TV series Review: Dracula

Dracula (TV series)

Created by Cole Haddon.

In this 10 episode series, the tale of Dracula the iconic vampire is rediscovered and reinvented. Jonathan Rhys Meyers portrays the Count who arrives in Victorian London passing himself off as an American businessman. Working alongside him is Renfeild (Nonso Anozie) as his lawyer and accomplice and Abraham Van Helsing (Thomas Kretschman). 

As the American businessman named Alexander Grayson, he proclaims he has come to London to introduce a brand new revolutionary technology, this is actually a cover for Dracula to destroy a secret organisation called 'The Order of the Dragon'. Apparently the order who runs a lot of things in certain societies in Europe and perhaps the world murdered his wife  centuries ago and turned him into a vampire. He wants the new technology to thwart the Order's plan in controlling the oil industry, he also aims to destroy them from the inside. Dracula allies himself with Van Helsing because the doctor has also suffered under the evil ways of the Order, they murdered his family. During one of his presentations he meets Mina Murray, Jonathan Harker and Lucy Westenra. He is captivated by Mina's beauty because she is the 'reincarnation' of his lost love Ilona. He falls in love with her of course but cannot allow himself to be distracted and he cannot bring himself to 'simply take her' as Renfield suggests. Dracula answers that if he were to turn Mina 'that would be an abomination'.

At first the show seemed intriguing and interesting, I understood form watching the trailer that this would be a different version of Dracula, one with whom many vampire fans would sympathize with. I confess that the reason I got into this show was cause of the vampire genre and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. I am a big fan and thought he would make a great vampire.

Everything is different in this show, the characters and the plot. Dracula is actually Vlad Tepes who was part of the Order a long time ago but because of some unmentioned crime, he was excommunicated, his wife burnt at the stake and him turned into a vampire. He is 'resurrected' by Van Helsing who forms an alliance with him to destroy the Order. Mina is not an assistant school teacher like in the novel, she is a medical student working under the tutelage of professor Van Helsing. Her fiancee Jonathan is a struggling journalist who doesn't approve Mina's career ambition and wants to marry her quickly so that she'll abandon her studies and become a good wife. Mina' best friend Lucy loves hanging out with her, even a little too much, Lucy has deep feelings for Mina and yes she is in love with Mina. Lucy is depicted as a lesbian. 

The dark and mysterious 'Order of the Dragon' seems like an evil cult or society like the Freemasons, they are depicted as the villains of the story. They seem to be running things in the British Empire as well as being responsible for certain gory events of history, like Jack the Ripper. Their true endgame is not really mentioned, they want to control the oil industry and they'll do anything to achieve this aim, even murder. By now this is starting to sound like 'Dracula vs the Freemasons or the Illuminati or any villainous order from a Dan Brown novel'.  The series mixes what certain audiences today love: conspiracies and vampires.

However this does not work, in fact the whole show does not work. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is perfect and super sexy in this role, I watched the show all the way to the end so that I could see more scenes with him topless! As well as watching him do what vampires do best; biting and killing.

The story reminds me of the Coppola film adaptation with the whole Mina being the reincarnation of Dracula's true love, please! Dracula as the American businessman has to really pretend and act committed to his new technology in a Steampunk Victorian London, with his so called 'wireless electricity'. He looks for ways to walk in the sunlight. I see that they insult Stoker's novel some more by making him sensitive to sunlight. Van Helsing finds a serum to inject into Dracula after many experiments but it's not 100% effective. He 'sleeps with the enemy', with the Lady Jane who is part of the order and a Vampire hunter who does not suspect him at all.

Many questions are unanswered, such as: if Dracula was part of the order, why did they turn him into a vampire? How did they do that? Why did the order murder Van Helsing's family? 

A show that has a character that looks more like a mix between Citizen Kane and Howard Hughes and a conspiracy a la Da Vinci Code? No wonder this show was poorly received and was not picked up for a second season. 

Film review: Byzantium

Byzantium  directed by Neil Jordan. Written by Moira Buffini

Jordan dives again into the vampire genre, after his 1994 Masterpiece Interview With The Vampire comes this new and innovative film.

The story centers around Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan) and her mother Clara (Gemma Artenton) who are both vampires. Their bond is strong, they have been travelling for many years and centuries, trying to escape the mysterious 'brotherhood' who wants to destroy them. Clara and Eleanor pose as sisters, Eleanor acts like the typical 16 year old and Clara brings the money by selling her body, something she does well and has always done even before her transformation. They come into a seaside town that Eleanor recognizes from her childhood.

As vampires, they are different to the typical creatures of the night that we've all encountered: they can walk in the daylight, they have no fangs, they are immortal and need to feed on blood still. The way they do that is with a fingernail that grows into a sharp talon to pierce the skin of their victims.
Clara feeds on men who pay to have sex with her or on pimps, thinking her actions are justifiable as the world would be better without men like them. Eleanor feeds on the old and dying, people who are asking for release. Like an angel she goes to them and says 'Peace be with you, may light shine upon you. Forgive me for what I must do.' Despite the vampires in this film not possessing the typical characteristics of common vampires, they still need to be invited into houses.

The vampire transformation is a very interesting one, it requires a human who is sick and dying to be approached by the 'brotherhood' a coven of only male vampires. They give directions to an abandoned island where the man must enter a small cave and emerge later as a vampire while the waterfall behind the cave turns blood red, signalling the success of the transformation.

Much like Louis from Interview with the Vampire Eleanor hates her existence and the life of a nomad, she starts to hate her mother for the job she does; setting up a brothel and picking up prostitutes off the street to work in it.  Eleanor longs for companionship and to tell her story, instead of finding a journalist like Louis, she writes into a diary and always rips the pages off. One day she meets Frank (Caleb Landry Jones) who has Leukemia and falls in love. She enrolls into the local college with him and for homework she must write her story, she writes everything about what she is and gives it to Frank. Her act is considered dangerous and foolish but somehow we viewers sympathize as she is bored and lonely and wants a change.

The film has many stylish flashbacks detailing the story of how Clara who as a young girl during the Napoleonic wars was forced into prostitution by Captain Ruthven (Johnny Lee Miller).

 I find the choice of character name very interesting here. Perhaps it is an homage to the iconic vampire and sexual fiend from Polidori's novella The Vampyre. Polidori's character was modeled on Byron. Another homage to a great literary vampire is when Clara goes under the alias 'Carmilla' from the famous Le Fanu novella. As well as reinventing the vampire genre, this film contains wonderful homages and references to the first vampires of Gothic literature. In her essay, Eleanor mentions the word 'soucriant' which is the name of a vampiric creature from Trinidad, Guadeloupe and Dominica, there is no reference to Caribbean mythology in the movie itself and the vampires' origin is hinted as pre-Christian European. Eleanor befriends an old man who quickly notices what she is as he has picked up her diary pages that she was throwing to the wind. He talks of a story he heard as a boy about the 'neahm-mhairbh' or revenants, creatures neither dead nor alive. Upon research of that word I came across a reference to a story in Irish Folklore about Abhartach who was an evil dwarf and sorcerer who always rose from the dead and drank human blood. This story may have inspired Bram Stoker.

 Clara became pregnant with Eleanor and gave her away, she later 'turned' her daughter and they began their life on the run.

The actors are perfect and beautiful, especially Sam Riley as Darvell the new member of the brotherhood who always pitied Clara. Gemma is magnificent as a prostitute and mother as ferocious and protective as a mother lion. Saorsie is also superb as the teenage vampire stuck in this young body. Her hatred and how she lashes out at her mother, reminds me of the scenes of little vampire Claudia from Interview with the Vampire. The typical child who despises her 'parents'. Except that Eleanor is more calm. The setting and scenes of the seaside town, which is set in Hastings, gives off a very beautiful and melancholic vibe, all this is filmed perfectly.

The film is solid, impeccably acted and full of suspense.

Book Review: Fevre Dream

Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin (some spoilers below)

I am a big fan of 'Game of Thrones' sadly I am not interested in reading the 'Song of Ice and Fire' books, I was interested in finding other books by Mr. Martin and stumbled upon 'Fevre Dream', as soon as it mentioned 'vampire novel on the cover, I knew I had to read it.

In 1857 a steamboat captain Abner Marsh is offered a partnership with the mysterious Joshua York. They will both captain a steamboat on the Mississippi and Captain Marsh begins to suspect that there is something strange with his new friend. His suspicions are correct when the wealthy Joshua York is revealed to be a vampire and is waging a war with an evil vampire lord.

For a standard vampire novel George R. R. Martin changed a few things in this novel, it is not like the other great Gothic classics, it does not contain dark castles in Eastern Europe or red-eyed beasts. The story is mainly set on a steamboat named 'Fevrre Dream' as it works its way along the Mississippi river.

The atmosphere of the novel is strong and well described, the glamour of the steamboat compared to the oppressive heat of the ship's boiler room, and the rich plantations in the surrounding environment.

Like other fantasy novels of Mr Martin, Fevre Dream has a feeling of being a historical fiction, there are plenty of references to the upcoming civil war, the slaves and the abolitionist movement. This shows that just like the 'Fire and Ice' novels though set in a fictional world, Martin did an extensive amount of historical research. It works because every descriptive detail allows the reader to picture the events and environment of the novel.

The vampires are a little different in the novel, though they need to drink blood and are burnt by the sun they are a different species. The idea that humans have about vampires is destroyed in the story, they are not supernatural creatures or undead but a different predatory species. York explains that he was born a vampire and never bitten, vampires in the novel cannot bite, give blood and create others like them.

The novel's central idea revolves around the strange relationship between Abner Marsh and Joshua York. Captain Marsh is described as gruff, tough, ugly and fat. What he eats at mealtimes is excessively described and proves the point. Despite this trait, he is a fair, kind and smart man. Joshua is elegant, an aristocrat and mysterious, just as we vamp fans like it. Many readers would see him as the eponymous Anne Rice character. The other vampire and rival of Joshua is Damon Julian, it is funny that this character has the same name as the character from the show 'The Vampire Diaries', it is only a coincidence of course.

The novel contains some good action, the vampire attacks are scary as well as exciting, some sections are quite shocking but that wouldn't be too surprising to fans of 'Game of Thrones' when it comes to shock value. My only nitpick is the use of too much description, it made me feel like being on an actual boring boat ride on a long river. Overall it was an entertaining book and I wish to read more of Martin's works.

We ask ourselves 'why did George R.R. Martin chose to write a vampire novel?' The answer is: George R. R. Martin  in an interview mentioned that he was fascinated by steamboat history and saw a dark romanticism when linked with vampires. He also picked a very good location; the Mississippi river and New Orleans that is considered a hot bed for vampire lore in many other literature, TV shows and films.

Book Review: Interview with the Vampire

The Vampire Chronicles: Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice.

Anne Rice's novel merged together a medley of elements that are now associated with vampires. Set in the tradition of the Southern Gothic, the novel portrayed a mixture of a very lush romantic view of the old South and of historical Europe as a decadent, bloody place filled with a bittersweet sadness. The novel grabs at a predominant teenage sensibility which  perseveres and remains in the genre of vampire fiction today.

Interview with the Vampire, expresses the transgressive alternative or uncertain sexuality, uncomfortable ragged emotions of a teenager and transforms it into a sinister grown up form of the vampire.

The compelling antagonist Lestat is technically dead but he possesses a significant vitality, an enthusiasm for life or 'joie de vivre' that is a metaphor for the vampire's need for blood. People die around him but Lestat bears it.

The glamour of the Gothic is everywhere in the novel, the vampire itself, the dark atmosphere, the velvet, the times when Gothic was beginning to be fashionable and sexy. Readers can't get enough of the night world thrill and Rice's novels take the readers back in time.

The novel contains the brooding antihero of Louis who opens up and confesses and opens up to the readers and a charismatic villain. What is more appealing is the psychological aspect. The male protagonist of classic Gothic fiction is sinister, aloof and troubled, just like a Byronic hero. Louis, despite his sexuality and moody behaviour is the tormented male lead: charismatic, fascinatingly dangerous and in need of redemption perhaps. Lestat possesses similar traits but is more vicious and sadistic.

Lestat represents the 'sexy bad predator' side of a vampire, who kills without thinking and relishes in it, he unlike Louis does not whine and seek answers to questions about the existence of vampire kind. The novel becomes quite philosophical at times when Louis enters an existential state of mind, trying to understand where vampires come from, and if there are others out there.

Like a good meal, this novel is delicious and filled with all sorts of spicyness. It's got interesting characters, superb descriptions, gore and tragedy. This is the first novel in a saga of mesmerizing vampire tales, philosophy and history.

Book Review: Queen of Kings

Queen of Kings by Maria Dahvana Headley

Set in the mystical ancient Egypt of the Pharaohs, the novel tells the story, with a supernatural twist of queen Cleopatra. One of the most iconic queens in history has had many portrayals in films, comic books, plays and cartoons.

 In this novel the queen has lost the war with Octavius, her lover Mark Antony is dying, distraught and desperate to stop the conquest of Octavius, she looks for divine intervention, any magical help however dark it might be. She is given by her servants a spell that allows her to call upon the gods. She performs the spell and calls upon the fierce lion-headed goddess Sekhmet. The angry goddess takes over the body of Cleopatra in return for bringing back Mark  Antony to life. Things go terribly wrong as Mark Antony revives only to die moments later and Cleopatra becomes a servant to the blood thirsty goddess. Now a powerful immortal creature, she must feed on blood and seeks to destroy Octavius. She struggles to maintain her humanity as the goddess possessing her begins to slowly take over.

The first question on my mind and probably other fans' minds was 'Is this one of those bad monster novels like Pride and Prejudice and zombies or Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter?' Fortunately it is not like those cheezy novels, it is way better.

Headley wrote an exciting and frightening novel with a character that every reader sympathizes with. All of us Interview with the vampire fans would understand. Cleopatra committed a desperate act and finds herself in a terrible and horrifying situation.

What is great about this novel is the connection between Ancient Egypt mythology and vampirism which are themes that are fascinating and that I love. In The Hunger it is mentioned that Miriam is from Egypt and in Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice the source of vampirism begins in Egypt with the queen Akasha. The themes go well together. Some people might say that it feels like a rip off of Anne Rice's novel but it's not.

The novel cleverly mixes together historical details with parts of the vampire mythos. Cleopatra is not technically a vampire but still possesses the abilities and weaknesses of a vampire that most readers are used to. For example, she is craves human blood, cannot stand sunlight and is burned by silver.

The novel later takes another great turn into fantasy as Octavius, fearing Cleopatra's wrath surrounds himself with sorcerers. There seems to not be a great level of violence in the novel, there is violence but it is watered down. It seems that Headley does not want Cleopatra to be seen as a villain or monster.

Overall the novel proves to be an exciting page turner with well described elements of vampirism and Ancient Egypt mythology.