bloodthirsty, hunger and bloodlust
Filming has begun on a new version of Dracula, directed by none other than the maestro of stylish gore–Dario Argento! How do we know? Well, for one thing because a star of the film tweeted as much. Asia Argento, daughter of the great director and veteran of her father’s Phantom of the Opera (among many …
Today Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre of the Air are mostly famous for the broadcast of “The War of the Worlds” in October 1938. Yet that was the seventeenth show performed by the radio repertory company. Ever wonder what the very first was? Dracula! Starring Orson Welles not only as the Transylvanian Count but …
Lots of “Ten Best” lists for vampire films wait for the would-be reviewer or simple researcher on the web. Almost as common are “Ten Worst” lists. Plenty of debate then follows, about which title deserves its placing and so on. But this list goes after something different. Not best or worst anything. Rather, which vampire …
“It is 1888 and Queen Victoria has remarried, taking as her new consort Vlad Tepes, the Wallachian Prince infamously known as Count Dracula. Peppered with familiar characters from Victorian history and fiction, the novel tells the story of vampire Geneviève Dieudonné and Charles Beauregard of the Diogenes Club as they strive to solve the mystery …
One of the most renowned vampire films ever made is that of Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, directed by F. W. Murnau released in 1922. The film is between 81-94 minutes long, depending on the version you get, and is a silent, black and white film with titles and symphonic accompaniment. The film is appropriately …
Adam Sandler is a fantastic actor and comedian, but when I think Dracula I sure don’t think of him. Yet he just landed a role as Dracula in an upcoming flick. Can you picture him as this smooth and deadly creature, drinking blood and seducing the ladies? No? Well don’t worry, it’s an animated film, …
When vampires first drifted, shadow-like, into popular literature in the early 1800s, this denizen of ancient folklore became an incarnation of the Nightmare Stranger–the alien ‘other’ who presented a threat to civilization itself. It was death reaching out to infect the living. The foreigner who defiled virtuous women. A pagan invader thriving where the light …
One of the big things in superhero comics these days is an over-arching story spread across multiple titles. Recently “The Curse of the Mutants” was an arc that covered an attempt by vampires to take over the world, starting with mutants like the X-Men (figuring that super-powered vampires would make it easier to take over). …
Kim Newman is the brilliant man behind the innovative novel Anno Dracula, a book which not only earned high praise from Neil Gaiman himself but also won the Dracula Society’s Children of the Night Award, the Lord Ruthven Assembly’s Fiction Award, and the International Horror Guild Award for Best Novel, and was even short-listed for …
Every now and then I come across something that makes my inner child giggle with glee, like today, when I discovered Van Helsing, a board game from Mayfair Games. Ooh yeaah, an old school board game! Maybe not as sweet as a vampire video game, but hey, any type of game with vampires in it …
Vampire Studies: Bold New Future? This is an update to the August 3, 2010 post, ‘University Offers Course in Vampiric Literature’. If you believe education is the future, you’re going to love this. As previously mentioned, the University of Hertfordshire in the UK has decided to offer courses in Vampiric Studies. But now, the course …
Someone asked why I thought vampires remained so popular and intriguing. My answer: Because the undead make such a fluid metaphor. Consider; when they first entered into the Western literature and art–with John Polidori’s “The Vampyre.” For much of the next century, vampires popped up in art and theatre as well as different stories. “Varney …
Dracula’s Guest is a deleted chapter from Bram Stoker’s legendary novel Dracula which was written with the rest of the story but omitted from the final version published in 1897. Even though it was left out of the book, Dracula’s Guest was eventually published in 1914 in Dracula’s Guest and Other Weird Tales. While it’s …
Bram Stoker’s Dracula is one of the most popular novels of all time, this ground-breaking and highly influential story has sold millions of copies and has been in print for over a hundred years, which means there are dozens, if not hundreds, of editions of this one book. Out of all of these editions nothing …
Way back in 2008 Double Helix Games teased all of us vampire-lovin’ gamers with “Harker,” a game featuring a badass vampire hunter loosely based on Jonathan Harker from Bram Stoker’s legendary novel “Dracula.” The developers waved a badass little promo in front of our bloodthirsty eyes and then they just took it all away! According …
I’m so excited! Colin Firth is going to put some fangs in, and he’ll be joined by Nicole Kidman, and the super-cute Mia Wasikowska, –which is a more complicated way of saying “that adorable chick from Alice in Wonderland”. I’m excited because duh, not only is this a new vampire movie with big names in …
J. Forrest Ackermann, or “Uncle Forry,” had many claims to fame within the annals of horror. Apart from his magazine, the tours of his memento-brimmed home up until his death, his ownership of both the Dracula and Mummy rings, he also created an iconic character who wanders in the imaginations of countless fans. She of …
Burned into the collective memory of our age, it is an image of great power. The vampire looms menacingly, but then the hero reaches up and pulls away the curtains. SUNLIGHT! Like laser beams, the purifying rays of the sun sear the undead creature’s flesh. The foul thing dissolves into the dust it should already …
Back in 1972, Hammer Studios found itself in a good and bad place as far as vampire movies go. On the one hand, they were pretty close to having squeezing every drop they could out of both “Dracula” and “Carmilla.” Yet audience demand remained. One solution they hit upon was a series of original films …
I’m going to go ahead and assume that director David Slade is crazy in love with vampires since he has filmed two vampire flicks in a row and is now working on a third – “The Last Voyage of the Demeter.” Slade, who directed the vampire horror “30 Days of Night” and the vampire bore …