Horror
True Blood – Season 1
August 20, 2010 | 
Author I know I’m really late to this party, but I finally decided to jump on the bandwagon and see what this True Blood show was all about. It’s pretty good, but not quite what I expected. Actually, the last vampire show I watched was Moonlight and I thought that was pretty interesting. That show had quite a bit of potential, too bad they killed it.
Anyway, I like the location and the characters (Lafayette always cracks me up) but the story is pretty standard fair isn’t it? At least so far. I’m sure there’s more to this murder mystery, that would just be too damned simple.
I guess you have to expect a slow build with a new series, you have to introduce everyone and go through the long process of giving the back-story riddled with issues and problems. And you have to know who’s sleeping with whom. And I have to admit, I’m a little surprised at the volume of sex in this little tale. I’m not being prudish or shocked by it, quite frankly I think most of it is embarrassingly funny, just strikes me that the only one keeping it in his pants is vampire Bill. 
Although I think that’s about to change.
One thing I do like is how each episode picks right back up where it left off. They don’t skip over huge gaps of time and leave you wondering what happened.
I’m certainly going to finish out this season then jump into Season 2. I’m sure things are going to pick up nicely as we move along. I’m sure this will hold me over until September when a whole slew of shows return for new seasons.
True Blood fans, is it worth the ride?
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Frankenstein, or Modern Prometheus
What could be better than writing about Frankenstein on Friday the 13th!!
It’s been decades since I last read Frankenstein, and in fact I’m not sure I actually ever did (at least not the whole thing). I think I had the greatest of intentions, but always ended up watching movie interpretations instead. And now that I have seen dozens of movies and with the original fresh in my head I am startled at how different the original is from all these Hollywood stories.
For one thing, there is no massive lightning storm that brings the creature to life. In fact, that aspect is left quite vague in the original story. The idea of Galvanism is presented as a way to reanimate the body, but there aren’t any details on how to actually make it happen. There is no pulsating generator, or conveyor that leads the body to the top of the castle as the storm approaches. Of course, it’s a really cool idea. Too bad Mary Shelley didn’t think to include it.
Secondly, Frankenstein’s creation is quite articulate and is able to speak and understand multiple languages. Not only is he able to talk to Frankenstein to ask for a companion and to explain his anger and depression at humanity, but when he watches the exiled family in the woods he is able to pick up their language. He’s even able to show remorse and regret to Walton once Victor has passed away.
Additionally, there is no driving the creature from town with torches and pitchforks. To be honest, the creature isn’t actually seen by more than two or three people. And there are a lot of other major differences, such as the story begins and ends in the region of the North Pole.
I guess that old black and white film really doesn’t do the story justice. From the many versions I’ve seen the Kenneth Branagh version seems to be the closest to the actual story, but there are plenty of liberties taken in that version too. I guess a story about grave robbing and trying to bring someone back from the death needed a little more spicing up to make it on film.
What I find interesting, depending on whom you read and what you believe, is that many parts of the Frankenstein story are actually true. There is some debate on the whole body snatching and sewing pieces together aspect (although there is quite a bit of evidence to support it happening), but the idea of Galvanism was certainly real and certainly believed by many to be capable of reanimating a body. It seems many experiments were done where electricity was passed through a corpse and the muscles would contract and move. We now know this really isn’t a big deal and is perfectly understandable, but a hundred years ago this was the first step towards bringing a body back to life. The rules surrounding medical experiments were a touch more lax back then however. Good thing we don’t do crazy stuff like that anymore…
Another amusing coincidence is that the Frankenstein legend and the seed of the vampire legend were both created on the same night or at least close to each other. If the legend is true, then while trying to entertain themselves during a very rainy and cold season Mary Shelley, who was a guest of Lord Byron, sat around the fire and crafted the beginning story of Frankenstein. With her husband’s help and encouragement she expanded the story and created the full length novel we know today. During this same time, Lord Byron came up with a fragment of a story about the vampire legend. This was then turned into the story, Vampyre, which is arguably the start of the vampire legend and of course would later lead to the short story Carmilla, which would then lead to Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
It’s also fascinating how these writers would vacation together, work together and even help craft and mold the story simply because they wanted to see the idea come out. It wasn’t all about the publishing and movie rights, but that’s another discussion entirely.
If you haven’t read Frankenstein in awhile, or ever, it’s really worth going back and indulging in the original. The feature length movies we have now really don’t compare to how the original plays out. Plus, it’s getting close to Halloween, so there’s no better time to jump into the classics and surround yourself with old castles, grave robbing and a ill tempered creature bent on revenge. It’s good stuff!
You can grab the regular text from here:
You can listen to the audiobook here: (The audiobook is quite good. It’s not perfect, but it’s free and the imperfections don’t overshadow a good story.)
Carmilla – A prequel to Dracula
For the uninitiated, which I was, Carmilla is a Gotchic (read saucy) novella that was originally published in 1872 and is believed by many to be the foundation upon which Bram Stoker wrote Dracula. It certainly has all the elements such as shape shifting, neck biting, seduction, rising from the grave, a vampire slayer and of course the hunting of the vampire to drive a stake through the heart.
In this story, we have a female vampire that is seducing and then taking the life of female victims. Considering the time period this book was written in that alone makes this quite a risqué story. Carmilla is the mysterious stranger who has to be rescued after her horse and cart meet with an accident. Her mother has urgent business and can’t spare the time to stop and take care of her child so she leaves her in the care of Laura and her father. (Apparently babysitting was much different back in the late 1800′s). To add to the mystery Carmilla’s mother has forbidden her from speaking of their past or their destination. She even tells Laura’s father not to ask about them right before she rides off.
As you may expect, once Carmilla is around all sorts of strange things begin to happen. First off, Laura recognizes Carmilla from dreams she had over a decade ago. Additionally, Carmilla begins to seduce Laura, lavishing her with praise and stirring up odd feelings in her. When some old restored photos show up at the house they’re amazed to find that one of the pictures looks exactly like Carmilla. Of course, the portrait was done over a hundred years ago. (You always know that’s a bad sign. There is also the other subtle sign of Carmilla sleeping all day and disappearing at night.)
Ironically there is a malady going around the village where young girls are becoming sick and dying. In some cases the young girls only live a couple of days. It’s not too far of a leap to guess that Laura gets this same malady and becomes increasingly pale and lethargic. Doctors are brought in but they fear something more supernatural is going on. This leads to an investigation, a hunt and stories of more girls suffering in the same way as Laura. Pretty soon it’s obvious Carmilla isn’t who she claims to be nor is she anywhere near as young as anyone thinks.
If anything, this is a condensed version of Dracula and is really quite good. It has the same first person narrative style told by the victim (although Dracula brings in a lot more characters and many different forms of telling the story) and has many of the same elements; which it should considering it was written first. There is a lot of interesting lore to gather from this story, and clearly sets up the vampire legend. If you have a chance and want to get to the origins of the vampire, this is worth reading.
Dracula – The book is nothing like any of the movies
Since I’m already in my Halloween mood, I just finished reading the original Dracula. In actuality I listened to it as an audiobook from Librivox.org. I’ve been listening to it for the past several days at the office while I did my regular work. It’s a really good recording and well worth the time.
It was terribly good fun, but it was almost laughable at how different the actual book is versus what we have come to know "about" the book. Taking a step back, the original Dracula starring Bela Legosi (or any other rendition really) is nothing like the original story. In the main novel Dracula shows up for the first two chapters while revealing his plans to Harker and then all but disappears for the rest of it. He does show up here and there to deliver a few lines but otherwise we "feel" his presence rather than see his person.
Another thing that really caught me was the idea that Dracula is a handsome seducer that merely has to look at women and they fall under his spell. There is certainly seduction in the very early stages of the novel and the idea of sexuality is obviously prevalent, but you don’t actually see Dracula running around bending the will of women and luring them. His actions are very much out of sight and you only see some of the end result.
To take it step further, Dracula isn’t even a main character in the original. We barely see him, we mainly hear of his deeds and the fear he causes. If anything, Dr. Seward and Van Helsing are the main characters with Mina and John Harker having major supporting roles. Everything is about the hunt for Dracula not their interaction with him. Even the "final showdown" barely has Dracula involved. Van Helsing and group cross the vast oceans on a long trek, then make their attack against the gypsies that are protecting Dracula. But once they fight off the gypsies, Dracula is defenseless and is killed without putting up and sort of fight. There is no mortal struggle between Van Helsing and Dracula as we see so often.
I also found it humorous that Dracula is killed with a knife in the heart and not a wooden stake as we are all so accustomed to. And let’s not forget that lopping off of the head bit. That usually gets left out. To graphic for television? Hard to say.
We all know the "legend" of Dracula, but this was a great reminder that the legend and the original story aren’t really that similar. Anyone else agree or am I out on a limb here?
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