Based on a Marvel comic book character first introduced in the 70′s, Blade possesses the supernatural strength and speed of a vampire but is immune to most of their weaknesses like sunlight or garlic. Created when a vampire attacked his pregnant mother, Blade wages a war fighting to release humanity from the secret rule of the vampire masters. In the first film he is introduced through the eyes of Dr. Karen Jenson (N’Bushe Wright,) a doctor who is forced into the world of vampires and hunters when she is bitten by one of Blade’s quarry. Earning his acceptance with her stubborn refusal to hide on the sidelines, they discover a plot by vampire leader Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) to use vampiric magic to make himself a god. With the help of Whistler’s (Kris Kristofferson) anti-vampire weaponry and some martial arts throw-downs they face off against the vampire menace.

"Always bet on black."

Snipes played the role with a cool and hard-edged aplomb which, while suiting the film interpretation of the character, allowed him to be upstaged by the more entertaining Deacon Frost, or hilariously foul-mouthed Whistler. This is a sharp contrast from the Blade of his comic book appearances but is more in line in keeping with the stoic action anti-hero of the 90′s.

The new traditions of vampire cinema have continued through two decades now. With Blade sequels and television shows, Milla Jovovich in Ultraviolet, Daybreakers, and the Underworld series having just released its fourth film, the vampire as super hero is here to stay.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer wasn’t just a hit on American TV but became an important property for British television where it sparked a small renaissance of horror-themed entertainment. Writer/director Joe Ahearne brought Ultraviolet, his take on the vampire television series to Channel 4, the other, other British television station. His series was to be a sharp contrast to the teen drama and humor of Buffy, deadly serious with the vampires as cultured monsters on the verge of a scientific breakthrough that would allow them to take over the world. Opposing them was a secret force made up of veterans and survivors. Supported by the Vatican and lead by a defrocked priest, they hunt “code 5′s” with carbon tipped bullets.

The series primarily followed Michael Colefield, a police detective. His friend Jack goes missing on the eve of his wedding and his fiance, formerly Michael’s girlfriend, begs him to find Jack. When Michael tracks down Jack, he is in the company of strange criminals who soon reveal themselves to be vampires and come for Michael’s blood. He is saved by Father Harman’s team of hunters and drafted into the secretive human/code 5 war.

The stories of the episodes were often grim and challenging: Revenge and murder, medical experimentation, child molestation. Post traumatic stress and loss had warped or ruined the lives of each of the vampire hunters. In the end, betrayal dashes any hope of a peaceful reconciliation and the war between the living and the undead is unavoidable.

Ahearne had big plans for the continuation of the series, considering the first season as a set up to the conflict with the vampire forces and opportunities to explore and expand the backstory of the minor characters. Yet, even after the success Channel 4 was slow to renew. It was less risky to just import and rerun more episodes of Buffy. When they finally decided that they would purchase a second series, it was too late. The cast had moved on to other shows and contracts and all continuity with the previous story would have been lost. What might have been for Ultraviolet never was.

Here’s what JennyD and I have learned from rewatching this movie as adults:

1.  We’ve got to agree with Lestat.  Louie is an unbearable whiner.  While we might have been sympathetic in our youth, we now find him significantly less appealing (although Brad Pitt helps in that department).  He projects all of his evil deeds and guilt onto his maker despite causing most of the problems (He ASKED to be a vampire!).  Just goes to show that vampirism is no cure for depression.

2.  Louie sets every place he lives on fire.  Why does he feel the need to torch all of his homes before he leaves them?  Seriously, no less than 2 plantations and one theater are torched because he apparently knows no other way to make an exit.

3.  This movie holds up to the test of time, which was actually surprising.  Nostalgia is often no mark of quality and we figured that a film appreciated as pre-teens would now be showing its age. We were pleased to discover that we still enjoyed it.  This especially goes for the cast, which was pretty out there back in the day – Brad Pitt was a nobody, Antonio Banderas was mostly new to the States (and a strange choice for Armand given his literary counterpart), and Kirsten Dunst was an unknown child with an adult part to play.  And then there’s Tom Cruise, Maverick himself, playing the vampire Lestat.  Oh, do I remember the uproar that caused.  Even Anne Rice was pissed.  But Jordan stuck by his choices and, in the end, Rice changed her tune.  Cruise embodies the spirit of the character from the novels, and I found him the most compelling character in the film.

4.  As some us here at FGSG are gaming nerds, we would just like to thank Anne Rice for helping to create the Toreador and Ventrue clan.  Really, for helping make Vampire: The Masquerade overall.

5.  This movie is rife with homoeroticism.  It’s not afraid to stay true to the genderless love and sexual magnetism of vampires in the source material.  We have positive thoughts about this.  Not only because it’s super hot (it is) and respectful of Rice’s vision (that too), but because portrayals of  this kind are such a rarity in Hollywood; where playing it safe and straight is the rule.

6.  The effects also hold up.  While there are a few overt sketchy moments (mostly stuff on fire), the majority of FX are just fine.  Hell, they’re way better than many of the CGI-fests made today.

Jenny: Conclusion? Sure, all of the stereotypical vampire imagery and themes are right here. Velvet capes and all. When you get past the cliches, this is still a solid vampire flick. Even better, an example of the ultimate balance between predator and lover. Some people like the beast. Some people like the sparkle. Both extremes of that spectrum annoy me. Murderous dandies who make out. Now THAT’S how I like my vampires.

The Victorian era vampires are at it again. Count Mitterhaus has a taste for the blood of children and his ghoulish mistress, the wife of the schoolmaster has been luring them to the castle for him. The townsfolk, riled to action by Prof. Mueller attack the castle to end his fiendish ways. The Count is staked and his castle set alight but his lover Anna hides his body and runs to find his kinsmen who will restore his un-life. Years pass and the town is beset by a plague so virulent that the neighboring towns have closed the roads to prevent it’s spread. The superstitious townsfolk blame the Count’s curse but Dr. Kersh believes it is a variety of rabies and with the help of his son Anton, he slips past the roadblock and rides to the capital for medicine. At the same time a travelling circus arrives and promise the inhabitants a distraction from their suffering with clowns, wild animals, tumblers, and magic tricks. However, this is a Vampire Circus! Disguised as performers the Count’s kinsmen and his lover have returned to lure the children of the village to him and sacrifice them. The Professor and Anton must try to defend the young people, including the Professor’s daughter, Dora from the corrupting appetites of the monsters!

From the opening scenes of child murder and naked tussling followed by the stabbing, staking and burning, the rest seems slow paced in comparison. That’s not to say the the film is tame. A family is mauled and their tattered bodies left to rot in the forest, the blood of several more children is drunk, musket balls blast through the strongman and the stakings and beheadings are full of crimson splatter. There is also the overt dance of the lion tamer and a nude woman in tiger striped body paint. I’m not sure how the superstitious Victorian-era villagers could resist burning these two on the spot for their sexual depravity. I suppose it could be explained by the bewitching effects of vampires but it’s not family entertainment. Put the kids to bed.

Not quite Cirque Du Soliel

The story itself is tangled between the many characters and plots. The action advances from scene to scene with some setups that do little to hide that it is a story of moments rather than a well thought out whole. The Count’s thirst for the blood of the children of those that killed him is an amusing precursor to Freddy Krueger but the romance between the Dr. and Prof.’s children is obvious as they are the only two young people left alive by the mid-point of the story. Dora is not a complete damsel in distress and manages to stake one of the vampires with a coincidentally pointy crucifix but she is helpless two minutes later as the scene calls for her to be captured to motivate the men to action. The men who, two minutes earlier had left to kill the vampire, meaning they would have crossed paths with the abductors. It reinforces that Hammer audiences were not turning out for the stories. As a Hammer vampire film; yeah. S’alright. Just don’t expect the legitimate chills of earlier Hammer vampires and accept it for the exploitation film it is.

He should have quite while he was ahead! He's the head of the class! That's one way to get ahead in life! He certainly has been decapitated and is therefore just a head!

As a note on minor roles, genre fans will be pleased by the appearance of Lala Ward as the (fully clothed) mute vampire acrobat and David Prowse as the (what else?) strongman.

Does it pass the Bechdel? The only long conversation between two women is the Burgermeister’s daughter whining to her mother to let her go get sexed up by the vampires again. Apparently flattery will get you everywhere, including dead in a vampire’s tomb.

Would you be able to resist Ingrid Pitt? I don't think so.

Ah, Hammer, the world of the heaving bosoms, fog-shrouded forests and superstitious villagers. This story is loosely based on Sheridan Le Fanu’s story “Carmilla”.  It’s interesting to watch what is basically the same plot as the Christopher Lee Dracula films, but now with a female vampire, called both Marcilla and Carmilla (played by the beautiful and talented Ingrid Pitt).  Pitt is absolutely gorgeous and compelling – it’s easy to see why anyone would be drawn to her, naked or not.  Like Lee, she hypnotizes her prey, fears religious items, and prefers the taste of the blood of young, nubile ladies.  And since it’s now 1970, there’s more than heaving bosoms in play here – there’s bosoms all over the place.  This is a racy and erotic film, especially for Hammer, but hey, everyone has to try and keep up with the times.

While the plot sticks close to the Hammer tradition, it’s the deviations in the traditions that make this film interesting.  Carmilla stalks and murders many women, but she also falls in love with some of them and expresses a deep emotional regret that everyone around her must die.  It’s certainly nothing Christopher Lee ever seemed to worry about.  This addition to the vampire character added a new layer to the plot, and allows the viewer some sympathy with Carmilla.  Not that there has never been a romantic male vampire who acts out of love (Coppola’s “Dracula” is the perfect example), but that was years after this film.  Carmilla is still a predator, but she also craves companionship and love.

Our vampire also uses the gender bias of the time to get closer to her victims – no one suspects the woman, and Carmilla is freely allowed access to all of her victim/lovers.  In fact, for most of the film, there’s no men in the story at all, or at least not in any significant role.  All of the action is driven entirely by women, until the end, when the men race to save the day and destroy the monster.  Way to wait until the last minute, boys.  While I would have preferred that such a female-driven story also have a female heroine, it didn’t fit the Hammer mold, and I guess they just weren’t willing to take that last step.

Well, it's not all about love, is it?

“The Vampire Lovers” is worth a watch – it’s Hammer and that alone makes it worth your time, and it’s also a different take on the Hammer traditional style.  And while the lesbian vampire movies are often just an excuse for lots of nudity, this one seems to have a little more to it than just that.  Along with lots of nudity.

Yeah, I know it’s been a while, and we’re sorry about that.  We swear we’re working on our top movies of the year and all sorts of other cool stuff, including the return of Photo Friday!  About a month or so ago, we have a photo shoot out by a creepy abandoned factory.  Because it was there.

We wanted to tell the story of the Final Girl’s journey in this shoot, and we did, but before we get into that I thought I’d put up a more ghostly image today.  If I already put this up on the blog forgive me, it’s still early and before coffee, when I am only half functional or less.  Happy weekend everyone, get out there and see a good movie.  ~SF

I'm sure it's perfectly safe... Photo © Final Girl Support Group, 2011

This is how you put up Christmas lights, right?

Happy Holidays, everyone.  Hope yours is filled with the best kind of surprises.

With love and carnage – JennyDreadful, StayFrosty and crowbait

Scott is a visual artist, writer and connoisseur of all things spooky. You can learn more about him and his work here and follow him on Twitter here. First, check out his thoughts on Saint Nick:

Scott Cole: There’s a quote on the back of the Saint Nick DVD that refers to the film as a horror-comedy, but that’s not really the case. While it does have a handful of comedic lines and moments, Saint Nick (or Sint, meaning “saint”, as the film is known in its native land) is a straight-up Dutch slasher film, and a festive one at that.

It seems our titular character was a cruel 15th century bishop, who, along with a pirate mob, was fond of pillaging and murdering whomever they came across. Eventually, however, they encounter a group of townspeople unwilling to put up with the abuse. The villagers fight back, killing the bishop and his cohorts in fiery Freddy Krueger fashion.

Since then, whenever a full moon happens to land on the night of December 5th, the undead Sinterklaas and his merry band of “Black Pete” minions return to Amsterdam, to punish children and slaughter those who stand in their way.

It’s a simple premise, and ultimately a simple film. There’s really not much more to it, though there probably could have been. Still, the ride is fun, even if there are moments reminiscent of other, more classic films, such as Halloween and The Fog (intentional or not).

There’s plenty of action, including a wonderful chase scene involving police cars on the street following our villain, as he rides his trusty horse from rooftop to rooftop. And, of course, there are a good number of gore gimmicks, to keep the screen filled with jolly red splatter.

Is this an incredibly original film? No. Has the evil Santa thing been done before? Of course. But Saint Nick, even with its faults, is definitely a fun watch, and during the holiday season, what more could you possibly need?

Crowbait: The classic Christmas ghost story. Written in the 1840′s by Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol is probably the most popular Christmas themed horror story of them all. And it is most definitely a horror story. Dickens teaches us to appreciate the joys of Christmas by putting them in sharp contrast with poverty, illness, greed, ignorance and death. These messages are delivered to a villainous old man by an assemblage of tortured ghosts and supernatural personifications of time, including the hooded and robed spectre of death representing the inevitable future. Merry Christmas!

A Christmas Carol  has been adapted for the screen, large and small, dozens of times. Dozens. My favorite however has always been the first adaptation I saw: The 1984 made-for-TV version starring George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge.

Most of my love for this adaptation can be credited to Scott. A respected actor with a horror pedigree thanks to the classic film The Changeling, Scott had just appeared as a villain in the film of Stephen King’s Firestarter earlier that same year. His Scrooge is a villain, through and through. While other Scrooges have the selfish and miserly attitude that drives them to be unpleasant for the sake of driving away time-wasters, Scott puts real relish into such lines as “. . . any fool who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips would be boiled in his pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart!” His growls rise into sharp exclamation as he shouts “Mr. Cratchit!” to chide his clerk (here portrayed by David Warner.) His exchanges over the plight of the poor show a man who goes beyond not caring, feeling they deserve his personal hatred for their impositions. To turn this monster into a man requires the intervention of some truly powerful apparitions.

The inclusion of a horse-drawn hearse rolling through the snowy streets amid billows of fog set the tone right away and the grim and gloomy environment carries through nearly every scene, sometimes in contrast to the joy of the people as they prepare their celebrations. Marley’s appearance as ghastly door knocker is supplemented by Scrooge’s imagination etching him on the tiles in his fireplace. His arrival is complete with the mysterious bells and clattering chains we have come to expect of all childhood ghosts since. Christmas Past is as ineffable as ever and the sadness of Scrooge’s downfall as a young man is weighed on as heavily as his small moments of happiness. Christmas Present is jolly and jovial and brings most of the humor to the story but his stay ends with Scrooge confronted by the lives of the destitute poor he condemns and the personifications of Ignorance and Want as sickly orphans. Christmas Future is absolutely horrifying. It drifts out of a fog bank, a black silhouette against the light and in place of speech the electronic wail of an amplified violin punctuates its gestures.

As written, Scott’s Scrooge hangs on to his ways to the bitter end, moving through the stages of grief as he comes to terms with what he has been and what he can do, must do, to be more than a wretched monster whose passing the world would rejoice. When he turns the corner, Scott brings out a delightful exuberance and an almost childish playfulness when he teases Bob Cratchit before revealing to him his change of heart.

No other adaptation has captured my attention the same way. More recent film versions seem to think that the story is a parable meant for children and so they introduce humor or action to alleviate the weight of the terrible and frightening things that are part of the story. A Christmas Carol is a message for everyone, young and old. It deserves attention, now more than ever, as we see greed destroying things on a worldwide scale in a series of chaotic events that become personal horror stories every day.

One of the most interesting aspects of Dickens’ work is that despite the focus on Christmas, his holiday is almost entirely secular. Apart from the Cratchits’ short prayers, there is almost no mention of religion in the story. Dickens believed that the true meaning of Christmas doesn’t need to be Luke. 2.8-14, but it can be about simply caring for each other and sharing what we have to bring some small joy to everyone. Merry Christmas to all.