Short Film: Strigoi

This was a 2021 short film, directed by Florin Anghel and coming in at just under 14 minutes.

It starts with the sound of laboured breathing, and we see that a poorly man struggles for breath. His wife brings him food, but he knocks the plate out of her hand and threatens her. Telling her she won’t get away from him so easily and he will return as a strigoï and haunt her.

A young woman is at work, a bouquet of flowers is brought in for her. Her phone rings and it is her mother – her father has died from cirrhosis. They are the couple from the opening. Her mother asks her to come and says she is afraid at night. The daughter exits onto a balcony (for a cigarette) when she returns to her office the flowers are withered.

the daughter

Not a lot more is said about this – the sender of the flowers drives her to her old village, and she suggests they arrived withered, we saw them fine and then withered. Could it indicate her father’s influence. Maybe she is (unknowingly, perhaps) a strigoï vii? Also on the drive her companion questions her atheism (though she does wear a cross) and asks what happens to evil doers after death if there is nothing else.

equine vampire detection

The funeral arrangements were interesting, he lay open casket but with his hands bound and holding a candle and the open casket continued at graveside. A man with a horse comes by but the horse is skittish by the grave (this is a stripped-down version of the traditional vampire detection method, as the horse carries no naked virgin, boy or girl). He is returning to mother and daughter (we see a shadowy figure as he visits the daughter) and so the grave is opened. The corpse has talonlike fingernails, his heart is cut out as a ritual (which names him both strigoï and moroi) is spoken. It is suggested that the heart be cut into 9 pieces and scattered to be fed on by nine dogs.

strigoï's nails

What is interesting about this is that the filmmakers based it on the real case of Toma Petre – a Romanian vampire killing that happened in the 2000s, the film suggests between 2005-2007. As well as outlining the event, the film contains a snippet of an an interview with Mircea Mitrica who was one of those involved in the real life exhumation – I assume it is the actual gentleman and not a reconstruction, the credits do not say.

The imdb page is here.

With Stake and Spade: Vampiric Diversity in Poland – review

Author: Łukasz Kozak

Translator: Mark Bence

First published: 2020

The blurb: Everyone has heard of vampires, but few know about upiórs, strzygas, strzygońs, and wieszczys. Yet sources from Poland and the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth offer a wealth of fascinating material to discover Slavic beliefs in the living dead, which later became a universal myth known the world over. This book contains a small but representative selection of 80 texts spanning almost 500 years, ranging from scholarly works and religious treatises to official documents, ethnographic essays, and press reports on true events.

The review: I was lucky enough to win this volume in a competition. We are firmly in the realm of the folkloric vampire, and the Polish variants of the restless dead as listed in the blurb. The introduction to the book looks into the four types to offer an overview but the main event is a reproduction of various documents (be it passages from books, manuscripts, newspaper reports etc) which mention the walking dead. Each entry is referenced to the appropriate source document, which is essential, though an index may have been a useful addition.

There are some really interesting moments within the texts. The idea of who might become the restless dead and the aspects and habits are fairly interchangeable between the types but – remembering that I primarily look at the vampire in a media sense – what I found interesting was some of the tropes that came up that are not commonly known as being folkloric and more a media invention.

So, several entries spoke about the vampire returning to the coffin/grave at cock crow and some suggested that at the point of cock crow an exposed corpse would die – not too unusual from a media point of view, the idea that the restless dead return to an inanimate state at daybreak can be found in the Vampire and the Devil’s Son (1852), to offer an early fictional example. However, there were several entries that suggested that the vampire would be reduced to tar on the cock crow – and this brings the trope of death by daylight to mind and is fascinating to find a folkloric variant. Another fascinating entry dating to 1873 highlighted a conflation of vampire (in the form of upiór) and werewolf, to quote: “After his death, he was thought to have become a werewolf, who left his resting place at night to wander about the village, visiting houses and terrifying God’s folk, like an omen of the plague…”

Most fascinating was the following entry from the Gazeta Polska, dated 1871, which said about criminals who are insufficiently punished when alive who will “turn their bodies into so-called “strzygas” or “upiórs” (which the populace imagine in the form of bats) that emerge from their graves at midnight”. This is a pre-Stoker and folkloric association of bat and vampire and is, from my point of view, rather exciting.

The main event is presented as is, and so there is no analysis just presentation of the entries – so for a more casual reader this may make the volume less engaging, though it is an invaluable source for researchers (be that of the vampire or Polish folklore generally). The volume uses high grade, thick paper stock. I will quickly mention the graphic (almost pop) art, in orange, purple and lilac that appears within volume as well as adorning the cover - not my cup of tea, I’m afraid, however it is very striking and makes this volume stand out against its academic fellows. 9 out of 10.

Honourable mention: Lore: They Made a Tonic

This was the first episode of the first season of a made for Amazon series (based on a podcast, I understand) and directed by Darnell Martin. It is, going by this episode, a dramatized documentary and this episode roots us into the folklore of the vampire – specifically the folklore (and events) emerging from 19th Century New England.

As it opens a simple animation takes us through the story of Mary E Hart who died but was disinterred (due to a dream, apparently) and was found to have been buried alive – if the scratches on the coffin and the horror etched into her features were to be believed.

The fear (and reality) of being buried alive was fascinating, of course, but had little to do with the case the episode goes on to explore – that of Mercy Brown (played age 10 by Pamela Riley Sauve and age 19 by Hannah Culwell). I assume most readers will know the story but for those who don’t Mary’s mother and sister (Mary Simmons) died of consumption (tuberculosis). Her brother (Connor Hammond) later became ill and was sent away for treatment. Whilst he was away Mercy sickened and died.

Ill again

On his return he became Ill again and her father (Campbell Scott) was approached with the idea that a demon could rest in the heart of a person, kill them and then have them continue to kill from beyond the grave. If the corpse of a recently deceased was found to be fresh – with blood in the heart – then the demon resided there. Reluctantly he allowed his wife and daughter to be disinterred and then they opened Mercy’s coffin, declared her the one (despite, as he points out in the dramatization, that she died after her mother and sister), cut out her heart and liver, incinerated them and gave the ashes in water to the sick brother as a tonic – he died despite this (unsurprisingly).

a spectral Mercy

Mercy’s case made American newspapers and so is rather famous – though the idea that it inspired Dracula is a stretch. Stoker certainly knew about the case (and had a press clipping in his notes for Dracula) but the likelihood is that the writing of the book was well underway when he found the clipping and, whilst it may have played a little into the novel's ideas, its role of “original inspiration” is unlikely. The dramatization does see a spectral Mercy walking the halls and grounds of the family home but the episode does not suggest this is actually happening and is for atmosphere (nothing I have read suggests that her father was anything other than sceptical but resigned about the desecration).

checking the corpse

The actual dramatization moments are well shot but I found the veering off onto concerns about being buried alive to be superfluous. The narration by Aaron Mahnke was nothing special but did what it had to do. There was more that could have been explored around other acts of disinterment of suspected American vampires – the excellent work of Michael Bell indicates this was not an isolated case, just the most publicised.

The imdb page is here.

Classic Literature: After 90 Years

Milovan Glišić’s 1880 vampire story Posle Devedeset Godina, or After 90 Years, had been on my radar after seeing the film based on it, Leptirica. However the story had – as far as I knew – never been translated into English.

James Lyon, as well as writing the vampire novel Kiss of the Butterfly, was in a unique position being a vampire fan and author, living in Serbia (indeed he is an expert in Balkan history), who has actually visited the water mill central to the legend the story is based on… and I might have suggested that the story desperately needed translation.

You might ask why? The vampire originates, through the vampire panics, in Serbia – Arnold Paole originated from Ottoman controlled Serbia and the word vampire reached Western Europe, and more specifically entered into English, through descriptions of his case. The insights that a folk derived piece of literature can offer the student of the vampire (both in folklore and the media vampire) are important and, in many ways, quite unique.

This story does not feature Paole but the folktale vampire Sava Savanović and the lore that the story uses is lifted from Slavic folk tradition. The aforementioned film follows the story fairly accurately – though the characters are somewhat different in motivation – until the film grafted on a large coda not present in the story. But with the release of the translated book you can discover just how close for yourself.

I’m not going to mention lore particularly in this article as I cover that in the foreword for the translation, which I wrote.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Vampire Evolution: From Myth to Modern Day – review

Authors: E R “Corvis Nocturnum” Vernor and L E Carruba

First Published: 2015

Contains spoilers

The blurb: Vampires are beings of myth: folkloric creatures who live off the blood of the living and have been recorded in nearly every culture around the world since the beginning of man. This work traces the evolution of the vampire, from its roots in ancient mythology to obscure folk tales and legends, leading up to when these foul beings transformed into the suave Byronic heroes that continue to influence the world’s view of the vampire today. It also examines key individuals in history involved in reshaping our concept of the creature. Popular culture is explored, along with the development of the vampire into the protagonist in plays and poems and novels. Sixty-one frightening images bring the topic right to your front door. Will you invite the visitor in?

The review: Save me from ill-researched reference books.

When this arrived (and it was sent as a review copy) I was taken by the embossed hardback cover with the red bat but as I opened it I inwardly groaned. The fancy font suggested it may be content light and the book was packed with pretty pictures (which, in fairness, are very pretty).

However I noticed a bibliography, though no index, and a reference to Anthony Hogg, which perked me up as it boded well for good research. Sadly the referencing left much to be desired (there are at least three improperly referenced bits from Anthony but only one bibliography entry) and the content proved to be one which had me shouting at the book. This took three forms – bad research/supposition, bad writing and errors. I will cover some of my (least) favourites.

Discussing Thomas Aquinas and his belief that the Devil could cause metamorphosis of men to animal the authors suggest “This might be the origin of Bram Stoker’s Dracula becoming a wolfish creature and mention in future stories of vampires shifting into bats and mist.” Now re-read the sentence, this suggests that Dracula (in Stoker’s original) didn’t turn into a bat or mist, and that lore came in later stories, but it was part of Stoker’s lore. On the next page there is a supposition that nightmares symptomatic of the Black Death inspired Dracula communicating to Renfield telepathically – which is really plucking connections out of thin air.

Mention is made of Ludovico Fatinelli – of his “Treatise on Vampires” and suggesting the gentleman was burned at the stake… Except the gentleman did not exist and the treatise is a hoax volume.

Vampire poems are mentioned such as Christabel by Coleridge, and Keats' La Belle Dame sans Merci and Lamia. True, later authors have tied Lamia and vampires together, and many claim that Christabel was an influence on Le Fanu’s Carmilla, however none of the three poems are vampire poems (and Lamia is not a poem about Lilith either, as the authors further suggest).

One of the authors (I assume Vernor) tells us the Michelle Belanger told him a lot about Byron but the quote (I assume of her) was a mismatch of half-truths, bad research and myth and stated, “he identified as a vampire”. Not one single scholarly tome I have read on Byron suggests this; indeed Byron stated, whilst repudiating authorship of Polidori’s story, “I have, besides, a personal dislike to ‘Vampires’ and the little acquaintance I have with them would by no means induce me to divulge their secrets” (The Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol 125 1819 p633). The authors suggest Byron’s fragment (which we know Polidori expanded upon) was published before Polidori’s story – it was published after to prove Byron wasn’t the author of Polidori’s work and contains no vampire aspect. Its only real impact on the genre was the fact that Polidori used it as a base for his work.

Whilst talking of Planche’s The Vampire, or Bride of the Isles (1820), the author says that “Not since Varney did a vampire so clearly introduce the dualism of intellectual man and mindless, killing predator…” except of course that it predated Varney by twenty five years!

On Dracula it is suggested that the “phantom-like ship, Demeter was based off a real story of a boat by the same name” – except that the real shipwrecked vessel was called the Dmitry and the crew landed safely. The authors revive the suggestion that Van Helsing was based on Robert Roosevelt (except the author states Theodore Roosevelt) and Dracula was based on Walt Whitman (taking on “his attributes” even though we know the character’s appearance came from the Baring-Gould description of a werewolf) and the book was some sort of psychodrama of homophobia due to Stoker’s syphilis – despite the fact that the belief he had died of this comes from as late as 1975 and Daniel Farson (his grand-nephew) and has no corroborating evidence. In other words there is little evidence to support the suppositions. Vernor quotes himself as saying “Washington Irving—the very same man Stoker had in mind to play the character Dracula on stage”, err that would be Sir Henry Irving. The normal inflated conflation with Vlad Tepes occurs and later, discussing other books, the authors suggest that Dracula needs his “native earth” though this is from the movies and the book had different lore, being “in soil barren of holy memories it cannot rest”.

Whilst talking about books, the authors cover Anne Rice and quote Louis’ opening narrative… except (as well as not being referenced) it isn’t from the book but from the film – which itself is covered in the next chapter – hence why it talks of the death of his wife, which as an event replaced the death of his brother from the book.

When it comes to films apparently Lugosi “starred in Dracula sequels” – actually he only played Dracula one other time. In the Munsters Marilyn is called a “fairly normal teenage daughter” – she was the niece. Apparently in Black Sunday Asa uses “the Elizabeth Bathory method of attaining youth and beauty through virgin blood.” Well there isn’t a bath of blood in sight and she is revived by the blood of an older (and presumably non-virginal) male doctor and actually acts as an energy vampire when attacking her doppleganger.

Calling Dracula (1992) “the first faithful cinematic retelling of the source material” is a push, to say the least, and suggesting it introduced “other elements hinted at, but not fully explained in the novel, like the growing relationship between Count Dracula and Mina Harker” is nigh on fraudulent as that relationship was not hinted at! Blade (as in the Marvel character) is described as African-American, in the original comics he is British. Also, it might have just been really badly written but “trying to find the next True Blood, television networks adapted other vampire book series to television, like author Tanya Huff’s Blood series became the show Blood Ties (2007)”. Now, given the authors correctly date True Blood to 2008 earlier in the paragraph one has to either worry at the clunky writing or the time machine involved.

Adding in a section about Self-Identified Vampires I suppose was inevitable, though it is so thin as to not over-egg the pudding, but not necessarily welcome in a reference work on vampires in folklore and media.

So, there we have it. I have barely touched on the issues I had with it. The volume does look very pretty though. 2.5 out of 10 for the pretty pictures.

Honourable Mention: First Bite

Films using the vampire panics are depressingly few and far between, which is why this short animation by Drew Christie and narrated by Timo Sämann was most welcome. It was created for the New York Times Op-Ed series and takes its source from the case of Petar Blagojevjić (also spelt Peter Plogojowitz).

This was one of the earliest cases from the vampire panics, Petar died in 1725 and the film uses the detail presented by Paul Barber in his excellent book Vampires, Burial, and Death where he outlines the report filed on the incident by Kameralprovisor Frombald, who was pressed by the locals to be present when they unearthed Petar’s body after nine people died within a week of him – some of them claiming that Petar had visited and attacked them.

This is a short animation but well worth your time watching:

The Vampire in Slavic Cultures – review

Editor: Thomas J Garza

First published: 2009

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Eight hundred years before Bram Stoker gave us the West's most memorable vampire in Dracula (1897) and long before the exploits of Vlad "the Impaler" Tepes horrified Europe (1431-46), the Russian Primary Chronicles write of a Novgorodian priest as Upyr' Likhij, or Wicked Vampire (1047). The Slavic and Balkan worlds abound in histories, legends, myths and literary portraits of the so-called undead, creatures which draw life out of the living in order to sustain their own. These stories of the vampire simultaneously fascinate and horrify, as they draw the reader closer to an understanding of death and the undead.

This unique volume brings together a wide variety of historical, critical, and literary texts that reveal and explore the origins, growth, and development of the vampire myth from its beginnings to the 21st century. These texts explore the vampire within the region of its origin in Western cultures: the lands of the Balkans, Eastern Europe and Russia. From the earliest recorded tales to the recent offerings of Russian vampires on film, this volume gives the reader a dynamic perspective on one the world's most enduring cultural phenomena, the vampire.

The Review: Normally I try to avoid comment on price when doing a review – content is more important, and I’d expect a higher price for an academic reference book. However I must mention that (at time of review) the new volume price for this book, on Amazon UK, has only just (for the first time) dipped below £100. On Amazon US it is still over $115.

Now, trusting I didn’t spend anywhere near that for my used copy, and despite the fact that it is a large tome, the contents of this would seem to be problematic given the price. Firstly it is made up of extracts from other works (all accredited) as well as having a section of literary offerings. There are extracts ranging from the great – for example Keyworth’s Troublesome Corpses – to the not so great – I still have no love for Konstantinos’ Vampires: the Occult Truth. However extracts from books such as Dundes’ The Vampire a Casebook and just about anything by Perkowski were noticeable by their absence. Perhaps permission to reprint couldn’t be gained, however missing these when including some of the lower quality extracts seemed at best a mistake.

The first section contains several definitions of vampires. Pulling these together from a variety of sources was a great idea. It allows the student to see several variants. However it has absolutely no commentary and this is a problem. So, when we get mention of vampires taking the form of a monstrous bat, Garza does not inform the reader that the primary association of bats and vampires comes from the novel Dracula. Given this is a reference book I would have expected some commentary but the book contains no primary commentary on the extracts, hence suggesting that Garza is an editor rather than author at the head of the review (he does translate a couple of pieces).

Worst still is that the reference for each extract dates the extract to the publication Garza used. Thus, when we read the definition of vampire from Dudley Wright’s Vampires and vampirism it offers the date of 2001 (the date the specific publication it was lifted from was reprinted) but the reader may be unaware that the original publication date is 1914. Looking at the date enables us to track changes in genre/folklore thoughts (to be absolutely fair some of the literature, later in the volume, carries an original publication date at the end).

Worse comes with the referencing and footnotes from the extracts. Some have them intact, some don’t – and we know some should have footnotes because the footnote’s citation number is still in the text but the foot (or end) note is nowhere to be seen. At the best this was lazy and unhelpful.

There are sections on both Vlad Ţepeş and Erzsébet Báthory. In the introduction Garza admits that neither was Slavic but suggests that “the geographic proximity of their dominions to the lands of the Slavs clearly had an effect on the development of the vampire myth in those neighbouring countries,” No evidence is offered for this by Garza, though he does suggest that both figures were given the “moniker of ‘vampire’”. Certainly that never occurred until post-Stoker for Ţepeş. Then again, given the cover of the volume I shouldn’t have been surprised by this content. Anyway, the sections themselves carry little in the way of balanced extracts. Though I personally suspect Báthory was guilty (at least to a degree) of the crimes accused (though they were used by her enemies to their advantage) I would have liked to have seen a “she was innocent and framed” article as a balance. As for Ţepeş an extract from Dracula: Sense and Nonsense or similar was sorely needed to offer a balanced viewpoint.

I was mystified as to why an essay on The Golem was included – again commentary would have explained Garza’s thinking, perhaps he expected readers would only be people with his lesson plan? I was also mystified as to why an extract from Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled was included, only to be followed by a Montague Summers’ extract that contained the very same extract!

I was rather excited about the literature section. Though I have read the Night Watch (there is an extract from this), Viy and the Family of the Vourdalak there were others included that I had been unaware of and wanted to read. Positively I discovered Jan Neruda’s The Vampire and Iván Turgénieff’s Phantoms (even if I had to find the date of publication from other sources).

I was bemused at the inclusion of the extract from Dracula and the full text of the Vampyre: A Tale. Let us look at the title of the book again – In Slavic Cultures – as important as these two works are, they are not from Slavic culture (though some of the lore used by Stoker is). Other inclusions that were actually from Slavic culture (primarily Russian, it has to be said) bemused me just as much. Karamzin’s the Island of Bornholm is certainly gothic but may not even have a troublesome corpse, never mind a vampire (and is deliberate in its obfuscation). There were four Pushkin poems included – ish. I say ish because The Bridegroom was included twice. A commentary explaining why the different translations were included would have been useful. More useful would have been an explanation why The Bridegroom (x2) and Evil Spirits were included as neither contains any hint of vampirism. At least Pushkin’s the Drowned Man has a troublesome corpse in it, though whether it was a vampire in the strictest sense of the word is highly debatable.

Pelevin’s A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia is fantastic – but has no vampire aspect (so why not an extract from his (currently untranslated) vampire novel Empire V?) Indeed why not two extracts (the vampire parts obviously) from the Probratim: A Slav Novel by Prof. P Jones (1895)? (If you are interested, my reference book, The Media Vampire, covers this work pp136-144!) Indeed why not an extract or the full text of Milovan Glišić’s Posle Devedeset Godina or 90 Years Later – unfortunately not available yet in English but based on pure Slavic vampire lore and the legend of Sava Savanović. The volume’s final section contained vampire lyrics in Russian popular music, which is fair enough if you want that sort of thing.

To be fair, the interesting sections were interesting, but the book has one more sin that needs to be recounted. It doesn’t have an index, so its academic use becomes further limited. In total honesty the book confounded my expectations as I expected a fresh reference work that explored the Slavic vampire rather than a regurgitation of other books, many of which I had. If you see it cheap you might want it, if you are in Garza’s classes then it expect it becomes much more useful but at full price it comes with a health warning. 5 out of 10.

Honourable Mention: Thale

This is part of my attempt to highlight some films that, whilst not vampire films, have some genre interest. It is also forms part of the many interesting films that seem to be coming out of Norway at the moment.

Thale concerns a Huldra. For those unfamiliar with the creatures, the following is from Theresa Bane’s Encyclopaedia of vampire Mythology (p126). The entry is for Skogsfru but Huldra is given as a variant:

Skogsfru (Scocks- FRU)
Variations: Huldra, Skogsra, Swor, Tallemaja, Wood Wife, Wood Woman
In Scandinavia there is a type of vampiric fay that looks like a beautiful woman with long auburn HAIR and a cow tail. It is called skogsfru. It lives in the woods and usually approaches a young man at night while he is at rest in his campsite. It tries to use its beauty to seduce him. While engaged in sexual intercourse, it will drain him of his life- energy (see ENERGY VAMPIRE). On occasion, the skogsfru will decide not to harm the man and marry him instead. Sadly, their union will not last as it is a fay, an inherently wild creature, and will eventually return to the woods. The abandoned husband will slowly begin to die, longing for its touch. It is considered an unlucky omen to see a skogsfru, as it causes madness in its lovers.

Huldra

Whilst the Huldra would only have to come in the broadest definition of vampire, whilst using a comparative mythology basis, I decided that it was of interest. To be clear, the film features nothing vampiric (and certainly nothing that might denote an energy vampire) but it is certainly a rare beast cinema-wise. So, what about the film?

Elvis is unwell

Well it was a 2012 film directed by Aleksander Nordaas and follows Leo (Jon Sigve Skard) and Elvis (Erlend Nervold), though the film never told us I got the sense that they were brothers (or had been as close as brothers) who had been estranged for a while. After an opening that showed a tape reel with a man’s voice (Roland Astrand) addressing a girl and her scream, we meet the pair. Elvis is throwing up whilst Leo cleans up blood. Leo is part of a crime scene cleaning company and Elvis has stepped in to help out, and make some much needed money.

the baby

We cut to a scene as a camera moves pov through a wood, with a voiceover by the man from the tape. We hear the man suggest that it had been nine years since he found her (the girl he is addressing) and that he should have left her. As the camera moves into a small cave area below a tree, and the sound of a baby crying fills the scene, we move into darkness and then, in a brief flash, we see a baby but the skin is grey. She is clearly not human.

Elvis and Leo

Elvis and Leo are called to a house in the woods. The partial remains of an old man have been found, worried and scattered by wild animals, and they have to find the rest of him and clean the scene up. As Elvis digs through bundles of firewood in the shed he discovers a concealed door. Leo tells him to leave it but he opens it and goes through to a basement area. Ignoring instructions he goes through to another room – a stockroom with out of date canned foods. He again disobeys instruction and enters a further room. This looks like a survivalist den meets a mad scientist’s lair.

emerging from the bath

As Leo goes to phone the discovery through to his boss (and await instructions/inspection), Elvis breaks the rules again and plays with a tape deck – tapes marked Thale are narrated by the man we have heard through the beginning of the film, and he was the man found dead and scattered by animals. Suddenly, from a bath of milky liquid, a naked woman (Silje Reinåmo) emerges – pulling a tube from her mouth. She is cold and weak, it seems, and the men put her on a table. Soon, however, she has Elvis in a chokehold.

Thale, with tail

The film then follows the building of a trust between Thale, the woman, and the men (Elvis primarily). She does not speak but can hum a tune and later communicates telepathically, by touching Elvis’ face and showing him images of her life. We see her being treated/experimented on by the man who eventually steals her from the facility and takes her to the woods. They live below ground to avoid those they ran from. We hear him say that she physically looks different from her sisters but that is probably an adaptation/survival technique (her sisters are more animalistic, as we will see). A fridge contains a severed cow tail, which the old man cut off her.

impaled by gun

Meanwhile men from the facility now know where she is (later we hear that her unique metabolism – which is controlled by the liquid in the bath – creates a thermal fingerprint that can be searched for and tracked. I assume it is the opening of the fridge, exposing the (untreated for some time) tail, which pings their sensors (we are never told directly). Also her kind are closing in as well…

one of Thale's sisters

The film left much unanswered and probably could have done with some more exposition but, in some respects, the mystery made it more interesting. There is a side story about Elvis and Leo and the secrets they keep from each other. We do get some lore – beyond the tail, the telepathy and the strange metabolism. Thale is said to be able to elicit empathy to the point that a man will do anything to help her, that is akin to what Bane says about a Skogsfru seducing a young man. We see her take a dead blossom in her hand and, closing it over the flower, somehow causes the flower to become alive and in bloom again. This is energy manipulation but giving rather than taking; there is no evidence offered of her, or her sisters, draining anyone.

So, an unusual creature, an unusual film. It isn’t perfect but I rather like it. I would have preferred it to have soft coded subtitles on the UK DVD rather than the hardcoded ones included, but that’s just me.

The imdb page is here.

Kiss of the Butterfly – review

Author: James Lyon

Release date: 2012

Contains spoilers

The blurb: "The smell of blood is in the air, I sense it even now. People thirst for it; the entire country is mad with desire for it. And now we are going to war with our brothers because they look like us, and because we can smell our blood coursing through their veins. It is madness. I know not what will come of it. I had hoped to celebrate one more St. George’s Day together with you, but it is not to be. I fear we shall not see each other again in this life. For now I grow ever colder, the sun can no longer warm me…”

A mysterious letter starts a university student on a journey into the war-torn lands of rapidly disintegrating Yugoslavia. Naively trusting his enigmatic professor, the student unwittingly descends into a dystopian crucible of decay, destruction, passion, death, romance, lust, immorality, genocide, and forbidden knowledge promising immortality. As the journey grows ever more perilous, he realizes he must confront an ancient evil that has been once again loosed upon the earth: from medieval Bosnia to enlightenment-era Vienna, from the bright beaches of modern-day Southern California to the exotically dark cityscapes of Budapest and Belgrade, and to the horrors of Bosnia.

“Kiss of the Butterfly” is based on true historical events. In the year of his death, 1476, the Prince of Wallachia -- Vlad III (Dracula) -- committed atrocities under the cloak of medieval Bosnia’s forested mountains, culminating in a bloody massacre in the mining town of Srebrenica. A little over 500 years later, in July 1995, history repeated itself when troops commanded by General Ratko Mladic entered Srebrenica and slaughtered nearly 8,000 people, making it the worst massacre Europe had seen since the Second World War. For most people, the two events seemed unconnected…

Vampires have formed an integral part of Balkan folklore for over a thousand years. "Kiss" represents a radical departure from popular vampire legend, based as it is on genuine Balkan folklore from as far back as the 14th century, not on pop culture or fantasy. "Kiss of the Butterfly" offers up the real, horrible creatures that existed long before Dracula and places them within a modern spectrum.

Meticulously researched, “Kiss of the Butterfly” weaves together intricate threads from the 15th, 18th and 20th centuries to create a rich phantasmagorical tapestry of allegory and reality. It is about divided loyalties, friendship and betrayal, virtue and innocence lost, obsession and devotion, desire and denial, the thirst for life and hunger for death, rebirth and salvation. “Kiss” blends history and the terrors of the Balkans as it explores dark corners of the soul.

The review: Well it is a good, long blurb that probably cuts down the length of the review somewhat… Actually, that is rather unlikely because, as regular readers know, I love to delve into the lore contained within the novels and films I review and this is just teeming with lore.

To give a very quick overview, the novel is set during the Bosnian War as student Steven Roberts is encouraged to travel to the former Yugoslavia by his teacher Marko Slatina. He is to study the ethnography of the region – the folklore – but the path he has been set on keeps returning him to the myth of vampires and the Order of the Dragon. Of course we have been to this setting before in the 1993 film Pun Mesec Nad Beogradom, or Full Moon over Belgrade, so the concept of the war and vampires and draft dodgers, will be familiar to any who have had the opportunity to see the film.

However Lyon’s book goes much deeper into Balkan myths and, in many ways, is a book of two distinct parts. For the first half of the book (literary interludes aside) we travel with Steven as he explores the myths of the region, comes to terms with being in a nation at war and also tries to come to terms with his own personal demons (the loss of his faith, in organised religion at least, and the premature death of his young wife). This half of the book feels academic and possibly had a, at least distant, kinship with The Historian (though I found this much better researched and written).

The second half of the book, as Steven discovers that the things he has researched are real, organised and not enamoured with prying eyes, sees the writing style shift up a gear as the action springs to life and supernatural events unfurl around the main characters. However the vampire is allegorical as well as real and this is seen clearly early in the novel when Steven hears a Serb policeman state “The Moslems have all become Turks, they have become vampires who want to suck our Christian blood”.

Despite the use of allegory within the novel, ultimately we are dealing with an actual phenomena and one that draws its lore from traditional Balkan vampire mythology.It needs to be noted that, because of the involvement of the Order of the Dragon, we get an appearance within the text of Vlad Ţepeş but actual vampire cases, such as that of Peter Plogojowitz, are also mentioned. The vampires are shape-shifters – often taking the form of butterflies but also able to become werewolves (wolf-man type) or anything else they should want to become. We have seen several times the idea that a vampire’s soul takes the form of a butterfly. Here we hear that in Balkan mythology all souls take the form of butterflies.

In their natural state the vampires are “simply large inflated bags of skin, and as they feed they swell up. If they’ve gone without feeding for long periods of time, then they appear emaciated. So the typical well-fed vampire will appear bloated or inflated.” The vampire’s powers are connected with their shroud – hence the need to keep it safe. We hear they must go to their grave on Good Friday and that each time a stake (that must be hawthorne) kills a vampire it becomes empowered, a multiple kill stake being very powerful indeed.

The vampire is disorientated and vulnerable for the first 100 days after reanimation but after that gathers its wits and becomes much more dangerous. They can gather into groups of 12 – 12 being a quorum. As a quorum they are very powerful, much more than the sum of their parts, however, put more than 12 vampires into a room together and it will kill them (as they turn into gloop). It is the evil influence of a group of vampires that had caused the Bosnian war. We also hear of vampirovic or kresnik – what we more commonly refer to as dhampir – the child of a vampire and a mortal, who are immortal hunters of vampires. Interestingly, if the vampirovic has a child then they lose their immortality.

In many respects I have only scratched the surface of the lore Lyon invokes and, for the lore alone, I would recommend this book. But more than that, I really did enjoy it, very much. These were a breed of vampires steeped in evil and saturated in traditional lore; dangerous, deadly, obsessive and… well let us just say that Lyon’s tale has clearly only just begun. 8 out of 10.

The Science of Vampires – review

Author: Katherine Ramsland, Ph.D.

Release date: 2002

Contains spoilers


The Blurb:

• Are any vampire myths based on fact?
• Bloodsucking Villain to guilt-ridden loner—what has inspired the redemption of the vampire in fiction and film?
• What is vampire personality disorder?
• What causes a physical addiction to another person’s blood?
• Are there any boundaries in the polysexual world of vampires?
• How would a vampire hide in today’s world of advanced forensic science?
• What happens to the brain of a vampire’s victim?


Since Bram Stoker’s Dracula was published in 1897, the concept of the vampire has evolved from supernatural creature of the night to reluctant bloodsucker to the sympathetic creature of today’s popular culture. Featuring interviews with forensic experts, creative artists and real-life bloodsuckers, The Science of Vampires offers a fascinating investigation into the myths and realities of the vampire, exploring every aspect of the dark force that has played host to our fears of infection, depletions, alien influence, and disease. From vampirism’s roots in ancient legend, to its scientific evolution as a very real mental disorder, Ramsland proves just how immortal, enigmatic, and seductive the lure of blood can be.

The review: This was a difficult book to pin down, eclectic might be a good term but let me illustrate this with a definition. Ramsland defines vampirism, for the sake of the book and as a starting position, as “more of a feeling than a creature: the dread of losing control to something that invades us and slowly drains us while holding us enthralled.” This is all well and good (though there are the vampires who quickly drain and violently terrify) and, indeed, it is a roughly catch-all definition for a lot of the genre. However it is too wide, perhaps, to give a focus and this is where the book fails.

The book takes a potted trip through the media vampire, recognising the malleable nature of vampire media, but concentrating mainly on Dracula, I am Legend and (rather heavily) Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. It looks at folklore and killers with vampiric traits (some listed are only debatably vampire orientated killers, though admittedly Ramsland does draw doubt on some cases herself) and then wanders into the vampire lifestyle/spirituality scene.

Perhaps the title is the problem, I was certainly looking for more on ‘if vampires were real how could we scientifically explain them’, but I think overall it is the diffuse focus that causes the problem. The book is a catch-all rather than concentrating on folklore, media, murder, lifestyle or spirituality. I, as a reader, did not feel that all the questions in the blurb had been explored satisfactorily.

That all said, I enjoyed what was there and my own personal focus on vampires is diffuse enough that there was meat amongst the literary bones I was picking through. Mixing the metaphors, however, it was a long meandering trip and by the end I had aching feet. 5.5 out of 10.

The Vampire: A Casebook – review

Editor: Alan Dundes

First Published:1998

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Finally, the truth about vampires.

Vampires are the most fearsome and fascinating of all creatures of folklore. For the first time, detailed accounts of the vampire and how its tradition developed in different cultures are gathered in one volume by eminent folklorist Alan Dundes. Eleven leading scholars from the fields of Slavic studies, history, anthropology, and psychiatry unearth the true nature of the vampire from its birth in graveyard lore to the modern-day psychiatric patient with a penchant for drinking blood.

The Vampire; a Casebook takes this legend out of the realm of literature and film and back to its dark beginnings in folk traditions. The essays examine the history of the word “vampire”; Romanian vampires; Greek vampires; Serbian vampires; the physical attributes of vampires; the killing of vampires; and the possible psychoanalytic underpinnings of vampires. Much more than simply a scary creature of the human imagination, the vampire continues to haunt the lives of all those who encounter it—in reality or in fiction.

The review: It is good, from time to time, to move away from the media vampire and look at the folkloric original creature. Very different from the glamorised media vampire, the folklore nevertheless underpins the media and is interesting in its own account.

The Vampire: a Casebook is, like any such edited volume, a mixed bag, some essays striking a chord and others not so. Whilst I realise that the collection has some age it is worth mentioning that a couple of the essays remark upon Dracula, in passing at least, and suggest that Stoker “patterned Count Dracula after an actual fifteenth-century Romanian prince, known variously as Voivode Dracula and Vlad Ţepeş.” This is not true, of course, Stoker borrowed a name and a footnote, and there is no evidence that he did any more than that - despite wishful thinking in certain quarters.

Highlight essay, for me, concerned Greek Vampires and was contributed by Juliette duBoulay, and mention should also be given to the Paul Barber essay – whilst containing nothing additional to his seminal Vampires, Burial and Death it is always a joy to read his work. I felt that Philip D. Jaffé and Frank DiCataldo missed a trick in their discussion on Clinical Vampirism by concentrating on fairly modern cases and not at least referencing the work of Richard von Krafft-Ebing in the 19th century.

I was not convinced by Dundes argument, using Freudian psychoanalysis, that the root of the word vampire was the Greek Pī, “to drink”, but I enjoyed the journey to that suggestion. All in all a good, if eclectic, scholarly look at the folklore vampire (veering off into clinical vampirism). 7 out of 10.

La Morte Amoureuse – review

Director: Alain Vézina

Release date: 1995

Contains spoilers

You may be aware that I am a fan of the story la Morte Amoureuse, a short dating back to 1836 and penned by Theophile Gautier. The story was captured well in the episode of the Hunger entitled Clarimonde – though, whilst mainly fiercely accurate to the source, they did expunge all vampiric elements.

It was only very recently that I became aware of this film, through Bill at the Uranium Café, and a rare beast it is as well – utterly missing from IMDb. It is based on Gautier’s story and does keep the vampiric elements (in fact expands on them) but also modernises the story. This updating, along with a soundtrack that was, I guess, meant to emulate the heights of 90s synth-soundtrack styling, manages to undermine the atmosphere that the film should have carried – but that said it doesn’t do everything wrong.

breaking vows on the altar

In a kitchen housekeeper Thérése (Denise Bouchard) talks about the ills of the village and the thunderstorm that rages as her companion Father Sylvain (Pierre Mailloux) looks distracted, not eating his soup. He eventually excuses himself but cannot settle and so goes through to his church. The altar seems to glow and a veiled woman, a bride we might suppose, appears – holding her arms to him. He goes to her and takes her (very quickly) on the altar.

the corpse

When he has finished he looks at her and sees that the woman has transformed into a corpse, desiccated and burnt. There is a disturbingly intimate shot of part of her anatomy and the priest is distraught, questioning what he has done. Thérése is looking for the priest when she hears the church bell ring – she rushes in to find him hanging by the bell rope.

Marc with Catherine

Marc (Luc Pilon) is a young (and disturbingly happy) priest living in the city. He receives orders to take over the parish of Father Sylvain. He says goodbye to his father, in background later on we discover that his father was never happy that he became a priest, and travels North. He finds the church idyllic and has plans to install a choir – Thérése becomes less and less enamoured with the young man, and some of his radical ideas, especially when he makes the acquaintance of Albert (Jerôme Ricard).

marking the burning

Albert is a hippy eco-warrior, hanging out with others – ostensibly – to clean the beach but really to get drunk and high. He shows Marc a marker stone that he thinks is from a native tribe but Mark recognises as Latin – though he confuses the pentagram with the Star of David. It turns out to be a marker of where a local priest burned two ‘witches’ to death. Marc also meets Albert’s friend Catherine (Virgine Dubois) and it is clear that there is a chemistry between them that he tries to deny.

blood from the claw

It doesn’t take much to guess that Catherine is our vampire. She was the daughter of the alleged ‘witches’ and was nearly abused by the priest when she was rescued by something unseen, a something that fed her blood on its claw. We also meet a priest named Clément (Yvan Roy), he had been the parish priest until he tried to kill himself (he failed, obviously) and – on realising that Sylvain is dead – he leaves his monastery to do what needs to be done.

Demonic Sylvain

You see in this Catherine makes each priest fall in love with her and then drives them to suicide. She feeds on the suicide (it would appear) and the priest returns from the grave as a vampire as well. Of course, tying vampirism and suicide together is reaching back to original folklore and always welcome. We see a demonic version of Sylvain in one of Clément’s visions – though this was a poor make-up moment. We also see him as a semi-decayed, fanged vampire with a messiah complex.

burning in holy water

All this strays further and further from the original. We see a stake (inscribed, it seemed, with occult symbols) and discover that fire purifies. The original story made play of holy water and this does take a cue from that and we have Marc blessing the lake and Sylvain burning within it. Daylight is not an issue for Catherine as we see her during the day and, as we see her in the church, we assume that hallowed ground is not an issue either.

Virgine Dubois as Catherine

Whilst never in danger of winning an Oscar, the acting was fairly good from the principles, maybe not as good when it came to the supporting cast. As I have said, the soundtrack didn’t work for me. The story itself wasn’t original-story compliant but the changes worked more or less. That said I felt we needed a wee bit more concentration on Catherine and Marc to establish their blossoming relationship properly. Some of the effects were poor and the cinematography seemed a little washed out and needed more depth – these elements also conspired against atmosphere. I was also a little disappointed that the genuine sympathy that I felt for the original story protagonists was not as apparent for Catherine and Marc.

unholy bride

Is it the greatest vampire film… no, but I have seen much worse and I like the fact that they used Gautier as a basis; that doesn't happen often enough as far as I am concerned. Is it the best version of La Morte Amoureuse? No… that honour stays with Clarimonde – even if that version lost the vampiric elements. 5 out of 10.

At the time of review there is no IMDb page.

Revealed: Mysteries of the Vampire Skeletons – review

Director: Mark Fielder

Released: 2011

Contains spoilers

Narrated by Russell Boulter this documentary for UK TV Channel 5 looks into the latest finds of deviant burials that the archaeological community (or at least some within it) are suggesting might be vampire burials.

damaged legs wrapped around a boulder

Most famously, such a skeleton was unearthed in Venice. In this case the documentary concentrates on three deviant burials found in a dig in Kilteasheen in Ireland. At the dig – which revealed a large burial site – a skeleton was unearthed, whose legs had been wrapped around a boulder, in such a way – it has been suggested – to stop the corpse from walking. This was followed by the discovery of two skeletons who seemed to have stones thrust in their mouths. Interestingly, carbon dating put the skeletons as old as 720-760 AD, comparatively the Venice skull was likely from the 16th century.

skull with stone in mouth

Were these burials supposed vampires or revenants? One of the experts interviewed mentioned historical text, contemporary to the carbon dating, which suggested a belief in vampires, in Ireland, at that time. This source was a penitenitentia text, called the first synod of St Patrick, and the expert interviewed suggests that it says that anyone who believes in vampires should be put outside the church. As the word vampire would not have been in use (as far as we know) it is a pity that this was expanded on more.

reconstruction in cgi

There are pieces of English folklore that suggest a belief in revenants that are mentioned. These were the old woman of Berkeley, immortalised in poem by Robert Southey but originally told by William of Malmesbury (1095/96 – 1143), and also the tale of two men who were thought to have become Revenants in Drakelow, Derbyshire, in 1085. The documentary tells us of their bodies being exhumed, them being beheaded, their hearts removed and burnt (and interestingly two crows emerging from the smoke).

The documentary follows the beliefs into the vampire panics, telling us about the report by Johann Flückinger in 1732 and also looking briefly at the Petre Toma case from Romania in 2004, where the body was exhumed and the heart burnt.

With an obligatory mention of Bram Stoker and some footage of Whitby, which honestly seemed superfluous, the documentary does tread some very tired ground. However the main thrust is the deviant burials in Kilteasheen and this subject is fresh and interesting. 6.5 out of 10.

At the time of review their does not appear to be an imdb page.

Vampire Princess – review

Directors: Klaus Steindl & Andreas Sulzer

First aired: 2007

Contains spoilers

It was only when Everlost posted a link to David Blue’s article about this documentary that I realised that I hadn’t bothered reviewing the damn thing myself.

This really was an odd one; some very interesting discoveries were almost lost within some blatant speculation. The documentary was about Princess Eleonore Elisabeth Amalia Magdalena von Lobkowicz (Silvia Hladky) who was a member of the European nobility in the 18th century and Came from Cesky Crumlov.

The documentary begins by mentioning Dracula and then suggesting that Bram Stoker was aware of Vlad Ţepeş but all that Vlad actually leant to the book was his name and Transylvania. Nearly spot on… For, of course, Ţepeş was Wallachian not Transylvanian but closer than a lot of these documentaries get. They then go on to say that Stoker was more inspired by Princess Eleonore’s story. No…

I wait to be corrected but I have never seen anything connecting Stoker with Eleonore. The documentary then suggests that he wrote another vampire story with the character Lenore at the centre… Could they mean Lady of the Shroud, which I admit I haven’t read and is not a vampire story? No… Perhaps then Dracula’s Guest… in which case they are referring to the Countess Dolingen of Gratz in Styria (whom he listed as dying in 1801 rather than 1741, which is when Eleonore died). Indeed my first reaction was that they referred to Bürger’s Lenore – not a vampire piece but quoted within Dracula for the line “For the dead travel fast” and paraphrased on the tomb in Dracula’s Guest.

suspected vampire burial

In other words the Stoker connection is bunkum. Then came the most interesting bit. Archaeologists found a grave site near the town and there were three anomalous graves. Set North to South, the skeletons showed signs of tampering that included rocks on limbs, a skull between the legs with a rock on the mouth and damage to a sternum that might have been indicative of impalement into the heart. Absolutely fascinating stuff.

They then went into Eleonore’s life. She was a keen huntress but never killed wolves, these she captured. Why? Because she had the bitches milked and then drank said milk in order that she might bear a heir and son. Remarkably she did become pregnant eventually and give birth at the age of 41 – a miracle in itself in those days. The documentary then connected wolves and vampires in a way that seemed post-Stoker… better, I would have thought, to look at the close connection between the werewolf and vampire folklore, especially in Slavic traditions – even if it built into the speculation.

Silvia Hladky as Eleonore

After her husband died in a hunting accident, her 10 year old son was taken to the Emperor’s Court and she spent a fortune on all sorts of quackery medicine. Whilst this might seem important, given that she faded and died of cancer one can understand her desperation. Truthfully, one cannot deny that the wasting away she suffered from, due to her illness, might have looked suspect to the servants - especially as the region and timeframe place the incident at the heart of the vampire panics. However, there is nothing documented to support this.

a dying princess

It was when she died that things became odd. She was autopsied – not a common occurrence, especially for the aristocracy. The autopsy found no cause of death but listening to the findings, even I as a layman, could say she died of cancer. The documentary confirms this but stretches the section out indiscreetly as they discuss symptoms that sound like a vampire victim; simply to build the tension, one guesses.

Eleonore's Grave

She was not buried with her family but returned to Cesky Crumlov. This was as per her will but the documentary alleges that this will, written a few days before her death, was somehow suspect. But not how it was suspect… tabloid documentary making, I’m afraid – proffer your evidence. Was the signature compared to her normal signature? Did any record of the time question the will? She was buried and here things got interesting as they found her burial and showed that it was unusual for the time – especially the encasing the coffin within a structure built beneath the church. Was this due to suspected vampirism? An affirmative can only be speculative.

They then return to the three suspected vampire burials and speculate that the peasants went out with a black stallion (neglecting to mention that it and the rider should be virgin) and found three suspect vampires. Pure speculation that is followed by an almost apologetically communicated second theorem. There were three suicides during her time, one hung himself – which could have caused the beheading if he decomposed whilst hung, before being found. Could these have been the three? We don’t know but the idea that three suicides were selected for special treatment seems more likely. This might have been over a period of time, with no causal connection to the events surrounding Eleonore, or exhumed and dealt with due to a specific event - an epidemic or Eleonore's death may have been the cause - more digging into the records would be needed. All these seem more in keeping than the horse detection scenario.

The documentary could have been great and some speculation cannot be avoided – so long as it is labelled as such. Given that there has not been any rumour passed down through the centuries (and let’s face it, if there had they’ve had mentioned it) perhaps this is a new discovery of an old story. Suggestions such as a discovery that her portrait had the head removed and then re-stitched (only noticeable by x-ray) was a ritual beheading was speculation supporting their story. I suspect that Occam’s Razor would dictate that a more simple explanation, such as the canvas was somehow damaged or the lady herself wanted something about it changed (the castle ledgers might have simply mentioned painting rather than a specific detail), was more likely than a ritual that had no contemporary equivalent.

More attention should have been made regards the three suspected vampire burials – especially as they seem to date into the vampire epidemic – and all mention of Stoker should have been expunged as poppycock* (and poppycock which only served to weaken the rest of their hypothesis). 5 out of 10, for the interesting bits.

The imdb page is here.

*To steal a term from Elizabeth Miller, iro the Ţepeş/Stoker theorem.