Sete da Vampira – review

Director: Roger A. Fratter

Release date: 1998

Contains spoilers

An Italian very low-budget film, this had pretentions of arthouse and reminded me as I watched it of Chris Alexander’s more auteur output – though Alexander came later and his output is much more solid. I think perhaps it was in the scenes of walking, dreamlike, through the film – though the more deliberate attachment of a narrative in this vehicle (which was perhaps not as successful as it might be) undermined the more dreamlike quality that Alexander engenders. This also had a character, and a specific moment for that character, which felt like Jess Franco was being invoked.

wandering

It starts with a man walking through a snowy landscape, a voiceover suggests he had received a letter from artist Marco Spaccesi (Carlo Girelli) who is missing. The film then moves to a woman in bed, she gets up and searches a building until she opens a door and sees a female vampire, later revealed to be Carmilla (Elisabetta Principe), feeding on a man. The woman is grabbed by an unseen man who slits her throat with a knife.

Carlo Girelli as Marco

The film then has quite long ponderous moments of Carmilla wandering around, victims running (the first through a wood being followed by Carmilla’s limping manservant Samuel (Mirko Riva)). We also get Marco wandering around, having dreamed of Carmilla. He goes to Virginia Thompson (Marta Bordino) to try and locate Carmilla – at the end of the film we discover the vampire is Carmilla Thompson, so not Karnstein. He even gets involved with a séance.

Elisabetta Principe as Carmilla

There isn’t much narrative, so the dialogue struggles to express it. We get an odd moment of Carmilla whipping Virginia but they are clearly shot in different rooms, likely even different buildings. It gave the impression that it was a psychic attack, especially as Virginia seemed unmarked – though in a scene after we see they have applied some very faint makeup weals. Equally Virginia later stabs at Carmilla, in an inversion of the scene. Samuel is abused by Carmilla, who speaks disdainfully of him and at one point makes him don a hat and dance for her pleasure – and it was the treatment of Samuel that reminded me of Jess Franco’s work.

licking

There isn’t much more to say about this – though the vampire can be temporarily killed, she will return and the idea is that this is a curse for the ages, I think. She is a little sloppy, getting a bowl of blood and pouring it down her naked torso rather than drinking it and then rubbing blood on her lips after the fact. The photography wasn’t great but there was at least a dreamlike quality to the affair. The version I watched is apparently the director’s cut but that didn’t stop it dragging in parts. However, it is definitely a curiosity. 3.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Mimì - Il principe delle tenebre – review

Director: Brando De Sica

Release date: 2023

Contains spoilers

In English the title is Mimì, the Prince of Darkness and this is a strangely effective Italian movie and one in which you question whether there is a vampire but the megatext is front and centre of the story. It has some strong themes and, whilst admittedly dragging in the middle act just a tad, it has a wonderfully explosive ending.

The film opens with footsteps over the credits and laboured breathing. We get a cityscape and then see a pizza delivery van drive along a winding road. It stops outside a large house and we see that the driver, Mimì (Domenico Cuomo), walks with an awkward gait but scales the gate into the property with ease. We see him drop into a swimming pool in just his tidy whities and notice that his feel are unusually large. A resident gets up and lights come on, Mimì has skedaddled leaving behind large, wet footprints.

Domenico Cuomo as Mimì

Mimì works in the pizzeria owned by Nando (Mimmo Borrelli), later we hear that Mimì was brought up by nuns in an orphanage until Nando took him in as an adolescent, raised him and gave him the job. Nando has gone to deliver a pizza to regular customer Giusi (Abril Zamora), who is a tad resentful that Mimì hasn’t brought it – she talls Nando she had a dream of the young man, scared in a corner and hissing like a cat. Meanwhile Mimì is having a cigarette when he sees some young men approaching.

bullied

He ducks in the pizzeria and pulls the shutter down but they are rattling on it and, despite him saying that they are closed and the oven is off, they open the shutter and demand feeding. The leader of this gang is Bastianello (Giuseppe Brunetti), and though it isn’t said outright, it would appear he is the son of a local crime boss. Bastianello is acting out towards a young Goth girl (Sara Ciocca) and it appears Mimì has had his active bystander training as he tries to distract him. This just makes them turn on him, they pull his shoes off to reveal his deformed feet calling him a freak and a monster.

Mimmo Borrelli as Nando

Later Mimì hears a phone ringing. He climbs the stairs from his basement room and finds a dropped phone. The caller is the girl and it is her phone and he drives to the docks to return it. She actually takes Mimì’s number, gives hers and says that he can call her Carmilla. The following day Nando sees the bruised eye Mimì has been left with, and goes to see Bastianello’s father who seems to be in a medical pod and is clearly extremely unwell. In the night Bastianello sees Mimì in his van, chases him down and pursues him into the cemetery. He beats the crap out of Mimì for talking to his father.

Sara Ciocca as Carmilla

After Bastianello has left, a gang of Goths emerge from the shadows, including Carmilla. They take Mimì to the house they are squatting in. From here Mimì and Carmilla draw closer and become a couple even. The problem is they are not reliable narrators. Carmilla is a fantasist, she suggests that she is the daughter of a Romanian princess, and her surname is Vlad (after Vlad Ţepeş), she also tells Mimì that Dracula is buried there in Naples. Her fantasy life hides the fact that she is an underaged runaway. For his part, Mimì is naïve to the point of credulity. He hires Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens and seems to believe the yarn the video shop guy spins about Schreck actually being a vampire. Getting jealous of her dancing with a guy with fangs, he gets fangs but they actually rip teeth out and replace them with cemented in fangs. We see them kiss and fly, but it is likely the drugs she has provided.

the vampire and Mimì

The film follows their romance, which comes to an abrupt halt when Bastinello and his pal Rocco (Daniele Vicorito) attack him again, whilst Carmilla is performing a rite of devotion over “Dracula’s grave”. Unconscious, Mimì sees the vampire and believes he has been bitten by him. Mimì also goes into a coma for a month and a half. I won’t spoil further forward. The film is well acted with the two leads giving good performances and the film clearly loves the vampire genre. It did, as mentioned, feel to drag a little in the middle section but it didn’t spoil the film and the ending sequences are absolutely worth sticking around for. Despite the pacing moments, 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Handbook of the Vampire: Carl Dreyer’s Vampyr and the World of Dreams

Written for Handbook of the Vampire by Gillian McIver the Chapter Page can be found here.

Dedicated to the wonderful film Vampyr the author takes us on a study of the film touching on its financing, Dreyer’s vision and some of the themes and imagery in the film itself.

One aspect that I particularly liked, as it is not something I picked up personally, was the observation that the predation of Chopin (the vampire) on Leone is actually age preying on youth. A marvellous observation. The book within the film, The Curious History of the Vampire, by Paul Bonnat, O.P. Published by Gottfried Faust’s Estate – 1770 AD, which we read much of during the running time on intertitles, was so central to the film that (in my original review of the film I quote it extensively). The author quotes Dreyer himself as seeing the book as a character itself. I liked the reading of the film as being a series of dreams belonging to Allan Grey.

The one thing I did find odd was that the author didn’t touch on the over-exposure of the film, which offers its distinctive look. Though this may be because that has been touched on many times before.

Honourable Mentions: Debbie Does Demons

Ah, Donald Farmer, director of many a poor film… this is his 2023 opus and, whilst rubbish, it is so knowingly so that one almost can take it as a self-styled meme and appreciate it for that. The primary reason for having the mention is that the central antagonist is named Carmilla Karnstein (Jessa Flux) – the name obviously coming from Carmilla and her look owing a tad to Franco’s Female Vampire - though in this she is a witch.

The opening credits actually seem quite well shot, a low tracking through a graveyard that has a feel of film of a more 60s/70s pedigree (and added pops and scratches). The cuts to shenanigans with rubber demons probably breaks that a bit but this is a rule of thumb for the movie – all the demons look blooming awful.

Carmilla grabs an innocent

We get some detail about the witch Carmilla, from the witch herself, and then we are in the show Debbie Does Demons (named, of course, for one of the most famous of adult movies). Debbie (Angel Nichole Bradford) is the host of a horror show and the next scene would seem to be presented on the show (except that the Carmilla character is played by Flux and thus it might also be a flashback). If the former then we can forgive the fact that the nun and monk outfits are clearly cheap end Halloween costumes of modern material and, as well as a cape, Carmilla wears some very modern briefs (and nothing else), this also allows a forgiveness of the very shaky camerawork (as the show is on the cheap) if the latter, then it’s poor.

the possessed monk

Anyway, Carmilla has grabbed a woman in period dress and is promising to use her virgin blood in a rite that will allow her mother, killed by witchfinders, to possess the innocent's body and finish the work of bringing Hell on Earth. Her plan is foiled when grabbed by a monk – who is a witchfinder – and a couple of nuns. However, she then decides to pass her spirit (mouth to mouth) into the witchfinder, who subsequently spits blood onto a nun and is now Carmilla… the story ends, Debbie ends her show.

the friends

Four friends Lauren (Morrigan Thompson), Jan (Dixie Gers), Ashley (Roni Jonah) and Adam (Adam Freeman) are watching the show (bad scripting later makes incorrect names be used – Ashley is called Angela at one point – and things be forgotten, such as Lauren forgetting that the Debbie Does Demon show exists after making her friends watch it). Lauren knew the episode was about Carmilla, announces she is a descendant thereof and suggest contacting the witch through a ouija board. As soon as it works Adam and Ashley leg it to their rooms upstairs and Lauren has a seizure. Jan runs to her room and is first to meet Carmilla who manifests in the shower, as you do, because… boobs (though they are out through 95% of her screen time anyway).

attack of the vampire nuns

So, Carmilla turns Jan and Adam into demons (who actually just look a bit like really low budget zombies whose makeup comprises of blood round the mouth) and Lauren has to find a way of unsummoning the witch. But, whilst I have mentioned this because of the use of Carmilla's name, there are two scenes to mention that are part of the Debbie Does Demon show. The first is linked as a piece on a haunted mansion, but instead we see a priest with a stake go to a building, be let in by nuns who are more in fetish dress than holy vestments – and they call the place the Church of Hallowed Holes. We see a woman (presumably vampire) get out a coffin and the priest attacked by nuns (who were previously licking blood from a naked nun) and consequently put in the coffin. It’s definitely a vampire scene with no narrative to speak of.

the succubus

At the end of the film, we see another part of Debbie’s show that has adult film maker/star Newt Wallen (Les Price) go with a crew to a burnt out building where his father had tried to summon a demon to have sex with and the place had burnt down. Newt is going to try and summon the demon, a succubus (Roxie Rose), for the same reason. She appears and then bites his bits off as the woman with him shows fangs. All in all, the two scenes are just fleeting visitations. The film itself is rubbish, but so knowingly rubbish it was actually not as bad as it should have been.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK

V is for Vampire – review

Director: Paul Knop

Release date: 2000

Contains spoilers

A straight to VHS film, this is a washed-out looking affair but, despite amateur acting and a simple storyline, there is something amusing to this and a good nugget of an idea. It had a very short run on Blu-Ray but don’t expect any remastering, if you can track it down.

It starts in Eastern Europe in 1599 and Mi Lady (Michele Mattert) is taking a bubble bath as the, maid, Greta (Lori Boyd), comes upstairs carrying a lamp. She brings a towel and Mi Lady gets out to be dried but Greta slits her throat and allows the blood to pour into the bath. The real mistress of the house is the Countess and her bath has been prepared.

photoshoot

In the modern-day Marty Larson (Amy Luciano) is an agent and one of her clients is portrait artist turned photographer (and whinger) Carlo (Greg Dukes). She has an idea for him – world famous vampire novelist Laura Manning (Vicki DiSalvo) is running a photography competition and the winner will get to photograph the cover of her new novel – V is for Vampire. Carlo is enthused and talks model (and girlfriend, it seems) Stacy (Josalyn Steele) into posing.

bubble bath shoot

We get quite a long sequence of his photoshoots and, unusually, there is no nudity thrown in this flick. Unfortunately, Marty doesn’t think the shots are good enough. Even worse, her boyfriend is Zach (Tony McDowel) and he is also a photographer and, having seen what Carlo produced, he decides to enter the competition also. He asks model Kristy (Jenny Tarnowski) to pose but she refuses due to the place she is in her career. He gets her into a bubble bath, shoots her with a crossbow (the shaft looking like a stake), Marty adds fangs and this becomes his entry.

Vicki DiSalvo as Laura

So, the photo wins the competition and they get to meet the reclusive Laura Manning, who confides that her Countess Karnstein character was based on a real aristocrat who bathed in blood to stay young and also drank it. So, we have a conflation of Carmilla (through name) and Bathory through action. Funnily enough, Marty suggests that the novel ‘the Countess’ reads almost as though it was actual memoirs… Could Laura be a vampire? What will happen to Marty and Zach if she is?

fangs

We don’t get much in the way of lore – simply that a vampire cannot be photographed. The film is very short (less than an hour) and looks dreadful in its washed out, VHS print way – in fact the poster for the film is probably the best looking part of it. But I liked the (very basic) story and despite the amateur acting (or over-acting) I was kind of taken by the characters. Not that the film is brilliant, it isn’t by any stretch of the imagination, but it amused me whilst on. 4 out of 10 is probably overly generous but less feels churlish.

The imdb page is here.

Use of Tropes: Kuntilanak 2

Rizal Mantovani’s 2019 film is a sequel to a film that I looked at as a ‘Vamp or Not?’ and concluded that it might be Vamp if one accepted that an aspect of the film portrayed energy vampirism. The film itself was a mix of horror and a kid’s movie, about a group of orphans – 3 young boys, 2 young girls and an older sister (and her boyfriend). The sequel concerns the same family group… except that the older sister is no longer there and has been replaced with a new older sister, Julia (Susan Sameh), and her boyfriend Edwin (Maxime Bouttier). Where she has come from is anyone’s guess – though there is a throwaway mention of potentially returning to LA.

Kuntilanak Eyes

The film starts with a man entering a cellar and kneeling before what looks like a cross between a shrine and a portal, in the cellar wall, to another world (which it literally is). He performs a ritual and the shape of a kuntilanak (when we see her later, she has taken a human’s appearance and is played by Karina Suwandhi) appears within the corridor and comes towards him. Addressing her as Highness he says that he has freed her and asks for the boon of being taught black magic. She makes hand movements above his head and he dies.

the cellar portal

At a carnival, Dinda (Sandrinna Michelle) is desperately searching for youngest of the orphans Ambar (Ciara Nadine Brosnan), who has wandered off. Miko (Ali Fikry) is also searching, though Kresna (Andryan Bima) and Panji (Adlu Fahrezi) have distracted themselves at one of the fairground games. Julia is searching also, though Edwin is not so much use as he keeps trying to chill and meditate to counter the stress. Kresna wins a teddy and they get in an altercation with some other boys, who try to steal it and the head gets ripped off.

the boys

Dinda sees Ambar walking in the crowd and chases after her but Ambar seems unresponsive. Eventually we see her atop a (closed) Ferris wheel, seemingly asleep (or in a trance) a shape moving behind her when Dinda’s voice on a walkie talkie brings her round. When she is brought down, she claims a beautiful woman led her to the wheel – kuntilanak they all say, bar Edwin who is skeptical, especially when they suggest they have met one.

Karmilla and Dinda

So, a woman pitches up at the house and speaks to the foster mom (Nena Rosier) claiming to be Karmila, Dinda’s biological mother. This is our first trope, I can’t believe the name was used for any reason than to intertextually tie into Carmilla. Obviously, the name gives the viewer a red flag and she is the kuntilanak. She claims to have spoken to the orphanage but offers no documentary proof and leaves a map to her house in the forest. Dinda has overheard it all.

child ghost

She wants to go and visit her mother but foster mom says she needs to check things out. Dinda, who has taken the map, sleeps and dreams of a tree and a beating heart, on waking she resolves to sneak away but is caught by Julia who suggests that if the mom will allow it, she will go with her. All the other kids say they’ll go too. Like a diligent foster mom, permission is given for all her wards to go visit the mysterious woman, miles away in a forest, who claims without proof to be the biological mom, whilst she gets more information… well if she didn’t there wouldn’t be much of a film. The kids end up in a cabin in the woods, Edwin gets haunted and then possessed by two child ghosts known to accompany kuntilanak and for some reason Karmila plays house for a while before supernaturally terrorising everyone (bar Dinda).

claiming Dinda

The full story is that Dinda’s parents (whose family name was Karmila) were part of the Mangkujiwo bloodline, who worship the kuntilanak and, as part of their pact, they all have to offer the creature their first born (incidentally there are spin off films entitled Mangkujiwo). Dinda’s mother did not want to give her to the creature, dropped her at the orphanage and then she and her husband (T. Rifnu Wikana) sealed her in the kuntilanak’s otherworldly forest Ujung Sedo and died as part of that sealing. The kuntilanak deems Dinda as her own.

stabbing the heart

Her actions are not particularly vampiric, though on occasion her mouth splits a bit like the reaper strain in Blade 2. We do see her head chopped off and then reattached and she can float around. When she captures the kids, they are held within roots at the centre of Ujung Sedo. One could imagine that the tree will drain their life force, but it isn’t stated. If this is the case then the tree is intimately linked to the kuntilanak. Dinda is given an ornate hairpin belonging to her real mother and is able to injure the kuntilanak and ward her with it. However, stabbing in the head does not kill the creature (unlike in the first film). She sees that the tree has a heart in its centre – we can assume the kuntilanak’s heart – and staking it with the hair pin kills the creature and frees the kids. It is analogous to staking a western vampire.

warding evil

So there are our two tropes – staking in the (detached) heart and Karmila/Carmilla. There might be feeding on life force but it is a fanciful guess rather than a sure thing. The child actors are of a varying level of skill but Andryan Bima offers a stand out performance, with Ali Fikry not far behind. Like the first film this struggles with its nature as a kids facing film conflicting with the horror that it wants to portray. Some of the story is too silly (like letting all her wards just go and visit the mysterious woman she has met for 5-minutes). The imdb page is here.

Vamp or Not? Don't Wake the Dead

This was a 2008 flick by Andreas Schnaas, who is known for his low budget, splatter filled madcap horrors. It was Leila who suggested to me that I could look at it as a ‘Vamp or Not?’ and pointed out its similarity to the Blind Dead films. Now if you haven’t seen the four original Blind Dead films they are a must (mostly, the third film does let the series down) for any fan of horror exploitation cinema and, in fact, I noted the vampire tropes that cropped up in the first two films. The idea that it might be along the lines of the Blind Dead was a deal maker.

Templar rises

That connection (though the term Blind Dead is not mentioned) is seen straight off the bat when we are told of Knights Templar in a Germania castle who are killed but lay a curse. Every 66 years, for one night, these Knights will rise and take their revenge and the only two things that can stop them are the morning sun and the Sword of Mecca.

calm before the storm

So, the film follows a couple of women shopping, they eventually stop for a drink and are met by a third and hurried to the coach that will take them all to Schloss Karnstein (so a connection to Carmilla) where they are helping a friend decorate/restore the Castle interior. A Motorbike sets off at the same time and in the same direction.

Lana and the portrait

Meanwhile, the friend, Lana (Sonja Kerskes), is trying to remove or cover the portrait of a Nazi officer, though creepy butler, Janowitz (Wolfgang Wobeto), argues that it is part of the castle’s history so should remain (and we cut to scenes of Nazi soldiers fighting against the Knights Templar and losing). Lana phones her friends in the (real) band Gang Loco who are meant to be coming to the castle also. Meanwhile the bike has tried to get the coach of ladies to turn back.

leader of the dead

So the bike rider is a (leather coat wearing, habit-less) monk called Vincent (Ralph Fellows) who does a blood ritual at the castle to awaken the Knights (and some Nazi zombies now on the Templars' side). Why? So he can destroy them, but the film doesn’t really explain why a blood ritual is needed when the curse is meant to awaken them anyway. Unfortunately, right at the beginning he manages to break the blade of the sword of Mecca. The dead kill the band members out on the road (and they reappear later, turned and playing a track at an undead party in the castle) and they lay siege to the castle looking to kill the women within.

fangs

Other potential vampire connections are a direct connection to Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires as Vincent suggests he hunted them (he is also a user of the flying guillotine and suggests that Wang Yu trained him in a reference to Jimmy Wang Yu and his film Master of the Flying Guillotine). The dead turn their victims ritualistically and one, in flashback, has fangs. Some seem shuffling and zombified but others seem sentient. We see one rip a victim’s heart out and then drink the blood from it. Vincent tells us that sunrise will melt the flesh off the deads’ bones (though when we see a newly turned in the sun’s rays the creature more explodes) but in response to the sunlight statement he is asked ‘like a vampire?’ and he responds that vampires and zombies are pretty much the same.

zombie girl

Therefore, I think it is clear that the filmmakers were just throwing the kitchen sink in. The vampire connections were deliberate (hence the seven golden vampires, which in turn is intertextually related to Dracula, and Carmilla references) but these are definitely more a hybrid, perhaps more correctly termed as zompires. The Blind Dead side is as much aesthetic as anything. This is definitely of genre interest, whether it is of casual viewer interest is really down to whether you want a take your brain out, gore film which wears its exploitation heritage on its sleeve.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Short Film: 400 Ways to Kill a Vampire

This Christine Parker directed short was released in 2013 and comes in at around the 21:30 mark. What we get is a vampire hunter’s story and a lovely nod over to many classic tropes.

The opening credits have various clips from vampire films, shown in Black and White, and then it starts with a homeless man (Bill Mulligan) walking, with the aid of a staff, through the night time streets, moving into a wooded area and we also see a figure (Michael Ray Williams) following him.

He gets to a wooden bridge (over a depression in the forest floor) when the vampire following him is suddenly in front. Quick as a flash the man presses a Taoist prayer scroll to the vampire’s forehead, freezing him. As he takes the fake beard and moustache away the hunter – named as Vordenburg in the credits, the name being a lovely nod to Carmilla - explains that it doesn’t matter that the vampire doesn’t read Chinese or know of the book the kanji are copied from for it to work. He asks if the vampire can speak but he clearly can’t.

prayer scroll

Vordenburg explains that he is writing a book on how to kill vampires and claims 400 kills – later he says the kill count is 570 in 400 different ways – he also asks if the vampire will promise not to attack if he removes the scroll. He manoeuvres the vampire around so, when the scroll is removed, he falls from the bridge, this is followed by tossing a cross at the vampire who stumbles backwards and is caught in thorn bushes (later confirmed to be Hawthorn – and apparently the thorns cause the vampire to continuously bleed and eventually bleed to death).

worse things inn the night

The hunter takes a picture of the vampire (they can now, digitally) and sends the picture on, to have his organisation run him for an ID – guessing he was only two weeks turned. The vampire comes out with a pretentious vampire name and clan but the search says he is named Eddie, a high school dropout. Vordenburg wants to question him and eventually Eddie lets slip that he has a Mistress (Amber Teachey) – as it is she turns up. Vordenburg decides to leave his circle of protection to face what he realises is a very powerful vampire, knowing that pitting wills against her is dangerous but not realising the night might hold worse things.

the mistress

I did like the pitting of wills as the dialogue used indicated this was an inverted nod to Salem’s Lot and the pitting of wills between Barlow and Callahan. I also liked the various bits of lore tossed in – I was particularly taken by the idea of getting a vampire (a clan leader it is suggested) and dropping them in the centre of Jerusalem to watch them find something touched by Christ at every turn. The film does feel like a set up for more (either shorts or a feature) but it is still enjoyable in its own right. When I first started watching it I wasn’t sure, the opening scenes are deliberately dark and it just felt off a little, but as soon as the scroll was placed on Eddie’s forehead it had me.

The imdb page is here.

Vampires of Lore: Traditional Tales and Modern Misconceptions – review

Author: A P Sylvia

First Published: 2019

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Vampire . . . the word immediately conjures up bloodstained fangs, an aversion to sunlight, bats, garlic, and wooden stakes. These undead immortals have haunted our favorite books, television shows, and movies for decades. This exploration of a seemingly supernatural topic delves into past traditions around the world and how those traditions have affected our pop-culture modern-day monster. Explore belief systems as well as origins of various notions we all seem to have about vampires, and unearth the bloody dirt about this mystical creature. Discover differences and similarities between the realm of folklore and what modern media has taught us. Did villagers really use wooden stakes, garlic, and mirrors? What about vampires turning into bats or hypnotizing victims? Did they really cause disease, turn into dogs, and sleep in coffins? Topics are arranged by trait so that the reader can consider each characteristic before believing or dismissing it. So . . . if you're ready, let's hunt some vampires.

The review: There is a trepidation when facing a reference book sometimes. I have looked at them previously – especially ones driven by a desire by a publisher to tap into a pop culture area and where they seem to spend more attention on design (this is a nice hardback volume with fancy, glossy pages) than content – and found myself annoyed. Annoyed by lack of referencing, lack of indexing and, in some of the worst cases, errors by the bucket full.

So, lets cover off what this is about first before looking as to whether it addressed the standard gripes. Sylvia has set a task of examining tropes from the vampire genre (running on a vampire definition in chapter one of a restless corpse, corporeal and blood-drinker, but veering off-piste when there is something of interest to see) and comparing them to extant folklore to see whether those tropes/traits are from original sourcing or a media invention. The working definition established, the book is then split into a further 19 chapters each about a given trait (for example, sunlight has a chapter, as does garlic and mirrors respectively).

The splitting the chapters into trait might have made a lack of index forgivable – except he does index his work, happy days, and each chapter has end-note citations, and there is an overall bibliography. The writing is fairly chatty, but engaging for it, but I would say that the chapters are fairly short and there is certainly scope in some for expansion.

When it comes to accuracy I found (for the most part) that the author had examined relevant sources and was in the right ballpark. There were areas that possibly demanded deeper exploration – so, as a prime example, the conclusion was that a vampire’s ability to fly was from the media vampire and likely a twentieth-century invention (whilst acknowledging a couple of rare folkloric examples, one Russian and one Chinese). However, I would counter argue that flying is referenced in Pepopukin in Corsica (1826) and actively seen in Phantoms (1863). To give the author fair hearing their conclusion is stated to rest around “major vampire-themed works” but Alexandre Dumas père, it can be argued, must be deemed a major source and his Ruthven based stage-play contains stage notes that state, “Lord Ruthven first sits up—then rises completely and having shaken his hair to the wind, he deploys great wings and flies off.” However – having said that (and if the author ever does a 2nd edition I hope they consider the works I have mentioned) this was an incredibly rare moment where I disagreed with the conclusion on an error of fact (or perhaps parameter). For the main this showed a diligence in research exemplified by the marvellous find of a brief reference to the, so-called, Vampire of Snowdon – a tantalising moment from 1890.

So, it is a light volume – it took a day to read – but written in a very readable style and, whilst I believe there was plenty of room for expansion, as a primer for the division between folklore and media this does the job well. 7.5 out of 10.

In Hardback @ Amazon US

In Hardback @ Amazon UK

Portraits – review

Director: Stephanie Paris

Release date: 2018

Contains spoilers

This modern-day retelling of Carmilla (perhaps more a sequel than retelling, to be fair) does much right, with a definite nod to 70s horror – very telling within its deliberately languid pacing – but is perhaps guilty of throwing too much in that is underused and rushing ungracefully at its climax.

That said there is much to be enjoyed in the film, as we will see.

attacked

The film begins with a woman, in burlesque style underwear, backstage and getting changed. The lights go out. She shouts that there is someone still there and approaches the stairs. At the top a figure moves aside, keeping out of view. She returns downstairs and dresses in the dark, suddenly the lights go back on but too late to help her dress. She is going to leave when she is grabbed and stabbed, we see blood but not the assailant.

Mira and Lauren

After the credits (which includes some details of Victorian style corpse photography) we meet Mira (Olivia Bellafontaine) who is in her new apartment. She tries to open a bottle of wine with a knife and cuts her hand between finger and thumb. She goes to the apartment opposite and meets Lauren (Elissa Dowling, Dracula in a Women’s Prison, the Last Revenants, Live Evil & Dracula’s Curse). Mira asks for a corkscrew but Lauren insists on washing and band-aiding the wound. Lauren is a model (we discover Mira is a photographer) who runs an S&M phoneline on the side. She gives Mira a dress (that she was sent for free) and takes her to the in-building bar.

Irena Violette as Madeline

The bar also has a stage with an ongoing burlesque – Mira seems fascinated by the performer. Lauren takes her out to a smoking area where another photographer blows Lauren off, rejecting her for a shoot. Lauren leaves Mira on her own and she meets the burlesque performer, Madeline (Irena Violette, Transylmania & Metamorphosis). Madeline asks what Mira is short for and is told it is Mircalla. She takes Mira backstage to meet the other performers; Olivia (Rebecca Summers), Ruby (Paola Carleo) and Violet (Camille Calvin). Mira is invited to a birthday party the next night (sans Lauren).

bite

As we follow Mira we discover that she has inherited the apartment building and land from her Aunt, she has escaped a bad relationship (back home in New Orleans) and wants to make it as a photographer. She passes a Victorian photograph off as her own to get into a Day of the Dead exhibition. The picture was found in a time capsule of a set of rooms that taciturn handyman Emmerson (Jack Bennett) uses as a store room. Later she realises that it is the scene of at least one Victorian death photograph. Mira also begins to feel strange (a burning like hunger but not hungry, dizzy spells and vivid dreams) and all this starts after Madeline bites her wound (an act Mira doesn’t recall).

a vision of vampirism

The slow build-up worked well as this really nodded towards 70s Euro-horror at times and Emmerson seemed to have stepped from many an old Grindhouse flick. However there was something just a little off – there are murders and missing persons flying around but, whilst there is a connection, they are not explored fully, equally the building relationship between Mira and student photographer Nick (Michael Tribby) could have done with some extra building. Mira’s visions fit but are under-explored, especially around the death photography that seemed important and yet was woefully unexplored.

Mira and Madeline

Probably the aspect that worked least well was the sudden acceleration of plot at the end, taking place in coffin strewn underground tunnels that seemed a tad out of place. That said the film holds your attention and has a nice twist on lore (with a theme of reincarnation that was a little off-kilter from the more commonly used variety of the trope). The background history might have been explored a little more. None of the performances are poor, though Bellafontaine seems a tad lost at times – possibly due to the amount of scenes with Violette who comes across as very natural and offers a good, solid performance.

I liked this, I really did, but some tightening and expansion (or loss) of threads would see the film improving, possibly all the way to a classic. As it is, the film deserves a solid 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK