Cracking Open the CSI's Vault

The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry has been kind enough to publish articles from its magazine, Skeptical Inquirer, online. Naturally, a few of 'em deal with vampires.

First up's Paul Barber's "Staking Claims: The Vampires of Folklore and Fiction" (March/April 1996), which is a greatly abbreviated take on the content dealt with in his classic vampirological work, Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality (1988).

There's a brief section on the chupacabra aka Hispanic Goatsucker in Robert E. Bartholomew and Erich Goode's "Mass Delusions and Hysterias: Highlights from the Past Millennium" (May/June 2000).

Massimo Polidoro's "In Search of Dracula" (March/April 2006) is mainly for the Vlad fans, but does deal with the strigoi of Romanian folklore.

The laws of physics are applied to vampires in Costas J. Efthimiou and Sohang Gandhi's "Cinema Fiction vs. Physics Reality: Ghosts, Vampires, and Zombies" (July/August 2007). Their postulations drummed up some decent press at the time.

Lastly, Joe Nickell's "Werewolves—or Weren’t?" (March 2008) touches on the connection between vampirism and lycanthropy. He also explores New England's "vampire" tradition in "Searching for Vampire Graves" (March/April 2009).

In the Mood for Change

It's been a bloody while since I last overhauled the design of this here blog, but I guess it's time for change.

Mr. Moto's out and I've switched over to Josh Peterson's red "Simple" template with a few tweaks to fonts and such. The background's a red and black background by John Woodcock.

I'm also gonna start bolding the first paragraph of my posts to make 'em look a bit newsy. Got the idea from ninemsn. Hats off to them.

More Sugar for Kane

I gave some coverage to Tim Kane's The Changing Vampire of Film and Television: A Critical Study of the Growth of a Genre (2006) here, but Andrew's recently given it a much more thorough review. Check it out.

We both enjoyed the book, as you'll see by his rating, even if we disagree on a few minor points.

The Twilight Machine

While I may occasionally sneer at Twilight, one thing that fascinates me about it is its level of success. Absolutely phenomenal and bewildering at the same time.

I mean, how often does this level of mainstream popularity and success happen to an author who'd never even written a novel before? A manuscript that took a mere three months to complete? By contrast, Stoker's Dracula (1897) was written over a period of seven years.

What about the story itself? The vampire love triangle, prolonged over a series, wasn't new to young adult literature when Twilight was published in 2005. So what's the big deal about with this one?

Anyway, here's a peek inside the inspirations that gelled into the mega doorstop epic that is the Twilight saga. Of course, there's another probable angle, alluded to by Rob Pattinson, himself.

Should've Been the Count

Speaking of hypotheticals and casting choices, here's one that's gripped me for a few years.

Many actors have played Count Dracula over the years, the best-known being Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee and, to a lesser extent, Gary Oldman.

But there's one actor who I feel would've been perfect for the role, even though, to my knowledge, he'd never even been in a horror film. I'm talkin' 'bout this guy:

Lee Van Cleef in a publicity shot for Escape from New York (1981).

That's right, Lee Van Cleef (1925-1989). You probably know him best as Sentenza/Angel Eyes (aka "The Bad") in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). He featured in a variety of other Westerns and action flicks. Point is, take a look at his mug and let's compare it to Jonathan Harker's description of the Count in Stoker's Dracula (1897):

His face was a strong, a very strong, aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth. These protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed. The chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.

Physical appearance aside, did I mention that he was also best-known for playing villains? A shame he never really broke that Western/action flick mould. I think he would've been a superb Dracula.

Here's a scene from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly to prove a point. It's the bit where Angel Eyes pays a visit to a former solider to question him about the location of a missing man and a cache of stolen Confederate gold.

You'll get an idea of why Van Cleef was typecast and also see the kind of menace he could convey in his performances. Perfect for a reptilian vampire Count.

Ramblin' Man

Just came across another Twilight-centric study on Amazon, to be released on November 3. This one's called The Twilight Mystique: Critical Essays on the Novels and Films.

If I can be bothered, I'll get around to compiling a list of studies on Twilight. And presuming there's a decent number out there. We'll see.

Yeah, I bet you can sense my lack of real interest. Heh heh. However, I'll give those books credit for something: thanks to their pop culture infiltration, there seems to be an increase in the publication of the books about vampires. Woohoo!

However, it's disenchanting to see that not many of these are be meaty studies of the field. Just the usual regurgitations on vampire history and the literature and film stuff. Ah wells.

At least, in the English-speaking world. If you shuffle over to Niels' Magia Posthuma, you'll see some seemingly interesting publications (see here and here) in German. It's a real shame that the majority of this stuff doesn't get translated into English more often. Practically none of it, actually.

In fact, the most recent translation of any vampire non-fiction book I can think of, off the top of my head, is Claude Lecouteux's The Secret History of Vampires: Their Multiple Forms and Hidden Purposes (2010), which was originally published in French as Histoire des Vampires : Autopsie d'un mythe (1999). While it has some interesting references, it's also pretty damn incoherent in structure. It just seems to jump all over the place.

Really, that's the best book we make available in English? Come on!

Amazonian Recommendation

Sorry for neglecting the blog, folks. Just been really busy lately.

Here's a brief item of interest, thanks to Amazon's recommendations. It's a new book to add to the burgeoning field of Twilight scholarship. It was released on June 15th.

That's right, I'm talkin' 'bout Bitten by Twilight: Youth Culture, Media, and the Vampire Franchise. Here's its product description:

Focusing on the wildly successful Twilight series, this collection of scholarly essays examines the phenomenon from diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives. Particular attention is paid to cultural, social, and economic aspects of the series and to the recurrent messages about youth, gender roles, romance, and sexuality. Essays discuss race and religion, and provide audience analyses of young adult, adult, anti-, and international fans. Other chapters are political-economic examinations into celebrity, tourism, and publishing. With new research by established and rising scholars, this volume is a significant contribution to the growing field of youth studies and complements existing feminist cultural analyses of media texts.

Does that kinda stuff tickle your fancy? If you liked the books mentioned here, it'll probably be right up your alley. Personally, I prefer a more generic approach to vampire studies, not regulating them to a specific pop culture vampire franchise. See also: Buffy Studies.

But hey, that's just me. That's not to say the book won't be of some interest, however.