Everybody’s talking about I Am Legend, The Omega Man and Last Man on Earth, but no one is discussing Santo vs. The Vampire Women.

Plot: In a time when vampires were hot, a cabal of vampire women ruled over by Augusto, the Lord of Darkness, seek out an innocent young lady who holds the key to bringing about a demonic apocalypse, and only one man can stop them. Motherfucking Santo.

One thing I learned from Santo Vs. The Vampire Women is that humanity has been tricked into believing that vampires only have very specific weaknesses. We should just punch them. In the face. And if they get up, keep on punching. Punch them until the break of dawn. Baby got it goin’ on. Then dropkick the ashes.

Also, vampires will disguise themselves as luchadors and try to use karate on you so they can steal your mask. It may not seem fair, but at that point it’s alright to use karate on them yourself.

Author Simon Clark has been terrorizing Britain and the world at large for nearly 2 decades. His visceral, doom-laden prose is so relentless that it’s almost a miracle he manages to cram a little hope in there. I especially recommend Mr. Clark’s evolutionary takes on the zombie archetype, Stranger and Blood Crazy, both of which freaked me out. His latest includes The Rage of Echoes, a twist on the vampire mythos which just hit North America in paperback form last month, and if you’re lucky enough to live in the U.K. you can grab Lucifer’s Ark, a tale of psychosis on the high seas, on sale this month.

GHOSTWATCH. A MASTER CLASS IN HORROR.

You know something? I now own GHOSTWATCH on DVD. And it is still frightening.

I may have been hasty in denouncing the new, sunnier ending concocted for the most recent adaptation of I Am Legend. I’ve spent the last 24 hours, both asleep and awake, happily imagining new ways to end the film.

For instance, the creatures capture Will Smith and drag him blindfolded to his fate. They reach their destination, take off the blindfold, and Will Smith discovers that they’ve resculpted the Statue of Liberty in his image, with the inscription “I Am Lejend” scratched into the base, not unlike the statue of Michael Jackson from the infamous HIStory video. Speechless in his disbelief, Will Smith turns to the leader of the creatures who rests his hand on Smith’s chest and intones, with some difficulty, the word “Friend”. Will Smith replies in kind, and the screen fades to black as the sun rises on a new day.

Leave your own faux-happy endings, for I Am Legend or any other downbeat horror movie, in the comments below. My favourite entry will receive a DVD copy of the surprisingly fun Flight of the Living Dead as well as any other goodies I can gather together.

Thanks to JA for “Lejend”.

I haven’t really been following the latest adaptation of I Am Legend, so it came as a bit of a surprise to me that not only did they reshoot the ending to make it less dismal, but apparently their first take wasn’t faithful to the source material to begin with. What, is it going to end with the vampires wheeling out a giant cake that says “Congratulations! You Am Legend!”

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I rarely get worked up about lousy interpretations of my favourite genre offerings. I stopped caring long before my top three horror movies were remade into shoddy copies, so it isn’t the fact that they’re tinkering with my favourite horror novel that has me upset. I’m just dismayed that my estimation of Hollywood could sink even lower. Why purchase the rights to I Am Legend only to change arguably the best part of the novel? Isn’t that a little like buying the rights to Jaws and asking Steven Spielberg to take out the shark?

This reminds me of what happened with the movie Payback. Director Brian Helgeland wanted to succeed where others had failed and make a straight-up, modestly budgeted adaptation of a Richard Stark novel. Then Mel Gibson became interested. By the time the studio was done with it Helgeland was kicked out of the editing suite, just about every scene was altered, an additional third of the movie was tacked on, and Payback was a farce.

There’s no reason that I Am Legend couldn’t be made on a tiny budget which would allow for greater artistic risks and less of a need for a huge return. 30 Days of Night certainly showed that it was possible. Add Will Smith and the outlandish budget that comes with him and suddenly Robert Neville’s greatest threat isn’t creatures of the night but focus groups and nervous executives.

One thing’s for sure. I’d love to see this creative team take a crack at something like Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl.

One of the most influential names in modern horror fiction, Anne Rice reinvented Gothic fiction for the latter half of the 20th Century and beyond. While she’s best known for her Vampire Chronicles, it’s another horror icon that instilled in her a fascination with the macabre, as you’ll see below.

What first frightened me and frightened me terrible was a cheap B movie about “the Mummy.” It showed the bandaged figure of the mummy staggering relentlessly towards his victims, with one hand out, dragging one foot as he bore down on them; and it terrified me so badly that I never quite recovered; it was an image of death, of mortality — in action. In other words, I saw death coming for us in this moving image. — The last scene in the film, where the mummy staggers into the swamp carrying his beloved, who slowly changes from a vital woman into a twisted dried up corpse herself put me over the edge. I had nightmares and as I said never recovered. This was an iconic lesson in mortality delivered with a power that written words did not have. I have spent my life responding to the images in that film.

I couldn’t let this one go without wishing Ms. Rice a very happy birthday!

Our first guest is David Wellington, author of the acclaimed zombie trilogy Monster Island, Monster Nation and Monster Planet. David got his start online and continues to move effortlessly between print, such as his latest, the vampire action novel 13 Bullets, and the internet, with the post-apocalyptic zombie saga Plague Zone and the frozen werewolf terror of Frostbite. All of his horror tales are still available for free online at the links above, and if you like what you see please consider purchasing the print editions.

David’s encounter with terror is near and dear to my heart, as I had an almost identical experience. I don’t doubt a few of you will feel the same.

A lot of things scared me when I was a kid. The first I can remember was a special news report in 1981 by Walter Cronkite called “The Defense of the United States”, a documentary about what we could expect following a global thermonuclear war. I was nine years old at the time, and in love with special effects movies and had heard there were going to be some state of the art “recreations” included in the show. I begged and pleaded to be allowed to watch, sitting through endless talking head interviews I couldn’t understand, wondering if this dud was ever going to pay off. Boy, did it. About halfway through the program Cronkite warned that what we were about to see was a simulation based on the best available data, and that sensitive viewers might want to look away. You got to see what would happen to downtown Omaha Nebraska when the bomb hit. Exploding buildings, people with melting faces… for years afterward I ran and hid under my bed every time an airplane passed over the house, convinced it could be a Russian bomber.

Then there was the time my parents stayed out till two in the morning, and at midnight they started playing The Shining on HBO. I don’t think I need to go into details. When the front door opened and my Dad stepped inside, a little drunk and pissed that I was still awake… well. We’ve all been there, I suppose.

My previous post about the odds of the world seeing Vampires fight zombies in our lifetime made me question whether vampires and zombies have ever crossed paths before. Happily, the tribute site for The Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency has the answer.

…in ancient times zombies and vampires were frequently pitted against each other for the enjoyment of bloodthirsty spectators. So which is more formidable? It’s a question I’m commonly asked.

The Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency tribute site contains everything you need to know concerning about this defunct organization. The site also contains interactive cases so you can determine your suitability in facing undead terrors, movie reviews rated according to both entertainment as well as factual content and who would come out on top when you throw werewolves into a vampire/zombie brawl.

Is the return of the cherished monster rally a healthy indicator of creature features to come, or is have we just reached the bottom of the barrel and are mixing things up just to appear fresh? In all likelihood it was Underworld that started the trend with its war between Werewolves and Vampires, but a few years later another project is hoping to combine vampires with the current fan favourite, zombies. From CHUD.

In Huston’s novel, vampires are, of course, afflicted with a virus, causing them to give up Diet Coke and forcing them to drink blood to survive. They’re keeping a low profile in Manhattan, but have their own sub-societal culture, complete with cliques varying from corporate suits to biker gangs. The protagonist is private eye Joe Pitt, hired to track down a high-profile daughter in the middle of a subculture at war against zombies, wraiths and the infighting vampire factions.

Alright, so they’re probably pre-Romero zombies as opposed to the modern type. But it’s just a matter of time before we once again see werewolves, vampires, the undead and mad scientists rubbing shoulders once again.

People who manage the estates of deceased literary figures always seem to be dredging up some long-lost manuscript or other piece of ephemera, the better to keep the money flowing. I hope that no one decides to go through my reject pile after I’m gone, though I’m guessing my best work wouldn’t compare to a Pulitzer and Nobel-prize winning author’s worst. That’s right, the estate of William Faulkner has dug up an unproduced script for a movie. The kicker? One of the most esteemed authors of the 20th-century was hiding a vampire movie in the attic.

In the midst of all this, Faulkner apparently spun out a vampire saga set in an anonymous Eastern European location. Caplin plans to relocate the story to the Deep South and has a high-end computer-graphics firm on the hook to dress it up with modern effects.

I can understand the desire to take discarded or forgotten works and squeeze the last bit of life out of the estate, and in some ways I appreciate the look at an author’s rough drafts and neglected tales. But to take a critically-acclaimed author’s rediscovered work and spin it into another Venom is just beyond belief.

Your Mom’s Basement offers up a debate which attempts to settle the age old question; who would win in a fight between Dracula and Frankenstein? Taking the Dracula side is scholar Jesse Farrell.

Dracula is the ruler of Transylvania, in fact he is the COUNT of Transylvania but Frankenstein’s monster isn’t king of anything… Except maybe Burger King (ha ha!) Because of this Dracula wears a cape and other awesome clothes that never get dirty or rip even when he fights or transforms to animals forms (I forgot he can transform into wolf-mode, too). Frankenstein on the other hand wears dirty, torn pants and has a rope for a belt. He looks like a homeless person.

Oh, snap! In Frankenstein’s corner can be found horror expert Marty Allen.

Frankenstein is made up of dead bodies and then came to life because of lightning. Dracula came to life because he was being dumb and let some other stupid Dracula bite his neck. So if Dracula even tried to eat Frankenstein’s blood that would probably kill Dracula, too, because it would be either dead body blood or lightning blood. And either one would probably light him on fire which is a good way to kill Dracula.

What an enlightening read. I never even considered the possiblity of Lightning Blood. To read the full thing, head over to Your Mom’s Basement, and let us know who you think won the debate in the comments below.

The following is my contribution to the Film Experience Vampire Blog-A-Thon. Check it out.

Like garlic and running water, there exists in this world certain elements which I try my best to avoid. One of those is the Vampire. While I can forgive even a bad movie, book or comic many faults if it features a type of character which I have a weakness for, such as Underwater Nazi Zombies or Post-Apocalyptic Barbarians, Vampires automatically receive a few knocks against it before I even crack open the case or pages. It’s true, I’m prejudiced against Vampires.

I do have a reason for this seemingly unfounded intolerance. I have enjoyed the occassional vampire story over the years, but it has to be told within a particular style for me to sink my teeth into it. I can’t stand the romantic vampire, or even the vampire story which attempts to rationalize a vampire’s existence in the real world, with various cliques and traditions. Even the tragic vampire story starring a protagonist who fights his affliction holds no real interest for me. I leave that one for the werewolves. This may seem to suggest that I’m just being cranky and would rather these types of vampire stories shouldn’t exist, but considering they have an audience which enjoys them, I bear no ill will. Rather, I become so frustrated at not being able to seperate the kind of vampire story I like from all the rest that I’ve practically given up on the genre, a defeatist stance that resulted in my avoiding the magnificent I Am Legend for so long.

So if I don’t enjoy the permutations of vampire fiction detailed above, what do I like? Nothing scares me as much, or keeps drawing me back as frequently, as loss of self. And, again, I don’t mean a gradual loss, the kind that results in a protagonist sacrificing their life for a loved one, or retaining just enough control to herocially alter events. No, what hits me hardest are those bleak vampire stories in which the character almost instantaneously turns into a feeding machine, it’s emotions swept away by an insatiable need to prey upon mankind, including and especially loved ones. The very idea that one overwhelming biological change could so alter a lifetime’s worth of moral guidance makes me anxious just thinking about it.

This, to me, is pure horror. Love, compassion, heroism and all the other traits humanity clings to made meaningless with a simple bite on the neck.

It’s still not official, but Dread Central has the scoop on the probable demise of the Blade television series. I watched the pilot episode, but like many the series didn’t manage to keep my interest. Unlike many, I had no problem with the lead and thought he did a wonderful job filling in for Snipes. It just seemed as if they were covering the same ground as the movies with a streetwise vampire hunter taking down the aristocratic vampire elite, and I’m pretty much finished with that Anne Rice nonsense, especially since that kind of storyline didn’t seem as if it would be taking advantage of the wonderful locale. Oh, well.

In more positive Daywalker news, comic artist Howard Chaykin has been busy illustrating the new adventures of Blade over at Marvel Comics, and he talks shop over at Newsarama. It’s too bad Marvel isn’t getting any more of my money, or I would probably pick this up.

Recent years have seen horror films which were scorned upon their initial release dragged out of the vaults, dusted off, and given a well-deserved polish. Unfortunately, the same resepct hasn’t been afforded their counterparts in comics. First there was the unnecessary retooling of the EC Comics, and now Marvel Comics is bortching their own material by censoring their Bronze Age horror reprints. The Groovy Age of Horror has posted just a few side-by-side examples showing the difference between the original Tomb of Dracula published over a quater-century ago and the reprints from the most recent Essential volume. Essentially abhorrent, maybe.

I hate when companies hire hacks to go in and retool someone’s hard work, especially when they make no effort to warn the public that they’re receiving damaged goods. And does anyone else find it the least bit disturbing that we’re growing more close-minded and puritanical as the years progress? How is it that the Marvel of 30 years ago was more daring than the supposedly edgy Marvel of today? What does everyone else think?