Showing posts with label Fandom: Fright Night. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fandom: Fright Night. Show all posts

Monday, 7 April 2014

AtoZ Day 6: F is for Fangs, Farkaskoldus, Fright Night/Fright Night II

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Fangs

I've said this before and I'll say it again, blood drinking vampires need to have fangs IMHO. I know that not all myths have vampires with fangs, but I like my fictional ones to have pointy teeth. It's one of my buttons. When I watch vampire films I am always very disappointed if the vampires are fang free.

In legend vampires use everything from long sharp tongues to razor sharp talons to feed, but there are quite a few who have fangs. One reason is the simple animalistic and inhuman nature of fangs. If you have sharp pointy teeth and long canines then there is no mistaking you for a vampire.

There are also medical conditions and signs of decay which cause the gums to receed from the teeth, therefore making them look longer, hence fangs.

Personally I just find fangs sexy as hell and I have been known to judge a film on the quality of its vampire fangs :).

Do you like fangs on vampires and what vampire has the most outrageous fangs? The most outrageous I have ever seen have to be Amy in Fright Night (as mentioned below) - now those were some serious fangs, and not exactly of the sexy variety.

Creature Feature:

Farkaskoldus


Today we have a vampire from Hungary and this is a good one because it combines vampire and werewolf mythology.

According to Vampiric Studies it takes on werewolf characteristics when it dies.

However, a much more interesting take on the myth is reported by Mari Wells on her blog. In this version a Farkaskoldus is created if a werewolf consumes the flesh of an executed person and you end up with a blood drinking undead rising from its grave each night to seek a victim. Check out Mari's whole post for details.

Movie Recommendation:


Title: Fright Night/ Fright Night II
Rating: 15
Summary: Fright Night: Charley Brewster has a new neighbour, Jerry and when Charley realises people are turning up dead he figures out Jerry is a vampire. When Jerry finds out Charley knows his only hope is Peter Vincent, the vampire expert who actually doesn't believe in vampires.
Fright Night II (1988): Charley is in college and has put all the vampire nonsense behind him having been convince it was a case of his mind simply coping with the horror of his neighbour being a serial killer and killing his best friend. That's when Regine turns up looking for revenge. Regine is Jerry's sister and she wants to torture Charlie forever.
Fright Night 2 (2013): Charley is on a school trip to Romania with his friends and their professor is Gerri Dandridge. The problem is Gerri is a vampire and Charley see things he shouldn't see making him and his friends a target, especially Amy, his ex-girlfriend who he's really hoping will forgive him and take him back. If they can stay alive long enough she might.
Why you should watch most of these: Fright Night (1985), Fright Night II (1988) and Fright Night 2 are brilliant, you should watch them all. The 80s films are the epitome of good 80s horror with a sense of humour, good effects and pretty decent plots. The characters are also superb. Jerry and Regine are sexy as all hell and it's easy to believe they are hundreds of years old. Then we have the 2013 FN2 which isn't a sequel to the 2011 travesty at all, it's a different take on the Fright Night story with the same cast of characters, but a different setting and a gender-bent Gerri. I loved it.
Why you shouldn't bother with FN 2011: They made Jerry a construction worker on the strip rather than a sophisticated renovator of period properties - this underlines everything that is wrong with this film. As far as I am concerned they missed the point. David Tennant is brilliant, Anton Yelchin is perfectly okay, but the rest are so not. The most touching scenes in the original revolve around Evil Ed, Charley's best friend and in the remake they wrecked every single one of them. I cannot express how disappointed I was in this film.

Fangs for the Memory - Not! 
(#6 in The Diverse Life of Ianthe Jawara, Vampire)
by Natasha Duncan-Drake

It was supposed to have been just a night of dancing to let off some steam. She had her final exams coming up soon and she'd been studying so hard a break had been required. Ending up in the bed of a very beautiful man had not been on her to do list.

The fact that a man that stunning had wanted to dance with her had clearly knocked her good sense loose. He'd just been so alluring and somehow she had ended up in his arms.

He seemed to know just how to touch her. Every caress fogged her mind a little more and she climbed higher on a wave of hormones and lust.

The fact that she was naked in bed, in a hotel room with a complete stranger whose name she didn't even know, had that nagging little person at the back of her mind worrying. However, they weren't shouting loud enough to be heard over her libido.

"Please," she begged as he pinned her to the bed.

"Of course," he whispered and nuzzled at her neck.

It was heavenly as their bodies moved together in time.

Then there was pain.

It took her foggy brain a second to realise she had been bitten before her flight response kicked in. She struggled, but it was like trying to move rock. Then the euphoria hit her, equally as shocking as the pain, but taking away all fight in her. She sagged, sighing as her whole body was consumed by pleasure.

In a corner of her brain she realised she was dying. In another she recognised this creature taking her life for what he was: vampire. It made no sense, but then, right at that moment, it didn't have to. On balance, it was a beautiful way to die.

Even through the euphoria she heard the crash, however.

Her lover reared up, long, bloodied fangs right there in her line of sight as he snarled.

Now she could see the monster.

He snarled even louder when an arrow punched right through his chest, appearing just above her face. In her current state it looked so red as it swam in her vision. It fascinated her eyes and she watched as it dripped down, splashing her face.

Then her lover was gone, off the bed and out of her eye line. Her limbs were so heavy and she could not move, so all she could do was listen. She heard shouting and fighting, but it really didn't mean much. Absently she licked her wet lips as something tickled at the corner of her mouth and she tasted something slightly metallic and deep. It made her tongue tingle and it fired something through the lethargy. Flicking her tongue out she caught more of the wetness on her face and she swallowed.

It burned all the way down her throat and in her stomach it flared into even more.

She whimpered, even as she wanted more.

"Time to end this," she heard and clawed fingers wrapped around her throat.

The twisted features of her lover once again entered her vision as his hand stopped all air reaching her lungs. She didn't even have the will to struggle as her gaze scanned the long sharp teeth and now blood covered face. Eyes bluer than the sky stared down at her and flared with lightning like power. Something inside her answered and suddenly the pressure on her throat was gone.

"What the hell?"

Her lover sounded suddenly very different from the calm controlled man she had met in the club. She found herself being lifted by hands on either side of her head and then she was sitting up, staring into those eyes, even if she wasn't supporting her own weight.

"No, this cannot have happened," her lover said, scanning her face closely.

She felt a strange desire to laugh. Even when the arrow had appeared through his chest she had not seen the panic in her lover's eyes that she saw now.

The part of her that was still thinking expected to die at any second, the rest felt like giggling. Her lover was lucky she did not have the energy to do so.

"So be it," the creature said and moved faster than she could follow, clamping his mouth to her neck.

It felt even more amazing the second time.

~*~

Ianthe yawned and blinked at the ceiling of her bedroom. Rubbing her eyes ,she sat up, mentally cursing her maker as she did so. She hated dreaming of the night she had lost her humanity. It was at once the worst and best memory she had. There was no equivalent to the feeling of dying as vampire power worked its way through her body, but still she hated it.

Clearly the argument with Alex the morning before had upset her. She only ever dreamed of when he had turned her when she was upset.

~~*~~
A few of us discovered that we all had supernatural themes for the AtoZ so we got together and did a mini list. If you also have a supernatural theme (ghosts, monsters, witches, spells etc), please feel free to add yourself to the list.

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Tuesday, 22 October 2013

Review: Fright Night 2: New Blood

Title: Fright Night 2: New Blood
Rating: 15
Cast:
Will Payne ... Charley Brewster
Jaime Murray ... Gerri Dandridge
Sean Power  ... Peter Vincent
Sacha Parkinson  ... Amy Peterson
Chris Waller  ... 'Evil' Ed Bates
Summary:
Charlie, his best friend Ed and his ex-girlfriend Amy are on an educational trip to Romania where they have lectures on history at the local university. One of their professors is the beautiful Gerri Dandridge. When Charlie finds out she's a vampire the police won't believe him, Amy won't believe him and Ed just thinks he's screwed, so, of course, things can only get worse.

The wiki page for this film says it's a straight to DVD sequel to the 2011 remake of Fright Night - it's a lie. This isn't a sequel, it's another remake and this is how the first one should have been done.

I am a huge Fright Night (1985) fan, I love it and Fright Night 2 (1988), so when they remade Fright Night in 2011 I ran to the cinema ... and was  hideously disappointed. However, Fright Night 2: New Blood is brilliant. This is the kind of vampire movie I love. It has sexy vampires, it has humour, it has an adorable lead, it has action, it has romance.

This is the type of vampire movie that made me fall in love with vampires in the first place.

It's full of British actors playing what I assumed were Americans because they were talking about dollars and such, but I may just not have been paying attention and just expecting Americans because of the original. I didn't realise they weren't American until I looked them up on IMDB :).

Personally I thought the cast was brilliant.

This film takes the premise from Fright Night (1985), but adds in parts of Fright Night 2 (1988) by gender swapping Gerry for Gerri. It recreates small parts of both films in its own way, but has an entirely new and original back story, which I loved. This is recognisably Fright Night (1985), but fresh and new and simply wonderful.

I do have to admit, there are a couple of bits that don't quite make sense, like the whole opening scene which appears to have nothing to do with the film except for illustrating what vampires can do and the fact they don't show up on cameras. However, most of it hold together beautifully.

The two things I really, really disliked about the 2011 remake of Fright Night were Ed and Gerry; I thought the casting and the way they were played were totally and completely wrong. In Fright Night 2: New Blood they have got it so, so, so right.
Jaime Murray is simply fantastic as Gerri. She is sexy, in control and plays with Charlie so beautifully. Never for a second did I believe she was vulnerable. She was the epitome of the vampire; immortal, powerful and so far above the human cattle pitched against her.

Then there was Chris Waller as Ed, the unashamed horror geek who is slightly left of normal. I loved him, he was just enough like the Ed from the original (who I thought was the best character in the original film), but with his own spin to make him brilliant.

Will Payne as Charlie and Sacha Parkinson as Amy are also great and they shine in the final scenes, as does Sean Power as Peter Vincent. I have to admit, David Tennant did do a better Peter in the 2011 remake, but Sean was still great. The part where he figures out Gerri really is a vampire has the most superb timing.

This film is so good that originally I bought the DVD, but I've now gone back and ordered the blu-ray because I want it in HD. I do have some more to say about it, but there will be spoilers so I shall put them at the bottom where you have to highlight to see them.


Highlight to read:
This film hits so many of my vampire buttons. It has the hero being turned into a vampire (like in Fright Night 2 (1988)), it has a sexy vampire playing with a human for fun, it has the hero sacrificing himself for the good of all. I so, so, so loved it. The only problem is now I want more and I suspect there will be no more :(.