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| YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A GOTH TO APPRECIATE VAMPIRES. Yep! It's true. A lot of people who don't really know me assume when they see me out and about that I'm a Goth and/or a Mariliyn Manson fan (groooan!). Wrong on both counts! Whereas, yes, I mostly wear black (about 99.9% of my wardrobe) and I've had a life-long fascination with dark imagery, I can assure you I'm no Goth. Males Goths tend to favour a rather androgynous image and I'm just not pretty enough to be a Goth (I'll remember to boo-hoo about that later). As for Marilyn Manson, his 15 minutes were up years ago and I was pretty sick of him then...... |
| Technically speaking, he's not really considered a Goth either, although I'm sure he wouldn't contest that label as it allows him to sell his records among his hordes of Neo-Goth fans n' stuff. As we all know, there's no such things as vampires; certainly not in the traditional blood-sucking, risen-from-the-dead variety anyway. Regardless, my interest in them inspired me to add this portion of the site to appeal to people like myself who like Horror and dark imagery. Goths and Neo-Goths are welcome too, just don't be sending me any e-mail trying to convince me you're the real deal. I call these people, "Vamposers". So if you're one, GO AWAY. And NO, being a blood-fetishist is NOT the same thing. OK, now that that's out of the way, let's get down to the meat and pertaters of it all, shall we......? |
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| FOLKLORE ~ Centuries ago, old world Europeans were a very superstitious lot. So much so, the use of headstones became a common Christian practise. This was to ensure that the dead were unable to rise from their graves by placing the heavy grave markers over the interred corpse's head, thus the name. People were so terrified of the undead, almost anything could attribute to the recently departed becoming a vampire. Being a drunk, a criminal, dying unexpectedly, dying without being baptized, or dying after being discommunicated... |
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| these were just a few of the contributing factors believed to be the causes of vampirism. Because of the lack of medical science concerning the processes of decay, especially amongst the poor and uneducated peasants of those days, superstitions were rampant. Therefore, whenever a crop failed, cattle died, people went missing or a wife was unfaithful, it was immediately blamed on the presence of a vampire and was reason enough to exhume the deceased and examine his/her corpse...If a body was found to be still whole, bloated and with a reddish tinge to their skin... |
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| it was automatically assumed he or she had become a vampire and resulted in the heart and head being removed later to be burned with the rest of the body. Besides headstones, other methods were employed to ensure the dead would not rise. The practise of driving stakes through the hearts of the dead came about as a way to pin the cadaver to the earth. Some cultures buried them face down to make sure the person would be confused and unable to find his/her way out. Other cultures buried the dead with food, water and some of the deceased's personal possessions so the corpse wouldn't have to go in search of sustenance or be bored and restless in the grave. Certain Eastern Europeans believed that spreading long grains around the area of their houses would prevent a vampire attack. Apparently, they believed vampires to be obsessive-compulsive... |
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| and that they'd spend so much time counting each and every single grain, the sun would rise before they could feast on the living. The photos featured here were taken by Simon Marsden. Check out the "Favourite Artists" page for a link to his site. |
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| ~ VAMPIRE CINEMA ~ |
| Here's where I discuss some films on the subject of Vampyria. They're in no particular order, so HERE GOES... |
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| 1) "Nosferatu"(1922) ~ This is the silent German film version of Bram Stoker's "Dracula". Pretty good in my humble opinion. Rumour has it the actor playing the Count, Max Shreck (German for 'shriek'), wore no make-up, made the cast and crew very uneasy and disappeared without a trace after filming was completed. There was even a film made about the filming of this movie in 2001 called "Shadow of The Vampire" starring Willem Dafoe and John Malkovich. |
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| 2) "Dracula"(1979) ~ Many people liked this, I didn't. For some reason, Frank Langella, although a good actor , just doesn't seem to make a convincing Dracula to me. I kept expecting him to pull a John Travolta and start boogie-oogie-oogying to the Bee Gees. |
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| 3) "The Hunger"(1983) ~ Based on the Whitley Strieber novel, "The Hunger" stars Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and Susan Sarandon. I liked the unusual twist used in this film where the vampires don't have fangs but use golden ankh amulets with blades to make an incision before feeding on their prey. Beautifully filmed and richly romantic. |
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| 4) "Salem's Lot"(1979) ~ Apparently this started out as a popular four-hour made-for-tv film with a somewhat weaker commercial version being released later on. Having seen the latter, I can't say I was all that impressed. Directed by Tobe Hooper of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" fame, starring David Soul (anyone remember "Starsky and Hutch"?). I understand the original Stephen King novel is better than both versions put together. |
| The above artwork is by Joseph Michael Linsner. Check his stuff out in the "Favourite Artists" page...... |
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| 5) "Near Dark(1987) ~ This is my favourite vampire film hands down. Bill Paxton's "Severin" character compliments the idea of the modern day vampire quite nicely, I think. A quasi-punkish, biker-jacketed, smart alecky hoodlum. A Gothic Punk. This film offers another twist to the vampire myth by treating vampirism as a disease that can be cured by blood transfusion. If you haven't seen this, I absolutely recommend it. |
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| 6) "From Dusk 'Til Dawn"(1996) ~ Starring George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Harvey Keitel, Juliette Lewis, Cheech Marin, Salma Hayek, Tom Savini, etc.. This was extremely painful to sit through. What started out as a "hip" film about an obnoxious armed robber and his psychotic brother turns into a really dopey farce of a vampire movie. Harvey Keitel gave a rather strained performance having to spew ridiculous dialogue in a plot too confused and scattered to be believable, while George Clooney comes off as such an irritating, pushy lack-wit, you spend the whole picture wishing he'd finally meet a bloody and well-deserved end. All the big-name stars could do nothing to save this waste of celluloid with a dumb story and dumber FX make-up. |
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| "Ve vant to bite your necks! Bluhhh-Bluuh!" |
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| 7) "The Lost Boys"(1987) ~ Not a bad film, but certainly not my favourite, "The Lost Boys" could've been infinitely better had it not been for "The Two Coreys (Feldman and Haim)" and a wimpy pretty-boy main character it was hard to sympathize with. Keifer Sutherland made a good vampire despite the flashy costume and silly '80's mullet. I would've liked this better had the two Coreys been turned into vampire chow. And WHAT was up with that stupid kid in the marching-band jacket......??? |
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| 8) "Interview With The Vampire"(1994) ~ A truly excellent film with the screenplay written by Anne Rice herself. Starring Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Antonio Banderas, Christian Slater and a young Kirsten Dunst. I really enjoyed this flick and found the notion of Brad Pitt's reluctant vampire character interesting and refreshing. The movie was every bit as good as the novel...at least I thought so. |
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| 9) "The Forsaken"(2001) ~ What had the potential to be a good film with a decent story set-up that quickly turned sour with a turkey of a story that gets progressively worse as it unfolds. All that and a main female character that wanders around being catatonic for 3/4's of the film. A really "dumb" movie, ha-ha. See, I just made a funny, ha-ha... |
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| 10) "Bram Stoker's Dracula"(1993) ~ Starring Gary Oldman, Keanu Reeves, Wynona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Tom Waits. An absolutely stunning picture and perhaps the most accurate version of Bram Stoker's story to date (not completely, just mostly), this film never fails to impress despite Keanu's forced British accent (at least he made an effort, which is more than I can say for Kevin Costner's Robin Hood). Tom Waits makes an excellent Renfield and Anthony Hopkins gives a spirited performance as Prof. Van Helsing, but most importantly was Gary Oldman as the Count. A mesmerizing performance to be sure, Oldman is one of the most underrated actors out there. He literally makes the whole movie. |
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| Artwork by Jason Pearson for Verotik Comics' "Sunglasses After Dark" |
| Click To Visit "Favourite Artists" Page |
| ~ VAMPIRE MUSIC ~ |
| A TOP 20 OF VAMPIRE SONGS --- |
| Here's some songs I think make appropriate vampire music. There's a bit of Neo-Goth, but its mostly Metal stuff. Regardless, these are tunes one could listen to to put themselves into the mindframe of a modern-day child o' the night. The occultist, Konstantinos, would probably refer to them as "Good-Dark" individuals...... |
| 1) TYPE O NEGATIVE's "Suspended In Dusk" |
| 2) TYPE O NEGATIVE's cover of Sarah MacClachlan's "Possession" |
| Pretty much any Type O Negative stuff makes good vampire music, but these I found to be ones that stand out the most. I really liked the gloomy pipe-organs in "Possession"...... |
| 3) TORI AMOS' cover of Slayer's "Raining Blood" |
| Many a Metal-head reading this will scoff in disbelief, just as I did when I first heard about this, but then I checked it out. There's just something almost morbidly perverse about hearing Tori Amos' sweetly angelic voice singing about blood, death and sin. It took me a listen or two to get into it, but I gotta tell ya, I REALLY like this...... |
| 4) DANZIG's "Sadistikal" |
| I was never fully into the moody, almost bluesy metal-rock Danzig put out earlier in their career, but a couple of songs off of "Danzig 4" really stand out and stray off their usual path. The uber-creepy "Sadistikal" is one of them. Eeeeerie as hell is an understatement...... |
| 5) DEAD CAN DANCE's "I Am Stretched On Your Grave" |
| Anyone who knows of Dead Can Dance know of their dark, atmospheric aura and somewhat mystic orchestral music. This song of lamentation is sung by DCD's Brendan Perry and is simultaneously morbid and mournful. Very beautiful stuff. Good to listen to when you're nerves are being jangled from an OD of heavy rock, etc. ...... |
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| 6) SLAYER's "At Dawn They Sleep" |
| A song about vampires from their immortal "Hell Awaits" album. CLASSIC!! |
| 7) EVOKEN's "Ascend Into The Maelstrom" |
| An eerily-mournful tune from this excellent Doom/Death Metal band from the US. Recommended to all the death worshippers out there...... |
| 8) CONCRETE BLONDE's "Bloodletting (the extended version)" |
| 9) SIEBENBURGEN's "Vampyria" |
| If you haven't already guessed, yes, I named this page after this particular song from Sweden's Vampyric Black Metal band, Siebenburgen. All of their material is vampire-related. Even their name is taken from an ancient place in Wallachia. |
| 10) CELTIC FROST's "Danse Macabre" |
| An eerie FX instrumental from their "Morbid Tales" album, apparently inspired by the soundtrack to the horror movie, "Susperia". Ghoulish to be sure...... |
| 11) GODHEAD's cover of The Beatle's "Eleanor Rigby" |
| A decent Beatles cover from this Neo-Goth band. Not too shabby...... |
| 12) CURVE's "Doppelganger" |
| Curve's Toni Halliday has been refered to as the Gothic Debbie Harry, and I don't think that's too far off the mark. With her haunting voice and Dean Garcia's heavily textured, dreamy compositions, Curve makes excellent mood music...... |
| 13) JUDAS PRIEST's "Love Bites" |
| What can I say? I'm a sucker for good ol' fashioned Heavy Metal and this metallic ode to vampirism was one of my faves next to "Freewheel Burning". ROCK!!!!! |
| 14) CELTIC FROST's "Rex Irae" |
| One of the more Gothic operatic songs off of CF's highly experimental "Into The Pandemonium" album. Definitely NOT your standard Metal fare...... |
| 15) DEAD CAN DANCE's "The Summoning of The Muse" |
| 16) EVE OF MOURNING's "The Silent" |
| A very moody song from this American Doom Metal band that's reminiscent of mellower Black Sabbath. Very nice. Very cool...... |
| 17) LAIBACH's cover of The Rolling Stone's "Sympathy For The Devil" |
| Anything by Laibach seems to make appropriate vampire music. Laibach can take any old Pop song and make it weird and menacing. This song was given new life by being featured at the end of "Interview With The Vampire", although not performed by Laibach. If you've never heard them, do check 'em out...... |
| 18) MY DYING BRIDE's "In Darkest Skies" |
| Next to Type O Negative, My Dying Bride are one of the few bands able to make Goth Metal that's both well-made and effective. Actually, they're more of a Doom Metal band, but you get the idea. Good stuff from this UK group...... |
| 19) HELLHAMMER's "Triumph of Death" |
| A really creepy song by the band who went on to become Celtic Frost...... |
| 20) CATHEDRAL's "Mourning of A New Day" |
| A very moody, sad song oozing pain and agony just a few albums before deciding to take the Sabbath-clone direction. Another excellent UK Doom Metal band, this song was on their original demo tape...... |
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| OTHER TYPES OF VAMPIRES ~ The Revenant-- Not all vampires looked like suave, sophisticated lords and gentlemen. In fact, in the earlier days of vampire mythology, all vampires were thought to resemble festering corpses. In the case of the Revenant, that's exactly the case. Essentially, a Revenant was a victim who'd been attacked and drained by a vampire, just not to the point of transformation. The victim either died from extreme blood- |
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| loss or shock and because of the nature of the attack and its attacker, he/she later returns from the grave a bloodthirsty, decaying corpse. A sort of "vampire-zombie" if you will. Because they tend to be rather mindless and lacking in sophistication, Revenants usually don't last as long as conventional vampires due to their hideous appearance and tendency to attack anything that moves, man or beast. Revenants are far more likely to be discovered, caught and re-killed than the regular vampire who's better able to conceal his identity and blend into the world of mortal men. Any living creature that's bitten by a Revenant will itself turn into one...... |
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| Familiars-- As seen in movies like "Bram Stoker's Dracula", "Interview With The Vampire", and "Blade" Familiars are the mortal personal pets and chew-toys of a single vampire master. They sycophantically serve their masters with the hope that they themselves will one day be turned. They attend to all the dirty-work their masters find unsavoury, including all the daylight-hour labours their vampire overlords would find impossible to perform. Basically a vampire-in-training, |
| Strigoi-- This was the old Romanian word for the walking dead, also associated with vampires. In the Romanian district on Banat, extensive funeral rites were performed up to seven weeks after a burial to ensure that the corpse would not return from the grave. |
| Finally after seven years, the body was disinterred and the bones were washed, a religious service held and the bones re-buried. If after the seven-year period, the body was found to be still whole, then the soul of the dead person was thought to have become a strigoi. Another form of vampire was a moroi, formed by the body of a stillborn child or one that died shortly after birth. Yet another type was the priccolitch but this would generally be in the form of a dog or wolf and was far less common than the strigoi. For The Romanian peasants of those days, death was just a passage from one stage to another, more splendid life. Thus, if a death happened before a marriage, the people of that village would perform a marriage ceremony for the departed to enrich the quality of his/her afterlife, believing a married person was less likely to become a strigoi after death...... |
| Photo by Simon Marsden |
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| Vrykolakas-- The Greek word for vampire, "vrykolakas (meaning 'man-demon')", was said to be one who'd lived a bad life or had been discommunicated by a priest. Thus, after the departure of the soul from the body, an evil spirit entered to replace it and assumed the form of the deceased, becoming one of the walking dead. One favoured practise of removing vrykolakas from their midst was to transport the dead over to another island. The Greek isle of Santorini was famous for that purpose, as well as for having a formidable vampire population of its own. Even to this day, there are still peasants in the Greek isles who tremble in fear of the dreaded vrykolakas, let alone just the mere mention of the word. Proof that the belief in vampires is still very much adhered to in European culture. |
| Psychic Vampires-- The late Dr. Anton Szandor LaVey wrote about these particular creatures under the heading, "Not All Vampires Suck Blood" in his infamous Satanic Bible back in 1966. Its certainly as true now as it was then! Psychic Vampires are about the closest things there are to the real McCoy. Just look at your local politicians! HA! While some people exude so much positive energy, they could light up a room, others simply drain it like a syphon. They walk among mortals looking and sounding as they do and although they lack fangs, make no mistake; they're looking to feed off the energies of those around them. Psychic Vampires usually employ a variety of techniques to feed and will quite often attach his/herself to either a single person or a small group for a period of time. These methods include the often, but not always, subtle manipulation of emotions and thoughts by attempting to evoke sympathy or guilt from the intended victim. If you've ever met a stranger who leaves you feeling empty, powerless or somehow indebted to them whereas before you felt upbeat and carefree, chances are you've been in contact with a Psychic Vampire. |
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| 11) "Underworld" (2003) ~ Starring Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman. The reactions to 'Underworld' have been mixed thus far. Some really liked it, others merely roll their eyes in disbelief. I, myself, liked it despite some of it apparent leanings towards the corn-esque. There's a lot of borrowing from movies like 'Blade 2' and 'The Matrix' (not to mention, 'The Crow') , but all in all, I found it somewhat entertaining. I really liked the blue-filter effect added to enhance the gloomy feel of it and the authentic Eastern European locales (shot on location in Budapest) really classed it up. The werewolves were also pretty well done. Basically, the story is: A 600 year-old war has been raging between a clan of werewolves lead by head wolfie, Lucian against the slayers of his vampire bride; the ever-purist vampire Viktor and his brood. When top vamp assassin, Selene (Beckinsale) meets up with freshly wolf-bitten human Michael (Speedman), she soon finds herself falling for him and trying to protect him while she gets to the bottom of a |
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| sinister plot about to befall her clan. It all plays out a bit like a soap-opera, but I really liked what Len Wiseman had attempted to accomplish with this film. Cheese-stuff aside, I think with an improved script this would've been a much better movie. The gothic ambience and slick feel of it certainly made me forgive any corn, but if a sequel is to made (and the door was left wide open for one), better writing will be a must. I hope there'll be a PS2 game... |
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