#vampire identification guide

[collinsportmaine]

Vampire Identification Guide

The Vourdalak is French film is based on a Russia novella that predates Bram Stoker’s Dracula by 58 years. It tells the tell of a family waiting for Gorcha (their patriarch) to return from fighting the Turks. Before leaving he warned them, if he returned after 6 day - do not let him enter the house. But he returns on the 7th day!

Vourdalaks are from Balkan and Slavic folklore - vampires that return from the grave to feed on their family, decimating their bloodline and feasting on the blood of all those they hold dear.

A unique element of this French film is the Gorcha is depicted as a life size puppet, voiced by the director Adrien Beau.

[collinsportmaine]

Vampire Identification Guide

I haven’t see the new version of Salems Lot yet, but photos are showing up on the internet. Here’s a shot of Alexander Ward as Kurt Barlow.

I’m glad they decided to go in the direction of Reggie Nalder’s 1979 version which was very creepy. Rutger Hauer looked like a blond Dracula and simply wasn’t threatening.

[collinsportmaine]

Vampire Identification Guide

As Lily in “The Munsters” (1964-1966) Yvonne DeCarlo played the daughter of Grandpa played by Al Lewis. As Lewis played Dracula, therefore Lily is Dracula’s Daughter. Although her make-up certainly suggests Lily is a vampire too, I don’t recall if she ever had fangs.

Years later DeCarlo costarred in “Nocturna: Granddaughter of Dracula” (1979). She played Jugulia Vein, a New York vampire that lived under the Brooklyn Bridge. The plot involved Dracula’s granddaughter being cured of her vampirism by dancing to disco music.

[collinsportmaine]

Vampire Identification Guide

Ultraviolet (1998)

I’m rewatching a favorite vampire series from 1998 - “UltraViolet”. It stars Jack Davenport as Michael Colefield, a London police detective. In episode 1 (Habeas Corpus), he gets recruited into a specialized unit called Section V - the V of course stands for Vampires, although they are never called that in the series (it uses leeches instead).

Other members of Section V include Susannah Harker as Dr. Marsh. She joins after her husband, a cancer specialist, was recruited by the leeches. Idris Elba plays Vaughan Rice, a Gulf War veteran whose unit had been slaughtered by leeches. Rounding out the main cast is Philip Quast as the head of Section V. He’s a priest, so he has extra incentive to combat the vampires.

In the first episode, Colefield discovers his friend and partner, Jack, has been recruited by the vampires. At first, Colefield does believe in vampires, but he soon can’t deny they exist. Jack is played by Billy Moyer, who would play a vampire again 10 years later in “True Blood”.

As the six-episode series progresses, we learn that the vampires have a long-range plan for dealing with humans.

My favorite part of the series is how Section V combats vampires. Vampires from folklore don’t have a reflection.

The series extends that idea to include that they can’t be seen in photos or even video. So Section V has special cameras attached to the guns to make sure the person they are targeting isn’t seen by the camera.

They also use charcoal-tipped bullets. In a raid on a vampire’s hideout, they deploy gas grenades that deploy garlic-laced smoke to incapacitate the vampire.

And religious iconography doesn’t affect the vampire unless they think it does.

Section V knows that a vampire can regenerate, but they don’t know how. Once destroyed, the vampire’s ashes are collected and stored in a special vault with UltraViolet lights.

[collinsportmaine]

Vampire Identification Guide

[collinsportmaine]

Vampire Identification Guide

The film “Shadow of the Vampire” (2000) has an interesting conceit. It pretends that Count Orlok from the silent film “Nosferatu” was real and that director FW Murnau arranged for him to assist with making the movie. Murnau is played by John Malkovich and Max Schrek by Willem Dafoe. As the production progresses, Schrek begins feeding off the production’s crew.

[collinsportmaine]

Vampire identification Guide:

Daybreakers has an interesting premise. A plague quickly turns most of the population into vampires. The population quickly adapts, and society continues with the vampires living their lives at night. The few human survivors are hunted down and placed in blood farms.

Sam Neill plays Charles Bromley, a Elon Musk type CEO, who runs a company that sells human blood. But the dwindling human population is creating a blood shortage. If the vampires go too long without blood, the devolve into feral nosferatu type creatures referred to by the unimaginative name subsiders. These creatures transform into human side bat!

Ethan Hawke plays Edward Dalton, ahematologist, who works for Bromley. He’s trying to find an effective blood substitute but without luck.

There’s a fun but gory sequence where a test subject receives an injection of the a blood substitute but he soon develops horrible boils and explodes.

I won’t describe the entire plot, but Ethan Hawkes meets a group of human resistant fighter. Their leader, played by Willem Defoe accidentally discovered a cure for vampirism. Maybe the worse idea of the movie is to name Dafoe’s character “Elvis”.

[collinsportmaine]

Vampire Identification Guide

Queen of Blood (1966) stars John Saxon, Basil Rathbone, Dennis Hopper, and Florence Marly as an Alien Queen. It used footage from the Battle Beyond the Sun.

Scientists on Earth receive a signal from Mars - an alien ship has crashed there and needs help. When the rescue ships arrive, they find a sole survivor - who turns out to be a vampire!