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500 Years of Blood: The History of Vampires in Legend and Film

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The idea of vampires, these undead creatures subsisting off of the life force of others, has been around for centuries. Though the image of the bloodsucking creature of the night has changed considerably over the years and continues to change, for horror’s sake, that change may be for the better.

The Legend of Vampires

Dating from the probable first historical example of a vampire to the advent of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the truth may be scarier than fiction.

History’s First Vampire

The person believed to be the first historical reference of a vampire is Jure Grando Alilović in the late 1500’s/early 1600s in Croatia.

For the 16 years following his death, he is rumored to have terrorized the village where he used to live. At night, his ghoulish form would wander the town streets, knocking on doors as he walked. Apparently, those who had their door knocked upon meant that death was soon to come for them.

The story goes that the wife also suffered horribly, as she claimed her husband’s decaying, ghoulish figure would force himself into her room at night to torment her. Referred to by villagers as Strigon (fans of FX’s The Strain will recognize this as an ancient term for vampire), after sixteen years of terror, the mayor reportedly ordered a group of young men to the grave of Jure Grando. He was exhumed and allegedly beheaded.

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Though the story is horrifying, there is little evidence to back it up. Moreover, the Middle Ages were notorious for jumping to conclusions.

The Madness of the Medieval Times

Just as the Salem Witch Trials notoriously saw people being unfairly accused as witches, the Middle Ages and beyond saw that same ignorance-fueled paranoia led to people being called vampires.

In this period where diseases ran rampant, those afflicted were often believed to be vampires, thus explaining the cause of disease being spread. Moreover, the blood disorder porphyria (skin that blisters when in contact with sunlight) is believed to be the origin of vampires’ aversion to sunlight.

Since medical advances were nowhere near what they are now, people didn’t understand that illness spread through germs, so when close contact would spread disease, they assumed it must have been because of ill intent. Though this was the reality of the Middle Ages, the most recent infamous example occurred in Rhode Island in the 1800s.

The Tale of Mercy Brown

When tuberculosis was raging through the population, there was a rumor swirling. The story indicated that if all of the members of the same family began to die of consumption, it was because one of the previously deceased family members was siphoning the family’s life force from beyond the grave. A family with the surname Brown is a legendary example of this.

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The mother was the first to die of tuberculosis. Then came the death of the oldest daughter. Another daughter, Mercy Brown, and son followed behind not long later. Then the father became ill as well.

The town, fueled by the rumor, exhumed the bodies of the dead family to find the life-sucking culprit. Three bodies were exhumed, the mother, Mercy, and her sister. While her family members were dug from their graves as skeletons, Mercy was perfectly preserved. While she had not been dead as long as her familial counterparts, that did not matter to the town: they found their vampire. They burned Mercy’s heart and liver and fed the ashes to the father to cure him. Spoiler alert: it did not cure him, and he joined the rest of his family in death not long later.

While a lack of knowledge fueled rumors that would become vampire legends back then, this still happens today, but differently than before.

The Myths Circulating Dracula

As an article in Time magazine extensively covered, Bram Stoker allegedly sought inspiration from true stories when writing Dracula. Of course, those familiar with Vlad Dracul, also known as Vlad the Impaler, tend to correlate his existence with the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula. After all, Vlad Dracul was renowned for the violent, impaling way he killed and is even rumored to have dipped bread in the blood of his enemies, devouring it. That, coupled with the Dracul surname, surely must refer to Dracula. However, some Stoker experts urge that this was not the case whatsoever.

While the history behind the Vlad the Impaler inspiration remains muddled, according to research conducted by Dacre Stoker (the great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker) and his writing partner J.D. Barker original copies of the Dracula manuscript allegedly urged that everything within the pages was true.

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According to Time Magazine, caskets filled with earth were brought aground, with a mysterious black dog who immediately ran to a nearby cemetery. Over one hundred pages were cut from Dracula, heavily believed to be the text portion where Bram Stoker insisted that what followed were actual events.

While the previous makes for fantastic story-telling, it would not be the first or last time rumors about the novel were created. In fact, new stories are still appearing today.

Vampire Bats and Other Blood Suckers

According to Tumblr legend, the connection between vampires and bats comes from Vlad the Impaler’s war history. Legend says that during battle, Vlad led the enemy into a valley where facing Vlad’s army meant staring directly into the setting sun. Then, Vlad’s men released rabid bats, which fled the sunlight and attacked the unsuspecting enemy. The loss of a visual on the men plus the bat attack caused the attacked to believe that Vlad and his men had turned into bats.

The true story, however, is not as glamorous. The truth is that bats of that caliber are not native to Romania and were frankly impossible. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is the first-time vampires were associated with bats, and experts believe he was inspired by the nocturnal nature of the winged mammals and the blood-drinking vampire bat.

Speaking of bloodsuckers, did you know that it was a long-held belief that the smell of garlic repels mosquitos? This form of mosquito repellent is strongly believed to be the reason that vampires would also be deterred by garlic. Essentially, what’s bad for one bloodsucker is bad for the gander. (Though, according to this study, garlic turns out not to repel even the tiniest of bloodsuckers.)

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Notwithstanding the rumors, the fate of Bram Stoker’s novel was sealed and would see a resurgence of popularity in the following century.

Twentieth Century Vampires

Armed with Bram Stoker’s legendary novel for inspiration, the film Nosferatu brought the horrific creature to audiences of the 1920s. The 1930s saw the Universal Monster treatment of the classic Dracula emerge in 1931, with Bela Lugosi acting in the titular role. Lugosi would star in other vampire films, such as Mark of the Vampire in 1935, followed by House of Dracula and The Devil Bat in the 1940s.

 From there, the characteristic image of the vampire was set. The words vampire and Dracula became synonymous with one another. The pale-faced, intricately dressed undead creature who bites the neck of his victims was revamped (pun intended) with hundreds of Dracula-inspired productions, spanning the entire 20thcentury

It was not just horror films that saw the presentation of Dracula. Numerous comedies (such as the 1990s Dracula: Dead and Loving It) and children’s cartoons such as Pink Panther in 1975’s “Pink Plasma” and Looney Tunes’ 1963 short “Transylvania 6-5000” would go on to depict the legendary vampire. This dilution of the once repulsive creature picked up steam into the 21st century, creating a much different depiction than the monster who haunted the dreams of generations before.

Modern Vampires

The modern treatment of vampires is typically wealthy, attractive-looking creatures with fangs. Whether its True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, Underworld, Twilight, Daybreakers, Queen of the Damned, American Horror Story: Hotel, Night Teeth, What We Do in the Shadows, etc., the modern look of vampires is tirelessly overdone. While the decades before lent a hand in creating this version of vampires, dating back to Bela Lugosi, the era after 2000 ran this trend into the ground.

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Although the vampire image tends to be bastardized into the personification of tween fantasy (which, for the record is perfectly fine in small doses), I know that horror is not done with these undead creatures of the night just yet. Morbius was at least bestial, and with films like Salem’s Lot on the horizon, there is still hope that the upcoming generation will view vampires as the nightmarish ghouls they were from the beginning.

A writer by both passion and profession: Tiffany Taylor is a mother of three with a lifelong interest in all things strange or mysterious. Her love for the written word blossomed from her love of horror at a young age because scary stories played an integral role in her childhood. Today, when she isn’t reading, writing, or watching scary movies, Tiffany enjoys cooking, stargazing, and listening to music.

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[INTERVIEW] Can AI Consent? An Interview With the Crew Behind ‘Black Eyed Susan’

Black Eyed Susan was a stand-out hit at Brooklyn Horror Film Fest this year. In the film, the down-on-his-luck Derek (Damian Maffei) is coerced into product testing Susan (Yvonne Emilie Thälker), a life-like sex doll meant to be able to take a beating and bleed and bruise like a real person. Susan’s complex AI leads to conflicted feelings from Derek. The audience at the fest was open to the challenge of Black Eyed Susan’s taboo and transgressive subject matter. To gain a little more insight into the film, I talked with writer and director Scooter McCrae and lead actor Yvonne Emilie Thälker.

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Black Eyed Susan was a stand-out hit at Brooklyn Horror Film Fest this year. In the film, the down-on-his-luck Derek (Damian Maffei) is coerced into product testing Susan (Yvonne Emilie Thälker), a life-like sex doll meant to be able to take a beating and bleed and bruise like a real person. Susan’s complex AI leads to conflicted feelings from Derek. The audience at the fest was open to the challenge of Black Eyed Susan’s taboo and transgressive subject matter. To gain a little more insight into the film, I talked with writer and director Scooter McCrae and lead actor Yvonne Emilie Thälker.

[Ed. note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.]

An Interview with Scooter McCrae and Yvonne Emilie Thälker

Horror Press: Where did the inspiration for the film come from?

Scooter McCrae: It came from the deepest darkest recesses of my usually very sunny, open, and fun mind. There was no inciting incident that led to the screenplay being written. I was very much thinking about being a guy, and getting older, and thinking “Everything’s been really good” but even with that there’s certain things that we think about that tend to just go dark. I find that a great place to play. It helps give the lighter moments their weight.

HP: Chuck Palahniuk’s short story Exodus has similar themes and mentions “turning people into objects and objects into people. How does that idea apply to Black Eyed Susan?

Yvonne Emilie Thälker: We’re asking ourselves the question of “what is a person?”, and that goes back to Frankenstein. That’s one of the wonderful things I love about sci-fi movies and, to an extent, horror movies. Black Eyed Susan is a mash up. It is kind of asking a lot of those same questions: Is how you treat objects a reflection of how you treat people? How do we treat an AI that mimics a human, and how does it reflect on us? We write sci-fi and horror to examine our fears around humanity.

SM: To Yvonne’s point, really good science fiction is about sociology. It’s not about the technology itself. You know, that’s a bit of, as I like to say it’s the cheese and the mouse trap.

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We live in a world where corporations are people, and real people don’t even get the same respect or tax breaks that fucking corporations get. There’s just so much inequality between objects and people. And sometimes I think objects get the better deal and people get the raw deal, and sometimes it works the other way around as well. But in science fiction especially, there’s going to be a point at which people and technology are just simply going to meet, and there’s going to be some kind of sociological showdown trying to figure out who gets what rights and who gets to say what, and which one has more validity.

Photograph by Marlon S. Row

HP: Yvonne, What was it like to play a role that is highly gendered and objectified as a nonbinary person?

YET: It’s probably impossible to put all of my ideas about my own gender and the role into a succinct couple of words, because I think aspects of my gender can be very fluid. They can also be kind of agnostic- I’ve got other things to worry about. Every nonbinary person is different. As a model too, there are times where being in a very feminine dress or role for the camera feels like drag. It feels like a thing I’m putting on, but it’s not a full reflection of who I am. But that’s what acting is.

I really like the ability to shape shift. That’s one thing that people would sometimes tell me as a model throughout the years. To me, that’s a big compliment. I like the ability to be chameleon-like and look one way in one shot and then very different in another.

So I really relish the opportunity to play roles that are very much not me, even if there probably is a twinge of feeling slightly uncomfortable being in this kind of very specific, objectified feminine space. I’d love the opportunity to play other types of characters and other types of genders that I’m not.

HP: It’s also empowering to see another nonbinary person in a lead role!

YET: That’s so wonderful to hear! That is the main reason why I decided to be assertive about my pronouns and my identity early on. I think it is important to be myself and an example for others. Seeing yourself represented is so important and can help people not just to come into their own, but also let them know that they belong in this world.

SM: I like what you’re saying too because the representation isn’t the point of the character or the story.

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HP: I think a lot of times, people who might not know a trans person only think of us as our identity and don’t realize that we have full lives outside of that.

HP: What does it mean to have a sexual relationship with someone or something who can’t consent? Especially when they might not be a person, but look like one.

SM: That goes to like vibrators or dildos or fake pussies to an extent. Are they willing participants? You just don’t think of it that way. The fact that the doll in the movie has an AI, that’s what is causing confusion; the fact that it has the ability to give off the impression of having sentience. And with sentience comes the question of consent.

I’d like to think that the movie does talk about it. And the great thing about being a writer or a filmmaker is that I get to ask all the questions I want, and I reserve the opportunity to not have to ever answer them. That’s art. You don’t have to answer these questions, but raising them is what’s important.

YET: I would say for me, I actually feel like Susan consents. She’s designed to not only physically be able to take a beating, but to kind of want it. So there’s that issue of: she’s designed to consent. Is that really consent? It is possible to be in BDSM culture and to want to take a certain level of violence. You are consenting to it and you want it because it is cathartic for you in some way. But you know, the story of Susan, I think goes beyond that. For me, the sticky issue is more: how are you okay doing this to something so human like and not doing that to a real human?

Pictured above, young Scooter on Adult Film Set. Photo provided by Scooter McCrae

HP: I’m wondering what that does to our conditioning. Also in terms of what we see about heterosexual relationships in the media and pornography.

YET: It does influence us when all the women are represented as young and small and beautiful and mostly white and able-bodied and it’s like, there’s no stretch marks, there’s no chipped nail polish. But then when some men encounter real women they’re like, “Oh my God, when this woman that I went on a date with took her makeup off, she’s got acne and under eye bags”. I think that’s a very specific kind of misogyny working there.

It leads to this type of paranoia with people thinking, “Is my body good enough? Is my skin clear enough? Am I fit enough? Am I strong enough?” I think a doll like Susan could be very harmful in terms of if men were routinely using these dolls and abusing them, and then, they try to have a relationship with a real person, and the real person is like, “Yes, I’m into BDSM, but we need to use these safe words and safe practices. I need to feel like I trust you.” Then it shatters the illusion. We’re seeing the beginning of that in the world of Black Eyed Susan, where it’s going to lead to these unhealthy expectations, and, in my opinion, lead to actual abuse of actual humans.

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SM: Yeah, addressing the illusion is important. Understanding why something is an illusion is part of the fun of it. It doesn’t take away from the pleasure factor. If you’re doing it right, it adds a level of confidence. When you go to see a movie, you’re not going to say, “It’s all fake. Well, what a waste of my time.”

As someone who does like pornography, and quite a bit, I’ll bring up Sturgeon’s Law, which is that 95% of everything is shit. And this applies to pornography, probably more than anything else. You watch whatever you want, as long as you know that it is, of course, fake and that the people making it are professionals.

In fact, I used to shoot and edit porn, and what’s interesting here is that the people who were making them were basically friends. They all work locally in the industry, but when they would get together, it was a lot of fun. People got paid. They were shot quickly and low-budget, but people were actually having a great time. People were cumming. We’d shoot them in a day or two at most, and it was just the best possible representation of how good pornography can get made by people having a good time and wanting to make stuff that gets out there and promotes just having fun. The worst shoot I ever did, some people came in from LA for me to shoot in a hotel: absolutely the worst porn shoot I ever had to do in my entire life. They were just literally snorting coke, and just, it was just awful. It was the worst cliche. And I couldn’t even believe I was there. It was just like watching zombies engage in calisthenics.

Many thanks to Scooter McCree and Yvonne Emilie Thälker for talking the time to talk with us at Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.

You can preorder Black Eyed Susan via Vinegar Syndrome here!

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[REVIEW] The ‘Slayed’ LGBTQ+ Shorts Block at BHFF 2024 Tapped Into Queer Nightmares and Daydreams

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Brooklyn Horror Film Festival is over for another year, but many of the films I saw will linger long on my mind. That’s especially true for those that played as part of the annual ‘Slayed’ shorts block.

Horror Press was once again proud to sponsor ‘Slayed,’ which exists to elevate short films made by LGBTQ+ filmmakers and focusing on queer themes. If you couldn’t make it this year, check out our round-up of the block below.

Beach Logs Kill (dir. Haley Z. Boston)

A surreal daydream edges into nightmare territory in writer-director Haley Z. Boston’s Beach Logs Kill. The short centers on an always-in-detention misfit (Abby Quinn) who finds herself drawn inexorably to the school’s beloved quarterback, Number 36 (Ryan Simpkins). After a charged encounter in the locker room that may or may not have been in the misfit’s head, Number 36 heads out onto the field, where a horrific accident awaits them.

Beach Log Kills masterfully captures that muddled moment in all our queer awakenings when we can’t quite decide if we want to be with someone or be them — that place where desire and obsession collide, hesitation reigns, and anything could happen, but, inevitably, nothing does. Boston reclaims jock machismo through a queer, femme-forward lens, offering a locker room fantasy for every girl who ever watched their crush from afar, afraid to tell, along with one of the most memorable uses of a tampon in horror this year.

Lady Parts (dir. Ariel McCleese)

Some girls just make you wet. In the case of Iris (Ava Hase), dreaming about Ellie (Liv Mai) leaves her practically drenched. Writer-director Ariel McCleese takes this concept to the edge and beyond in her short Lady Parts, which combines elements of body horror and vaginal imagery with enough goop to make Cronenberg proud.

The short focuses on Iris’s struggle to confront her sexuality even as it threatens to spill over and consume all. An encounter with a boy, Ethan (Jake Holley), ends in tragedy, her body revolting. But what was forced and unpleasant with Ethan is beautiful and natural with Ellie, leaving them both reveling in the wetness.

Unsettled (dir. Bella Thorne)

The words “This is a true story” flash on screen like a punch to the gut at the end of Unsettled, a queer nightmare written and directed by Bella Thorne and based on the experiences of producer and star Jason Parks. Parks plays Jay, a young man whose night at a gay club in the Bible Belt of Oklahoma ends with him waking up bound in a bathtub, having been drugged and abducted by two men.

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Thorne’s direction carefully balances frantic moments with quiet, breathless terror, and it will be interesting to see what she does with the material when she adapts it into her feature directorial debut, Color Your Hurt. Parks has said in interviews that making and watching the short was a “cathartic” experience, which is good to hear because the events depicted in it are truly horrifying. But the scariest part is the apathy of law enforcement and onlookers — and the haunting unspoken question of what might have happened to Jay/Parks if he didn’t break free.

Dream Factory (dir. Alex Matraxia)

The role of cruising in the gay community has faded over time as unambiguous queer bars and hook-up apps have proliferated. Writer-director Alex Matraxia’s experimental short film Dream Factory stirs the ghosts of this era, inviting viewers into a location that has long played an important role in the queer experience, both as a site to cruise in the relative obscurity of darkness and as a place to feel seen: the cinema.

Clocking in at around six minutes, Matraxia’s dialogue-free short doesn’t follow a conventional narrative, instead invoking a pervasive air of eroticism tinged with danger. Two men meet beneath the flickering light of the projector, while a cowboy and gangster, two archetypes of masculinity, fill the screen and a mysterious blonde figure roams the hall. The incessant hum of the projector underscores all as lips linger over ears and bodies stalk and crash.

Rat! (dir. Neal Suresh Mulani)

In addition to handling writing and directing duties, Neal Mulani stars in Rat!, a comedic horror short about the perils of provoking stan Twitter. Mulani plays Navin, an entertainment journalist who goes viral for posting a video criticizing a major pop star, Wally Max (Jacob Berger), for supposed queerbaiting. His editor may love it, but the star’s fans do not, leading some to hunt him down.

Rat! is especially interesting in its exploration of the gray areas of internet culture. Max’s fans are clearly in the wrong for taking fandom too far, but Navin isn’t entirely in the right, either. Mulani shows him looking up what others are saying about Max before composing his video, blatantly looking for an angle rather than expressing his true thoughts. And while there’s an important conversation to be had about the trend of real queer people (especially queer people of color) being shouted down by fans in these conversations, so is there a danger of making assumptions about the sexuality and gender identity of others.

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Stink (dir. Matias Breuer)

There’s something so uncomfortable about the idea of being watched without your knowledge. Writer Drew Beckman and director Matias Breuer take voyeurism to a violating new level with Stink, an unsettling tale of unseen obsession.

The short opens on the beach, where a stalker (Beckman) watches the handsome Levi (Karan Menon) sunbathe. An eerie voiceover gives us a glimpse into the true depths of the stalker’s obsession as he draws closer to Levi, crossing more and more boundaries, dipping his fingers in a glob of saliva left behind in the sand and raising them to his lips. Things only escalate from there as the stalker enters Levi’s apartment while he’s in the shower, transfixed by his smell, desperate to taste. His thirst satiated for now, he moves on to his next obsession, but we’re left with the disquieting question of whether he’ll take things even further next time.

Girls (dir. Julien Hosmalin)

The soft, shy queer female gaze is juxtaposed with a leering, violent male one in Girls, directed by Julien Hosmalin, who co-wrote the script with Olivier Torres. This stylish French horror short centers around lounge singer Ally (Carmen Kassovitz), who runs away with Romane (Natacha Krief) on her motorbike, looking for a little peace. But when the bike breaks down, their getaway devolves into a nightmare as Ally is kidnapped by a sex trafficking ring and put up for auction.

With a truly satisfying climax, Girls is proof that the revenge subgenre needs more sapphic entries. If you’ve ever wanted to see a motorbike used as a weapon, this is the short for you.

We hope this recap convinces you to check out the ‘Slayed’ shorts block at Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2025. Until then, keep an eye out for these shorts, and be sure to support the filmmakers behind them.

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