As the modern vampire haunts cinemas, video
games, and graphic novels, the best selling author Charlaine Harris
creates within the written page a mind reading woman named Sookie
Stackhouse who lives in an alternate yet present day world where
vampires, werewolves and witches roam through a land unhidden and
unafraid of humans and their superstition. True Blood, HBO’s riveting
television series, created by producer Alan Ball takes Charlaine
Harris’s stories to the small screen. With its elements of extreme
exploitation and violence but having the traits of soap opera and
romance, the series has reinvented vampires and the classic monsters
once more. Paying homage to 1970’s blood and boobs drive-in fair and
the violent yet romantic novels of Anne Rice, True Blood has been so
successful that the production of a fifth season has begun. Dark
Discussions discusses the success of the show and how it has taken
television by storm.
But what about less familiar vampire films?
Your hosts, Mike and Philip, cite some films and programs that any
vampire fan should know about. Mike mentions the Nicholas Cage film
Vampire Kiss, the short lived television show Kindred the Embrace, Mario
Bava’s classic film Black Sunday, and the Hammer Film Captain Kronos
Vampire Hunter. Philip speaks enthusiastically about the movies
Vampyres, Daughters of Darkness, and The Blood Spattered Bride, three of
the most influential drive in horror vampire films of all time. Also
discussed are the two Ingrid Pitt Hammer Films, Countess Dracula and the
Vampire Lovers, possibly two of the best takes on the vampire.
But what of other media? Two of the better
vampire novels Vampyrrhic by Simon Clark and The Traveling Vampire Show
by Richard Laymon are discussed. Anime has been a staple of the
vampire. Such shows as Dance of the Vampire Bund, Blood+, Vampire
Hunter D, and Trinity Blood have large audiences. Buffy the Vampire
Slayer and Angel brought producer Joss Whedon to stardom.
The CW's The Vampire Diaries has been a huge hit. The Vertigo/DC
Comics graphic novel Preacher was highly influential and a throwback to
the old horror comics of bygone years. Some new vampire films have
become available
such as the Japanese film Blood starring Aya Sugimoto and the German
film We Are the Night. And two upcoming additions to the vampire film
are soon to hit the big screen, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp’s Dark
Shadows and Dario Argento’s Dracula 3D. Dark Discussions brings to
light all these topics and more. Take out your rosary beads and pray
that you can finish listening before the night falls.
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