A Brief Pause

The Pogues sang, “sad to say I must be on my way, so buy me beer and whiskey 'cause I'm going far away.” Indeed I am going fairly far away, to the far end of the country at least, but only for a week. So the blog will have a brief hiatus, for a week, but when I return you will have reviews of Hemlock Grove and Dracula Lord of the Damned to look forward to as well as a look at Sergei Lukyanenko’s New Watch – the fifth book in his series.

Whilst away I might not get chance to moderate comments, so if you do leave a comment and I don’t publish it straight away, I’d ask you to be patient.

Classic Literature: The Immortal Woman

The Blurb: When one is as beautiful as you are, one can have as much blood as one wants.”

In 1675, a female vampire possessing the secret of immortality was burned alive. Forty-five years later, during a dinner at the table of the French Regent, her then lover, Marquis de la Roche-Maubert, discovers that another guest, Chevalier d’Esparron, is in love with the same immortal woman. However, her attraction to him is not to satisfy her hunger for blood, but to implement one of the greatest secrets of alchemy: the transmutation of lead into gold.

Pierre-Alexis Ponson du Terrail (1829-1871) was a French popular writer and a master of the serialized novel, having penned over 200 such works in 20 years. He is justly famous for his character of Rocambole and his ground-breaking horror novel, the Vampire and the Devil’s Son (1852). The Immortal Woman (1852) is a forgotten masterpiece of early vampire fiction, and another of Ponson’s classic flirtations with the supernatural.

The Book: La Femme Immortelle is another wonderful release from Blackcoat Press that has been translated and edited by Brian Stableford.

Ponson, the author, was (as the blurb tells us) a writer of the serialised novel and so there are similarities between this and the classic penny-dreadful Varney the Vampire, not least in some of the errors that creep into the narrative as Ponson forgets (or ignores) details previously mentioned in the text. Not that this takes away from the book, which still maintains a read-ability today.

The vampirism in the book is not real, rather it is quickly identified as a trick but certain characters maintain a belief in it through the entire length of the novel. The book is actually a tale of revenge and more thriller/swashbuckler than horror. Be that as it may, the lore included is interesting. The vampire is said to feed from the neck and, when her old lover the Marquis de la Roche-Maubert tells his tale, he says that she tried to pass off the pinprick at his neck by suggesting that one of her hairpins had scratched him. The immortal woman suggests that she can make another immortal by slowly draining every drop of their blood and then “infuse your veins with a young and generous blood. For that, it will be sufficient to give you a kiss every night.” Both the scratch and the kiss brought aspects of the later Dracula to mind. Mina mistakes the bite on Lucy for a scratch with a safety pin and the ‘brides’ have kisses (or bites) for Jonathon. Interestingly there was mention of the vampire’s hair having moved from black to blonde, reminiscent (as Stableford points out) to Feval’s the Vampire Countess, though the device was not expanded upon and was quickly lost. There is also use, in plot, of a Magic Lantern.

All in all, more fascinating 19th century French vampire literature. A footnote mentions Ponson’s novel L’Auberge de la Rue des Enfants Rouges, which opens with a tale of vampirism and Stableford hopes to translate that in the next couple of years.

The book can be found at Blackcoat Press and Amazon:

Stalk Kill Travel Stalk Kill – review

Author: TP Keating

First Published: 2013

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Stalk Kill Travel Stalk Kill is the fast-paced, action-packed tale of a female vampire, told with an eclectic mix of humor, excitement and scares. It’s aimed at readers from 13 to 313. An early draft appeared on America’s ground-breaking Textnovel.com, a social network for authors and readers of Japanese-style cellphone fiction.

The Review: What’s in a name?

Well, I was contacted by TP Keating and asked if I would care to review Stalk Kill Travel Stalk Kill. I agreed but was somewhat concerned re the title, it didn’t resonate well with me. Should you judge a book by the title… No, of course not. How about this book, definitely not. I didn’t know what to expect but it certainly wasn’t what I got.

Now the blurb (taken from Amazon) is a little thin and I must admit that I am not au fait with “Japanese-style cellphone fiction”. However to reveal much more in the blurb would be to do the novel a disservice. As the book began I felt that I was in a familiar territory, the first person narrative struck a chord although it was constructed in a way quite different to an urban fantasy, for instance.

It followed the trials and tribulations of an unnamed female vampire, her journey and the machinations of her ex, once lover and now vampire hunter. Yet as the book moved forward the ground beneath her feet shifted, she might find herself awakening in a distant future, the centrepiece, hibernated, of a vampire society just before an attack by a relentless horde of zombies or perhaps under attack from a sorcerer or facing the enigmatic fog-people.

Yet as she journeyed on, through a psychedelic, ever shifting landscape I began to recognise the style. It was almost like a beat novel (and the beat novel and the vampire are not strangers, for proof check out Kerouac’s Doctor Sax), perhaps I could call it neo-beat. And I liked it.

It is pointless me telling you the story for, like the best beat works, it is a journey (albeit fantastical). Lore-wise I won’t spoil too much but will say that vampires can turn into bats, must avoid the sun and have a proclivity for wearing black (for reasons that are explored). They also have no sense of smell.

Will you like it? I don’t know, it depends if you like arty, intoxicating prose where the story is perhaps less important than the journey. I liked it. 8 out of 10.

Vamp U – review

Directors: Matt Jespersen & Maclain Nelson

Release date: 2013

Contains spoilers

Also known as Dr Limptooth, by the alternate title we can tell this is a comedy and here comes the regular caveat… comedy is subjective. Plus, this time, I’ll add that not all comedy travels from country to country.

In this case I was underwhelmed and the cultural aspect I’ll come to very soon. There was also a very strange lore aspect that we’ll cover as well.

Tom and Fred

It starts with a college student, Tom (Matt Mattson), making a video. A confession or journal, if you like, that outlines how he discovered that his college Professor, Wayne Gretzky (Adam Johnson), is a vampire and the first 2/3 of the film covers that story. Here we have the humour not crossing borders. Apparently Wayne Gretzky was a hockey star. The film ignores this (assuming that the viewer will know that) until it makes a ham-fisted comment on it later on (we’ll get to dialogue). The problem is, of course, very few folks outside of North America are going to get the joke. This isn’t a criticism (at least not the geographic aspect) but pointing out a fact that filmmakers must be aware that not all humour travels.

an unfortunate bite

Anyway, three hundred years before the film, Wayne was in love with a woman called Mary (Julie Gonzalo). Unfortunately they lost track of time and, as the sun set, Wayne lost control of his vampire nature and bit her. Of course no-one was happy about this (on her family's side). He snuck into the funeral dressed as a monk but was found by her brother Gregor (Jason Celaya). After a struggle he killed Gregor with the stake meant for him – he didn’t use his fangs as he had lost the ability to produce them.

Gary Cole as Arthur

Cut to modern day America and Wayne is a history professor, much loved and known as the Great One. He has confessed his nature and "fang-flop" issue with psychologist and professor Arthur Levine (Gary Cole) who is treating him for his “vampire impotence”. One of the issues I had with the film was dialogue and the main problem was around these two characters. Wayne bumbles through lectures by keep suggesting he knew the historical characters. At best he sounds freaky and I very much doubt he would be “everyone’s favourite professor”. Levine actually blurts out about Wayne’s vampire nature in front of a student and her father and then covers it up (saying he had been reading Twilight) but one wonders at this “professional” who would do this. The dialogue was written for laughs (though I didn’t... subjective remember) but didn’t seem plausible round these characters and so came across as ham-fisted.

Julie Gonzalo as Chris

The student, incidentally, is Chris who is also played by Julie Gonzalo and you are now wondering whether this is a “reincarnated love” story. It isn’t. She is, however, his “vampire Viagra”. He gets his fangs and (as they are mutually attracted) they start an affair – much to the chagrin of Tom’s friend Fred (Maclain Nelson) as she is his unrequited love. When Wayne realises that actually she is the daughter of Mary, who turned rather than died, he gets carried away, bites her and turns her into a super-bitch vampire who, in turn, turns her sorority and wants to cut a bloody swath through the world. She has, of course, to die…

staked

I mentioned an unusual lore. This is about the turning process. If the victim is killed then they simply die. However a victim who is alive, after the blood has been drunk, turns (occasionally becoming a super-vampire as Chris did). However the bite is unimportant, it is simply the drinking of blood, so if a person donated blood and it was drunk (it takes about a pint) they would turn. This is not only unusual but frankly a little logic lost and put in as it becomes a plot point. Other than that it has to be ash stakes to kill them, though said stakes must be well-hammered due to a vampire’s dense bone structure, they don’t show on photos and sunlight will kill but an umbrella is protection enough from the sun. Clearly vampires can breed but the vampirism is not passed on (Mary passes her odd behaviour off to her family as "being Amish").

dead sorority gal

If the script didn’t do it for me comedy wise, I have to say that I was impressed with Julie Gonzalo who turned in two recognisably different performances and made for an excellent psycho-vampire. The film looked nice enough given the obvious low budget but the script just wasn’t taut enough for me. Part of the problem was it never offered the feel of a slapstick, so far-fetched gags (Wayne dumping a body in a cemetery and suggesting to the gravedigger that it was a new job, with no comeback later, for instance) didn’t work. I liked the general idea but not the execution.

Gonzalo manages to raise the score due to her excellent work in film. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Kolysanka – review

Director: Juliusz Machulski

Release date: 2010

Contains spoilers

Kolysanka means Lullaby in Polish and what we have is an unusual entry into the vampire genre by a film that is a gentle but black comedy that satirises modern Poland and societal concerns such of off-shoring of work.

It also features a rather unusual vampire family, though we get to see little in the way of vampiric activity, most of it inferred and off-screen.

the family arrive

It begins at a remote house on the edge of an isolated Masurian village. We hear voices discussing the resident, ensuring that he lives alone. The owner works in arts and crafts and we see shadows move along the wall and a walking stick knock at the door. The owner opens the door but no-one is there. When he looks again an odd looking family are stood before him. He asks if they are there about the land.

Michal with the postman

A postman arrives with a registered letter for the Makarewicz family who have now taken over the arts and crafts store. The first thing we should note is that it is daylight, the Makarewicz’ have no trouble with sunlight (though it does seem, later on, that they prefer to sleep through the day). The letter is from a welfare worker who we then see visiting the family. When they are asked how many children they have, the mother, named Bozena (Malgorzata Buczkowska), explains that they have four children – the youngest, Kuba, being a baby – and she is expecting a fifth (so these vampires are born).

 Bozena and Michal

Noises are heard from Dziadek (Janusz Chabior), Bozena’s father-in-law. When the welfare worker asks his age we are told that he is 550, this is quickly revised of course. The next visitors they receive are from a priest and his neophyte – looking for donations. The priest blesses the house and the vampires all make the sign of the cross, and so religious paraphernalia and ritual have no effect. When the priest asks about the previous owner he is told that he left (later they suggest he went on a round the world trip). However we then hear, via the police, that the postman, the welfare worker and the priest and neophyte have all gone missing (and more will go missing as the film progresses).

blood potion

The missing are not dead but kept prisoner in the cellar. The vampires feed from the feet of the victims for so long but the aim is to eventually let their victims go. This is achieved by the head of the clan Michal (Robert Wieckiewicz) mixing his blood into a spirit and forcing their captive to drink it. The potion makes the person who drinks it fall asleep and, when they awaken, they have no memory of their captivity (a conveniently placed empty bottle makes it look like the postman, for instance, has been on a boozy bender).

Dziadek's last two teeth

The problem is that Kuba takes a liking to the priest’s blood and will only settle after drinking from him. Indeed blood from the other captives makes him ill. Meanwhile Dziadek loses his two remaining teeth and, after apparently contemplating suicide, decides he wants false teeth making. Bozena wants to move to the city, Michal is happy in the country, and eldest child Wojtek (Filip Ochinski) begins to doubt that Michal is his father after the priest calls him the son of the devil.

vampire infant

The film was fun and rather non-horror. The vampires do have a vampiric guise. We see it flit over Kuba’s face at one point and when the family play music together they all morph into their vampiric selves, a transformation of clothing as well as physical. The vampire children, we note, have very pointed ears and the shot of them together has overtones of the Addams Family. They can make themselves vanish and there is a suggestion (through sound effects) that they can transform into owls but we see nothing that confirms this.

the vampire family

As I said, this is a black comedy and satire and some of the satire will have been lost on me, being aimed at Poland. Things like their arts and crafts contract being cancelled as it is cheaper to buy the goods from China is a trans-national concern, I guess, but the social commentary about the Polish welfare system went mostly over my head. I also wish we got to know more of the characters. There is some depth built in but they are a fascinating bunch and would have benefited from more detail.

All the above said, it didn’t make the film unenjoyable, indeed it was a fun, well shot film that is worthy of several viewings. I do wish we had got to know more lore but, be that as it may, the film gets a respectable 7 out of 10.