Cursed Hearse – review

Director: Matthew Luke Tucci

Release date: 2026

Contains spoilers

Vampire machines appear in genre films on occasion and, on some occasions, those machines are cars/motor vehicles. In this case, the vehicle is a hearse and that seems rather apt. As I’ll explore, we don’t see the hearse feed, nor do we get a sense of any supernatural healing that some variants of the trope show. We do get a definite impact on the driver/owner though. Perhaps we might consider it possession even.

hearse for sale

As the film starts, we find ourselves in small town USA and we see a hearse with a for sale sign, the vehicle looks derelict. Willoughby (Louis Rocky Bacigalupo, Vampz!), or Will, is sat in a tow truck. It is the third time this week his car has died. The sheriff (Johnny Halloran) stops on by before Will gets the tow truck to drop the car off at his Uncle’s garage and drop him off at work.

co-workers

Work is a tele-sales place, with his friends Lavash (Marat Shad) and Sid (Anthony Mcgee). After shift they are walking, for his part Will is off to his second job at a Halloween store. As they walk he spots the hearse and is distracted by it. His boss at the store is a dick. However, there is something good there in the form of co-worker Rosemary (Arina Bacigalupo). She gives him a lift home and asks him on a date. Home life is weird; he lives with his Nana (Marnie L Hall) but she has a young lover, Greg (Justin C. Schilling). Lavash and Sid are coming over but he runs out on them determined to buy the hearse.

Will and Rosemary

He crosses a bridge, where a blind man seems to sit vigil, and goes to the couple who are selling the hearse. The man is creepy, but his wife comes out and essentially offers him the hearse for $400. When he has left it is clear that it is a set up and they refer to the hearse like a living being. He doesn’t have $400 and so convinces Sid to loan him the money as an investment – Will suggests he will convert the hearse into a limo as a business venture.

vampire breath

So, the car is a vampire and starts whispering to him, making him offers. The car is described as hungry and when we get the backstory it consists of a funeral home director who was part of a cult that fed the hearse the blood of the dead, but it wasn’t enough and she insisted on fresh blood. She is able to somehow possess Will, which gives him long talons, red eyes and a maw full of fangs. When he attacks a victim he expels breath into them, which seems to sedate them. Later he will say he thinks he drank blood, which he did, and a cult member says “How do you think we feed her?” This suggests that she consumes blood through a possessed servant. I’d have liked to have seen the hearse become pristine as it gained blood but it remained as is, and I suspect that was a budget thing.

Vamp face

The film has a neat idea – though some of the lore such as the breath and the symbiosis between car and servant are under-explored. Unfortunately it isn’t sure what it wants to be. It feels like it pulls its punches when it comes to horror and much more atmosphere and tension could have been explored. This may be because it styles itself as a comedy too, but that fell flat for me. There are pregnant pauses and awkward silences in scenes between the actors, as though they are waiting for direction and, to me, it really felt like it could do with tightening up. Not terrible, just shy of what it might have been. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

Guest Blog: Check your fear and get in gear — the VAN-PIRES are here! – TMtV 20th anniversary

Today, I welcome Leila Anani to TMtV. Leila was one of the first internet vampire friends I met, through the vampire forum she used to run. We’ve been friends since and have attended many a film festival together – both the now defunct Bram Stoker Film Festival at Whitby and more recently Grimmfest. Leila has guest blogged here before and has selected a TV series to discuss that I have watched the first episode of but has been sat languishing in my “to watch” pile and therefore you won’t find a previous review of Van-Pires on the blog. She has also come at it from a very soundtrack angle.

Van-Pires was a “ground-breaking” live-action/CGI animation hybrid show of 13 episodes airing between 1997 and 1998. It was so bad it has been pretty much mind-bleached by everyone who tuned in at the time, however being vampiric, it came to my attention and I decided to track it down and watch it, so you don’t have to.

As well as its mix of live action footage and animation it’s a hybrid of so many tropes and shows that you’d think it would be cliché central but somehow, despite all that’s familiar, it manages to be so deranged, that it is one of the most unique and bonkers entries in my vampire archive. I don’t think there’s anything quite like this out there. If its oddity wasn’t fascinating enough, there are so many mysteries and unanswered questions surrounding this bizarre show that I ended up doing a deep dive and burrowing down several rabbit holes, the result of which is this article.

The show opens with a Saved By The Bell intro of kids in school, counting down the clock till home time. Our 4 heroes – Axel (the hot one) Rev (the feisty girl), Nuke (the strong comedy relief) and Snap (the token jive talking black guy) race to junk-yard Sunrise Salvage where they spend their nights helping out the hippie owner Van He’ll Sing (more on him later). Plot questions abound: When do these teens find time to sleep? (they are there from school out until sunrise) – Why do their parents let them hang out with this creepy hippie? Why are they in school when they are clearly in their 20’s? Anyway, moving swiftly on….

One particular night, a meteor hits the yard and turns four vehicles in its immediate vicinity (don’t question this too closely) into Decepticons *cough* I mean Van-Pires – Evil anthropomorphic vehicles bent on sucking the fuel from innocent cars to feed their need for speed. – Why only these particular ones? – no clue, maybe because they were the only fully functional vehicles, or maybe they were at the epicentre – just roll with it)

We have the leader Tracula (a purple truck) and his henchmen: Cardaver (a hearse), Ambula (a female ambulance with six arms inspired by The Bride of Frankenstein) and Automaniac (An insane ice cream truck, based on The Joker). In one later episode Tracula creates a son: Alucart – based on The Frankenstein Monster. Our villains can’t go out in sunlight, react to the cross (Van He’ll Sing makes a cross with two wheel braces at one point), fly, have fangs and turn victims (sometimes) – this is another one of those don’t question this too closely moments. While they don’t drink blood, they do drink fuel, sucking it out with their fangs – it’s enough of an analogy to count – they are clearly coded as evil vampires.

When the meteor stuck, our four teens jumped into the nearest available vehicle (a hot rod, a fire-truck, a construction truck and a camper van). They also became Van-pires… of a sort. They fused with the vehicles they were in – becoming able to transform into CGI superhero cyborg hybrids – with the power of flight and their specific vehicle’s weapons. They take up the name Motor-Vaters – yes, they are basically Autobot Power Rangers with the cringe-worthy motto “Mission Ignition” to transform and their fingers morphing into terrible CGI car keys. One innovation I did like, however, was the dual role of the vehicle – as well as the source of the Motor-Vator’s powers, it also acts as their coffin. The teens have to return to their “carfins” before sunrise to transform back into human form. Why Van, who also dived into his car didn’t transform, we’ll never know – Perhaps because his car bonnet leads into a secret bunker? Who knows.

The series uses so many familiar tropes (all handled poorly), and wince-worthy puns galore. From a genre POV we see the hybrid/half vampire fighting full vampires trope. The Motor-Vaters don’t have fangs, but do drink fuel. However it’s a special kind (Premium)…. Unleaded? I think this was a weird attempt to getting young people excited about renewable energies and environmentalism. In the final episode ‘Uncool Fuel’ Van turns the salvage yard into a kind of allotment, teaching the teens about the joys of flower power, re-cycling and growing things – it’s just one of the truly bizarre WTF moments.

Another is ‘The Bride of Tracula’ – Rev decides she’s sick of being a tomboy and wants to be treated like a girl - there’s a hint she fancies Axel in this episode but like everything else…. It’s never mentioned again. Anyhow Tracula falls into lust with her, kidnaps her and the guys have to mount a rescue. This one made me incredibly uncomfortable and not only for the freaky interspecies wrongness – Tracula is a truck and Rev’s a human girl. But the age – Rev’s still at school and ok, the actress Melissa Marsala was 22 but making her the fantasy of an old man coded vampire – so wrong. It’s not helped either by the cheesy soft rock ballad on the credits “When the sun goes down.”

The music is the most fascinating aspect of Van-Pires and where most of the mysteries abound. On the surface, Van-Pires quite clearly a cash grab on the success of shows like Saban’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers and Beast Wars. However, I’d also like to add that it is a musical vanity project for the Who’s bassist John Entwistle.

Entwistle died in 2002 and his final album (and only studio album for the John Entwistle Band) was ‘The Music from Van-Pires’ – He collected together a bunch of demos from The Who’s career and released them for the end credits of each episode of Van-Pires – Some of them are excellent. I particularly love Bogeyman (used in the credit of episode 8 – Nukenstein) The demo of this was created by Entwistle & Moon back in 1978 for the Who album Who are You – Van-Pires despite being terrible has secured its place in posterity being a must have for Entwistle and Who fans if nothing else. But was Entwistle’s contribution limited to the soundtrack?

Earlier I mentioned the character of Van He’ll Sing – The hippie Splinter of the show, who oversees the teen Motor-Vaters. He’s credited as playing “Himself” – There are so many rumours about who he really is – it’s hard to tell, he wears glasses, a bad wig and a bandana for most of the show – The most popular notion is it being an uncredited appearance of Gary Oldman (personally I find it highly unlikely that Oldman would come off filming The Fifth Element, Air Force One and Lost in Space to cameo on Van-Pires). I think the answer’s far more obvious than that – I think its Entwistle parodying himself. In the opening episode: ‘Those Who Have The Fuel Shall Rule!’ Van tells the kids how he got his name: - He was a roadie for the Rolling Stones, Jagger came down with laryngitis and was going to have to cancel the show. However, the band pointed at Van and said “He’ll sing” and he performed instead bringing the house down. Was this a personal anecdote? We know that Entwistle and Jagger were friends – The Who recorded at least twice at Jagger’s home Stargroves. Entwistle’s track Boris the Spider 1966 was inspired by a drinking session with Stone’s Bill Wyman. Incidentally, the song was the inspiration for calling the 70’s children’s robot spider game ‘Stop Boris’ – a firm favourite of my childhood. While I digress, Boris the spider shows Entwistle’s love of the macabre and use of silly voices – both of which resurface in music video Bogeyman – which prominently featuring a spider image and of course, let’s not forget the silly horror basis for Van-Pires itself.

Was Entwistle really Van He’ll Sing? Officially we’ll never know. However, I think there are probably clues and easter eggs littered within the show. Van’s constantly waxing on the importance of vinyl over CDs and referencing musicians – he lives for his music and his cars (two shared loves of Entwistle). One name-drop that’s been bugging me – In episode 10 ‘swarm storm’ – the little kid Kirby gets kidnapped by Tracula (don’t get me started on who Kirby is – this little kid that randomly appears for one episode never to be seen or heard from again….) Van goes to the cemetery to look for him and stops by a headstone reading: “Schulman” – he has an aside about being too old for this stuff a bit like Schulman who should be grateful now (he’s dead) – now this could be just a passing reference to The Grateful Dead but somehow it seems more personal than that. I’m sure in the future Entwistle fans more knowledgeable than me might sift through and find something concrete.

The Who themselves are no strangers to the vampire genre – Keith Moon appeared in Son of Dracula (1974) and performed on the soundtrack track ‘Jump into the Fire.’ Roger Daltry, a year previous to Van-Pires played Jamie/Vlad in Vampirella (1996) and of course performed the cover version of ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me’ on the Lost Boys' soundtrack before going on to star as King Janos in Dark Prince: The Legend of Dracula (2000). In 96’ Daltry and Entwistle were together working on the Quadrophenia reunion. I can just imagine Daltry telling Entwistle about Vampirella and Entwistle wanting to do something vampire related himself. But of course, it’s all speculation. {Ed – Daltry also took on a vampire as the musician Liszt in Ken Russell’s Lisztomania.}

While the Who/Entwistle connection is the most interesting, there are lots of other musical mysteries attached to Van-Pires. Not least, how they didn’t get sued by Van Halen for the Van-pires logo which looks strangely familiar…. Although this is probably another in joke, Halen being long time fans of the Who.

Episode 2 “Unleaded Zeppelin” focuses on the Motor-Vator’s disappointment when they finally meet their idols rock group STARR (credited as Zane Fixx, Luke Luv, Niki Shea and Jerry Moon) – Doing some digging I think they were a real NYC glam rock band from 1995-2001 although Kenny Lin is credited instead of Jerry Moon (a nod to Keith Moon?). Just who were STARR and what happened to them?

Episode 12 “One Million Miles B.C.” features a blues musician friend of Van’s: McKinley Morganfield (Muddy Waters) That’s an incredibly weird choice – Morganfield died in 1983 – so it’s obviously an actor playing him (the only guest credit is Jomo Ray about whom I can find nothing) – I get that the episode is about resurrecting relics from the past, but in a kids show? It’s really odd – Musically why blues when the rest of the soundtrack is rock? And why someone kids won’t have heard of? It’s got to be an in joke of some sort. He’s described as a friend of Van’s – If Van is indeed Entwistle is this another clue? Was the actor a friend? Or was Entwistle a friend of Morganfield? I can’t find any connection between Entwistle and Muddy Waters – other than being prominent 60’s/70’s musicians – they were from different genres.

One final musical mystery is the voice of Tracula – credited as Jonathan Davis. Several articles on Van-Pires claim that it’s Jonathan Davis the lead singer of Korn. While it’s possible – Korn were founded in 1993, and whether Entwistle was Van He’ll sing or not, this show certainly has strong musical connections. However, there is also an unrelated voice actor Jonathan Davis who has credits for both Sky Dancers and Dragon Flyz – two previous shows from AGE: Abrams/Gentile Entertainment who were responsible for the live-action/script development elements of Van-Pires. I think it far more likely that they called in the voice actor they’d previously used for their star villain, than ask the singer of a fairly new metal band…. But then again, they did use STARR who were an up-and-coming rock band…. So you never know.

The more I delve into Van-Pires, the more fascinating it becomes. It seems nuts that AGE – the kings of toy related franchises (Bucky O’Hare, Visionaries, The Nintendo Powerglove to name just a few) created an IP so ripe for a toy line – come on, superheroes AND vampire cars – what’s not to love? And yet no toys materialised. For anyone investigating this particular mystery, the SEC filing is available to look at and you can see 13 action figures were produced for ‘tooling turnover’ – I’m guessing the ideas and designs were there but the money wasn’t, because the show performed so badly. So why did Van-Pires fail?

While the core concept is awesome the show failed for being too ambitious and its separate parts too incongruous to engage with audiences. The characters aren’t just underdeveloped, they are ludicrous and there’s no camaraderie as there is between the Power Rangers or the Turtles – It’s so bad we don’t even learn the characters’ real names. The toilet humour and gags while they might appeal to young kids, instantly alienate the adults. There’s literal toilet humour – I haven’t mentioned so far, because I’m trying to forget, the three mascot annoyances. Tracula has a dumb duo of a flying toilet and toaster (who talks with a French accent like Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast) for no reason. And the Motor-Vaters have Greaspot, a tricycle that thinks it’s a dog. The Motor-Vaters also fart when they transform back to humans because they have… gas. Luckily, I think they only use that joke once before realising just how bad it is.

While it was ground-breaking at the time – the CGI looks terrible by today’s standards and the contrast with the live action is terrible. However, Van-Pires gets points for being the first show to fuse the two and pave the way for hybrids shows in the future. If you can overlook it’s failings, Van-Pire’s musical pedigree is amazing and gave the world a chance to hear all these previously unheard Who tracks. I hope there are music scholars in the future who can tease more from Van and the obscure references and see this as almost a piece of memorabilia, because if Entwistle was Van then this show was his… Pyre.

I’m coming to this as big rock fan but also a vampire fan. Obviously the music fascinated me, but it scores some silly fun vampire points as well. Cheesy as it is, I love the idea of vampire cars called Tracula and Alucart. The Carfins idea was genuinely innovative. I also liked the Gypsy cab being all cryptic. The reference probably went over the head of most kids, but I thought it was fun. I think I enjoyed it far more than I should have done. But if nothing else it’s definitely interesting and it’s great to have another entry in the vampire car sub-genre.

#DRCL midnight children, Vol. 5 - review

Art and story: Shin'ichi Sakamoto

First published: 2025 (UK)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: In this beautiful, evocative, and often surreal retelling of Dracula, a fearsome enemy comes from the east, bringing with it horrors the likes of which have never been seen in the British Empire. Standing opposed are Wilhelmina “Mina” Murray and her stalwart companions, united in a cabal that eclipses gender, nationality, and station until the day that they can achieve victory.

Mina’s world begins to unravel as her connection to Jonathan Harker reveals the secrets of his journey to Castle Dracula—as well as the unthinkable fate that befell him. Now, with Mina already reeling from the loss of one of the most important people in her life, will she be able to stand strong as the Camellia Club seeks to save the soul of her beloved midnight friend through the mercy of a true death?

The review: The fifth volume of this magnificent series, Volume 4 had moved back in time to tell Harker’s story and this completes that, viewed by Mina through a psychic connection, before returning to the cliffhanger with the insect-formed Lucy and her fate – the crew of light escaping her webs with the aid of silver. Mina tries to use the method she accidentally employed to see Harker’s story, to connect with Lucy and we discover that her gender fluidity (she is Luke by day and Lucy by night) has been psychologically split by the vampirism with the Lucy side vampiric and the Luke side not so.

Then Mina makes a connection between their enemy and the serial killer of their recent past, Jack the Ripper. Joe Suwa, the series’ version of Seward, has opportunity to travel to London and searches Whitechapel for the vampire. He uses a mechanical device in a suitcase to try and track him – we later discover that the Renfield he had sequestered in his dorm was not quite the gender swapped nun we assume from the earlier volumes but a karakuri doll (an automaton) built as a salve for loneliness. He used Lucy’s hair with the doll and it has imbued her with a connection to the vampires, perhaps even caused the karakuri to be vampiric in her own right. Its detection seemed to suggest the vampire was everywhere and then Joe realises what has happened – and it is a stroke of genius. The count has had his earth used to make mortar and had buildings erected around Whitechapel, turning that area of the city into a giant coffin that is based upon his imported earth.

As beautiful and surreal as always, the ideas in this are wonderful. 9 out of 10.

In Hardback @ Amazon US

In Hardback @ Amazon UK

Blood Pay – review

Director: Brace Beltempo

Release date: 2025

Contains spoilers

Vampiric Machines are a lesser used vampire trope and, this has both a physical machine and the AI driving it.

It is set in a dystopia where AIs are taking human jobs and we get some news scenes outlining the background. Without this, the viewer would find it being dystopia a little less easy to spot, set as it is in a nice apartment and on a beautifully sunny coastline.

The apartment belongs to John (Gianluca Busani) and though he is successful (in real estate it seems) he is depressed. We first see him waking and then going for a walk. An old friend (possibly ex) approached him. Hilarie (Marta D'Ambrosio) has moved back into the area after a co-worker went missing and she was asked by the employer to return. She also has bought John a birthday present, he is about to turn 40, and makes it clear she wants more. She picks up on his down mood and he admits depression and that he is getting therapy. When he leaves her, he throws away the present.

Gianluca Busani as John

That he was pre-chosen for what happens could be suggested by him suffering sleep paralysis and seeing a woman crawl over him. Beyond this, we do get the impression that he is a lady’s man – sleeping with a client’s wife, previous liaisons with a woman who runs his gym, etc. He also feels suicidal (though he can’t go through with it). He sees an advert for the Blood Pay system and decides to buy it – missing the part of the advert where the owner kills himself with a remote control.

set up

He has to meet out in the dessert to take possession of the system (from a couple of thugs, one masked) and meets Eva (Maria Vittoria Varoli and voiced by Barbara Sirotti) when he sets it up. There is a control box that opens and contains an organic looking vagina and, once it is set up, to access many of the services – such as extreme pornography and snuff – he has to jack a needle into his arm and pay in blood – which goes into the box. Eventually Eva tells him he needs to pay the next subscription but the price is up and he ends up having to kill three people for their blood…

giving payment

And this is part of the problem. This escalated quickly, way too quickly. The kills could have been spread out to offer more tension. The system records dreams and we see one of his and it is neatly weird but it absolutely shies from showing any of the services he is paying for. There is a line between what a film should show or leave to the viewer's imagination, this edged its bet so much that you see very little – even the kills (bar the last) are pretty tamely done.

Maria Vittoria Varoli as Eva

What the AI is up to is partly answered – she is bored and has eternity, However what she does with the blood and why she needs it isn’t answered but there is a commercial aspect revealed in an end credit sequence. It isn’t a spoiler to the main story and we see a Blood Pay establishment and a man go in and use an ATM – where you can deposit and withdraw blood. The man has black circled eyes and looks either tired, a junky or dead (a vampire perhaps?) and it wasn’t clear if he withdrew or deposited.

in a virtual world

This could have been really good, but it pulled some punches and escalated too quickly to build the tension. It might have revealed much more about the world they have created and what the AI wants the blood for, but more may eventually be revealed as it has a “to be continued…” Nevertheless, a vampiric AI is worth the entry fee. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

NOS4A2: Season 1 – review

Director: Various

Release date: 2019

Contains spoilers

I received a message from friend of the blog Margaret wondering why I hadn’t reviewed this yet. Let me explain, I hadn’t caught this on TV and bought the Season 1 and 2 DVD box set. Why I waited, I can’t really say – after all I enjoyed the original Joe Hill novel but then, as I started watching it I discovered that I didn’t overly like it.

Truly, I found myself distracting myself – not going to the next episode even on a day-to-day basis, rather than a binge watch I was literally forcing myself to watch it. Since I completed season 1 I have sat on writing the review and not watched season 2. And its nothing I can put my finger on – the story is the story from the novel I enjoyed, the performances are strong, ok the effects aren’t always as good as they might be (especially around the aging of bad guy Charlie Manx (Zachary Quinto)) but I can normally live with that… I just can’t work out why this switched me off.

riding the shorter way

So, it focuses on Vic McQueen (Ashleigh Cummings) a talented young artist whose parents are perhaps not the most ideal, her father (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) struggling with sobriety and her mother (Virginia Kull) stubbornly resigned to their socio-economic position (and they break up during the season). Vic loves her motorbike and one day she discovers a bridge (that isn’t actually there), which will take her and her bike across vast geography to find a lost object she is searching for. She is a sensitive, her bike the “knife” that allows her to warp reality.

Manx older

At the same time a child is taken – he has been taken by Manx, another sensitive of a great age. His ‘knife’ is his car and his health (and age) is tied to the car (which makes it vampiric in its own right). Whilst he transports children to Christmas Land, he drains their lifeforce and the child becomes a blood thirsty vampire. As the season goes along Vic and Manx cross paths as she tries to rescue a child she knows. This then is the general thrust of the series and I am still struggling to think why it missed with me?

child vampire

Sure, there was at least one small aspect that missed majorly for me. There is a loose crossover between Hill’s novel and his father’s Dr Sleep, where Manx is aware of the True Knot and in this we see his map of (supernatural, or the inscape of,) America when Vic’s bridge (the Shorter Way) appears on it and see that it already mentions the Pennywise Circus. Later we see Manx in an inscape located bar called Parnassus and in there we see a (pre-burn) person wearing a Freddie Kruger sweater, the bar is tended by Lloyd (from the Shinning) and at the bar Pennywise, who leaves worriedly when Manx enters and… well I just thought the Pennywise a bit rubbish. But that brief, unwelcome, Easter egg wasn’t enough to put me off the whole.

vampire girl

Score wise I can’t score this highly, it just didn’t do it for me. But I also still can’t tell you why. I think a 4 out of 10 covers my feeling with the fact that actually the performances were good, the base storyline (from the novel) I already enjoyed and you might watch it and get much more out of it than I did. When I’ll actually get round to watching season 2 is anyone’s guess.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Transfusion: Vampires Versus Robots – review

Author: Steve Niles

Artist: Menton3

Contains Spoilers

The blurb: In a future overrun by out-of-control machines and monsters, a handful of human survivors try to fight their way back to a normal life. But what is normal in a world where both monsters and machines need human blood? And which are the real bad guys? Find out in this horrific new story by 30 Days of Night co-creator Steve Niles and menton3, the demented artist behind Monocyte!

The Review: In an apocalyptic world a group of human survivors are led towards a rare source of food, a field of corn. We are in a world where there has been a war with machines, a robot uprising… but the machines use flesh and blood for fuel and lubricant, decimating humanity and the animal kingdom. The field is a trap… the survivor leading them there is a vampire. The undead are as desperate for blood as the machines and his clan will harvest the small band of humans. Unfortunately for them a robot finds them first…

detail

This is the opening premise of this tpb one shot, which is very short – no more than a short story really. As such it does little in the way of characterisation relying on atmosphere, which it has in spades, generated by the gorgeous artwork. I loved the premise but ultimately felt it could have been much expanded – though perhaps if it was it may have lost something.

For me, beyond robot vampires, the main reason to have this is the art. This therefore makes the artistic decision to have a battle, which represents the climax of the story, rendered in uncoloured sketches against a yellow, almost sepia background and looking more like the start of the artistic process and utterly out of sink with the rest of the volume, a weird and unsatisfying decision. I’m sure there was a reason, but for the life of me I don’t get it – the pages looked less unfinished and more barely started, before the volume's end revelation reverts back to gorgeous artistry. 6 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Short Film: The Blood of Love

Directed by Jeff Meyers and released in 2015 this short comes in at just under 20 minutes (and my thanks to Simon Bacon for spotting it on Vimeo). It is a really interesting take on the genre.

It starts with a man, Josh (Chris Stack), presumably sleeping. His wife, Kate (Mali Elfman), kisses his face and he rouses slightly. He is ill and she is going out – a work thing she says, but he does notice that she is dressed sexy. There is no one but him, she says.

As she drives, she picks up a voicemail offering condolences and a drink. However it is a bar she is going to and she meets a man (Steve Xander Carson). We next see them returning to the house, though she has used the back door, and asks him to help pick a wine from the cellar. Down there she uses a handheld Taser on him. He comes round rather quickly and grabs her leg but she gets a bat and bashes him. Soon he is suspended from the ceiling and his throat is cut.

killing in the name of love

We see blood, in a machine and the machine hooked to Josh. He comes round with a gasp. Asking when the doctor is due, she tells him that he missed him and he was there 2-hours before. He said the machine needed adjustment. Later she wakes and Josh is not in bed. In the kitchen he is making dinner and has been out for groceries. Kate gets mad; what if someone had seen… but then suggests he needs to take his condition seriously. Later again, watching TV, and he feels sick. In the bathroom he vomits blood and cries tears of blood…

as the effects wear off

Kate goes to see Mr Ashling (Norm Roth), from whom she got the machine. He had told her all she needed was blood and love but Josh has been responding to the machine less and less. Ashling says she should not mistake quantity for quality… It is clear that Josh died from his illness and, unbeknown to him, Ashling has given her a machine that can revive the dead through blood… but what will it take to get quality time? The answer, of course, is in the short and please watch through the credits as they contain the full denouement.

The imdb page is here.

Vamp or Not? Death Ship

B movie horror fare from 1980 and directed by Alvin Rakoff, this was, I guess, partly a naziploitation film and certainly was a strange beast of a premise with a ship that seemed to be alive. My friend Leila suggested this might be a Vamp movie in the same way that I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle and Upír z Feratu are also vampire movies – in that we have a vampiric machine at the heart of the film.

Having settled down to watch this I became, as the film progressed, less convinced until close to the end where a line made me see where Leila was coming from. There was also the use of a trope that, whilst not exclusively Vamp, certainly originates from the genre. It was fair, I thought, to examine this as a ‘Vamp or Not?’

George Kennedy as Asland

So, things start with a vessel and a voice, speaking in German, stating that the enemy is in sight. The best way to describe it is that the ghost ship gears up to ramming speed. Cut to a cruise ship and we meet some of the passengers and crew. Firstly, Captain Ashland (George Kennedy), who is a bit of a terror to his crew but who is retiring after this trip. As well as him we meet his replacement, Trevor Marshall (Richard Crenna). The outgoing Captain hates doing the social thing with the passengers but he is forced, by professional obligation, to go to the party that is in full swing.

Saul Rubinek as Jackie

At the party the two Captains sit at the table with Marshall’s wife, Margaret (Sally Ann Howes), and kids, Robin (Jennifer McKinney) and Ben (Danny Higham). Margaret has Robin take the tired Ben back to the cabin. Also at the party we see crew member Nick (Nick Mancuso, Nightwing) and passenger Lori (Victoria Burgoyne) sneak off for some ‘how’s your father’ and we get some input from party compere Jackie (Saul Rubinek). Finally, Ashland speaks to passenger Sylvia Morgan (Kate Reid) before being called back to the bridge, who have detected the ship that is on collision course.

death ship

Try what they might the ship rams them and we get disaster movie scenes in montage with the idea that the cruise ship sinks quickly. We then see a raft with all the Marshalls, Jackie, Sylvia, Nick and Lori on. The obvious question was, in separate locations as the kids and lovers were, how did these particular passengers and crew all make it onto a raft (and it isn’t a lifeboat, mind) and why no one else – it is glaring, unanswered and quickly forgotten. Something is in the water and a hand breaks the surface. They pull Ashland out of the water – absolutely worse for wear. They drift until the ship (that unknown to them, rammed them) suddenly sneaks up behind them. At this point I was thinking this was a “they’re all dead and this is some form of afterlife” plot – not the case.

boarding the ship

So, after shouting for attention to no avail, they drift past a boarding ladder. They climb it, but as Nick and Marshall help the Captain up the camera cuts to the machinery of the ship, which starts to move – indicating cognitive action on the vessel’s part – and the ladder tilts and falls away. Luckily Lori manages to drop a rope ladder and they get onboard, but not without the ship dousing them with something – perhaps oil, perhaps bilge – as they climb, presumably trying to make them lose their grip. Following this the ship seems to catch Jackie in metal cables. He is hoisted, swung over the ocean, dunked then dropped – the anchor comes up and the engines start…

murdering Sylvia

From our point of view, what is important here is that we here a ghostly voice with German accent speak (telepathically, presumably) to the insensible Ashland – saying that he is the new captain of the ship. Later, when Sylvia’s face becomes lumpy (for want of a better description – possibly due to eating boiled sweets she finds), he murders her by strangulation at the ship’s urging, all the time seeing a disobedient sailor rather than his erstwhile passenger. Ashland is the embodiment of the trope I mentioned.

frozen victims

One might think that a Captain (and he dons a Nazi Captain’s uniform) is in charge of a ship but we need to remember this ship has been ghosting round the oceans for roughly forty years and presumably without a captain or crew for much of that and so does not need someone in charge. Indeed, Ashland is not in charge – though he thinks he is – the ship will not let him change course, for instance, if it doesn’t suit the ship. Ashland is very much the ship’s servant; in vampire genre parlance he is the ship’s Renfield. There logically must have been other servants as we see a freezer with past victims dangling and frozen – though Ashland seems to prefer burial at sea.

blood shower

The ship itself was a Nazi interrogation ship and is dedicated to its fascist origins – playing a film reel of Hitler at one point. We see no Nazi crew (they are long gone) it is the ship that is the Nazi. It can drop and weigh anchor of its own volition, the engines work – though the dials are all on zero and the source of its fuel is not revealed. It can also lock doors and, at one point, showers Lori in blood. Having Ashland just gives it a pair of hands (and the ability to shoot a rifle). So, why vamp?

homicidal ship

Well I struggled with this. The ship was supernaturally active but I didn’t see the immediate connection until Ashland declares that the ship needs blood, telling Marshall that it needs the blood of his family. Indeed, Ashland categorically states that its survival is dependent on getting blood. Of course, Ashland is mad, but this seems to be the primary command to its Renfield – get me blood. How it uses the blood is not revealed. We do see someone crushed in the cogs of the engine but there is no obvious indication that this feeds the ship. I wondered whether we get to see it using blood as fuel – we don’t – and one might argue that showering Lori in blood would therefore be a waste, unless of course it is recycled through the shower drain.

Into Eternity

So, is it Vamp? I think it all goes down to whether the viewer trusts the mad Renfield character’s exposition. If Ashland is correct when he says that ship needs blood to survive, then possibly yes. Even if the word blood actually means life generally, and the ship needs to take lives to survive, then there is an argument that it is surviving off victims’ life energies. Ashland gives a hint of immortality; when asked where he plans to sail her, he responds, “Into eternity, Marshall. Eternity.” Again, we need to caveat this with the fact that he thinks he is the master when he is clearly the servant and that he is mad. The problem is, this is an unashamed B piece and detailed discussion of underlying themes was not in the script as filmed.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK

Honourable Mention: Rick and Morty: One Crew Over the Crewcoo's Morty

It is an absolute pleasure to be able to feature more Rick and Morty on TMtV (I previously looked at the episode Big Trouble in Little Sanchez). The show has to be one of the edgiest and smart programmes out there and this episode from 2019’s Season 4, directed by Bryan Newton, is up there with the best.

The episode is a riff on the heist genre and to try and explain the multi-layered twisting humour would be to do it an absolute disservice. Suffice it to say that the universe’s smartest man, Rick Sanchez (Justin Roiland) and his grandson Morty (Justin Roiland) pull a (short lived) heist crew together.

Truckula

So why the mention. Due to the fact that one of the crew is Truckula… absolutely and unashamedly a riff on Dracula. We see his truck bite another vehicle and we see him walk into Heistcon with the rest of his crew and, other than a twist walk on later, that is about it. No real vampire action but a pair of fangs and a mention here for Rick and Morty.

The imdb page is here.

The Vampire in Science Fiction Film and Literature – review

Author: Paul Meehan

First published: 2014

Contains spoilers


The Blurb: This examination of the history of vampires within the science fiction realm also analyses the role of science and pseudo-science from the 18th century to modern times. The vampire's connection with science fiction is traced to its literary origins during the Victorian Era in seminal works by Bram Stoker, H.G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle and other writers of the period and later refined by modern SF writers such as Richard Matheson, Whitley Strieber and Brian Aldiss.

The history of the science fiction vampire in the cinema, from the silent era to the 21st century is given in detail. More than 60 films are discussed, including works by such acclaimed directors as Roger Corman, Mario Bava, David Cronenberg, Guillermo Del Toro and Steven Spielberg. The book treats of time-travelling vampires, spacefaring vampires, future-noir hemophages, giant mutant bats, vampiric plants, blood-drinking mad scientists, cyber-vamps, half-human hybrid dhampirs and bloodsucking extraterrestrials - the ever-popular children of the night.

The review: I do like a vampire reference work and it is always nice to find one that looks at a less trodden path of the genre. This, therefore plugged a definite gap in the market but, like all reference books, it did contain one or two controversial claims – however the genre is so wide that is to be expected.

Of course, regular readers will know that it was this book that led me to examine the film the Quatermass Xperiment and was, from my point of view, worthwhile just for that. As well as that his inclusion of L'Atlantide, provided a novel and films that I will be examining at some point. There was a nice examination of the roots of the vampire in science fiction through the late 19th century inclusions (Dracula, for instance, could be said to be science fiction and War of the Worlds had a vampiric element).

Meehan was wrong when he supposed – having looked at the Blood Beast Terror - that “any connection between moths and vampires is obscure other than the fact that they are both creatures of the night”. He does mention Dracula’s control of them but the moth and butterfly is a part of Slavic folklore – as noted by Milovan Glišić in After Ninety Years. A minor thing really, as it is not the most mainstream of lore and certainly won’t have influenced the makers of the mentioned film, but nonetheless it is extant lore.

Not all of the entries I agreed with. I haven’t read George du Maurier’s Trilby but I have watched Svengali (1931) and do not believe there is an aspect of psychic vampirism around it. I also have to mention that whilst listing the wonderful film Goke, Bodysnatcher from Hell was welcome, the claim “Japanese culture is not one to embrace vampirism” is not one supported by the facts – indeed the Japanese have produced many fine vampire films and kyūketsuki (the Japanese word for vampire) was introduced into the Japanese language in the early twentieth century. Perhaps Meehan meant that there is not, perhaps, the level of vampiric entities in Japanese folklore, but even then there are some.

There is nothing, however, that majorly detracts from the usefulness of the book as a whole. A good, solid 7.5 out of 10.

NOS-4R2 – review

Author: Joe Hill

First Published: 2013

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Young Victoria McQueen has a gift for finding things. All she has to do is ride her bike across the Shorter Way Bridge and she’ll come out wherever she needs to be… even if that’s hundreds of miles away. But it turns out that she’s not the only one with a special ability.

There are others… like Charlie Manx, who takes children to Christmasland in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with its Nos4R2 vanity plate. Only by the time they get there his passengers have changed, utterly. They’ve become Charlie’s children; as unstoppable and insane as Manx himself.

Only one kid ever escaped Charlie Manx: Vic McQueen. But her first brush with Manx lit the fuse on a life-and-death battle of wills… a battle that explodes a quarter of a century later.

Because Manx has taken Vic’s son. And Vic McQueen is going to get him back.

The review: Joe Hill, if you didn’t know, is Stephen King’s son. I wasn’t going to mention that but he includes – in the narrative of this book – a reference to the True Knot, who are a group of psychic vampires in King’s Doctor Sleep – they eat people’s psychic ability (the shinning). Manx, the bad guy of this novel, is mentioned in Doctor Sleep also and in NOS-4R2 he says he is in the same line of business as the True Knot. This ties the authors together in details and thus I mention the familial bond.

We should also note that this is called NOS-4A2 in the US – perhaps due to a perception of pronunciation. Of course the name refers to Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, but it’s not entirely original – Nos-4-a2 was the name of the robot vampire in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. We discover in book that the first film that Manx and his (deceased) first wife saw in the cinema was Nosferatu.

So Manx is our vampire, he (or more accurately his car) eats the unhappiness from children. If you think that doesn’t sound too bad it leaves them without inhibition, without remorse. The car needs them to power it and, in its turn, the car can heal Manx. Indeed he and the car are intimately linked, destroy the car and kill the man (Manx does die but, when his vehicle is restored, he returns to life – despite a partial autopsy. Meanwhile – on the trip to Christmasland – the journey takes the children’s teeth and they are replaced with rows of fishhook fangs, there skin becomes white and freezing cold and black veins can be seen under the surface of the skin. In Christmasland they never age (there is a twisted version of Peter Pan here).

The wraith is Manx’s tool to access his powers and access Christmasland – an inscape, it is a real (normally inaccessible) place and also part of his own mind. Likewise Vic has a bike to get to the Shorter Way Bridge (her short cut through reality and distance) and later a Triumph motorbike. There is a cost – Manx has lost a human part of himself, Vic gets a pain in her left eye and feverish when she uses her bridge (it is the cost of so much energy being expended). Worse she can lose parts of her mind – represented as bats under the roof of the bridge that kind of have her face. Manx needs someone else to power the car into the secret roads he drives on and the car slips back into our reality when the sun comes up. Hill, of course, is playing with aspects of the genre with these motifs.

I understand all is not perfect in his research. Manx’ henchman uses Sevoflurane to anaesthetise victims and Hill suggests that it makes people suggestible (I don’t know if it does) but also that it is flammable and this is plot important – except that Sevoflurane isn’t flammable. However, you know what, I only found that out afterwards and even had I known, well I was enjoying the book and think I would have just gone along with it.

Because that is the main thing, the book rocketed along and I enjoyed it, I enjoyed the fact that everyone in the book (one way or another) was flawed. I enjoyed the story as laid out. I enjoyed the prose. A little derivative in places (aren’t most things) but most definitely an interesting use of familiar elements to make something that felt very fresh, had an unusual form of vampirism (technically I guess we could say we have vampires (the children), an energy vampire (Manx) and a vampiric machine (the wraith)) and, of course, the Christmas and horror themes combined are an antidote for too much “Ho! Ho! Ho!” 7.5 out of 10.

The Clockwork Vampire Chronicles – review

Author: Andy Remic

First Published: 2012 (omnibus)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Falanor needs a hero

The Land of Falanor has been besieged by foul invaders, the infamous Army of Iron. The resistance is led by Kell, veteran axeman and the subject of many an epic poem. Along with his granddaughter, Nienna, and her friend Katrina, and a dandy swordsman, Saark, disgraced after his affair with the Queen, Kell must somehow battle his way from the city and warn the court.

Fighting their way south, betrayal follows battle follows deviation, and they are attacked from all quarters by deadly albino soldiers, monstrous harvesters who drain blood from their victims to feed their masters, and the twisted offspring of deviant vachine, the cankers. As the land falls under their cruel dominion, only now will the world learn the real truth about Kell – that he is anything but a hero.

The review: This omnibus is made up of three volumes; Kell’s Legend, Soul Stealers and Vampire Warlords and is the full series of the Clockwork Vampire Chronicles (though the idea rich series has plenty of scope for addition and expansion should Andy Remic chose to do so).

It is, at its very core, a fantasy book with perhaps an edge of pulp over high fantasy – and this is no bad thing as Remic pulls us into a blood thick world of swords and sorcery and clockwork.

This is the really interesting aspect of the book, especially from a genre point of view, the use of clockwork technology and a race of vampires known as the vachine, creatures who drink blood-oil – a mystically refined form of blood – and are melded with their intelligent clockwork components. Think, I guess, almost a steampunk (without the steam) version of Star Trek’s borg… with fangs.

We do get more traditional vampire types as well, as the Vampire Warlords (banished, immortal vampire creatures who are drawn back, semi-substantial – into our world) unleash a plague of vampires into Falanor.

Pitched up against these seemingly insurmountable odds is the unlikely partnership of Kell and Saark. Kell is a belligerent old man, untrustworthy when on whiskey, stinking and violent. He tries to do good, especially for his granddaughter, and is mystically bonded to an axe called Ilanna. Saark on the other hand is a swordsman, disgraced in the royal courts, who wears bright silks and perfumes and never met a women who didn’t like, or could seduce. This fantasy odd couple make the book; both as individually brilliant characters and in their inter-reactions. The fact that both of them are less than heroes makes them even better.

The book is peppered with cliff hangers (Remic admits in the foreword that he loves them, though the primary ones perhaps worked even better when the books were individually published) and is strewn with blood, gore and sex. Wild, original magics curl through the prose and make this a truly original, fantastical world.

The pace quickens through the volume and perhaps some of the last book flashes by too quickly. As you read it, however, you are carried with the current of the prose. It is afterwards that you realise that things concluded at high speed and that there are swathes of story that Remic could return to.

Vampires in a fantasy setting are to be applauded. The vachine give us a really interesting form of vampire machine/cyborg. The main characters are truly brilliant. 8 out of 10.

My Babysitter’s a Vampire – season 2

Director: Various

First aired: 2012

Contains spoilers

We looked at season 1 of My Babysitter’s a Vampire here and it was a cute enough kid’s programme that never really seemed to straddle the child/adult line enough to make it too interesting for an adult audience. But, you know what, that’s fine as it aimed squarely for its own market.

In season 2 we get much of the same, and I have decided it does have a definite endearing charm that pushes at the boundaries but doesn’t quite dare to step over them.

Vanessa Morgan as Sarah

At the end of the last season fledgling vampire (and babysitter) Sarah (Vanessa Morgan) was faced with a dilemma when central protagonist to the show, her friend and seer Ethan (Matthew Knight) is bitten by a vampire. The venom will transform him into a vampire but Sarah saves him from that by sucking the venom out. That means, however, that she sucks his blood and transforms into a full vampire.

Addison Holley as Anastasia

As this season starts something is killing vampires and the vampire council suspect Ethan, though the killer seems to be a green mist. Benny (Atticus Dean Mitchell), Ethan’s spellcasting best friend, and their vampire pal Rory (Cameron Kennedy) have to help Ethan find a way to stop the mist or the child elder Anastasia (Addison Holley) will assume guilt and have Ethan killed. The mist is summoned by powerful magic and so a powerful enemy of the vampires must be around.

sparkly vampire

This enemy then vanishes off the radar until the final few episodes but we get a fair share of unusual vampire references through the stand alone episodes. Dusk is the show’s universe’s equivalent of Twilight, with its own brooding, sparkly vampire. The fake film is mentioned a few times in passing but we actually get to meet a sparkly vampire when Ethan dresses up as him for Halloween in an episode that sees everyone turned into their costumes.

Vampire Sasquatch

That aside we get another fake show reference when we discover Rory has a plush toy of Vampire Sasquatch – a series sadly cancelled after 9 seasons… you know, I actually think that might work! Rory and Erica (Kate Todd) are feeding live but there doesn’t seem to be a proliferation of vampires, how the venom turning someone after one bite has been circumvented is never tackled. Another under-explored element occurred when Erica saw her reflection because someone’s soul was trapped in the mirror – this inferred that vampires have no souls and yet the three vampires in the school all seem more moral than amoral.

vampire car feeds

One unusual appearance was a vampire car, or a car possessed with the spirit of a vampire… One could ask about the distinction between a spirit and a soul and if a vampire can become one does it not prove the existence of the other but, let’s face it, a kid’s show isn’t going to dwell on existential issues. So instead let us revel in the appearance of one of the rarer vampire types (the vampire automobile). This one has a vendetta against a certain family, can regenerate body work (and flat tires) and has to be staked. In another episode we discover that if a vampire drinks from the dead they can contract disease.

dead Sarah

A view of Sarah dead was, I thought, going to be a true vampiric form but it was a spell to make Ethan fear everything (anyone he met looked dead). And that (bar the finale, which I won’t spoil) is that. As I said, the show has its own charm and the leads are fun. It still fails to bridge that divide but – as I said at the head – does it matter when it reaches its target audience perfectly well. The change to the catchy theme tune, for the last two episodes, grated however. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.