Review of Undead, The Vampire Collection 20 Movie Pack

Posted on by Kennesaw

This is a fun little set with a couple of real gems.

Atom Age Vampire: Euro-horror from 1960, this isn’t strictly about vampires.
It’s about a mad scientist who needs to kill women in order to keep his
disfigured girlfriend looking more like a model and less like a plate of pulled
pork. In the so-bad it’s-good category.

Bat, The : Agnes Moorehead,
Vincent Price and Darla from the Little Rascals take on a killer known as the
Bat in a creepy old haunted house. It’s a fun, overlooked gem.

Bat, the
(Silent) This movie parallels the Vincent Price version very closely in that a
masked criminal terrorizes the guests at an old house rented by a mystery
writer. In this one though the killer dresses like a giant bat.

Blood of
Dracula’s Castle: Dracula & Mrs. Dracula live in a castle in the Arizona
desert (???) and drink the blood of their victims from martini glasses. John
Carradine is their butler George and Ray Young is their brutal servant Mango. A
hip young couple buys the castle and attempts to move in while moving the
Draculas out. It’s funny and weird and worth a watch.

Bloody Vampire:
This one is a good, old-fashioned, crazy Mexican horror movie. If you like wild
B horror, you can’t go wrong here.

Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride:
aka The Satanic Rites of Dracula, this one is set in modern day (1970’s)
England. Drac is just sick and tired of being sick and tired and decides to
unleash a super-plague to wipe out humanity! It’s more like a James Bond movie
than your usual Gothic Hammer horror, but it’s still plenty of fun.

Crypt
of the Living Dead A 1973 Spanish production filmed in Turkey, this one concerns
itself with a young fella who accidently frees the Queen of the Vampires on an
archeological dig. It’s cheap and cheesy and mildly amusing.

Devil Bat,
The : Bela Lugosi stars as Dr. Carruthers, a seemingly benign scientist who has
come up with a unique way or murdering people using only cold cream and a
monstrous vampire bat. It features a pair of wise-cracking reporters and is a
bit creaky but still fun.

Horrible Sexy Vampire : This 70’s Euro-horror
is pretty bloodless. The vampire strangles people instead of biting them. It’s
about as tedious as they come.

Horror Express : Ah Horror Express, the
bane of my young existence. This movie scared the beejesus out of me in my
youth. It’s got Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee stuck on a train with a
prehistoric, telepathic homicidal skull! And if that’s not all, Telly Savalas
plays a gruff Cossack Officer.

Last Man on Earth, The : This classic
horror film is Vincent Price’s take on the also classic novel, “I am Legend” by
Richard Matheson. It’s well worth watching.

Nightmare Castle : Barbara
Steele cheats on her husband, a brutal Italian count, probably not a good kind
of count to cheat on. He tortures and kills her and her lover. They return years
later for a little taste of vengeance. Atmospheric and creepy, it features a
score by Ennio Morricone.

Nosferatu : This is indisputably a CLASSIC
vampire film. You’ve doubtless heard of it. This reproduction is far from the
best, but it’s not completely horrible either.

Prime Evil : A band of
devil worshipping monks sacrifice peeps in 1988 New York to remain young, fresh
and vibrant without resorting to Botox. This is cheap and dull, with the Devil
represented by a really craptacular puppet.

Terror Creatures from the
Grave :What ya got here is an Italian horror flick with Barbara Steele about a
haunted mansion built over the graves of some plague victims. The plague victims
had been intentionally inflicted with the plague, and they’re not happy about
it. Let it go plague victims, let it go.

Vampire Bat, the: In 1933 the
good folk of the village of Klineschloss are dropping dead from mysterious blood
loss. The town fathers are worried it might be vampires…again! This is a
decent old-timey horror movie worth watching. Oh, and guess what? It’s got Fay
Wray AND Dwight Frye!

Vampire Happening, the : Not to be confused with M.
Night Shyamalan’s “Not Much is Happening” this is a kooky West German
horror-comedy from 1971. It’s a poor man’s Fearless Vampire Hunters, at least in
tone. An American actress inherits a Transylvanian castle, not realizing that
one of her clingy Euro-mooch relatives still lives there…AS A VAMPIRE! It’s
fun.

Vampire’s Night Orgy : More good, ol’ 70’s Euro-horror, in this one
a busload of tourists is diverted into a small town populated by creatures who
are maybe more akin to ghouls than vampires, in that they enjoy a good
human-tartar meal. It’s not as generous with the humor as Vampire Happening, but
it’s still watchable. Unfortunately there is no orgy, unless maybe the orgy of
killing that takes place.

Werewolf vs. Vampire Women, The : A couple of
cute French babes go poking around rural France looking for an evil Countess.
They find Paul Naschy, who co-wrote the screenplay, and his crazy sister first,
but it’s not long before the evil countess, who is also a vampire, crashes the
party. If you like Naschy you’ll probably like this, if you’ve never heard of
him, this isn’t a bad introduction to his films.

Witches Mountain, The:
If it’s possible for a movie to be partly incomprehensible, then this one is.
After a baffling beginning a couple touring the Spanish Pyrenees Mountains
encounters a coven of witches in a creepy little mountain town. If you can
figure out what’s going on in this movie post your response in the comment
section. It looks good most of the time though, and if it had any sense about
it, it could have been a legitimately good film.

VISIT US

Review of: Chosen by P. C. Cast

Posted on by Kennesaw

I was pretty iffy about CHOSEN. The authors have tried to throw a few curveballs Zoey’s way in this book, and although I think it’s long overdue I wasn’t impressed.

In book 2, BETRAYED, I really liked seeing Zoey grow into a role of leadership, think for herself, and show some courage. She had ideas, and she made things happen. But in CHOSEN Zoey backslides a lot – she keeps coming up with plans of action (especially where her romantic life is concerned), and then…doing the exact opposite of what she decides. She makes some progress with Stevie Rae, but loses control everywhere else.

She makes some decisions that cause her friends to think twice about her. But I ended up thinking less of her friends because of these incidents.

A good example comes from the very beginning of the book, in the first chapter. Zoey’s birthday is Christmas Eve and she has a serious problem with “Birthmas,” when Christmas and Birthday gifts are smooshed together. But all of her friends get her Christmas-themed birthday presents. This seems unlikely from people like the Twins and Damien, who are very fashion-conscious and unlikely to get excited about kitsch. Zoey isn’t thrilled but she thanks them all as enthusiastically as she can.

Then her friends spy on a birthday card from Zoey’s old boyfriend that mentions how much she hates getting Christmassy gifts for her birthday…and they all get angry at Zoey. Because she should have told them what not to get before she knew what they were getting? Because she didn’t tell them she didn’t like their presents as she was opening them? Both of these things would have been pretty tacky and rude. But her friends are unanimous in their disapproval.

This whole incident left me feeling pretty frustrated with her friends, who were way too quick to jump on her, and whose behavior had been a little bizarre to begin with. Later on in the book, this type of incident is repeated and I was even more shocked at how fickle her friends appear to be. If someone has your back, they shouldn’t be so fast to turn against you.

The end result is that even though Zoey is facing more difficult challenges than ever before, they felt manufactured and artificial to me. I’m not sure if I thought CHOSEN was better or worse than earlier books – it’s still fun, self-indulgent, and kind of lightweight. I’ll be reading the next one when it comes out.

Interview with Author Matthew D. Ryan

Posted on by Kennesaw

How About a warm welcome for Matthew D. Ryan author of “Drasmyr.” Thanks Matt for talking to us at The Vampire’s Shadow.

Tell me a little about your background as a writer. When did you start writing?

Oh, I wrote here and there growing up. Not consistently, though—I was more into gaming for many years. I didn’t write my first book until after college (where I studied philosophy and math, not English). That was the original “Drasmyr.” I’ve revised the original work several times now. And I finally decided to take the plunge and just put it out there.

The reviews I read on your book caught my eye, I love the statements like, “if you’re looking for sparkly Vampires, look elsewhere.” How much did you dig that statement?

That was great. That sums up my view of vampires quite nicely. If someone likes the sparkly Twilight vampires, well, okay, that’s fine… but they are really just so much fun to make fun of.  To me vampires are supposed to be part of the horror genre; intelligent and sinister undead. I’ve written a couple blogs on the subject, but basically it just comes down to the fact that I just prefer a character much more reminiscent of Dracula than I do anything else. Vampires are supposed to inspire fear, not giddy feelings of infatuation.

 

What about your process? Are you a pen and paper writer? Do you need a special location in which to write? 

My writing process has evolved over the years. The original “Drasmyr” was written stream-of-consciousness style without an outline, re-writing and re-writing as I went along. Nowadays, I need an outline of some sort… which is usually done in pen and paper. But once I get that done, I go to my computer and start typing. I tried writing the first draft of later books by hand, but I always felt I was wasting too much time. I mean, in the end, I had to type it into the computer anyway, so why not do that from the get-go? Anyway, I type much faster than I write, so now I’m decided: outline and notes in ink, actual writing by keyboard.

 

You seem to take great pain to make sure your work is highly literary. Can you explain your thoughts on that?

I write how I write. My view of the vampire is of an intelligent, sophisticated creature so perhaps that influenced my whole writing process. There is also a certain gothic-like tone that factors in as well. Finally, I’ve always felt that good fantasy should pass the literary litmus test.

 How do you want your readers to feel when they read your work?

I want them to feel fear and horror and creepiness when the vampire is out and about. Breathless and energized with the bounty hunter and his cohorts. But the whole work is supposed to engender feelings of dark mystery that is slowly being revealed.

Do you like music? What kind and does it affect your work?

I love music. But it doesn’t influence my work, because I don’t listen to it while I write. I’ve tried that a few times and it just gets distracting. As for what kind, I like everything from Metallica to Pink Floyd (both of which are very old school these days): even Madonna (again older). My modern tastes include Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Five Finger Death Punch, and others. About the only genre of music I don’t care for is Rap.

As an independent author, what would you say is your favorite benefit of publishing your work digitally?

I get to write the book the way I want to. The parts of the book written from the vampire’s perspective are written in first person present tense. The rest of the book was written in the usual third person past tense. It is an odd way to write, but I liked it for this book, at least. And I would never have been able to get it published traditionally unless I changed that.

What would you say is the biggest challenge you face as an independent author?

Self-promotion. I’m a naturally shy person to begin with—which is mitigated somewhat by doing a lot of my self-promotion on the Internet—but I still feel like a fish out of water. On the one hand, I’m not sure which steps to take where, what strategies to use, or what-have-you. On the other hand, sometimes it seems that there are so many different options it is overwhelming.

Can you talk about your writing? What books have you published (or are working on)?

“Drasmyr” is my first novel. It is intended as a prequel to a longer series (yes, I know it’s odd to write a prequel first, but that’s the way I did it) entitled “From the Ashes of Ruin.” I’m currently working on the first book in that series, “The Children of Lubrochius.” I’m planning to do four books for the series, then move on to something else. I may do another series using the same world but different characters. I have a few other books written, but they are in rough form only, and I am somewhat ambivalent about getting them published at the current time. In any event, now that I’ve started it, I’ve got to finish the series “From the Ashes of Ruin.”

Are there other subjects you might tackle in the future?

I will probably stick to fantasy, at least for a while. I occasionally write non-fiction stuff in the form of philosophical musings and such, but as of yet, I haven’t made any effort to publish those in book form.

In what state were you raised?  Does living there influence your work?

New York State. I suppose it does influence me to a certain extent—namely, my exposure to nature comes through the local flora and fauna but that’s about the limit of it. As I write fantasy, my work is not limited to anything I might experience in this world. My settings are usually akin to traditional fantasy settings with dark forests, castles, and monsters.

Favorite rich person, favorite poor person?

I don’t know. I try not to get in such debates. Maybe Mother Theresa for a poor person. I have no idea, for a rich person.

Have you ever thrown a book across the room? Which one? Why?

Oh yes, though not in any manner related to fantasy or literary writing. Back in college, I beat the snot out of a “Complex Analysis” book. At the time, it was a form of stress therapy to cope with imaginary numbers.

Who is your favorite author? Why?

Brandon Sanderson. I discovered him via Robert Jordan’s “Wheel of Time” series. I thought he did so well, I checked out some of his other work and was duly impressed. Of his solitary work, I’ve only read his Mistborn series, but I thought the whole series was great. The characters were well-developed, the world was unusual and well-built, and the philosophical messages contained in the books were well thought out and moving.

What inspired you to be a writer?

I’ve always been a creative person. And writing is something I just keep coming back to. So, now I’m in it. In my youth, I was big on games and gaming, designing my own D&D style game, but I think I’ve evolved to the point where I’m going to stick with writing.

Where can we find your work online? Are there paper copies available anywhere?

The book is available on-line at: Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and Diesel. I am still debating whether or not I want to publish it in physical form. The reason I hesitate is because self-published physical books are so expensive, they aren’t very competitive price wise. And the longer the book, the pricier it is. If I could get it done so that the paperback was just $10 or so, I’d do it. But at the moment, it is just not cost-effective.

What’s next? When is it coming out?

The next book is “The Children of Lubrochius.” I’m writing it even as we speak. It will probably take at least a year to complete the rough draft, then there’s all the editing that will need to be done, etc… So, maybe two years. We’ll see.

Thanks again Matt, we wish you all the best and we’ll keep an eye on your progress.

Facts About Vampires

Posted on by Kennesaw

I found this site and thought it was pretty cool.

If you’ve ever wanted a compilation of facts about vampires, you have come to the right place. There is so much to say about vampires that we couldn’t just dedicate one page to them. Both informational articles and questions (with answers) will be posted and updated right here.

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Gathered from Gods and Monsters