Honourable Mention: The Final Curtain

Edward D. Wood Jr. created this 22-minute pilot episode for a TV series that never happened in 1957, it was considered lost and then found, and released at Slamdance Festival in 2012.

It follows an actor (Duke Moore, Plan 9 from Outer Space), who was starring in a vampire play, exploring the empty theatre at night. There is an object, he doesn’t know what, that is calling for him to find it. He, essentially, is someone who acts like a vampire in the play we do not see.

Jeannie Stevens as the vampire

In one of the rooms there is a fright as he sees a woman and then realises it is a dummy that is used as a prop vampire in the play. However, the dummy seems to come to life and the character is called the Vampire (Jeannie Stevens). She beckons him but he leaves the room and slams the door. And that’s it, vampire wise, a fleeting visitation that might be fever dream. The whole thing is without character dialogue and rather it has an inner monologue narrated by Dudley Manlove (also Plan 9 From Outer Space) whose camp delivery does the episode no favours. A curiosity, certainly.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: Futurama: Our Flag Means Medical Coverage

2026 saw the return of Futurama and the third episode of the season, directed by Peter Avanzino, Dwayne Carey-Hill and Ira Sherak, had vampires – at least in a Fleeting Visitation,

It starts at the DOOP headquarters and President Glab (Tress MacNeille, Tiny Toon Adventures – Stuff that goes Bump in the Night) is looking to encourage the Vampire Empire to join DOOP by gifting their Emperor (Maurice LaMarche) a fabulous jewel encrusted piano and, to get it to their planet, she entrusts Fry (Billy West, Futurama: I Dated a Robot, Futurama: Fry Am the Egg Man & Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island), Bender (John DiMaggio), Zapp Brannigan (also Billy West) and Kiff (also Maurice LaMarche) to deliver it (using a Doop vessel, rather than the Planet Express ship).

Admirella wields the cross

From there the episode becomes one of piracy and piano heist, that is until they return to DOOP Headquarters to outwit President Glab, who is using the Vampire Empire to sway the vote to allow her an unconstitutional third term in office. Before the Empire can join DOOP they must have their National Anthem played – on the piano, retrieved from the pirates and brought with them, which it transpires doubles as a weapon of mass destruction. As Bender starts the boogie-woogie anthem, two vampires emerge from their coffins and remove stakes from their chests to then flank the Emperor. They are chased off by Admirella (also Tress MacNeille) using a cross. And that’s it, a fleeting visitation by vampires from the Vampire Empire. Thanks to Jez who mentioned this one to me.

The episode's imdb page is here.

Honourable Mentions: Scary Movie

First, a full disclosure, I have never overly fancied the Scary Movie films but, from the trailer, I knew that this one, directed by Michael Tiddes and released in 2026, drew from Sinners and thus I wanted to check it through. Actually the 6th film in the Franchise, there is a blink and you miss it vampire moment but also two scenes lifted from Sinners.

The first of those sees a car pull up at a church as we hear “This Little Light” being sung. Ray (Shawn Wayans) enters the building and approaches the pastor. This is taken from the opening of Sinners and whilst, in that, Sammy is injured following his encounter with the vampires, in this it is centred around Ray’s sexuality and renouncing men, with jokes surrounding that.

arriving at the party

The second scene is when a Halloween party is being held and main characters Sara (Olivia Rose Keegan), Tuesday (Savannah Lee Nassif) and Jack (Cameron Scott Roberts) arrive in period dress, with instrument, and try to gain entrance by being invited (and refused). This, of course, riffs on the Sinners’ scene where Remmick tries to get invited into the Juke Joint – though the characters here are not vampires. As an aside, Jack’s appearance on the movie poster is from this scene and he has a vampire bite on his neck.

the substance

Before going to the vampire I need to mention a riff on The Substance, a film I have looked at due to its use of tropes, where there is an injection of “the stuff” into news anchor Gail (Cheri Oteri) in a process taken over by Ghostface. Out of her back comes an unredacted set of the Epstein Files and then her “younger self” is revealed to be one of the White Chicks from the Wayans’ film of the same name.

Count Brolock

Finally, we get to the actual vampire and it is easy to miss as it is in a mid-credit scene in which we get a fake trailer for Brosferatu, a take on Nosferatu (2024) . It riffs on being from “the studio that brought you every black version of a white movie”, and sees Count Brolock (Marlon Wayans) visiting Elle (Ruby Snowber) and gaining the ire of three black women watching the scene unfold. There is a shadow dick gag and the scene is very easily overlooked given its placement. And that is it, a fleeting visitation and other than that referencing a vampire film.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: Venom Vol. 7: Exsanguination

Author: Various

Artist: Various

First published:2024 (tpb)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Venom vs. Carnage in their bloodiest battle yet! Carnage is back! Born anew in symbiote goo and blood, Cletus Kasady is more dangerous and violent than ever before - and he has his sights dead set on an unsuspecting Venom! Untested against the might of his symbiotic sibling without his father by his side, can Dylan Brock hold the sadistic serial killer at bay? Will Carnage live up to its namesake and leave another brutalized symbiote host in its wake? Or is Dylan just bait for Eddie Brock, the King in Black himself? In the greatest depths of space and at the end of existence, some carnivorous new species has blossomed. Something blood-red, with thorns - and an appetite! Plus: There's one thing that can still kill Carnage: Anti-Venom! And if things weren't wild enough, the BLOOD HUNT begins, and Venom must unleash lethal justice on hordes of vampires!

The Mention: I have looked through the Marvel Blood Hunt event extensively where it comes to volumes that were directly part of the event and where the volume majority tied in with the event. I have also looked at post-event vampiric consequences. In the case of this Venom volume, however, I have made it an Honourable Mention as it is a minor aspect within a storyline, events happening during Blood Hunt rather than impacting it/impacted by it.

I also have to be honest and admit that seven volumes in, the primary storyline confused me. Issues around Eddie Brock, his son Dylan being Venom’s host and Carnage trying to destroy Venom. All of this probably demands a wider knowledge of the previous volumes and therefore reading this for the Blood Hunt side (of which there are two storylines) is probably for completists only.

In one storyline we get Dylan, abandoned by Venom, approached by a priest who had been turned. The important part of this story is that when the priest bites Dylan his blood is poisonous to vampires as it has been altered by his half-symbiote physiology. He is also immune to the bite. The priest, in pain due to the blood, is then staked by Dylan. This means that Dylan/Venom could have played a pivotal role in the wider event had the writers desired it.

The second vampire storyline concerns the alien Threkker aka The Captive. He absorbs life force and was imprisoned on Earth, and subsequently captured in a high tech coffin that was found by Dracula and released during the Blood Hunt to hunt symbiotes. It reanimated a previous symbiote host (Lee Price) as a sort of zombie symbiote to lure in Venom (who at this point is host-less and dying). The Captive’s plan is to feed on Venom’s life energy but natural protections come into play, causing the Captive’s bite to begin a feedback loop that makes him feed on himself and desiccate. Not one of the undead vampires, a full back-history being presented (rather than touched on) could have embedded this in the event but this is more a throwaway and more significant to the Venom storyline, I feel.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Honourable mention: Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated – Season 1

This was the first season of the 2010-2013 incarnation of Scooby-Doo as a serial cartoon where there was an overarching story arc. In actual fact, I did look at this season’s vampire episode, the Secret Serum, previously. Now, when I reviewed that I said “There is an estrangement between Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) and Velma (Mindy Cohn) – who were, it appears, an item. Plus Fred (Frank Welker) and Daphne (Grey DeLisle) seem to have issues, making the gang drift apart in different directions by the end of this – distractions; what we want is mystery solving not soap opera teen romance. For heaven’s sake we are watching a talking dog…”

vampire film

I do not take that back – the introduction of character romance (and romantic failings, in the case of Velma and Shaggy) seemed a distraction as I watched the whole thing – but there was enough mystery solving and Scooby-ness to keep me going back to it (indeed, I might be the father of an adult son but I’ll always maintain that Scooby is for all ages). In Fact, despite the more soap aspect, the season was perhaps darker than other Scooby-Doo series and, as it happens there were (beyond the vampire episode) some vampire connections through the season that were worth mentioning here.

the Bloody Stake steak house

First of all was a restaurant in Crystal Cove (the town that seems to attract fake paranormal activity at a rate of knots). A steak house, one assumes, called the Bloody Stake, which has a vampire logo. The restaurant appears in three episodes of the season and is most notable for Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) and Scooby (Frank Welker) being refused any more helpings on the "All You Can Gorge" night.

stake in hand

We see Shaggy and Scooby about to indulge in the Vincent Van Ghoul (Maurice LaMarche) movie marathon at one point. Due to this we see a tad of a vampire film staring Van Ghoul as a vampire hunter, stake in hand, with the implication that he is fighting off an army of vampires. Van Ghoul is, clearly, based on Vincent Price and I understand that Warner Bros received Price’s estate’s permission to use his likeness and voice.

vampire bust

Van Ghoul actually appeared in the 13 Ghost incarnation of Scooby-Doo and, in this season, his fans Shaggy and Scooby actually meet him when they win a competition to have dinner with him (which is a set up for a new ‘scare’ reality TV show Van Ghoul has, but leads them to saving him from a monster). In the house we see a Poster for O’Vampy, one of his films, and a vampire bust/mask out on display in the horror icon’s mansion.

teen Vamp literature

Lastly, the gang becomes embroiled for a second time with professor and horror author H.P. Hatecraft (Jeffrey Combs, Holiday Hell, Frightmare, Necronomicon: Book of the Dead & Dark House) – as an aside, Hatecraft is obviously modelled on Lovecraft, who Combs played in Necronomicon. In their second encounter Hatecraft is being ousted by Regina Wentworth (Kari Wahlgren), author of Teen vampire series Dusk (made up of Dusk: Forbidden Love, Dusk: Early Evening and Dusk: Just Before Bedtime). There is a cut-out of the main vampire character causing Daphne to muse at what Fred would look like with “fangs and skin the color of boiled pork”.

Daphne dates an actor

So, there we have the additional vampire references in Season 1 of Mystery Incorporated. Note that in Season 2 there was the reappearance of the Bloody Stake a couple of times and Daphne dating the actor from the Dusk films – but no real vampire reference otherwise. The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: All the Girls Love Blood: Kiss of the Devil

This is real DIY filmmaking, with a series of films so micro-budgeted (at least for the first) that, whilst the director Elliot Passantino has an IMDb page, none of the series have IMDb pages.

The first film, All the Girls Love Blood, was a shot to video film from 2004 and was a pretty poor print and a gritty mob story (with lowbrow comedy element) It followed a couple of undercover bent cops as they tried to avoid being killed by the French mob with Internal Affairs at their heels. As far as I can tell not all the film has survived.

Fatima's witchy sisters

In 2023 a sequel of sorts, All The Girls Love Blood: Full Moon Motorpsycho Mafia, was created. The print is tellingly better, especially as they have merged the two films into a feature on the Blu-Ray release. The story expanded with various Mob families, and a biker Neo-Nazi. A key-element of the narrative was a new psychotropic street drug called Christ. So far, no supernatural but at the very end a mob-boss turns into a werewolf and rampages, though it is revealed to be a Christ induced mass hallucination. Feminist mob-boss Fatima dies at the end of part two and that is important…

eating with mom

The 2025, 65-minute feature All the Girls Love Blood: Kiss of the Devil is somewhat more surreal. We get an FBI agent obsessed with a psycho bunny-suited Mr Hoppy – who appears at the end of part two, and he turns out to be a CIA super-soldier experiment, where they programmed several Mr Hoppy units (in the suits to freak out the enemy). We also get the agent’s Irish mom, played in drag and focal point for a lot of the lowbrow humour in this part. There is a bike gang, more mobsters, an undercover hacktivist group called Unicorn Sky (which is a separate project from the director that crosses into this). It turns out that Fatima’s family are witches too.

Fatima awakens

They try to bring Fatima back and fail but, at the end of the film, another mob lady manages to resurrect her – in the name of Lilith and Lamia – and Fatima comes back as a vampire under her control. This leads to her killing a few people (ripping one’s privates off whilst saying that the presence of Lilith in her resurrection was making her horny). This time it isn’t written off as a hallucination but is an actual supernatural event.

warding with a cross

It is, however, not too long an appearance and I am holding this to being a fleeting visitation. Even her death is off screen – killed by a CIA Laser Spectra piece of kit that leaves her as a fanged skull. Nevertheless, it has a vampire and despite the low budget I found myself drawn into the films – and despite looking awful, more so the first film that was a simple mob story, when the horizon broadened and conspiracy entered into the story the narrative felt more muddled.

At time of writing there is no IMDb page.

Honourable Mention: Creature Commandos Season 1

Directed by Matt Peters and Sam Liu and originally airing from 2024 to 25 (US), Creature Commandos was the first release proper of the James Gunn run DCU, a seven episode animation that does follow Suicide Squad and Peacemaker (which I think fall prior to the soft reboot from DCEU to DCU) – if I have any of that wrong, apologies. It has Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) unable to force humans into clandestine ops (ie the suicide squad) and so she sends a squad of monsters led by Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo) to protect the Princess Ilana Rostovic (Maria Bakalova) from sorceress Circe (Anya Chalotra).

A fleeting visitation

The squad does not contain a vampire however we get two moments were we see the bat-creature vampire Nosferata in the Belle Reve Penitentiary canteen in one episode and later as part of the revamped (pun-intended) squad at the end of the last episode, Her appearances were incredibly brief and not voice acted but the character is part of the DC universe – an evolved animal from the Project Moreau in Superboy she has been portrayed as a full vampire as well. But, as far as season 1 is concerned, a fleeting visitation.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: Pest Control

The Blurb: Chino and Wang aren’t your average monster hunters, they’re brawlers, hustlers, and unlikely heroes who’ve seen it all.

From the shadowed forests where werewolves prowl, to graveyards crawling with the undead, to crypts ruled by bloodthirsty vampires, they’ve fought their way through every nightmare you’ve heard whispered around a campfire.

Just when you think it can’t get any more dangerous, a multi-headed Hydra rears up from the darkness, ready to tear the world apart. Armed with quick wits, questionable luck, and a knack for surviving the impossible, Chino and Wang are about to face their wildest adventure yet.

The Mention: Another comic from the Afterlight stable, written by Max Aguiree and with art by Jok this was kickstarted in 2025 and is set in a world where society is crumbling after an interdimensional portal opened and allowed an incursion of bugs into our world. It follows Chino and Wang, a couple of monster hunters – who turned to that trade after losing their jobs and, as things start, they are the two remaining hunters out of their crew.

There are a variety of monsters within but, of course, the mention is for the vampires who appear over two chapters. The first of those start with the hunters and a few others trapped in a church under siege by vampires – beyond that the pregnant woman in the church, due and in need of a Caesarean, adds to their problems. The vampires in this are destroyed by direct sunlight but a bit of shade can allow daywalking. When holy water proves to be efficient Chino calls his ex-wife asking her to get a pressure washer and a long hose to him, and he’ll have the priest bless the water as they make a break for the tanning salon over the road and its sunbeds. He aims to get the head vampire en route, describing him as likely the largest alpha male – boy is he wrong about that…

Irreverent, with fatally flawed characters, there is a touch of Ghostbusters to this (it is directly referenced in the opening chapter) but more action and far less genius in the team. You can get the graphic directly from Afterlight.

Honourable Mention: Freckled Max and the Spooks

Directed by Juraj Jakubisko, who would go on to make Bathory, and released in 1987, this is a kid orientated film that features a cornucopia of monsters and the youthful protagonist Freckled Max (Martin Hreben). The film seems to have been cut together from the series Frankenstein’s Aunt (which itself is based on the book of the same name) and explains why the film feels very episodic and slightly disjointed.

Max is an orphan, stuck with a circus and foster parents who are exploiting him. As they pass through a particular region known for vampires and water sprites (amongst other monsters) he manages to escape the caravan, aided by water sprite Alojz (Eddie Constantine). Nearby Henry Frankenstein (Bolek Polívka) is on the verge of copying his ancestor and creating a monster, Albert (Gerhard Karzel). Now the brain is brought by Count Drakula (Ferdy Mayne, the Fearless Vampire Killers, the Vampire Lovers & Frightmare), who flies it in, and is that of a genius professor. Unfortunately, rather than just let it cool, Igor (Jacques Herlin) freezes it, impairing it. Henry leaves (following a village mob’s assault on the castle) and his Aunt (Viveca Lindfors) returns to the castle.

Ferdy Mayne as Drakula

So, Drakula. Firstly it is great to see Ferdy Mayne as a vampire again and he makes a fine looking Dracula. The trouble with it is that he appears very occasionally in the film. There is one particular vampy moment, as he flies Albert’s love interest Klara (Barbara De Rossi) home from the castle and, fascinated by her neck, his fangs pop out but his instinct to feed is quickly interrupted. His cloak turns into leathery bat wings when he flies. At one point he dons a helmet from a suit or armour because the sun is still out but later has got used to flying in daylight. Beyond this he really is a bit of a background character and more a fleeting visitation than mainstay of the film.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

Honourable Mention: Operation Blood Hunt

This is a 2024 film directed by Louis Mandylor and follows a special ops group pulled together to do a mission during the second world war and, of course there is a supernatural threat, betrayal and such shenanigans. It starts however, with a black and white scene in 1928 with a man (Willy Zogo) who has been injured on the neck and Murphy (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, the Mortal Instruments: City of Bones & Dracula – Season 1). They have a found a box of vials which are shown coloured in the black and white.

Cut forward to 1945 and Murphy runs a bar. A man, Richter (Louis Mandylor), enters and orders meat and booze trying to pay with some form of antiquated coins. He wars a generic black coat with SS symbols on the lapels. Murphy recognises him for what he is and yet still allows a couple of patrons/bouncers to fight with him. Eventually he is about to bite someone, and Murphy suggests if he bites their neck he’ll blow his head off.

stabity stab

Enter the Reverend (Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson) who takes a seat and whiskey. Richter says he knows who he is, and then mentions his father before running at him (there is a blurry effect when the vampire moves fast). Without getting up, the Reverend sticks a sword through the vampire, and then manoeuvres him to a bathroom where he extracts his fangs with pliers. Leaving the bathroom there are two US forces agents (in rather ill-fitting uniforms) waiting for him. They sent the vampire to get his attention – why is never clear – and want the Reverend to do a mission for them, in return they have information they’ll declassify about his father.

Louis Mandylor as Richter

Richter reappears later, whilst the Reverend is on the mission, trying to steal the vials from Murphy, who stakes him – though not through the heart as he wants him to suffer. He ends up letting Richter leave, shoots his leg as he exits the building and allows him to burn in the sun. A black and white flashback shows him with the man – who was the Reverand’s father. The bandage on his neck shows he was bitten by a vampire due to the two points of blood oozing. Murphy gives him a vial of spirit elixir and suggests it’ll hold off transformation for a month. He promises to watch the Reverend’s back as the man leaves, to lose himself out there.

in the sun

And that’s it – a fleeting vampire visitation of a nazi vampire (so coded by the SS badges on a coat that is clearly not a German officer issue) and introduced to give a bit of a muddled backstory around the Reverend, Murphy and the Rev’s missing father (who ended up at the island the mission takes place on, which is home to werewolves and we hear they turned him to try and help with his sickness – that might indicate a werewolf/vampire hybrid but we never see him). A bite turns, staking and sunlight kills, presumably they struggle hunting without fangs (that tends to be the trope when extracted, though it is pretty senseless as, well, knives…). A fleeting visitation.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: All Wrapped Up

This was a low budget anthology film directed by Jason Liquori and released in 2007. It opens with Debbie Rochon as herself, negotiating with the production company’s mascot and directing us to a catalogue of films. The film is then made up of four segments that concentrate primarily on mummies – a bog mummy in the first, an Egyptian one in the second, an Aztec one in the third and, interestingly, a reinvigorated, cryogenic man in the final one. But as well as this we get brief moments of vampires, the Aztec mummy itself has a vampiric trope, there's a succubus and we even get an implied werewolf.

the succubus

It is in the third story, The Jaguar’s bite where we start with our vampires and more vampiric elements. The film starts with a couple in need of some guidance, one feels. She (Marcienne Dwyer) assumes he (Brian Prost) is having an affair but he wakes more tired than before he goes to bed and hires a paranormal PI, Stewart (Jason Liquori), to prove he is being visited by a succubus (Gina Markette). Stewart manages to see it through a video and, after a little tussle, gets rid by spraying water on her – not holy water, mind, but mineral water as though he is dousing an oversexed animal.

a vampire

The film goes on to him being hired to track down a stolen Aztec mummy (le Nguyen) – the museum believing that it was not a simple robbery/homicide as the police believe. The mummy was an Aztec warrior who would drink the blood of his enemies to take their strength and became an incarnation of a god. To defeat him, his enemies drained his blood. So the mummy is draining the blood of new enemies (those who disturbed his tomb) and that’s our trope. The vampires (Alberto Giovannelli and Christina Daoust) are led by monster hunter Rose Lenoire (Brunhilda Zekthi) to the mummy where one of them drains it (killing it) then explodes because he contained dead blood.

Debbie Rochon as Mistress Misty

There is a further vampire in final segment Milleniman in which, to try and save his daughter (Chanel Bagwell) badly injured in the previous segment, businessman Sebastian Fairweather (Kevin White) is tricked into being a guinea pig for a cryogenic experiment. He is accidentally woken a millennia later where the human race has been decimated in wars and the survivors are physically weakened. He is wanted by the Mayor, Mistress Misty (Debbie Rochon), as he may hold the key to some of the medical issues they face – she, it is revealed at the end, is not human but a vampire.

the Aztec Mummy

And that’s it, we get a blood drinking mummy – it is suggested that spilt blood revived it but the blood drinking is mentioned as an M.O. and the dialogue makes it clear that it isn’t a vampire (in the traditional sense), a moment of an energy devouring succubus and three fleeting visitations of actual vampires. The film is straight to video and some of the effects are knowingly (or, at least I hope it was knowingly) terrible. Possibly the most interesting idea was that the man trapped in cryogenics was a mummy also, giving that monster a sci-fi edge.

The imdb page is here.

Classic Literature: The Vampire: Novel from Bulgaria

The fact that Hans Wachenhusen published this in 1878 has led me to posting this under the “Classic Literature” label rather than the “honourable mention” it should be. Though titled The Vampire there is little in the way of vampires in the book until the final chapter – so it is more a fleeting visitation. The 2023 translation was by Rade Kolbas.

The first chapter reads like a travelogue and indeed that is what it is – Wachenhusen was known in Germany as a travel writer. But the yarn then spins into a tale of Government corruption (on the part of the Ottoman Mudessarif) and politics, dashing heroes and love. The first almost reference to vampires was in calling the Ottoman Pasha a bloodsucker – but this was in relation to him siphoning off wealth.

The next mention is about actual vampires and a suggestion that they are associated with a particular place in the mountains. They are described as holding nightly meetings there, where they were able to “suck new life from the moonlight”.

As I mentioned, the final chapter is concerned with a vampire describing a certain character, thought killed by the hero, returning and attacking a bride on her wedding night. Whether he is, in reality, a vampire or is just assumed to be by the locals, as he was left for dead and unburied in the mountains, is really left to reader interpretation but it does appear he was going to bite her neck before being stopped and killed (again?), after which the good local folk stake him through the heart to prevent any further visitations. A big thanks to Sarah who got me this for my birthday.

In Hardback @ Amazon US

In Hardback @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: Casual Relations

Casual Relations was a 1974, low budget experimental film by auteur Mark Rappaport, which consisted of vignettes of people in their casual relationships – mostly filmed in portrait form with voice over and background sound – so, for instance, we watch one woman sit in a chair, in front of a TV – the screen in her view but not ours. And as she fidgets, uses a phone etc we hear the films she watches, all lifted from actual cinema releases.

dreams

There are two reasons for the mention, both fleeting visitations. Firstly when we meet Elen, who slept through her alarm after a night of broken sleep that ended with nightmares. The nightmares are represented to the viewer in the form of stills from Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, occasionally merging images of Elen with the still. Rappaport also used some footage from the film later in his film. The idea of using Orlok as a representation of a nightmare worked, the public domain nature of the film probably didn’t hurt either.

bite

The other reason is a sequence highlighting Elizabeth – a woman who makes money doing glamour photography and occasionally filming “stag films”. She tells us that she once filmed a motion picture, “A Vampire’s Love”, but that it was never released. We see moments of her, in the film, with the vampire as she reports on him pursuing her and her repealing him with a couple of apotropaic elements – namely crosses and garlic – of him biting her, her going to stake him but being unable to do so, turning and them terrorising the neighbourhood but also killing the other vampires. There was some nice vampiric imagery in this section and, of course, she was acting as a vampire.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: Plan 9 from Aliexpress

This is a 2022 Russian experimental film from Diana Galimzyanova and, as I watched it, I was struck tonally of a comparison with Trasharella, though I’d say that this had less plot but more style, and perhaps even Visions of Suffering, though that may have been the Russian origin and this did have more plot than VoS, just, but was nowhere near as dark.

The plot, such as it is, is that a Gothic Princess (Ekaterina Dar) has a ball of twine (referred to as rope, through the film) stolen by Prince Charming (Anton Medov) and the film sees her attempts to track him down and retrieve it, as she needs the rope to kill herself. The film, I guess, could be a tracking of her personal growth but it is very experimental and deliberately obtuse.

vampire detectives

The mention comes from a moment fairly early on in the film where two vampires (Andrey Sirobaba & Anastasia Popkova) appear, They announce themselves as time travelling vampire detectives (and just to prove they are vampires, he wears a cloak). Why are they travelling back in time? They just give an answer of “some reason”. They have the wisdom, they say, of how to find the rope and then give vague information of a clue given that will lead to a dead end, but there she can find someone with a correct clue – rinse and repeat. When asked if they could just give the rope, they refuse explaining that it is a McGuffin that drives the plot (the fourth wall really doesn’t exist in the film). They give her a small plastic basket she’ll need and then travel back in time to discover how Trolley 54 became a bus (the whereabouts of the trolley/bus is a repeated theme).

And that’s it. A fleeting visitation in a surreal experimental feature, with the use of a cloak triggering the recognition of the megatext – even if they had not stated they were vampires.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: Captain Amazingly Incredible and the Space Vampires from the Evil Planet!!!

You may think I’ve gone mad giving this 2010 New Zealand flick, directed by Karl Burnett, an honourable mention rather than a review, especially given the title but, whilst we do get the vampires in this, we actually only get fleeting visitations of them and mostly this green screen driven film apes such serials as the early Flash Gordin series whilst concentrating on Captain Amazingly Incredible (Roy Snow).

It starts, however, with Detective Jack Spartan (Karl Burnett, My Grandpa is a Vampire) who is in the city looking to get smokes and a newspaper. Unfortunately, the news seller (Tarun Mohanbhai) doesn’t seem to understand him, Spartan notes that he is speaking in an Indian accent also. Suddenly he hears a scream and finds Tallulah Diamond (Katherine Hubbard) who says she has something in her eye.

Captain, Spartan and Tallulah

They fish out a tennis ball (yes, it is that surreal) when the news seller appears, and he has fangs. Spartan’s garlic breath causes him to vanish and, realising that there may be thousands of vampires, the pair run to Spartan’s HQ. Spartan wonders what could be turning folk into Punjabi vampires and calls in Captain Amazingly Incredible. He realises that the evil doctor called The Evil Doctor (Nicko Vella), from The Evil Planet is behind this dastardly plot and they head into space to stop him.

Nicko Vella as The Evil Doctor

Later we discover that The Evil Doctor created a virus from alien vampire bats to turn people but his son Brogor (Grant Roa) is somewhat clumsy and spilt a curry into the virus vat hence the victims turned becoming Punjabi vampires. It is all surreal and we only see another couple of vampires briefly. The method of filming gives the film a graphic novel feel and the delivery is deliberately camp but we do get a fleeting vampire visitation.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: Monster Carnival: A Comics Anthology

An anthology graphic novel, with a wraparound of the contents being stories told by the monster carnival, this was first published in 2019. It contains several strips by different writers and the one in it that interests us is Noch Zverya both drawn and written by Maegan Cook.

It takes place at the Blood Moon Ball, thrown by Count Vassilkovich and he presents his new bride Anisya with a young man named Thomas, with whom she is to dance – and more than that, as at midnight she will feed from him, her first vampiric meal. Unfortunately, Thomas recognises her as they had been orphans together – though she was not blind then. She wants to warn Thomas, but midnight strikes and her compliance is expected, plus her feed will restore her sight.

It's a very short tale, no more than a fleeting visitation in the volume hence the honourable mention, and, if I’m honest, I didn’t care for the artwork – it just wasn’t a style I responded to. The story comes across as more a character backstory for a wider piece, as this is told from her point of view centuries later, and in that sense it works. It is, however, the sole vampire story in the set. I do have to say my favourite story in the collection was Brandon Whipple’s A Midsummer Tale, which was a refreshingly new take on werewolves with marvellous art.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mentions: Cryptids

A portmanteau film from 2023, with the segment we are interested in directed by Billy 'Bloody Bill' Pon (whose feature Circus of the Dead I have a real soft spot for), the segment is too short and could have done with expansion. That it is called Chupacabra Death Machines will give you an idea why I’m looking at it. In truth though, this could have ended up as a ‘Vamp or Not?’ and the honourable mention is simply because the use of the term chupacabra is, at least, of genre interest.

The conceit of the film is that all the stories are phoned in to a radio talk show hosted by Harlan Dean (John Bloom) and for this story he is called by the Barber (Esau Ramirez), an alias of the barber for a group of the Cartel operating out of Texas.

chupacabra

He has seen them take proxies, men who have offended them, who are placed in a building and two chupacabra are let loose. The cartel member wins if his proxy stays alive long enough and the chupacabra wear cameras to capture the action as well as there being CCTV. Unfortunately, the chupacabra as we see them look a bit like bad CGI dogs and there isn’t much else to the story. One would have thought the filming style might have hidden the bad CGI, unfortunately not. Now this could still have worked but it is over and done with pdq, leaving it no time to find its feet. So it's not on long and more genre interest than actual blood sucking chupacabra.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: Lisa’s Nightmares 3

This is a straight to video vanity project directed by low budget director Todd Jason Cook and featuring his then wife Lisa Cook (now Lisa DeWild) and released in 1996. I have previously featured the second vehicle, in the series Lisa’s New Nightmares. Lisa starred in many of her husband’s low budget vehicles and the Lisa’s Nightmares were a series of short horror films based on her and shot in their house. This was the third film and, like previous instalments, many of the story ideas were provided by fans.

For this one, however, there was only one vampire segment. The rest was pretty darn slasher. Like others in the series the transfer you can now see is far from brilliant and the original recording was zero budget filmmaking. So you do not go into one of these expecting high cinema or anywhere near.

fangs out

Linked with Lisa writing in her diary (each segment an entry of a remembered dream), she introduces the segment we are interested in by saying she was a vampire. In a chair we see Todd Jason Cook looking nervous. At first we see Lisa’s shadow, his head darts around and then she is before him wearing a negligée as Type O Negative’s Love You to Death plays. She dances, bares fangs and then boobs and then bites him, pulling him off the chair. From the floor (in an unlikely physical feat) he manages to stake the standing vampire. She dies. That’s it. Like those segments in the last film in the series this is little more than a fleeting visitation.

The imdb page is here.