Vampire Paradise

NEWS BITES: VAMPIRE BOOK REVIEW

The Buffyverse Continues With the British series 'Ripper'

BLOOD TIES: AN INTERVIEW WITH TANYA HUFF

As Lifetime prepares season two of the series Blood Ties, Vampires & Slayers offers this audio interview with Tanya Huff, the author who created the concept in her series of novels and short stories.  The series focuses on a triumvirate of characters consisting of private eye Vicki Nelson (Christina Cox), Detective Mike Celucci (Dylan Neal) and vampire Henry Fitzroy (Kyle Schmid), who find themselves embarking on a series of investigations into the world of the supernatural. Along the way, there is continued tension resulting from the romantic triangle between the three leads. This interview with Tanya Huff was conducted before the show made its debut.

DARK SHADOWS 2004: WHAT HAPPENED?

Next to Star Trek, it would be difficult to find a 40-year-old franchise that has shown the kind of durability that Dan Curtis’ Dark Shadows has. A phenomenon during its original 1966-71, the daytime soap opera introduced audiences to the Gothic world of vampires, werewolves, witches and more, and made fans of millions, including actor Johnny Depp, who recently announced he would be playing vampire Barnabas Collins in a new film version.

   A phenomenon at the time, the show, which starred Canadian actor Jonathan Frid as Barnabas, spawned two feature films in the form of 1970’s House of Dark Shadows and 1971’s Night of Dark Shadows. Additionally, there was the 1991 NBC primetime version starring Ben Cross as Barnabas, which had the unfortunate timing of going against the Gulf War and lost in the ratings, after which many assumed the show would vanish. Which couldn’t be further from the truth, with MPI offering dozens of DVD box sets to release all 1,225 episodes on disc, new novels hitting the bookshelves as well as audio adventures from Big Finish Productions. And, back in 2004, it seemed that there would be a new primetime series from the WB, starring Alec Newman as Barnabas. So assured did this seem that the WB cancelled Joss Whedon’s Angel, feeling it didn’t need two vampire series on the air at one time. And yet when the network announced its fall schedule at the time, Dark Shadows was nowhere to be seen, which proved confusing to a great many people.

WRITER/DIRECTOR LAWRENCE PEARCE on "NIGHT JUNKIES"

Working within a limited budget, but driven by a desire to put his own spin on the vampire genre, writer/director Lawrence Pearce crafted the new-to-DVD film Night Junkies, which takes the addiction metaphor of vampirism and extrapolates upon it, focusing on how the "disease" affects Vincent Monroe (Giles Alderson) and the stripper he turns, Ruby Stone (Katia Winter), and chronicles their efforts to beat it. Making his debut with Night Junkies (which is currently available through Amazon.com), Pearce's passion for filmmaking is obvious.

BUFFY VS. DARK SHADOWS?

One of the sites within the Media Geek Zone is www.voicesfromkrypton.com, which, among other things, serves as homebase for the Media Geek comic strip. In an installment which has not been posted there as of yet, Media Geek imagines a crossover between Dark Shadows and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Below are the results of his imaginings.

[CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE]

DARK COMMANDOS: EPISODE TWO

Continuing where Episode One left off (and if you haven't seen it, go to the Dark Commandos section of this blog -- we'll wait), the vampire Dreyfuss extracts some information from Dwight regarding the kidnapping of the vice president's daughter. Needless to say, Dreyfuss has some unique tools of extraction at his disposal.