Vamp or Not? Ghost Nursing

Directed by Wilson Tong and first released in 1982, Ghost Nursing was a Hong Kong film (set mostly in Thailand) that centred on black magic. It focuses on Jackie (Shirley Yim) who, when we meet her, is the mysterious woman being sought by police after a triad hit killed the man she was with. She decides to make a break of it and go to Thailand.

She gets to her sister’s place during a Mahjong game and explains to her that she had amassed gambling debts and her luck generally is bad. Her sister works as an escort in a bar and Jackie gets a job there too. First night she attracts the attention of a businessman but also a gangster, who demands the house give her to him. He then takes her for a car ride, once out of the car his henchman holds her at gunpoint and the gangster rapes her.

the fetish

This is proof, if proof were needed, that her luck is bad and so she is taken by her sister to a temple and they speak to a seer who divines that she was a violent criminal in a past life and the bad luck is karma. The only way to escape it is to adopt a ghost child, he suggests. They go to a sorcerer who pairs her with such a ghost. He gives her a fetish of the child, a spell cloth that binds him to her and she must treat him like he is her child, for example putting a place out for dinner for him (and we see foodstuff vanish), talking to him but, most importantly, there is a regular ritual she must carry out where she feeds him three drops of her blood (by dripping them onto the fetish).

the ghostly kid

We see interventions when people are negative or exploitative to her, and the killing of the gangster and his henchmen including the ghost possessing the corpse of one and controlling both corpses to get the gangster. The child also, at her request, intervenes to get her a businessman she fancies. Things nearly go wrong, however, when she forgets the ritual and this leads to her boyfriend, behind her back, arranging an exorcism that gets botched and leads to the child attacking the exorcist, him and then her. So, is it vamp?

exorcism kit

My thought sits around the child being a vampiric ghost. An offering of blood to the spirits of the dead was something found, for example, in Greek myth where allowing a spirit to bathe in, or drink, blood temporarily restored their memories and allowed them to communicate with the living. Three drops of blood seems a small amount but in Theophile Gautier’s la Morte Amoureuse the vampire Clarimonde took much the same, “A few drops of thy rich and noble blood, more precious and more potent than all the elixirs of the earth, have given me back life.” Interestingly the exorcism kit contains a cross and garlic.

the sisters

I think you can look at this as a vampiric ghost and probably as an infant vampire also. Some may not consider it so but for me it manages to tick a box. That said, there is an appearance of drinking blood from a person when the infant possesses someone, though that isn’t overly clear. The film itself is a fair melding of exploitation – the gangster/escort side – and black magic movie. The last part of the film ramps up the gore.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK

Exhibition: Quite Shameless: Cultural Reflections on the Vampire

Illustration 1

I have been contacted about a new exhibition due to open 27th October 2026 at the University of Leeds’ Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery. Quite Shameless “features handwritten manuscripts and first editions of Gothic literature, but also looks to ancient folklore, science, medicine, theatre and contemporary cultural anxieties to piece together a picture of a truly immortal fiend.”

Why the title? “In a celebrated letter written after the publication of Dracula, Bram Stoker jokes, “Lord forgive me, I am now quite shameless!” This and other unique items from Leeds’ impressive holdings of Stoker correspondence and manuscripts pinpoint the zenith of the literary vampire. The author’s expansive fund of inspiration is seen in source material ranging from books on Hungary and Transylvania to Sabine Baring-Gould's 1865 Book of Were-Wolves, documenting canine teeth, pointed nails, transformations, wolves and eerie blue flames. Animal skulls from the University of Leeds School of Dentistry Museum show further sources for the vampire’s most distinctive attribute.”

Illustration 2

The exhibition also looks to other vampire works, has stage designs from Northern Ballet Theatre, “Playbills, photographs and scrapbooks from Hamilton Deane’s play”, It looks to the University’s collections of manuscripts to content regarding revenants and the “medieval fears of the dead walking again”. It also examines the medicalisation of the vampire as a creature used to “give disease a face, and {evidence} how those faces can frighten and exclude.”

Illustration 1: First edition of Dracula by Bram Stoker in its original yellow cloth binding with red lettering, 1897, London: Archibald Constable and Company.

Credit: University of Leeds Cultural Collections, BC Gen STO

Illustration 2: E.M. Lilien, illustration from Lieder des Ghetto by Morris Rosenfeld.
Berlin: S. Calvary & Co, 1903.
Credit: University of Leeds Cultural Collections, Post-1850 Additional A004

Back from Grimmfest 2026

Greetings from the other side of Grimmfest and I’ve had a fab four days of horror and there were, indeed, some vampire and vampire adjacent films to report back on.

First of all, of course, the festival opened with Horror of Dracula, which looked great in its 4K remaster, and it was brilliant to see on the big screen. The Blu-ray set has been delayed after Hammer discovered a printing error and so it being on was a big bonus.

Under Your Feet

The next film to mention was the Spanish film Under Your Feet, directed by Cristian Bernard. Single mom Isabella (Maribel Verdú) moves into an apartment with her kids, but all is not right. This is a witch orientated film but the three weird sisters feed on the mechanically extracted essence of children and trade with the parents for them, offering property (the apartment) or success in return. The essence offers them youth. Next to mention and vampire adjacent was the film Grind, directed by Ed Dougherty, Brea Grant and Chelsea Stardust. An anthology, it critiques late-stage capitalism. (which is famously vampiric) but in one specific section we meet social media content moderators who are chosen specifically because they’ll react to the content viscerally, which the corporation feeds on.

Motherwitch

One of the highlights of the festival, if not the highlight, was Cypriot folk-horror film Motherwitch, directed by Minos Papas, a film that also explored the historic colonisation and exploitation of Cyprus by the British. Artist Eleni (Margarita Zachariou) loses all three children in a freak accident and decides to bring them back. The medium is through paint, but paint that includes the use of blood and they return as kalikantzari, a creature that does appear in Bane’s Encyclopedia of the vampire. We have met them before (under the variant spelling kallikantzaros) in The Field Guide to Evil, though in that they were more goblin like. In this, however, they feel more revenant – though as violently mischievous as the goblin variety. This was certainly of genre interest, given the inclusion in Bane and the restless dead status, though they do not do anything particularly vampiric.

Ithaqua

Horror of Dracula was not the only Hammer film over the festival and the resurrected company’s new film Ithaqua, by Casey Walker, also showed. Ithaqua of the title, or the wind with teeth, is a Manitou, though the, mercifully brief, CGI for that at the end was poor and marred an otherwise well shot, fun film. However, the film also has wendigo – and these are of the turned human variety. They are drawn much like those in Ravenous being turned humans (though these barely pass) after eating human flesh. Like that, one mouthful consumed is enough to turn – though this has the influence of Ithaqua to thank for that – and they are essentially vampires within a Western winter setting.

The Whisper

The festival opened with a vampire film and ended with one (sort of, the last slot each day had two screenings to choose from, and so it was one of two ending films), The Whisper is a joint Uruguayan/Argentinian production directed by Gustavo Hernández. Lucia (Ana Clara Guanco Aguilera) flees her vampire father Victor (Luciano Cáceres), with her little brother Adrian (Marcelo Michinaux). These are born vampires, who turn when they die, and the intimation is that the curse follows the male line (with Lucia playing clean up for her father before they flee). Unfortunately, near the isolated house they move to (left to her by her mother) is a gang who make snuff movies and so she soon ends up on their radar. The whisper is the ability the vampire has to insinuate themselves into a human’s head and control them. They must kill those they prey on, or they turn into “abominations”, which are feral killing machines and sunlight rules hold. A solid vampire film, it is relentlessly dark, given the human trafficking/snuff storyline.

Grimmfest 2026

It is that time of year and I’m off to Grimmfest 2026. Whilst I’m gone, I will not be posting reviews, though I will check for comments occasionally. Normal service should resume 12th October and I will, of course, let you know about any new vampire or vampire adjacent films I see. The first film today is the new 4K remaster of Horror of Dracula and so I am really looking forward to seeing that, as you might guess.

Dracula Revamped – review

Director: Clint Cure

Release date: 2025

Contains spoilers

This Australian film runs on a conceit similar to Shadow of the Vampire with an actor playing a vampire perhaps really being a vampire. However this ploughs its own furlough, with the medium being local theatre (though the project morphs into a movie eventually) and the focus of this being strongly aimed towards comedy.

It starts with a janitor in a theatre, not too happy at cleaning up after the actors who have left fake blood and props on the stage. I was struck in this scene with the excellent lighting used. The janitor starts hearing noises and eventually heads in the rafters to check them out. We hear him addressing someone he recognises and then we see him fall but… well, after the excellent lighting, the rubbish and obvious dummy that falls is a bit of a letdown… The animated credits are fun (and animation is used within the body of the film).

Teagan Skye as Minnie

Tom (Brady Cronin) works in a call centre. He gets in trouble for going off script when trying to convince a call that he is really in Australia, and again when he answers a mobile call from his girlfriend Minnie (Teagan Skye). She’s trying to get him to go to a party that night being thrown by new member of their theatre group, Irving (Alex Mainey). Tom hasn’t met Irving as he hasn’t been attending the group recently. As an aside, his boss is Mr Orlock (Hejha Piran).

Tom with the Sirens

They go to the party and Tom is introduced to Irving, a larger than life luvvie. Tom is less an actor and more a set designer and Irving asks him what set he would want to design, if any. Tom replies Dracula and Irving seems to be up for making that play. Tom is given some wine in a scene that feels as though it points to the Lost Boys wine scene. He ends up meeting the sirens – three ladies reminiscent of the Macbeth weird sisters, who make him drink another concoction, the film entering an animated segment as he seems to trip. He is woken in the morning by Minnie and they leave before anyone sees the wine spill on the bed. There is an insinuation with Minnie adjusting her dress, and also in Tom being surrounded by the sirens and his belt being undone when he awakens.

Harker (Tom) arrives

He receives a call from Irving, who has a script – it turns out to be the Balderstone play - but thigs are off with Irving from the get-go. Tom suggests a black and white production, Irving poo-poos the idea and within seconds floats the same idea himself. He argues with the director, who leaves, they morph into a sci-fi version (calling it Dracula 3000 and namechecking the actual film) and onwards into a movie – with Minnie making a documentary of the process.

what is real?

Tom’s frustrations build and include a thought that he is losing Minnie to Irving. He always seems to be paying for materials with Irving simply saying the money will come (but never providing any). Also in the fray comes Hellwig (Andrew Raven), a hippyish person who becomes part of the production, knows Irving of old and, we discover, is convinced that Irving is a vampire to be vanquished. Why he becomes involved in the production and doesn’t simply hunt Irving down from the get go is not explained.

staked

The film was a mixed bag for me. Poor sfx surrounding their production was absolutely fine and contextually realistic, but things like the poorly executed dummy fall were just poor. I liked the multiple references to other genre pieces and also the chaos of what the production was meant to be as it developed. The acting was a mixed bag, but a shout out to Brady Cronin, whose Tom was excellent. When it comes to Alex Mainey, he offered a great line in luvvie/theatre kid but perhaps wasn’t as convincing a vampire (though that may have been deliberate). The comedic element perhaps hit a little less for me than it could of. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

The Terror – Devil in Silver – review

Director: Various

First aired: 2026

Contains spoilers

The Terror is an anthology TV series, where each season is a standalone story. Devil in Silver is season 3 and is the first in a contemporary setting. It locates itself in a secure mental health facility, and an underscoring theme is systemic failure in the US mental health services and healthcare generally. However, there is a presence in the hospital also.

Dan Stevens as Pepper

The primary character is Pepper (Dan Stevens, Abigail, Apostle & Vamps) a mover by trade, he was in a heavy metal band, as the drummer, and wants to do drum lessons for neighbourhood kids on the side. His girlfriend, Marisol (Juani Feliz), isn’t quite onboard with buying a drumkit – which he impulse does – and their call regarding the purchase is interrupted by her physically abusive ex. Pepper gets back, ends up assaulting the boyfriend, and fighting with a group intervening – who happen to be cops.

Judith Light as Dorry

The cops arrest him but they don’t want the paperwork and so take him to New Hyde hospital, a run down facility, whose chief doctor, Anand (Aasif Mandvi), admits him. Comply with treatment for 72 hours and he can leave, but compliance proves impossible, partly because it is made to be so - for instance he must take all his meds, but the meds knock him out so he can’t take certain doses and is thus non-compliant - and partly because his personality doesn’t handle compliance with authority well. What we have also seen is that something is haunting the hospital and is feeding on the misery of the patients.

CCH Pounder as Miss Chris

We see very early on two presences, later revealed to be one and the same. One is tied to an apparently comatose patient and seems to be capable of assaulting patients. The other seems to be the apparition of the founding (and deceased) doctor Walter (John Benjamin Hickey). It is head nurse Miss Chris (CCH Pounder) who later identifies the presence as a duppy – which is an Afro-Caribbean spirit that is sometimes thought to attach itself to someone and feed on their vitality and emotions. Later the duppy says the hospital had once provided good eating. Interestingly the lore she offers is that they can be stalled by throwing rice they have to count, this arithmomania being very much a trope of the vampire genre, along with a need to retreat to the spirit world when the sun rises.

the duppy in Dr Walter form

What we eventually discovered is that the duppy had attached itself to Dr Walter and became trapped in the hospital when he was murdered by an inmate. Walter was no angel, compulsively lobotomising patients, but this seems to be the influence of the duppy, which now takes his form, though his flesh often sags, offering an uncanny air. Towards the end of the season we see the duppy rip the flesh from his face to horrify the witness. He will take other forms and also communicates through payphones. With the duppy we also get vampiric possession, something akin to a vampiric ghost (the actual folklore has the duppy as the earthbound one of the two souls a person has), and the physical creature terrorising (and sometimes killing) the patients is the murderous and apparently comatose inmate when possessed. The duppy needs inviting in to a person.

the duppy in creature form

The season isn’t long – 6 episodes in total – with a denouement that perhaps speeds at the viewer a tad quickly. However it takes its time to build the characters and Dan Stevens gives a great performance, special mention should be given to Chinaza Uche who plays Pepper’s roommate Coffee and Judith Light who offers a fantastically nuanced performance as Dorry. The scares, however, were low with the season reaching for atmosphere and perhaps pulling away from being too visceral. The UK Blu-Ray has minimal special features, consisting of a picture gallery and a very brief inside look at the season. 6.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK

Short Film: Vampire’s Crown

Vampire’s Crown is a 3-minute animated short produced at the University of Hertfordshire by Hiren Solanki, Henry Mountain and Nick Hughes in 2011.

The film starts with a vampire (in Dracula mode) in a waiting room and reading a newspaper. A young kid starts annoying him and he looms over the child and, in response, his tooth aches. He is, of course, at the dentist.

the vampire

A Next sign flashes and he wanders down the corridor and reaches for a door handle before realising that the Doctor is called Van Helsing. Nevertheless, he goes into the ill-lit room and takes a seat in the dentist’s chair. In silhouette the dentist stands over him, holding what looks like a hammer and stake.

looming

When the dentist moves into the overhead light, he sees that it is packing and a syringe… he also notices the dentist and, as she works on him, he tries to manoeuvre for a bite… Will he get to her neck? Will she fix his tooth ache? The short is embedded below. At the time of writing there was no IMDb page for the short.