Tag: Vampires

Coming to Home Video, the Space Vampire!

As an experimental film, I’m rather enthralled by the use of repetition, colours and shapes used in the cinematography and video editing to define what a Space Vampire is.

Space Vampire Movie Poster
Available to pre-order here.

Darkside Releasing
Release Date:
Aug 17, 2021

I can’t help but wonder if the Space Vampire is just a reinterpretation of Carmilla? This film by Chris Alexander (better known for Queen of the Blood) begins the same. In Sheridan Le Fanu‘s own work, we see a mysterious woman (Ali Chappell) walking alone in a snowscape, towards an isolated house (presumably in Northern Ontario, where this filmmaker is from). That’s where the similarities end.

What’s different is in how this mysterious stranger in a tight black leather outfit is getting visions of who she was before becoming fully isolated to the entire environment she’s in. She’s no Black Widow either, but instead is just a person completely hypnotized. Another girl (Cheryl Singleton) is just as lost. However, it seems she is in control of her senses. This experimental movie seems perfect for Fantasia Fest, but for whatever reason, it didn’t make the cut. Thankfully Alexander got a distributor so fans of vampire and oblique films can take a look at the work for themselves.

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When Infighting Causes Problems with a Nest of Vampires

The world is very familiar, and anyone not paying attention will miss the punch line early in the film. We’re led down a story that’s one part heist (seeing an innocent girl get kidnapped) and another part recovery (of said woman) and vampires are involved!

Next of Vampires

By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Coming to Digital
March 15th
Amazon, Tubi, iTunes

Exclusive screening on Facebook March 13, 2021 at 1 PM PST

When human blood suckers gather, what are they called? Is it a coven or a cauldron like the bats they are? It’s hard to say, but Chris Sanders’ Nest of Vampires is an aptly named film about a cadre who is having trouble keeping quiet in a small town in England. Kit Valentine (Tom Fairfoot), a top MI5 agent, lost his wife to a group of them and the authorities are not investigating. His daughter, Anna (Daria Krauzo), is kidnapped and no self-respecting father will let this case go cold.

Had Dracula ever wanted to lay down an empire as detailed in Bram Stoker’s novel, this movie would be a perfect followup! There’s no relation to the Victorian work. Instead, this crowdfunded film project by Sanders is styled to fit in the world of The Lost Boys. Yes, the setup is cheesy, and this nest is in over their heads, but the concept nicely works.

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Dracula’s Legendary Comics Life is Classic

Most readers know the origins and this adaptation offers enough material to recount that history, say the blood is life and make the vampire omnipresent. To have snippets of Stoker’s novel in this book in the dialogue and narrative is simply tops.

Bela Lugosi to Star in 'Bram Stoker's DRACULA' Graphic Novel from Legendary Comics – Jimmy Star's World
Available to pre-order on Amazon USANext of Vampires

By Ed Sum
|(The Vintage Tempest)

Release Date: Nov 3, 2020

By Hunter’s Moon, ask any cineaste who the best actor was to play Dracula, it’s reasonably safe to say Bela Lugosi tops the list. He’s appeared in the classic film that started it all and also the horror-comedy Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein that cemented his status. To this day, I still get goosebumps. I remember my babysitter letting me watch that film and his entrance. As a seven-year-old, I ran screaming from his home back to mine! Somehow, all that helped kindle my interest in the supernatural and horror. Learning how genre movies were made decades ago helped lessen the scars.

Legendary Comics graphic novel release of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (starring Bela Lugosi) shows Halloween won’t be over. He’s on the prowl, and this publication faithfully adapts the seminal book, brings some of that cinematic prowess from Francis Ford Coppola‘s adaptation, and bridges all those letters, journals and recordings into a solid tale where you don’t notice it’s being told from multiple perspectives. Robert Napton made the transitions between these products unnoticeable.

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The Past Revealed in Buried Worlds with Don Wildman

Buried Worlds With Don Wildman' Illuminates Real Paranormal Mysteries of The World, Exclusive Interview and Preview - Tv Shows AceBy Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

If Don Wildman is not careful, he’s going to step on toes and piss off the wrong people (living or dead) in Buried Worlds. Before joining Travel Channel, he was the voice behind the series Cities of the Underworld and Mysteries at the Museum. With this latest series at its halfway point, the formula is firmly established. It sends this host into the field, getting involved in seances and perhaps meeting people that he really shouldn’t in the quest for answers to well-known unsolved mysteries.

He better be careful in what he digs up. It may not be pleasant not only for the viewer, but also those better versed than him when dealing with the occult.

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When Vampires Attack! What We Do in the Shadows, A Review

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

What_We_Do_in_the_Shadows_posterSpecial Screening
in Victoria, BC (Update)

Feb 27 – Mar 5th
The Odeon Theatre
780 Yates Street

The Vic Theatre

Modern life is very rough for the ancient vampire. In Wellington, New Zealand, just What We Do in the Shadows presents a comical look into what life is truly like for these creatures of the night in a more humanist kind of way. They allowed a small crew of cameramen to follow them around to record their antics and to see them acknowledged time to time gives this movie an air of authenticity that can be appreciated. When the film is presented as a mockumentary, the laughs are well earned, and some horror lore enthusiasts will recognize the world that these creatures, along with the werewolves and zombies, belong in.

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[Victoria, BC] Chasing After Vampires at Craigdarroch Castle

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Holmes Sussex Vampire Poster Note: This production continues until April 12, 2014 at Craigdarroch Castle (1050 Joan Crescent). Performances are on April 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11 and 12 at 8 pm. For more information, visit the Giggling Iguana Productions official website here.

Giggling Iguana’s theatrical production of Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Sussex Vampire is one show that requires no garlic for audiences to keep in their pocket, should they be afraid of being bitten. In this adaptation of the short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, only those in the know will realize that perhaps no real occult science is afoot here. Instead, it is in seeing just how soon will Sherlock (David Radford) will solve this mystery. His authoritative and quick mind is skillfully played by Radford, and perhaps this casting was intentional to give long time theatre-goers of this company’s works a bit of a chuckle. He played Dracula in a previous production, Dracula: The Blood is the Life.

But the laughs in The Case of the Sussex Vampire is also well earned. A touch of light humour is written into the script when Holmes enters the scene dressed as a woman to fool Dr. Watson (Ian Case). The added yuk-yuks give these two crime-solving partners a different interpretation of the famous duo to act like the odd couple, getting into some fun, tossing rumpled up letters about until they eventually hit upon a letter from an old chum of Watson’s, Robert Ferguson (Michael Glover). These two are old schoolmates, and he invites the duo to come visit because there is a problem at the homestead.

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