Favorite Dracula
Frank Langella as Dracula
My favorite Dracula movie is the Frank Langella version. I found he played an absolutely dreamy, sexy, seductive Dracula, far beyond the other Draculas. This is the Dracula for women, romantic rather than horror. Every woman desires to be Lucy, who Dracula seems to covet, perhaps actually love, rather than Mina who is just vamp food. Dracula seduces Lucy gently and lovingly, so that you ending up hoping that this time that things will be different and there will be a happy ever after.
But that seems almost a sin, a corruption of the original book, but I can’t name another vampire novel that is truly faithful to the book.
Released in 1979, director, John Badham, Cast included Frank Langella as Dracula, Kate Nelligan as Lucy, Laurence Olivier as Van Helsing.
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The Breed
One of my favorite TV shows was Highlander starring Adrian Paul, so when a vampire movie starring him came out, I had to watch it.
The Breed is a very different vampire movie. It reminded me of the first movie of Alien Nation where two cops of different races are thrown together, distrusting each other at the onset, they learn to co-operate and come to respect each other. In this world, supposedly the future, but quite a strange future, that is almost Nazi or maybe behind the Iron Curtain, with WWII clothes, cars, propaganda blaring, vampires have come out of the closet. Now a vampire killer threatens to ignite the world in fear and paranoia. Two cops must track down the killer before chaos can erupt.
Adrian Paul makes for a dark, brooding, overly controlled, complex vampire, an ex-Jew whose family was killed by the Nazis. He plays the role well, if a little too dead.The other vampires are more interesting, more dark and sinister. And the humans almost stereotypical stupid and afraid.
It is a story of fear and prejudice, Jews, Negroes, with an unrealistically happy ending. But I did enjoy it very much, as much for its differences, for it is certainly different from the normal vampire fare.
THE BREED
Release Date: 2001
Cast: Adrian Paul, Bai Ling, Bokeem Woodbine, Zen Gesner
Director: Michael Oblowitz
First reviewed by Linda Suzane, April 11, 2002 http://www.midnightblood.com
Vampire Movies
Here are the trailers for 26 vampire movies. But they didn’t include some of my favorites, so I won’t call it the Top Vampire movies.
http://www.hecklerspray.com/top-26-vampire-movies/200936614.php
Still Writ’n
Gone Writing
A month ago I took off from blogging to write. I am only on page 27 of the final edit of FREEDOM, but I did get almost 3/4th of the way through a second draft of REVENGE until I bogged down with story problems. I haven’t managed to write anything in over a week.
I should have remembered how the crowded summer conditions affect me. I need space, peace and quiet, alone time. I don’t need to be arguing with my 10 year old know-it-all grandson, or my three year old know-it-all granddaughter (she copies her brother). The summer also means lots of company, and all my daughter’s friends have kids too. Oh, the screaming, yelling, splashing in the pool. Not even earphones dealt with the noise level. I finally lost it last week and became a screaming harpy. Everyone was shocked and have been going out of their way to be nice to me. Things are getting better. My grandson is spending the week visiting his father, and my granddaughter went to play with friends today. Unexpectedly I have a day by myself. It is quiet and restful. But instead of writing, I’m blogging. Complaining about the fact that I haven’t accomplished nearly what I expected or hoped for.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel. School starts soon. In less than 2 weeks, I will be free to write. My granddaughter will be going to school and a babysitter and I will have the whole day to myself to actually be a writer. It excites me and scares me at the same time. So the question is, can I finish the final edit of FREEDOM before I go in for Carpal Tunnel surgery on September 23rd? I hate copy editing. It takes me so long to even edit one page. I know it is worth it, it is necessary if I want a book that is finished and I am proud of, but the going over and over each page, sentence, word looking minutely for errors or finding just the right word or phrase is frankly boring. And I tend to procrastinate and resist the process. Someday I’ll blog about the pain it causes or maybe figure out a better way to handled it.
But right now, I am going to take another month off to write and hopefully I will be more productive in the coming month than I have been in the last month. Then as I said, September 23rd I have surgery and I won’t be able to use my hand for 2 weeks.
So I will see you about October 10th.
Gone Writing
I like blogging, but I’m finding that it takes away time from my writing. So I’ve decided to take some time off to focus on Darkhour Vampires. See you August 24th.
Space Vampires
Here is an interesting review of Space Vampires in movies, comics, and books. Look at strange creatures from the future or outerspace.
http://io9.com/5305796/vampires-+-in-space-or-the-future-or-both
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Halfway to Halloween
Want to read a new Prane Emerson story? I was a guest blogger at Belinda McBride’s Wyld by Nature Halfway to Halloween Party.
http://belindam.blogspot.com/2009/05/mother-by-linda-suzane.html
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Journal
It’s Sunday. Another week gone by. No progress. Each time I start to write, I find myself writing about the health challenges I’ve been facing this last week. I wrote a couple of paragraphs and in disgust erase theme. I don’t want to do another organ recital, I don’t want to whine and complain. But I envisioned this journal as a place to write down what I had done each week towards completing Darkhour Vampires. I did write an email asking for help to develop a market strategy. It helped me to realize that I am floundering and until I can develop something concrete, I won’t be able to move forward. No real help but a couple of suggestions of people to contact who have dealt with the problems of cross-genre work. I will keep you informed. And until I resolve my health issues, I giving myself permission to focus on them and not writing, rather than failing weekly to meet my writing goals.
Cassandra
Cassandra is one of the villains of Darkhour Vampires.
Cassandra is a mulatto slave that could pass for white. She was bought as a young girl of 13 to be the mistress, love slave of a sadistic vampire, Brandon. A gambler who used her as bait. Often she would play poker, with only her clothes to bet, losing slowly, clothed only in her wonderful long, black hair. The players would be so eager to win her for the night, they would end up losing to Brandon. After the Civil War, Brandon fell in with the wrong group. They learned his secret and killed him. They kept Cassandra. She kills herself in the hope that she will cross over and become a vampire. She has her revenge. When Donovan finds her after the war, she is killing union soldiers and Northerners. She is out of control. Donovan is attracted to her aloneness and her pain. He thinks she is like him. They become lovers. He tries to teach her as Amanda has taught him.
To escape the horrors of the south during the reconstruction, he takes Cassandra to San Francisco. Cassandra is insanely jealous of Amanda. Amanda tries to warn Donovan, but he doesn’t want to listen. It is at Donovan suggestion that Cassandra becomes one of the Charter members of Darkhour Corporation. But the situation between Cassandra and Amanda remains tense.
Donovan borrows from Amanda so that he can take Cassandra away. They travel to Europe. He wants to learn more than he knows now. He has reached his second life. He is 50 years old. The world is changing. Cassandra is young, pouty, with a great sexual appetite. Because he treats her with kindness, she does not respect him. As they travel through Europe, they begin to argue more and more. Cassandra becomes the root of Donovan’s later interest in psychology.Eventually in London, Cassandra finds another vampire, Sir Alfred, more like her original master. In a sense she wants Donovan to save her from herself, but he is sickened by her and lets her go. She ends up blaming him for abandoning her.
1907, Sir Alfred is dead, and Cassandra begs Donovan for help. She returns to California House. She is one of the bood mothers for Valentine’s offspring, Stefan. She convinces Stefan to abandon Valentine, to become her fledgling. They travel through Europe, even become part of Hitler’s entourage. Stefan and Cassandra try to convince the vampires to side with Hitler, but they are opposed by Amanda and Valentine.
In 1935, Donovan and Amanda have adopted a child Claire. They are living in Oregon, he has started his clinic. Cassandra arranges for the murder Amanda and Claire. She hopes to take over Amanda’s place in Donovan’s heart and Darkhour politics, but suspicious, Donovan hunts down the assassins and learns Cassandra’s role. As a site, she can’t be killed so she is sentenced to an isolate lair in the Oregon mountains, where almost 50 years later, she comes across a young boy, Wade Kain. She brings him back to her lair as her sexual play toy.
When a girl is kidnapped from Portland, and the picture is of Cassandra’s servant, Stanos, Donovan decides to investigate what Cassandra has been up to. Afraid he will report her crimes to the Board, she takes Donovan prisoner. Wade and Donovan must work together to try to escape before Cassandra kills them both.
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Journal
This week I am going to introduce Cassandra. She is one of the villains of the Darkhour series. Much of what she is comes from her twisted and abusive childhood. I found myself somewhat sympathetic to her and yet appalled by what she was driven to do.
I can’t remember whose advice it was that your villain never see themselves as evil, and so you should never write them that way.
As I re-read the introduction of Wade and Prane, then Donovan, I have found myself sharing more and more of the complex background that fuels the stories. And wondering if I am confusing readers with all the names and details. And yet, this is what I find fascinating about writing a vampire story, the backgound of the various vampires, their long history.
For more of the details, visit www.darkhourvampires.com.
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Darkhour Vampires 