by Aislinn Satu

About Aislinn

I was born in Flushing, New York City, and have lived many places since. I love to read and write fantasy stories. I enjoy Maplestory, do you? I also like to call myself Aislinn Satu. You can email me at aislinnsatubooks@gmail.com

Visit my web site at http://jsi4.tripod.com/js/index.html

Chapter One: The Haunting History Of Ghosts

The belief in life after death is a common denominator among most of the world’s major religions. According to the available archeological and anthropological evidence, this concept grew out of the earliest forms of adoration. Primitive peoples developed the notion of worship with the belief that paying homage would result in personal and group compensation. Some were monotheistic, while others worshipped many objects or deities. Whether worship meant sacrifices, complicated ceremonies or merely a mutual respect between humans and nature, it all added up to a dependence on a higher source for survival.

Primitive societies believed in spirits. For some, everything had a spirit. For others, spirits were the higher beings that they worshipped. Some were able to personally meet, see or commune with spirits, while others simply knew they were there and that was enough. The natural evolution of worship or adoration involving spirits always seemed to lead to a point where good, bad, indifferent or mischievous spiritual beings all co-existed. Evil or mischievous spirits were the most likely to appear to people for the purpose of causing trouble.

Tragedies, unexplained events or sickness were blamed on evil or mischievous spirits. Anyone who claimed to be able to commune with spirits faced the danger of being blamed for calamities attributed to them. Even people chosen as religious leaders could quickly fall from favor if signs appeared that evil spirits were at work in the community. These signs could be normal events in nature like an eclipse or harvest moon. Melted footprints in the snow that became misshapen might make people think that devils were afoot. Milk that soured too quickly, a well that went dry or a sudden outbreak of sickness could also be interpreted as being the work of evil spirits.

As cultures grew, their religions became more complicated. Mythologies and folktales were developed or incorporated into belief systems. The rewards offered by deities were no longer just temporal, but eternal. In some cultures the afterlife became another world with it’s own complicated system of government, rules and regulations. In others, it was merely a continuation of life. But if there were rewards, there would also be punishments.

People who committed evil deeds or failed to practice their religion would be punished in some spiritual way. The miscreant might be sent to a lower realm or be earthbound after death. With this change, came the idea of ghosts. Unlike spirits which are generally considered to supernatural beings, ghosts are thought to be disembodied humans. Those enjoying their heavenly reward might come back with an encouraging message, while earthbound souls might appear to taunt or seek vengeance on the living.

There are several theories to explain what ghosts are. Most people believe that ghosts are visual manifestations of humans in the afterlife. Others say that ghosts are merely the replaying of events and people recorded through some unknown process in nature. Some believe that ghosts are proof that living humans have the ability to see images from the past or future in the present. There is a certain amount of evidence available to support all these explanations.

People who believe that ghosts are disembodied humans point out that they are sometimes interactive being able to channel through mediums, appear and speak with the living, cause physical phenomena and display changing behavior patterns. Much of what is believed about ghosts as humans in the afterlife comes from the Spiritualist Movement.

In 1848 the Weekman Family of Hydesville, New York, reported a series of strange knocks at their door when no one was there. An eight year old living in the home said she felt an unseen hand running up and down over her bed sheets. Just a few weeks after the Weekmans moved out, the Fox Family moved in and also reported hearing the knockings. With the help of their brother, Margaret and Katie Fox worked out an alphabetical code that allowed them to interpret the knockings. The messages seemed to be coming from a man murdered in the house some time ago. A skull was later unearthed in the basement.

The incident convinced the sisters that communication with the dead was possible and, in 1849, Margaret Fox publically demonstrated her abilities to channel messages from the dead. The next twenty years saw the birth of Spiritualism as a religion. Spiritualist Ministers who either felt, saw or channeled with disembodied humans offered their congregation messages from dead friends and relatives.

Spiritualism had strong supporters and powerful enemies. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, best known for his Sherlock Holmes stories, became an avid believer and gave his first lecture on the subject in 1917. Doyle’s friend, famous magician Harry Houdini, wanted to believe, but became a strong foe of Spiritualism when he came across several mediums who were complete fakes. As more fake medium hunters followed in Houdini’s footsteps and traditional religious leaders spoke out against it, Spiritualism lost much of its momentum.

Those who claim that hauntings are merely events from the past being played back in the present point out that many ghosts show no sign of interaction with the living. Dressed in clothes from a particular period in history, ghosts seem to be go about their normal business just as living people would. A ghostly priest walks across a room in an ancient abbey. Ghostly soldiers talk and play cards in the room of an old fort. A long dead Victorian family is seen picnicking under a tree. In each case there is no interaction with living persons present, just a very natural scene from the past.

Believers in precognition (seeing visions of the future) and retro-cognition (seeing visions of the past), say that ESP is the answer to the ghost phenomenon. They believe that anyone can see a glimpse of the past or future at any time. They may be right. I met a man in 1988 who had recently purchased and moved into a home near Chicago. As a person known to investigate the paranormal, he called me because he kept seeing a woman walk down various hallways in his house and then vanish! The mysterious figure looked real, but disappeared several times right before his eyes. He made drawings of the woman for me so I would know what she looked like. As a matter of course, I spoke to some of his neighbors. I asked if any of them had seen a woman that looked like the one in the drawings? None had. Although the man lived alone, I also met with several of his family members to see if they knew anyone that looked like the mysterious woman. They did not. Unable to offer an explanation, I lost touch with the man for several years.

While presenting a seminar in Chicago during 1994, the same man called me at my hotel and invited me over his house. I wanted to see if anything had come of the case, so I agreed to come over. When I arrived, the man invited me in and we proceeded to his family room. I was stunned when I saw a woman sitting on the couch who matched the exact description of the drawing that had been made years earlier. Before I could speak, the man introduced the woman as his wife. They had met six months before and been married just one month. Prior to that and during the time of the odd visions, he had not known or yet met the woman. Without knowing it, the mysterious figure walking through his home as an apparition in 1988 turned out to be a real woman who he met and married in 1994. It was clearly a case of seeing a future event in present time.

It’s likely that these popular explanations for ghosts may all be a part of what we think of as paranormal activity. Science has been set up as a means to explain every aspect of our world using theory and conjecture, and to do so without apology. When a theory or hypothesis doesn’t work out, they just throw it out and make up another. The failure of science to examine paranormal activity without trying to debunk it, leaves us with only two choices regarding the unexplained. We can either totally ignore everything odd that goes on and assume it has some scientific or physical explanation, or we can make guesses based on the available evidence.

Ghosts may be nothing more then the result of a human desire to exist beyond the grave or the ultimate gag that the Universe is playing on us. Whatever else ghosts maybe, they are a question lacking an answer. As humans, we owe it to the satisfaction of our own curiosity to try and find that answer.

Chapter Two: Haunted Hollywood Films

Life is full of ironies. It’s ironic that a film directed by the multi-talented Leonard Nimoy of Star Trek fame would end up with a supernatural reputation. THREE MEN AND A BABY was released in 1987 and hit theaters with a box office bang. The film stars Tom Selleck, Ted Danson and Steve Guttenberg as dedicated bachelors who are suddenly thrust into parenthood by having to care for an infant. But the movie’s biggest star has become its ghost!

During the successful theatrical run, people noticed some peculiarities that occurred throughout the film. When the movie came out on video, these peculiarities were easier to spot and examine. The most obvious occurs during a scene when Jack Holden (Ted Danson) walks across a room following his mother who is holding the baby. A window comes into view where a young boy appears to be standing just behind some curtains and in front of the windowpane.

There are several things troubling about the appearance of the boy. First, he doesn’t belong in the film and his presence is never explained. Second, considering the fact that he should be backlit by the brightness coming in from the window, the child’s appearance breaks every law of photography in that it is clear and every detail visible. That would have required lighting the specific area in a very special way for no apparent reason. Third, the boy is in good focus as if inserted as a special effect. Fourth, the child appears to cause one drape to flair out a bit as any solid, 3-D object would. He seems to be leaning forward more from his head, then the area of his feet. But the boy casts no shadow whatsoever in the brightness that can be seen at his feet. In fact, a careful examination of that brightness reveals what appears take the shape of a large ghostly arm and hand holding him in place.

THREE MEN AND A BABY was filmed on a soundstage in Canada. When stories of the ghost boy first circulated, rumor had it that the spirit was one of a boy who died after falling out of a window in the condo where the film was being made. This was untrue. What is true is that the doorman of the real condo used for exterior shots told a tabloid TV show reporter that a nine year old boy had once fallen to his death from one of the townhouses in that building several years before the film was made. Since the family had moved and the doorman heard the story second hand being new on the job, all this was impossible to verify.

Representatives for the film say it’s all a misunderstanding. They claim that the child in the window is merely a full size cut out made from a childhood photograph of Ted Danson. What they don’t tell us is why? Was it part of something edited out of the movie, or just a mistake? Did stage hands leave the cut out by the window and forget to move it before the scene was filmed? Considering the veteran status of the actors, production crew and director, it seems unlikely that such a big mistake would be made and not immediately noticed? And there’s more…

In another part of the movie what seems like a boy’s ghostly face is seen in the kitchen window. Strange glows appear where none should be and a ghostly hand appears to touch a dresser. An odd and unexplained hum comes and goes as the bachelors talk to one another in the kitchen, but is heard at no other time during the film. All this may be coincidence or totally explainable phenomenon, but THREE MAN AND A BABY isn’t the only movie with a supernatural connection that goes beyond the plot.

It’s easy to read too much into what happens during production. Because of the time it takes to make a feature film, people will die, get married, divorced, start new and end old relationships, have children and move. Life doesn’t stop for Hollywood. But some films have gained reputations for being haunted or cursed because of the unusual number of deaths or strange incidents associated with them.

POLTERGEIST was released in 1982 and became the first of three films in the series. The production was plagued with odd events like stunts and special effects that didn’t come off correctly and dire predictions from a psychic who acted as a consultant to the film. Craig T. Nelson (Steve Freeling) and Jo Beth Williams (Diane Freeling) had such an unpleasant experience during production of the original film, that when talk of a sequel came up, they had no interest in repeating the roles. Both were eventually lured back by the promise of a huge payday.

Twenty-two year old Dominique Dunne (Dana Freeling) played the teen daughter in the first film. In what seemed like a confusing bit of plot manipulation, Dominique had just a few scenes with the family and was absent during a majority of the movie. She returns at the end, just in time to escape the bedeviled house. Despite her brief appearance, Dunne was noticed and seemed to be on the fast track to young stardom. But fate had other ideas.

On Halloween Eve of 1982, Dunne received a visit from an obsessed ex-boyfriend named John Sweeney while rehearsing a script with another actor at the residence the ex-lovers had once shared. Dominique decided to come outside and discuss Sweeney’s plea to take him back. Once outside, Dunne told him the relationship was over. Sweeney went wild and strangled Dominique for 4-6 minutes. After several days in a coma, Dunne passed away on November 4, 1982. Sweeney was later convicted on voluntary manslaughter charges, but was released in 1986 after having served just a little over three years in prison.

No one who has seen the first POLTERGEIST film can deny that the real star of that movie was six year old Heather O'Rourke (Carol Ann Freeling). Her innocent portrayal of the haunted Carol Ann is what drives the plot. Heather came back for more in POLTERGEIST II along with Craig T. Nelson and Jo Beth Williams. Two veteran actors joined the others to make the second installment of the series at least as scary, and possibly more frightening then the first film.

Native American actor Will Sampson played Taylor, the good spirit trying to help the Freelings. Julian Beck, known as an actor’s actor, played Kane, the evil spirit trying to pull the family into his own supernatural world of hell and torment. Both actors were ill while making the film, so their deaths came as no surprise. On September 14, 1985, sixty year old Beck died of stomach cancer. On June 3, 1987, fifty-three year old Sampson died of complications from a heart-lung transplant six weeks earlier. POLTERGEIST II was released in May of 1986.

Even more troubling and bizarre incidences occurred during the making of the second film. Almost everything that could go wrong, did, and all the cast members were haunted by an uneasy feeling. When it was decided that a third POLTERGEIST film would be made, Nelson and Williams opted out. Now twelve years of age, Heather O’Rourke was again to be the focal point of the plot. During filming, the cast and crew became concerned about Heather. Her face was often bloated and she complained of being sick. Despite several trips to the doctor, a bowel obstruction went undetected and she was diagnosed with the flu.

On February 1, 1987, Heather O’Rourke died while on the operating table. The obstruction had been discovered too late. Toxins released into her blood stream brought an end to the young star’s short life. During her final days, Heather told her mother that she would die. The third film was completed in June of 1987, but its release was delayed until June of 1988. An alternative ending was shot with a stand in for Heather. Apparently, the original ending was deemed too dark for audiences to accept, given Heather’s death and the other odd events surrounding all three films. Despite the deaths and strange happenings associated with that trilogy, the haunted reputation of just one film released years earlier surpasses that of all three POLTERGEIST movies.

THE EXORCIST opened to big box office in 1973. Based on the 1971 novel of the same title by William Peter Blatty, the film took on a life of it’s own with stories of disappearing props, sick actors and dangerous sets. Linda Blair, who played a young girl tormented by evil spirits, almost had her back broken by a mechanical device gone awry during one of the shaking bed scenes. A healthy Max Von Sydow, who played the veteran Catholic Exorcist, experienced several bouts of unexplained illness during filming. Props were regularly shipped to or ended up in the wrong locations, while large industrial lights used for the filming inexplicably fell onto various sets several times during the production. No one was injured, but the actors were not amused either.

The film was officially considered haunted after a British Teenager killed his girlfriend, claiming a demon possessed him while watching the film and made him do it. A man in New York City suddenly dropped dead while viewing the movie in a New York City theater, while other people fainted or went into epileptic fits when the demon-possessed girl appeared on screen. None of this hurt the movie’s box office take, but England, Canada and several other countries banned the film from further showings or release on video. In 2000, THE EXORCIST was released with eleven minutes of footage originally cut from the movie.

Exorcist: The Beginning is a self-described prequel that was released in August of 2004. Opening with earnings of around eighteen million dollars the first weekend, the film would have been a moderate success had it not been for all the production problems. Did the alleged curse of the first film infect this prequel?

Ten years in the planning, the project was supposed to be directed by the legendary John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate, Birdman Of Alcatraz). Just before filming was to begin, Frankenheimer died. As a result of the delay caused by the death of the director, Liam Neeson had to pull out of the project due to scheduling conflicts. Now without the original director and with the loss of a major star from the cast, the prequel was off to anything but a smooth start.

By the time filming started on the prequel in 2002, Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, Cat People) was in the director’s chair and Stellan Skarsgård had filled the void left by Liam Neeson. Apart from a few malfunctioning cameras and special effects mishaps, things went according to plan as far as Schrader was concerned. But after forty million dollars and a virtually complete movie in the can, Morgan Creek executives felt they had a real stinker on their hands.

Schrader had made a psychological thriller in the style of a Hitchcock film, but what those in charge of the production at Morgan Creek really wanted was a supernatural thriller. In an unprecedented move, they shelved the entire film and opted to start all over again from scratch. A new script was prepared, Renny Harlin (Die Hard II, Deep Blue Sea) was hired as the Director, all the cast members except Stellan Skarsgård were replaced and things moved forward.

During early filming of the prequel’s second version Renny Harlin was hit by a car and severely injured. He directed the film on crutches with metal pins holding one of his legs together. Members of the production team started to experience unexplained headaches and some became quite ill according to several sources who worked on the film. Apart from all the bad luck surrounding this production, the biggest curse or jinx might have been the project itself! When it was all said and done, the second film was still not what Morgan Creek wanted.

Morgan Creek envisioned a fast moving, frightening story with lots of pea soup vomit and horrific make-up. They hoped such a project would scare up some big profits at the box office by tapping the wallets of young people eager to be entertained with fast action and frightening effects. What they ended up with was a boring, slow moving character study of Father Merrin and his spiritual duel with the devil. The star of the original film was the devil and anything less was not going to make for a good prequel.

It's a bird, it's a crane, it's a hanging Munchkin! One of the silliest haunted film rumors I have ever come across involves the beloved 1939 film version of 'The Wizard of Oz.' The story started circulating on the internet in the late 1990's and remains there today.

There are actually several versions of this rumor based on where people believe they actually see what appears to be a person hanging in the background of a scene during the film. The first occurs when the Wicked Witch is standing on top of the Tin Man's house and throws a fireball at the Scarecrow. Dorothy, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man talk briefly after the witch leaves and then start skipping down the Yellow Brick Road. Sometime during this sequance of events a close up on the Scarecrow appears to show something odd in the background which appears to be someone hanging, swaying back and forth.

The second or competing version involves Dorothy in Munchkinland. She is in the horse drawn coach when something appears in the background. Most who like this story over the other say it's a little person who had hanged themselves. Some refer to this version as the plastic girl story claiming that the object appears to be a plastic looking person swaying back and forth.

Those who believe these rumors say that the hanging caused MGM to reconsider completing or releasing the film. If that were the case, it would have been easy to edit out the offending footage. Actually, that was more about studio politics then anything else. Others claim that the lackluster box office performance of the movie was a curse caused by the studio cover up of the hanging. A better explanation would be that people just weren't interested in seeing such a happy film at a time when war was looming around the world.

The problem I have with all these stories is based on visual and supportive evidence. The visual evidence is lacking in every way. We all know that video versions of older movies produce less then stellar results when it comes to seeing things that are small or in the background. That's true even when restored versions of those movies are released on video. The object that is the basis for the first rumor is likely a bird. Experts say it's a type of Crane. Both incidents could also be explained by the fast exit of a grip or stagehand who suddenly realized they were in the shot. We've all seen those reels of movie mistakes.

Beyond the uncompelling visual material, there are no stories that might constitute any sort of collaborating evidence. Most of the known scandals involving the film include taping Judy Garland's breasts down to make her appear younger, hotel rooms full of fornicating Munchkins who shocked other guests with orgies in the hallways, wage disputes and studio swabbles that almost kept the film from being made or released.

Given the controversy that already surrounded the 1938 film, any story about a hanging or other horrendous scandal would have been quickly picked up by reporters eager to report all of Hollywood's biggest secrets. If 'The Wizard of Oz' is haunted, it's by internet rumors with no basis in fact.

It would be easy to attribute any reputations that films acquire to over-zealous publicity departments. But most of the events surrounding films that seem haunted or cursed are far more interesting and unbelievable then the plots themselves. Coincidence? Fate? Maybe, but it seems only fair to say that film projects are subject to the same paranormal influences that affect other things (regardless of the plot line).

Chapter Three: The History Of Vampires (Fact and Fiction)

I. It Started With Blood

The Vampire persona has evolved from many true and untrue facts, legends and myths. At various times vampires, real and imagined, have been considered fiends, supernatural beings, shape-shifters, mentally disturbed deviants, satanic servants and fetish followers. However, it all began and still revolves around a taste for blood!

Contrary to the popular belief that Vampire history, stories and legends began with Vlad the Impaler, they go back much further than that. Many ancient societies worshiped blood thirty gods. This caused people to begin to associate blood with divinity, leading to the development of the early vampire cults. Regardless of the spiritual value, some people have always had a desire to drink blood and the reasons are as varied as the practitioners. In some societies the practice was accepted, as in ancient Egypt. But in others, vampirism was considered deviant behavior and condemned.

In Africa, most civilizations and tribes greatly feared vampirism. The fear was eventually turned into legend as people began to believe vampires were evil spirits that would come in the night to drink blood, kill livestock and steal children. Archaeological evidence shows that fetishes, in the form of dollhouse-sized huts, were built as a protection against them. Some modern African tribal medicine men still hold to this belief and continue to build the fetishes in the same way that their ancestors did.

During the glory days of Rome, vampire cults abounded. Roman citizens, mostly females, began to believe in the concept delivered to them by captured peoples that drinking the blood of fertile females would cure the infertile. Likewise, for males, blood drinking was a way to become more potent. It wasn't long before blood drinking cult members started to get sick and spread their sicknesses to others. Though it's doubtful that these people understood much of anything about the diseases transmitted through blood, Roman physicians did see a connection between blood drinking and the spread of sickness.

Eventually, the Roman government moved against the cults and outlawed the practice. Some members of vampire cults refused to stop drinking each other’s blood and continued to meet in secret, despite the physical dangers and threats of severe punishment. When this was discovered and sickness continued to spread, the Roman government dispatched paid assassins to hunt down and kill the renegade blood drinkers. Because they were paid by the number of cult members they killed, these early vampire hunters became legendary. Seeking to get rich from their trade, there is no doubt that these "pay per kill" assassins took the lives of as many innocent people as they did cult members.

The weapon of choice for the Roman vampire hunters was a small, easily hidden dagger. This allowed them to infiltrate the secret cult meetings and then attack without warning. The daggers were highly ornate leaving the Roman public with the impression that the assassins were on a divine mission. The handles were in the shape of a cross and looked very much like any ornate, modern crucifix! In an attempt to scare off the government sanctioned assassins, cult members began to spread stories designed to frighten their trackers. They claimed that drinking blood gave them the ability to change into fierce animals and devour any attackers.

Thanks to the meticulous records kept by Romans and Egyptians, as well as the traditions passed orally by the Africans, vampire legends were well known on local and international levels by the arrival of the Middle Ages. Had it not been for the proliferation of plague and other pestilences during that time, vampirism probably would have re-emerged as a popular fad. Even so, some drawings in religious books of the period seem to suggest that blood-drinking cults continued to exist. Devils, demons and human servants of Satan were often portrayed as committing unspeakable acts, including the sucking of blood from other humans and animals. One may assume that these portrayals were not just shadows of the past or complete figments of over zealous imaginations.

As explorers from the Old World began to visit the New World, the vampire legend took on a new and frightening form. Spanish explorers traveled to the Americas in search of gold and other treasures. Although dreaded by the native peoples living there, the Conquistadors themselves began to fall prey to an unknown and terrifying enemy.

In an attempt to escape the pervasive heat, humidity, bugs, snakes, hostile peoples and monsoon-like rains of the South American jungles and rain forests, the Spaniards would take refuge in caves at night whenever these could be found. It wasn't long before a strange disease began to claim the sanity and lives of the conquering army. The only thing noticed about those who became ill was that they had strange bite marks on their bodies.

The sick moved quickly towards death and a terrible fear settled in among the Spaniards. The source of the bite was finally discovered when those on late night guard duty watched in horror as bats gently attached themselves to members of the sleeping army. With no real understanding of rabies or how it was spread, the Spaniards just assumed that loss of blood was the cause of death. They believed that the bats were killing the men by feeding on the same subjects night after night until they were drained of blood! Though staying out of caves stopped most of the attacks, some were still bitten.

II. Dracula

By the time Vlad the Impaler came along, the vampire legend had already been well established. His contribution to the history of vampires was largely due to Bram Stoker's fictional story of Dracula. Already known as a rabid, bloodthirsty killer, Dracula suddenly became a virtually unstoppable, supernatural force of evil.

Bram Stoker's 1897 book, Dracula, was inspired by existing vampire legends and the brutal acts of a legendary tyrant. Stoker found the name Dracula in a book on the history of Wallachia. The name was associated with a 15th century Transylvanian despot known as Vlad the Impaler, also called "Vlad Dracul," which means "the devil" in Rumanian. Impaling was the gruesome practice of forcing a long wooden spear through the body until the victim gradually dies. Dracula favored impaling as a form of execution and a scare tactic used to instill fear in his enemies. Vlad hated non-Christians, making it a policy to kill any non-practicing residents under his authority. Fearing for their lives, his subjects placed crosses on their front lawns and doorways to keep Dracula at bay.

Transylvanian traditions were also a source of great inspiration for Bram Stoker. They believed in what were called "strigoi" (the undead) who would walk the earth because they were improperly buried or had lived an evil life. Like vampires, they would stalk and kill humans. Stopping them meant driving a stake through their heart. They would then be placed in a coffin where the same stake was driven through the coffin and into the ground. That was the only procedure known to keep the undead in the ground where they belonged.

Although the marriage of fact, fiction and folktales that came together in Bram Stoker’s Dracula forever changed and deluded original traditions and beliefs about vampires, it also created a huge amount of interest in them. More then a few people read the novel believing it to be a true story, thus adding to the legend. Younger readers were especially susceptible to the suspense and fear created by the main character. Many would place crosses all over their rooms and nail windows shut!

III. Vampires As Entertainment

Several attempts were made to turn the novel DRACULA into a stage play, but known were financially successful until Bela Lugosi entered the picture. Though legend has it that Bela initially wanted nothing to do with the project, Dracula became the role of his lifetime. Each night an ambulance was parked outside the Broadway Theater where Dracula was performed, and this wasn't just for publicity purposes! People would faint or get trampled as audience members tried to run out of the performance with the appearance of Bela on the stage as Dracula.

With gut level reactions of fear, loathing and a weird kind of admiration to the book and Broadway Play, the story was a natural for early filmmakers. While it is unclear who actually tried to bring Dracula to the screen first, it's certain that the 1922 silent film Nosferatu was one of the first uses of a vampire as a major character in a motion picture. In this German film, the vampire is a blood-sucking fiend with no redeeming values. Realistic make-up and great special effects make Nosferatu still worth watching on video.

If Nosferatu secured the vampire's reputation as a fiend with movie audiences, it was the 1931 American film DRACULA that gave a slightly more human face to all creatures of the night! In Dracula, Bela Lugosi brought his stunning stage performance to the big screen. The pace was slow allowing each moment of suspense and terror to be fully felt and appreciated by the audience. Rather then being just a predatory monster as in Nosferatu, Bela played the Master Vampire as a royal, dark and manipulative force using the few human attributes he had left to build an army of the undead that existed to serve his needs.

The 1940s brought the movie character of Dracula into contact with other well-known monsters like The Werewolf and Frankenstein. During that time a string of reasonably well made "B" Movies forced gothic horror purists to endure watching their favorite characters mixed with everyone from mad scientists to Abbot and Costello. During the 1950s and 1960s, movie vampires faced new friends and foes in the form of atomic monsters and space aliens. If you want to see what may be the stupidest vampire movie of all time, buy a copy of 1967’s ‘Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck’ by Roman Polanski on video. The 1960s also brought an unusual soap opera to TV.

Dark Shadows, the parent of all other vampire TV Shows, was a daytime soap opera that began in the 1960s and ran through part of the 1970s. Although set in modern times, the show drifted across the centuries to tell the story of the ill-fated Collins Family and the vampire curse that hounded them. This was modern gothic horror at its best! The show's primary character, a vampire named Barnabus Collins (played by the scary Jonathan Frid), became wildly popular and made the soap a massive success. Dark Shadows gave birth to fans clubs, books, magazines, several major films and a short-lived revival series which lacked the punch the original had. Thanks to the Sci-Fi Channel, the original Dark Shadows can still occasionally be seen on cable (and there’s plenty on YouTube).

Here is a fantastic article about the TV Series and Film from Mysterious Q (used with permission):

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Will The Real ‘Dark Shadows’ Please Stand up?

By Mysterious Q

I will not say that I was ever a rabid fan of the vampire soap opera, but I did watch 'Dark Shadows' on an almost daily basis and enjoyed what I saw. Living just a block away from my school, I made it home in time each day to watch Barnabas Collins (a.k.a. the late Jonathan Frid) trouble the residents of the Collinwood mansion and torture poor Willie Loomis (a.k.a. John Karlen) with endless verbal taunts and often diabolical errands. With that in mind, I am not thrilled with the new film of the same title.

It's important to understand that 'Dark Shadows' was never a conventional soap that fit the mold of others at the time, and moved further away from that model as the plot progressed. The original story involving a family with dark secrets presented in a kind of modern Gothic horror format did not have vampires, ghosts or any supernatural creatures in it when the show premiered on ABC in June of 1966. It took a year for Barnabas Collins to appear and begin causing all kinds of mischief in and around Collinsport, Maine.

Barnabas Collins was played by Canadian born actor Jonathan Frid who passed away on April 13, 2012 (Friday the 13th) at the age of eighty-seven in Ontario, Canada. The classically trained Frid could never be accused of being a consummate professional in that role because he often stumbled while trying to deliver his lines or blew them altogether. Frid may not have been a great actor, but he was great in the role of Barnabas. His look, mannerisms and even the verbal blunders he delivered made his character come to life (or death) in a way that delighted fans and gave us all the 'creeps'.

The cast of the soap was a wonderful collection of very talented people including Joan Bennett, a well-known and respected veteran stage and screen actress, who played Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. Swedish born Alexandra Moltke played the often troubled Victoria Winters, an orphan who traveled to Collinsport, Maine, to discover the dark secrets about her past. Although a newcomer to soaps, she successfully brought a key character of the show to life. All the performers that appeared on 'Dark Shadows' were wonderful character actors that made the story seem very real to fans.

While I am sure that viewers who watched the supernatural soap all have their personal favorite characters, I cannot imagine anyone arguing with the fact that the Reverend Trask brought a tremendous amount of drama and angst to the story. Trask was a rabid witch hunter and religious zealot in the mold of the Salem witch trial prosecutors. The Reverend was played to perfection by Jerry Lacy. He is a talented actor who appeared in a number of other soaps, played various parts on American prime time TV and took on the ethereal character of Humphrey Bogart in Woody Allen's film, 'Play It Again, Sam.'

Lacy's character brought the show's story line back and forth in time and allowed for some amazing moments between the Reverend, Barnabas and the other characters. Although the Trask character was used in a thinly veiled way to point out the absurdity of bigotry against any race, religion or sexual preference, that message never overshadowed the plot. My favorite Trask episode was the one in which the Reverend had Barnabas Collins bricked up in a wall. The Reverend taunted Collins with demonic glee as Barnabas rightly called the zealot a hypocrite.

The late Dan Curtis created 'Dark Shadows' after he had a strange dream about a mysterious young woman on a train sometime in 1965. After giving the dream further thought and telling his wife about it, he developed it into an idea for a soap which he pitched to ABC. Once the network accepted the project, Curtis hired veteran radio and television writer Art Wallace to create the soap's story bible. The show had a working title of 'Shadows on the Wall' which was changed to 'Dark Shadows' later in the development process.

Curtis had a knack for knowing what people might enjoy watching and that often meant films and TV shows with supernatural themes. Along with the 'Dark Shadows' soap and two theatrical films based on it, Dan took his fascination with vampires a step further to create 'The Night Stalker' which ended up as a TV movie on ABC and a feature film elsewhere in the world.

Dan fought hard to bring his vision of to life amid industry skepticism about the project. An evil vampire hunting the streets of Las Vegas for victims while being pursued by a troubled reporter named Carl Kolchak wasn't exactly a typical idea for the average movie of the week. After the film aired in 1972, those involved with the production told Curtis they wished that it had been released as a feature film in the USA. That's because the extremely well-produced TV movie turned out to be the most watched ever up to that point.

'The Night Strangler' came next from Curtis in 1973 and made the Kolchak character played by Darren McGavin even more popular. The story about a madman who drained his victims of blood to create an elixir of life took place in Seattle and did extremely well in the ratings. Like its predecessor, the film aired as a TV movie in the USA and was released as a feature film overseas. All this led to the ABC TV series entitled 'Kolchak: The Night Stalker' which ran for one season. The series should have faired better, but suffered from a bad time slot, less than stellar scripts and cheesy monsters. I liked it despite those issues, but that's me.

Dan Curtis tried to bring 'Dark Shadows' back several times. In 1991 he produced a revival of the show for NBC. Barnabas was played by Ben Cross and the cast was rounded out by an impressive bunch of character actors. Although many viewers found his portrayal of the lead character to be sexy and provocative, I didn't care for Cross as Barnabas and diehard fans of the original soap agreed. Although the show premiered to wonderful ratings, those fell off quickly as the series was constantly interrupted by Gulf War news and suffered from what appeared to be too many plot twists and changes.

Curtis tried again in 2004 selling another remake of the soap to the WB Network. A one hour pilot was produced which included a few new characters added to the plot that were not seen in the original soap or the 1991 revival, but the WB passed on the series and the pilot never aired. It was shown at various 'Dark Shadows' fan festivals and met with some positive feedback. Dan Curtis passed away in 2006.

Although I cannot speak for other original 'Dark Shadows' viewers, I believe that it would be nearly impossible to try and re-create the soap as a new series or film. That's because each time it has been tried, the story and characters have been tinkered with to the point that the magic of the original was lost. The latest film starring Johnny Depp looks like it will be a typical Tim Burton creation with elements of comedy, drama and fantasy all mixed together. What it will not be is true to the original vision of Dan Curtis.

I have not seen Burton's version of 'Dark Shadows' and have little interest in it. After watching the trailers I believe it will be nothing more than a gross caricature of the original soap and it's cast. It's that's what you are looking for, go and see it. However, if you want anything close to the real thing you will have to wait until someone gives 'Dark Shadows' the same treatment received by the new 'Star Trek' film.

Being a fan of 'Star Trek' I wondered how the producers of the new film would handle the re-creation of such iconic characters. I was surprised and delighted to see that they had the intelligence to stick to the original molds and make only enough changes to allow for a new and welcome plot twist. I can only hope that someone will offer 'Dark Shadows' the same treatment for a TV or film series sometime in the near future.

The original 'Dark Shadows' ran for five years as a soap on ABC from June 27, 1966 to April 2, 1971. During that time 1,225 episodes were produced and the show regularly won its time slot. Originally shown in black and white, color episodes began airing in August of 1967. All but one of the original episodes have been preserved and an audio recording of the lost episode exists. The soap experienced new life in the mid-1970s when it was made available for worldwide syndication. It returned again from the dead in the 1990s when the series aired in its entirety on the Syfy cable network.

The one-of-a-kind soap opera managed to attract viewers of all ages and inspire fan clubs, magazines, a comic strip, books, board games and copycat productions. 'Strange Paradise' was an easily recognizable Canadian attempt to copy 'Dark Shadows' and other American soaps like 'Port Charles' and 'Passions' eventually played the 'Dark Shadows' supernatural card by adding plots that featured vampires, witches, and werewolves.

When it is all said and done there was and can only ever be one 'Dark Shadows' and the kind of creative forces that were Dan Curtis, Jonathan Frid and the show's other amazing cast members who made and drove the success of that most unusual show. What started out as a dream for Curtis, ended up as a daily and welcomed five year nightmare on daytime television.

Although most attention spans these days allow for little more than the time it takes to watch a music video or YouTube pick gone viral, I would be the first to sign up for a cable channel devoted to the soap and am sure at least some young people today would become as addicted to the show as young people were when it originally aired. Would I miss any episodes? That's what digital recorders are for...

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Most 1970’s theatrical releases with a vampire theme were merely color remakes of earlier films or ideas. Many were cheap exploitation pieces made to fill time at a buck fifty a carload Drive-Ins. There were a few exceptions. Andy Warhol's 1974 film, Andy Warhol's DRACULA, was well received and became a good companion to his highly acclaimed Andy Warhol's FRANKENSTEIN. 1979's Dracula featuring Frank Langella and Sir Lawrence Olivier gave the master vampire a more sophisticated sexual identity that went over well with even the most devoted gothic horror fans. Vampires on TV faired better then those on the big screen in the 1970s.

1972 brought us a made for TV horror film called The Night Stalker. The vampire was a centuries old killer discovered and tracked by an annoying and slightly washed up reporter named Carl Kolchak, played by veteran character actor Darren McGavin. The Night Stalker spawned another film and a Television Series that still airs in reruns today. The 1979 made for television mini-series, Salem’s Lot, was based on a Stephen King story and featured David Soul (of Starsky and Hutch) and master actor James Mason in one of his last performances. It is a classic and can still be seen in a shortened or full-length version on cable television. It’s also been released on DVD.

The only other big screen vampire movies of the 60s and 70s that gothic horror fans enjoyed were those starring Christopher Lee. His portrayal of the Dracula character was sincere and compelling. Though most of his vampire films were exploitation pieces designed for matinee audiences, Lee's performances in those movies gave them class amid weak story lines. While most laugh at it, another 1970’s exploitation film, Blackula is oddly addicting and joins the ranks of Love At First Bite, with George Hamilton and Arte Johnson, and the cult classic Rocky Horror Picture Show as films many vamp fans like to revisit. Each of these movies contain elements of horror, suspense and comedy that mix well and do no real harm to the vampire legend.

By the time the 1980s rolled around, the vampire theme had been covered so much on film that little was offered apart from comedies and cheap exploitation flicks. One notable exception was Joel Schumacher's 1987 film The Lost Boys. This movie offered us an updated version of the vampire look as seen by comic books of the time. As scary as it was interesting, The Lost Boys has become a gothic horror and vamp fan favorite. Almost invisible in theaters, the1985 comedy Once Bitten starring Lauren Hutton and Jim Carrey became a cable television standard after Carrey hit the big time in the 90’s. The 1988 teen comedy flick, My Best Friend Is A Vampire, also made it bigger on video and cable then on the big screen.

The 1990s brought us some quality vampire flicks. Francis Ford Coppola's BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA told us more about the traditional Transylvanian character then previous films and remained faithful to the original novel. The 1992 film based on the comic book character, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, has become a cult favorite. The comic book character also turned into a successful television series with the same title a few years later. The 1994 box office hit, Interview With The Vampire, was based on the Anne Rice book. The film brought Anne’s popular characters to a much larger audience and featured a young cast that hit a home run with most vamp fans.

Eddie Murphy’s 1995, A Vampire In Brooklyn, was both funny and frightening and should not be missed. 1998’s Blade starring Wesley Snipes hit a home run as a an action film with a total update of vampires and those who hunt them. Another 1998 film, John Carpenter’s Vampires hit a home run with a lot of vamp fans, but didn’t make much of a mark at the box office. Some felt that the western setting and motif hurt the film, but I thought it was original and fun.1999 brought us the start of Angel, a dramatic television series with a touch of humor based on the vampire character introduced in the Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV show. Wes Craven’s Dracula 2000 was a very scary treat and a great way to usher in the Millennium, from a supernatural perspective. In 2001 John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe starred in Shadow of the Vampire, a movie which presented the fictional idea that a real vampire was used for the filming of Nosferatu. Although it’s kind of an arts film, the slow pace is equaled out by some very frightening moments. 2002’s Queen of the Damned was a less successful adaptation of an Anne Rice story that lacked the star power and humor that Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Christian Slater and a very young Kirsten Dunst brought to Interview With the Vampire.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer reached theaters in 1992 and was a bit of a surprise success. Buffy is introduced as a stereotypical cheerleader at Hemery High School in Los Angeles. She is a carefree popular girl whose main concerns are shopping and spending time with her friends. While at school one day, she is approached by a man named Merrick. He informs her that she is a Slayer or chosen one, and he is a Watcher whose duty it is to guide and train her. At first Buffy refuses to believe his claims, but becomes convinced when he is able to describe a recurring dream of hers in detail.

Over the course of her training, she befriends Oliver Pike, whose best friend has recently become a vampire. Oliver becomes the male equivalent of the traditional damsel in distress being rescued by Buffy or Merrick on several occasions. However, their relationship gradually becomes romantic and Oliver becomes her partner in fighting the undead.

After several successful outings, Buffy is drawn into conflict with a local vampire king named Lothos, who has killed a number of past Slayers. Lothos then kills Merrick as well, giving her the motivation she needs to face him in battle. They eventually clash during the middle of the senior dance at Buffy's high school. Through the use of her own unconventional methods, she is able to defeat Lothos and his minions.

It took a few years, but in 1997 the film became a TV series also called Buffy The Vampire Slayer starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. Although the series maintained the angst and high school foolish fun of the film, it was quite a bit(e) different in terms of the characters. One of the most popular apart from Buffy herself was Angel. He was one of history’s most vampires until he made the mistake of killing a gypsy. Her family cursed him by giving him back his soul causing him to experience unimaginable regret and guilt for all the evil he did.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer aired from March 10, 1997, until May 20, 2003. The series narrative follows Buffy Summers, the latest in a line of young women known as "Vampire Slayers" or simply "Slayers". In the story, Slayers are "called" to battle against vampires, demons and other forces of darkness. Like previous Slayers, Buffy is aided by a Watcher who guides, teaches, and trains her. Unlike her predecessors, Buffy surrounds herself with a circle of loyal friends who become known as the ‘Scoobies’ or ‘Scooby Gang’.

Joss Whedon says that "Rhonda the Immortal Waitress" was really the first incarnation of the Buffy concept, "just the idea of some woman who seems to be completely insignificant who turns out to be extraordinary". This early, un-produced idea evolved into Buffy, which Whedon developed to invert the Hollywood formula of ..the little blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed in every horror movie... Whedon wanted "to subvert that idea and create someone who was a hero". He explained, "The very first mission statement of the show was the joy of female power: having it, using it, sharing it".

The idea was first visited through Whedon's script for the movie which featured Kristy Swanson in the title role. The director, Fran Rubel Kuzui saw it as a "pop culture comedy about what people think about vampires. Whedon disagreed: "I had written this scary film about an empowered woman, and they turned it into a broad comedy. It was crushing." The script was praised within the industry, but the movie was not.

Several years later, Gail Berman, a Fox executive, approached Whedon to develop his Buffy concept into a television series. Whedon explained that "They said, 'Do you want to do a show?' And I thought, 'High school as a horror movie'. And so the metaphor became the central concept behind Buffy, and that's how I sold it." The supernatural elements in the series stood as metaphors for personal anxieties associated with adolescence and young adulthood. Early in its development, the series was going to be simply titled Slayer. Whedon went on to write and partly fund a 25-minute non-broadcast pilot (you can still watch it on YouTube) that was shown to networks and eventually sold to the WB Network. WB promoted the premiere with a series of History of the Slayer clips, and the first episode aired on March 10, 1997.

Angel became a TV series spin-off from Buffy (also the brainchild of Josh Whedon whose film The Avengers has recently broken all sorts of box office records worldwide) and ran from 1999 to 2004. The show details the ongoing trials of Angel a vampire whose human soul was restored to him by gypsies as a punishment for the murder of one of their own. After more than a century of murder and the torture of innocents, Angel's restored soul torments him with guilt and remorse. During the first four seasons of the show, he works as a private detective in a fictionalized version of Los Angeles, California, where he and a variety of associates work to "help the helpless" and to restore the faith and save the souls of those who have lost their way. Typically, this involves doing battle with evil demons or demonically allied humans, primarily related to Wolfram & Hart, a demonic law firm, which, ironically, in season five they work "for". He also has to battle his own demonic nature.

Co-producer David Greenwalt points out, "There's no denying that Angel grew out of Buffy." The character Angel was seen in the first episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer (TV Series) and became a regular, appearing in the opening credits during seasons 2 and 3. According to the fictional universe first established by Slayer, the 'Buffyverse’ Angel was born in 18th century Ireland; after being turned into a soulless, immortal vampire, he became legendary for his evil acts, until a band of wronged Gypsies punished him by restoring his soul, overwhelming him with guilt. Angel eventually set out on a path of redemption, hoping that he could make up for his past through good deeds.

In Buffy's Season Three Finale, Angel leaves Sunnydale for L.A. to continue his atonement without Buffy. Whedon believed that "Angel was the one character who was bigger than life in the same way that Buffy was, a kind of superhero.” Whedon has compared the series to its parent, "It's a little bit more straightforward action show and a little bit more of a guys' show."

While the central concept behind Buffy was "high school as a horror movie" in small-town America, co-creators David Greenwalt and Whedon were looking to make Angel into a different "gritty, urban show." Whedon explained, "We wanted a much darker show, darker in tone. It's set in Los Angeles because there are a lot of demons in L.A. and a wealth of stories to be told. We also wanted to take the show a little older and have the characters deal with demons in a much different way. Buffy is always the underdog trying to save the world, but Angel is looking for redemption. It's those two things that creatively make the shows different."

Whedon and Greenwalt prepared a six-minute promotional video pitch, often called the "Unaired Angel pilot" for the WB Network. Some shots from this short were later used in the opening credits. Early during the life of the series, some effort was made to slightly soften the original concept. For example, scenes were cut from the pilot episode, "City of," in which Angel tasted the blood of a murder victim; the episode that was originally written to be the second episode, "Corrupt", was abandoned altogether. Writer David Fury explained, "The network was shocked. They said 'We can't shoot this. This is way too dark.' We were able to break a new idea, we had to turn it over in three days." Instead, the tone was lightened and the opening episodes established ‘Angel Investigations’ as an idealistic, shoestring operation.

A first draft script reveals that Angel was originally intended to include the character Whistler, played by Max Perlich, who had already been featured in two Buffy episodes. In an interview, Perlich said, "I never got called again. If they had called, I would have probably accepted because it was a great experience and I think Joss is very original and talented." Instead, the producers created a Whistler-like character called 'Doyle’ and brought Cordelia Chase over from the original Sunnydale crew to join Angel and Doyle.

Although the entire story has never been fully told, there seems to have been some problems with Glenn Quinn (1970-2002). He either did not get alone with the producer or director of the show, or had issues that made him hard to work with. It was no secret that Quinn had an addiction problem of some kind that may have lead to his early demise. He was good friends with Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia Chase) and was said to have gotten alone well with his fellow actors.

Doyle was killed off during the early episodes of Angel an replace by Wesley Wyndam-Price (Alexis Denisof) also from Buffy. Other Buffy alumni that joined the Angel cast and became favorites were Spike (James Marsters), Darla (Julie Benz) and Harmony Kendall (Mercedes McNab). Other characters were added and, sad to say, the show was still pulling in good ratings were it was cancelled. The full story behind that has never been told and Angel remains popular as a staple series on TNT each morning.

Vamp films come and go, but Twilight really brought it all home to a new and younger generation of Vampire fans. Teens and Tween bought and loved the original and subsequent novels which have been turned into successful films, but the story is what really interests fans and those who have read the Twilight Book series by Stephenie Meyer know and love the story:

Isabella Swan moves from sunny Phoenix, Arizona to dreary and almost always rainy Forks, Washington (a fictional town) to live with her father Charlie while her mother Renee travels with her new husband, Phil Dwyer, a minor league baseball player. Bella attracts much attention at her new school and is quickly befriended by several students. Much to her dismay, several boys compete for shy Bella's attention.

When Bella is seated next to Edward Cullen in class on her first day of school, Edward seems utterly repulsed by her. He disappears for a few days, but warms up to Bella upon his return; their newfound relationship reaches a climax when Bella is nearly crushed by a classmate's van in the school parking lot. Edward saves Bella when he instantaneously appears next to her and stops the van with his bare hands.

Bella becomes determined to discover how Edward saved her life, and constantly pesters him with questions. After a family friend named Jacob Black tells her the local tribal legends, Bella concludes that Edward and his family are vampires who drink animal blood rather than human. Edward confesses that he initially avoided Bella because the scent of her blood was too desirable to him. Over time, Edward and Bella fall in love.

Their relationship is affected when a nomadic vampire coven arrives in Forks. James (a tracker vampire) who is intrigued by the Cullens' relationship with a human, wants to hunt Bella for sport. The Cullens attempt to distract James by separating Bella and Edward, and send Bella to hide in a hotel in Phoenix. There, Bella receives a phone call from James, who claims to be holding her mother captive.

When Bella surrenders herself, James attacks her. Before James can kill her, Edward, along with the other Cullens, rescues her and destroy James, but not before James had bit Bella's hand. Edward successfully sucks the poison from her bloodstream and prevents her from becoming a vampire, after which she is taken to a hospital. Upon returning to Forks, Bella and Edward attend their school prom, and Bella expresses her desire to become a vampire, but Edward refuses and on it goes...

Stephenie Meyer says that the idea for Twilight came to her in a dream on June 2, 2003. The dream was about a human girl, and a vampire who was in love with her but thirsted for her blood. Based on this dream, Meyer wrote the transcript of what is now Chapter 13 of the book.The first drafts were titled Forks instead of Twilight before the publisher requested to change the title. At first, she didn't use names to refer to Bella and Edward, instead she used 'She' and 'He'. Later on, Charlotte Bronte's ‘Mr Rochester’ and Jane Austin's ‘Mr Ferrars’ led her to choose the name Edward for her male character, while she named her female lead Isabella because it would have been the name she would have chosen for her daughter if she had one. Rosalie and Jasper were originally named Carol and Ronald.

Meyer continued writing to the end chronologically, not worrying about the backstory. She lettered the chapters instead of numbering them, Chapter 13 being E. The last chapter of the first draft kept getting longer and longer, so she wrote epilogue after epilogue. However, she realized that she wanted to explore a lot of the events of the back-story and the reasons behind the events of the chapters she wrote, so, planning to write the back-story in five or six chapters, it turned out to be twelve chapters in the end.

In a matter of three months she had transformed her dream into a completed novel, though she claims that she never intended to publish Twilight and was writing for her own enjoyment. After a summer of detachment from the world, immersed in writing, she finished the manuscript on August 29, 2003.

Her sister's response towards the book was enthusiastic and she persuaded Meyer to send the manuscript to literary agencies. Of the 15 letters she wrote, five went unanswered, nine brought rejections, and the last was a positive response from Jodi Reamer of Writers House. During the editing process, a chapter that used to be Chapter 20 was cut out of the manuscript along with Emmett's account of his bear attack and some parts of the epilogue.

Despite all the ‘Johnny Come Lately’ vampire characters, a non-stop selection of cable documentaries about Dracula, his castle and vampires connected to Drac seems to indicate that people have yet to get their fill of the original fictional creature of the night. However, the same may be said of the subject of Vampires in-general. More films are planned and, unless they cancel Halloween, we are likely to be informed and entertained by vampire stories on the large and small screens, as well as online, for years to come.

IV. Motivated By A Thirst For Blood

Most people labeled as Vampires after being accused or convicted of a terrible crime may have had an unusual thirst or need for blood. Hungarian Countess Erzebet Bathory, who lived in Vienna in the early 1600s, beat and tortured her servants and may have bathed in their blood believing it would restore her youth. Another Hungarian, Bela Kiss, murdered his wife, neighbor and up to twenty young girls in Budapest before he died while at war in 1914. The bodies were later discovered stored in metal drums, with bite marks on their necks and completely drained of blood. In 1996 a sixteen-year-old boy named Roderick Ferrell organized a group of Kentucky Teens into a Vampire Cult. They were all fans of the role-playing game, Vampire: The Masquerade. The group went to Florida and murdered the parents of a former girlfriend. Ferrell was later arrested, convicted and sentenced to execution.

Not all vampire incidents are as easy to explain as the crimes committed by wannabe vampires who end up dead or arrested. One of the most puzzling of all factual vampire-related crimes and incidents is the case of the High Gate Cemetery Vampire of England. Oddly enough, it was the western section of that British Cemetery that inspired Bram Stoker in his depiction of some settings for the tale of Dracula.

During the late 1960s, several British children found a shortcut to their school through the western section of High Gate Cemetery in London. As they started using the shortcut on a daily basis in the early morning, some strange things happened. Several of the children became sick and were diagnosed as having experienced a significant loss of blood, along with unusual bite marks on their necks. At the same time, residents of the area began reporting their dogs missing.

Dog carcasses began to turn up inside and near the cemetery. Most died of blood loss and also had strange bite marks on their bodies. A number of credible witnesses reported seeing hooded figures hunched over the dogs as they were dying. An occult group dedicated to the eradication of vampires started patrolling the area, adding to the confusion and weirdness. They actually went around digging up bodies and sticking them with stakes! Needless to say, the group quickly wore out their welcome and had problems with local law enforcement. By the early 1970s, things quieted down as children stopped taking the shortcut through the cemetery and most people kept their pets indoors at night. Although the case remains unsolved, one event put a cap on the whole thing.

A British Policeman on patrol just outside High Gate Cemetery one evening noticed a hooded figure bent over the body of a dog. The animal seemed to be in great distress. As the Officer approached the hooded figure, it turned to look at him. The Officer could clearly see that the hooded figure had no face! It then turned and vanished before his eyes. The dog died of a loss of blood and this is the how the Officer reported the incident. Like so many unexplained events, the case was quietly filed away.

There has never been a shortage of crimes committed by wannabe Vamps who have committed horrific crimes:

1861 - Martin Dumollard of Montluel, France, was convicted of murdering several young girls whose blood he drank. He was executed.

1872 - Vincenzo Verzeni of Bottanaucco, Italy, was sentenced to life imprisonment in two cases of murder and four of attempted murder. He confessed that drinking the blood of his victims gave him immense satisfaction.

1897 - Joseph Vacher of Bourg, France, while on a walking tour through the country, killed at least a dozen people and drank their blood from bites in their neck. He was finally captured, convicted, and executed.

1916 - Following a notice that Bela Kiss, of Czinkota, Hungary, had been killed in World War I, neighbors searched his property and found the bodies of 31 individuals, all of whom had been strangled. Each corpse possessed puncture wounds in the neck and had been drained of blood.

1920 - Baron Roman von Sternberg-Ungern, a nobleman in post-revolutionary Russia, drank human blood on occasion, seemingly in connection with a belief that he was a reincarnation of Genghis Khan. For his habits (and other reasons), he came into conflict with the new government and was executed.

1947 - Elizabeth Short of Hollywood, California, was murdered and her body dismembered. Later examination discovered that her body had been drained of its blood before the dismemberment.

1959 - Salvatore Agron, a 16-year-old resident of New York City, was convicted of several murders that he carried out at night while dressed as a Bela Lugosi-style vampire. In court he claimed to be a vampire. He was executed for his crimes.

1960 - Florencio Roque Fernandez of Manteros, Argentina, was arrested after being picked out of a line-up by 15 women who said someone had entered their bedroom, bit them, and drank their blood.

1963 - Alfred Kaser of Munich, Germany, was tried for killing a 10-year-old boy. He drank blood from the boy's neck after stabbing him.

1969 - Stanislav Modzieliewski of Lodz, Poland, was convicted of seven murders and six attempted murders. One witness against him was a young woman he attacked, who pretended to be dead while he drank blood from her. Modzieliewski confessed to thinking that blood was delicious.

1971 - Wayne Boden was arrested for a series of murders that began in 1968. In each case he had handcuffed the victim, raped her, and then bit her and sucked blood from her breast.

1973 - Kuno Hoffman of Hurnber, Germany, confessed to murdering two people and drinking their blood and to digging up and drinking the blood of several corpses. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

1979 - Richard Cottingham was arrested for raping, slashing, and drinking the blood of a young prostitute. It was later discovered that he had killed a number of women, and in most cases had bitten them and lapped up their blood.

1980 - James P. Riva shot his grandmother and drank the blood coming from the wound. He later said that several years earlier he had begun to hear the voices of a vampire, who eventually had told him what to do and promised him eternal life.

1982 - Julian Koltun of Warsaw, Poland, was sentenced to death for raping seven women and drinking their blood. He killed two of the women.

1984 - Renato Antonio Cirillo was tried for the rape and vampire-style biting of more than 40 women.

1985 - John Crutchley was arrested for raping a woman. He held her prisoner and drank much of her blood. It was later discovered that he had been drinking the blood of more willing donors for many years.

1987 - A jogger in a San Francisco park was kidnapped and held for an hour in a van while a man drank his blood.

1988 - An unknown woman picked up at least six men over the summer in the Soho section of London. After she returned home with a victim, she slipped drugs into his drink. While he was unconscious, she cut his wrist and sucked his blood. She was never arrested.

1991 - Marcelo da Andrade of Rio de Janeiro killed 14 young boys, after which he drank their blood and ate some of their flesh.

1992 - Andrei Chikatilo of Rostov, Russia, was sentenced to death after confessing to killing some 55 people whom he vampirized and cannibalized.

1992 - Deborah Joan Finch was tried for the murder of a neighbor. She stabbed the victim 27 times and then drank the flowing blood.

2001 - a 17-year-old boy named Matthew Hardman killed a 90-year-old widow, Mabel Leyshon, at her home in Llanfairpwll, Anglesey, north Wales, last November before stabbing her to death, cutting out her heart and drinking her blood.

V. The Gothic Lifestyle

For years people have dressed up as Vampires for Halloween and other special occasions. But some never stopped! Over the past forty years more then a few people have spent a good part their lives living like vampires. For most, just dressing the part is enough. Others feel a need to actually drink or suck blood. Although dangerous in a day when blood born diseases pose such a threat to humanity, most involved in the blood drinking or sucking only participate in the fetish with one person or an exclusive group of people.

Today, people who dress like vampires as politely referred to as participating in the Gothic Lifestyle. It’s an umbrella term that covers everyone including those with a blood drinking or sucking fetish. The mere fact that people are still emulating what was laid down as vampire characteristics, dress and behavior in the Dracula novel and films after so many years, indicates the strong appeal and enduring quality of the legend. Since it’s publication in 1897, Dracula has never been out of print!

You can email Aislinn Satu at aislinnsatubooks@gmail.com

Visit Aislinn’s web site at http://jsi4.tripod.com/js/index.html

Aislinn Satu, 2012

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