (who drowned whilst travelling to take Tom under her wing). We get a very Polidori scene of the vampire being stabbed and eliciting help from Tom to place his body where it can be touched by moonlight (whilst surrounded by a ring of magical liquid) so that he can revive.

The vampire has designs on Clara and we get the trope of the vampire wishing to marry his victim, in this case explicitly stated why, as “the fatal time was fast approaching at which Genano was compelled to sacrifice a young and virtuous damsel, to prolong his mortal career” (2023 [1836], p55). This sacrifice is to take place in the Halls of the Vampires – a subterranean chamber some 40 fathoms down.

An interesting early genre piece that was firmly playing within the tropes established by, and developed since, Polidori.

Captive – review

Director: Gregg Simon

Release date: 2023

Contains spoilers

Captive appeared on Tubi and is a fairly competent but simple film, which perhaps could have done with some character expansion and certainly could have done with less cgi blood splatter (given some practical blood effects, the obviously cgi blood is annoying to say the least). It did have a nice distinction towards the end between vampires and strigoï – the latter explained as superior vampires.

massacre on the news

It starts with news reports of a mansion massacre but then jumps back to 3-days earlier. A jogger (Kevin Chambers) pauses on his night time run. He sees a sinister looking hooded character, who then vanishes. Then he’s got by someone/thing fast moving. The opening credits then have a view of figures dripping with blood.

Crystal and Ashley

So the film proper starts with Crystal (Tasie Lawrence) and Ashley (Scout Taylor-Compton, Pearblossom). They are going to meet their friends, though Ashley seems unimpressed with her relationship with boyfriend Luke (Michael Lovato). For her part Crystal has a soft spot for Teddy (Timothy Chivalette). Also there is Ed (Ryan Stajmiger). When they discuss what they are going to do for the weekend, Luke has a plan.

Timothy Chivalette as Teddy

He is aware of a mansion where the owners go away for the weekend for the same three days every year (how he knows this is never explored). His idea, break in and party there for the weekend – though Ashley is forbidden from inviting her sister Mallory (Christina Robinson). Why this seems like a good idea is also not really explored but Luke and Teddy watch the owners leave and the gang break in. Its not long before they hear a noise in the house.

Cody Frank as Drake

Heading down into the basement they find a man chained up (behind a circle of, what looks like, salt). He begs to be released but the gang mostly are not so sure. It is Ashley who comes to his rescue. They discover that he is called Drake (Cody Frank) and he gives his story as being a drifter/hitchhiker who was picked up by a couple who turned out to be religious fanatics who chained him up (to convert him, though later when the paraphernalia in the room is seen there is a thought that they may have been vampire hunters). Luke wants him gone but again Ashley intervenes and says he should at least stay until the morning.

turning

A public domain quick look at Night of the Living Dead, which Luke and Ashley watch, and then we get Luke being an ass, Ashley getting prissy and them sleeping separately. She can’t rest and, wandering around, finds Drake and they go for a walk. Kissing ensues followed by biting and he turns her. She then kills Teddy. The following day she is struggling with the sun and wears dark glasses (everyone assumes hangover), she has a reflection (but Drake says it will fade) and she is bitchy to Crystal until she leaves (to try and get her friend out of harms way). This leaves two victims… so she texts their location to Mallory who pitches up with a full party in tow – chaos ensues.

fangs

As I mentioned, this is very simple in format and the characters are pretty 2-dimensional. Probably the best drawn is Ashley but even she is flimsy. As for the new party goers, well they are just fodder. However, it does have a charm and Scout Taylor-Compton does her best with very little. There is a minor twist at the end but it is far from earth-shattering. Nevertheless, I was entertained enough and there were some great soundtrack choices. 5.5 out of 10 shows that it is competent enough but not so much that it’ll change the world or even the genre.

The imdb page is here.

Mr Stoker and the Vampires of the Lyceum – review

Author: Matthew Gibson

First Published: 2023

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: London, September 1888. Jack the Ripper roams the streets. A scream rings out from beneath the stage of the Lyceum Theatre…

A young ‘actress’ has been attacked, suffering peculiar bite wounds to her neck; an event that announces a series of strange, vampiric happenings, and thrusts an unwitting Bram Stoker – acting manager of the Lyceum and aspiring author – into the limelight, and the action.

Increasingly perplexed by the unsettling behaviour of his 'Guv’nor’, the brilliant but mercurial actor, Henry Irving, and Irving’s acclaimed leading lady, Ellen Terry, Stoker soon starts suspecting the worst. And then, another attack reveals a vicious Prussian baron, returned to London as a vampire seeking revenge…

Alive with Gothic intrigue, reversal and surprise, Mr Stoker will keep the reader enthralled and confounded until its final, shocking scene – indeed, until its very last word.

The review: That an author should seek to create a fictionalised version of Stoker and pit him against vampires is, I think, perfectly natural and we have had several versions – both where the book is focused on Bram Stoker and others where he is an incidental character. We have also had a variety of quality in previous usage of the trope, but I am please to report that Matthew Gibson creates one of the better explorations of this narrative.

The author builds a believable world around the Lyceum Theatre and Stoker, with characters that are, of course, fictionalised but nevertheless have authentic personalities. Stoker is our primary character and Gibson walks that thin line that balances not making him unbelievably good/powerful/clever but also not being disrespectful to the memory of the man he uses at the heart of his character. We get a Stoker frustrated with life, at times, sometimes incredulous but also thoughtful and, most importantly, the character is built as a rounded individual. Drawn into this is George Stoker, an interesting inclusion who, in some respects, takes on the Van Helsing role, his time in the Balkans giving him an insight to the myths that the elder Stoker becomes more and more convinced are real.

Railed against them is Baron Vassil Drayfield-Lucarda, the last part of his double-barrel name awfully familiar, of course. The Baron is a Rosicrucian obsessed both with finding immortality and also avenging himself on people within Stoker’s inner circle. The question that haunts them all is, is vampirism real or could there be a more rational explanation?

The book is a mystery story at its heart but it is one that assuredly keeps your attention. The language feels deliberately of a distant age, falling comfortably into the 19th Century setting. This was a fine walk through an alternate history, with enough reaching to recorded history to offer a veneer of veracity to the account. Worthwhile. 8 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: House on Bare Mountain

What to say about this sexploitation flick from 1962, which was directed by Lee Frost and an uncredited Wes Bishop? Well let’s start with the wholly inaccurate blurb from IMDb “The Wolfman, Dracula and Frankenstein spy on a girls' school in the mountains, where most of the girls spend their time sunbathing in the nude, nude exercises and nude art classes. The monsters finally invade the school...” The only accurate bit is the part about the nude (or mainly semi-nude) girls, as we’ll see…

It starts with Granny Good (Bob Cresse) looking like she’s behind bars and she explains how she got there (so the film is a flashback of sorts). Granny runs a girl’s school – she suggests it’s a cottage, the title says house and the establishing shots show a castle on a mountain. She was grading papers (for that read 'drinking hooch') when Mr & Mrs Bumgartner arrive as they want to enrol their daughter Prudence (Laura Eden) in the school.

Bob Cresse as Granny Good

As they chat, in comes student Honey notably wearing only knickers – this sets your theme for the whole film as the girls are often topless or we get nude bottoms also, the film does avoid full frontal nudity. Sally wants homework as she has finished the physics work, and is tasked to read the dictionary. Granny meets Prudence and then goes to get Sally (Ann Perry), her new roommate. When Granny is out of the room the Bumgartners start to search it.

Prudence and Kracow

So, skipping over the exercise routine, and the showers, and every other excuse to get a naked pair of breasts on screen… where are the monsters? Well, there is actually one. The school handyman, Kracow, is actually a werewolf (and this is confirmed when he gets his Union Rep from the Werewolves Union involved). As for the others, it all comes down to a prom (prom, or party, you decide).

Jeffrey Smithers as Dracula

So there is a party, with boys invited and in the party we get the following monster costumes Wolfman (William Engesser credited as Abe Greyhound, the Ghost Busters), Frankenstein’s Monster (Warren Ames credited as Percy Frankenstein) and Dracula (Jeffrey Smithers credited as Doris Dracula). So Dracula is just a guy, fleeting in his visitation, dressed as Dracula. He does spike the punch, with his cloak around the bowl, but then everyone spikes the punch, including Granny. In tone I guess there was an air of what we would later get in the UK with Benny Hill and I was also reminded, a smidgeon, of Orgy of the Dead. The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Night – revisited (again)

Back in 2020 I had a new look at Byron C Miller’s film Night as it had received a re-edit from its original release from 2006. I was approached again by the director asking me if I wanted another look and I’ll reproduce why here: “In 2021 SRS Cinema allowed me to do the unthinkable. They took all of my original miniDV tapes, recaptured them at a better resolution and allowed me to do a true director's cut of NIGHT, rebuilding the movie from scratch. It was a lot of fun and while this is the shortest cut of the movie, it's full of little moments and scenes that never made it to any version. Things that got lost back then with me being an inexperienced filmmaker when I first edited this thing on an early 00s computer.”

I’m always happy to have another look and the film, released as the Final Cut, certainly does look better than it did – there is, of course, a limit to what you can do with the source but looking at a screenshot of Tonia (Melanie Ginnett) I grabbed on this re-watch, which I also included when I first reviewed the film, you can contrast the two and see that the film has a much improved, deeper colour palate now.

John Hardy as Jericho

The film flows better than the first release (as did the previous cut) and I was again quite taken by how much I liked the side character Nathaniel (Kelly Weaver) and his deeply held grief that became almost existential. There are moments that I think Miller would have done differently if he were to shoot the film now and narrative extensions that would have worked the film into a better shape, but that’s hindsight, and that is always 20-20.

feed

Its great that Miller has had the opportunity to hone his film. It isn’t perfect but the original shot footage is what it is and budget can be a strict mistress. I have said all the way along that I liked seeing vampires (bar Nathaniel) who accepted and even revelled in what they are and I have said all the way along that this is one that a genre fan (understanding the budgetary constraints) can get something out of. I am also minded, after the latest watch of the latest cut to increase the score to 5 out of 10 (recognising the better flow and the improved visuals). Finally, a quick shout out to the retro-cover by SRS Cinema, which is just fabulous.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Bonus Bit

At the time of writing, Byron C Miller is crowdfunding his latest feature – not vampire this time but werewolf and he describes it as “a sensual, brutal werewolf film”. The crowdfunding is set to run into July 2023 and can be found here. As always, crowdfunding opportunities are highlighted for information purposes, I am not affiliated with the campaign and backing is at the individual’s personal risk.

Classic Literature: The Bruxa: a legend of Portugal

Some time ago I featured the 1863 story the Vampire; or, Pedro Pacheco and the Bruxa by William H G Kingston. This was a remarkable story because it conflated the witch and the vampire mythologies but also because it detailed the bruxa turning into a bat to feed and lull the victim to sleep with the beat of their wings. I used this as an example of pre-Stoker bat transformation and, although my interpretation has been disputed by scholar and correspondent Kevin Dodd, I stick by that interpretation.

This is another story by William H G Kingston, unearthed by Daniel Corrick for his Night’s Black Agents anthology about a bruxa (quotes are from that volume), but this was published in Ainsworth's Magazine Volume 10, in 1846. The story is different, beginning with a historical perspective of inter-dynastic marriage (between Portugal and Leon) that was opposed by the pope, who withdrew Catholic activity whilst his wishes were ignored – and let diabolic forces into Portugal as a result. The story proper, however, follows Josefa, her grand-niece Maria and Maria’s farmer husband Pedro. Pedro offends Josefa and, as a result, the old woman (who was secretly a bruxa) vows revenge.

This revenge takes the form of her tricking Maria into meeting a Muslim (in the text Mahommedan) officer with the view that he will carry her off to the Ottoman Empire and marry her. Maria sneaks out of bed for the rendezvous but has cold feet. Nevertheless, Josefa gets her to the meeting point but it is at the site of a bruxa rite and the officer is actually the devil in disguise. Maria ends up in a bigamist marriage to the devil and she finds herself inexorably drawn to the next rite and, after an orgy, is transformed:

“Maria, like the rest of the hapless sisterhood, felt herself changing into the form of a vast bird of dusky hue, claws were on her feet, her arms became wings, and her face was sharp and pointed like a bat” (p95, 2023 [1846]).

Admittedly this conflates bird and bat, but it is later referred to as “her bat-like form” (p98, 2023 [1846]) and one cannot suggest it doesn’t feed into the idea of a bat transformation. In this form she finds herself with “A thirst, and insatiable craving for blood” (p96, 2023 [1846]) and heads to her home, where she feeds upon one of her own children – eventually predating on all three. The attack is pretty darn interesting, again wings are used to fan the victim and keep him asleep and she takes “huge drafts of the life’s blood” (p96, 2023 [1846]) until “nothing remained but an emaciated form of skin and bones” (p96, 2023 [1846]) – she literally sucks the infant dry.

In this story Kingston does not use the word vampire but, as we know he explicitly drew the two forms together in his later story, this is a vampire, and vampiric attack. The transformation is into a strange hybrid but it has a bat-like face and Kingston would hone this into a pure bat shape later. This is the earliest English language version of a bat transformation that I am aware of, I do know of an earlier non-English example but that is in another scholar's pending paper, at the time of me writing this, and so my lips are currently sealed.

Edit 13/6/23: I received the following correspondence from Daniel Corrick "A little postscript to that story, it turns out that Kingston’s piece was plagiarised in the January 24th 1896 issue of Bow Bells under the title “The Vampire-Mother,” without the framing device of the Papal ban (and relocated to Spain) and with all references to “bruxa” replaced with “vampire” or “vampire witch.” Obviously fifty years on the vampire = bat idea was sufficiently embedded in popular imagination."

Curado de Espantos – review

Directors: Adolfo Martínez Solares & Gilberto Martínez Solares

Release date: 1992

Contains spoilers

This is a fichera, or Mexican sex comedy, which gives it a degree of bedroom farce but the sex element is not gratuitous or overstated, though it may be wildly inappropriate. In fact, one might think around the British Carry On films – see little but have hinted at sex and sexual commentary. I have to admit that, whilst watching it, it felt more 80s than 90s.

aged Dracula

It starts with a vampire, later discovered to be Dracula (Roberto 'Flaco' Guzmán), though also revealed later to be of Jewish heritage, chasing after a young woman, Chenaria. He is really quite old (in aged makeup) and is accused of being a lustful old man. He chases her into a building and up some stairs. Chenaria ends up trapped at the top of the stairs and starts beating him with a stick and then throws him down the stairwell.

green energy

We see an ambulance going through the city and then, in a hospital, a couple of doctors and a nurse start to examine the old man. The thermometer in his mouth goes from shooting mercury out of the end to registering no heat and the blood pressure monitor explodes. They hurriedly leave the room. Whilst they're out, we see green tendrils of energy come to him (this is also seen at the end when he dies – which isn’t really a spoiler – and is not explained). The nurse comes back in to try and attach a line to him and he grabs her and bites – once he has drunk some blood he looks younger. He then flies home (still in human form) but his servant Igor (José René Ruiz) has closed the window, because he is cold, and Dracula crashes through it. In their exchange we discover he is 1500 years old.

spell casting

A voice over by Magdalena Santos (Lina Santos) then seeks to explain why there is a vampire in Mexico City. She is an archaeologist and is due to go on a dig with professors from the university – quickly putting them in their place when there is commentary about her looks stating that she is there to work not socialise. We then cut to the self-styled exorcist Hippocrates (Alfonso Zayas) who is trying to cast a spell (made up of quite silly nonsense words) over a shrunken head. His sidekick Jacinto (Alfonso Zayas) is making noise and distracting him so he uses the same nonsense words and turns him into a toad.

looking like a mummy

We go to the excavation (allegedly beneath a pyramid but looking like a cave) and Magdalena choses a place to excavate a wall that the professor worries over. However, it is hollow behind the stone and they manage to get into a hidden chamber that is empty bar a coffin with a bat-winged skull motif (we saw it as Dracula’s coffin earlier). They open it and there is a skeletal corpse, wrapped in bandages with a cross in its chest – which Magdalena removes (it is a blade at the bottom). We see the face reform as they look elsewhere. Magdalena finds an Aztec picture depicting someone being stabbed in the chest and then tells a story based on it of the Aztecs killing a man who was murdering women – no explanation there regarding the crucifix, of course. Meanwhile we have seen the corpse reform (in a not bad effect for the time), get up – looking for the world like a moustachioed mummy with fangs – and then kill the two workers and the professor. He comes towards Magdalena who holds up the cross and escapes.

Dracula with brides

Back in Mexico City no one (her audience being just a doctor and a cop) believes her about a vampire, though they do return to the cave – but the wall is solid and the chamber now gone. Magdalena is committed to the hospital as delusional (and possibly homicidal) and has to pretend she's mad to be 'cured' and then released. She starts looking for the vampire, enlisting the help of the exorcists. Meanwhile Dracula now owns a nightclub where, if he fancies a woman, he has bouncers eject the man with her and swoops in, controlling the woman with eye mojo and then feeding and creating a vampire bride. That is until he sees Magdalena again and decides he wishes her to be his actual bride – we get the idea of biting three times to turn with this, lifted from Love at First Bite.

becoming more vamp

I mentioned some inappropriate moments. The sex comedy side was fairly tame with the two exorcists horny, misogynistic and happy to spy on Magdalena in the bath. That said there is one scene with a client, a young woman, coming for help because the man she loves doesn’t even notice her. Hippocrates has her strip to her underwear (for the spell to work) anoints her with oil (that seems to control her), turns Jacinto into a toad again (to get him out of the way) and proceeds to get it on (because, the oil). It felt of an age and it felt like coercion. The worst ‘joke’ was when Dracula is in Magdalena’s house (which she has invited him into, doubling his powers a variant of the Lost Boys lore) and a cross is held up by Jacinto. Despite it working earlier in the film, Dracula is unaffected because he is Jewish. Therefore, Jacinto holds up a swastika (not a Star of David) and that repels him. I don’t have words for how inexcusably offensive that felt.

fire from sun exposure

Inappropriate moments aside this was mostly not too bad. That said it wasn’t a great film – I mentioned Carry On films at the head and, truthfully, though dated I can watch them all day but that doesn’t make them great films (with the exception of Carry on Screaming) just really entertaining, watchable movies that I grew up with. I wouldn’t score them really high and I won’t with this. 3 out of 10 is despite the absolutely awful moment I have mentioned.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US – warning, no English sub or dub

On DVD @ Amazon UK – warning, no English sub or dub

Short Film: Ten Questions

A film that comes in around the 25-minute mark, this was directed by Andrew Damon Henriques and released in 2013. It has a simple premise but does what it does well enough with a fair twist in the tail.

It starts with a man (Peter Quinones) tied to a chair, his limbs held by cable ties and his head covered with a bag.

We see a woman (Christina Wood) enter the background of the scene, wearing a white dress. She removes it, carefully folding it, and then we see her walk to the man. He starts saying he has a wife and kids but she calls him a liar – he was chosen for a reason; he has no family life and she knows this. Once he is able to see, he realises that she is naked and then, finally understanding, he accuses her of being a God freak who thinks she is a v…

beaten

The word doesn’t get out of his mouth, she starts to beat him mercilessly, leaving him bloodied. She does apologise, to some degree, but her kind don’t like the V word. Having given her name, Afryea, and finding out that he is Caleb, he asks what she wants – it is simple, of course, she wants his blood and fear makes it taste better. However, as they speak, she finds a better use for him.

fangs

Humans are not aware of the world order and our God has restarted the world and civilisations many times. The vampires, a separate race, worship (and were created by) Satan and Afreya decides that she can use Caleb. She will tell him the history of her people and then he must answer ten questions on what she has taught him. If he gets them correct then he will go and preach her story in a way that will break down the faith of humanity – when he argues that he may not persuade people, she counters that it is the telling of the story that is important, the impact will inevitably come with time. Get the questions wrong and she’ll eat him.

veins popping

So this was neatly put together and I liked the separate species premise that was used. The question is, of course, does he answer the ten questions accurately? Well, that would, of course, be telling. As mentioned, there is a nice twist in the tail, it isn’t earth-shattering but fit neatly into the premise. There are a few single-backdrop moments that manage to break-up the one (basement/kill room) location. The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

A Fury – review

Author: Eva Vertrice

First published: 2023

Contains spoilers

The blurb: In 1161 A.D., Merek gifts his cousin and lover Maerwynn a silver ring, adorned with strange symbols and a black stone. That same night, an unwelcome visitor to Maerwynn’s chambers, forces her to throw the ring out the castle window and into the river below to try and save her and Merek’s life.

800 years later, the ring appears once again in a small auction house in modern day New York City. Maerwynn, now Rachel, and her companion Lilith, want it at any price. They aren’t the only ones.

The ring has secrets, but so do Rachel and Lilith. Can they still trust each other once their secrets unravel and they discover their connection to the ring and their part in a giant power struggle in Heaven?

The review: A Fury is an urban fantasy concentrated on Rachel, a vampire, and her companion Lily (the blurb giving away that she is Lilith). Rachel comes across as a moral vampire, turned against her will after being raped and searching for the ring that was the cause of the attack and, in turn, the vampire who turned her in order to avenge herself. Although they are companions, it is clear that they have not necessarily been honest with each other – Rachel continued to search for the ring after telling Lily she was done with the business and whilst she knew Lily wasn’t human (and her blood, whilst unappetising, can allow Rachel to walk in daylight), Lily has never revealed her nature and origin.

The setting is one of a hidden world behind ours and certainly urban fantasy. There is a large Judeo-Christian aspect to the mythology with angels and demons (as well as Lilith) front and centre, but there are also other folklores represented with some Celtic and some Greek aspects being used. Sometimes using the Judeo-Christian mythology so heavily can sit uneasily with the polytheistic folklores but these seemed to work smoothly. We also get some historical appearance, such as Captain Kidd in a flashback chapter and the still alive Edward Kelly.

The prose were strong, for the most part, with the characters being given distinct voices and the narrative crisp. There is a degree of wish fulfilment in the rich, beautiful, deadly and powerful Rachel but that is not necessarily a bad thing. There is some interesting lore around the vampires and angels (and some deliberate gaps, for instance Rachel can enter a church but avoids the holy water, though she doesn’t know if it will impact her). The book read at a quick pace and kept the reader’s attention and the narrative has its own identity. Recommended for fans of urban horror. 7 out of 10.

The author's Facebook page is here.  

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Penanggal: The Curse of the Malayan Vampire – review

Director: Ellie Suriaty Omar

Release date: 2013

Contains spoilers

It is nice for the penanggal (aka penanggalan) to get a look in within cinema and this Malay film actually sports some fairly good effects. Unfortunately the story is perhaps not as good as it might be with threads unanswered and a play with physical looks projecting (or not) the monstrous within the running time.

It is set in a more period time – I want to suggest the 1930s given the car we see but I’m not too sure and does have a strong thread about the saving grace of faith, particularly Islamic faith.

the tongue

It starts, however, with a birth. The midwife is Mak Ajeng (Normah Damanhuri) and the father, and Mak Ajeng’s hunchbacked man servant Pak Kadam (Jeff Omar), are outside the hut. The baby starts to cry but then there is a strange sound, the father goes in as the manservant curses and bemoans the timing. The father sees Mak Ajeng spinning as her head detaches, her tongue extends monstrously and she attacks mother and baby. He runs to the village and Pak Kadam goes in and grabs her headless body.

as a fireball

The father rouses the village against Mak Ajeng but as they look to go after her they see a burning light flash across the sky – the penanggal. It felt as though their nerves were slipping until a young boy starts extolling Allah and this emboldens them and they head, mob like, to her home. Pak Kadam has already got there, with the torso, and also there is her granddaughter Murni (Ummi Nazeera). The head returns and enters a big pot (presumably of vinegar to shrink her entrails before re-joining her body).

dissolving

The mob is approaching and Mak Ajeng calls Murni to her and tells her to become one with her blood and essentially passes her curse to her – which was part of the deal she had made with the powers of evil. Now, looking at Murni for a moment her face is covered in warts or tumours, and the implication is that her facial disfigurement has already associated her with the evil of her grandmother (there is also the implication later that the older woman perhaps killed her parents to get her heir). If not this, then the film is associating her ugliness with innocence and later beauty with the monstrous. With the curse passed on she dies and dissolves and Murni looks down on the villagers and then we see her walking, exiled from the village.

Azri Iskandar as Yusoff

We then meet Syed Yusoff Al-Attas (Azri Iskandar) a rich young business man who is due to get engaged to Sharifah Zahrah Al-Sagof (Fasha Sandha). She has concerns as to whether he can love her as she is a widow and his brother, Umar (Zul Ariffin), clearly has a thing for her. He is drawn as a very devout, peaceful man. Switching back to Murni and Pak Kadam has led her to a forest safe-house which is hidden by magic (one wonders why grandma didn’t reside there) and she suffers her first transformation into the penanggal. Afterwards she has lost the tumours on her face and is classically beautiful – we also hear a memory of grandma saying that only she could cure her, in time, and that has certainly proven true. Of course, fate will make her and Yusoff’s paths cross (and she uses magic to bewitch him).

flying head

The lore sees her head and entrails detach from her body (her head spinning rapidly as though it unscrews) and her flying through the night within a flame like halo. There is the dunking in vinegar to “soothe” her entrails when she rejoins. We do get some pov penangaal camera work. When whole she has a vivid scar at the neck. The idea of thorns being able to hold the vampire is mentioned. There isn’t an explanation as to the whole pact with evil and passing that pact on to an heir and Murni doesn’t seem altogether distressed at her new life (maybe more the consequences).

Ummi Nazeera as Murni

I think the issue is the storyline and where they go and don't go with it. For instance, the whole Zaharah plot. There is mention of her being pregnant, implied to be her dead husband’s child, but this isn’t used despite the vampire’s predilection for babies/unborn/pregnant women. Once Yusoff goes missing, she sneaks into Umar’s car to help find him, is burnt by the penanggal’s acidic blood and then vanishes from the story. It just seemed like baggage in the storyline rather than anything useful. Nevertheless this looks pretty good and it's worth seeing a penanggal. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.