Vatican City, Graphic Novel

Consecrated ground doesn’t get much more consecrated than Vatican City. It is also highly fortified. For a few hundred survivors, it is the only remaining sanctuary after the vampire apocalypse. The Holy See houses relics that are more precious than ever and plenty of firearms, but it also holds the secret behind the siege that unfolds in Mark Millar’s Vatican City (collecting issues 1-3). Illustrated by Per Berg, Millar’s recently released bind-up is now available for your holiday shopping convenience.

Mysteriously, all the Swiss Guards no-show on the day of Swiss Air Force veteran Guido Cavelti’s interview—probably because most of them are dead. Consequently, Cavelti leads the Vatican’s defense, despite his lack of official standing. Since the Pope is touring Africa, most Vatican personnel are absent. However, the venerable old Monsignor never strays far, because he knows why the sun-shielded vampires have assembled outside the Vatican’s walls.

It turns out all the history you know is bunk. There was a time vampires ruled the world. Somehow, mankind killed their queen, who was subsequently entombed under the Vatican. Of course, anyone who has watched enough Dracula movies know that vampires are never too dead that they can’t be brought back to undead life.

Even though the horror comes from vampires, Millar’s concept holds massive appeal for horror fans who grew up with the heroic priests of William Peter Blatty’s exorcism novels and films. This is an unadulterated good versus evil story, especially considering the ruthless cruelty of Karl, the leader of the vampire army.

However, it is massively depressing that the vampires utterly destroy America and most of Europe, but largely leave Russia and China untouched. It would make sense if it were a form of professional courtesy, from one form of evil to another. However, Millar has yet to even suggest such a point. Frustratingly, Millar also breaks the siege way too soon. If Netflix eventually adapts Vatican City as a series, it should spend several seasons exploring the mysterious secret corners and crannies of the Vatican.

Indeed, Netflix would have the option, since Millar wrote and commissioned Berg’s art for Vatican City under his Netflix development deal. There is no guarantee of a future series, but the streamer gets a co-creator credit. (FYI, Netflix is not currently available in China.)

Sinners: Buddy Guy’s Box-Office Blockbuster

There is a long history of blues musicians confronting supernatural evil. In this case, vampires replace hellhounds, but they certainly follow an accepted uncanny blues precedent. Fittingly, it takes place in storied Clarksdale, Mississippi, where two notorious former bootlegging twin brothers have returned to open a juke joint. Unfortunately, a vampire also comes to town in director-screenwriter Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, which is still playing in theaters.

Even though they have been gone for seven years, half of Clarksdale still remembers the identical “Smokestack” twins, Elijah “Smoke” Moore and Elais “Stack” Moore—the black half. The town’s severe racial divide is only bridged by Bo and Grace Chow, who operate general stores on both sides of the main street.

The Smokestacks intend to open a new juke, so they recruit crusty old bluesman Delta Slim and their young up-and-coming guitarist cousin Sammie “Preacher Boy” Moore to supply the entertainment. However, there is sure to be trouble since Stack’s biracial-but-passing ex, Mary is coming. So will Pearline, an inconveniently married vocalist, who has been giving Preacher Boy the eye.

However, the real trouble comes when Remmick, an old Celtic vampire, and a recently-turned former KKK married couple try to crash the party. Wisely, the Smokestacks are reluctant to invite in freaky white weirdos, but the vampires can be very persuasive and deceptive. Smoke’s ex-wife Annie might also have some insight into the evil lurking outside, as a hoodoo practitioner.

Eventually, the great Buddy Guy plays an important part in this tale, but it would spoilery to explain how. Regardless, it is safe to say his role plays to his strengths and it some ways serves as a glorious capstone to his legendary career. It should be noted his main appearance comes soon after the closing credits start—and it is a scene that holds great significance to the film’s narrative. (There is also a post-credits stinger that is worth sticking around for, but does not impact the storyline to any degree.)

Frankly, Buddy Guy deserves to have his name above the title. That said, Michael B. Jordan’s already considerable star-power raises even higher with his tour-de-force performance as the Smokestack Twins. He is all kinds of fierce and dangerously charismatic. It is an unusually accomplished and memorable portrayals of twins, even though the Smokestacks are not as sharply differentiated as the twins played by Theo James in The Monkey or Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringer—but he is still at that level.

Yet, perhaps the cast-member most deserving an awards campaign might be Delroy Lindo for his understated but still scene-stealing work as Delta Slim. He channels decades of blues lore, while getting most of the film’s laughs with Slim’s dry—yet well-lubricated, if you know what I mean—wit.

Another virtue that sets Sinners apart is the wealth of fully developed supporting characters—at least a dozen’s worth. Li Yun Li and Yao are definitely two standouts as the Chows, who turn out to be much more than convenient devices to travel between Clarksdale’s segregated halves. Plus, Jack O’Connell brings the bravura flamboyance of his Rogue Heroes character, but he manifests it in a much more sinister manner as the vampire Remmick.

Daydreamers: Vampires in Vietnam

The rules for these vampires will sound familiar. Sunlight and fire are sure ways to kill them. They are also vulnerable to silver, but its best to aim for the heart. Of course, once you are a vampire there is no going back—except Nhat’s faction believes they can change back, through sheer discipline and alternate blood sources. However, his brother Marco’s clan thinks differently and hunts accordingly. They also happen to be the better looking vampires in Timothy Linh Bui’s Daydreamers, which is now playing in very limited theaters.

Nhat “lives” cooperatively with the “House Boat” vampires, led by Vy, who aspires to follow the example of a folkloric monk, who cured his vampirism with a diet of rat blood and will power. According to the legend, it took him more than a few centuries, which leaves plenty of time for Nhat’s fellow vampires to succumb to their hunger.

Marco is the lover of Trieu, the Vampire queen of Ho Chi Minh City. They are definitely vampires in the hedonistic Anne Rice tradition. Nhat’s vampires scrupulously observe the ancient vampire rule: “kill no human,” which Trieu’s vampires corrupted into “leave no witnesses.” Despite their differences, Nhat is initially happy to reconnect with Marco. However, he inadvertently reveals himself to the mortal Ha, during their celebratory clubbing. For Marco and Trieu, this problem is easily solved. However, Nhat becomes Ha’s protector instead.

The basic story, credited to Bui and Doan Si Nguuyen, incorporates a lot of familiar vampire terrain, with amble precedent in the Lestat and Underworld franchises. However, Daydreamers’ vampire backstory, including the undead flight from Europe to Indochina and the legend of the monk, gives it a richer texture. The exotic Vietnamese setting also helps distinguish the film from its legion of competitors. In fact, the tone shares a kinship with some of Joko Anwar’s creepier Indonesian horror films.

Blacula: Return of the King

Monsters are supposed to come back from the dead, especially when their movies are hits. Frankly, only two Blacula films never seemed like enough for fans. As the 50^th anniversary of the sequel, Scream, Blacula, Scream approaches, there is reboot talk, but it could never be as good as the original. To satisfy that thirst, an original Blacula plays was released regionally a few years ago. Now, there is finally a direct sequel, but in graphic novel form. Blacula rises again, understandably for vengeance, in Rodney Barnes’ Blacula: Return of the King, illustrated by Jason Shawn Alexander, which releases today.

Prince Mamuwalde had tragically bad luck. He sought the assistance of Count Dracula in liberating his people, but discovered the vampire was an undead racist. The Count killed his beloved Princess and imprisoned him in a coffin for centuries, after turning him undead as well. He did as vampires do in the first two films, but with a sense of guilt and a social conscience.

For the crimes he involuntarily committed, Mamuwalde has been condemned to Hell, where he enjoyed the ultimate Prince of Darkness’s grudging respect. Of course, you cannot keep a vampire as angry as Mamuwalde buried for long. So, he rises from the grave once again, in search of Dracula. However, a contemporary group of urban vampire hunters (most of whom have lost loved ones to the undead) will team up with an aspiring paranormal YouTuber to find and kill the legendary Blacula for good.

Let the Right One In, on Showtime

Traditionally, vampires were tall, dark, and handsome, lustily populating hot-blooded, sexually-charged gothic horror stories. Then Tomas Alfredson’s 2008 film adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel introduced viewers to a tiny, pale vampire leading a lonely existence in a bleak, frigid Scandinavian suburb. Now, Showtime’s series adaptation relocates its story to New York City. So much for that distinctive vibe. At least there is still a twelve-year-old (looking) vampire in creator Andrew Hinderaker’s Let the Right One In, which premieres tomorrow on Showtime.

Eleanor Kane and her father Mark move around a lot, because she is a vampire. They have finally returned to New York (which always reminds people of Blackeberg, Sweden), because her dad hopes finding the vampire who attacked and turned Eleanor a decade ago will hopefully lead to a possible cure.

Of course, “young” Kane will be home-schooled and kept safely locked inside the apartment. He will do all her hunting, just like Eli’s old familiar in the film. Despite his caution, she still manages to befriend Isaiah Cole, the bullied little boy living next door. That inevitably alarms her protective father, especially when he learns Cole’s mother is a NYPD detective. Yet, he is also happy to see her finally making friends and enjoying herself.

Big Daddy Kane believes he might have stumbled across a lead during his blood-hunting, after he kills a junkie exhibiting vampire-like symptoms. For background on the new designer drug, the desperate father targets a low-level pusher, who just happens to be Isaiah’s dead-beat dad. Small world, right? This is all somehow connected to Claire Logan, a brilliant medical researcher, who just learned a few months prior she had a shocking connection to the undead.

Right, there is a lot here fans of the Swedish Right One (or the American Los Alamos-set remake) will not recognize. Look, I do not want to always be the “Remake Cop,” but what made Alfredson’s film and the St. Ann Warehouse theatrical production so special was the chilly, austere vibe (it snowed on stage and it was magical). That is not here. Yes, it incorporates the outsider friendship that blooms between Eleanor and Isaiah, but her relationship with her father takes precedence in the series. By calling it Let the Right One In, Hinderaker is inviting these comparisons, so why not create something entirely new, or at least call it From the World of Let the Right One In or Let Another Right One In or whatever.

That would have better served the series, because once fans get past their disappointment over how the urban chaos that squeezed out all the original’s Spartan intimacy, they might appreciate the things that works. Demian Bichir is terrific as Kane, especially the way he portrays how the desperate father holds on to his Catholic faith. Based on the first five episodes, Right One is surprisingly faith-friendly, without ever getting preachy.

Young thesps Madison Taylor Baez and Ian Forman are quite professional and appealingly sympathetic playing Eleanor and Isaiah. Anika Noni Rose and Jimmie Saito (as Cole and her partner Ben Jones) also have good cop chemistry together doing all the police procedural business.

Reginald the Vampire, on Syfy

Apparently, vampires aren’t so woke after all, since they happen to be such nasty fat-shamers. If you don’t have six-pack abs, you’re not getting turned. Reginald Andres is the exception. His sire did not plan on turning him, but it was the only way to save the nebbish Andres in executive producer-showrunner Harley Peyton’s Reginald the Vampire, which premieres Wednesday on Syfy.

Andres is a nice guy, but he never had a chance to fulfill his potential. Stuck working at the Slushy Shack, he carries a torch for his co-worker Sarah Kinney, but he lacks the confidence to recognize she kind of likes him too. However, Maurice Miller can see it.

Having just arrived in Akron, the vampire has already become a regular at the Slushy Shack (these vamps can still consume regular human food). Since he is a cool vampire, Miller “glamours” Andres to ask out Kinney. When she says yes, he agrees to tutor the now fully cognizant and somewhat panicked Andres for his big date. Unfortunately, that is why Andres happened to be with Miller when vampire enforcers from Angela Hibbert (the local vampire queen bee) came to deliver a violent message. They couldn’t resist feasting on Andres, so Miller offers him a choice (after the resulting carnage). Die and stay dead or die a few seconds earlier and come back reborn.

Of course, it is not quite that simple. The vampire Reggie is locked into his old schlubby human body, which definitely makes him an outlier among vampires. In fact, they consider him a freak that should be eliminated, especially Hibbert, who was originally Miller’s sire, but is now his deadly rival.

There is a lot of vampire intrigue in Reginald, but it is the characters that really wear so well over the course of the first five episodes. Arguably, Peyton’s adaptation of Johnny B. Truant’s novels perfects the balance between fannish humor and vampire peril better than just about any film or series since Buffy and Angel.

Jacob Batalan (Ned Leeds in the Spider-Man movies) portrays Andres as a genuinely likeable loser, while Mandela Van Peebles is super-cool and smooth as Miller. Frankly, the latter looks so much like his father in his younger days, the show almost makes us wonder if Mario Van Peebles might be a vampire masquerading as his own son. Em Haine is sweet and quirkily off-center enough to be a good match for Andres, but never to an annoying extent.

Interview with the Vampire, on AMC

New Orleans really is the perfect place for vampires. It is a city built around nightlife, where they bury their dead above ground. The new series reboot definitely capitalizes on the New Orleans vibe, but it also embraces the homoeroticism of the original novel. This definitely is not Tom Cruise’s Lestat. What was once implied is now explicit in creator Rolin Jones’ Interview with the Vampire, which premieres Sunday on AMC.

Years ago, vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac sat for an ill-fated interview session with rookie reporter Daniel Molloy. Years have passed. Molloy is now an aging journalist, facing his mortality. With the CCP pandemic raging, Molloy agrees to a do-over with Pointe du Lac, meeting him in his luxury Dubai penthouse.

This time around, Pointe du Lac is a Creole vampire, who saved his family fortune through his administration of several Storyville sporting houses. How he met Lestat de Lioncourt hardly requires much explanation. Although de Lioncourt first humiliates Pointe du Lac with his favorite high-class prostitute, they are soon sharing her services. Pretty soon they do not even need her at all. By this time, de Lioncourt has turned his vampire apprentice-lover. However, Pointe du Lac still attempts to maintain ties with his family, despite the increasingly awkward complications of his sexuality and vampirism.

In the film, Pointe du Lac was played by Brad Pitt, which made sense, whereas Cruise portrayed Lestat. Honestly, it was a miracle the director Neil Jordan was able to make that work to the extent that he did. Louis’s new Creole-ness is certainly woke-compatible, but it fits relatively easily with the novel’s themes, further emphasizing Pointe du Lac’s outsider status.

However, the best part about the new series is the older, dramatically more cynical Molloy, now portrayed by Eric Bogosian, who is a major trade-up from Christian Slater. Time after time, Molloy undercuts the eroticism and moral relativism Louis tries to cloak his story in. Repeatedly, he asks tough questions about the vampires’ victims and their bereaved families. Honestly, it is a shame so few real-life journalists demonstrate this kind of integrity and tenacity.

Graphic Novel: Blood Stained Teeth

It turns out the Birchers were kind of right. There is a hidden cabal operating behind the scenes. They just happen to be vampires rather than central bankers. It is an exclusive brethren, but not exclusive enough for the First Council. As far as they are concerned, the only decent vampires are those who are born that way, unlike the crass “sips” Atticus Sloane keeps turning. His vampire-turning business has gotten too prolific and conspicuous, so they give him a deadline to kill all his sips in three weeks, or else, in artist-creators Christian Ward & Patric Reynolds’ graphic novel Blood Stained Teeth: Book One: Bite Me (collecting issues 1-5), which goes on-sale today.

Sloane is a vinyl collector, but he collects hipster bands instead of vintage jazz. Over the years, he has developed a taste for human music and luxuries, which he pays for with his vampire turning service. Aside from Joey, Sloane’s familiar companion, the vampire does not care much for his sips. Usually, they desired immortality for the obvious tacky reasons. He does not care much for the First Council either, but they are most certainly powerful enough to kill him.

Therefore, when the impose their mandate, he must comply. To emphasize the point, they kill Joey in front of him, but his familiar continues to advise him in his mind’s eye, like Luke Kirby’s wife in Panhandle or Kaley Cuoco’s one night stand in The Flight Attendant. Unfortunately, many of his creepy sips will be harder to kill than poor Joey.

Frankly, the whole vampire council feels awfully “familiar” by now, from franchises like Underworld, Blade, and A Discovery of Witches. Ward and Reynolds introduce Bram Stoker as the Council’s spokesman, but that is not enough to liven up the undead premise. They are still just the same vampires talking about their own superiority.

Still, the art has a gritty, old school vibe that aptly suits Sloane’s bloody beatdowns with his nasty sips. Arguably, the Council is right—he has been irresponsible. In fact, Sloane is a rather unappealing character, so it is hard to care about him, his predicament, or his sips, except to root against them all.

There are more issues of Blood Stained Teeth coming, so do not expect much resolution at the end of the first tradepaper collection. Yet, it is really just more of the vampire intrigue you have already seen before. Blood Stained Teeth is simply too much like other things to recommend when it goes on-sale today (9/27), wherever books and comics are sold.

Dark Shadows: Ep 211-261

The notion of adding a vampire to a struggling TV series sounds almost cliched today, but it was a real Hail Mary pass when Dan Curtis tried it in 1967. His daily soap opera Dark Shadows has been conceived as a contemporary riff on the gothic novels of the Brontës and the like, but when it embraced the supernatural, it became a smash teen sensation. As a result, Dark Shadows probably became the only daytime soap opera to inspire comic books, tie-in novels, a daily newspaper comic strip, and a disappointing Tim Burton movie. It has also remained in syndicated reruns. Currently, Dark Shadows can be seen late-late weeknights on Decades, where they will reset their reruns with episode 211, the introduction of vampire Barnabas Collins, this Friday.

Collinsport, Maine is still dominated by the founding Collins family, but unbeknownst to the outside world, their matriarch, Elizabeth Collins Stoddard is being blackmailed by the slimy Jason McGuire, her unwelcome houseguest. However, McGuire’s con artist crony, Willie Loomis is even more despised by the Collins family and Collinsport at large. It has gotten so bad Stoddard’s business rival Burke Devlin took it upon himself to run Loomis out of town. Before leaving, Loomis believed he could plunder the jewels he suspected were hidden in the Collins family vault. Instead, he roused vampire Barnabas Collins.

Throughout the story arcs introducing Barnabas Collins and his subsequent abduction of Maggie Evans (not exactly “resolved” in episode 261) Loomis’s evolution from scummy cad to tragic victim and occasional reluctant hero is surprisingly compelling stuff. Day-in-day-out, John Karlen (who later played Harvey Lacey on Cagney & Lacey) vividly portrayed the guilt, fear, and compassion of Loomis, the grifter turned into Collins’ slave via several blood sucking sessions.

It is also notable how Curtis and his writers carefully doled out Barnabas Collins appearances in his early episodes, to build up the intrigue. Frankly, during his initial episodes, we see more of the portrait hanging in the Collins’ ancestral home that bears a remarkable resemblance to Barnabas (who introduces himself as a cousin from England), right down to the head of his cane. Indeed, it probably takes a dozen episodes before we even see his fangs.

Jonathan Frid really is terrific as Barnabas. He can be hard and ruthless, but he also projects Byronic angst of the undead you find in vintage Universal monster movies. Veteran thesp Joan Bennett personified grand dame-ness as Stoddard, the head of the Collins clan. Likewise, Dennis Patrick just personifies sleaze as the oily McGuire. You almost need a shower after he slides in and out of a scene. Alexandra Moltke (later Alexandra Isles, who would have a second career as a documentarian, notably directing Porraimos) grows on viewers as Victoria Winters, the former orphan schoolteacher, hired to tutor Stoddard’s nephew David.

Eventually, Barnabas kidnaps Evans, a popular local waitress, with the intention of brainwashing and vampirically “turning” her into his long-dead bride, Josette Collins. Frankly, Kathryn Leigh Scott’s overwrought performance is definitely soap opera stuff, in an unfortunate sense. However, Joel Crothers, David Ford, and the immediately recognizable Mitchell Ryan wear well on the audience, as her boyfriend Joe Haskell, her father Sam, and Devlin, their friend, who form the core of the search party. Episode 261 represents another end of an era for the show, because it marks the end of Ryan’s run on the show (Anthony George would take over the role in 262).