Behind the Couch

Originally published by Tor Horror in 1988, Elizabeth Engstrom’s unusual and compelling vampire novel,  Black Ambrosia , has been republished (with an introduction by Grady Hendrix) by Vallencourt Books as part of their new Paperbacks from Hell series. Unfolding as an insular journey into the heart of darkness, Engstrom’s sophomore novel is as seductive as it is unsettling; every turn of a page beckons the reader ever further into dark, lurid realms of twisted psychology and sensual, bloody violence. It tells of Angelina, a troubled young woman who, after the death of her mother, sets off on a journey across the United States. To where, she isn’t sure; but she is curious to find a place for herself in the world and to know what it feels like to belong somewhere. The story, populated with lost souls and sinister predators, unfolds within a lonely world of desolate highways, small towns, shadowy apartments, truck stops and dingy diners. Angelina lives a transitory life, only ever br...

A motley crew of construction workers, led by a constantly squabbling father and son, unearth an ancient vampire when they demolish a stone cairn to make way for a new road on the outskirts of their sleepy, rural village. Written and directed by Chris Baugh, and co-written by Brendan Mullin, Boys from County Hell is as riotously funny as it is taut, grisly and atmospheric. Its use of an obscure Irish legend about a vampire provides it with a strange, unique feel, and Baugh and co. subvert typical tropes associated with the vampire, creating some fascinating lore of their own.  While the figure of the vampire is not as prominent in Irish myths and folklore as it is in the folktales of eastern Europe, there are still a few fascinating instances – such as the Dearg-due (which can be translated as ‘red thirst’ or ‘bloodthirsty’) of Waterford, and the Marbh Bhéo (the 'night-walking dead'). It’s also interesting to note that two of the earliest and most influential vampire novels wer...

When they move to a quiet suburban neighbourhood, the Ferals appear to be a very normal family. However, they have a dark secret concerning their teenaged son Philémon, and as he begins to fall for his neighbour Camila, his thirst for human blood becomes harder to resist, threatening the family's well rehearsed cover... Read my full review at Eye for Film . 

Based on a 19th century Gothic novella by Aleksey Tolstoy (previously adapted for cinema by Mario Bava as a segment in his 1963 anthology, Black Sabbath ), The Vourdalak is the debut feature film from French writer-director Adrien Beau. It tells of the Marquis d'Urfé (Kacey Mottet Klein), an emissary of the King of France who seeks shelter with a family when he becomes lost travelling through Eastern Europe. The family are anxiously awaiting the return of their patriarch, Gorcha, who has gone to capture an outlaw. Before leaving, he forewarned his family that if he does not return within six days, he has been killed and, if he reappears, they must refuse him entry to the house as he has become a vourdalak; a walking corpse returned from the grave seeking the blood of its loved ones... Head over to Eye for Film to read my full review.

Convinced she has only one more day to live, Françoise and her friend run away from their convent boarding school and hitch a lift to a party in a vast chateau in the middle of the woods. Here, amid decadence and occultist dalliances, she encounters various lost souls, including a sullen party guest who claims to be a vampire, as she struggles with fiery, prophetic visions and a sense that time is running out. Read my full review at Eye for Film .

Written and directed by Mary Harron, and adapted from the YA novel by Rachel Klein, The Moth Diaries tells of Rebecca (Sarah Bolger), a teenager at an all-girls boarding school who begins to suspect that the new student, Ernessa (Lily Cole), is a vampire. Throughout, Harron re-works and updates many Gothic traditions and tropes, adding a rich depth to proceedings and evoking a suitably haunting atmosphere.  While the story can be read as an updated interpretation of Sheridan Le Fanu’s Gothic novella Carmilla (1872), Harron’s screenplay places first and foremost the ever-shifting relationships and dynamics between the group of friends. New girl Ernessa might be a vampire, but Harron doesn’t let that detract from the realigning allegiances between friends sparked by her arrival at the school. Ernessa serves as a catalyst, driving a wedge between best friends Rebecca and Lucy (Sarah Gadon). Harron’s script delves into the intensity and complexity of the friendships forged at the boar...

Established in 2010, Belfast’s Wireless Mystery Theatre is an audio theatre company devoted to invoking the spirit of vintage radio suspense plays. Comprised of a small troupe of actors, writers and musicians, their productions incorporate live music and imaginative sound effects with players frequently multi-tasking and acting out different roles. Their most recent production, An Evening of Irish Horror , was a suitably spooky double-bill featuring adaptations of Sheridan Le Fanu’s classic ghost story ‘Green Tea’ - which tells of a timid clergyman who is hounded by a demonic spectral monkey - and Bram Stoker’s short story, ‘Dracula’s Guest’ - an excised segment from Dracula which documents a creepy encounter between Jonathan Harker and Count Dracula by the grave of the undead Countess Dolingen of Gratz... Head over to Exquisite Terror to read my full review .

Illustration from Famous Fantastic Mysteries They could feel and hear the Nameless Horror, but they could not see it… They could have no doubt that it was present among them, but… what was it? I first came across this curious and highly effective little tale in Christopher Frayling’s tome, Vampyres: Lord Byron to Count Dracula . While one of the earliest examples of the 'Invisible Force' tale, Frayling included O’Brien’s twisted yarn in his study of vampire literature, as he viewed it as a variation on traditional vampire motifs. What Was It? was first published in Harper’s Magazine, in March 1859, and tells of the residents of a particular lodging house who encounter an invisible, seemingly blood-thirsty creature in one of the rooms. Once they manage to apprehend it, they attempt to study it. Frayling refers to Irish-born American O’Brien (1828 – 1862) - generally regarded as a forerunner of science fiction - as a ‘domestic’ Edgar Allan Poe. Despite his rational appr...

This month’s Audiodrome focuses on Johan Söderqvist’s chillingly beautiful score for Swedish vampire film Let The Right One In . Based on the book by John Ajvide Lindqvist, the story concerns Oscar, a lonely little boy, and his tentative relationship with Eli, an odd little girl who turns out to be a centuries old vampire. Söderqvist’s score gently chills the spine with icily subtle moments of terror, and thaws it out again with richly melancholy themes performed by the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra. It utilises spine-tingling sounds such as electric guitar played with a bow and a bass waterphone to eerily beautiful effect. Head over to Paracinema.net to read my full review and listen to an excerpt of the score. While you’re there, why not order yourself a copy of Paracinema issue 16 . There’s an abundance of in-depth articles on the likes of Ken Russell’s The Devils, Assault of the Killer Bimbos , found footage and mockumentary horror, disaster movies, French Science Fi...

2011 Dir. Peter Ferris Shot in and around Belfast last winter, Cold Blood is the second instalment of an unfinished trilogy of short films. It follows the exploits of vampire Elias Mortenson (Peter Ferris) as he travels the world forcefully recruiting vampires under the guise of an acting coach. Working as a stand alone film, Cold Blood hinges on some fertile ideas – particularly in its exploration of the tribulations of a group of young people, unwillingly turned into vampires and attempting to resist their new blood-thirsty instincts (recalling the chilling plight of Claudia from Interview with the Vampire ). The makeshift family they create echoes that of the clan in Near Dark – and of course the concept of vampires attempting to reform has been explored in the likes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer ,  Angel ,  Twilight and True Blood . Aspects of Oliver Twist  and  Lord of the Flies  swirl throughout proceedings as the youngsters are left to fend for the...

1965 Dir. Mario Bava AKA Terror en el Espacio Two interplanetary ships on an exploratory expedition into deepest, darkest, unchartedest space receive a distress signal from Aura, an unexplored and seemingly deserted planet. When the ships are pulled into its gravitational pull and crash land on the ominous surface, the surviving crew members gradually fall victim to the disembodied inhabitants of this strange world, who begin to possess their minds when they sleep. They also possess the bodies of the dead and use the animated corpses to stalk and kill the remaining survivors in an attempt to get off the planet which is about to go postal... Based on Renato Pestriniero's short story “One Night of 21 Hours”, Planet of the Vampires is a bit of a misnomer – the alien entities that possess the bodies and minds of the crew are more like ‘body-snatchers’ than blood-thirsty vampires. That’s by-the-by though; the title is as wonderfully garish as the film itself. In short – it’s ...

Asia bares her fangs... Dario Argento is currently ensconced in shooting his adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic vampire novel, 'Dracula'. Filming began in Hungary (where Argento previously filmed Phantom of the Opera and produced Michele Soavi's The Church ) in June and the film stars Rutger Hauer (as Van Helsing), Thomas Kretschmann (as Dracula), Marta Gastini (as Mina) and Asia Argento (as Lucy). A few on-set photos have found their way online courtesy of Asia Argento…  According to Alan Jones’s on-set reports , filming has gone well thus far and the shoot has proved something of an Argento ‘family’ reunion. Working with him again are the likes of special effects artist Sergio Stivaletti (who has worked on the majority of Argento's films since Phenomena in 1985), cinematographer Luciano Tovoli (who also lensed Argento’s gothic masterpiece Suspiria and edgily reflexive giallo Tenebrae ), production designer Massimo Antonello Geleng ( The Stendhal Syndrome,...

Unfolding in the spring of 1890, ' Oscar Wilde And The Vampire Murders ' is the fourth instalment in Gyles Brandreth’s series featuring writer/poet/wit/dandy/philosopher Oscar Wilde as a highly sophisticated, eloquent and, in typical “Wilde” fashion, self-indulgent sleuth. Aided in his investigations by fellow literary luminaries Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker and his eventual biographer, Robert Sherard, the Philosopher of Aestheticism finds himself irrevocably embroiled in a series of nasty murders, the grim details of which suggest they were carried out by a vampire… Amidst the lavish locations and copious amounts of Perrier-Jouët decadently guzzled by Wilde and co, is an irresistibly macabre mystery which will undoubtedly please those who enjoy classic murder-mystery whodunits in the vein of Agatha Christie or indeed, Conan Doyle’s own Sherlock Holmes. To read my full review, head over to Fangoria . The following review was published on Fangoria.com in June 2011 Os...

Last night in Belfast, the Ulster Hall hosted a very special screening of FW Murnau’s undisputed classic of German Expressionist cinema, Nosferatu . The film was accompanied by an improvised score courtesy of renowned organist, Martin Baker, who has, since 2000, been the Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral. Baker was granted the rare honour of being allowed to play the world famous Mulholland Grand Organ, one of the oldest examples of a functioning classic English pipe organ. The organ is named after former Lord Mayor of Belfast, Andrew Mulholland, who donated it to the hall in the 1860s. Patrons of the sold-out event were encouraged to dress in typical 1920s garb and though many didn’t, this writer was impressed by those who did; particularly an enthusiastic couple dressed as the undead. Before the screening, there was an insightful introduction by local film historian, opera fanatic and all round film buff, George Fleeton, who lovingly dissected the historical significa...

2009 Dir. Ron Carlson AKA Pear Blossom New Year’s Eve, 1969. Brooke (Sophie Monk) and her girlfriend Rhea (Anya Lahiri) are at a totally swinging party in LA. The evening’s glitter ball-bedazzled festivities are cut short when Brooke stumbles into the bathroom and interrupts Hollywood A-lister Warren James (Justin Shilton) attempting to assault a young fan (Scout Taylor-Compton – Halloween, Halloween II ). Brooke stabs the would-be rapist in the throat. Escaping to the desert in their car (“I just wish I could let the top down and let this warm desert air cleanse my body”), Brooke and Rhea then encounter God herself (Angela Lindvall), who offers to turn the pair into immortal, vampiric angels of death, destined to sexily wander the earth destroying evil wherever they find it. Cut to forty years later. Brooke and Rhea are resurrected from their desert tomb to begin their divine mission. This naturally involves a shot of them strutting along a moonlit desert highway in ling...

2008 Dir. Peter Pontikis AKA Vampyrer Vera (Jenny Lampa) and Vanja (Ruth Vega Fernandez), a pair of vampire sisters, struggling to live in seclusion in the bleak suburbs of Stockholm, are forced on the run when Vera kills and feeds on the leader of a tough biker gang in a nightclub. While evading the thuggish gang, Vanja reveals she wants to quit their vampire lifestyle and try to live in the real world. Terrified by the idea of a life of solitude, Vera decides she will do anything to keep Vanja by her side. Meanwhile, the skinhead bikers are closing in… What with Not Like Others being a Swedish vampire film and everything, it is quite difficult not to draw comparisons between it and Let the Right One In . Both films were even released in the same year and while this one was relegated to the shadows of the other, that’s not to say this isn't as good; far from it in fact. It is just that Let the Right One In is such a lyrical, one of a kind masterpiece. While they do bot...

2010 Dir. Steve Lawson   Tough gangster Freddie ‘Dead Cert’ Frankham (Craig Fairbrass) and his gang get more than they bargained for when a group of mysterious businessmen make an offer to buy their club, the Inferno. Unbeknownst to Freddie, the club stands on the former site of a Black Church, established as a temple of evil in the 17th Century by a Romanian warlord-turned-vampire known as The Wolf ( Billy Murray ). The businessmen, headed by The Wolf aka Livienko, are actually vampires hell-bent on rebuilding their empire of evil on its original, unhallowed site. Freddie and co are about to realise they’ve bitten off more than they can chew by refusing to sell. There will be blood… Lots of blood. The second feature from director Steve Lawson ( Just For The Record ), is a vampires-meet-gangsters horror romp that stands alongside recent British vampire flick Beyond the Rave as a slick, modernised take on the genre, that goes some way to evoke the spirit of such contempo...