Interview with the Vampire – Season 2 – review

Director: Various

First aired: 2014

Contains spoilers

I was taken with Season 1 of this show. Fearing that it could never stand up to the gothic magnificence of the film, and open minded, but still with niggling doubts, about the changes. I found a show that may have modernized the historic story (moving from the 18th century to the early twentieth century) but still true to the spirit of the books. A show that ramped up the sexuality (Rice’s vampires were not sexual, though she certainly wrote the erotic spirit) but did not lose itself within that.

Louis and Lestat

I found a show where Sam Reid played a pitch perfect Lestat and Jacob Anderson offered a powerhouse and nuanced performance as Louis. It was then announced by Bailey Bass that she would not be returning as Claudia – aged considerably from the books had allowed an older actress able to play a nuanced role with interesting changes tied to her age – and would be replaced this season by Delainey Hayles. In the last season the interview got as far as the killing of Lestat and, in the modern day, interviewer Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian, Blade Trinity) discovers that servant Rashid was actually ancient vampire Armand (Assad Zaman).

Delainey Hayles as Claudia

This season starts off with Claudia and Louis, in Europe, searching for their vampiric roots across the continent, and ending up in Romania. The search made tougher by the fact that the second world war rages around them. If the war seems glossed over, within the space of an episode and mostly at the end of the period, then the dialogue references this and admits as much. As such, we meet them towards the end of their search, see a moment with some German soldiers and then cut to a Romania with Soviet troops there. In truth the search is longer than perhaps the books, which (from memory) is very glossed over. They find troops unearthing the dead and shooting into coffins and eventually find a revenant, and a weak female vampire (not in the book) who cannot successfully turn vampires – Louis posits it is the sadness (from the war) that has infected the blood. There is mention of Dracula and Vlad Ţepeş in passing.

Ben Daniels as Santiago

Following that the full season (8 episodes, rather than the 7 of season 1, but chaptered from chapter 8 onwards) are based around the Théâtre des Vampires in Paris, and a great sequence they are. Offering much more nuance over the 7 remaining episodes and using the present to interrogate undead memory of the past. I must give out a shout at this point to Ben Daniels who steals the show as Santiago, lead actor of the troupe and conspirator.

Armand and Louis

Of course, Lestat is not there any longer, but the series manages to include him by having his memory haunt Louis to the point of hallucination, which in itself worked well too. The Théâtre itself uses more modern techniques given the time period and so, for instance, they project film to the back curtain to interact with it as actors. For readers of the books, the fate of Claudia and the Théâtre itself remains the same, but the way it gets there, and how betrayals are not discovered for seventy years is the thing the show does really well. A note on the Blu-Ray set. There is more in the way of extras this time round, something I found disappointing last time. The show itself, I think is still a strong 7.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK

The After Dark – review

Director: Tom Devlin

Release date: 2024

Contains spoilers

This was an ambitious low budget vampire film in that there was a real push at world building and enough grasping to some common tropes to allow that world building to work in the scant 70 minutes run time.

It starts with Rancid’s Lars Frederikson as a character called Volsung giving us a to camera narration (and, in fact, he also breaks the fourth wall during the film to address the audience). He tells us of two groups, the Vanished, stuck in the past, and the Lobos, rock and roll vampires. The two, he confides, are tumbling towards war.

the Vanished

We then meet the Vanished. They are the Goth/Victoriana costumed type of vampire. The camera offers us a view that it is a society (or clan, as that is used through the film) which is typified as endless boredom. We see rats drained into decanters and then poured as they sit around staring and speechless. Their leader Vigo (David “Gangrel” Heath) notices that one of their number, Philip (Josh Cornell), is missing, leads them on a clan chant (or, almost, 12-step affirmation) and then we see that dinner is glasses of rat’s blood and unprepared rat carcass for main course.

Jack and Dax

Having seen a couple hand out flyers for a rock/punk/biker bar called the After Dark, we see Philip attack a homeless musician and his girlfriend for a flyer, wounding him and kidnapping her. The After Dark itself is run by Dax (Nicholas Cvjetkovich) and is open to vampires and humans alike. He attracts the dispossessed and alternative and some of those will be turned. His second in command is Jack (Danny Saxton) and Dax sends him out for blood (bottled) for the “blood bath”.

Mary Beth feeding

Mary Beth (Ashley Ballou) – sometimes just Beth – hates her relatively (three year) new life as a vampire in the Vanished. Through her eyes we see that Vigo is power hungry and holds on to it with an iron fist. He saw her as a mortal, had to have her and turned her. She is forced to call him Master. He is also a hypocrite, forcing his clan to eat rats he indulges in eating humans. Why he made the others eat rats isn’t explained, and may simply have been a control thing, because he sees humans as nothing but food. An angry Mary Beth meets Jack in an alley and there is instant mutual attraction. She is then sent to spy on the After Dark (as a young, therefore unknown vampire) and her and Jack consolidate their relationship.

vampire love

So there is a whole section of them falling more and more in love in a short space of time – dancing and skateboarding (this being a mistake as it is clear that the actress is running up and down the short ramp with the camera not straying down and the skateboard noises done by foley) – this leads to the inevitable showdown between clans (with Vigo simply against the Lobos as much as affronted by her betrayal). This leads to the last section of the film being a battle in the club. This is mixed in effectiveness; a chopping through the centre of a head with skateboard was an effective sfx, Vigo and Dax going at it works as the actors use their profession and wrestle, but a 4 person swordfight really fails as it looks like none of the actors are sword proficient.

Vigo is a messy eater

The sets are very limited and there are moments that don’t work (a side trip by Dax, for instance, gives us more background but just didn’t make sense plot wise), but the filmmakers manage to create a world that feels built and a credible relationship with Jack and Mary Beth that actually feels natural – congratulations to the actors for injecting the necessary chemistry there, though some of the diction was a tad stagey. Lore-wise we rely on the megatext more than are shown things. Sunlight is a no-no, they are immortal (but in the fight sequence it appears that death easily comes for some, and neither side use a stake). This was fun enough and has impressive world building, as mentioned. However its ambition cannot be reached by its low budget. 5 out of 10 seems fair, so long as you know there are flaws.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: Lego Scooby-Doo!: Haunted Hollywood

Directed by Rick Morales and released in 2016, this film merged the wholesome wackiness of Scooby-Doo with the equally wacky Lego brand of films to create a fun, if ultimately fluff, Scooby-Doo property.

The story sees Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) and Scooby (Frank Welker) win a competition (an eating contest) and being awarded a prize of a Hollywood vacation with tour around the Brickton movie studio. However, the studio, financially on its knees, is being haunted by the ghost of one of its great horror actors.

Cassandra Peterson voices Drella

The ghost appears as a Mummy, Headless Horseman and zombie but the reason for the mention is, firstly, that the studio filmed a vampire movie – The Vampyre Bites – and we see a poster for it, and more for horror hostess Drella Diabolique (voiced by the wonderful Cassandra Peterson) who dresses in a vampire type outfit, with fangs. So, acting like a vampire (and a fleeting poster visitation).

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Killadelphia, Volume 3: Home is Where the Hatred Is

Story: Rodney Barnes

Art: Jason Shawn Alexander

First Published: 2021 (TPB)

Contains spoilers

The blurb: A new horrifying chapter begins for the critically-acclaimed series from Rodney Barnes, the writer behind such hit shows as Wu-Tang: An American Saga and STARZ’s American Gods, and the artist who redefined SPAWN for a new generation, Jason Shawn Alexander!

A new vampire king has entered the game and his name is Thomas Jefferson! The third President of the United States plans to (literally) raise hell as he sets forth to craft a new America far more twisted than the one he sought to create two and a half centuries ago.

Meanwhile, young Jimmy Sangster has been bitten and is quickly becoming a bloodthirsty creature of the night. Will SeeSaw and James Sangster Sr. be able to find a way to reverse his condition in time before his soul is lost forever, or will Jimmy's newborn instincts take over and put everyone he loves in harm's way?

Collects KILLADELPHIA #13-18 and the second chapter in the werewolf tie-in story ELYSIUM GARDENS.

The Review: I like the Killadelphia series and this, for me, added a new element in. John Adams has now joined the ragtag set of heroes who are pushing against the vampire horde that is now led by his recently estranged and emancipated wife Abigail. Also into the fray steps a vampire Thomas Jefferson, who raises (zombie like) his wife and children.

The heroes are hiding from what is currently a citywide apocalypse (and there was a very nice I am Legend reference at one point within the volume, which dwelt on surviving the vampire apocalypse) but could soon consume the world. SeeSaw is looking to make Jimmy human again (he has turned one person back before) but, when it fails, he takes an astral journey round the Gods, starting with Jesus rising from the tomb and then going around various pantheons. Eventually he decides to evoke a god that believes in him and speaks to Anansi, who agrees to help him. This mystical element worked but the fact that Rodney Barnes worked on American Gods is identifiable in it. Anansi does confirm that the events are the start of the apocalypse that sits at the heart of many a religion.

The end of the volume sees the vampire heroes marching into an unwinnable showdown when they stumble across werewolves – Barnes in his afterword saying “You wanted werewolves? Well they’re here!” The volume, after this, offers a chapter of Elysium Gardens – the werewolf related spin off series. Great as always and I appreciated the way SeeSaw’s astral journey was handled, as well as the racial discussion at the heart of the series as a whole. 8 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Nosferatu - A Symphony of Horror – review

Director: David Lee Fisher

Release date: 2023 (limited) 2024 (general)

Contains spoilers

David Lee Fisher ran a Kickstart for his version of Nosferatu back in 2014 (starting October 29th to be precise). It was a remix of the classic 1922 film, something he had done before with the Cabinet of Dr Caligari. To explain remix, I’ll quote the Kickstarter page:

“OUR GOAL is to produce a feature-length, faithful homage to this classic masterpiece through use of an updated story structure, plot pacing, visual effects, and importantly sound and music. We believe this “fresh take on an old tale” will bring something new to devoted fans, and excite an entire new generation of audiences as well.

“By scanning a vintage print, we were able to shoot our actors on green-screen, then layer them into digital sets recreated from the original film's imagery.”

Doug Jones as Orlok

The film was set to (and still does) star Doug Jones, whose physical prowess under heavy makeup was always going to be a selling point for the film. Unfortunately, it vanished… However, when Eggers’ version of the film was announced I suspected it would make an appearance, and lo… just in time for Halloween and a couple of months before Eggers’ is released it does appear (On general release, it apparently had a limited release in the US in 2023). And, it isn’t bad. Certainly the way it is built is clever, Jones is as good as one would expect but there are issues too…

Hutter and Ellen

Starting in the fictional German town of Wisborg we meet the protagonists of the film, young married couple Thomas Hutter (Emrhys Cooper) and his wife Ellen (Sarah Carter). She is the pure character of the original film, and I liked her saving a spider (which then bites her and her defending that it is its nature), but Hutter… the change to his character is one of the things I disliked about the film, unfortunately. 

Emrhys Cooper as Hutter

Hutter, in the original, comes across as an innocent fool and I recognise there was plenty of scope to expand him. Now there is no reason why a character cannot be reinterpreted, and it might work, but in this case, for me, it did not. This Hutter is incredibly money/status obsessed – he is drawn to go to Transylvania by the promise of copious amounts of money, he wants to be the richest man in Wisborg and he covets the riches his friend Wolfram (Jack Turner) has. Later it appears that he either doesn’t love Ellen (or at least doesn’t understand that love) – he doesn’t respond in kind when she says “I love you”, he has casual (off screen) sex in the inn, cheating on her, and there is a “Hutter finally understands love redemption” element introduced to the story.

occult letter

Before Hutter gets his orders from his employer, Knock (Eddie Allen), we see the realtor receive a letter from Orlok (Doug Jones). The insides being wet with blood, which Knock gets on his hands, was interesting (from a symbolic perspective), the occult writing glowing as his hand brushes the letter was inspired. Eddie Allen played the role of Knock really well and was a highlight for me.

Ellen's later apocalyptic dream

There is a connection between Orlok and Ellen already (she dreams of a tall, frightening shadow), which suggests he is coming to Wisborg as much for her as anything else. Hutter leaves Ellen with Wolfram and his spinster sister, Ruth (Joely Fisher), and Hutter gets a train, rather than rides a horse. This brings him more in line with Harker, from Stoker’s novel, of course. At the end of the line he finds an inn and, as mentioned, manages to cheat on Ellen before finding the book with vampire lore. Unlike the original, he actively steals that, rather than it seeming to follow him, showing his lack of innocence yet again.

shadowy wings

It is interesting that a blind man (Thomas Ian Nicholas) is introduced, and he falls victim to the deathbird – we see the shadow of wings. This replaces the werewolf/hyena aspect of the original and later we do see Orlok with gossamer wings that seem formed from shadows. When Hutter has to walk to the castle he is picked up by Orlok’s carriage and Fisher chooses to have it move at a speeded-up pace, rather like the original. Cutting back to Wisborg, the reason for making Ruth a 'spinster' sister is revealed when she makes a (pretty subtle) lesbian pass at Ellen – like a misplaced Chekhov’s gun that’s never fired. I also found Ellen dreaming of being pregnant whilst an apocalyptic Wisborg burns a strange choice, which I felt Fisher should have expanded upon.

exposed to sunlight

There is an interestingly pagan aspect, with protection runes being used (and Ellen said to have learnt from her mother who was of Romani descent) – her relinquishing such a stone invites Orlok physically to her. Jones works really well as Orlok, as if there would ever be a doubt. As for the other performances… in the main it felt like most were acting in a way they felt a silent actor would have acted when faced with sound and this made many of the performances a tad stagey, Eddie Allen's Knock notwithstanding. The concept is clever and whilst there were aspects I disliked (at the head of that, the changes to Hutter’s character – though I recognise that others might like the change – and the random lesbian pass due to it not having a narrative reason for being there), I thought the film interesting. The score worked well but, whilst worth your time, the remix struggles to get anywhere near the genius of the original film. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Evil Cat – review

Director: Dennis Yu Wan-Kwong

Release date: 1987

Contains spoilers

My friend Leila identified this film with a suggestion it is “a bit of a hotchpotch fusing vampire lore, Bakeneko and ghost possession with a magic bow” All this, of course, made me want to watch the film.

What we get is some late eighties Hong Kong fare with a more serious edge than many – there is a dedicated comedy cop character, Inspector Handsome Wu (Wong Jing), and the film is certainly not divorced from humour, such as jokes about the laziness of the apprentice, but it did take itself a bit more seriously I felt.

evil escapes

It starts in a quarry, with a large industrial vehicle. Part of the earth it is manipulating releases a strange light when disturbed. The foreman is called over and there is a large rock with writing on it. The workmen shift it (as you do) revealing a massive shaft. Suddenly light explodes out of the shaft. Elsewhere, Master Cheung (Lau Kar-Leung), is snoozing at a community play when he wakes realising the evil has escaped. We discover later he is at end of life due to cancer.

fight flashback

He gets back to his room and uncovers a couple of cases. One contains a bow and three arrows. A flashback sees his father, a Taoist priest 50 years before, fighting a person possessed by a cat demon. He manages to catch the cat in a net and holds it whilst a young Cheung stabs through his father (at his command), skewering his heart and passing into the cat. The way to kill it (without the spirit immediately possessing another) is by stabbing through the heart (with a particular wood). The cat is thrown down the shaft – it is the 8th time it has been defeated by the Cheung family, it returns every 50 years and Master Cheung must kill it one last time.

dead guard

At an industrialist’s tower block the new security guard shift is getting to work. One is sent to investigate a rancid smell. The industrialist, Mr Fan (Stuart Ong), is in a bedroom area with his PA Tina (Hsu Shu-Yuen, Vampire’s Breakfast). As they clean up he calls through for his driver Long (Mark Cheng Ho-Nam) to pick him up. Meanwhile the security guard finds a body in a pile of refuse, which comes alive and attacks him. Tina is still getting ready by the time Fan goes downstairs. All the guards are dead (we see one with a neck wound) and the door locked. He is chased through the building.

Fan in cat mode

Long is driving back (with the woman he had been dating in the car) when a figure, Master Cheung, appears in the road causing him to hammer the breaks on. The road is empty when Long gets out to look, but Master Cheung has already got in the rear seats and asks for a lift to the city. After complaints from the woman, they tie her to a lamppost and drive off. There is some banter, with Master Cheung seeing something off in Long’s future and giving him a protective amulet. When they get to Fan’s tower the cops and reporters are there – anchor-woman Cheung Siu-Chuen (Joann Tang Lai-Ying) happens to be Master Cheung’s daughter. Fan has gone home already. Later however, after Fan attacks Long he ends up going to Master Cheung and becoming his apprentice as they try and stop the cat demon.

Long and the cat

The end make-up of the cat was great, and the vampirism came in too ways. The cat drinks blood to achieve immortality within a chosen host and we also see the cat clearly sucking out lifeforce like an energy vampire. The cat does possess bodies and we get the use of prayer scrolls as a protection from the cat and a way to render the wearer invisible. The three arrows are made of the wood that can destroy the cat as well as the host and there is a comment that they are the last three pieces of this type of wood (though not what the wood is called). The bow is also meant to be magic. This was a good watch. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: Hard Rock Nightmare

This Dominick Brascia directed movie from 1988 certainly feels as though it is a product of its age. For the most part a werewolf story it is the opening of the film that interests me from a vampire genre point of view. Not that there is a vampire, but there certainly is belief in vampires.

It starts, in black and white, with Grandpa telling young Jim that werewolves and vampires are real and that he is one of the latter. He is really scaring the kid and doesn’t let up when Grandma tells him to. It seems he is drunk, perhaps, certainly bullying and abusive.

Grandpa goes off to sleep in his hammock. Jim, realising what must be done when confronted with a vampire, approaches with stake and hammer and rams that wood through the old man’s ticker. Of course, a stake will kill a mortal human as much as it will a vampire… And that’s almost it, claiming to be a vampire (more than acting as one, I feel) and a belief in vampires leading to parricide.

grandpa staked

Cut forward and Jim is lead singer with wannabe rock stars the Bad Boys. They keep getting hassle from the local police for being too loud in rehearsal, so the band, and a few girls, go to Jim’s farm – left to him by his grandmother – to practice out in the country. Only it seems the stories about werewolves, at least, were true. I said that killing Grandpa was almost it, clearly the murder has had an on-running effect on Jim and at one point he has a nightmare when those with him had fangs, so dreaming of vampires also.

The imdb page is here.

Classic Literature: The Isle of Blood

When looking at vampire literature it is common to go back to 1819 and Polidori’s the Vampyre but, whilst this is recognised as the first English language prose, there were English poems and prose in other languages before it. This short excerpt from Louis-Sébastien Mercier has been identified by Blackcoat Press as coming from his 1768 volume Songes Philosophiques and has been translated by the late, great Brian Stableford. It doesn’t mention the word vampire and is a dream sequence (brought on by consumption of black pudding). However, we can recognise some aspects that would be identified as a vampire in years to come (in this case living vampires).

The narrator recalls a dream of a strange land run by a chief known as a Sansudourph, ruling over lesser chiefs called Sansuminadourphs. They all subsist on human blood, though the Sansudourph may drink it pure, whilst the others must mix it with goat’s blood. The populace is taxed both for blood and the sweat off their brows. The dream sequence takes in a scene where a child is brought as tribute and the Sansudourph drinks straight from her body through a siphon. Following this her heart is removed, but the executioner (who removed it) was obliged to make her live again. This act is left hanging, unseen and unsolved, as the dream moves on.

The narrator then visits a family who, due to illness, had not paid their blood tithe for some time. The tax was loaned by their Sansuminadourph draining a slave, instead of the father, and they were obliged to pay the debt. Unfortunately, as the father was dying they took the rent from all his children, leaving one to “perpetuate the race and the rent of blood.”

The dream then ends but we get the idea of blood farming in the general narrative and, whilst the v word is absent, the Sansudourph is surely a living vampire. I have linked the volume I have seen this in. It is only a few pages but there are may other good bits of 19th and early 20th century literature in the volume.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Shark Girl – Review

Directors: Justin Shilton & Rob Zazzali

Release date:2024

Contains spoilers

I had been approached to consider Shark Girl for review, with co-director Rob Zazzali suggesting “while not a straight-up vampire movie, it definitely has consistent vampire vibes.” But I was concerned, not because it was the directors’ first feature but because I was still haunted by memories of Sharkula. Well, first off, as far as I am concerned this can be classed as a vampire film. However, more importantly, I was not only pleasantly surprised, but I was also rather impressed.

Ryan Bertroche as Ron

The film starts with an emergency at the SoCal nuclear reactor. With limited funds the filmmakers managed to give a fair sense of the emergency visually as well as in audio. A reactor fire, they vent coolant into the sea. A shark is caught in the ejected effluent – the shark isn’t brilliantly rendered but is on for a brief moment and not repeated and gives us enough but not so much it detracts. I will say at this point that I was also taken by very competent photography and it was the professional photography through that impressed me - too often it as a failure point in budget films.

looking for likes

Heidi (Alexandra Corin Johnston) is an influencer. Now it is interesting to me that influencer culture is being used so much in horror films generally and within vampire films specifically. It is not a shock, obviously the films are reflecting times, and I do look at influencer culture along with the vampire as capitalist and zombie as consumer in my contribution to the forthcoming Toxic Nostalgia on Screen. What was interesting to me, therefore, was the portrayal of Heidi, at this point, as pleasant and exploited – this is not the normal portrayal of an influencer.

Alexandra Corin Johnston as Heidi

For instance, she sees a flyer about a missing dog and wants to take time to share it with her followers. Her boyfriend and photographer Ron (Ryan Bertroche) has no such sympathies. They head to the beach for more shots, and he wants her in the water (to capture a wet hair flip). She does not want to go in but he bullies her in and again to make her go further out. He is distracted with his camera when something grabs Heidi and pulls her under – sensibly the filmmakers showed nothing here and leave it to the imagination of the viewer – when he can’t see her, he gets the hump and leaves – dropping a terse voicemail. He assumes she has left and has no real concern for her.

beach attack

A couple are on the beach at night, she’s a little freaked as it is so dark. After a while he notices something and realises it is a body. He goes over and it is Heidi, alive but unconscious. They have no signal, so he sends his girlfriend to get help. Heidi comes round, grabs the young man and bites his neck. When the woman comes back she attacks her also. Now we see her teeth have become sharp and shark-like, but that is the only transformation aspect used. We also only see her bite and feed like a vampire – there is dialogue about victims ripped apart and body parts strewn, this is all off screen but this decision works. With knowledge of the shark aspect we accept the unseen frenzy, with the aesthetic we accept the vampire feeding.

Sumayyah Ameerah as Sienna

So, as the film progresses we see Heidi transform more in personality than physically – she becomes more predatory, unwilling to be the victim to Ron, other influencers, agents or temperamental designers. This develops further where she becomes alien to the world, indifferent, even cruel. The word alien is useful as there is a thread that borrows from Species (1995). Also involved are Christopher (Nick Tag) a wannabe reporter who went to her high school and her best friend Sienna (Sumayyah Ameerah), a marine biologist. The film's narrative is underpinned with conspiracy theory, mostly around industrial conspiracy. 

shark teeth

There isn’t a lot of lore – she is a mutation and we can say created by science, or at least the detritus science leaves behind. Pressing her head in the right place makes her paralyse for a short moment (equivalent to striking a shark on the nose and disrupting the electrical sense). She is not the only one to have been mutated and there is a serum that can be personalised to revert the mutation, we also realise that a bite can turn another. There was nearly a staking moment – a harpoon is used – but it did not strike the heart.

Nick Tag as Christopher

What I liked about this, first and foremost, was the very competent photography. The acting was good and whilst the story was a tad on the silly side the filmmakers knew what they were doing with it. I liked the idea that Christopher’s suspicions get raised as wound bite diameters were too small for a shark large enough to do the damage found – the fact that it doesn’t seem that the authorities work that out isn’t overly commented on. Heidi leaves a trail, which is too close to her for getting away with her activities, but the timeframe is small enough that the fact we only see her friends tracking her does work. I also like the choice the filmmakers made to not have bad practical or CGI effects and work on a less is more basis. Is it the greatest film, nope, but it is a film called Shark Girl for heaven’s sake. However, it looks good, has a decent characterisation in Heidi and entertained. 6 out of 10 surprised me but is absolutely fair.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

Greenberg the Vampire – review

Writer: J.M. Dematteis

Artists: Steve Leialoha & Mark Badger

First published: 2015 (TPB)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Oscar Greenberg is not your typical vampire. He doesn't drink human blood, for one. He's a successful author - albeit prone to writer's block. And he's a good son, who's kept his secret from his dear old Mama. Oscar's also very much in love with Denise, the vamp who turned him. Their happily-ever-after might actually last forever - unless someone comes between them. Someone like Arthur Keaton: Vampire Hunter, who also happens to be Denise's brother! Then there's the demonic Lilith, who has long had designs on Oscar.

The review: Marvel are well known, of course, for the superhero genre but Greenberg the Vampire does not fit in that genre. This was a 2015 reissue of two stories originally published in the 1980s. The first, in black and white and from Bizarre Adventures #29, was the much shorter of the two pieces. The colour story was from Graphic Novel #20.

The stories centre on Oscar, a writer turned into a vampire who loves his girlfriend (and sire) Denise and who has kept his mortal connections with his elderly Jewish mother (we are told that the Star of David is as effective as a cross at one point), who doesn’t know his secret, his brother who does – and supplies him with the blood he consumes from his butcher shop – and his nephew Morrie who is sort of his PA. In the first story there is a tale of a cult, whilst a hunter cuts through the ranks of the undead – who happens to be Denise’s brother and thinks he is avenging her death (he never knew she turned).

In the second story, Oscar has writer's block and is lured towards the movie industry and writing a screenplay of one of his own novels. Simultaneously a serial killer haunts New York, manipulated by Lilith who also has her sights on Oscar and, indeed, had claimed him when he was still in the cradle.

The art of the second story suits the time period from when it was drawn and is lovely in places, whereas the first (in black and white ink) is a bit more utilitarian. The stories, despite the supernatural aspects, really stand as character studies. Interesting stuff and a world away from superheroes. 7 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Inside Job: Whoas-Feratu – review

Directors: Mike Bertino & Vitaliy Strokous (supervising director)

First aired: 2022

Contains spoilers

Inside Job is an animated series that follows Regan Ridley (Lizzy Caplan, True Blood & Castle Rock) as a member of Cognito Inc, the Deep State function that secretly rules the world (along with five other secret societies) and the premise is that many conspiracy theories are true.

Hollywood vampires

When we first meet her, she is socially awkward but a genius who lives with her father, Rand (Christian Slater, Interview with the Vampire), he being an ex-Cognito employee who was sacked when he became alcoholic and unstable. By this episode, which is the second of season 2, Rand has become the despotic CEO of Cognito, Inc.

showing off Keanu

Rand is excited as his ex-wife, Tamiko (Suzy Nakamura), is visiting the office (he assumes to rekindle their marriage). However, she has only come to show off her new boyfriend, Keanu Reeves (Roger Craig Smith, Marvel’s Avengers Assemble: Blood Feud) and not invite everyone to the premier of his new film. Rand hatches a plot to lure her away from Reeves but Regan has a more mellow outlook on life (since she started a secret affair with an Illuminati agent) and approves of the relationship…

caught

That is until she accidentally sees Keanu hooked to a blood transfuser, with a goblet of blood to drink. Keanu, like many of the male A list in Hollywood, is much older than he makes out. Indeed he is around 400 and a vampire who drinks/transfuses the blood of young women to maintain his youth. After getting the inside scoop from the Illuminati, Regan goes out of her way to kill him. Through their fight we discover that crosses do not impact him but her cross contains an electrified sword and she also has a garlic gun.

garlic ammo

I really thought this episode was good fun. I’ve enjoyed the series to be fair but the idea of the A listers being vampires particularly tickled me. The Keanu impression was more flattering than some of the ‘celebrity appearances’ in the episode. The episode also wrapped itself up neatly and I think is likely to work as a standalone (notwithstanding that knowledge of the characters might prove to be a boon when watching). 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Use of Tropes: Madam Yankelova's Fine Literature Club

Having sought out the Lady and the Peddler my next stop on the journey inspired by Melissa Weininger’s Palgrave Handbook of the Vampire chapter was this 2017 film directed by Guilhad Emilio Schenker.

Strangely dystopian, this film could be read as a stealth vampire film or a film that plays with the tropes by placing Agnon’s story at the heart of the film in its own right.

The film follows Sophie (Keren Mor) a member of the title’s Fine Literature Club, a female only group who despise the concept of love and whose active members have to find male companions to bring to the Club. There Madam Yankelova (Leah Koenig) reads her favourite Agnon story – the Lady and the Peddler – and then the men are mechanically bound, measured and the lady who brought the most ideal (according to prescribed measurements) wins a trophy. The men are then slaughtered… what becomes of them?

hot dogs

The Agnon story hints that they are then eaten, but we do not see that – we do, however, see a kitchen producing large numbers of hot dogs (presumably human). We also discover that Sophie’s refrigerator and cupboards are practically bare and this brings the words of Agnon’s Lady to mind, “But whatever food she tried to eat she would throw up, for she had already forgotten the science of eating ordinary human food, as it was her practice to eat the flesh of her husbands whom she slaughtered and to drink their blood”.

Madam Yankelova presides

Sophie has 98 trophies and, as the film opens, she wins trophy number 99 – though it is almost accidentally and she has not won a trophy in a long time. To get to 100 would mean she would join the ranks of the House of Lordesses, which is described as an “eternal membership”, though the use of eternal might be hyperbole or a vampiric reward – the film does not say. Her main rival is Lola (Ania Bukstein), a younger woman who has quickly built up her trophy tally.

Sophie and Lola, rivals

Too much failure and Sophie will be relegated to cleaning and sanitation – a demotion where one must serve club members and clean up after club meetings (and prepare hot dogs). Sophie’s friend Hannah (Hana Laslo) was in cleaning and sanitation but has run away (and fallen in love). The club is looking to find and punish her and have Lola watching Sophie as they assume the friend will contact her. Sophie has also met a man, Yossef (Yiftach Klein), interested in Agnon’s work and fate seems to be conspiring to make her actually fall in love with him.

Sophie and Yosef

The film itself is a slow burn, with an air of fantastique meets Kafka to it. If you are unfamiliar with the Agnon story then the cannibalism hinted at might be missed and certainly the vampirism would not be noticed. Whether they are vampires, with 100 victims bestowing eternity, actually cannibals or simply a club of literature reading serial killers is down to interpretation. The imdb page is here.