Toys are Us

Sometimes growing up is no fun at all. Especially when it comes to toys. Oh sure, adult toys are far more complex and do far more, but they don’t have the magic associated with them that you felt as a kid. (And to an extent neither do the new toys for kids, as everything seems pretty much electronic now and kids expect their toys to do something, relieving them of the responsibly of imagination).

What you cherished as special as a child when it came to toys depends a lot on what decade you grew up in, what TV or movie tie-ins you enjoyed, except, of course, for the timeless stand-bys such as Light Brite, Easy Bake Ovens, Hot Wheels and Legos. I grew up in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, a time before everything became electronicized.

A superhero fan, I had my trusty Captain America bendy. You know, those rubbery figures with wires running through their limbs so you could screw them into just about any position you wanted. At least until the wire broke and jutted through an arm or a leg and put you in therapy. My Cap bendy had a most distressing habit of ending up in the back of the hallway dehumidifier. For what reason, I don’t recall. Maybe I was hiding him there. It did the wiring little good, as after water seeped through the pinprick airholes in the figure it rusted and snapped. Had a Green Hornet bendy too. Wish I still had it, considering what those things go for nowadays.

Did have a Lost in Space robot that ran on batteries and whose bulb head lit up. That was fun. I think it said, “Danger, danger!”, but not positive after all these years. I think he got hit and run by a Tonka truck.

Remember Silly Sand? Seems hardly anyone does when I mention it. But it was multi-colored sands you could add water to and produce various creations. Made a mess and didn’t last all that long, but was good while it lasted.

And speaking of bendies, I loved the Matt Mason series. For those of you who don’t know what I am talking about, they were astronaut figures, rubber bendy, but with plastic boots and helmets with working visors. There was a big space station that went with him. And some aliens.

Another toy few folks seem to recall is Spiro-Foil. It was like Spiro-Graph except you did the designs on these 4 by 4 pieces of heavy foil that came in silver, gold and copper. Then you could give them to your relatives and they would pretend to adore them. Except for weird Uncle Stan, who just said “What the hell do I want a piece of scribbled-on foil for?”

And being a Dark Shadows fan, of course I had to have the Barnabas Collins game (and Green Ghost, another cool supernatural themed game). It came with fake fangs (I still have them) and cardboard coffins with glow-in-the-dark, plastic skeletons.

Another was Voice of the Mummy. Really cool plastic Mummy sarcophagus with a ruby red cobra sticking out of the case forehead, plus electronic voice. I still have the case.
Had a very cool Disney Playset with tons of little plastic Disney characters, as well as a King Kong Playset that came with a big plastic monkey with a magnet embedded into its hand so it could pick up the little people, who had tiny metal plates crimped into their backs.

There was one toy I really loved, but its name escapes me. It was a small incubator of a thing and you got these plastic squares that sorta looked like starburst candies, only bigger and flatter. They came in various colors. You’d place them in the incubator and they would unfurl into various dinosaur shapes. When you were done, you could put the heated dinos in the little viselike side attachment and squash them back into little squares again. I remember it was red enameled metal, with a sliding plastic cone-type top. Course, I got a burn or two off of that one, too, but it was worth it.

How about you? What toys do you recall best from your past? Which ones meant the most to you or do you associate with your fondest childhood memories?

The Chloe Files: Kicking Evil’s ass one demon at a time…
In the tradition of Sookie Stackhouse and Buffy, The Vampire Slayer…
In paperback from http://www.bn.com/.

It All Stinks the Same...

I have never quite understood the celebrity syndrome. I was talking to a friend, who had broached the subject, about this earlier this week and it made me think back to times I have encountered celebrities and sometimes found them less than approachable, or, in fact, even discourteous.

That was before the days of Internet social networking for the most part. Of course, the problem is amplified now. I don’t understand why writers/actors/singers—anyone in the public spotlight, whether fully or marginally, friend someone on sites like Myspace, Facebook, Twitter or the plethora of other Internet jungle gyms, then never say a word to the fans or friends who try talking to them, unless it is to sell them something.

I am discounting those celebrities who due to work and family constraints don’t have the time, yet still need a presence connected with their profession, or those with so many fans they would be inundated or overwhelmed. I mean, I get why Stephen King or God wouldn’t want to suck up an entire day on Facebook answering email, something pretty easy to do. On the other side, I am also discounting the stalker type fans nobody wants showing up with a set of handcuffs and a hatchet.

I am talking about those who can or could answer their fans, talk to them as regular people, but who choose to put themselves above others and ignore them. Those who think their celebrity or talent makes them somehow more than us regular little humans.

When you come down to it, acting, writing, singing IS a talent, but it is also a job. It comes with more perks, certainly—at least if you reach a particular level of comfort and fame—than maybe working at 7-11, but it does not make them better. It does not give them a license to ignore those who, basically, sign their paychecks by buying their records, books or movie tickets.

Of course, you don’t always have to be a celeb to think that way. Some people just think they are above others period. Whether they are secretly insecure or just plain asswipes, have a little more money or better looks, it does not matter. Snobbery is snobbery. And it’s a false, even neurotic standard.

Sometimes it’s out own fault. We place celebrities on a pedestal, or are in awe of their talent, looks or fame. And when they prove themselves to be just as flawed as the rest of us it’s a big letdown. I know there have been cases of people I met whose work I stopped supporting because they couldn’t be bothered to give their fans the time of day or spewed some kind of nastiness about their admirers.

And contrarily, back a number of years ago I was a big fan of Dutch singer George Baker (still am) and was busy setting up my piddly little fanpage to him and his group when he stumbled across it and actually took the time to send me a very nice email and invite me to talk to him anytime. There was none of that “star” pretense. He treated me like I was a person, even potential friend. At the time I was intimidated, but immensely impressed at the way he treated his fans. Sometimes the little gestures mean the most and that meant something to me.

I guess the point of this is, is no matter who you are or what you do, treat somebody the way you would want to be treated, no matter your stature in life. Treat those you don’t know with respect and dignity (until you know them and find out they are buttholes, then you can kick them to the curb). A little kindness goes a long way.

Now, if you will excuse me, my chariot’s waiting…

The Chloe Files: Kicking Evil’s ass one demon at a time…
In the tradition of Sookie Stackhouse and Buffy, The Vampire Slayer…
In paperback from www.bn.com.

Western Wednesday: Ride the Black Horse

Hop yer mount and saddle up, pards, it’s time for another gallop down the trails of yesteryear.

Don’t forget Gary Dobbs’ huge Black Horse Weekend extravaganza coming up this week on the Tainted Archive (http://tainted-archive.blogspot.com/). One-hundred posts in three days, two penned by yours truly. The weekend, obviously, is dedicated to Black Horse Westerns, which I will get to in a moment, for those unfamiliar with these great books. So mark it on your calendar and ride on over.

What are Black Horse Westerns? Black Horse Westerns are small hardcover books (called paperboards technically) published by Robert Hale Ltd in England since circa 1986 (though the company itself has been around since the 1930s). Hale has published six to ten of these per month during that period. They hearken back to the action-packed westerns of yesterday but often deal with modern issues and experiences reflected through the eyes of the past. Some include a generous helping of historical fact, while others rely heavily on character and even mix genres, such as romance, horror, and mystery. There is something for everyone.

I have been writing Black Horse Westerns under the penname Lance Howard since the early ‘90s with my first title, Blood on the Saddle, and have penned 32 since that time. Mine push the boundaries of the western quite often, dealing with spousal abuse, child abuse, characters commonly ostracized in society, even Jack the Ripper, and often cross genre lines.

Last year saw quite an upswing in Black Horse Westerns’ popularity, driven primarily by Mr. Dobbs’ record-selling debut novel and the promotional drive of my own Black Horse Western group, its authors, the Black Horse Express (www.blackhorsewesterns.org) and Black Horse Extra (http://www.blackhorsewesterns.com/) online magazines, Express Westerns’ critically acclaimed short story anthologies and myriad blogs aimed at the line and genre itself. Distribution and price continues to be an impediment but those boundaries are coming down as well and with events like Gary’s Black Horse Weekend this should get even better. Amazon is now listing new releases, and Hale’s own publisher site (http://www.halebooks.com/) offers very nice discounts on new titles. Book Depository offers reduced prices and free shipping world wide.

So check out Black Horse Weekend and learn more about these fine books and the authors who write them. I think you’ll enjoy what you find.

Terror Tuesday: Ghosts of Sound?

Time to get your ghoul on for another Terror Tuesday. So quit “goblin” the neighbor kids and pull up an electric chair…

First a couple reviews: Darkness: Starring Anna Paquin (True Blood), this one actually isn’t too bad. A bit of The Shining mixed with the typical family-moves-into-a-new/old-house-and-things-start-to-go-bump plot. Little too much noise and running around but overall worth watching. Anna’s cute and unfortunately keeps her clothes on, but you can’t have everything.

White Zombie: From 1932 Bela Lugosi post-Dracula. I am just not a fan of Lugosi’s. I don’t think he can act or has the screen presence of Chaney, Jr. or Raines and he spends a lot of time standing around looking kind of silly, but for an early zombie flick this one is pretty good (though the nerve-wracking musical score drove me nuts and did nothing for the mood). For some reason I was surprised to see a girl standing around in her underwear in such an early film, though I don’t know why. But, anyway, an engaged couple moves to Haiti and soon runs into the living dead. Not the flesh-eating kind, but the regular groaning, command-taking automatons popular in movies and on radio at the time (akin to the one in the excellent Kolchak: The Night Stalker episode, “The Zombie”). If you like the old horror style movies, give it a look.

Ghosts made out of sound? Really? I caught part of a show the other night, not even sure what the title was, as I was flipping channels, something guys never do. But in the show, scientists were testing an alternate theory for ghosts, that they may not be the spirits of the dearly departed or angry remaining. Instead, they theorize that they may be caused by certain sound frequencies’ effects on the nervous system. They went to a dingy old place purported to be frequented by paranormal visitors and set up sound-producing equipment along a dank stone hallway and in other areas of the building. Apparently the place is a perfect conductor for these low frequency waves.

The frequency was set too low for the ear to perceive (I think in the range of 15hz, but don’t quote me), then investigators, some who knew about the sounds and some who did not, walked through the areas whilst the waves were emanating.

Sure enough, our guinea pigs experienced myriad paranormal sensations. Depression, a feeling of something standing in the room with them, fluttering tingly touches on the skin, the urge to run, low level anxiety. All things associated with hauntings. None saw a ghost, however.

It is food for thought. Many hauntings take place in areas where high quartz (a natural sound wave conductor) concentrations are present. It would explain EVPs pretty handily, and even film and digital camera oddities, along with a host of other electronic equipment anomalies. And certainly feelings of paranoia, agitation and a host of other nervous system reactions.

But does it explain everything? What about sightings? What about personally specific manifestations? And if we are to believe at least a small percentage of photographic evidence is real, such as ghost faces and forms with recognizable features, could sound waves, no matter how strong, place an image on film?

Are ghosts nothing more than the effects of sound on the human body? Can listening to rap music make the spirit of your departed great grandma appear? What do you think? Hauntings, real or sound?


The Chloe Files: Kicking Evil’s ass one demon at a time…
In the tradition of Sookie Stackhouse and Buffy, The Vampire Slayer…
In paperback from www.bn.com.

The Green Hornet Returns...

This year promises to be the year of The Green Hornet. Not only is there a motion picture slated to hit the screens (here, I am honestly not expecting too much with Seth Rogan in the lead, so look for a yuck-it-up, but hope to be surprised), but a number of comic book and fiction projects are in the queue, among them a series of short story anthologies titled “The Green Hornet Chronicles” from Moonstone Books.

I was recently honored to contribute a story to that anthology, and just this week turned in the edits for it. The book is edited by EIC at Moonstone, Joe Gentile, and excellent writer, pulp historian and all around great guy, Win Eckert. It promises to be the best Green Hornet fiction ever, with best-selling writer extraordinaire Harlen Ellison contributing to the Hornet lore.

My story is titled “Flight of the Yellowjacket” and the antho is based heavily on the 1960s’ TV series starring Van Williams and Bruce Lee.

For those unfamiliar with The Green Hornet, it began in the 1930s as a radio show and ran more than a decade and hundreds of episodes (1936-1952). Originally, the show was to be called The Hornet, but the name was changed to The Green Hornet so that it could be easily trademarked. The color was chosen because green hornets were reported to be the angriest.

Created by George W. Trendle (who also created The Lone Ranger, and in fact The Hornet was a blood relation, great nephew in the radio show, to the Ranger), it concerned one of the early masked crime-fighters, who, with his trusty Asian sidekick, Kato, roamed the night streets in a huge amped-up car called the Black Beauty. The Hornet was in reality Britt Reid, publisher/owner of The Daily Sentinel newspaper. The Green Hornet was seen as a criminal vigilante by police and the crime-fighter used that rep to infiltrate gangs. The classical “Flight of the Bumblebee” was its theme song.

The Hornet has also spawned a number of movie serials, big little books and comic books (in fact, a new Hornet comic book penned by movie writer Kevin Smith debuts in Mach from Dynamite with a female Kato. The Hornet will be set in modern times and this is the second female Kato to take the Hornet’s side. The first, Mishi Kato, was created by writer Ron Fortier for the Now Comics version of the character.)

In 1966, perhaps the best known version of the character came to TV. After the success of Batman, ABC looked to create another popular hero show, but unlike Adam West’s Batman, which was played for camp, The Hornet was treated as a serious crime drama, and a very good one. But audiences, mainly kids, expected Pow, Zap, Bang, and the show lasted a mere season of 26 episodes, which was a pity. In a last-ditch attempt to save it, ABC camped up the last two part episode, “Invasion from Outer Space”, and even filmed a crossover with Batman, where a very lucky Burt Ward didn’t have the crap kicked out of him by Bruce Lee.

Lee made the perfect Kato and Van Williams in the lead was superb. Had the series been run in a later time slot, it might have continued for years, but alas it and the Hornet faded except amongst a substantial cult following until the early ‘90s when Now put out a series of comic books and rumors of a movie began to surface. Kevin Smith was originally tagged to write the movie, but after completing a script, the project was scrapped in favor of the Rogan version. Smith’s script of the unmade movie will serve as the basis for Dynamite’s first comic book issues.

Look for the Hornet anthos from Moonstone (http://www.moonstonebooks.com/) coming this year and the return of The Green Hornet. I am thrilled to be a small part of his comeback along with all the other fine authors involved. I hope you will enjoy reading the story as much as I did writing it.

The Chloe Files: Kicking Evil’s ass one demon at a time…
In the tradition of Sookie Stackhouse and Buffy, The Vampire Slayer…
In paperback from www.bn.com.

Western Wednesday: Got Hat?

It’s time for another Western Wednesday so stop making sweet talk to your mount and hop into the saddle!

First, A Fistful of Legends is now available at Amazon and AmazonUK. It’s starting to pick up excellent reviews and western and non-western fans alike won’t want to miss this one. It includes my own short story, BILLY, about a Down Syndrome young man in the West, as well as 20 other stories by the best Black Horse Western writers and a couple of extremely talented newcomers.

In a about a week and a half Gary Dobbs begins his Black Horse Weekend over on the Tainted Archive Blog (http://tainted-archive.blogspot.com/), which promises to be the biggest BHW event ever. 100 posts in one weekend! Check out my interview and guest blog during that weekend.

Ok, I don’t wear cowboy hats. Not that there is anything wrong with cowboy hats. In fact, they are quite stylish on some people, especially cowgirls. But because I write Westerns folks expect me to wear a cowboy hat. And boots. And maybe even walk around with my big gun hanging out…

(And of course for those who are interviewing me about horror and supernatural writing they want to take one of those weird backlit up-the-nose photos for the article that makes me look like I eat the little children and sacrifice virgins, which is certainly not true. I’ve not met any virgins…. Come to think of it, I am surprised the ones interviewing me about comic book writing haven’t asked me to wear tights and cape…I might actually do that!) Invariably amongst the first questions I am asked in newspaper interviews is, Do you have a cowboy hat for the photo? Why, yes ma’am, it’s right in that thar closet under my sateen bodice and jingle jangle spurs.

Oh, can you get it?

Um, that was sarcasm, little lady.

But they are serious. If you write Westerns you need the damn hat. Perhaps I should show up at the door naked with it strapped to my middle. That would make an interesting, if scary, picture for their paper. And if I thought it would sell more books…

But I just don’t really look right in a cowboy hat. Some folks do. They were born to wear them. In Maine you just look like your spurs have jangled loose.

Well, maybe I should break down and buy one, snap a few publicity pics for the blog and website. Maybe a ten gallon. Yeah, that’d look cool…

Or not…

Terror Tuesday: More Ultimate Horror Movie Reviews

Time for another Terror Tuesday and some more reviews from the Ultimate Horror DVD Collection Box—or Not-So-Ultimate as the case has turned out to be. First, a couple not from the set.

Jennifer’s Body: Sigh. Sometimes I don’t know why I torture myself. I keep hoping for a decent horror movie, but alas this wasn’t it. Seems Jennifer, the town juicy, meets up with a wannabe rock band lead singer, who just happens to need a virgin to sacrifice so his band can whine their way to the top. Yes, that’s right, the town hottie just HAS to be a virgin by the band leader’s I-got-kicked-in-the-head-by-the-Lucky-Charms-Leprechaun logic. Well, newsflash—she’s not! And y’all know what happens when the Devil doesn’t get his virgin. Jenny baby gets taken over by a demon and starts eating some of the locals. Her best friend tries to stop her—between making out with her—and Jenny eats her boyfriend. Not giving anything away really because anybody could see that coming.

Megan Fox plays Jennifer and I have to admit I don’t get her appeal. Maybe it was the bad dialog making her acting look worse than it should have, but she has a cookie cutter look that doesn’t make me want to seek out anything else she has done. C- movie at best.

Paranormal Activity: Ok, I know my opinion of this is probably going to piss some folks off but I found this to be the most boring unscary movie I have ever seen. Hated the bad dialog, jerky camera crap, lack of any real plot or sympathetic characters. I was hoping the guy wielding the camera would get eaten by the bogie right off, but no such luck. I have seen creepier episodes of Ghost Hunters. It felt like watching two hours of YouTube. But many people think it is the scariest thing since Joan Rivers’ last face lift. Oh, look, hun, my keys are on the floor instead of on the counter where I left them last night…OH! Get me a damn demon hunter, stat! Thank god I slept through 20 minutes of it…

Now from the Ultimate Horror Collection:

The Thirsty Dead: Ugh. An exotic dancer (translation: bitch) and two beauty queens are kidnapped and taken into a cave in the jungle. They have become captives of a cult who drink blood to remain ageless. Yup, the stripper gets it, atrocious filming and dialog, a waste of an hour and a half. Moving on…

Messiah of Evil: When the moon turns red the fine folks of a town turn into flesh eating zombies. I swear I am not making this up. How do these movies even get made? Bad acting, bad filming, bad plot with a fuzzy ending.

Unnatural: An experiment in artificial insemination using the sperm of a killer and egg of a dumb woman produce a daughter who is strangely distant, cold, and searching for true love…with her cousin. That’s right, cousin. Apparently the makers of this movie had no taboos against first cousins doing the mattress fandango. Despite that, it’s not a bad movie, though a bit heavy-handed on the social commentary.

Carnival of Souls: a 1962 movie about a woman involved in a drag-racing accident. Her car goes off a bridge into a river, but she manages to survive. After she takes a job as a church organist in a nowhere town she begins experiencing strange moments where no one can hear or see her, as well as having visions of ghoulish people from a deserted carnival pursuing her. Really not a bad movie. The ending was a little predictable, but the thing attempts to take itself seriously and provide a bit of creepiness. The lead actress plays the part well, as the cold aloof Mary runs hot and cold, and eventually begins to break down completely. This one is worth watching.

The Killer Shrews: Scientists on an island accidentally create monstrous shrews who threaten to eat them. The shrews often look like dressed-up dogs. Not good, but not horrible, pretty Swedish girl…if you’ve got nothing else to do on cheesy monster movie night…

Creature from The Haunted Sea: Well, I can’t really tell you much about this one because I couldn’t get more than 15 minutes into it. Dreadful silliness and stupidity and this is a Corman film? Was he sniffing glue when he made it? What the hell?

This set does contain Night of the Living Dead and Little Shop of Horrors, two films I personally do not like, but are considered cult classics, as are White Zombie (which I have not watched yet) and House on Haunted Hill. So I guess if you only pay ten or fifteen bucks for the set to get those movies it is worth it.

The Chloe Files: Kicking Evil’s ass one demon at a time…
In paperback.

Vampire Week: The Lid Closes...

I confess I don’t quite get the new vampires of Twilight and True Blood, though the latter series of books I like. I mean, I understand the romantic appeal of living forever with your soulmate, though the reality of that might not be so pleasant. Certainly there are days in any relationship where you wake up on the wrong side of the coffin. Can you imagine arguing over who has the garlic breath for eternity?

But I am not sure what is appealing about having two teeth jammed into your jugular, no matter what one of my ex-girlfriends says. I am a night person, though, so I guess I could deal with that aspect of it. And the not getting old part is appealing in some ways.

I prefer my vampires of a monstrous nature, and not quite so superhuman as they are portrayed right now. They’ve become almost superheroes (and in fact Marvel Comics had a sort of superhero vampire in Morbius, the Living Vampire). But millions of modern readers and movie goers do not. The Vampire has become the ultimate Dark Knight. There’s a weird sense of control and surrender with them I don’t get, either. They can put the glamour on any women or man (except for Sookie, who’s immune) and make them do or forget anything. It sort of takes the free will and equanimity out of a relationship, not that it might not come in handy in certain situations, especially where in-laws are invovled. And since they are basically beasts who might at any time snap and suck all your blood there’s always that element of danger something permanently bad might happen. An adrenaline junkie’s wet dream.

But, perhaps, it’s the fantasy, the sense that love might just be forever, albeit a bit one-sided love, at least until the object of affection is turned. Then I hear the vampire divorce rate is, er, rising and vamp alimony is a bitch…

But, for the romantic of us, it’s nice to believe love can last through centuries. That your special someone will never get, er, long in the tooth.

Me, I think I prefer a sexy witch. They eat some peculiar things but there’s a lot of dancing naked and all that.

So, Vampire Week comes to a close here on Dark Bits. I hope you have enjoyed it and if there’s enough interest we’ll have another. I also hope to feature other monster weeks—The Werewolf, Mummy, Zombie, Witch, Ghost and maybe even that scariest of monsters--The Politician. The horror genre and horror writers like myself owe a lot to the Vampire. Where would we be without it? He is the quintessential demon, the ultimate personification of darkness. Besides my vampire Western, The Dark Riders, I hope to revisit vampires soon. In fact, I believe Chloe from The Chloe Files may be having a bit of trouble with a vampire shortly.

In the meantime, I’d like to hear from you vampire fans out there. What are your favorite vampire books and films? Do you prefer the monster vampire or the romanticized one? Do you like them sparkly or beastly?

The Chloe Files: Kicking Evil’s ass one demon at a time…
In paperback.

Vampire Week: A Few Recommended Vampire Movies

There are a number of offbeat or not-as-well-known versions of the vampire that bear a look if you can find them on DVD or cable TV. Here are just a few personal favorites in remember from my childhood.

House of Dark Shadows (1970): Filmed during the production of the ongoing gothic soap, this was a serious take on the Barnabas Collins storyline and Jonathan Frid, given time to perfect the lines, really showed just how good an actor he was in this film. Hoping for a DVD release on this at some point soon, but it pops up every so often on the cable channels.

Dark Shadows Revival Series (1991) Ben Cross was also an excellent Barnabas Collins in this primetime remake of the classic soap. The series was superb in production and unfortunately got stuck in a, pardon the expression, dead time slot and wasn’t given the time to build the audience it deserved. Veteran horror queen Barbara Steele played Dr. Julia Hoffman and the back in time sequence to the 1700s was excellent. The series is complete on DVD.

Dracula, the Jack Palance version (1973 TV movie) As if Jack Palance weren’t creepy enough, he delivers a Dracula performance possibly second only to Christopher Lee, in my opinion, in this Dan Curtis Production (Dark Shadows).

Kolchak: The Night Stalker(1972/1974): Another Dan Curtis production (Curtis was certainly a master of the vampire genre. He knew how to build a mood and select the perfect actors for the job.) Darren McGavin is a frumpy and often annoying reporter chasing down a vampire in Las Vegas. This movie presents so seriously frightening vampire moments and launched a squeal, The Night Strangler and TV series. Doesn’t get much better than this.

The Norliss Tapes (1973): Technically this one isn’t a vampire film but there’s a blood draining demon, so I include it. Another Dan Curtis production, in some ways a reflection of The Night Stalker, it stand son its own merits. Roy Thinnes stars as an author investigating a series of blood-draining deaths, only to vanish and leave behind a series of tapes that possibly point to his disappearance. I believe it was written by William Nolan and I wish it would have gone on to a series of movies or TV shows, but alas…

Innocent Blood (1992): Starring gorgeous French actress Annie Parrillaud, this is a half-serious/half-comedic vampire movie in which our vampire girl with morals (and often naked, always a plus) only preys on mafia members, this despite the copious-use of garlic in Italian cooking. Her eyes swirl with colors during intimate moments too. Even a pretty good performance by Don Rickles as the Mafioso’s Jewish lawyer.

The Cat Creature (1973 TV movie) After an Egyptian amulet is stolen from a mummy case, anyone connected with the missing piece is found murdered, scratched and bitten, as if by a cat, and drained of blood. Starring a very young Meredith Baxter and David Hedison (former Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea) with a screenplay by Robert Bloch, this is not really typical vampire fare but goofy fun.

Vampire Week: Tragic Vampires

The modern vampire seems to bear little resemblance to the blood-sucking ghoul of yesteryear, the Nosferatu, Dracula and his ilk. Thanks to writers like Stephenie Meyer and her Twilight books and Charlaine Harris and her Sookie Stackhouse novels, today’s vampires sparkle in sunlight, are charismatic control freaks and romantic figures for whom women eagerly present their neck. We used to scream when a vampire flashed his incisors preparatory to ripping the flesh from our throat; now we say, bite me…please.

But these modern vampires probably owe their thanks more to one blood-sucker in particular, and that’s not Dracula, Lord of the Undead. It is a much more modern creation who started as a villain but over a very short period became the swoon of millions of housewives and hero of many a school child running home to catch the vamp’s latest exploit.

The tragic vampire. The suffering hero, placed under a curse by a jealous malevolent witch. A man who has no wish to endure his plight, his fly-by-night existence. Dracula never really objected to his lot; in fact, he reveled in it. But this vampire feels guilty (usually) when he subsists on human blood, or finds himself forced to kill to protect his dark secret.

I’m talking of course about Barnabas Collins, tragic vampire of the 1960s’ gothic soap opera Dark Shadows. Dark Shadows had been running for about six months to less than spectacular ratings when producer extraordinaire Dan Curtis decided to take a chance. A huge chance. He introduced a vampire into the show in the person of Canadian-born actor Jonathan Frid. Frid was supposed to run for an arc and be destroyed, as is the lot of most vampires. But ratings soared and Frid’s nervous and unassuming charm propelled Barnabas Collins and Dark Shadows into TV and cult history.

Within a very few months Barnabas Collins went from an obsessed kidnapping ghoul to charming vampire hero. He defined the romantic vampire for generations to come. Now the vampire was plagued by a curse, hated his existence and fell in love, or mourned for an eternity over a past love. Where women had once run in terror of the vampire, now they lined up to mother him and eagerly donate a pint or two. Much of the credit goes to Frid, who along with Dracula is now probably the most recognizable and famous fictional vampire ever (sorry Eddie).

After Dark Shadows, the vampire went briefly back to his monstrous form with movies like Kolchak: The Night Stalker and the mostly bad vamps populating TV shows like Buffy (with the exception of Angel, another tragic vamp who owed much to Barnabas.) But modern vampires have returned to the roadmap laid down by Barnabas and taken it further. The Vampires of True Blood are good and bad, heroic in the TV series Moonlight, and romantic in Meyer’s Twilight. You can either credit or blame Barnabas for that development, depending on how you like your blood-sucker.

But whatever the case, Barnabas Collins was an original in an antique genre and, along with the Hammer Dracula films, kept the legend alive and renewed for decades to come.

Vampire Week: Pulp Vampires Part 3

What do vampires eat for lunch? God only knows, but it would probably come wrapped in oilskin paper and be hidden in a chandelier hanging in the lobby of the Empire State Building. At least, it would according to Monk Mayfair and Ham Brooks.

For those unfamiliar with pulp heroes, or generally confused by the above, Monk Mayfair and Ham Brooks are two of Doc Savage's men. And, in the opening pages of the Doc Savage adventure, "The Fiery Menace", they discover an oily package known only as "the vampire's lunch".

Briefly, Doc Savage (dubbed the Man of Bronze) was a giant of a man (well over six-feet-five, and in 1933 that was tall) with golden-bronze skin (tanned by the heat of tropical suns), superhuman strength, and eyes like pools of flake-gold constantly in motion, as if stirred by tiny winds. He is a protean genius, a superman, the first true superhero upon which many characters, from Superman to James Bond, have borrowed liberally.

Only a few months after birth, the infant Clark Savage, Jr. was placed, by his father, in the hands of scientists and scholars. Through his childhood years, he was trained for a strange Galahadian career: to travel to the ends of the earth, seeking out and punishing evildoers and righting wrongs. For this he accepted no money (he hardly needed it as in the first adventure, The Man of Bronze, he is heir to a hoard of gold, guarded by ancient Mayans).

He fought his way through 182 separate adventures, which oft times delved into many areas of the supernatural: Men twenty-feet tall stomped through the Michigan countryside; screaming blue meteors shrieked the night sky, tearing away men's sanity; nebulous green spirits commanded by a huge floating green face known only as The Mystic Mullah seared innocents with a deadly poison; invisible men terrorized New York City; yellow clouds swallowed planes; blood-red snow descended and dissolved anyone upon which it fell; and in a final, apocalyptic adventure, Doc descended into the depths of the earth seemingly to battle the origin of evil itself and grapple with living trees, rock demons, and the hideous denizens of Hell. The eerie, the macabre, the mysterious; adventure, action, horror. Most often, these eerie occurrences have rational (if not always reasonable) explanations.

Doc Savage worked with a crew of five assistants, each a genius in his respective field, surpassed only by Doc himself: Monk Mayfair, apelike and vulgarian, is the chemist of the group; Ham Brooks, waspish and sartorial, is a lawyer; Renny Renwick, funeral-faced and huge-fisted, is an engineer; Johnny Littlejohn, neoverbalist and animated skeleton, is an archaeologist and geologist; Long Tom Roberts, sallow-complexioned and ill-tempered, is an electrical genius.

For the most part, Doc Savage was written by Lester Dent, who had a magic touch with characters and an off-beat sense of humor. He wrote the adventures under the house name of Kenneth Robeson (the house name designed to protect the pulp publisher and provide continuity should an author quit, die or be replaced). All the Doc Savage adventures have all been reprinted in paperback by Bantam Books, along with a handful of new tales, and double volumes are being reprinted today by Sanctum Books.

In the eerie case of "The Fiery Menace", a man is found hanging from a chandelier in the Empire State Building. He has an entirely ugly, bloodless hole in his forehead. A package, the Vampire's lunch, is found up there with him. Seemingly, a vampire is loose on the streets of Manhattan. Bloodless corpses, all with the same mysterious hole in their foreheads, start turning up everywhere. But this vampire is a wee bit different than the usual blood-sucker. He travels in a fiery cloud: "It was a ball of flames or roughly, a ball of a thing which had a tail of bundling red tongues." And this vampire does not leave fang marks in his victims' necks; just a round, cauterized hole in the forehead.

Soon, Doc is led on a trail of blood and murder to a remote island off the coast of Maine (I live in Maine and we seem to have an ungodly number of vampires up here, at least according to Stephen King and Dark Shadows), and the vampire's lair. Like many of the Doc Savage novels, "The Fiery Menace", has a reasonable explanation. It involves millions of dollars worth of gold, a stolen Nazi submarine, and a masquerading vampire in a fiery ball. The man hanging from the chandelier turns out to be a nutcase named Elmer the Great, who was hunting the vampire. He was a member of the organization perpetrating the vampire hoax who had a change of heart when he found out killing was involved.

Unfortunately for Elmer, his cohorts played him for a sucker. I will not tell you what was in the package but even a vampire would not have wanted to eat it.

Many other pulp heroes battled vampires, including The Avenger in "The Blood Countess" (though technically not a pulp), G-8 and The Shadow in "The Vampire Murders". I had written three columns for Sharida’s "The Vampire Journal" on the subject before the zine met with cancellation. Perhaps I’ll pick up the series again here during another Vampire Week…

Vampire Week: The Hunters

This time, guest blogger Bobby Nash takes a look at the Hunters in vampire lore. Bobby writes novels and short stories including Evil Ways, Fantastix, Lance Star: Sky Ranger, Domino Lady, Sentinels: Alternate Visions, Full Throttle Space Tales: Space Sirens, A Fistful Of Legends, Green Hornet Chronicles; and comic books (Life In The Faster Lane, Fuzzy Bunnies From Hell, Demonslayer, Fantastix, Yin Yang, Operation Silver Moon) and resides in Bethlehem, Georgia. For more information on Bobby Nash please visit him at http://www.bobbynash.com/ and http://bobby-nash-news.blogspot.com

There’s an old adage in storytelling that your hero is only as good as your villain. Most of the time this is true. Try to imagine Batman without the Joker, Sherlock Holmes without Moriarty, James T. Kirk without Khan, etc. etc.

Of course, most vampires, even when they were the star of the book or movie, were more than likely the villain of the piece. While there are exceptions to that, especially in recent years, for the most part I think it is generally accepted that vampires are the “bad guys” and we like them that way.

But if the vampire is a villain, where’s the hero?

Vampires have faced their share of enemies since the word vampire was created. In recent years those enemies have been other creatures of the night, most notably werewolves or other vampires. However, the vampire has been plagued by a host of humans, and even those who are a little more than human, since the beginning.

In this installment of Dark Bits I thought I would focus on three of my favorite vampire hunters and what makes them special to me. Oddly enough, like their sworn enemy, each of them has had multiple incarnations.

Professor Abraham Van Helsing first appeared in the 1897 novel that started it all and has pursued the bloodsuckers through many incarnations in novels, movies, and comic books. Much like Dracula, there are many variations of the Van Helsing character out there. Abraham and his associates and siblings have been chasing down vampires for centuries, returning again and again. Van Helsing even had a self-titled movie, but the less said about that one the better.

Blade first appeared in Marvel Comics Tomb of Dracula issue 10 in 1973 as a foil for the title character. Blade fought alongside other vampire hunters like Frank Drake, Rachel van Helsing (a familiar name), Taj Nital, Quincy Harker, and Hannibal King in trying to rid the world of the vampire lord. After a short time Blade slid into obscurity, occasionally showing up in a Marvel comic here or there.

And then came Wesley Snipes.

The Blade movie brought Blade from the 70’s to the 90’s and gave him super powers and making him half vampire, which the comics soon mimicked so that the comic and movie version were more in synch. The movie was immensely popular and spawned two sequels and a short-lived television series that was cancelled just as it was finding its legs. Blade still pops up around the Marvel Universe whenever the vamps rear their ugly heads. Most recently he appeared in the Captain Britain and MI:13 comic.

And finally there is the Slayer.

In 1992 I doubt there were many folks who thought that we would be discussing the character of Buffy Summers eighteen years after the Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie premiered. I certainly didn’t think so. And we probably wouldn’t be if the fledgling WB Network had not given the go ahead to Joss Whedon to bring his character to television. The premise was a simple one on the face of it. Cute girl kills vampires. Simple, right? What viewers got was more than just an action/horror series. For seven seasons Buffy treated us to engaging characters, intense plots, unique episodes (the silent episode, Hush is truly a remarkable hour), controversy, and plenty of surprises.

These days, the story continues in comic book form and had a series of novels during the shows run.

Of course, these are not the only vampire hunters out there, but these are my top three. Who are you favorite vampire hunters? Let us know in the comments section.

Happy hunting.

Vampire Week: Pulp Vampires Part 2

The coffin lid creaks open; a hand, pale with a glinting jeweled ring reaches out. The sun has set in bloody red glory and unseen denizens of the dark stalk the night mists. An eerie fluttering sound on the wind, a harsh squeaking echo, as the creature, confined to a pulpwood box by day, glides through chilling reaches of time and darkness.

Terror, in macabre, pulp suspense, is loose in the world of purple prose.

The Spider! For those of you not familiar with the pulps or its heroes, The Spider, a.k.a. Richard Wentworth, was perhaps the most quixotic and violent of pulp crime fighters. His adventures were continuous shambles of gore and lunatic violence. To The Spider the only good crook was a dead crook, and The Spider's pulp world was littered with good crooks.

The Spider blasted his way through 118 adventures and millions of words of melodramatic pulp adventure. He was, at first, intended to be a Shadow imitator (publishers Street & Smith's cloaked crime avenger), but soon took on a different angle and consequently a life of his own. He was far more violent than The Shadow ever dreamed of being, although he carried twin .45s and let loose with a mocking, sibilant laugh like the Master of Darkness. In fact, after The Shadow, The Spider, who was published by Popular Publications, was even dubbed the Master of Men. Wentworth (as were many of the pulp playboy millionaires) was ostensibly a bored millionaire who occasionally helped the police ferret out some criminal too tough for them to handle. But as soon as the police left, Wentworth would don a cloak, slouch hat, fright wig, and makeup with hideous vampire teeth. He would become a figure that caused the underworld to tremble at the mere utterance of his name--The Spider!

As a twist to the bored millionaire theme, The Spider was a hero thought to be a criminal by the law (much as the radio and TV hero, The Green Hornet). He is actively hunted, hounded, and blamed for hundreds of murders over the course of his career (most of which, in all fairness, he is responsible for). He usually sustains an ungodly number of wounds, often bordering on the ludicrous. In each novel, hundreds of persons are annihilated, mutilated, vaporized, etc. by some devious criminal method. Often he is as likely to shoot one of his friends as he is a crook if he suspects treachery (and on a number of occasions he does). He is aided by his fiancée, the lovely and sometimes very deadly, Nita Van Sloan (who suffers a large number of degradations in each novel including being stripped naked, tortured, beaten, and sexually threatened, sometimes even by apes).

The Spider is an emotional character, frantically painted by his author, who totters just on the edge of insanity. He wants not only to stop crime, but to annihilate it. In his particular vampire adventure entitled, "Death Reign of the Vampire King", the pace and action are frantic, torrential, slashing the pages in violent sharp-fanged glory. This adventure does not, however, deal with vampires in the truest, fictional sense, but with the vampire bat. Hordes of them! It seems a malicious criminal, who dubs himself The Bat, has trained legions of starved vampires to attack humans. Oh, and he has tainted the little creature's fangs with a deadly poison.

He looses these monstrosities on crowds of theater patrons, race track enthusiasts, and restaurant diners. They butcher hundreds.

The Bat, himself, is nonetheless imposing. In his first face to face encounter with Wentworth, he sits upon a throne of skulls and condemns The Spider to a cage that fills with starved bats (though not poisonous). Wentworth is agasp at the sight of the man: "He now saw it was a man seated there, a man with great leathery wings stretching from his shoulders. The face was incredibly hideous, the nose sliced off, the whole countenance drawn up toward that wound into a striking and hideous semblance of a bat's face. He even attached huge, pointed ears to his head, and he had wings."

And with these wings, The Bat is able to glide through the air and call his trained vampires with a shrill squeaking sound. I won't reveal the motives or plot behind "Death Reign of The Vampire King", because the novel is tense and exciting and well worth reading if you don't mind the lack of cohesive plot. Every chapter is packed with action. One feels somewhat drained, not to mention relieved, after finishing this novel. But that is true of most Spider tales.

(The Spider is now being reprinted in double volumes available through most comic book stores and Moonstone books is producing a line of brand new short story anthologies and comic books, some written by yours truly. Look for my Spider widescreen comic book The Strange Case of The Spider and Mr. Hyde coming very soon. (www.moonstonebooks.com)

Vampire Week: Carmilla

Western writer Ray Foster guest blogs about vampire author Sheridan Le Fanu. Ray writes Black Horse Westerns unde rthe name Jack Giles and hails from England. Vist his Broken trails Blog at http://brokentrails.blogspot.com/

Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) was a Dublin born author who's contribution to vampire fiction seems to be forgotten yet his main vampire story 'Carmilla' has influenced both fiction novels and films.


'Carmilla' was published in 1872 in a magazine called 'The Dark Blue' and an anthology of Le Fanu's works titled 'In A Glass Darkly'. It is said the 'Carmilla' influenced Bram Stoker to write 'Dracula' 25 years later. 'Carmilla' is narrated by Laura who has a dream of being bitten on the chest. Later two women arrive at her home alleging that their carriage has broken down. The elder lady has urgent business elsewhere and asks if her granddaughter, Carmilla, can stay for a while until she returns. Laura recognises Carmilla as the girl from her dream.


It is not long before it is discovered that Carmilla is a descendant of Mircalla Karnstein (notice the anagram and things fall into place). Laura and Carmilla are attracted to each other and the subdued and delicate lesbian theme raises it's head.

In 1960 Roger Vadim took the story and turned it into the movie 'Et Mourir de Plaisir' better known as 'Blood And Roses'. Considered the best movie of 'Carmilla' that has been made. Hammer Films took the story forwards with the 1970 version with 'The Vampire Lovers' with Ingrid Pitt as Carmilla and Madeline Smith as Laura. This was the first in the Karnstein trilogy that continued with 'Lust For A Vampire' and 'Twins Of Evil'.

The themes that make up the story of 'Carmilla' have influenced many other movies and stories. Coming soon though made in 2009 and starring Jennifer Ellison and Simone Kaye is 'Carmilla'. Personally, I have an affection for Sheridan Le Fanu's vampire story. It was the first of it's kind that I read though at the time I was not old enough to understand the connotations of the story - that came in later years - and long before I picked up Bram Stoker's novel.Whichever way you look at it Sheridan Le Fanu's 'Carmilla' should take it's rightful place in lierature - even vampire literature.

Vampire Week: Riding Dark…

While the western normally isn’t a genre thought of for vampires, blood-sucker horse operas are not without precedent. “Billy the Kid vs Dracula”, as far back 1965 pitted a reformed William Bonney against the Prince of the Undead in a B movie and I recall at least one other, whose name escapes me, wherein a gunfighter uses wooden bullets with little crosses carved into the tips to dispose of an undead gunfighter.

But the Western is actually perfect setting for creatures of the night. It was a frontier world, rife with superstition. Scary tales were told around the campfire and who knew what lurked out there in the western night?

When I first set about writing my vampire/western “The Dark Riders”, the notion of setting monstrous vampires in the Old West intrigued me. What’s more was what if the vampire was, like Dracula, a nasty character before he’d been turned into a “dead-walker”?

In this case it was an outlaw named Milus Clint, as evil a sonofabtch as ever rode the blood trail. He spent his life robbing, raping, killing and terrorizing New Mexico, destroying the lives of those he touched, including that of a young boy named Chris Durrin, the protagonist of the book. But Chris vows justice and on a fateful encounter kills Milus--or at least he thinks he does.

Because Milus isn’t quite dead. Or is he?

Setting about writing The Dark Riders, I wanted to bring the vampire legend with a twist into the Wild West, which meant creating a sort of parallel vampire origin and tying it into a western backdrop. And I wanted it to explore the themes of life and death and loss, and the personification of Evil, from within ourselves and from external sources, and how men deal with it, how they overcome it—if they overcome it. Though “The Dark Riders” uses the vampire set against the hardships of the everyday life of a western rancher, it also serves as an allegory for our own times and the demons we face within ourselves and from the outside world.

I think the Western lends itself particularly well to vampires, and, indeed, other types of monsters, because in a way the untamed frontier was one big monster waiting to be conquered.

The Dark Riders is unabashedly a monstrous vampire tale. Milus, like Dracula, is not tortured by his curse, he revels in it. He longs to make the world of night his own, rule the darkness, create an entire world of vampires under his control.

And it’s up to Chris Durrin, again, to stop him…

How do you feel about the vampire in other genres? Westerns, science fiction, romance, comedy, even Christian horror?

Vampire Week: Pulp Vampires Part 1

As with most literature and fiction, the pulps were not immune to the existence of the Undead. Many Horror pulps featured vampires in assorted forms and the vampire craze even trickled into the best known hero pulps of the day—The Shadow, Doc Savage, The Spider.

Years back, I did a series of articles for publisher Sharida Rizzuto, who ran a number of excellent fanzines devoted to everything from Sherlock Holmes to Horror, and included The Vampire Journal, called Vampires in the Pulps. Since these articles haven’t seen the light of day, pun intended, since the ‘80s, I thought I’d present them here, a bit updated…

Part 1: Pulp Vampires…

For the uninitiated, pulps were dime novels produced in the 1930's and ‘40's, so called because of the cheap, grainy paper on which they were printed. Not always literary masterpieces, these magazines boasted blood-curdling adventure, relentless action and purple prose for only one thin dime. For a few hours readers found themselves transported across the globe in search of lost treasure, forgotten civilizations and unknown perils, escaping the all-too-discouraging reality of the Depression and World War II. Each month brittle brown pages scintillated and amazed, astounded and entertained, but most of all unburdened.

Some of the greatest fictional characters originated in the pulps: Tarzan, Nick Carter, Doc Savage, Zorro and The Shadow to name a few. While the prose generally lacked polish, characters sometimes came snipped from paper-doll books and plots appeared shakier than a politician's morals, the story-telling was white-hot and intense. They weren't selling literature and made no excuses for it. They sold cheap entertainment, pure and simple. And entertain they did. To this day.

This series of articles focuses on the unusual aspects of these brittle magazines and how some of the major heroes met, and defeated, the threat of the undead.

One of these gruesome challenges occurred in the pages of The Phantom Detective Magazine, published by Standard Magazines--one of the big three along with Street & Smith and Popular Publications. The Phantom Detective was probably one of the longest lasting pulps (1933-53) and featured the exploits of wealthy playboy Richard Curtis Van Loan, master of disguise. The Phantom (he was rarely called The Phantom Detective in the novel) was summoned into action by a shining red beacon atop the Clarion Building --which housed The Clarion Newspaper and made The Phantom the only pulp hero sanctioned by a tabloid.

When newspaper publisher Frank Havens ran across weird or unusual cases, ones too difficult for the police, he would call in Van Loan. In fact, it was Havens who was responsible for creating The Phantom Detective in the first place. Van Loan had grown bored with the rich life and was convinced, by Havens, to turn his unique detection skills upon crime. Tall, tanned and powerful, The Phantom was a veritable chameleon when it came to disguise. He could imitate anything, as far as personal and physical traits were concerned, and with the utmost success. Many a brutal killer and criminal mastermind met swift justice at the hands of The Phantom during the magazine's 170-issue run. He tackled the unusual, the eerie, and exposed darkness to cold naked light. His encounter with a vampire is no exception. Fittingly enough, the novel is entitled, The Vampire Murders.

It begins with two fear-stricken hunters running back to their lodge; fear-stricken because they have just witnessed the impossible: the notorious Count Mattopikyi arising from his tomb in the dead of night. The Count threatens that they, and the remaining three members of their lodge, will die bloody, horrible deaths. And as the two terrified men reach their lodge, the prediction seems to come true. A blood-chilling scream erupts from the lodge, and after breaking in the door to one of their fellow member's room, they discover his blood-soaked, mutilated body lying on the bed. As the corpses mount, The Phantom tracks the Count and discovers the ancient legend associated with Vampire Mountain, upon which the hunting lodge is built.

It seems Hungarian Calvary officer, Count Mattopikyi, came to America during the Revolution and decided to stay on after the war, building himself a castle-like fortress upon the mountain. The Count maintained no servants but kept two large, vicious dogs to keep away unwelcome visitors. Natives believed they heard sounds of revelry coming from the castle deep in the night and soon after children began to disappear from the area without a trace. When the villagers finally raided the residence, they found no trace of it having been occupied in years; no furniture, cobwebs everywhere. Then, they found the tomb. Beneath it lay the bones of the Count and upon the headstone the cryptic inscription: "Beneath this tomb lies a treasure more precious than gold but none may possess it because death holds the treasure in its hand. None may touch one without touching the other."

The Vampire Murders becomes more and more mysterious as the novel progresses. Bodies wind up scattered everywhere. The Phantom finds the bloody pieces of the vampire puzzle, but is nearly killed by a starved lynx, a gang of criminals and a vampire. Unfortunately, like many of The Phantom Detective's adventures, the vampire has a totally logical explanation. I won't reveal it because the novel is a fun, suspenseful mystery and well worth a couple of hours reading enjoyment. There is a treasure, but it is not one the reader will suspect. When the vampire makes his appearance for the climatic finale, it is like putting too much air into a balloon--literally and figuratively an explosion.

Vampire Week: Fangs for the Memory

Doctor Who actor and Welsh Western writer Gary Dobbs guest blogs today about his vampire memories. Check out his Tainted Archive blog (http://tainted-archive.blogspot.com) and his upcoming Black Horse Western release (preorder at www.amazon.co.uk), Arkansas Smith, under his Jack Martin penname…

I can’t remember how old I was but I was very young – maybe eight or nine years old with a vivid imagination. Now in those dim distant days it was quite common for BBC2 to run a late night double bill of horror films starting at midnight on a Saturday night. These were sometimes the old Universal classics or quite often they would be the more bloodthirsty Hammer movies.

Now these films were forbidden fruit to me –my mother would never let me stay up to watch them. She’d tell me they were too scary for children, which would make me want to see them all the more. Now my parents never really stayed up late and so I made a plan to sneak down and watch the films, with the volume turned down low, while they slept.

And so when I went to bed I kept myself away by reading comics with a torch and I would glance to the bedside clock every now and then. Eleven-forty-five came and I crept from bed; careful, walking on light feet, I made my way downstairs. I switched on the TV and set the volume so quiet that I had to strain to hear it. Then I lay down in front of the fire and waited.

The film started – it was one of the Hammer movies. I’m not sure which one but it was one of the Dracula films with Christopher Lee as the neck-sucker. The blood-red font of the titles played out before my eyes and I gawped in wonder at the screen. An hour or so later and I’m left feeling stunned, the film totally engrossed me. And then I watched the second film – I remember this as the Oliver Reed werewolf movie and I crept back to bed. That night I was visited by Dracula and I woke up screaming. My father ran in and tried to quiet me down but I was terrified, and kept screaming – “He’s behind the door!” It took a while for my father to calm me down. My parents never did realise I’d watched the movies, though. Mind you, it was a few years before I could watch another Dracula movie.

Vampire Week: Hammerin’ the Stake…

Dracula was a bad bat. No question about it. He suffered from vicious urges and desires and there was little getting around the fact he was evil incarnate. He was the epitome of the undead, a man in surface form only, all demon. He sustained his life, as vampires are wont, by taking it from others, either leaving bloodless corpses or recruiting them to his legion of undead slaves.

Many actors have played the iconic blood-sucker over the past century or so. Perhaps foremost is Bela Lugosi’s portrayal in the 1931 film “Dracula”, the first talking film to depict the Count. Modern attempts at capturing Dracula on film by actors such as Frank Langella and others have met with varying success, but none could be considered a definitive portrayal—except one.

In 1958 a British film company called Hammer created a series of horror films for which they would become not only famous but revered amongst monster cult enthusiasts. Hammer’s version of “The Mummy” with Peter Cushing (a consummate actor and staple of the Hammer horror films) and “The Phantom of the Opera” are arguably the best film versions of those two movie monsters ever produced. They had a particular magic that has not been since duplicated.

But it was with the Lord of the Undead Hammer may have reached their pinnacle of excellence. Fresh from playing the Mummy in the Hammer production of the same name, British actor Christopher Lee stepped into the role of the blood-thirsty Vlad and did so brilliantly. If you didn’t believe Dracula was a bad ass before you did now. Lee WAS Dracula for a generation. The film spawned seven sequels, in which Lee starred in all but two, most of them excellent, with the exception of the last, “The Satanic Rites of Dracula”, where Lee makes a cameo in a very poor film. Lee’s blood-shot eyes, fangs dripping blood and sparsely speaking role burned its way into your deepest fears. He had a presence unlike any actor to take the part before or since. The usual trappings of mysterious castles, heaving bosoms and, for the time, graphic effects made these films transcend their genre and revived the Blood Count for a new generation, perhaps even igniting the vampire craze that has endured to this day. The films brimmed with sexuality, extravagant sets and costumes, and gorgeous victims. In each, Dracula met his demise in what appeared to be a definitive end, only to return somehow for the next film. With the penultimate film, Dracula A.D. 1972, the Count is resurrected in modern England and proves Dracula is still a horrifying force no matter what century he rises in.

The Hammer Dracula will likely never be duplicated. They had charm and chemistry, especially the early ones, much like the Connery Bond films of the era. It was a coming together of elements, a celluloid alignment of planets that rarely occurs, but when it does it defines a genre. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing (who played van Helsing in the films) are as inimitable as the Lord of the Undead himself. For a boy growing up in the ‘60s and ‘70s watching these—albeit somewhat edited for television—on Friday late-night monster movie showcase, they scared the hell out of me, as well as thrilled.

Vampire Week

It’s vampire week on Dark Bits (Dark Bites?), so polish your crosses and get out the garlic as we explore the good, bad and blood-thristy.

There’s no denying in all of monsterland the Vampire reigns supreme. From Bram Stoker’s evil incarnate Dracula, to the modern sparkly blood-suckers of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, the vampire has remained popular in books, plays, movies and TV shows for nearly two centuries.

In its earliest form, the vampire was indeed a monster, no tragic figure cursed like the poor werewolf. Dracula was bad to the last drop and for the time period startlingly erotic. That eroticism plays a much bigger part nowadays, thanks to an explosion of vampire romance (I’m thinking getting two fangs jammed into your jugular looks a whole lot more sexy on screen than if it were to really happen), but certainly has its roots in Stoker’s creation.

Over the decades, the vampire has changed back and forth, becoming more civilized, returning to its monstrous roots, then resurfacing as a enchanting dark figure, who, aside from that nasty little blood-drinking addiction, has become a sort of dark hero.

In literature and on film Dracula himself has gone from monster to romantic figure, even, pardon the usage, a sucky comedy figure thanks to George Hamilton. Hell, he’s even made it into a Saturday morning cartoon comedy in the Groovy Ghoulies.

Vampires and vampirism, of course, go back much farther than Dracula, who himself was based on Vlad (Tepes) the Impaler, Prince of Wallachia (1431-1436). It was merely Stoker’s novel that mainstreamed the vampire. The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of “The Vampyre” by John Polidori. But vampire lore goes back even farther. The first appearance of the word “vampire” in English comes from 1734, in a travelogue titled “Travels of Three English Gentlemen” and had seen discussion in German literature. The English term originates from the German “Vampir” (possibly via the French “Vampyre”). But the concept existed in cultures such as the Mesopotaimians, Hebrews, ancient Greeks and Romans, with tales of demons that were the predecessors of the modern vampire. The folklore we know today originates from the South-Eastern European verbal traditions, a time when the belief in vampires became so prevalent executions of folks thought to be the undead occurred in public (much like the Salem Witch hysteria in early America).

No definitive description of the folkloric vampire exists but several elements became commonplace in European legends. Vampires were usually reported as bloated in appearance, and purplish or dark in color. Those characteristics were usually attributed to the recent drinking of blood and blood was often seen snaking from the mouth and nose of the vampire in its coffin. The vampire was normally dressed in its burial linen shroud and its teeth, hair, and nails may have grown, though normally fangs were not a feature.

Many of the trappings we know today come from literature and film, with new traits being added over the past 30 years or so that allowed the vampire to walk in daylight, either through an amulet or piece of blessed jewelry of some kind, or some were simply able to walk about comfortably on cloudy days, ala Moonlight or Twilight. In modern vampire lore the undead have been even able to integrate themselves into society and become detectives or bar owners.
It’s clear that the vampire legend, while enduring, is also quite flexible and malleable. But it’s also certain that as long as we have horror stories we will have the vampire, good, bad, or sparkling…