Legacy of Satan – review

Director: Gerard Damiano

Released: 1974

Contains spoilers

Gerard Damiano was responsible for a couple of the more infamous porn films of the seventies, Deep Throat and the Devil in Miss Jones. Legacy of Satan, I understand, was shot with hardcore scenes, which were then edited out by the distributor. According to one IMDb pundit (jaibo) it played in a double bill with Andy Milligan’s blood - and I can’t begin to imagine how disturbing that might have proved to the casual cinema-goer.

satanic rites

This is a satanic-vampiric cult type movie and it begins with a high priestess (Deborah Horlen) babbling on for ages about a chosen woman of pale complexion and tender years, provided by the dark Lord Rakeesh, who will be the queen to the coven leader Dr Muldavo (John Francis). The joining can only occur once every 1000 years but one of the coven knows her and will bring her to them. The ceremony involves blood drinking.

Cut to the aftermath of a dinner party and Maya (Lisa Christian) is bringing drinks through to her husband George (Paul Barry) and his friend Arthur (James Procter). By the sounds of things Arthur, who is an architect, has up’d and left his job – but hasn’t really given reasons why. He asks George if he believes in God and after George has had an outburst about this Maya hits her husband with the line “George, don’t be so obstinate”. Arthur then suggests if there is a God there must be the equal and opposite, the devil. George exclaims again and Maya retorts, “George, don’t be so obstinate”. Yes the dialogue just flows like a dammed up river, but never-mind, as Lisa Christian and her fellow thespians deliver like they are in a school play anyway.

Arthur and the Blond Blood-farm

Worse than the dialogue and delivery thereof is the God awful dirge of a synthesised soundtrack that haunts the film like a bad smell. Anyhoo, a moustachioed villain, Carlos (Jarrar Ramze), enters a building and an apartment therein and steals a photo whilst the owners (George and Maya) are in bed. Why they didn’t lock their door is anyone’s guess. He returns to Dr Muldavo and passes the photo to him – Maya is to be his queen. This makes his silent henchwoman Auriela (Ann Paul) jealous – which you just know will cause trouble later. Muldavo goes to Arthur, who is being fed blood by a woman credited as the Blond Blood-farm (Christa Helm) and tells him to invite George and Maya to a costume party.

'burning' inside

Before this occurs they hold a rite. The high priestess offers hand movements over a woman (used as a simulacrum of Maya) whilst burning Maya’s photos between the woman’s legs. This causes Maya, back in her apartment, to start having an orgasm filled dream. When George eventually wakes her she needs him to take out the fire (as she puts it) scratches his chest, licks the blood, cries and then has a go at George when he asks her what is wrong.

bleeding painting

Maya then starts having hallucinations (seeing a bleeding picture followed by an attack, and bite to her neck, by a creature with a papier-mâché face) or just acting damned odd and having a go at George (isn’t this cherry pie like blood? – no, it’s like cherry pie – [cuts finger] this is like blood [licks it] you made me cut it!) If I had been George, having her committed might have been an option. Anyway, they get the call from Arthur inviting them to the party – costumes provided and a limo.

prancing

They get there and her costume is rather revealing and his is a clown suit! Carlos brings them wine, which makes him pass out and gets her stoned, at which point she goes prancing round the house in a psychedelic sequence worthy of Jess Franco until she meets Dr Muldavo and immediately falls for his charms. George is locked up in a cellar.

George weilds the mighty sword

However, we can’t forget Auriela. She was jealous, as you’ll recall, and then clearly turned her attentions to Arthur as she begged mercy (silently, as she is mute) after Muldavo punished the man for trying to warn his friends and sentenced him to be bled to death and fed upon. She picks up a box and the next thing you know, she is stood with George and he is holding a glowing sword that makes the Satanists hide from the light and causes a really bad rash on coven leader’s faces. Can he save Maya and does she want saving?

for Gawd's sake don't scratch

I have mentioned blood drinking but you’d be forgiven for wondering if that is just an affectation. However Muldavo does say that to live you must drink the life that flows inside (ie blood) and gives an indication that he might actually be 1000 years old (or that was my interpretation of the poor dialogue). The sword seems to be akin to a holy relic (glowing as it does), which begs the question of why Muldavo left it boxed but lying around his drawing room.

This is bad… it really is, bad acting, bad dialogue and really bad soundtrack. The editing is poor but one wonders whether that was down to the distributors expunging the hardcore scenes. It does, however, have a peculiar psychedelic aspect that makes it (slightly) compelling. The prancing through the house by Maya and the bleeding painting are strangely fun moments – even more odd as Lisa Christian’s performance is particularly poor. To see it on the big screen together with Milligan’s Blood would have been a strange old day out, that's something I can safely say. 2 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Doctors Wear Scarlet – review

Author: Simon Raven

First published: 1960

Contains spoilers

The blurb: Be warned…

Doctors Wear Scarlet has a distinctly macabre and spine-chilling theme. It starts, harmlessly enough, with a young man’s infatuation for a beautiful Greek girl. Their relationship was strange, to say the least. Some might say perverted. Its exact nature could be summed up in a single word – vampirism.

The review: I had wanted to read Doctors Wear Scarlet for some time and, back in 2009/10, it was thanks to the blog Mondo Vampire that I at last got around to reading it when I was offered a guest blogger opportunity. Unfortunately Mondo Vampire is no more and so I have republished the review here. When it comes to the actual book, mine is a second hand copy and proved to be the most bizarrely decrepit and brittle book I have come across arrived – but it is not the actual physical book but the words contained therein that are ultimately important.

The words, in this case, carried a good reputation but had led to the rather poor film Blood Suckers. Despite actually following the plot of the book fairly accurately the book succeeded where the film spectacularly failed and that boiled down to one thing – characterisation.

The book gives a back story to Richard Fountain, the subject of our story, which fills almost half the volume. Such attention to detail might be frowned on by today’s publishers but, given that the explanation for the vampirism is (sort of) psychological, it is rather important in this.

I say that the vampirism is psychological because Raven actually makes a good job of giving half hints that the superstitions that this cult – for it is seen as part cult, which initiates into its ranks, and part infection – might actually be supernatural in basis. I’ll explain.

When we, eventually, get our lore we are treated to the traditional side of vampirism and the superstitions that surround it (though I must point out that Raven was erroneous in some of his traditions, which were more cinematic/fiction based). We are then treated to a psycho-sexual explanation and a level of sadistic and masochistic interplay is blamed. Yet we are aware that there is some degree of hypnosis involved – this is explained as those who are chosen for initiation have such abilities inherently, but such ability would also seem to be a rare and supernatural power. Also we get omens offered through dreams and by the king of the Gods; again this would seem to be perversely superstitious and unnervingly supernatural.

I felt that Raven was aware, as an author, that he was deliberately obfuscating the explanation and, despite offering a rational explanation for vampirism and setting his book deep in the heart of English learning, all those who are possibly infected and subsequently die are staked through the heart before being buried… suggesting that man cannot escape the supernatural no matter how rational he believes he has become.

There is a lovely passage that I wish to share, describing a vampiric attack; “…her mouth was still caught in the hideous grin which she had worn as she struck her face a her victim; and spread over her cheeks and lips, dribbling from the bared white teeth, was the blood, wet and shining red…”

This brings us neatly to the prose. Raven’s writing is strong but I was thrown off stride as I read it. Firstly, the characters, whilst well developed, annoyed me in their arrogance. These are the sort of over stuffed academics and public school chaps who once (and still) controlled England – a group of over-inflated traditionalists, overbearing with their arrogance… but any issue within that should be my own problem and not the book’s.

However one passage struck me as very odd was a misogynistic passage that described a secretary. “…in any case diversion was now provided by a young slattern, who brought in a tray with three cups of coffee on it and some damp biscuits.

“‘Made out of some vile essence,’ said Holmstrom. ‘Get out this second, you frightful slut.’

“Whining something about no need to be personal and coffee essence saving trouble, the depressed daughter of humanity slopped through the door.”

This single passage made me sit up and wonder about the whole of the book. Raven wrote a book of vampirism as a form of sexual sadism and one wonders whether he looked inwards or looked, in disgust, out towards the halls of academia. For it struck me that we only really meet two women in the book in any (light) detail. There is Penelope, supposedly the fiancé of Fountain but actually a tool of manipulation for her father (who is controlling of Fountain and his life), not really liked but (barely) tolerated by the narrator; she is a cipher for her father’s machinations and little more. Then there is Chrisesis – drawn as a vamp, a devil, a sadist and Fountain’s corruptor. We get a disparaging comment towards the end regarding women being allowed to observe college feasts and the unwarranted attack on a woman quoted above.

With generosity I chose to believe that Raven was commenting on the cloistered world he set his book in, rather than celebrating it. Perhaps the book was just a product of its age.

Never the less, it is an interesting view of vampirism and, draws rounded if disagreeable (male) characters. My own critique and discomfort aside (and no one said that a book had to be comfortable to be essential or well written), I’ll say this is an important book within the vampire cannon, 7 out of 10.

Originally published on Mondo Vampire

Vamp or Not? The Disappeared

I don’t know how The Disappeared ended up on my radar, but end up it did and this ‘Vamp or Not?’ may seem a little forced and yet I think, despite some areas of reading in, examining this film was worth it. It was released in 2008 and I understand that director Johnny Kevorkian specifically stated that the aspect that we will examine was deliberately kept vague so that the audience could make their own mind up.

However it should be noted that this is, primarily, a ghost story and a good one at that. Set in the seedy underbelly of council estate London, Kevorkian creates a dour atmosphere that suits the film, with muted colours and what feels like a grey sky permanently hanging over main character Matthew Ryan (Harry Treadaway).

The film begins looking at Matt, as he is known, sat in a waiting room whilst we hear his father, Jake (Greg Wise), talking to a doctor – asking whether it is really wise to let him home. The doctor says that they have done all they can and says that his treatment will continue via out-patients and through his social worker. Matt is being released from hospital having received psychiatric care. Matt, it has to be said, is played with great skill by Treadaway who gives a marvellous physical performance throughout.

Harry Treadaway as Matt

They get home and Jake has to go out, saying he will bring fish and chips home and giving Matt his key to the flat. Matt goes to his room; there are two beds and a few scattered children’s toys. We flashback to a party Matt threw for his birthday whilst Jake was out. Matt and his friends were getting drunk and stoned when his twelve year old brother, Tom (Lewis Lemperuer Palmer), came in and said he was bored sitting in Dad’s room and went to the estate’s playground. Matt snaps out of the memory and picks out a box with tapes and press cuttings concerning his brother’s abduction from the playground.

TV appeal

He plays a video of a TV reconstruction and an appeal by his father, to the abductor, begging for Tom’s safe return. As the newscaster mentions Matt’s name he also hears Tom call him. He plays it back twice more, the same thing happening both times. When his father comes home he tries to play him the tape but Jake punches a glass cabinet door at the crucial point, overwhelmed by the frustrated anger that the tape has provoked and scared that his remaining son is still unwell. There is a knock on the door and it is social worker Adrian Ballan (Alex Jennings), who happened to be passing.

Ros Leeming as Amy

The next day Matt awakens from a dream of being buried alive and we see the scars on his wrists. His dad throws the tapes and cuttings out, but Matt retrieves the appropriate video – disturbing a crow, which the viewer begins to notice as a recurring creature. Matt doesn’t hear Tom this time, possibly because of the sound of arguing coming from next door. He goes out and meets a young woman, Amy (Ros Leeming), who moved next door when he was in hospital (or so he figures). Later he sees her at a quayside but she doesn’t hear his calls and when he gets to where she was, she has gone. He also sees, in a shop window, images of missing children shown on a TV and then a reflection in the window of Tom stood behind him. When he turns no-one is there and then a gang of kids on push-bikes ride past him, making him jump back.

DIY EVP

His friend Simon (Tom Felton) clearly doesn’t believe Matt when he tells him about the tape but does mention seeing a TV programme about recordings of the dead captured on tape (evp). Simon also tells him that a reporter tried to tie his dad into the disappearance, whilst Matt was in hospital. Matt takes an old tape deck to the playground and talks to Tom, but is attacked by a gang of kids (who were on the bikes earlier) who viciously beat him and smash the recorder. He is found by Amy. When he listens to the tape he hears Tom say that it is really dark and he is scared…

cold ghostly breath

And that is about as far as I want to go on the blow by blow as so far not Vamp and we do need to look at that aspect. However I can say that Matt starts seeing more and more, with Tom (and other ghosts) making their presence known, and is eventually led to find the killer. The twist at the end of the film is, in reality, no twist at all, as you’ll guess it early on – Amy is a ghost too. However, to discuss the ‘Vamp or Not?’ properly I need to spoil the identity of the child abductor – so if you don’t want to know, turn away now…

Alex Jennings as Ballan

It is social worker Ballan, who works from the church – and his position as a social worker seems odd as he seems more tied to the church than the council (who are never mentioned). It seems more he is just able to insinuate into people’s lives. So why suggest he is a vampire, as we see nothing overtly vampiric? Firstly – and this is pure supposition – the gang of boys I’ve mentioned reminded me of the Lost Boys. This is both in their riding around (on bicycles not motorbikes) and them being chased off by Ballan in a moment that was reminiscent of Max and the Lost Boys – after which he tells Matt that they seemed out for blood that night. Matt asks him, as he stopped them hassling a young boy hence them chasing him, whether they might have anything to do with the abduction and Ballan says he doesn’t know, but seems shocked by the question he then adds, “I do know that anything is possible these days, when people have lost their beliefs and their faith… what’s left?” There also seems a link put between the gang and the crows (subtle but it did seem that the crows and the gang were connected).

symbol burns

Matt comes across a symbol, an inverted cross, and ties it to a man called Edward (Jefferson Hall) who is a permanent resident in the psychiatric wing of the hospital. Matt speaks to him and then – Matt having been removed from the room by a nurse – we see a shadow move over Edward and him kill himself. The symbol marks an entrance into Ballan’s lair below the church, when he is defeated the symbol burns. Getting back to the shadow and we saw that same shadow pass by the door of a psychic, Shelley (Nikki Amuka-Bird), Matt goes to see. As it passes the whole flat goes dark. As it turns out, Shelley is dead and the flat a burnt out shell – but Matt sees the flat, her and her daughter (Tyler Anthony) as they were and is unaware of their ghostly nature at the point.

neck marks

Later he goes back to the flat to hide (from a psychiatric orderly after him to drag him back to hospital) and he sees what happened to Shelley and her daughter. He sees the daughter run in crying, there are two lines of blood at her neck – from a two puncture bite or just scratches we can’t really tell. We see the shadow move in (and Matt closes his eyes rather than see who it is, for some reason) but Shelley sees the person who enters. The daughter cries more and Shelley runs with her to a bedroom, locking the door. The fire was deliberate, they were burned to death; Matt discovers that Shelley scratched the name Ballan into a floorboard.

old photo

Whilst he is certainly a killer, the evidence for vampirism, so far, is at best circumstantial – bar the possible bites. I should mention that, as Matt goes through a store area of the church to find Ballan’s lair we see a Victorian looking picture of Ballan, suggesting he might be immortal. When we hear that the police, after Matt brains Ballan over and over again with a rock, found no trace of the imposter but did find the real Ballan – who had been dead for some amount of time – we wonder was the body they found the fresh kill, rotted on death, or was the Ballan we saw really an imposter? In that case how did he fool every one and how did he get up after having his skull repeatedly smashed? One answer, to either possibility, might be that he was a vampire.

Alucard's grave

The director does leave us with one interesting clue. Matt is being chased by the gang and he manages to get to the churchyard and hide. It is in the scene where Ballan intervenes and sends the gang away. However Matt’s hiding place, before the intervention, is behind a gravestone. If you look carefully (and it might not be too clear in the screenshot) the name on the stone is Angus Alucard. Yes, Dracula backwards! Methinks that might have been a big hint and at that point I am going vamp, though I admit some points might be stretched – the supposed immortality, the might-be-bite marks and the reference to Alucard seal the deal.

The film, by the way, I thought was well worth a watch and is a good modern ghost story beyond anything else. The imdb page is here.

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.

Guest Blog: Vamp or Not? The Nosferatu Scroll

Welcome back to Clark Nuttall with another guest blog, this time investigating whether the novel The Nosferatu Scroll is 'Vamp or Not?'.

Author James Becker

First published 2011

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Bohemia 1741, On the Northern banks of the Vitava River an extraordinary event is taking place. Inside a private chapel a high-born Hungarian lady is being laid to rest. But not before her heart is removed from her body and she is buried beneath a layer of heavy stones – lest she rise again to prey upon her victims...

Venice 2010, Holidaying in the world's most beautiful city, Chris Bronson and Angela Lewis discover a desecrated tomb. Inside it is a female skeleton and a diary dating back hundreds of years. Written in Latin, it refers to a lost scroll that will provide the 'answer' to an ancient secret.

Soon corpses of young women, all killed in the same ritualistic manner, start appearing throughout the city. And when Angela disappears, Bronson knows he must find her before she too is slaughtered. But his hunt for Angela leads him to the Island of the Dead, and into a conspiracy more deadly than he could ever have imagined...

The 'Vamp or Not?': This novel does, pretty much, exactly “what it says on the tin” to use a phrase from British advertising.

It opens in the obligatory creepy castle, as a priest supervises the opening of a coffin, delivered 2 days ago from the Schwarzenberg Castle in Vienna. In the coffin is the body of the “high-born Hungarian lady”, the gloriously titled Princess Eleonora Elisabeth Amalia Magdalena von Schwarzenberg. The author describes in detail how the priest checks her body, slicing open the stitches down the length of her body, to ensure the heart had been removed, before splashing her with what we can assume to be holy water and sealing her inside a box which he then fastens inside a coffin. He then has the coffin transported to the church where it is taken underground into a side chapel rather than the family mausoleum, and it is buried in a clay concrete lined hole with large slabs of rock in order “to stop her rising”. He also mutilates a portrait of her, cutting out the head and burning that section of the painting. This, he believes, will end the curse that has plagued the area. This chapter ends with him thinking he was wrong about the source of this mysterious plague, hinting that whatever was happening had continued, but at this point the author flips to the present day, and this is the last we hear from that side of the story. Personally I was a little disappointed and wondered if the author could have continued this novel just along this story, developing the characters and giving us a full 18th century vampire novel, but we move to the present day now.

Chris Bronson and Angela Lewis are holidaying in Venice, and its early November. I must admit to never having visited this city, but from the author's description it seems to be an amazing place, and definitely a place for anyone who likes Italy to visit. They decide, as it's the 1st of November, to take in the Venetian Festival of the Dead and so visit the island used as the main burial area for Venice, the island of San Michele. Whilst joining in, and watching, the torchlight procession through the graveyard, which, upon this of all nights, is misty, they hear a scream.

Bronson, it transpires, is ex-forces and now a policeman, and Angela an archaeologist for the British Museum, so of course they head towards the sound and discover a crowd around a dead body. This is not just any old dead body though......a tomb has broken open and the ancient corpse has fallen out. Whilst they wait for the police to arrive Angela sneaks a look inside the tomb and finds an ancient diary which she secretes about her person. She also notices that skull had been removed and placed between the feet and also that it had a rock jammed in the jaws.

The next morning we hear that a young woman has gone missing, and that she is by no means the first. Bronson, as a policeman, albeit British and far outside his jurisdiction, finds this interesting, whilst Angela finds the diary even more so. Angela explains to him that the tomb they saw last night was that of a vampire, hence the removal of the head and the rock in the jaws. Of course, they both agree, vampires don't exist but times were different when this person died and superstitions then are scoffed at now.

Angela gives Bronson a potted history of the vampire, from the ancient Egyptian god Shezmu through to the likes of Dracula. I won't go into detail about it as anyone reading this will be conversant enough with the vampire genealogy anyway. She does however state that stakes, crucifixes, garlic, sunlight and mirrors are likely inventions of later people, in particular pointing a finger at Bram Stoker, and linking their rise to the Black Death.

Whilst they discuss this Marietta Perrini, the latest young woman to disappear finds herself chained in a room deep underground, with no light whatsoever. Meanwhile Inspector Bianchi, tasked with the investigation into the missing women also meets Bronson and Angela to take statements about the previous night's discovery.

The story moves on from here, Angela translating the Latin script, in the process learning it gives indicators as to how to “make” a vampire. Unfortunately for her, it is missing a key part, the scroll of the title. Other people are also interested in this, and whilst they are out enjoying the sights Bronson is knocked unconscious and Angela kidnapped. Bronson is warned by Bianchi to let the police do their job and find Angela, of course we know this won't happen.......and it doesn't.

Angela finds herself on one of the numerous small islands scattered about Venice, where she is forced to fully translate the diary. She is also told that as she has seen the faces of the people holding her, when she has outlived her usefulness they will kill her. Knowing this, and believing Bronson to be dead, she duly translates the diary. Thankfully it is indeed missing the scroll, but there are clues as to its whereabouts, thus giving her a reprieve for the time being.

Bronson, as we know, is not dead and is hunting for her all over Venice. He by chance returns to San Michele and recognises the person who assaulted him, giving him the break he needed. He reports this again to Bianchi, and again is warned about interfering in an on-going police investigation, so takes matters into his own hands.

Angela is taken to another remote island, and in a clock tower she finds the missing scroll. This is a bonus, as she stays alive in order to translate this to the captors, who include a hooded man who never speaks, has prominent canines and smells strongly of rotting flesh.

In order to save the review being the length of the novel, things now move apace and Bronson manages to tail the kidnappers to their lair, reporting this to Bianchi, who sends a launch to investigate, only to discover it is the wrong island. However Bronson sees another behind it and sets off to rescue Angela who has, by this time, translated everything and is taken into a cellar, where she meets Marietta. The scroll has provided the missing instructions for the creation of a vampire, and Marietta is a key ingredient.

Bronson hides on the island and sees a group of men, immaculately dressed, arrive for a ceremony. He phones Bianchi, and is astonished to see one of the figures answer the phone. Bianchi, it would appear, is one of the vampire cult, which leads Bronson to assume that is why his help wasn't wanted or encouraged. He gets into the cellar by knocking out one of the cultists and wearing his robe, where the ceremony is about to take place. We know that he won't stand by and let this happen and of course he doesn't. A gunfight ensues, and the Italian armed police also burst in to capture the cultists. Bianchi it now transpires was an inside man and had arranged this in order to arrest them all.

As the smoke clears he finds Angela, and the hooded vampire have gone missing. Bronson finds the obligatory secret passage and a chase in speedboats across the water of Venice ensues as we rush towards the climax. Bronson shoots the hooded figure at close range and it falls into the water, he gets the girl, the police break up the murderous cult and everyone lives happily ever after. Or do they? The author ends with no body ever being found, but a few months later an abandoned building becomes a place of fear as strange sounds emerge, and the smell of rotting flesh becomes stronger.

This book is definitely not an actual vampire, more vampire cult, but as I stated earlier the opening chapter cold have been the start of a traditional vampire novel of some promise. The rest of the novel is a conspiracy theory/Dan Brown-esque adventure thriller featuring a cult who believed they could create vampires.

As a last aside however, the author did have an interesting idea I hadn't come across for this actual creation (and I stand here to be shown up by my ignorance). The ceremony involved 2 human victims, in this instance Marietta and Angela. One had to be of noble, indeed vampiric lineage (Marietta) and the other just a common person (Angela). Both were force fed the milk of a she wolf before being raped and murdered. They were then to be bled and the blood collected, mixed with the powdered skull of a vampire and drunk. This would lead to the creation of a vampire. As I say, not a concept I personally have come across before, and an interesting one that may have worked better in a traditional vampire story.

Not vampire, but enjoyable enough as an adventure story.

Taliesin’s Thoughts: Clark is correct when he states that there isn’t actually a vampire in this, however (without having read the novel) I personally would class it as ‘Vamp’ due to the belief in vampires.

What is interesting is that James Becker has clearly conflated two real world storys that have recently been documented in a televised form. The story of Princess Eleonore Elisabeth Amalia Magdalena von Lobkowicz was investigated and theorised upon in the documentary Vampire Princess and the skull with a brick was found in a Venice plague pit and examined in the book Vampire Forensics, itself a companion to a National Geographic TV documentary of the same name.

Interestingly the author has clearly taken Princess Eleonore’s habit of taking wolf’s milk (as a cure) and conflated it into a vampire creation myth – like Clark I haven’t seen this occur before.

Déjà vu – review

Director: Poom Opium

Release Date: 2011* (assumed)

Contains spoilers

I ordered this Thai release with hope, given the cover, that it might be rather good – yes, yes, I know… never judge a book and all that jazz. But, to be fair, it looked funky and how often do you get the concept of a naga in a film?

What, before we start, is a naga? In various traditions it is an entity that takes the form of a giant snake. More importantly in Thailand and Laos, along the Mekong, the Nāga is still revered and believed to rule in the river – This is where some of the film takes place. The film also involves vampires – hence being reviewed here.

mereman

As the film begins we see people on jet skis. Masked men fire submachine guns at a woman –Janjira Nakjit, known as Jane – who falls into the water. She is rescued by a mereman, who places something (later revealed to be the naga pearl) in her mouth and this revives her. Has this taken place? Probably not; when we meet Jane in the next scene she is a cop, transferred to the Déjà vu research centre, and doesn’t believe in occult phenomena. Yet she keeps dreaming this scene – a premonition then? If so it doesn’t actually happen in film, beyond her dreams – though she does meet the mereman in human form.

blood everywhere

A woman sits on the edge of a bath as a man drinks a brandy. The woman, Camilla, sprinkles water on her cleavage and skimpy clothing and I assume that showing her nude and in the bath was a step too far for the filmmakers. The man approaches her and they end up on the bed, her straddling him but, before the clothing can come off and the censors get upset, she produces fangs and kills him, getting blood everywhere.

Dr Chamnong and Jane

At the research centre Dr Pakorn Chamnong shows Jane an orientation video as he explains that Déjà vu investigate weird occurrences – a picture of Sir Christopher Lee as Dracula is one of the images that flash up on the screen! He shows her a picture of a corpse that has been cut at the throat and drained of blood. This was done, he says, by what they call a “suck blood monster” or vampire. He thinks it has something to do with a picture found at the scene. The picture is a real picture often found in Thai bars and restaurants and inscribed with the legend “Queen of Nagas, seized by the American Army, Mekong River at Laos military base, June 27th 1973, with a length of 7.80 metres”. Actually the picture is a hoax and is of a group of Navy Seal trainees with an oarfish they found, in California, in 1996. This, however, is the basis of the film.

fangs on display

So what is going on? That is difficult to say as the film wasn’t particularly forthcoming plot wise and the subtitles were poor, to say the very least. Camilla is known to Déjà vu, she is from Romania – a child of a Romanian and a Thai parent. She contracted vampirism and must feed on a full moon. Although she seems to feed more regularly, she gains her powers from the act of blood drinking at the specific point in the lunar cycle. The vampires are daywalkers but they are mortal and need the naga pearl to become immortal.

Lara... oops... I mean Jane

Now, when they said mortal I can only assume that they will age and die, because they were impervious to bullets. They can turn into crap bats and Camilla’s hands pass through a mattress, at one point, from under the bed in order that she might strangle Jane. They move at jerky fast speed and yet must chase down enemies – so they aren’t really going that fast.

mind holograms?

They are tracking down anyone who might know, or have been involved with, the capture of the queen naga and this search takes them (and Jane as well) to a certain Mr Rachain – the son of the captain of the fishing expedition, and a mereman it transpires. As for what else is going on… I don't really know. We can take the character Frank as an example of the film's inability to explain events. He is Jane’s partner in déjà vu and is a computer geek who at one point is asked to look at something... and seems to create a holographic aquarium, which fills the tent the characters sit in, with his mind. Jane touches a fish and is told not to touch anything else but we are not told what has happened, how it has been done or what its relevance is.

a batfink moment

Jane comes across like a Thai version of Lara Croft, complete with short shorts, vest and thigh strapped gun. Camilla at one point raises a cape to deflect bullets ala batfink, at another point stopping them with bullet time effects and yet, when a vampire is hit by a bullet they are not even phased. The good and bad guys are the worst shots ever, it seems, releasing clip after never-ending clip with a hit rate less than the A team and Jane seems to have access to a ready supply of grenades (though where she kept them is probably best not contemplated).

Camilla

When the ending came around (which involved a trip to another dimension – where they would never return from – to walk through a jungle, avoid two wooden traps and then return to our dimension) I was left wondering what the Hell had just gone on. Badly shot, badly acted, bad subtitles, poor effects and no proper story. Oh dear, oh dear. 1 out of 10 (as Camilla is hot).

At the time of review there is no IMDb page for the film.

First Impression: Underworld: Awakening

This is the fourth episode of the Underworld series, directed by Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein, and I went to see this at the cinema last night.

So, of course, previously we had Underworld, which introduced us to the hidden war between vampires and lycans and the warrior (or, in Underworld parlance, deathdealer) Selene (Kate Beckinsale, Van Helsing) and at the end of that film we get the first Lycan/vampire hybrid in the form of Selene’s lover Michael. The second film Underworld Evolution sees a further hybrid in the form of ancient vampire Marcus and Selene manages to get herself some handy dandy immunity to sunlight. This film gives us a potted history of these two films at the beginning, ignoring the third film, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, as it was a prequel to the first two films and did not feature Selene.

The film then introduces the idea that humanity discover the existence of vampires and lycans and wage war on the two… here the film gets confused in its language, at times calling them separate species and at other times referring to the infected. They are, of course, infected – the two strands being different mutations of a virus that began (in the distant past) with Alexander Corvinus and diverged when his two infected sons were bitten by a bat and a wolf respectively. Whatever the language might suggest, however, we have the fact that humanity go on a full out killing spree. Selene and Michael are trying to escape the city but things go wrong…

icy but modest

Twelve years later (as we soon discover) and an alarm goes off in a facility, allegedly a research facility dedicated to finding a cure to the two infections. Subject 2 has escaped from a cell and releases subject 1 from Cryo-stasis before heading out of the building to freedom. Subject 1 is, of course, Selene. The old Underworld modesty rears its head here as a naked Selene falls out of the Cryo-stasis pod and dry ice conspires to keep any nudity well hidden. For some reason the facility decided to keep her gear stored in the same room, so she is quickly dressed and then is also escaping. Positively, during her flight from the facility sequence, she does actually bite someone (there is way too little vampire bite moments in the series).

India Eisley as Eve

Actually she is allowed to escape, the order coming from head scientist Dr Jacob Lane (Stephen Rea, Interview with the Vampire) as she will lead them to number 1 – Lane goes on to conspire to keep the escapes a secret from the police. When Selene goes and finds the scientist who took the order (as she heard it) she is told that her and the other subject’s minds are somehow linked – in ways the scientists don’t understand – hence blasts of visions she was having, she is literally seeing through the other’s eyes. When she finds subject 2 it is a young girl, credited as Eve (India Eisley), and not Michael as she had assumed. She also meets David (Theo James) a member of a hidden vampire coven.

a Lycan

The coven is run by David’s father, Thomas (Charles Dance, who is doing his best Bill Nighy impression), and he is less than impressed. Selene is a traitor who loved an abomination and killed two of the elders (not forgetting that one of those elders was, by that logic, an abomination also) and, as he realises what Eve is, he believes she will bring humanity to the coven’s door. And yes, they are attacked… however it isn’t humans but lycans including a super-giant-lycan. It isn’t much of a spoiler to reveal that the facility is really run by lycans, using the hybrid to cure their weakness to silver. In doing so they have turned Lane’s son, Quint (Kris Holden-Ried, The Death of Alice Blue), into the self-healing, silver immune and giant super-lycan. They get Eve back and Selene is off to rescue her, with the help of human cop Sebastian (Michael Ealy).

So, first impressions… a good action film, take your brain out and watch the explosions and acrobatics… However, if you re-engage your brain the film begins to fade more and more. How did the lycans know about the coven’s location? We see the van Selene and David use to get there on an empty road, so presumably they weren’t followed. Perhaps the lycans always knew of the location – we’re not told. Indeed, why hadn’t the facility added tracking devices to its test subjects? You know, on the off-chance they escaped.

Michael Ealy as Sebastian

All the characters, bar Selene and (to a lesser degree) Eve, are ciphers, walking plot devices. Sebastian hides evidence of Selene and berates his rooky partner (we do hear that his wife had been turned and self-immolated when the feds turned up at the door, during the purge). His motivation, thus, seems obvious but not so when he ignores a potential lycan kill. Much more could have been done with this, adding suspicions from his partner and a whole sub-plot. Indeed wouldn’t the force be suspicious of a man who harboured a vampire, albeit his wife? Even more pertinent is the question, why did the purge happen? According to the first film the vampires were living on synthetic blood, was the purge just in that city (an undisclosed mash up of an Eastern-European and US location)? Wouldn’t some countries have gone down the route imagined in True Blood?

action, pvc... but where is the story?

These are just the ones on the surface and I am sure more questions would occur if I put some effort into thinking about it. The key, of course, is not to think, it is to watch the action sequences and Kate Beckinsale and leave all else at the door. Unfortunately a lot of the intricate history and backstory, once a cornerstone of the Underworld franchise, has also been left at the door by the filmmakers.

I should say though, for all those who despair about Twilight, that this film does have a sparkly vampire in it… ok, it’s Kate walking through a cloud from a silver nitrate grenade but… she sparkles. As for the 3D, it didn’t give me the headache that sometimes comes with some films but I wasn’t particularly impressed with it generally, it seemed a bit pointless really. EDIT 19/5/12: Having re-watched the film on DVD I don't believe there is anything extra I need to say about the film. However, for completeness sake I'll now offer it a score of 5.5 out of 10. The imdb page is here.

Kronos – review

Author: Guy Adams

Release date: 2011

Contains spoilers

The blurb: 'What manner of monster can wreak such damage? I only hope you know how it can be stopped.'

The peace of an English village is shattered when a young girl withers before her friend's eyes, becoming but dust and bones. Witnessing this terrifying transformation, local physician Dr Marcus fears the village has been cursed by the presence of evil. He immediately summons his old army friend, the mysterious but powerful vampire hunter, Kronos.

Together with the help of his assistant Professor Grost, Kronos has dedicated his whole life to destroying vampires. He knows that there is nothing so varied and deadly. With a vampire nothing is certain, especially how one might be able to kill it.

As more and more villagers fall prey to this deadly curse, time is against him. And when it comes dangerously close to home, Kronos is faced with a terrible choice...

The review: Having been a tad underwhelmed by the novelisation of Twins of Evil I perhaps approached the next classic Hammer novelisation with a touch more trepidation. Kronos is the novelisation of the 1974 classic Hammer movie Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter. The book has a foreword by writer/director Brian Clemens, and he tells us that there were things he would have liked to do in the movie that budget wouldn’t allow. The specific example was having Kronos sleep in a gold coffin to help him think like his foes. This is introduced in book.

Indeed Adams changes quite a few things in book, though the novel follows mainly the story line of the film. Kronos’ sidekick, Professor Hieronymus Grost, suddenly changes his name to Herbert Grost – for reasons unknown. The film was set in an undisclosed European setting, in the book it is made clear that the place is England and that Kronos had previously been part of the New Model Army (despite this fact, his ‘chinese herbs’ are also more accurately described and are perhaps not what an officer in the NMA might have indulged in).

There are also lore changes. When going to face the vampires the cross painted on the necks is made of wax from a saint’s blood candle, rather than garlic, and a concoction of garlic and wolfsbane is smeared on the neck in addition to this. We have confirmation that the latter works as a ward. Rather than the efficiency of crosses as a weapon against the undead being down to the bearer, it is down to the religious nature of the vampire and, most importantly, the entire lore about the vampires met in this adventure being killed by the holy cross (forged into a sword) is gone replaced by another method; in the Kronos universe the effectiveness of any item depends on the particular breed of vampire.

What I thought was brilliant was that Adams wrote the book first person but switched through a variety of characters chapter to chapter, some of these characters being minor players in the story or little more than observers. This way the book is enriched with detail and interesting perspectives, especially as Adams maintains individual voices for his narrators. The climax plays out slightly differently to the film ending, but was both thrilling and would have made a brilliant movie ending.

Clemens offers his wish that the book might prove popular and then, perhaps, lead to another movie. As I read it – and bearing in mind that one concept, at the time the film original came out, was for a Kronos TV series – I actually thought that perhaps Hammer might consider an entire Kronos reboot. So long as they can find a lead as charismatic as Horst Janson, I think the film could be remade as the first of a film series or the pilot of a TV series. The genius of Kronos – and the clue is in the name – is that this could take place jumping through time periods. At the very least Adams should be commissioned to create some original Kronos tales. For now, however, I give the book a strong 8 out of 10.

Twins of Evil – review

Author: Shaun Hutson

First published: 2011

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Karnstein castle stands like a bird of prey on the highest point of the hills that surround the village below. A huge monolithic reminder to all those who see it of the power of the family who have lived there for centuries.

By day, the village of Karnstein is a peaceful place, but by night, an unimaginable evil roams free. Villagers are found dead, their throats ripped open and bodies drained of blood. Young girls disappear and are never seen again. Rumour has it that they are taken to the castle for the pleasure of the Count Karnstein, the last surviving member of the family.

Into this strange place come beautiful identical twins Maria and Frieda. While Maria lives a blameless life, Frieda is drawn to the castle and Count Karnstein. A man rarely seen in daylight, a man steeped in Satanic ritual and the blood of beautiful young girls.

Before long Frieda and Karnstein unleash a reign of bloody terror on the villagers, and no one, it seems, is strong enough to stop them.

The review: Shaun Hutson is no stranger to the blog, we looked at his book Erebus and he had a cameo appearance in the film Forest of the Damned. In 2011, Hammer released some movie-tie in books including two of classic vampire movies, Hutson wrote the novelisation of Twins of Evil.

I was fairly excited as I hoped Hutson would move beyond the film and, indeed, he did, creating scenes that were never filmed. One scene that I found exciting, from a geeky point of view, was when we entered the tavern and the innkeeper remembers strangers passing through in the form of the English couple called Kent and a Father Sandor – a reference to the film Dracula: Prince of Darkness (of course, there were actually two couples, both called Kent, in at that time). He then recalls trouble at a girl’s finishing school tied into a student called Mircalla, referencing Lust for a Vampire.

This was great but later as he has the doomed school teacher, Ingrid, meet the Harcourts – hapless victims in Kiss of the Vampire - it went from referentially cool to annoying. The Harcourts suggest they are visiting Dr Ravna and it just didn’t sit right, it was too tied in and (of course) the Harcourts travelled by car not coach. We still do not know exactly how Ingrid met her fate, just that she did after the coach stopped because of something blocking the road.

The lore is much as laid out in the film, though Hutson introduces a direct sunlight rule that is not present in the Karnstein films. He does suggest, however, that the count can walk abroad on overcast days.

Niggles aside this was a fair enough novelisation, but it isn’t Hutson’s best work and it didn’t rock my world. It did, however, dovetail nicely with my love of the Hammer films. 6 out of 10.

Guest Blogging

There’s no post here today, instead I am guest blogging over at Bloody Good Vampires, a site run by Carole Gill. You might remember that I reviewed Carole’s novel The House on Blackstone Moor and she was kind enough to ask me to do a piece on her blog. So… what're you waiting for… go on over and say hi.

Bloodlust: Vampire Shadowhunter

There are precious few specifically vampire games out there, given the size of the genre as a whole, fewer still where you play the vampire and feed. Enter the game – currently in development – Bloodlust: Vampire Shadowhunter.

This is an indie game and promises a non-linear single player role playing game. The basic story is as follows:

”Varic and Vista, two silent, dark, and solitary "ShadowHunters" find themselves resurrected into a lost city terrorized by the all-powerful "Emperor" Ranior, a monstrous vampire lord. Haunted by visions of darkness and tormented by their ghosts from the past, Varic and Vista struggle daily, though they always continue to move forward. With each victory they grow stronger, increasing bloodline and skills in the "Dark Arts", but all at the cost of their humanity. With each new bloodline, they find themselves turning more into the vampiric monsters they were resurrected to destroy. In the end, their great power will be challenged only by themselves, as they will have to face the source of their own immortality and decide whether to embrace the darkness or destroy it.

“What would you choose?”

There is a demo online and, having played it, I am thoroughly looking forward to the full game being developed. Now, a word of caution, the game is an indie development and, as such, it isn’t as graphically polished as perhaps some games out there from the big studies. That said, it still looks pretty darn good. The game demo and more details can be found here. My thanks to Everlost and Vampire News for putting me on to this. I’ll leave you with a gameplay video:

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night – review

Director: Kevin Munroe

Release date: 2011

Contains spoilers

So a long, long, long time ago I put a pre-order in for the Dylan Dog DVD at Amazon UK. After a while I got an email saying the film had been put back, and then a further email to the same effect every so often. Eventually, having been determined to buy the UK disc, I cancelled the order and ordered the US disc – after all, by that time it was cheaper than the UK pre-order price. Is there a moral to that story? Not really, unless it is to point out to the various companies involved in film production and distribution that messing your customers around is uncool.

Brandon Routh as Dylan

What else was meant to be uncool was Dylan Dog itself. I had heard bad reports, especially about leading man Brandon Routh. Well I didn’t find it all that bad, to be perfectly honest. It isn’t the best movie ever made and Routh isn’t the most charismatic lead (though as it is played like a noir he doesn’t have to be that animated), but I have seen much worse.

Anita Briem as Elizabeth

The film begins with a woman, Elizabeth (Anita Briem), cooking dinner for her and her father. She puts out a plate when she sees blood drip onto the porcelain, pooling from the ceiling above. She runs upstairs to find her father dead and something furry burst through the window and escape into the night. We then get a Sam Spade like voice-over about things that die and come back and how you would call Dylan (Brandon Routh) or you used to, but he is out of that game now. Once, however, he had been the line between them and humanity.

Sam Huntington as Marcus

Dylan, in the here and now, has a gun aimed at his head. The gunman is a husband that Dylan caught and photographed cheating on his wife and he blames Dylan for the fact that he is going to lose everything. Dylan has little sympathy but when the man suggests that his wife cheated first he offers his services… at the right price. Marcus (Sam Huntington, Being Human (US)) comes in with a new camera for Dylan. He wants to be Dylan’s partner, rather than a general dogsbody, but Dylan doesn’t want one. There is a new job in the Garden District (the film is set in New Orleans). It turns out to be Elizabeth, who was given his card (from the old days) by a priest. Dylan walks away.

vampire blood is a drug

Next we visit the vampires of the film. The vampires are marketing their own blood as a designer drug that you inhale through a nebuliser and it makes the user, strong and – if the person we see is anything to go by – really rather annoying. Later we hear that humans addicted to vampire blood are called ghouls. The leader of the vampires, Vargas (Taye Diggs), is informed that there has been a werewolf murder, a fact that doesn’t interest him until he hears that the victim had imported ‘the heart’ from the old country – this is the artefact at the centre of the film.

wake up dead

Marcus is at the office and is attacked by a zombie and killed. Now one thing I did like was how they did the zombies in this. Flesh-eaters become ripped super-zombies (that didn’t work awfully well  visually to be honest) but the normal zombies are worm eating undead that maintain thought and personality. They do, however, rot. Enter the bodyshop – a place where zombies can buy new parts (arms, legs, heads!). Marcus comes back as a zombie and some of the best moments of the film surround him coming to terms with his condition.

Peter Stormare as Gabriel

As for Dylan, he take the case – following Marcus’ murder – and is sent down a path where he has to confront the head of a werewolf family, Gabriel (Peter Stormare, the Batman Vs Dracula), run in with Vargas, confront both his past and a killer zombie, face a monster hunter and defeat the ultimate undead. All in a day’s work! Seriously though, the film had promise that it doesn’t achieve but it is quite fun for all that.

burnt by the sun

Vampire wise we discover a few bits and bobs. They can be staked to be killed and sunlight does burn them. One punishment they might give to one of their own is burial, which can lead to insanity following the claustrophobia, hunger and worms eating through their brains. Ancient vampires might go into a hibernation and the vampire clans keep those vampires safe in storage.

staked

The special effects aren’t the best in the world in this, though they are ok in places. But I did like the overall premise. The noir aspect helps Routh get away with his deadpan performance but Huntington gives a nice, quirky performance. The film is based on a comic series and I really should pick the English translation up at some point and see if it achieves what the film should have. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.