Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
A Geek Culture Podcast - Two life-long Geeks explain, critique and poke fun at the major pillars of Geek Culture for your listening pleasure.
Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
Vampires on a Plane, in a Trench Coat, and Probably at the DMV
What if vampire movies weren’t just capes and candlelight, but living ecosystems of ideas—about infection, class, desire, grief, and the high that won’t let go? We pulled on that thread and followed it everywhere, from neon-soaked action to art-house melancholy, from airplane sieges to centuries-long love stories. Along the way we map how Blade built a sleek underworld of boardrooms and blood banks, why Underworld kept the biotech arms race humming, and how Daybreakers and Stakeland treat vampirism like a supply-chain crisis with fangs.
We also sit with the softer, stranger places these stories go. Only Lovers Left Alive and All the Moons turn immortality into a quiet ache, where time outlives intimacy. Byzantium and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night flip the bite’s power dynamics, reclaiming agency and reframing the erotic charge. On the addiction axis, Thirst and Bliss merge craving with creation and self-destruction, turning every feed into a relapse and a confession. Global variations—Chinese hopping vampires, Filipino lore, Russian vourdalak—prove “vampire” is a vessel, not a rulebook, shaped by local fears and rituals.
Then the deep cuts: The Wisdom of Crocodiles (aka Immortality) turns love into chemistry and murder into philosophy; Humanist Vampire Seeking Suicidal Person finds empathy as the trigger for hunger; and Romero’s Martin leaves the most haunting question unresolved—monster, myth, or a boy who believes the story too well. If you’re ready for a watchlist that bites outside the lines, this one’s packed with surprises, arguments, and a few guilty pleasures.
Loved the ride? Share the episode, hit follow, and drop your most underrated vampire film in a review—we’ll add it to the coffin of future picks.
Uh just sort of couldn't find a little whole pair of players, you know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01:Take a item. Everything's the time.
SPEAKER_00:Well, welcome to the podcast. Welcome to Dispatch Ajax. Okay. Who are the three most famous vampires? Okay. I mean, obviously, number one, Dracula's a bullet, right? Number two?
SPEAKER_01:Not Speratu.
SPEAKER_00:Do you do like a count count Orlock?
SPEAKER_01:So you know, which is just Dracula. So, I mean. Which yeah, which is. But what's your number three? That's a good question. This is the one I was struggling with. Well, the fact that nothing's coming to mind off the top of my head, it proves that it's a good thing. Exactly. Weird.
SPEAKER_00:Now I've been rolling this around for a while. So I have the three names that could bubble to the surface. Okay. I think your options are Blade.
SPEAKER_01:I was almost I was about to say that, which is ridiculous because he's only a half vampire who fights vampires. So it is. Lestat. Oh, that's actually pretty good.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. And unfortunately, it's fucking Twilight Dude.
SPEAKER_01:I think you dated us pretty hard there. Because you're right. And oh boy. Should have thought of that.
SPEAKER_00:But it's so weird. I mean, there are so many vampire films, vampire books, vampire everything. But it's really just the one main guy, and then like a clone-ish of that guy. And then it's a it's a free-for-all after that. True. Because nobody else really stands out.
SPEAKER_01:It's just odd, you know? And all of them are kind of like stand-ins for like previous archetypes. Until you get into like some of the Korean and Japanese stuff.
SPEAKER_00:But even and then, yeah, even then. Foreign vampire mythology strays so far from the root ideas of Western vampirism. Tangentially, they both feed on blood, but after that, it could be wildly different. So odd. Was there really nothing till Anne Rice? There has to be something there, right? I mean, we're talking like we're talking around a hundred years, where like, yeah, it's just Dracula again and again. And even a good 80% of your standard vampire films almost always relates to like, well, it's Dracula, you know? Or it's it's Dracula by another name, you know?
SPEAKER_01:It's always some sort of Dracula.
SPEAKER_00:No matter what you do, it's always every once in a while you get lucky, you get a Black Cula, or you get a lizard person that's a vampire. You know what though? The first Black Cula movie, not that bad. I'd say it's one of my most liked exploitation vampire films. I don't know if it'd be number one, but it's it's up there.
SPEAKER_01:It's in my top 50 vampire black exploitation films. Maybe you should start the episode.
SPEAKER_00:We're talking about vampires. It's a vampire film because we're gearing up for spoopy times. October. We wanna we wanna hit that. So uh that's what the normies call it. October. I don't I don't buy that. I live by a different set of rules, man.
SPEAKER_01:I bought a thing and it said October. I don't know that that I haven't watched it yet, but you um I don't know that.
SPEAKER_00:What does that mean exactly? You bought a thing. Was was it a uh a live cylindrical tube?
SPEAKER_01:No, guy a guy sold me a DVD. A DVD. Oh, actually, I was like, You wouldn't steal a car, would you?
SPEAKER_00:Coctober. Well, speaking of Coctober, yeah, exploitation films. In my deep sinking of my teeth into vampire films, the amount of exploitation nudie tits and ass exploitation vampire films, it is beyond the pale, my friend. There is so much out there. I mean, 60s and the 70s were just it was rife. It was rife. It's it's you know, Drack this dick and and you know uh lesbian vampire titties and and fucking daughters, and yeah. There's just a lot. There's a lot out there.
SPEAKER_01:Let's let's just say they brought the hammer down.
SPEAKER_00:The hammer done come.
SPEAKER_01:That doesn't make uh-huh. Yep. Alright. Let's roll with it.
SPEAKER_00:Let's roll with it. That's what we always do. So today, I'd like to talk to you about vampires. Have you heard the good news? Of our Dark Lord and Savior? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Sent to the word of Alucard. We can get into that manga later, because I I did read that actually. You've read Hell I'm assuming we're talking about Helsing? Yes. I I actually owned the manga.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, okay. Yeah. I have I think I have a couple of the manga, and I had some of the DVDs. They've since redone that series, I think. Really? Just about every big 90s anime, they've done a new version. It's like, I don't know if you ever like try to get back into Evangelian, but there's like 17 different versions of it, and they all have like different endings and and they're slight changes everywhere. Helsing's another one of those where they did a remake version, but it's the same thing, but slightly different. But we can get into Helsing. I think that'll come up in certain categories, but um, I mean let me let me roll with this. In horror canon, vampires are a core staple of the genre. We all know, we all love. They've been widely utilized over the decades to extend past their horror trappings or romantic inclinations to both express more of what a vampire can be and mean while providing a vehicle to expand out to other genres and themes. Okay. Something like sinners, I think something that's really uh, you know, captured the wider imagination and scope, brought different conceptions of what a vampire movie can do and be while also placing them in a setting of genre that might not be as usual for the general audience to observe them amidst. But there is so much more that vampires can be, say, and do on the big screen. And that is what I'd like to talk to you all about today. I'm gonna take you on an exploration of what else and what more can be done with uh them bitey buds. Them fangs. The fangang. Now I want to focus on bringing to you things that you haven't seen and maybe have never heard of. So there's gonna be a lot of. I mean, honestly, we're gonna machine gun through a lot of vampire stuff. I think we're gonna stop in a few cul-de-sacks of both genre and thematic explorations to kind of see what is there. But a lot of the stuff we're gonna move past because what do we need to say about Bram Stoker's Dracula? We know it, we love it, we've been there, we've done it. If you are listening to this and and and sinking your teeth into this particular genre, I assume that you've already done that. This isn't Vampires 101, okay? We're grad level here. You might be writing a thesis. Obviously, we're not gonna be getting that deep uh or that academic into this. I watched seven vampire films in the past two weeks.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Slam down on this, not counting a random anime that I watched about Neo Tokyo cyberpunk vampire stuff. Okay. Ran all over the place. Try to get a lot of stuff that I hadn't seen, but I've always been interested in. You know, I wanted to provide you with things that maybe you haven't seen. So that's why I was trying to dig down. But if we happen to pass over something that you love and are really interested in, you're you know, well, it's like, yeah, you love it. Uh I'm sure everybody else loves it, but I I want to get into something that maybe you haven't seen.
SPEAKER_01:I uh when you say you, we mean the audience. The audience. All y'all listening. You always take care of me.
SPEAKER_00:I try. You don't make it easy, but I do what I can.
SPEAKER_01:I know, but you know what? At least you're there for the aftercare. That's what really matters.
SPEAKER_00:And folks, let's be honest. We're gonna say this is Jake's kink hour, where we're just we come in, we're gonna talk about something real quick. Now, if you want to dominate, if you want to bring some violence, maybe some blood yourself, maybe even some vampirisms, maybe light vampirism. Don't go bullhog on this bad boy. But if you're getting a little rough there, you make sure you give the pets, give the cuddles, give the warm wishes, you know, a nice wet rag to clean up any of that wet wipes, the bloodstains or whatever. Yeah. Well, I think an actual washcloth that's warm, like a compress, I think that can really help. You know, it's a little more thoughtful.
SPEAKER_01:Like you used to get in airplanes, the wood compress.
SPEAKER_00:I think I've only flown first class once. It didn't used to be first class. Used to happen all the time. Oh, back when we could smoke and grope stewardesses.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and also hijack them and take them to Cuba.
SPEAKER_00:Well, hey, we can keep our shoes on for flights now. So you know how many weapons I'm gonna be putting on those bad boys?
SPEAKER_01:Oh man, is it like in From Russia with Love where she has the shoes that knives and then you kick a guy?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I thought you were gonna go Blood Red Sky for the vampire theme. Oh lost. Um but you uh give me a little time.
SPEAKER_01:Give me a second, man. I mean, like, come on.
SPEAKER_00:Alright, I'm not even I'm not warming him up. No.
SPEAKER_01:Also, good movie.
SPEAKER_00:It it is, it is well, you know what? Yeah. We'll touch on that.
SPEAKER_01:It's it's almost like we're gonna talk about that because of this great thing you put together. Well, who knows?
SPEAKER_00:So there are a slew of genre mashups, you know, like vampires in this situation out there. We're gonna get into some of those. Some of those can have a lot of both meaning, quality, and thematic resonance, but sometimes they're just a mashup for the sake of mashup that maybe not as worth discussing, but we will touch some of that stuff. Let's imagine Lee Harvey Oswald also killed Sasquatch. You can't tell me he didn't. I'm just saying, ask questions, do some research, okay? Some of these can be fun. Something like Innocent Blood that's essentially just vampires but with the mob. But it is one of the only examples of the mob and vampires interacting. You have those genre mashups, you know, like vampires and the mob or like a heist movie and vampires, like the recent Abigail film, where it's like it's set up to be one thing, twist, it's another thing with vampirinos. I guess it was a twist. That's another thing about like trailer culture, you know. It's like uh don't show me everything. If you didn't show me that, if you led me to believe there's something interesting going on with this little girl, then we get to the horror element. That would be an intriguing watch, but that's not what we get. But you also get stuff like Vampire Western, you know, the classic Billy the Kid versus Dracula, long time ago.
SPEAKER_01:But yes, that one everyone knows.
SPEAKER_00:I think people are aware of that. Well, it I'm just saying it's something, but it's it's not doing much. It's it's pretty straightforward. Bailey the kid meets Dracula kind of thing. But you also get something like a near dark, nomadic biker, violent neo-western, where it has those similar elements. But thing, uh when I was doing research on near dark, Catherine Bigelow originally she just wanted kind of like a western like biker punk thing. But the studio is like, hey, what if you uh what if you put vampires in it? And she's like, uh I guess. All right. But that's you know, sometimes uh What do you think about that?
SPEAKER_01:It's like, do you want to make Citizen Kane? Yes, but also what if aliens dropped a nuclear bomb? What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know, if you're a fabulous director that's criminally underseen, criminally underknown, and you know, pushes the whatever genre she's in to a new level, you know, you can make something substantial and last the test of time. You know, Near Dark is one of those underseen gems. I think it's maybe a little too scene for me to put on this list. Interesting of the stuff I wanted to discuss in depth. But it's it's a totally cool film. It's Catherine Bigelow. You she's doing like a like I said, like a neon noir and neo-western biker punks kind of thing. And you got you know, a bunch of the I think this is before she had married Cameron, but he'd worked on aliens, so like they got a bunch of people from that film to come over, like Bill Paxton, Lance Hendrickson, tons of of awesome vampirism. Bill Paxton as a a crazy mutilated vampire, one of the classic vampire examples out there. Totally check it out. If you haven't seen it, you totally should.
SPEAKER_01:Modern American vampire lore. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know, another stuff like Curse of the Undead from 1959. That is another, you know, Western vampire mashup. You know, but you can also have like vampires doing all other different things, you know, like as we spoke about earlier, Blood Red Sky. They didn't have stakes at the time. They were already in a different film, so there's like, well, let's put a vampire on the plane. Yeah. Which is essentially what it is. You know, it's terrorists try to take over a plane, and whoops, one of those hostages is a vampire. Hilarity ensues.
SPEAKER_01:I think that's a really fun one because with a lot of these vampire genre things, there's a lot of cross-pollination with other horror genres, obviously. But when you get to Blood Red Sky, which I honestly I think is great, you're kind of bleeding into one of the REC movies where it's about infection. Like the the the real horror in those type of movies isn't the guy, isn't the villain, it isn't the imposing figure, it's the infection itself.
SPEAKER_00:Infection, in and of itself, is I think one of the core thematic elements in vampire fiction since its origin. And especially in films, a lot of the ideas of vampirism in folklore come from a misidentification of particular diseases and outbreaks that have happened, and they're trying to explain it with the supernatural because they didn't understand the science. Now that does transfer over into film quite readily. You have something like The Blood for Dracula, 1973, where an account becomes ill because of impure blood. You also something like Vampires from 1989 from John Carpenter talking about different bacterias and framing the vampirism as a contagious illness that can be spread. Now you get other things. I think there are other action films that we're going to get to in a second that really take part of that. But I think the next logical step in that, I think, would be something like Daybreakers from 2009. I didn't count it as one of the films I watched so many fucking vampire films recently. I re-watched Daybreakers as well. Now, Daybreakers is a fascinating dystopian genre, and let's lay vampirism on top of that. Something I think similar to Stakeland is doing a similar thing. Now, in Stakeland, it's more of a post-apocalyptica, but with vampires, as opposed to nuclear weapons or a world war or something, it's vampires and vampirism that has taken over, made the world somewhat to wholly unlivable, and they have to fight against that and learn to live with vampires. In daybreakers, learn to live and live. Well, if they do it right. In daybreakers, you have had vampirism take over, where like 95% of the world is now vampires, and there are only a few humans left. They are dwindling the human resource at this point, their food source, and they're about to run out of humans in the near future. Now, there is a ragtag band of human rebels who are trying to survive, trying to kind of like restart the human race. And there is a storyline about how some vampires might turn back into humans, and this might be a path forward to take the world back. After re-watching Daybreakers, which I wasn't a huge fan of when Rich came out, after re-watching it recently, that is a complete all all-style, no substance film. The first 10 minutes, super cool. It looks really slick, has kind of like a dark city kind of vibe. It's all like really cool setting of like what is a world that is ruled by vampires? What is it like? That's cool. It looks cool, it feels cool, it's really interesting. When they try to actually like get into a story, oh yeah, that that one doesn't work out too well. It's not it's nothing new. I mean, some of it's new, but again, I think the worst of the genre mashups are essentially like let's just put vampires in blank, whether that's you know, a mob setting, a western setting, a post-apocalyptic setting, a dystopian setting. It's not really like saying anything. It's just like let's do something with vampires. I think where we get the most of this is probably in the action genre. Here, again, you get your John Copper's vampires, you get a Van Helsing, you get something like the most recent Netflix Day Shift. And then you get like, I think things that maybe are trying to push the genre somewhat or have become cultural touchstones that really have helped to define and expand what vampire and vampire culture and at least some ideas of what the vampire world would be like to a greater extent. I think you get Blade and Blade 2 are big examples of that. This ties back to the vampirism as disease, as infection. But it also, fortunately and unfortunately, it can't decide is it all one or is it all the other? It still feels the need to have those supernatural elements, and not supernatural as in like superhuman, but like La Magra, you know, actual demonic flapping soul entities that form into a vampire god. I think you get less of that in the second one. The second one, I think, is even more like let's really dig down on a quote science of vampires and vampire infection.
SPEAKER_01:The Blade Franchise honestly does a good job of that until the last one.
SPEAKER_00:I think with the third one, as we mentioned earlier, when a vampire film or franchise or story doesn't have anything to say, it goes to Dracula. True that. It always just goes back, oh it's Dracula, Dracula's the big baddie or whatever. Yep. Blade does a few things. One, it's probably the best introduction of really cool and interesting action put into a vampire film. I think some of that comes from like the comic book nature of it, introduction of some interesting weaponry that we haven't seen up until that point, but kind of gets expanded in the language of vampire filmmaking after that point, especially in the next franchise I'm going to discuss. And in the breakdown of a prolific vampire culture, because especially pre-Blade, there is less of an undercurrent of children of the night as society. You get a lot of vampire cults, a more folk-inspired idea, or like a Salem's Lot where a town has been consumed by vampirism, you know, something like in Midnight Mass. It's very cloistered, it's you know, under the cover. Yeah, it's it's scattered, it's more like a small outbreak, or there is a hunter-killer on the loose. But in the world of Blade, they have corporate interests. The idea of a wealthy vampire tying vampirism into social status, that's a theme that we're gonna get into a little bit later, a bit more, but that's like a prevalent thing. And that goes way back to Bram Stoker with Count Dracula and his wealth. You know, it's kind of always been there in the Western idea of post-Dracula vampire. Blade does a good job of let's make vampire society that lurks in the shadows, is world-spanning and impossible to get rid of. You're not gonna put a stake in Dracula's heart and it's gonna make them all go away. You know, there are vampires everywhere, and there's a continuous battle that you have to have with vampires. And I think Blade does a cool job of that, showing A, that there's vampires everywhere, they have a part of the ruling class, but there's also a stratum of vampires. You know, there's the pure bloods and the non-purebloods. You've got your Donald Logs, and then you've got your Stephen Dwarfs, and then you you do, yeah, and then your Udo Kears. And the second one, you have to have an even lower class, you know, and this is where we get the junky vampire. And this is where another key theme that we're definitely gonna get into later on, the idea of vampirism as addiction. And that is something that like get the new version of vampires, which are again a level below, but these bottom feeders literally feed on vampires. So there's a lot of interesting like social dynamics going on within the world of Blade within the second film. By the third film, they've completely done away with that. We're back to the original, and they've run out of ideas, and blah blah blah. We don't really talk about Blade 3.
SPEAKER_01:I think it's honestly better than the first.
SPEAKER_00:It's tough. I would honestly say there's a lot of the Batman Begins Dark Knight conundrum debate.
SPEAKER_01:That is a very good comparison.
SPEAKER_00:I think they're both great. I think both have some issues. I think there are strengths and weaknesses with both.
SPEAKER_01:They do their own things.
SPEAKER_00:One is very much an action film that is using vampirism, but there isn't much of a horror element with a lot of Blade, as opposed to, I think in Blade 2, it's definitely a much more visceral and horrific venture into that underworld, but uh everything's bigger, bolder, and a little bit more of that comedy. Blade's doing a lot of things, and I think Blade, I think Blade does directly lead into Underworld, a franchise, diminishing returns, and possibly dubious quality, including in her marriage, I'm sure. Got great. Yeah. But I think without Blade, you wouldn't have films like Underworld, or I'm not gonna get into an ultraviolet, which is like that is yeah, that's a Nadir, that's like the point we do not want to get to. I mean, there's a lot of matrix elements and blade elements, and you know, uh Resident Evil elements and a lot of stuff going into that. It's vampire in name only. Nah. We're not really gonna talk about that. Uh mostly also because it sucks. I think if it had something to say or was good. Well, the movie sucks, obviously. It totally sucks. The movie totally sucks. I think Underworld, I like the first one. I think it's cool. Again, it vampire society. I think the introduction of the vampire versus werewolf.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, oh, I'm sorry, Jake. Lycan.
SPEAKER_00:Way before.
SPEAKER_01:Lycan. That's what the wereworlds are called.
SPEAKER_00:I'm liking Underworld, I think. Woof. Oh, tough audience.
SPEAKER_01:All right. Wait, wait, no, and hold on. Well, okay. All right. I'll I'll let you get away with the wolf thing. That's fine. Okay, let's let's move on.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, taking a bite out of comedy here.
SPEAKER_01:But I think wearing that goddamn trench coat. Ugh. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:You know, you have you know a lot of stuff that's happened in in previous films. You have uh the the sexiness and then the society of vampirism, whatnot, but you are getting like the exploration and um the mix of science and mysticism, uh something that Blade also struggled with, Underworld struggles with too, because it's like it's an infection, but it's also like magic. It's it's always like this push-pull that the genre can't ever. I mean, in some forms, like you know, I I like it when they choose to go one or the other, or they just don't mention it at all, where it's kind of a bit of both, and we'll discuss a couple examples in recent stuff that I saw that kind of does that. But you know, blade expanded in some like weaponry and how to fight fight vampires, because before that, you know, it's it's a lot of like crosses and you know, beheadings, stakes through the heart. But with blade, you started getting, you know, the the silver elements and the the special specific guns, silver nitro, things like V-Light.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, uh, you know, uh garlic uh capsules, you know, uh with a not uh like a like not a blood thinner, but like an anticoagulant stuff, you know, some like interesting takes on how to fight vampires, you know, especially in a modern infectious disease kind of way. Underworld does more of that, again with a a sexy slickness. Uh you know, we're having everybody in that post-matrix, you know, leather cat suit with trench coats in a dark city um constantly raining you know scenario. But it it it it's fun, you know, it it's blending that action with some new interpretations and playing with some genre elements of the the vampire versus lichen. Um but I mean like again, the the action elements and putting vampires in an action setting, uh you know, isn't new and it it happens all the time. One thing that also happens all the time is putting a vampire in a in a comedic setting. Uh you get some of that with a little bit of quote unquote action. It's not like Fearless Vampire Killers, a film that I don't really care for and I don't think anybody should really see. Uh there's a little bit of the dark comedy in a in a Captain Kronos. Um it's a little more action-y, uh, a little more uh folk-inspired, um, you know, Eastern European vibe there. But you get something that's a little more uh overtly uh comedy, something like the Jim Carrey Vehicle Once Bitten, um the crazy Nicholas Cage Kiss of the Vampire, the uh post Naked Gun, Leslie Nielsen, Dracula, Dead and Loving It.
SPEAKER_01:Which it's honestly just I don't know. That just seems like a I need to feel relevant again, you know, because like it's it's weird that you you have once bitten and why do they blink on that? It's weird that you have those two, and then nothing else for like forever. No, go ahead, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00:You're good. I think you have some things. I mean you you have like the like post-Twilight, you know, vampires suck thing. You have something like bit, which is kind of getting into uh a bit of like the feminist vampire take, but also kind of uh funny in a way. Uh I don't think bit is very good, but it's not the worst thing.
SPEAKER_01:It's not it's not good. But yeah, you're right, it's not the worst thing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. But you also have other, you know, I mean, in the Western genre, one thing we didn't talk about was Sundown, you know, where like essentially it's a you know an old West style town that's full of vampires and like you know, David Carradine's trying to get them to like not be vampires in a way, but you know, kind of wackiness ensues. Uh Bruce Campbell's there.
SPEAKER_01:Not being vampires. Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever thought about not being vampires?
SPEAKER_00:Why don't you do uh vampire reform? Alright, that's what we're gonna put on the ballot this time. Have you heard have you heard the good news? I think you also get something, you know, where it's it's a there's plenty of things that that don't quite fit into an exact genre. You know I think Twilight completely loses the plot on what it wants to be, other than you know, a like teen romance you know. soap opera kind of thing um but it doesn't have an idea of what it wants to like put vampires as um its thematic resonance is is is lost like vampire the vampire metaphor within the world of twilight is non existent um and it it it loses its way i i think another film that's that's um a little bit muddled but i think has a little clearer tone um something like thirty days of night again based off a comic book uh another this is more like a another final girl they keep coming uh this is like kind of your final girl with like mass zombie like tendencies a similar to like a daybreakers where it's like an interesting idea you know daybreakers like ooh a world of vampires you know uh what do the humans do in thirty days of night it's you know what if vampires go to a a town that doesn't get light it will get no sunlight for many many days so vampires like have free reign to just kill and and be out and about all the time what do the humans do to escape that it's unfortunately not great but if you are looking for like a bit of that action a bit of that like action with still the the horror element that that you know final girl scenario with vampires which you don't get a whole lot unfortunately for good for good and ill I think vampirism and vampire films has like there's been so much out there it's hard to like get a good horror vampire and a a good non-horror vampire I think you can you know have both of those and there's plenty to say with each but it it's tougher to get those I think like something like with the last voyage of the Demeter is more in the more recent like horror vampires with kind of a final girl kind of thing where it's like the vampire is stalking the people on this particular you know enclosed space you know very much like a Jason or Michael Myers would but it just happens to be Dracula again or of vampire like Dracula for copyright reasons or something. But I think there's there's still plenty of like stuff out there that vampire films are trying to say that can extend past genres. I think you have you know there's plenty of foreign interpretations of of vampires and like most of what we talk about as of like vampire films are from a western tradition. But you have stuff like the vampire doll or Mr Vampire you know a lot of these deal with like you know the Chinese vampires and some like Japanese folklore on vampires. You have something like 1964's Blood drinkers you would do like Filipino vampires or something like the most recent 2023 French made Russian vampire lore inspired the Vordilac where it's all like these different ideas of what a vampire can be or what the vampire represents inside their culture. I think something like the Vordilac is maybe a little more metaphorical and thematic than some of the hopping vampire stuff which a lot of times is like let's blend like the horror elements with some kung fu action and some comedy totally great time but maybe not have like the thematic resonance of something like the Vorderleck which is a little bit more you know about loss and and kind of terms with with loss and there's some you know societal elements there of you know classism and you know again we get into Russian folklore. I mean it's worth checking out we really like talking about ghouls at this point I mean like like just in general is isn't that the whole I mean isn't it the whole like resident thing that we're we're dealing with ghouls right um as in as in like the the the mindless um yeah like the resurrection of the dead the resurrection of the dead the you know because like yeah Japanese vampires they're hopping vampires whatever that's cool we can do that the you're right the Korean version of that very interesting I mean yes I I don't think a a lot of those vampires have um I don't know will isn't the right word but um I mean is it dissimilar to like the modern like American interpretation of like zombie you know what I mean it it's not that different no no it's it's it's not you know it's something similar to like how vampires are in life force um oh yeah other than the main female vampire uh yeah again life force is like let's let's do alien vampire you know where it's like uh but also include Patrick Stewart please well always include Patrick Stewart uh I could say life life force is a lot of fun uh there's a lot going on there uh I think it's like a prime 1980s like B movie sci fi adventure thing super hot main actress oh just on in my pantheon um but like some really some some really cool you know uh space vampire lore there's a lot of space vampires uh this this is not a a new genre that they created but I think within the realm of vampire as almost a space infection but also invasion element I think life force there's a Buck Rogers episode about it there's a a choose your own adventure book about it oh yeah I have that one really so do I still do that so fucking cool yeah he's coming through the hatchway and there's that one one you get to that one point when and his neck extends because you got him but his neck like extends super far and he kills you yeah that's really good sci-fi vampires bro what are you gonna do about those okay and I know you have your script but this is also the 60th and well 59th anniversary of Star Trek so what do you what is your opinion about the salt vampire in the first episode of Star Trek ever aired the man trap the trekker how do you feel the vampire and Star Trek coalesce is it a match made in Space Heaven That's why I love you because you called me a trekker and I appreciate that that's important the idea of vampirism I think is what I was trying to get to with that also trying to be dated I really enjoy the idea that there are creatures that we can get into parasitic shit or whatever but I do the idea of vampirism in Star Trek is completely different than what we consider vampires like everything you've presented.
SPEAKER_01:That's why it's interesting because they are not romantic they're not the salt vampire in the Mantra is sad. The makeup was built to be sad tragic. I don't want to do this but I have to so I feel like that's like a theme that I don't think is done enough in this genre though I think it's always tragic.
SPEAKER_00:Obviously it's always romantically tragic the only one that was like this is gross it's gross and it sucks I'm sorry I have to kill you sorry I do think I think the elements are there it felt too much like a monster of the week 100% they come up on this and it not that the I think sadness within the vampire genre I think is core especially to a more a postmodern interpretation of vampire and the vampire's life cycle and what they're about that otherness that that sadness that wrestling with their lack of humanity I think that is a core tenant to a lot of the best modern interpretations of vampirism and yeah I think it's really something I think that comes out in a lot of the best vampiff something like the only lovers left alive I think that's again something we're not going to get super into because it's a great vampire film and but I also think that a lot of people have already seen that you know I don't think a lot of people have really yeah I don't really think a lot of people have seen that I have but I don't think a lot of people have wonderful Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton Anton Yelkin rest in peace it's really about these vampires who have lived too long and they have seen society pass them by in a lot of ways and it's a tale of like forlorn love they are together but it's just being a vampire is so lonely and it's watching everything move past you and beyond you. I think there's something like 1983's The Hunger I think that's another one of those classic sad vampire tales where I actually rewatched that one as well talk about another film that is I it's a classic for some reasons but and it's Tony Scott but it's all style the style is is very minimal I think it really if you're looking for something for that sapphic vampire which there's a lot out there for you this was like a rush of blood to the point where it got over stimulated and overseen but it had that 80s gothic architecture within the storytelling and the visuals but there just isn't a whole lot there. You see the sadness of vampires having to continuously live past their expiration deal with being on their own and losing the ones that they love and having to take life in that film I don't think it's as much shown as like wrestling with their humanity of killing as opposed to some other films but it there it's definitely there within the mythos of the vampire it feels like Lost Boys a little bit yeah. Lost Boys again I think along with the otherness the loneliness there's also a consistent theme of coming of age with within vampire stories of whether that is people like the vampirism being related to burgeoning maturity and sexuality or the stifling of that I think you get into a lot of sexual themes there. There's a lot about vampires that the vampire and sex is has been intertwined since its very inception there's a lot of metaphorical stuff going on there with this and the coming of age a lot of that is is played into it. I think there's a lot of especially in Lost Boys there's a lot of ideas about brotherhood and coming of age but also a homoeroticism there's definitely that searching for your identity and trying to fit in using the it's almost like an inversion of the otherness of the vampire being used as a pathway to like form community within the vampire which is a fun play on that. You're right that is interesting.
SPEAKER_01:And Dr.
SPEAKER_00:Steppel you could even break it down even further with the idea of penetration like with the teeth the penetration being yeah and when you get into to that another theme that is is tied in with that sexuality with that penetrative nature of the bite and the sucking of the blood the stealing of the essence or stealing of the innocence there's a lot of patriarchal misogynistic vampire elements at play a lot of the rape of innocence through the vampiric bite and the stealing of what was pure and good within that other especially violence against women you get that yes way too much in that something like Byzantium from Neil Jordan a film from a few years back there's a lot about the sexual violence nature of vampirism but within that story at least you were like there is a kind of reclamation some feminist critiques and illusions there about empowerment and like dealing with the social mores and the social hierarchy where they were in like in a lot of vampirism stories women are subservient this goes way back to Bram Stoker and his vampire brides oh yeah there's a consistent element of the patriarchal dominance and the fangs as phallus penetrating the women taking not only their innocence their life turning them into them but also turning them into slaves something we we see laid out society as a whole so when you get something like a Byzantium you get something like a girl walks home alone at night. Great fucking movie yeah in these you can you could get the a more feminist exploration of what being a vampire can be and the power that can come back with being a vampire even in something like Byzantium where it's debatable whether one of the main characters in there forms a brothel and it could be debated whether she puts women to work or in a social collective allows them a place to to do their sex work. I think because of that ambiguity the liberator and the dominator it's really a question of what's really at play there. But as a whole the greater takeaway I think from that film and something like Who Walks Home Alone at night is the idea of this vampirism giving them the power to take what isn't freely given to them by force you get a bit of that monstrous feminine energy there. And there's that and something like Daughters of darkness or black sundae where it's the blending of the witch and the vampire both as magical outcasts but the dark harbingers of feminine energy to take over man. Now this can be done in a fun way with a once bitten or in a super sexualized version as in the hunger but all of those are pathways to feminizing that penetrative act that's usually symbolized as a male aggression but it's taking that power away from just men and utilizing it as a woman to take back the power they should have sometimes in a more matriarchal way at least within their social strata within the film or story at stake. Interesting now we could obviously go on and on I do want to hit a few more themes that I think are really resonant within the genre. I think one again of addiction many films deal with the metaphor of vampirism as an addictive act whether that's something like Thirst the Park Chanok film that's a lot of sex and violence and addiction like the priest there is becomes addicted to the need to feed the need to feed I think I think Cole Trickle is going to have a little bit more than that. It's gonna be more like a like Cole flood that was a Days of Thunder reference. Yeah look at that one there is a there is an actual well there used to be an actual NASCAR driver named Dick Trickle so Dick Trickle I know yeah it's like how do when I showed my wife that film for the first time it's ridiculous and fun in a ridiculous way I know you look she was like Cole Trickle that's such a stupid name it's like it's actually based on Dick Trickle which is a real dude it's just too much it's like one of those things it's too much. If you were gonna make a new Texas football movie that's like well we can't name the quarterback Colt McCoy. That's just that's too on the nose.
SPEAKER_01:Oh no it's even funnier than that we actually literally had this conversation the other day it was like there's a dude named Dick Lazer that is a coach in the NFL come on Jim Bob Cooter.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah these things you know what these things happen they this means something don't tell me cooter didn't happen I saw it happen but I think addiction is one of those core themes within a lot of vampire films just to hit a few that maybe you have uh seen or haven't seen there's the addiction from 1995 it's a little on the nose but it's that's almost a little more of a vampire by way of a succubus kind of thing but it's like alcoholism and vampirism like married some struggling with like the constant need to feed that particular demon there's habit from 1997 one that I particularly like a lot is Bliss from 2019. This is an interesting take on vampirism as like via drug not exactly someone gets bit but it's more like they're taking drugs and it's causing this vampiric reaction and that one it's very traumatic and psychedelic and a vampire art film by way of a Jacobs Ladder kind of experience where you really don't know it's like a vampirism is like drug trip and addiction and like the it's like a tangible psychosis that you're dealing with throughout the film as like the person's like struggling like utilizing this vampiric drug to expand and allow them to do the art that they're trying to do but like the consequences of that are bloody and violent and self-destructive which I think there needs to be like a self-destructive element when you're dealing with a vampire film like that. Something like The Addiction from 1996. Now this is one of the films I haven't been able to see yet I do really want to see it. It's Abel Ferreira he's essentially a young philosophy college student gets bit by a vampire and then is dealing with the philosophical implications of that and our addiction to evil brings up the Holocaust and Bosnia and Miley in Vietnam and then you get Christopher Walken quoting Naked Lunch and there's a lot of interesting things that seem to be at play in this film. The idea of a layered interpretation of vampirism through a psychological and philosophical lens and the idea of humanity's vampire nature in destroying itself really seems fascinating I need to see it. I haven't had a chance to see it yet but I do want to check that out I also wanted to discuss there are a few films that I don't think you probably will have seen because I hadn't seen them before and as I said I poured through a ton of films to bring this episode to life or on life as it were that kind of hit multiple core elements of what vampire films modern vampire films can be and do. Yep so stupid get my two fingers in and hit this particular one here with uh layer of the white worm I had never seen this film before really yeah I'd never seen it I'm kind of surprised at that yeah I'd always seen the cover art at the video store that always was interesting. It's essentially it's a sexy early 30s woman emerging from a Middle Eastern snake God what do you even call those like they're gonna like a snake charmer and like he's gonna blow his instrument and the snake arises from the wicker basket I guess but that's all that you put things in you don't put anything else other than snakes in those. Anyway that was the cover it was always fascinating and I always knew it as a Bram Stoker story that he wrote some years after Dracula based off English folklore of this worm that terrorized this English town and then was defeated but it it comes back this turned out to be a fun little take in the folklore genre of vampires but it is a Ken Russell film if you've ever seen a Ken Russell film it's going to be tied in with sexuality and religion and probably some blood those three are going to be quite prominent perhaps probably the most penetrative and rapey of the vampire films I saw this past few weeks but it's also it was the most campy and fun in a way but it's taking those hammer elements having a Ken Russell spin but it's all tongue-in-cheek innuendo it's a blending of snakes and worms quote unquote and vampire mythos all together to tell this vampire esque tale but with a young Hugh Grant and a young Peter Capoldi it's funny. Picture those two guys in your head right now one is only two years older than the other which is bizarre. Good point. Yeah it was fun I don't know if I can wholly recommend it but if you're looking for something like crack a beer to with friends I think this would be one of the vampire films I might point to if you're looking for that campy kind of fun there's plenty of other vampire camp something like Vamp not just the clever name if I remember right it is a vampire strip club where these frat guys go to and the head vampire club owner is do you ever just like completely blank she dated Dolph Lundgren? Chris Jones. There we go Grace Jones Grace Jones yeah Grace Jones Grace Jones I think there's plenty of camp in like bloodsucking bastards a callback to a previous episode of Skip's design. I didn't do shit you did talk about bloodsucking bastards in the corporate horror episode goes check that out I think there's plenty of camp as well in something like a black exploitation esque film a Death by Temptation from 1990 or the later Eddie Murphy vehicle a vampire in Brooklyn I don't know if I'd say go check out either of those stories about vampirism in black culture aren't prevalent enough. I think probably the creme de la creme is Gonja and Hess very cool film definitely like good getting into a lot of themes about the black culture eating itself both figuratively and literally and there's a lot to do with Christianity within black culture and the role of African folk themes in there and how it's utilized. I think subversive and pushing boundaries especially I think came out in the 70s well worth your time if you haven't checked it out I think that's one of those classics within the underseen vampire genre that you should check out Lair of the White Worm probably not but it does have that camp fun. Something else that was also fun was a humanist vampire seeking suicidal person. This is from a couple years ago I'd always wanted a it sounded interesting it's not bad it's great but it has some of the humorous elements as something I didn't talk about in the humor genre probably one of the best humor comedy vampire films ever that spawned a terrific series What We Do in the Shadows where it's there you go a film crew follows vampires around a collection of vampires specifically the different genre of vampires be it like Nosferatu or a Dracula or modern vampire what a Dracula yeah yes a Dracula but all these different ideas of what vampires be and it's it's a fun critique it's both cute it's funny it's witty when they did the show they double down on all of that and it's fantastic show super funny. I thought the show was funnier than the movie and I love the movie but I think you have so much more to work with within the show I think both are fun but just like great takedowns and explorations into the genre hitting a lot of the elements but all done in a tongue in cheek or tooth in cheek rather way very fun.
SPEAKER_01:Well a luminous vampire seeking suicide sleep on the fact that they legitimately at the end well not the end but like in in one of the episodes they assemble a vampire council which includes Wesley Snipes and basically everyone else we've talked about yeah they had everything so fucking vampire I laugh by asked it's so good.
SPEAKER_00:Something that's less good similar touch on it in case you don't know about it. Living Among Us from 2018. Essentially it's like what we do in the shadows with a true blood element it's a found footage let's follow vampires around vampires have come out of the shadows quote unquote but it's like a found footage horror film where it's oh let's follow these vampires around but the vampires are bad and they're gonna come after us I wouldn't bother not good but if that sounds like something you'd like to check out it's out there. I think it's on Prime right now you should see it. I'd probably suggest watching Humanist Vampire seeking suicide a person more this doesn't have any of the found footage elements but it is about a young vampire who's coming of age she is a family of vampires she's always been a vampire and she's trying to like figure out how to do her first kill but violence is abhorrent to her and taking a life is something she can't like do like her fangs literally won't come out. But she finds a a young suicide Suicidal high school student, where it's her empathy that is triggering her like feeding mechanism. A very fun twist on the violent nature of vampire and how taking a life might actually be what this person wants. And she's like kind of wrestling with this. And it's in the film, eventually she does. Her fangs are able to come out, and there's a reason for that. It's both it's dark humor, but you know, in a light way. It's a fairly fast-moving. There's a fun, there's like a vampire world that they like they're in, but they don't really discuss. They take her to the family GP who's a vampire for vampire children. It's fun world exploration, but they don't really get into any of those specific details. But it's trying to it's it's a vampire with a heart. There's tons of vampires with heart stories. This is a a funny kind of take on that as is the coming of age version of that story. It's pretty good. A similar like coming of age film that I watched was All the Moons. This was here was All the Moons. I should know that. 2020, very recent. And it's about a young girl. It's set during like Spanish wars. I want to say the early 1900s. There are like some civil wars going on. This young girl dies or is about to die as her convent that orphanage that she is in is hit with artillery and collapses. She's about to die. She is saved by a vampire and turned into a vampire by this woman who's looking for a daughter to be with someone for the rest of eternity. She is then separated from her mother figure. She has to live for another hundred years, mostly in solitude. She finds another figure, a father figure this time who had lost his daughter, is not repulsed by her need to feed. But it's her vampirism and the violence and bloody nature of vampirism is less at the forefront. It's more about her otherness and her solitude and loneliness as a vampire, and watching her father figure age and die. She eventually like searches out for her mother. Her mother ends up giving her a way to become human again. And in doing so, it's a little on the notes, but she has her first menses. She gets her period as she becomes human, the coming of age tale, told in totality, as like a vampire. She is no longer stuck being a child, but passes beyond that point. It's also bookended by the vampiric nature of war. She is essentially killed during one war and is brought back to life as a human in the Spanish Civil War that's going on. A really interesting like tale of motherhood and the violent nature of becoming a woman and passing from childhood into adulthood. And when you're stunted as a vampire, you have to deal with not being able to take that next step, and you're haunted by all the actions you have to do, and that the people you have to watch die. It was a solemn little kind of Spanish art film about vampirism. It's pretty good, interesting to take. Something similar was Valerie and her Week of Wonders. This is a 1970 film that I watched. It's a Czech film. This is again another coming-of-age story, but a psychedelic and surreal. Sorry, I learned I've been talking about a lot of vampires for a while. How dare you! Kind of an impressionist view of entering adulthood and vampirism is it shows up here as there's a lot about the vampire as a motherly figure, like taking from the daughter. There's a lot of vampiric imagery as like men lusting after this 13-year-old, like becoming a woman. One of the first scenes is she walks through a field and drops of her period blood fall on a flower petal, and she picks it up and examined it's like this is pretty on the nose stuff. But it's an interesting use of vampire as metaphor through like her dream pass-through, her becoming a woman. Very beautiful art film. I would definitely recommend checking out. I think it's on the Criterion channel. Worth checking out. If that's your vibe, it's my kind of thing, might not be yours. Maybe if you're looking for something a little more down-to-earth, there is The Wisdom of Crocodiles. Now, this is a 1998 film, I think, starring Jude Law as a serial killer vampire set in the modern world. The twist on this is that he must feed on blood, but it has to be the blood of someone that loves him. So he has to find a victim, make them fall in love with him, and then take their life at that point. What a needy bitch. Indeed. You get a lot of elements of the sexy nature of vampire. It's a young Jude Law. This is someone who Spielberg, as we mentioned before, put him as the ultimate sex symbol to make him a sex robot for all the women on Earth. In AI, if you're not understanding my reference there, but he's a good-looking guy here, and he has the pathway to a woman's heart down to essentially a science. It's only when his emotions, there's like a push-pull between what we'd call human emotions and his more reptilian brain at work here. It's only when there's that push-pull that he's is my life worth living? Do I need to keep taking lives of these women that I have loved over what we assume hundreds of years? There's an interesting tweaking the vampire mythos here. There is some pseudo-supernatural elements, but it's pretty bare bones, and it's very human. He doesn't have fangs, but he does bite the neck to suck blood out. He has some almost supernatural powers, but he doesn't turn into mist or bats or anything. He's just like a vampire who has to live in the modern world and find people to kill, but the needing of love to be part of the mixture here of to make the blood suitable, essentially he needs feed on emotion. But as opposed to virtual or an emotional vampire, things that have become a little more popular within the past 20-30 years, it's still the blood that's at work here. So retaining those elements, but in a more modern setting, less supernatural. It's like this is more of a movie that is a mix of a romantic vampire tale and a serial killer crushing into each other. It was interesting. My partner who watched it didn't love it. I thought it was an interesting exploration of the sexy nature of vampire, the neat romance and capture the heart of the victim, but yet the terror of this killer's nature and the cold-bloodedness of the killer. So it was a nice push-pull for me. It has some issues, but it does some interesting things. And it's something maybe you haven't heard of before. It also goes by the name of immortality. So you could find it either way. I think immortality is the if you're looking for it in America, I think it's immortality, but the rest of the world, like I had to find a Russian stream of it, and it went by the wisdom of crocodiles there. But an interesting modern vampire lore take. But it is not as good as the last one I really want to touch on here, which is a film called Martin. This is a 1977 film from the classic horror director George A. Romero. But instead of delving into zombies, this is his lone take on vampires. Martin was one of his first films that he did, and it is a unique blend of modern vampire with some touches of the old vampire lore. This is a a killer who uses a needle to knock out his victim. He utilizes their sleep to have a sexual conquest that also involves using a razor to slit open their veins and consume their blood. But it's left ambiguous whether this is a supernatural being, whether this is a cold-blooded serial killer, whether this is a young man that has psychological issues that he's trying to deal with, and utilizing the raping and killing of these women as some type of a sexual need. It's always ambiguous. He goes to live with his great uncle who believes he's nosferatu, as he keeps saying. He's from the old country, and that in this film the uncle character believes that he is a stain on the family's lineage, that they've had different Nosferatu throughout the history of their bloodline, and he is just the latest, and he has to try to exorcise the demon from Martin's body. But as Martin says continuously, as he takes a bite of garlic, as he wears a cross around his neck, there is no magic. He is not a supernatural being. But we do get these flashbacks that may mean that he's been a alive for 100, 200 years. But also it's filmed in a way that maybe this is just a psychological episode that he's having. It's hard to say it's ambiguous throughout the entirety of the film, but the thing that is there is his need to possibly feed. We don't really know whether like he needs the blood. He does consume the blood, but it's a lot about uh this peculiar nature of stalking and uh taking away the power of these female victims he has, uh most of the time female victims. There is at least one man that uh happens to uh be killed and consumed by Martin, using like their acquiescence through and consciousness to sexually dominate and perform with these women. An interesting thing is like in the film he calls into this uh late-night radio show as the count, and he's recounting how a vampire isn't like it is in the movies, the stories, he has to do this, that he's too embarrassed to perform sexually with a woman that isn't under his unconscious sway, and that there does seem to be like a connection between the blood drinking and his sexual gratification, but it's not done in a sexy way, at least in the way that it's filmed, there is very little sexy about his raping and killing of these women, but there is a connection there. He does end up having a consensual relationship with a woman, but whether like he drove her to take her own life, or whether he needed her depression to feed on, that is an underlying undertone within their relationship. It's an interesting pseudo art film, it's definitely has like an early young director feel to it, but there's a lot of really cool and interesting shots. It's an interesting story being told. It's probably the best of these films that I saw, and it's like this underseen vampire classic that I think deserves to be seen. It has this kind of shock ending that leaves things a little ambiguous as to the nature of his existence throughout the film. But it was a like an interesting take, especially on the modern vampirism and the role of the supernatural and the juxtaposition of vampire and serial killer, especially for the early 1970s. Yeah, it was just a really interesting film and a good film. I think it has some early director flaws and has some pacing issues, but you can see that there's a really interesting film maker at work here, and an interesting story being told, and a really cool vampire story that gets into some elements of what makes vampirism both alluring and disgusting, and has a lot of all of the themes that we talked about before with the male violence, the sexual connection, the preeminent loneliness and otherness, the trying the coming of age nature of a lot of the vampire stories, and trying to find both self and community within the vampire nature. It really hits on almost all of these. There's a level of addiction and habitual nature of this, and a little bit of the folk horror elements at well, while also putting it in a modern setting. Within the best vampire films, both in blockbuster mainstay cinema, and in the indie art scene as well. Does everything that you might want, except for having like your standard Dracula story, which I think is one of the reasons that if you're into vampire films, a lot of vampire films you might not have seen, maybe this is one you should definitely check out, along with these other ones I spoke of that kind of hit different elements, and a very few of them are the stock standard vampire hunting human story that we've gotten so often and you've seen a billion times. But if you're looking to take a step outside of that and explore all of what the vampire genre can be, I think you know, all the moons, Martin, wisdom of crocodiles, humanist vampire seeking suicidal person, maybe valery in a week of wonders, maybe Lair of the White Worm, along with these other ones that that I had talked that maybe you've already seen or heard of, or maybe you haven't. Again, we'll just run through some quick ones. Bliss, the addiction, thirst, gun hess, life force, maybe Daybreakers, Byzantium, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, The Vorlex, Let the Right One In. Again, it's one we didn't talk about, Only Lovers Left Alive. I think it's like a must-see, a pillar of especially modern vampire storytelling.
SPEAKER_01:I was waiting for us to get to that because I wanted to talk about the difference between Let Me In and Let the Right One In, and how good both of those movies are. Like that they shouldn't have any right to be that good, but they're very good. Maybe we can get to that in a different episode.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Maybe in a remake reinterpretations and the benefits and drawbacks of those, and which few have actually done it well or right. That was just a remake of an Akira Kuasura film by Spike Lee that just came out. Maybe that can tie into that. Who knows? You never know what you're gonna get on Dispatch Ajax.
SPEAKER_01:You never know what you're gonna get.
SPEAKER_00:Especially when it's spoop season. The October Times bring out the scaries. We hope we haven't scared you off too much. I didn't even get into Morbius, so there's that. Well, at least you didn't get into Morbius. At least I didn't do it.
SPEAKER_01:Thank the gods. Thank the blood god that you didn't get into Morbius.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, praise the magra that Morbius, the living vampire.
SPEAKER_01:That's why we do the show because you and I both know exactly what that means. Yeah, we can just put it off the dome.
SPEAKER_00:There's tons of vampire films, vampire Jason films that we didn't get into. There's plenty of like I was talking with Skip earlier, I watched like three episodes of a 90s anime Cyber City odio that had a vampire in it as part of this. We didn't get into Night Watch and Daywatch or Nukdoy Dojoy, if you are of Russian persuasion. There's tons out there, but I think these are Timor. Yeah. I don't know if he's doing anything anymore.
SPEAKER_01:He directed Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, I'm pretty sure.
SPEAKER_00:Again, I don't know if he's doing anything worth a damn. Yes. But again, there's so much of the vampire genre, and we're just talking films. I we didn't even get into books. I don't even think we mentioned Interview with the Vampire, a seminal classic of the genre. But this episode wasn't about seminal classics of the genre. That's not what we're here to do. I wanted to drill down, get under those covers, and take a bite from a part of the body that you might not normally draw blood from. A savory treat that hasn't passed your lips to give you the immortal flow of vampire energy that you so desperately desire. And maybe with a few of the titles that I got into, you can try something a little different because there's so much out there, and there's plenty. Let's scare Jessica to death. Haven't seen that. I've always wanted to. Or recent The Boys from Cunt County Hell. Sounded interesting. Sounded cool.
SPEAKER_01:I haven't seen that one yet.
SPEAKER_00:I haven't seen that one yet. Um there's always some obscure vampire film. There's a lot of nudie vampires out there that that need to be seen, I think. So uh get your get your fangs nice and hard and dive right in.
SPEAKER_01:Take a bite. Come on, you you can put up with better metaphors than that. Come on. I could, but I've been sink your teeth right in or take a chunk out. Come on, dude.
SPEAKER_00:I've already said those so many times this episode that you can.
SPEAKER_01:I know it's gonna be.
SPEAKER_00:Honestly, I'm a little drained. So this is what you've gotten.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, you managed to come back around. Good job. Good job. Well done. Well done. Kudos, sir. Kudos.
SPEAKER_00:We hope that that this long drain of an episode has quenched your thirst.
SPEAKER_01:A little sloggy, but that's okay. We can get through it.
SPEAKER_00:Until the next bite, we hope that you come back with us for our next spooky and spoopy October-themed episode, as we always like to bring every year for you guys. If you've enjoyed this, please do share and subscribe. Spread out to all your vampire brethren. If you have a coven of blood drinkers, maybe pass this along. Maybe they might like to hear it. If you wouldn't mind giving us five fang bangs from the podcast app of your choice, ideally Apple Podcasts. It's the best way for our Vamp Pod to be heard and seen, and the best way for our blood to be drained through this audio format into your supple vampiric ears. But Skip, until they must venture the night with children of the devil to quench their undying bloodthirst, what should they do?
SPEAKER_01:That was a lot. We collectively would like to say thank you for listening, Jake said. Please make sure you've paid your tabs. Make sure you've cleaned up after yourselves to some sort of reasonable degree. Make sure you have tipped your KGs, your bartenders, your weight staff, your Uber drivers, whomever is in your debt. And from Dispatch Ajax, we would like to say Godspeed, fair wizard.
SPEAKER_00:Well, well, fellow vamp I don't know. No, it's not half.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you gotta you nailed it.
SPEAKER_03:Please go away.