PSA: Richian Studios Present Dracula

I was approached by Richian Studios regarding their ongoing version of Dracula. Though the AI aspects are controversial I felt that at least highlighting it to blog readers will allow you to decide whether you wish to listen to this version or not.

The project is described, in their words, as:

In 1897, Bram Stoker told Dracula through letters, diaries, telegrams and a ship's log, written by people who didn't understand what they were part of until it was too late.

 

Richian Presents: Dracula is the whole novel as a full-cast audio drama, in the first-person voices Stoker wrote it in. Every character gets their own voice. New chapters twice a week through October, then every Monday until the novel is finished.

 

The voices are AI. Casting, direction and the cut are by Rich and Adrian.

The AI generated audio might be a deal breaker for some of you but, if you are interested in checking this out, you can find chapter 1 here and the releases so far on their YouTube Channel.

Short Film: Fame da Vampira

From directors Roger A. Fratter and Davide Pesca, coming in around 25 minutes, and released in 2017, this is on the same DVD as Seta da Vampira and achieves more (albeit simple) narrative integrity than Fratter’s earlier feature.

It starts with Super 8 footage and a voiceover by Elga (Beata Walewska), she is addressing us through her boyfriend (Davide Pesca), saying that this was footage shot by her father and drawing attention to the mysterious black robed figure that apparently was not there when it was shot. She says that, after his death, she discovered her father was an occultist.

in the woods

Her boyfriend and his friend (Stephan H. Asler) are out and about, and the boyfriend is complaining about her obsession with a vampire woman she dreams of, who wanders the woods half naked. It is likely he is more bothered by the frisson of sexual excitement revealed in her voice when she speaks about her.

the photos

Elga awakens after dreaming of the vampire (Mery Rubes) and, whilst sat at the kitchen table, reveals her father’s footage is gone but she has some stills of the vampire and that proves her reality. Her acquaintance Ratlof (Roger A. Fratter) comes round and suggests that the pictures are from a photoshoot and the woman in them is a model – he has a photo from her career too. His doubting makes Elga react angrily to him.

a kiss before...

Her boyfriend also doesn’t believe in the vampire and Elga says she will go to the woods to find her – the boyfriend suggesting if she doesn’t come back he won’t go looking for her. In the woods she, of course, finds the vampire. Is she real or a figment of Elga’s imagination? What will she do to Elga? How will that impact the boyfriend? All is kind of revealed in the denouement.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

A Hellish Fury – review

Author: Eva Vertrice

First Published: 2016

Contains spoilers

The blurb: In the second book of The Fury Trilogy, A Hellish Fury, Rachel and Lilith continue the search for the key to unlock the power of the ring. From New York, to New Orleans, to Hell itself, they’ll follow leads to uncover the mastermind behind the heavenly plot to kill them. But, is there just one person behind it all, or are they sacrificial pawns of an even larger game?

The review: The sequel to A Fury, this continues the adventures of Rachel – a vampire, who we now know is the reincarnation of an angel – and Lilith, who is *that* Lilith…

The book carries on from the first and if it felt that the relationship between the two had become tense it is down to that and, on Rachel’s side, a series of changes she is going through tied potentially to the new knowledge that she was the angel Nuriel and having part of that life reawakened within her, or perhaps to the ring she now wears, which was tied to that and is capable of killing an angel. These changes include not wanting to sleep during the day and the ability to daywalk without consuming Lilith’s blood (in the previous book, the companions had used this method for Rachel to withstand the sun). The daywalking aspect also seems to be intermittent.

Although the series is moving Rachel away from her vampirism to some degree with things like this, I like the fact that, as a vampire character, she is at ease with herself, “It’s who I am, and from my very first breath as a vampire, I’ve embraced it.” Indeed, she has a moment of a game in an airport deciding who she would drain dry and who she would spare – the likening of this in the character’s first person narrative to a serial killer, by wondering if they do the same, shows both that ease I mentioned and her honesty about what she is.

The urban fantasy vibe remains strong with this, and as well as vampires and Lilith, we meet demons, fates and angels within the journey. The first person works for this, and whilst the attitude and power of the character perhaps dulls the tension a tad, given that she is a confident, strong character and also honked off enough to walk into Hell, literally, the same qualities make her fun to follow and means the pace remains strong. 7.5 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

My Gift Lvl 9999 Unlimited Gacha: Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon, I'm Out for Revenge! – Season 1 – review

Directors: Musashi Sakai and Katsushi Sakurabi

First aired: 2025

Contains spoilers

If you think that the title of this anime series is a mouthful, it is, though it is wonderfully descriptive of the plot and is a breeze next to the title of the light novel series it is based on: Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon: My Trusted Companions Tried to Kill Me, but Thanks to the Gift of an Unlimited Gacha I Got LVL 9999 Friends and Am Out for Revenge on My Former Party Members and the World!

the Concord of the Tribes

It is set in a fantasy realm with nine tribes and main character Light (Nina Tamaki (Japanese)/Shannon Emerick (English)) is a human who gained an innate gift of an Unlimited Gacha – a power that allows him to summon unlimited cards that become real and offer support to him and his comrades. Unfortunately, every card seemed to be a dud. After being mugged by Beast Men he was offered a place in a party called the Concord of the Tribes whose stated aim was to work together across the nine races – as an adventuring party – in order to fight inter-tribe discrimination.

Light betrayed

This discrimination is, to be fair, mostly aimed at humans, who find it difficult to level up particularly highly (each character and card has a level, much like a RPG/video game, humans max at around 100) and are treated as slaves in many kingdoms. However, in one of the most dangerous dungeons (known as the Abyss and, given its danger calling it a backwater seems off), Light’s companions betrayed him and tried to kill him. They had been tasked to see if he was a Maestro (a predicted, powerful being) and after deciding he was no threat they look to kill him.

Mai rescues Light

Luckily, Light accidentally triggered a teleportation trap during the attack and ended up in the lowest part of the abyss. About to be killed by a Hell Hound he released a card and gained the Level 9999 support character Mai (Ikumi Hasegawa (Japanese)/Molly Searcy (English)), a super ultra rare card. It turns out that the gacha uses ambient mana to summon and there is little on the surface but, in the lowest abyss, it is abundant. Mai kills the Hell Hound and then spends three years training Light to level 9999 – he uses magic to suspend aging to remain as he was when betrayed. The aim is to get revenge on the party. He uses the unlimited gacha to create a whole kingdom in the abyss and it is here the vampire element comes in.

Nazuna and her card

Including Mai, Light has four level 9999 allies (allies may be the wrong word, every summoned person has fierce loyalty to Light) and this includes Nazuna (Hana Hishikawa (Japanese)/ Chaney Moore (English)) a true vampire knight. She is ridiculously strong and – if the anime character follows the novel version – a half vampire and so does not need to drink blood. We certainly never see her do so. She is displayed as a little bit slow-witted, light-hearted but, like the others, fiercely loyal. She is not used overly much in season 1 but she is very much there.

sacer arbor and victim

I also need to mention that another of the four, the witch Ellie (Ayumi Mano (Japanese)/Ginger Sue (English)) summons a sacer arbor – blood sucking trees that feed off her enemies and the more they are fed the further they can grow. The show has a touch of harem to it, with the summoned female characters all focused, sometime romantically or sexually, at Light - that said it is not nearly as obsessed with sex as some vehicles. There is a large undercurrent that discusses racism openly and a lot of characters are drawn negatively. The most negative thing around Light is his single-minded aim at revenge both at the party (he gets two of them in season one) and the world but, by the end, he gets a redemption narrative aiming at ending discrimination.

Nazuna shows fang

The UK Blu-Ray hasn’t much in the line of extras (just clean opening and ending title animations) but does have both English and Japanese audio. The English audio was actually excellently done – special mention to level 5000 character Gold (Katsuya Miyamoto (Japanese)/John Gremillion (English)) whose English dialogue was excellent, funnily written and great to see British colloquialisms like chuffed and twat creeping into the dialogue. The series really held my attention, indeed I absolutely binged it, the animation was as good as one would expect from a modern anime and this was definitely worth a watch. 7.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK

Sete da Vampira – review

Director: Roger A. Fratter

Release date: 1998

Contains spoilers

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

wandering

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

Carlo Girelli as Marco

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

Elisabetta Principe as Carmilla

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

licking

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

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Sins of the Sire: Agripina's Firstborn – review

Author: Dan Klefstad

Release date: 2026

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Ever thought you were a oneling, only to discover you have a sibling? Now imagine you're a vampire who learns the one who created you sired another a century earlier, and never told you. This is Fiona's predicament.

The undead star of the novel uncovers this news while reading a manuscript by her late creator, Agripina. More disturbingly, these pages reveal that Fiona is subject to a rarely invoked clause in vampire law, Sins of the Sire, which allows her older sister to exact revenge on her for offenses committed by their mother.

During this time, Fiona learns that her former guardian, Daniel, has abandoned her daughter, Camilla, and murdered a new vampire she sired. This betrayal sets the stage for Fiona's mysterious elder sister to use Daniel and Camilla to lure Fiona to Mexico for what she expects will be the final confrontation, one she expects to lose.

Will Fiona find the allies she needs to defend herself? And could she gain an advantage from risky DNA experiments that might allow her to walk in daylight?

Sins of the Sire: Agripina's Firstborn, the much-anticipated sequel to Fiona's Guardians, immerses you in a world where loyalty shifts constantly, and family ties can be a deadly liability.

The review: I have previously reviewed the first book in this series and this perhaps focuses a tad more on the vampires than the first, though Daniel, previous mortal guardian to vampire Fiona, is also front and centre. He has killed a vampire – the newly turned progeny of Camilla – and abandoned Camilla for whom he was guardian. Both are capital crimes in vampire society. The blurb reveals the fact that Fiona’s sister (by turning) is looking to seek justice on her for the sins of their sire. The sin committed was turning the vampire, not naming her and abandoning her to fend for herself immediately after turning. In this series the vampire loses all mortal memories when they turn and naming offers them an identity.

The antagonist is wonderfully deranged. She is a penanggalan, a floating head and torso with hanging viscera, but this is by design not by turn – she has literally cut her own flesh away to carve herself into such a vampire. There is also a nice contrast between science and the supernatural. A bio-medical research company are involved in this volume. Aware of vampires they are looking to experiment on vampire DNA, proposing to use it for human facing cures and longevity as well as trying to alleviate the vampire reaction to sunlight (but in a particular big pharma way, where the cure is temporary and the vampire has to pay over and over again). It was interesting to discover that each vampire has exactly the same DNA as their sire – with the memory loss that occurs when they turn, this suggests that they are not the person they were. This juxtaposes against things such as the aware, self-carving Aztec knife – definitely a supernatural element.

The prose is strong, the book speeding along throughout. Definitely worth your time. 7.5 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

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