I’m glad to be able to put in a good word here for heart-throb American actor Johnny Depp, given the hard time he’s been getting in the press lately, with his good name being dragged through the mud and all that. This, in my humble opinion, is one of his best movies.
He’s really good at playing quirky oddbods like Ed Wood, the man sometimes deemed to be the worst film director of all time, and he imbues this performance with all the heart, charm and quirky (yes, again!) humour of which he is capable.
The film portrays budding ‘50s film director, Ed Wood, making basically two science fiction exploitation films, the first being Christine Jorgensen’s life story, filmed as I CHANGED MY SEX or GLEN OR GLENDA by the cross-dressing Ed Wood, the man with a passion for soft, angora sweaters nicked from his girlfriend Dolores. She’s played by Sarah Jessica Parker, of SEX AND THE CITY FAME.It’s not really Ed’s film, as he’s directing it for producer George Weiss, who’s putting up the dough.
The sex-change movie flops, even though Ed Wood has managed to cast his new best friend in it, the former horror actor Bela Lugosi. There’s a really touching relationship/friendship between the two men. Bela is the wise old mentor who’s lived through the golden age of UNIVERSAL horror and Hollywood and has many and varied opinions on things, while Ed Wood just laps up every word that falls from the old man’s lips.
They are teacher and pupil, mentor and mentee, uncle and nephew, even father and son. Ed is even the man Bela calls when he accidentally overdoses on the drugs to which he’s been addicted for years. I love when they’re sitting together in Bela’s mausoleum of a house, the two of them watching his old horror movies together with the two yappy little doggies in tow.
Ed then gets Bela to star in his own film, BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, with Bela attached to play the lead role, a mad scientist/doctor-type who wants to get his revenge on the world by unleashing a race of super-human beings on it, even though he never gets so far as to work on these superior beings, I believe. The movie is a critical and commercial flop, and causes people to riot in the cinemas. Never a good sign, that…
With backing from the church, of all people, the permanently optimistic and upbeat Ed sets out to independently make the film for which he’ll be forever remembered: PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, initially known as GRAVE ROBBERS FROM OUTER SPACE, but the Churchies didn’t dig it…
PLAN 9 will be the last movie ever to star horror legend Bela Lugosi. Footage of his final scenes are heart-breaking. Oh, how Bela had longed to be back in the movie-making business! Martin Landau won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his marvellously sympathetic, delicately nuanced portrayal of the has-been, washed-up actor, two phrases I dislike using in connection with possibly the best horror actor the world has ever seen. Karloff? Don’t say his name in front of Bela. Pah, Karloff!
PLAN 9 is a ludicrous mix of live action with stock cinema footage left over from other productions, props unashamedly nicked by Ed & Co. from other productions and home-made flying saucers incinerated on the set, and all shot at night so they could have the run of the studio and everything in it before the ‘real,’ ‘serious’ film-makers and crews start work for the day.
I adore Lisa Marie as Maila Nurmi, aka the wasp-waisted horror hostess Vampira, and George Steele as professional wrestler Tor Johnson, who each appear in PLAN 9. Bill Murray has a small but very funny part as Ed’s sardonic drag queen friend, and I love Jeffrey Jones as the Great Criswell, a psychic TV entertainer and friend of Ed’s who was known for making mostly wildly inaccurate predictions, lol.
Little Max Casella went on to play Benny Fazio in THE SOPRANOS, my favourite television show ever, and I love that Kathy O’Hara, Ed’s girlfriend after Dolores Fuller, is okay with Ed’s transvestism. He’s not a ‘fruit,’ by the way, he still likes sex with girls! It’s just that he likes to wear their clothes, too!
I really love the scene at the end where Ed and Kathy drive to Vegas in the lashing rain after the premiere of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, the film for which Ed confidently predicts that he’ll be remembered. Oh, that we all could be as optimistic as Ed!
This is a great film about one helluva nice guy who deserves this loving tribute. Him and Bela too. I expect they’re up there together right now, Ed in fluffy pink angora, Bela in his Dracula togs, gabbing awayand watching Bela’s old movies. Good on ya, guys. You’ve earned it.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Vampirology. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
It was a dull, damp and foggy Monday morning in London. Sherlock Holmes, the great detective, lay stretched out full-length in his favourite armchair, too overcome by the familiar ennui to even smoke his pipe.
Dr. John H. Watson, M.D., standing at the window of his friend’s consulting rooms at 221B Baker Street looking down on the swell of humanity as it ebbed and flowed like the mighty Thames on the streets below him, very much feared that Holmes was on the verge of having recourse to the dreaded cocaine bottle and syringe once more.
Were it not for the fact that both bottle and syringe currently resided on the high mantelpiece above the fireplace and Holmes in his ennui could not be bothered to get up from his comfortable seat and fetch them, he might be in thrall to them even now. In this instance, Dr. Watson sent up a prayer of thanks to whomever might be listening that Holmes was such an indolent bastard at times.
He was deeply worried for his friend’s mental health. For days now, the dearth of clients and puzzles to keep his genius’s mind sharp and clear had caused him to sink deeper and deeper into a brown study.
He didn’t even want to play some of their favourite games any more, like ‘Doctor and Patient’ and ‘Docky-Wocky Sucky-Wucky Ickle-Wickle Cocky-Wocky.’ When Sherlock Holmes declined to play ‘Docky-Wocky Sucky-Wucky Ickle-Wickle Cocky-Wocky’ with his closest friend, Dr. John H. Watson M.D., then you knew you had a potential catastrophe on your hands. If some business didn’t present itself at their rooms very, very soon, God alone knew on what self-destructive course the bored and depressed famous detective might embark.
‘I say, Holmes, it looks like a case might be presenting itself at last, if I’m not mistaken!’ uttered Watson excitedly now from his vantage point at the window. ‘Yes, indeed, they’re standing now on the path opposite, waiting for a break in the traffic, now they’re looking up at our windows, no doubt wondering if the great detective is in situ. Oh yes, they’re crossing swiftly now that the traffic has eased somewhat, crossing, crossing, and yes! There is the ring at the bell that signifies that we shall soon have a visitor.’
‘Excellent, Watson, excellent! Now hush, not a word, while I endeavour to reconstruct a thumbnail sketch of our visitor from the facts at our disposal.’ Still stretched out in his armchair, he closed his eyes and dramatically placed the two forefingers of each hand over both of his closed eyelids.
‘Now, let me see. Elderly man, rigid military bearing, leathery tanned skin as testament to his long years in India. Not a subaltern, but a high-up officer, a general, or an old major, maybe. Walks with a pronounced limp in the left leg, caught some sniper shrapnel in India, perhaps. Uses a stick made of briar. Addicted to snuff, and the rather dubious confection known as pear drops. Keeps bull mastiffs. Bitten once, on the left ankle, left a scar. Keeps bees, too, like I intend to do when I retire to Sussex. Kept fish as a boy. Sang in a choir in his youth, till nodules on the vocal cords put paid to all that. There. What do you think, Watson? Have I hit the mark again?’
Dr. Watson stared at his friend in astonishment. ‘Why, Holmes, what a marvel you are! But unfortunately, in this instance, I rather fear that…’
What Dr. Watson rather feared, Sherlock Holmes was destined never to know, for at that moment came an urgent rapping at the door and the housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson, a stout, matronly woman of a certain age with a permanent expression of harassment and exasperation, bustled into the room followed by a handsomely dressed middle-aged woman of obvious means.
‘Mr. Holmes,’ gasped Mrs. Hudson, out of breath again after the stairs, ‘this is Lady Chastity Wilberforce-Belvedere, or is it Lady Chastity Belvedere-Wilberforce? I declare, those stairs have fair turned my brain!’
She huffed and puffed her way out of the room, leaving the handsome woman standing in the middle of the room.
‘Pray be seated, my Lady,’ said Dr. Watson, a great admirer of the fair sex when his time wasn’t being completely taken up by Holmes, who was needy and a psychic-vampire, someone who drew his own energy from draining the life-force out of the people around him. He pulled out a chair for her, directly across from Holmes’s armchair, because he knew his friend liked to get a good look at his clients during interviews.
‘Is the Major following behind you?’ said Holmes smugly, steepling his long thin fingers and casting anticipatory glances towards the door under languid, partially closed lids.
‘The Major?’ exclaimed the visitor in obvious surprise. ‘What Major? There is no Major, Mr. Holmes! There is only myself.’
Holmes’s long face turned a dull red with embarrassment at being not only wrong, but quite badly wrong, while Watson did his utmost to suppress a snigger. He was only successful inasmuch as he managed to turn the snigger into a cough, but, judging by the way Holmes was glowering at him, he’d still have to spend the entire evening playing ‘Docky-Wocky Sucky-Wucky Ickle-Wickle Cocky-Wocky’ in order to placate his mortified friend.
‘Pray, Lady Charity…’ began Holmes.
‘Chastity, Mr. Holmes, Chastity,’ said the woman sternly.
‘Pray, Lady Chastity,’ tried Holmes again, ‘be so kind as to state the precise nature of your business. Please to leave out all but the most salient facts.’
‘I am here to bring a ‘Missing Persons’ case to your attention, Mr. Holmes.’
‘The person’s name?’ inquired Holmes in his most bored voice. Christ, the man was such a rude prick at times, best friend or no, thought Dr. Watson crossly.
‘Jeremy Wintergreen,’ said the woman.‘He’s been missing now in Transylvania for some time…’
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Vampirology. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
I recently discovered this little illustrated gem of a book on my son’s bookshelf, and remembered then having bought it for him when he was younger in an attempt to encourage him to read independently.
Now I’ve had a proper read of it, I’m making an executive decision and totally commandeering it for myself. It’s far too good to waste on the young, lol, and can only properly be appreciated by persons of mature(ish!) age such as myself.
It tells what I call the real Dracula story, as in the one Bram Stoker wrote, with little or no variations, which I like. I like the pure unadulterated story myself, and I tend to get heart attacks when people mess with it, such as in the 2020 New Year BBC television Dracula. Although I could forgive a hunky Dracula such as Claes Bang anything, especially if he’s going to do those delicious nudie scenes…
Anyway, the book starts, as it should, with real estate clerk John Harker making what is possibly the longest fictional journey ever to set the seal on a property deal. He travels to darkest Transylvania in Romania to meet with the mysterious and rich Count Dracula, who wishes to purchase a house near to where John lives in jolly old England.
I think it’s safe to say that the artist who did the fabulous illustrations in the book was a fan of the 1931 UNIVERSAL film version of Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi. He’s created a village very similar to the UNIVERSAL one, which I love because I adore those old movies.
It’s got winding streets, worried villagers clad in sort of Tyrolean dress like they are in the old fillums, and there’s even a barefoot busty blonde maiden crossing the street with her basket of produce who wouldn’t be out of place in a Hammer film.
Hammer Films, of course, had their Dracula-slash-vampire canon which we horror fans will know intimately by now. Christopher Lee was their Count in seven movies made between 1958 and 1972, but they made several other excellent vampire films as well, such as BRIDES OF DRACULA, KISS OF THE VAMPIRE and VAMPIRE CIRCUS.
Anyway, above the village on its very own mountain towers Castle Dracula, and when the villagers in the local inn find out that John actually intends travelling up there to meet the Count, they all have collective heart attacks. The portly, pint-pulling innkeeper and the two busty Hammer-esque barmaids are particularly well drawn in the pub scene.
John, as we know, has come all this way to do a job, so he supposes he’d better do it, and he makes his way up to the infamous Borgo Pass- try getting a taxi up there at night and you’ll see what I mean!- where a mysterious coachman with four super-spooky skeletal horses picks him up and takes him to where he needs to go… Castle Dracula…
The Count is waiting. His ramshackle castle looks just like Bela Lugosi’s in the 1931 film and is beyond cool. A crumbling staircase, bats, ancient candelabra, high windows; it’s everything you could wish for in a Dracula’s Castle-type situation.Except maybe for an armadillo or two…!
John has his meal and pricks his finger, making it bleed. Dracula’s strange reaction, and the presence in the castle of the three busty, sexy, negligee-clad corpse brides of Dracula complete with fangs and a raging blood-lust combine to convince poor John that maybe the villagers were right all along. Maybe Dracula is an evil, blood-sucking vampire and he should never have come up here…
By the time John realises this, of course, it’s too late. He’s a prisoner in Castle Dracula and the Count himself is hastening to England, and John’s hot fiancée, Mina. John has only the sex-crazed wives to keep him company, although, as this is a child’s book, the sex is only implied, lol.
Do you know the rest of the story? Dracula, installed in Carfax Abbey; Mina losing more and more of her strength- and blood- every night thanks to his nocturnal visits; the doctors baffled, unable to help her; then the calling in of the eccentric Doctor Van Helsing to accurately diagnose the situation and suggest a solution.
The drawings of the Count’s Carfax Abbey cellar, complete with coffins and his deranged (only deranged BECAUSE of Dracula), bug-eating assistant, Renfield, are so bloody good that they make you feel you’re really there.
Will John be in time to save Mina, and also for the inevitable showdown between Van Helsing and the evil, power-crazed Count Dracula, who wants to suck the blood of everyone in England?
How would that work, anyway? Would it be like waiting for a vaccine, with portals and cohorts and online registration and all that? For something bad, they’d probably (ironically) get it organised super-quick, lol.
None of this old I’ve been waiting six whole weeks to get my blood-sucking and four of my neighbours, who are all younger than me with no underlying health conditions, have gotten theirs first and I’m spitting with rage bullshit. Can’t you just see it?
Wouldn’t that be funny, though? A frazzled Dracula would be on the news and all the talk shows, saying: I am doing my best to get around to everybody as quickly as I can, but I am only one man, for the love of God…! Until the government allocate sufficient numbers of flies and bugs for me to entice my helpers with, a good many more people will continue to walk around well and healthy and there will be nothing I can do about it…! Lol, lol, lollity lol.
Anyway, this is the best children’s book on the subject of Dracula I’ve ever come across. The story is simply and accurately told, with none of that nonsense of changing up the details and putting Dracula into the future and seeing how he copes with washing-machines and fridges and stuff.
The illustrations are superb, and evoke both the UNIVERSAL and Hammer-era films, which is amazing for fans of the old films like myself. Pick it up and have a read if you ever come across it; it captures the spirit and essence of the Bram Stoker book perfectly.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Vampirology. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
Well, here we are again, and about time too! Some of my readers might remember that I was obliged to abandon Anna and her Count Dracula to their own devices for a bit in December 2019, in order to concentrate on my romantic trilogy, THIRTEEN STOPS.
The first book, THIRTEEN STOPS, came out in June 2020, just as the first COVID-19 Lockdown was coming to an end. THIRTEEN STOPS LATER, the sequel, will be out sometime this Spring.
I never thought I’d be away from my beloved Anna and her Count for as long as a year (and what a year it’s been!), so now, even though I’m still up to my tonsils writing Book Four of the trilogy (yes, yes, I know what a trilogy is, lol!), I’m coming back to them and I hope they’re as happy to see me as I surely am to see them.
But you’ll need catching up after so much time has passed! How far into Book Five did we get? Well, Dracula is still resident in his isolated stone castle on top of a rock in the Carpathian Mountains, and with him reside the following;
His wife Anna, and their two children, Lucrezia and Baby Vlad; his cousin and childhood sweetheart, Carmilla Karnstein, and Carmilla’s handsome grown-up son Darius, who is currently engaged in having as much sex as he can with Dracula’s four ravishing sisters, Samara, Salome, Schira and Sabine.
Dracula’s widowed mother Ursula is by no means past her sell-by date. She has plenty to occupy herself sexually with at the moment, having full ownership of the lovely sisters Un-dead Lysette and Eveline Karsch and their Un-dead academic father Bruno. How can she wring the maximum amusement from the newly-reunited little family?
English honeymooners Edward and Vanessa Wintergreen haven’t been seen by the local villagers since they accepted an invitation to dine at Dracula’s Castle. That’s because Edward has been brutally murdered by Cousin Carmilla, and his shy, virginal wife Vanessa is now Dracula’s mistress, locked away somewhere in the castle where (he hopes!) neither a jealous Carmilla nor an even more jealous Anna can get at her.
Dracula is not remotely concerned as to any possible consequences of his murderous actions, but in London as we speak, one Jeremy Wintergreen, younger brother of Edward Wintergreen, is preparing to leave for Eastern Europe to attempt to find out what fate has befallen his newly-married brother and his young bride Vanessa, who haven’t been in touch with him by mail for weeks. Will he manage to ruffle Dracula’s feathers even slightly in the search for his brother, or will Dracula get to him first…? Only time will tell, dear readers!
Also resident in the castle is Dracula’s older brother Nikolai, who fiercely resents Dracula’s seniority over him in the scheme of things and would absolutely love to depose him in some way, preferably one that involves the most possible pain and discomfort to poor old Dracula. Think THE GODFATHER, if you will; he’s the Fredo of the operation!Nikolai’s mistress is Zena, by the way.
Valeria is Anna’s devoted personal maid and a former Chief Handmaiden of Dracula’s, Paloma and Persephone are the children’s nannies, and the castle is, of course, full of Dracula’s beautiful nude handmaidens who wait nightly for their Count to come to them, so that they can fulfil his deepest, darkest sexual desires while he flays the skin from their perfect bodies with his favourite whip.
Igor the huncback is Dracula’s bodyguard and go-fer, as in, Oi, Igor! Will you go-fer a beautiful young village girl for me at once and bring her back here post-haste? Igor knows where the bodies are buried, believe me…!Desdemona is his mistress.
Meanwhile, down in the village that lives permanently in the shadow of the castle, Magdalena the barmaid sleeps with both father and son in Ivor’s Tavern. Leon the son is a fine figure of a man who can satisfy even the insatiable Maggie’s sexual desires, while Ivor the tavern-owner can give her the security she’s lacked all her life.How long can she keep playing one off against the other, though?
Count Dracula still has unfinished business, you might recall, with a certain Miss Atalanta Pomeroy, the art mistress from Miss Peabody’s Exclusive Academy for the Education of the Daughters of Gentlefolks, which Miss Peabody was misinformed enough to establish in the midst of the Carpathian Mountains, but, hey, she was left the building as a legacy, what would YOU do with it, if not establish an exclusive girls’ school for sexy rich minxes in the middle of nowhere?And somewhere where the Count can pick them off one by one as well, just like shooting fish in a barrel…!
Anyway, are we all caught up now? We’re going on to Chapter Twenty-One in Book Five, in which Anna mourns the deterioration of her relationship with the Count since he found out she slept with his son with Carmilla, Darius, during her second pregnancy. Well, what does she expect? A man has his pride…!
So read on, dear vampire fans, and enjoy, safe in the knowledge that, whatever else happens, we’ll stay with the story now till it reaches a natural climax. Or an unnatural one…
FANGS AND FOREPLAY… THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF DRACULA: THE TRANSYLVANIA YEARS. BOOK 5- PART 21.
‘Is he coming?’ said Anna, her heart pounding with the anticipation.
Valeria shook her head. “No sign yet. Go back to your dressing-table, mistress, and we’ll continue on with your hair.’
‘Are you sure he received my note?’ Anna looked distraught, and Valeria eased her down onto the dressing-table chair by one bare shoulder as she nodded and said: ‘I delivered it into Lilith’s hands myself, mistress.’
‘Lilith!’ Anna almost spat the name out, like the pips of a grape. ‘She hates me! I will lay wager with you that she will destroy my missive and not let him see as much as a corner of it!’
Valeria sighed. She loved Anna to bits, but her endless speculation about her husband the Count’s whereabouts and motivations and the motivations of everyone around him could be tiring at times.
‘Lilith doesn’t hate you, mistress,’ she said, lifting up the silver-backed hairbrush and continuing to brush Anna’s long golden hair, which she’d been doing before Anna had sent her to the bedroom door once more to see if she could spy the Count, en route to his wife’s bedchamber.
‘All those handmaidens hate me, Valeria! They all want to be in my place, married to Dracula and bearing him his children. Every single one of them would usurp me if she could, and well you know it!’
Valeria couldn’t deny it. Though the handmaidens were merely Dracula’s lowly naked sex slaves, it was in their nature to be always pushing themselves forward, trying to single themselves out in the Count’s mind for his special attentions. Whores they were, and sly with it, and Lilith was more sly than most. Anna was probably right to mistrust her.
Anna stared at her reflection in the mirror while Valeria began to painstakingly thread dozens of jewelled stars on the finest of gold chains through her blonde hair. She frequently fretted that her looks might be going and had to remind herself sternly that she was no longer a mortal woman, but a vampire, like Dracula and his harem. Her looks would never go.
She picked up a powder puff and began idly patting her ample cleavage with it. Her breasts looked huge and pale in the low-cut, pale blue sleeveless gown she wore. Hopefully Dracula would think so too, and tear the fragile, flimsy fabricfrom her body before making savage love to her.
As was usual when she was expecting him, she wore no undergarments. She remembered her wedding night with the Count in Birney Castle in England many, oh, so many moons ago now, when Valeria had informed her gravely that nothing, no garment, however fine or flimsy, must ever come between Anna and the master. And nothing ever had come between them, unless you counted Darius, the bastard son of Dracula’s cousin Carmilla…!
Anna shuddered and forced her mind off the subject of Darius and his hateful mother. Maybe one day she’d knock that scheming, manipulative bitch Carmilla into the middle of the last century where she belonged, but now was not the time. Carmilla was as deadly dangerous as a poisonous snake. It would take a lot of cunning on Anna’s part to depose her beautiful, violet-eyed rival.
The door slammed open and Count Dracula stood framed in the doorway, impossibly tall, well-groomed and swathed in his black cloak with the heavy silver clasp of ancient silver.
His dark hair, still only slightly greying at the temples, had been slicked back with a damp comb and, despite the fact that he shaved religiously every evening upon waking, his powerful jaw was already darkened with stubble, such was his overwhelming masculinity.
‘You requested my presence, my dear Madame?’ he said sarcastically before entering the room and making Anna what seemed almost like a parody of a deep courtly bow. ‘Leave us!’ he shot out of the side of his mouth at Valeria, who bowed respectfully back and instantly fled the room.
Anna slipped off the dressing-table chair and ran to him, clutching the folds of his cape tightly between her fingers, as tightly as if she would never let him go.
‘Where have you been?’ she cried, looking up into his handsome face as if expecting to see answers written there. ‘I’ve not seen you in weeks! Have you been with her? With Carmilla?’
The Count sighed and began to disrobe, tossing first his cloak and then his dark frock-coat onto the armchair beside his side of the bed.
‘I’ve been busy. On business. Pray don’t ask me a barrage of questions, not if you want me to stay.’
Anna’s full lower lip trembled mutinously, but she managed to hold her tongue. He grinned, knowing what it cost her- cost any woman- to stay silent under duress. A half-dressed Dracula then sat with her on the edge of the hugefour-poster bed and took her in his arms.
His kiss left her light-headed, and she swooned back onto the bed while he divested first himself and then his wife of their garments. She wept with impending gratitude when her eyes beheld his massive male organ, fully erect now.
‘Oh, Dracula, make love to me, please, I beg you! I need you so much!’
‘Why else d’you think I’ve come here, wench?’ he teased. ‘To seek your assistance in doing my tax returns?’ He spread her thighs and plunged deep inside her, making her cry out loud with the intensity of his thrust. ‘I think not.’
Afterwards, they lay entwined together in a tangle of sweaty limbs. Anna put her hand on his chest, heaving with the aftermath of their lust, and gazed adoringly up at his face. His closed, heavy-lidded eyes were thickly fringed with the long dark lashes that were the only feminine thing about him.
Oh Dracula, how I love you, and now, because of what I mistakenly did with Darius, I dare not even tell you how much for fear that you might scorn me! Instead, she said shyly: ‘I haven’t been whipped properly in an age, Master.’
He scratched an armpit and yawned loudly. ‘Hmmm? What’s that? Haven’t I ordered Valeria to whip you nightly in my absence?’
‘It’s not the same, Master. It’s not the same at all!’
‘Fetch me my whip then, you little hussy, and I’ll see what I can do to rectify this deplorable situation.’
Anna, unable to keep from smiling all over her face, scurried to the whip cupboard in the corner of the room and fetched his favourite whip, his preferred instrument of punishment when it came to beating her.
She thanked her lucky stars that his interest in disciplining her hadn’t waned an iota. That was good. As long as he still wanted to do that, and make love to her beforehand as well, there was a chance for them.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books.
THE BBC DRACULA. (2020) (LOOSELY) BASED ON THE NOVEL BY BRAM STOKER. STARRING CLAES BANG AND DOLLY WELLS. CO-CREATED AND WRITTEN BY MARK GATISS AND STEVEN MOFFAT.
‘Please avert your eyes- I have to murder a child.’
‘After four hundred years, it’s nice to be understood.’
‘This will be the most nuns I’ve ever had in one sitting.’
‘In the matter of blood, I am a connoisseur. Blood is lives.’
‘I’ve acquired some of your husband’s memories. You could say that I’ve downloaded them. Orally.’
‘There are many advantages to being a vampire, but it does make it hard to be a morning person.’
I don’t really know where to begin with this one, except to say that there’s something inherently wrong with the sight of Dracula texting on a smartphone. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adored Hammer Horror’s two attempts to place Count Dracula in the modern era, ie, DRACULA AD 1972 and DRACULA AND HIS VAMPIRE BRIDES. In fact, these are two of my favourite films in the whole Hammer Dracula canon. But the BBC DRACULA, first broadcast on the BBC over New Year’s in 2020, is kind of… well, a mess. Tons of gore but zero atmosphere.
The first episode was tolerable and at least kept more or less to the plot of Stoker’s marvellous book. Jonathan Harker arrives at the Count’s magnificent crumbling abode in the wilds of Transylvania to finalise with him the sale of a house, Carfax Abbey in England. He discovers there that the ancient Count is in fact a vampire, who replenishes himself each time he drinks from the blood of his captive-guest, Jonathan Harker.
Once the Count re-appears as a tall, dark and dashing Englishman, with the posh charming suavity of Hugh Grant and the sex appeal and comic timing of a James Bond, one kind of gets the feeling that we’re not in Kansas any more. In fact, the drama degenerates into farce as the handsome Dracula quips all around him with lines such as ‘You are what you eat,’ ‘One should never rush a nun’ and, to a victim, ‘I must say you’re looking a little drained.’
I must admit that I was unnerved by Jonathan’s accidental discovery of the living dead, incarcerated for all eternity in locked boxes, in the labyrinthine wilderness of the Count’s castle. It’s an idea that puts me very much in mind of the vampire movie THE HUNGER. Also, David Bowie’s accelerated ageing from that very film is reminiscent of what happens here to Jonathan Harker each time the Count drinks his blood.
A bald-headed Harker, covered in sores and (disgustingly!) missing his fingernails is relating his tale of terror and homosexual sex (yep, Dracula’s bi!) to a toothsome Dutch nun called Sr. Agatha Van Helsing. This ballsy dame is an intelligent and courageous woman who is determined not to flinch or to be found wanting when Dracula attacks her convent in Budapest where Jonathan Harker is hiding out.
She and the staunchly sensible Reverend Mother do very well indeed to bat no eyelids at the sight of a gloriously naked Count Dracula emerging outside their convent gates from the bloodied belly of a wolf. Magnificent butt, but no willies are observed, worse luck.
Episode Two sees Dracula spending the four weeks aboard the Demeter it takes to get to England engaged in, well, eating the passengers and selected crew members. He murders his old flame the Grand Duchess Valeria, Lord and Lady Ruthven (the name derived from Dr. Polidori’s story, The Vampyre, in which he based his aristocratic vampire on Lord Byron) and a couple of (male) sailors, proving yet again that he doesn’t discriminate on the grounds of sex.
I liked Olgaren, the gigantic, bald-headed and heavily bearded cook with a hook for a hand, and also the quip Dracula makes in this episode about having worked with ‘skeleton crews’ before. I bet he has, lol. And remember in Hammer’s DRACULA: PRINCE OF DARKNESS, in which Christopher Lee’s Dracula is drowned by a little bit of running water? Well, this Dracula can swim, so be warned…
I hated the last episode. The action moves to the present day, and there they lost me completely. Dracula’s main focus here is getting with Lucy Westenra, a cool and glamorous disco chick who glitters and sparkles (might fit in well in TWILIGHT, so!) and takes hundreds of selfies, is never off the phone and has a Gay Best Friend to discuss her many romantic dalliances with.
Lucy is a vain and shallow person who prizes her looks above all else. Dracula doesn’t hold this against her. Why do you always want to meet up in a graveyard, she asks her midnight lover at one point. I like to spend time with people my own age, immediately quips back this smart-ass Dracula…!
The ‘Bloofer Lady’ and cremation scenes were actually quite creepy and there’s no denying that this episode of the drama mini-series made use of some very cool special effects, but otherwise it was a mess, especially the bit involving the modern day descendant of Sr. Agatha, Dr. Zoe Van Helsing.
I liked Dracula’s witty reference to someones’s ‘bringing a bottle to the party,’ and the nod to the original Hammer Dracula from 1958, when Peter Cushing leaps up on to a table and pulls down the curtains, thereby letting in the sunlight that devastates the vampire and crumbles him to dust, but otherwise this episode was a wash-out.
The notion of some people’s still being sentient (feeling, or being aware) when they are buried or cremated was quite a terrifying one, especially for someone as impressionable as me. I can’t be cremated now (normally my first choice) after seeing what happened to wee Lucy, and I don’t just mean Robbie Williams’s Angels being played at the ceremony, lol.
On the other hand, neither do I fancy being one of those poor unfortunates ‘doomed to spend all eternity scratching at the inside of a coffin lid…’ What a genuinely disturbing thought. And those are our only two choices as well. Clearly, we need more options urgently in this area.
Anyway, if they hadn’t moved the action to the present day in the third episode, I might have quite enjoyed this three-parter, although I probably still would have considered it a little unorthodox. I genuinely don’t see why the Count couldn’t have had some perfectly adequate and even exciting adventures in Victorian England after the journey to Whitby, but alas, it wasn’t to be.
Also, in a drama mini-series so obviously intent on shocking the viewer, why wasn’t there any sex, especially seeing as their Dracula was so handsome and had such a fit body that he had no problem with appearing in the buff at the age of fifty-two? Alas, that wasn’t to be, either. Looks like it’s back to using my imagination for me. Good job I have one, eh…?
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
ZOLTAN: HOUND OF DRACULA. (1977) BASED ON THE NOVEL ‘HOUNDS OF DRACULA’ BY KEN JOHNSON. DIRECTED BY ALBERT BAND. STARRING MICHAEL PATAKI, REGGIE NALDER AND JOSE FERRER.
This is a very strange film; I’m not honestly sure if I’ve ever seen a stranger. I’m reviewing it, though, because of two things. One, it’s referred to on the DVD box as ‘the infamous midnight movie gem, ZOLTAN: HOUND OF DRACULA,’ which harks back to an earlier, possibly much cooler and more exciting era of cinema-going.
And two, because it co-stars Reggie Nalder, who, a year or two later, went on to star as Mr. Kurt Barlow, in other words the vampire, in the television dramatisation of Stephen King’s superb SALEM’S LOT, one of the best vampire books ever written. It’s right up there with DRACULA itself, Anne Rice’s INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE and Whitley Strieber’s THE HUNGER. Mr. Barlow is an extremely sinister character, maybe one of the scariest ever screen vampires.
ZOLTAN: HOUND OF DRACULA starts in modern times, with a bunch of soldiers back in ‘the old country,’ i.e., Romania, blasting open a tomb that contains the coffins of dozens of dead members of the Dracula family. That’d be quite the find for us vampire lovers, wouldn’t it?
The dopey soldier ordered to guard the tombs overnight thinks it might be a good idea to pull the stake out of the body of one Dracula family member. It’s the last bright idea he ever has, poor lad.
The corpse he’s unwittingly re-animated is that of Zoltan, Count Dracula’s faithful big black hound, a Doberman Pinscher, and Zoltan’s first task in his new life is to kill the dopey soldier who unintentionally gave him that life again. That’s gratitude for you, eh?
The clever doggie then pulls the stake out of his beloved master, not Count Dracula himself but a part-vampire called Veidt Schmidt (Reggie Nalder), a servant of the Count’s like himself. Together, Zoltan and Schmidt served the Count faithfully back in the day, but now all the Draculas have expired and there’s no-one left for the pair to work for. Or is there…?
The last of the long line of Draculas was apparently smuggled out of Romania years ago for his own safety. Name of Michael Drake, he now lives in California, America, and apparently has no idea he’s a vampire. Schmidt and Zoltan travel to California to find Michael, pursued hotly by an Inspector Branco from ‘the old country,’ whose job it is to stop them.
In the meantime, Michael, a typically American middle-aged married man with a family, has piled his wife and two kids, their two German Shepherd dogs and a box of adorable newborn puppies into their gigantic Winnebago camper van for a holiday by an isolated lake. How long will it be before Veidt and Zoltan, and then Inspector Branco, catch up with them there?
What I didn’t really get about the movie is this: if Veidt and Zoltan want to find Michael to beg him to be their master again, why are all their overtures towards him murderous? Why are they constantly trying to kill him, then?
Some of the scenes featuring dog attacks are very vicious, especially the one where Zoltan is attacking a lonely hitchhiker, and another one where several dogs are keeping Branco and Michael, now fighting fiercely together to defeat the representatives of the house of Dracula, under siege in a fishermen’s cottage.
The dog attacks look so real, and by this stage Zoltan has recruited some local doggies to his cause as well, including Michael’s big mutts Annie and Ramsey. We even see the adorable missing black puppy being vampirised and turned into a puppy of the Un-dead. It’s too cute and weird, but then I mentioned that it was a strange movie, didn’t I?
It’s a very odd little film indeed, but worth at least one watch for Reggie Nalder’s tremendously creepy made-for-horror face and also for all the doggie action, both cute and spooky. Bow-wow, Zoltan old friend, bow-wow. The Meaty Chunks are under the sink.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
The year is 1891, and Count Dracula and his sex-and-spanking-crazed harem of beautiful handmaidens are still camped out in Dracula’s ancestral castle in Transylvania. Dracula’s brother Vladimir’s head currently adorns a spike on the castle battlements. His brother Nikolai’s head, while for the moment still attached to his shoulders, is filled with resentment for Dracula and a continuing desire to depose him as head of the family.
Dracula’s beautiful wife Anna and his demanding mistress –– and cousin –– Carmilla are each jockeying for position as his Number One squeeze, and he has two newly-acquired sons he doesn’t have a clue what to do with.
Meanwhile, the genteel young ladies of the nearby Miss Peabody’s Exclusive Academy For The Education And Refinement Of The Daughters Of Gentlefolks are all still waiting impatiently for Dracula to fly through their bedroom windows at midnight, to endow upon them the sexual awakening of a lifetime and an introduction into Dracula’s twilight world of pleasure deliciously commingled with pain.
Add to this his domineering mother, his four sex-mad sisters, his temperamental nude handmaidens and a cartload or two of angry villagers, and you might just have an idea of why, for this year at least, Dracula’s dance-card is fully filled out…
This book, as all the ‘ANNA’ books are, is based on characters created by fellow Irish authors Bram Stoker and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, and is dedicated with much love to the late Sir Christopher Lee, whose performances in the HAMMER ‘Dracula’ films inspired every word of it. May he rest in peace… until he rises once more from the crypt in which he rests…
FANGS AND FOREPLAY… THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF DRACULA: THE TRANSYLVANIA YEARS. BOOK 5- PART 8.
When Vanessa opened her eyes after her swoon, it took her several moments to take in her surroundings fully. She felt so terribly woozy and light-headed, and yet so far she had not herself partaken of any strong alcohol, unlike her foolish husband Edward! The thought of Edward made her gasp and sit up straight, and it was then she noticed that she was in a bed.
It was a double bed, in a bedchamber quite unlike the room she shared with Edward at the inn. The furniture here was old, very old, but not cheap, like the furniture at the inn. Here, the four-poster bed, the huge twin wardrobes, the two dressing-tables on either side of the bed, one for the male, one for the female, and the chairs and armchairs all looked as if they had stood here for a hundred years and more. They were made of a quality and a superior wood one did not often come across nowadays.
Full-length drapes of the heaviest wine-colored velvet hung at the window, which stood open and allowed a light breeze to permeate the room. A small fire crackled brightly in the grate, and over the mantelpiece hung a huge portrait of a very imposing woman, with a magnificent bosom in a low-cut gown of midnight blue and a trickle of blood running from one corner of her red full mouth.
‘I see you’re admiring the portrait of my esteemed Cousin Elizabeth Bathory,’ said a cultivated male voice from somewhere to the left of her. ‘What an admirably single-minded young woman she was, and how many other young women she was more than prepared to sacrifice in pursuit of eternal youth and beauty! I still correspond regularly with her descendants, you know. Remind me to tell you sometime of their exploits. They make for some rather interesting listening, I can assure you. A singularly bizarre lot, the Bathorys.’
Vanessa jumped. Good heavens, she was not alone! She stared in fearful amazement at the extremely tall man she just about remembered meeting in the Great Hall before her swoon. He was undressing to the left of her, placing his dark clothing casually on a chair. His long black cloak, a fabulous piece of workmanship lined inside with red satin, was hanging on the outside of the wardrobe. The clasp looked to be made of real silver, and a heavy, ancient silver at that.
For the first time since opening her eyes, Vanessa realised that she was not wearing the beautiful bronze-coloured gown she had worn to visit the castle and meet the Count and his no doubt charming wife and family.
And indeed how could she be, since it was currently hanging on the outside of the second twin wardrobe, in tandem with the Count’s billowing black cloak! They looked quite at home together, the two garments, as if they had been accustomed to hang together thus, side-by-side in familiarity and companionship, for many a long year.
Vanessa looked down at herself and shrieked. Under the bedclothes, she was clad only in her long petticoat of white lace. Why, she was indecent, practically naked, in the presence of a strange male! Edward would be horrified, scandalised, mortified!
Her pale white breasts heaved in embarrassment over the low neckline of the petticoat, which action only served to make them more prominent and, though this mortified her further, more appealing to the watchful male eye.
‘Did… did you undress me?’ she asked the Count, her eyes downcast from shame and her tones tremulous.
‘Is that a problem for you, my dear Mrs. Wintergreen?’ he asked her quizzically, quirking one eyebrow at her in an unmistakeable gesture of amusement. ‘Surely a man has seen you naked before?’
‘Only Edward, and even then, he has never seen me without my nightgown!’
‘Well then, perhaps it is about time you learned to be properly naked in front of a man. A real man.’
He grinned, casting away his final item of clothing to stand fully and unashamedly unclothed in front of her. Vanessa’s blue eyes widened at the sight of the tall, lean strong body covered in a fine layer of black hairs, with that thing of his standing up perpendicular to his body the way Edward’s must have done too, but Edward’s thing had never looked so long, so heavy, so veined, so big! Vanessa could not, for the very life of her, have wrenched her eyes from it. It was a veritable monstrous beast of a thing, and she both feared and craved it.
‘You are not a virgin, I understand,’ he said, as he climbed into the big comfortable bed beside her, ‘but of course such things cannot be helped in the case of married woman. You are familiar with the act of sexual intercourse?’
‘I… I think so,’ breathed Vanessa, feeling a tingling in her nipples and a moistening sensation in her lady-parts at the proximity of such a paragon of maleness. The nearness of Edward had never felt like this. This feeling was electrifying, it made her feel like all her nerve endings were tenderly, exquisitely, agonizingly alive, and she never wanted the feeling to stop!
‘You think so?’ Dracula laughed superciliously. ‘I see that the actions of the esteemed Mr. Edward Wintergreen in the boudoir have made a great impression upon you, my dear. Well, we shall have to see what we can do to erase your memories of his inadequate schoolboy fumblings from your mind forever.’ He laid her back down against the pillows and began to methodically undo the tiny delicate pearl buttons on her petticoat.
‘Where… where is my husband?’ Vanessa asked him. ‘What have you done to him?’
She barely managed to get the words out. She felt like the power of speech was slipping away from her gradually, along with the ability to remember her own name and Edward’s and the reasons why they were there, in Castle Dracula in the Carpathian Mountains in the wilds of Transylvania, instead of at home in jolly old England, taking tea on the terrace of their house in Windsor Grove. On the terrace when it was fine, in the parlour when it rained or was windy or cold. How far away all that silly politeness and pointless adherence to silly old customs and traditions seemed now.
‘Do you care?’ Dracula asked her brutally as he pulled the petticoat over her head and tossed it aside. His hands immediately covered her breasts, those pale, perfect orbs he had coveted since first observing them peeping out from beneath the fur stole she had worn with the bronze-coloured gown.
Vanessa shook her head and moaned with pleasure. ‘I don’t care,’ she whimpered.
‘What about now?’ he said, as the enormous pale stalk that had stood out from his body so erect and upstanding pushed forcefully past any lingering hint of a maidenhead and penetrated straight to the very core of her being.
She shook her head and whispered: ‘I don’t care.’
‘What about now?’ he said again. The fearsome fangs she had glimpsed earlier were in evidence again now as he bit down hard on the left side of her tender neck, immediately drawing blood.
‘I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care!’ she screamed, before falling into a dead faint with her bare arms flung out on either side of her in a grotesque parody of the Crucifixion.
Dracula, satisfied, began to feed.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
Wow. Except for a couple of highlights, this movie really sucks. I mean, there are some Dracula films with which Bram Stoker himself would be proud to be associated, namely: Murnau’s 1922 NOSFERATU; Bela Lugosi in the 1931 DRACULA; Werner Herzog’s NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE; and any of the Hammer Dracula films starring horror heart-throb Christopher Lee. And then there are other examples where you’d wonder how the film-makers can justify stealing the name of Dracula and slapping it on their finished oeuvres, lol.
Let’s rush through the ‘plot.’ What do you mean, I’m bitchy today? I thought I was bitchy every day, haha. A blonde journalist called Hanna from Vancouver, who has definitely had some work done on her face, I’m just saying, travels to Paris and Transylvania in order to pick up information about a deadly cult of modern day Draculas.
They’ve already abducted and murdered some people, all nosey journalists, I think, and Hanna and her little crew of phone-and-computer-obsessed newshounds have stumbled across some rather gruesome Internet footage.
It’s footage of a young woman bleeding to death while being bitten all over and savaged by a bald-headed, elderly gent with a cloak and some brutal-looking gnashers. He’s much more Max Schreck than Christopher Lee, unfortunately for me. I’m a big fan of Mr. Lee’s.
Anyway, Hanna and her gang are, of course, putting themselves in great danger by persisting in their investigation of the vampire cult. One by one, they are bumped off by a cloaked male figure- not our friend Baldy- who charges at them out of nowhere and starts viciously chomping on their necks and wrists, anywhere there’s a nice juicy vein he can tap into. It’s not clear whether Baldy is Dracula or Cloakey is. It’s just one of the many mystifying things about this film.
It’s so funny that, when Hanna is pretty much the last of the intrepid little crew of journalists left alive, her stupid phone gives her away to the vampires. She’s stuck alone in the wilds of Transylvania in the middle of the night, watching through a window as the cult prepare to tuck into some fresh meat and then suddenly… diddle-oo-do, diddle-oo-do, diddle-oo-do-do…!
That’s meant to be the Nokia ringtone, by the way folks, lol. Note to stupid person in film: when you’re just about to catch the cult you’ve pursued across continents in a breath-taking act of murder and bloodthirsty cannibalism, put your bleedin’ phone on silent, will you? I can just imagine Dracula going berserk about the intrusiveness of the ever-present phone. Dracula hate mobile phones, kill everyone on social media…!
I love the scenes shot in Transylvania, especially the night-time snowscapes. These were very atmospheric. However, the best scene in the whole film doesn’t even have anything to do with the main plot. You could lift it right out and it would make no difference to the plot, but the film would be a little poorer for it, in my humble opinion.
I think it’s in Paris where this happens. We’re on a darkened, deserted street late at night. A very good-looking guy, tall, dark and handsome, is taking a woman home to his flat for sex. She’s an attractive brunette who might or might not be a prostitute. Although the film is in English, there were no subtitles and the film could really have used them, as the actors mumbled their way through their lines and the sound was terrible.
Anyway, we cut to the guy’s flat, where the very good-looking guy is now blissfully shirtless and wearing only low-slung jeans. His flat is discreetly lit, he’s put on some make-out music, he’s got a cigarette and a drink in his hand and he’s seated on the couch, one bare foot casually crossed over the other denim-clad leg while he watches the woman stripping.
He’s got a kind of cat-who’s-got-the-cream grin on his handsome face, the grin of a guy who knows he’s going to be having sex in a very few minutes, but for now he’s happy to be enjoying a nice bit of sexy foreplay.
The woman strips off her tight black outfit to reveal that she’s wearing red underwear. A red bra, red thong panties and, best of all, high-heeled red shoes. She strips in time to the sultry music, shaking her long dark hair out, wiggling her hips and butt and showing her soon-to-be lover (nearly) everything she’s got to offer.
Meanwhile, the handsome guy on the couch is ogling this striptease with the biggest grin on his face when… bam! It happens. What happens? Oh, I can’t tell you that, dear reader. That would be a spoiler, lol. You’ll just have to watch DRACULA REBORE- did I type REBORE, I swear to God I thought I was writing REBORN!- for yourselves and find out. Worth watching for this scene alone.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris 