Night's Creatures

A Vampire in Venice: Evan Rachel Wood at the Venice Film Festival

2011-09-06T06:48:00.000-07:00

Evan Rachel Wood, who plays vampire queen Sophie-Anne Leclerq in True Blood, was at the opening of the 68th Venice Film Festival last week with the cast of George Clooney's latest directorial enterprise, The Ides of March.

The film opened the Festival on August 31 and Wood walked up the red carpet with co-stars George Clooney, Marisa Tomei, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti, as well as supermodel Cindy Crawford who formed part of Clooney's retinue with her husband Randy Gerber.

Evan Rachel Wood as the vampire Sophie-Anne Leclerq in True Blood

Wood looked amazing in a Dolce & Gabbana outfit during the press conference in the morning, and, later that evening, in a white shirt dress by Alessandro Rich (above).

Other celebrities who were spotted on the red carpet included Diane Kruger (Troy), Violante Placido (The American) and Vittoria Puccini.

Erzsebet Bathory - The Blood Countess of Hungary

2011-08-14T14:36:00.000-07:00

Erzsebet Bathory

Any vampire fan is familiar with the name of the Hungarian Blood Countess Erzsebet Bathory.

Countess Bathory lived in 16th century Hungary, appropriately close (given the vampire associations) to the border with the Romanian region of Transylvania.

Bathory residence in Hungary
Photo by Charmaine Tanti

Elizabeth Bathory came from a family of Voivods of Transylvania, and her uncle Stephen was also King of Poland.

In 1610, she was accused of murdering over six hundred women and girls to bathe in their blood, believed to keep her skin youthful and translucent.

Bathory bathing in virgin blood - wax figures at Nyirbator
Photo by Charmaine Tanti

However, this accusation was most likely the fruit of a conspiracy against the Countess who refused to yield any of the estates that she had inherited from her deceased husband.

Bathory was tried and found guilty. She was walled up in a room where she died 4 years later, in 1614.

Bathory on trial - wax figures at Nyirbator
Photo by Charmaine Tanti

Bathory's legend grew and she is now considered the female version of Dracula. The Blood Countess and the Impaler share the same fate in popular culture as most people are more familiar with their legendary/fictional personas than with the real historical facts.

Bathory's legend inspired many stories in the 18th and 19th centuries, and still does so today. In 1729, her story was published by the Jesuit scholar Laszlo Turoczi in Tragica Historia.

The witness accounts were published in 1817, and first gave rise to suspicions that the bloodbaths were pure fiction. However, the vampire craze that raged during the nineteenth century firmly rooted her within the ranks of the sadistic and bloodthirsty undead.

Bathory's legend has inspired anything from literature to music, plays and films. Kim Newman mentions her in his superb Anno Dracula, and she is one of the villains in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Tales of the Slayer Vol 1.

She also features in Riyoko Ikeda's Berusaiyu No Bara Gaiden where she meets Oscar Francois de Jarjayes.

Hammer Horror made one of the first feature films about Elisabeth Bathory in 1970: Countess Dracula starring Ingrid Pitt.

The most recent movies about the Blood Countess include Juraj Jakubisko's Bathory (2008) starring Anna Friel; The Countess (2009) directed by and starring Julie Delpy; and Ulrike Ottinger's Die Blutgraefin (2011), starring Tilda Swinton.

For more information about the Countess' palace in Nyirbator, go to my blog Mad About Travel

Useful Links and references:

http://thevelvetrocket.com/2011/07/21/the-blood-countess-elizabeth-bathory-erzsebet-bathori/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_B%C3%A1thory

The Countess

Die Blutgraefin

Bathory

Let the Right One In

2011-08-01T01:11:00.000-07:00

In a world where human beings have stopped caring about each other, you could find true friendship in a vampire ...

John Ajvide Lindqvist's book Let the Right One In is a beautifully horrific story about the friendship between a lonely, bullied boy and a vampire child.

Oskar is a 12-year-old Swedish boy who lives with his mother in a Stockholm suburb in the 1980s. Bullies at school make his life a misery, but then Oskar befriends Eli, the new 'girl' next door.

Let the Right One In embraces the modern vampire tradition that recognizes the monstrosity in human beings while creating sympathy for the vampire by pointing out the victimization that led to its creation in the first place and the true love that the vampire is capable of.

The story's main focus is the intimate relationship that develops between Oskar and Eli, two 'beings' that belong to different species, and who have both experienced suffering at the hands of human beings. Adults are ineffectual when it comes to protecting their loved ones - Oskar's mother tries hard, but never finds out what is happening to her son, and Oskar's father is a drunk. Eli's 'father' is actually a pedophile who tries to provide blood for the vampire child to keep it with him.

At the core of the novel, as the title inspired by the Morrissey song suggests, is the need to let the right person into one's life. Lindqvist's novel goes that extra step further by showing that it is not only the human boy who needs to let someone in. The vampire, too, needs someone it can trust ...

Related Articles
For an insightful appreciation of the film version, go to: http://noeltanti.com/2010/11/03/knock-knock-let-the-right-one-in-2008/ (SPOILERS ALERT)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_the_Right_One_In (SPOILERS ALERT here, too)

Check out the Morrissey song that inspired the title in this fan video that includes images from the film:

Some of Your Blood by Theodore Sturgeon

2011-02-19T08:35:00.000-08:00

Theodore Sturgeon

Source: http://www.physics.emory.edu/~weeks/misc/sturgeon.html

Some of Your Blood is a short horror novella whose protagonist, George Smith, is a sociopath. George is sent to the army psychiatrist after he attacks an officer. His mild manners contrast so much with the officer's report that Dr Philip Outerbridge decides he wants to delve deeper into this man's psyche to see what had triggered off such an apparently uncharacteristic reaction. He asks George to write his autobiography. George happily complies, but his narrative is as deeply false as it is true. The doctors realise that to find out George's secret, they have to read between the lines to discover what it is that their patient is hiding so carefully....

So, where is the vampire connection?
1. George's parents are Hungarian-American
2. His real name is Bela
3. George's 'problems' are deeply connected to his mother
4. Find out George's secret to learn more ...

La Morte Amoureuse

2011-02-17T07:37:00.000-08:00

Theophile Gautier

Theophile Gautier's "La Morte Amoureuse" is a short vampire story about a young priest, Romuald, who is first haunted and then seduced by the beautiful vampire Clarimonde. First published in La Chronique de Paris in 1836, the story is one of the first and most influential vampire stories written in the nineteenth century.

Characters
Clarimonde - the femme fatale and loving vampire who falls in love with Romuald.
Romuald - the young priest whose moral dilemmas and erroneous choices prove tragic to himself and to Clarimonde.
Serapion - Romuald's spiritual guide and the antithesis to Clarimonde.

Synopsis
Romuald is a young man who has always lived a cloistered life studying to be a priest. On the day of his ordination, he espies a beautiful woman in the Cathedral and he falls in love with her. In spite of this, he takes his vows anyway and is assigned to a small parish.
One night a messenger arrives summoning him to the house of the beautiful courtesan Clarimonde who is dying. When he arrives there, Romuald is overwhelmed by the 'dead' woman's beauty and kisses her. Clarimonde wakes up and from that night onwards they become lovers. Romuald starts leading a double life: by day he is the timid, humble priest and by night he is his own arrogant and wealthy alter-ego, Clarimonde's lover.
Romuald the priest, however, is consumed by guilt and he confides in Serapion, an older priest who urges him to betray the vampire's whereabouts ...

"La Morte Amoureuse" was made into a TV film in 1997/8 in the series The Hunger. The title of the episode is Clarimonde and stars Audrey Benoit as Clarimonde, David la Haye as Romuald and James Bradford as Abbe Seraphon.

Read it or listen to it Online

The text in English:
http://www04.us.archive.org/stream/greatshortstori01brangoog#page/n11/mode/1up

The text in French:
http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/gautier_theophile/morte_amoureuse/morte_amoureuse_print.pdf

French audio version of the story:
http://www.litteratureaudio.com/livre-audio-gratuit-mp3/gautier-theophile-la-morte-amoureuse.html

The Film
http://welcome-to-monster-land.blogspot.com/2009/08/hungry-for-clarimonde.html
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0608305/

Or buy new from Amazon

The Many Faces of Dracula

2010-12-02T04:45:00.000-08:00

Henry Irving

A star of the theatre in Victorian London, Henry Irving never played Dracula, but it is said that his stage manager, a certain Bram Stoker, was inspired by him for the character of the immortal Count. Notice a certain resemblance to Christopher Lee?

Dracula (Unabridged Classics)

Bela Lugosi
Dracula, 1931

Lugosi wasn't the first on-screen vampire, but his evening garb, cloak and well-groomed hair gave birth to an icon. Just take a look at the amount of caped vampires you see around on Halloween.

Dracula (Universal Studios Classic Monster Collection)

Max Schreck
Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, 1922

Count Orlok is a far cry from the gorgeous vampires of our days, but his rodent teeth, bald head, pointy ears and long claws are unforgettable. And to think this amazing silent film nearly didn't make it to our day because of the law suit between Florence Stoker and the production house! Lucky for us that not all the prints were destroyed.

Nosferatu (The Ultimate Two-Disc Edition)

Christopher Lee

Hammer Horror Dracula, 1960s & 1970s

Christopher Lee is one of THE faces of Dracula of the 20th Century. The low budget Hammer Series flaunted lavish scenery and buxom beauties, and their Dracula series is now a cult, having made Mr Lee as strong a Dracula icon as Bela Lugosi.

Draculas: 4 Film Favorites - Horror of Dracula / Dracula Has Risen from the Grave / Taste the Blood of Dracula / Dracula A.D. 1972 (2DVD)

Frank Langella

Dracula, 1979

Frank Langella starred as one of the 3 Draculas of 1979 in John Badham's Dracula. The film was a disappointment at the box office, but, according to Wikipedia, it became quite popular for a time in the home video market.

Dracula

Klaus Kinski

Nosferatu, Phantom der Nacht, 1979

The second of the 1979 Dracula movies, Werner Herzog's Nosferatu takes us back to the bald head and rodent teeth in this remake of Murnau's 1922 Nosferatu. This time, since the novel's copyright had expired, Herzog could use the original names of the characters, something that Murnau had been unable to do.

Nosferatu: The Vampyre/Phantom Der Nacht (2 Disc Set)

George Hamilton

Love at First Bite, 1979

The third Dracula of 1979, directed by Stan Dragoti, is a comic horror character who is forced to abandon his castle in Romania and discover the wonders of New York (and its blood banks). At his side, his faithful bug-eating servant Renfield. Tagline: "Your favorite pain in the neck is about to bite your funny bone!" What more can you say?

Love at First Bite

Gary Oldman
Bram Stoker's Dracula, 1992

Gary Oldman in Francis Ford Coppola's amazing Oscar-winning adaptation has become the face of our fin de siecle Count. Coppola's lavish sets and costumes and eye for detail make this one of the all-time Dracula favourites. One of the most romantic vampire movies of our time.

Bram Stoker's Dracula (Collector's Edition)

Leslie Nielsen
Dracula: Dead and Loving It, 1995

Leslie Nielsen and Mel Brooks (director and Van Helsing) - a recipe for spoof. What more can I say, except that this is a version Stoker never dreamed of. Watch out for the Coppola Dracula hairdo, the British bosom and closing windows.

Dracula - Dead and Loving It

Rudolf Martin
Buffy vs Dracula, Ep. 1, Season 5, 1997

So he might not be the most famous actor to play Dracula, but he did play the role in Buffy in a campy episode. The Slayer cannot escape the Count's bite and even Xander becomes his slave. At the end, of course, Buffy slays the Count, but as we all know, he always comes back.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 5

Count Duckula
1988

He's green and he's a duck, but, hey, he has his own castle on a lonely mountain top in Transylvania, his own poultry servants and he's famous. And he's not that bad when you consider he isn't after blood but tomato ketchup.

Count Duckula - The Complete First Season

Count von Count, aka The Count
Sesame Street

Another not-so-serious version of Dracula, modeled on Bela Lugosi. A Count is very good at teaching children mathematical concepts, such as ... counting. With his many bats, his cat and his Countmobile, this is one Count you can count on.

Sesame Street: 40 Years of Sunny Days

Why I Hate the Comte Saint-Germain!!! No offence, Chelsea!

2010-02-10T02:28:00.000-08:00

Of all the vampires around, the gory ones, the disgusting ones, the purely evil ones, the helpless and the messed up, no-one irritates me more than Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's suave and superior Comte Saint-Germain.
And the reason? In a nutshell: he's too perfectly perfect and superior! Philanthropist, feminist, learned, wise, well-mannered ... he's cleaner than the proverbial pin!
Not that any of these qualities are unwelcome in any character, yet when every other man in the Saint-Germain stories is either a satanist, a rapist or downright stupid, Saint-Germain's goody-goody attitude and his know-it-all-ness just rub me the wrong way.
There is no doubt that the Comte has left his mark on the vampire genre, but it is not as if the novels themselves were works of high literature. They read more like audacious and uncensored versions of a Barbara Cartland novel than anything else. With all the high quality vampire literature around, I can't see why some people still make a fuss about Saint-Germain. Give me mad, bad and dangerous to know Lestat, Dracula, or Zillah any time!

Lost Souls

2010-01-31T05:15:00.000-08:00

If you love Anne Rice, you’ll love this!

Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite is one of those modern haunting and unforgettable vampire tales with haunting and unforgettable tragic characters that stay with you long after you’ve finished reading the book.

Poppy Z. Brite has become a cult writer among aficionados of the vampire genre. Two of her main characters, Ghost and Steve, were actually taken from her short stories, while others are featured in another novel, Drawing Blood, which, however, is not a sequel to Lost Souls. Lost Souls is actually an expanded version of her short story ‘The Seed of Lost Souls’.

Lost Souls opens in New Orleans, a favourite setting among vampire story authors (see Fevre Dream and Anne Rice’s novels, among others). Three nomadic vampires arrive at Christian’s Bar where one of them, Zillah, impregnates a teenage girl. What follows is the story of their son, Nothing, who is adopted by ‘normal’ parents, and his search for a family and a sense of belonging.

Lost Souls? is the name of a band located in the typical American place in the middle of nowhere, Missing Mile. The members of the band are the tormented, messed up rocker Steve and his best friend Ghost, a seer and witch’s grandson, whose music lures Nothing to the small town. The story is about the adolescent search for identity and the existentialist and nihilist theme of the book is implied in the names of the characters, Nothing and Ghost. Youth are the children of the night, whether they are human or vampire, mortal or ancient.

In many ways, therefore, Brite’s novel is a song of Innocence and Experience, of Innocence lost as Nothing finds his family of vampires and is drawn into an incestuous relationship with his cruel and selfish father, Zillah. It is a compelling read that will have you turning pages and falling in love with the characters, with its sense of decadence and magic, savagery and poetry.

Main Characters

(in order of appearance)

Jessy: Nothing’s teenage mother who dies giving birth to him (it’s gorier than it sounds)

Christian: the New Orleans barman who is also a very lonely vampire, hundreds of years old

Zillah: Cruel, narcissistic vampire, leader of the gang, father of Nothing and later his lover

Molochai: One of Zillah’s followers

Twig: the second of Zillah’s followers

Nothing: the protagonist of the story, in search of family and identity. He eats his friend.

Steve: musician, human, totally messed up, in love with Ann but has a funny way of manifesting his feelings for her

Ghost: a seer, witch’s grandson, totally weird but utterly lovable and wise. He can read people’s feelings

Ann: another messed up character, in love with Steve, hopping from one guy to another in search of love and finally gets her happy ending (Not!)

Wallace Creech: Jessy’s dad and Nothing’s granddad, a crusader against evil and vampires who manages to poison everyone with his cancerous blood

Title: Lost Souls

Author: Poppy Z. Brite

Published: 1993

Rating: 18+

Author's website: www.poppyzbrite.com

Christabel: Coleridge's Unfinished Vampire Poem

2009-08-02T12:35:00.000-07:00

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem Christabel (1816) is one of the first works of English literature dealing with a vampire femme fatale and with lesbianism. Although unfinished, it is very powerful and highly erotic, and sets the standards for later portrayals of female vampires.

Summary: Christabel, Baron Leoline's daughter, goes out at night to pray for her betrothed knight to come back safely to her, when she is accosted by a beautiful lady in distress. The lady's name is Geraldine, and she says that she had been kidnapped by some knaves. Christabel decides to help her, smuggles her into the castle and takes her to her room. Once there, Geraldine seduces Christabel and casts a spell on her which makes her unable to say the truth about Geraldine - namely that she is a vampire. In the morning, Sir Leoline meets Geraldine and discovers that she is the daughter of an old friend of his. Christabel tries to warn her father about the enchantress, but she cannot. Sir Leoline is so angry with her and so besotted by the vampire that he disowns Christabel and takes Geraldine under his wing.

The poem stops here and many critics have tried to give reasons why Coleridge never finished it even though he claimed that he had it all planned out.

One reason might be that the poem is so saturated with the poet's personal issues and psychological dilemmas that it proved quite impossible for him to distance himself enough from it to complete it.

Other critics propose that the reason why Coleridge did not manage to finish the poem resides in the poem itself, which, owing to its nature, defies closure.

Christabel contains many elements that were, or would become, common stock in literature about female vampires. Some of them are:

Geraldine is a snake-like creature whose eyes can mesmerize her victims

She pretends she is a damsel in distress to get herself invited into the castle

She takes over the mother's role when she seduces Sir Leoline

Her weapons, rather than brute force and fangs, are sex and seduction

Since she cannot enter a dwelling place unless she is invited inside, she gets Christabel to carry her across the castle's threshold

She shuns religious objects

She makes animals uneasy

For more information about Coleridge and Christabel:

Coleridge's poems: The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics) or
Samuel Taylor Coleridge - The Major Works (Oxford World's Classics)

Coleridge Biography: Coleridge: Early Visions, 1772-1804 (Part 1)
Coleridge: Darker Reflections, 1804-1834 (Part 2)

Online text of the poem available at: http://etext.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridge/poems/Christabel.html

Articles about 'Christabel': http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/53396/samuel_taylor_coleridges_christabel.html?cat=38
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3437/is_4_42/ai_n28961041/
http://british-poetry.suite101.com/article.cfm/psychosexual_tones_in_christabel

Why do we like vampires?

2009-07-26T12:33:00.000-07:00

Vampires have been with us from the beginning of time, from the myth of Adam's first wife Lilith, to our contemporary guardian angels in Twilight and Let the Right One In.

Other monsters have come and gone - the Leviathan, the Harpies and the Sirens. Scylla and Charybdis are relegated to the pages of Homer's epic. But vampires have gone all the way with us. They have developed from monstrous outsiders to incarnations of our sense of alienation, from alien creatures to beings that are possibly more human than us, more appreciative of the meaning and the possibilities of humanness.

Maybe Nina Auerbach hit the nail on the head when she saw the connection. That our vampires are intricately and indelibly linked to ourselves.