New Dracula in LA

October contains Halloween, and as a result theatre-goers with a taste for the gothic can look forward to productions of Dracula.  These vary from the Balderson-Deane classic (which made Bela Lugosi famous) to such fresh takes as last year’s “feminist” version or an adaptation on roller skates or for that matter more than a few…

New Feminist Dracula

Many and varied are the stage adaptations of Bram Stoker‘s famous novel. Most famous of course is the Balderston-Deane version that brought stardom to Bela Lugosi, Ted Miller’s Count Dracula, the Frank Wildhorn musical (perhaps most famously done in Japan with a female Count), even Orson Wells’ radio adaptation. Theatre 68 (which produces works for…

Top Lady Vampires on T.V.

A new year arrives and with it time to think back and contemplate–sometimes drawing up lists. Lots of best vampire movies, hottest vampires, most badass vampire flicks etc. popping up so why not drop a list of the Top Ten Lady Vampires on T.V.? Why not indeed? In no particular order here is one such…

David’s Most Sexy Vampires

“Sexy” pretty much by definition remains subjective, but that is what makes lists like this one subject to debate.  Not that we’re minding that!  In fact, we encourage it!  Please feel free to offer your own notions! To try and cover a broad range without using an untenable about a space, here are the rules…

Vampires: The Nightmare Strangers

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…

The Very Many Faces of Mina Murray

Adaptations of Bram Stoker’s most famous novel often reveal more about the adapters — and about their times — than they do about Stoker or his work. Case in point: Mina Harker, nee Murray. Looking at the novel itself, we find a character who seems very much a yin to her best friend Lucy Westenra‘s…

Why Lesbian Vampires?

For all practical purposes, the trope Vampire Lesbian emerged with Joseph Sheridan LeFanu’s novella “Carmilla.” Eventually, with the rise of a new medium–motion pictures–an adaptation of that story appeared. “Crypt of the Vampire” became one of the still-relatively few such. The trope, however, could be seen in “Dracula’s Daughter” as well as the eerie “Vampyr.”…

Vampires & Sex

Bill Compton & Sookie Stackhouse

Since the day Bram Stoker penned the account of Lucy Westenra being ravaged by Count Dracula; most vampire, and horror fans, have associated our favourite, undead, blood-drinking harbingers with sex or at the very least consider them sexual beings with a lust for flesh which matches their own lust for blood.  We see this theme…