Honourable Mention: Gothkill

This was a 2009 film by JJ Connelly and it was way back then when I first became aware of the film and it has taken all the way to now to look at the film.

Now there is most definitely a supernatural element to the film but the reason that this is an honourable mention is because the “vampires” in it are vampyre lifestylers and there is nothing within the film to suggest that they believe that they are undead vampires. Thus it is, at best, of genre interest.

It is about a priest from the inquisition, Nicholas Dread (Flambeaux), who discovers that the church are killing innocents under the sentence of witchcraft in order that the church might confiscate their property and intervenes – getting burned at the stake in turn and vowing revenge by agreeing a deal with Satan that he will have a kingdom in Hell to rule after providing 10,000 souls. Thus he returns to earth over and over as a serial killer of the corrupt.

Flambeaux as Dread

When we meet him we see him with a coven who, after a ritual, he slaughters (by gun) and this provides him with the last few souls he needs. He is hung for mass murder but, arriving in Hell, the devil has stiffed him and taken all the souls – leaving him with an empty kingdom. His priestess has been accidentally run over and his book of magic, that could bring him back, stolen.

Annie and Kate

Meanwhile Annie (Erica Giovinazzo) has arrived in New York, where she is going to college and sharing an apartment with her cousin Kate (Eve Blackwater). Kate has got into the Goth scene and takes Annie for a makeover, where they are given an invite to the VIP party of the scorpion society – a vampyre lifestyle coven. Actually the group, under their leader Lord Walechia (Michael Day), end up drugging the girls in order that they will “initiate them” – for that read gang rape. Walechia has got his hands on Dread’s book and reads a ritual, however, allowing Dread to possess Annie…

Michael Day as Lord Walechia

The film is short and, from our point of view, features people who like to put fangs in and pretend they're vampires. I would wax lyrical about the cheapness of the film but it has a saving grace in the form of Flambeaux who is clearly having a whale of a time. The imdb page is here.

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.