Bram Stoker – ‘Dracula’ The Folio Society Edition Review

The Gothic Victorian horror classic in new edition in time for Halloween.

By Greg Jameson
Published October 19, 2021

Illustration ©Angela Barrett from The Folio Society edition of Dracula

Childhood nostalgia is a precious thing. Often long-fossilised thoughts don’t withstand the scrutiny of fresh adult eyes. My fortieth birthday was spent in Whitby, where Dracula famously came ashore during Irish novelist Bram Stoker’s late Victorian Gothic horror novel of the same name. I wandered the grounds of the Abbey and the graveyard at St. Mary’s Church, which feature as prominent locations in the story. Stoker had stayed on the Royal Crescent, and the beautiful town was an inspiration to the author in putting together his masterpiece. I even bought a copy of the novel from a local bookseller, but I avoided returning to it for fear that it would diminish the memories of how completely entranced I was when reading it as a fifteen (or was it sixteen?) year-old.

Credit: The Folio Society

Three years on from my fortieth, and the chance to read a luxurious new edition of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ from The Folio Society was an offer I could not refuse. Turning the pages, I was delighted to discover that the quality and power of the writing is undiminished by maturity. The prose surely resonates with readers now as much as it did in 1897 when it was first published.

We are thrown into the world of Jonathan Harker, a young solicitor charged with visiting his client, one Count Dracula, at his castle in Transylvania. There he is to oversee the purchase of a property in London. Told in first person narration through Harker’s diary entries, the opening chapters give readers a visceral account and land us directly in the horrifying world of the vampire. Wolves howling, an absence of a reflection in mirrors, seductive undead women in closed-off parts of the castle, invitations to cross over the threshold – many now-familiar tropes of vampire legend are quickly introduced. Stoker ratchets up the tension with each passing page, as readers begin to wonder how on earth Harker will escape from Castle Dracula with his life, let alone sanity. The description of the Count scaling the sheer castle walls with his fingernails, face down, still makes my skin crawl. The prose may be lurid, but it’s effective, and the first fifty pages are surely some of the most memorable in English literature.

Once the self-contained preface of Harker’s trip to Transylvania is finished, Stoker changes the point of view of the narrator, bringing in multiple sources to tell the story once we relocate to England. The first time I read it, I remember taking a while to settle to this new approach, having been so deeply invested in Jonathan Harker’s fate. I hadn’t appreciated just how cleverly structured the rest of the book is. It is told chronologically, alternating between several main sources. There are letters between the heroines Mina Murray and Lucy Westenra; the diary of Dr Seward, custodian of a lunatic asylum; Mina’s journal and return trips to Jonathan Harker’s journal. Interspersed within these multiple sources are newspaper cuttings and other supporting documents that give the text a sense of historical veracity. Most memorably, there is the captain’s log from the Demeter, the ship that bears Dracula and his crates of earth from the continent to England. That section of the book is perhaps the creepiest and most terrifying…

Illustration ©Angela Barrett from The Folio Society edition of Dracula

Reading ‘Dracula’ for a second time, many years after the first experience made such a vivid impression on me, I didn’t mind the multiple viewpoints of the narrator. In adopting different tones and linguistic affectations, Stoker showcases his talent at crafting believable characters. The women in particular are satisfyingly developed. It’s the raw sensuality of the ill-fated Lucy, but only after she is bitten, that is so notably provocative. It must have been even more shocking and unsettling for the more sexually reserved times in which the book first appeared.

The secondary characters have plenty of life breathed into them too. Quincey Morris, the American, is dependable and used to firearms and a way of life closer to nature. But Dr Seward’s old mentor Abraham Van Helsing is the real stand-out. Straight-talking and lacking in the British sense of irony and delicacy, Van Helsing is what would become the archetypal vampire hunter, sharpening his stakes as he drives the story in the second half of the book, once the hunted become the hunters. But in order to do that, Van Helsing has to convince the others of the evil they are up against. Cue one of the greatest sequences in the horror genre, as they desecrate the tomb of a dead friend, only to find the occupant stalking the town looking for fresh children’s blood!

Credit: The Folio Society

‘Dracula’ remains an exciting page-turner and a deeply satisfying horror novel. Stoker’s ingenious narrative technique raises it to the level of a literary classic, but even some moments of purple prose can be enjoyed for the vividness of the descriptions. Its themes played on the contemporary panic about Jack the Ripper, the serial killer who was at large in London only a decade before the book was published. Darkness, death and the unknown are eternal human fears, and be warned, Stoker exploits all of them with the skill of a master craftsman. Incident-packed and scary, ‘Dracula’ is the perfect Halloween reading material. Keep the lights low and surround yourself with silence for maximum effect. Maybe have some garlic flowers to hand, just in case. Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ isn’t still a popular book over a century after its publication just for a few entertaining characters, but as I was delighted to confirm, because it’s a triumph of horror fiction in its own right. My teenage self was quite correct to be blown away by the book, and my adult self fell hopelessly in love with the characters and the story all over again. Now I want to return to Whitby…

The Folio Society’s new edition of the book is crafted to their customary meticulous standards. It has a striking black hardback with silver embossed bat silhouetted against a full moon slipping into a swirling blood-red case. The top edges of the pages are coloured deep red, too. Interspersed within the leaves are fifteen full-page colour illustrations by Angela Barrett. They evoke the late Victorian era by framing the paintings with intricate, stylish and detailed borders. Smaller, simpler ink drawings, such as of a crucifix, appear at the ends of chapters. An introduction by contemporary Irish novelist John Banville provides a modern context for the book within.

The Folio Society edition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, introduced by John Banville and illustrated by Angela Barrett, is available exclusively from The Folio Society.

Pope Francis says domestic violence against women ‘almost satanic’

Head of Catholic Church makes some of his strongest comments yet on violence against women

Pope Francis said the number of women who are abused at home was ‘very high’. 

Photograph: Evandro Inetti/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

Reuters
Mon 20 Dec 2021 00.16 GMT

Pope Francis has said that men who commit violence against women engage in something that is “almost satanic”.

He made the comment – some of the strongest language he has used to condemn such violence – during a programme broadcast on Sunday night on Italy’s TG5 network in which he conversed with three women and a man, all with difficult backgrounds.

“The number of women who are beaten and abused in their homes, even by their husbands, is very, very high,” he said in answer to a question by a woman named Giovanna, a victim of domestic violence.


“The problem is that, for me, it is almost satanic because it is taking advantage of a person who cannot defend herself, who can only [try to] block the blows,” he said. “It is humiliating. Very humiliating.”

Giovanna said she had four children to care for after they escaped from a violent home.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic began nearly two years ago, the pope has several times spoken out against domestic violence, which has increased in many countries since lockdowns left many women trapped with their abusers.

Police figures released last month showed there are about 90 episodes of violence against women in Italy every day and that 62% were cases of domestic violence.

The pope said women who were beaten and abused had not lost their dignity. “I see dignity in you because if you didn’t have dignity, you wouldn’t be here,” he told Giovanna.

Turning to other examples of human misery, he listened to a homeless woman speak of life on the street and a man trying to get back on his feet after 25 years in jail.

Francis has set up services in the area around the Vatican to give Rome’s homeless healthcare, bathing, and hair-cutting facilities.

In 2020, when a palazzo just off St Peter’s Square that was once a convent became vacant, he ordered it to be turned into a homeless shelter, overruling suggestions that it be converted into a luxury hotel.

Long Before QAnon Conspiracies, The U.S. Was Swept By 'Satanic Panic'

CONSIDER THIS FROM NPR
May 18, 2021

LISTEN· 13:42
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Transcript

April 19, 1989 - A developer purchased the McMartin Pre-School in Manhattan Beach, Calif., following lawsuits that alleged staff had performed satanic rituals. The case resulted in no convictions.Lacy Atkins/Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag

Over the past year, QAnon conspiracies have migrated from obscure corners of the internet into national headlines. The false belief that left-wing Satanists are controlling the government helped fuel the U.S. Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6.

These theories didn't come from nowhere. Back in the 1980s a similar "satanic panic" swept through the country and led to lawsuits that alleged preschool teachers were performing evil rituals with children. These claims were debunked but the accusations themselves had staying power.

NPR's Ari Shapiro reports on what factors contributed to the original "satanic panic" and what it can teach us about the conspiracy theories that attract followers today.

This episode was produced by Lee Hale, Noah Caldwell, Mia Venkat, Brianna Scott and Brent Baughman. It was edited by Patrick Jarenwattananon with help from Wynne Davis. Our executive producer is Cara Tallo.

‘Dracula’ brought vampires into the limelight. Let’s talk about the best literary blood suckers since.


By Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Lavie Tidhar
October 16, 2021

What is the appeal of the vampire novel — and how did this burgeoning horror subgenre begin? Silvia might point to John Polidori’s 1819 novel “The Vampyre,” inspired by the same ghost storytelling night on Lake Geneva that gave us Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.” Lavie might counter with Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla,” the progenitor of lesbian vampires. But there’s no denying it was Bram Stoker who, with 1897’s “Dracula,” dragged the vampire into the limelight. From “Salem’s Lot” to “Twilight,” “The Historian,” “Let the Right One In,” Anne Rice’s Lestat and Charlaine Harris’s Bill Compton, vampires are everywhere. So come with us as we bid you welcome, Renfields! Let’s talk about the wonderful bloodsuckers of literature.

Lavie: I feel you have an unfair advantage, in that you actually wrote a vampire novel and I didn’t! I know whatever we do people will say, “How could you not mention . . . ?” So, yes, Richard Matheson’s “I Am Legend” (1954) is a vampire novel — a very good one. But we like to focus on books that have gotten less notice. So, from Russia, there’s Sergei Lukyanenko’s “Night Watch” (and its sequels), translated by Andrew Bromfield. The book isn’t about vampires exclusively, but the ones that are there are great. In modern-day Moscow, supernatural creatures battle each other, some taking the side of the dark and some of the light. Huge bestsellers in Russia, I came to them through the two Timur Bekmambetov film adaptations.

Meanwhile, I think it was you who turned me on to Kazuki Sakuraba’s “A Small Charred Face” (2017), translated by Jocelyne Allen, a terrific Japanese vampire novel told in three parts. It’s very different from typical Western fare — not only because of the biology of the vampires, but the tone of the book — and all the better for it. So is José Luis Zárate’s “The Route of Ice and Salt,” translated by David Bowles, the Mexican novella you managed to bring into English recently through your micro-press, Innsmouth Free Press. I thought it was wonderful, a queer exploration of Dracula’s journey on board ship to England that is full of haunting Gothic imagery.


(Haikasoru)
(Harper)


Silvia: So many of our conversations involve me asking: “Have you read this vampire book?” But if you are not a vampire junkie, where do you start? I recommend anthologies as a gateway. Ellen Datlow edited several of these, including, “Blood and Other Cravings” (2011) and “Blood is Not Enough” (1989). Datlow also famously ran Omni magazine, where a vampire novella titled “Carrion Comfort” by Dan Simmons first appeared. It was expanded in 1989 into an award-winning novel with the same title. In a nutshell, it’s about wealthy, psychic vampires who control the world and hunt humans for sport.

More recently, there’s “Slay: Stories of the Vampire Noire” (2020), edited by Nicole Givens Kurtz. Although traditionally vampires have tended to be pasty and European, this volume centers on Black characters. “The Gilda Stories” (1991) by Jewelle L. Gómez is another book that focuses on Black protagonists, following a former enslaved person turned vampire through the centuries.

One of the weirdest vampires I’ve encountered appears in “The Wisdom of Crocodiles” (2000) by Paul Hoffman. This is an odd novel that follows a wide cast of characters. The most compelling story line, for me, was that of Steven Grlscz, an emotional vampire whose relationships culminate in murder. As I said, this is an odd novel that is not really about vampires, it’s more of a literary exercise that just happens to have a vampire dangling there. But boy is it worth reading for him.

Last but not least, I must mention Billy Martin, who writes as Poppy Z. Brite. He still utilizes the pen name but has moved on to nonfiction. Now you can find him on Patreon where he posts bits of “Water If God Wills It: Religion and Spirituality in the Work of Stephen King,” his latest project. Back in the ’90s, Martin was focused on novels. “Lost Souls,” his debut, is a blood-soaked gem about vampires that seem to follow the mantra of “Sleep all day. Party all night” in all its violent, decadent glory. It would be lovely to see this, along with the collection “Wormwood” (1993), which contains the excellent vampire short story “His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood” in new editions.

(Dell)
(Tor)

Lavie: I would be remiss not to mention one of my favorite vampires of recent years, Christopher Farnsworth’s Nathaniel Cade in “Blood Oath” (2010) and its sequels. It takes politics into horror — and horror into politics — in such an awe-inspiring over the top way that I wanted to applaud. Cade is a vampire in service to the president of the United States, and in the first book, he must stop an al-Qaeda zombie invasion while worrying about the Deep State and its Lovecraftian end-of-the-world plans. I think American political reality eventually got too weird even for Farnsworth, though Cade’s been popping up in shorter works, including “Deep State” (2017). All in all, I’d say there’s still plenty of life in the undead — and what sweet music they make!


Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s books include “Mexican Gothic,” “Velvet Was the Night” and “The Return of the Sorceress.” 

Lavie Tidhar is the author of the novels“The Violent Century,” “A Man Lies Dreaming,” “By Force Alone” and the “Gorel of Goliris” stories.

Can Vampires Be Jewish?
A quick and cursory look at an age-old hypothetical.

Anastasia Fein, Tzion Baruch and Amos Tamam in “Juda” (Promotional still: Hulu)

Corinne Engber

JUNE 1, 2021

GetJewishBoston 

I’m a big fan of hypothetical questions that spark debate within the Jewish community, and with the concept of vampires constantly floating (or hovering) in the back of my mind, I’ve found myself diving into the question of whether or not a creature of the night can be Jewish.

This topic has been debated hotly by generations of Jews, and its implications are explored in the Israeli television show “Juda,” where religion and vampirism meet. The consensus, as far as I can tell, is that due to their thirst for blood (human or otherwise), a vampire could not keep kosher. A counter argument to this is that a vampire would need to drink blood to stay alive, but then the question arises: Is a vampire life really a life? Can a vampire have a soul? And so forth.

Of course, the antisemitic implications of a Jewish vampire usually stop this debate (un)dead in its tracks. An incredibly flimsy but prolific excuse for violence toward Jewish people is accusations of blood libel, where Jews were accused of drinking the blood of Christian children. To what end? Your guess is as good as mine, since I’d personally prefer some water or a nice iced coffee. But the point still stands: to represent a Jewish person in media as a vampire carries some pretty weighty implications.

Related

“Juda” Is a Sharp, Enjoyably Weird Vampire Tale From the Holy Land

Miriam AnzovinIn “Juda,” making a Jewish person a vampire is considered a huge faux pas, not because of the guilt saddling someone with that kind of raw deal may instill, but because Jewish vampires become super powerful. I like to imagine, however, that if vampires were real, they would instill a moratorium on turning Jewish people because, truly, have we not suffered enough? This also brings into question the act of turning and whether it is voluntary. For argument’s sake, I’ll operate under loose “Interview with the Vampire” rules, which can also be found in what I believe is the best piece of modern vampire media: “What We Do in the Shadows” (both the film and the TV series, created by Jewish luminary Taika Waititi). In both depictions, turning someone into a vampire is voluntary, so a vampire choosing to turn a Jewish victim would be a major party foul, especially without their consent.

Now that we have our unfortunate Jewish vampire, the question remains: Could she continue to practice Judaism? Vampires cannot cross onto holy ground, though this often refers to Christian-specific ground, so entering a synagogue would be a bit difficult. In “Interview with the Vampire,” Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise are both able to say “God,” so praying privately may be an option. Vampires also can’t cross running water, and immersion in a mikvah relies heavily on living water. If our hypothetical vampire was Jewish before her turning, she may find many vital Jewish practices difficult due to her new rules.

On a more somber note, I’m also interested in how a Jewish vampire would mourn. Would she say Kaddish for herself or mark her own yahrzeit? What about for other vampires or Jewish people in her life? I’m inclined to lean toward a modified version, since a Jewish person is still Jewish even in death. These are all, of course, very silly questions, but questions are the backbone of faith. Though I can’t definitively say whether a vampire could be Jewish, the not-knowing is part of the fun, and fuel for many conversations among many, many Jews.

Arts & Culture

Corinne Engber is an Ohio native and recently completed her MA in publishing and writing at Emerson College.

Exclusive! Harsh Rajput: Naagin, daayan, vampires have been part of Indian stories for ages; they are not inspired from any other shows


TNN
Tanvi Trivedi
Updated: Jan 31, 2021

Harsh Rajput

Harsh Rajput may have done a supernatural show (Nazar) earlier, but that’s not why he has chosen to play the lead in his next, which is also another fantasy-fiction show – Kuch Toh Hai – Naagin Ek Naye Rang Mein, a spin off from Naagin 5. Harsh, who will play a vampire in the show, said, “I have been in the industry for 14 years now and I feel this is a result of all the hard work and efforts for many years. But, yes, I do love being part of supernatural shows. I played Daavansh in Nazar and maybe people liked that character and the makers felt I would suit the vampire character in Kuch Toh Hai.”

Harsh added, “I have been a fan of superhero, fiction-fantasy characters and stories since childhood. It was my childhood dream to play these characters, which we read about in books; and watched in films. I have been a fan of the international television show Vampire Diaries, too. I haven’t seen many Dracula films but it is also an iconic character. Somewhere, my childhood dream of playing such characters is coming true.”

Ask Harsh about Indian TV shows getting inspired from supernatural shows abroad and he said, “Vampire is not a character that originated from international TV shows. We have grown up hearing stories of vampires, so why should we get inspired? In fact, I do feel that people happily watch international supernatural shows and so there is no reason for them to look down and say Indian TV shows are inspired from them. Naagin, daayan, pisachini, vampires were all part of Indian stories and if the makers are bringing those characters to Indian television, why not?”

Harsh confesses that he is following a strict diet regime to look the part. He said, “I have been following the 80:20 diet, wherein my food consists of 80 per cent proteins and the remaining 20 percent are veggies. I also spend around two hours in the gym because a fantasy-fiction show requires much more effort as you are performing daredevil stunts unlike a regular TV show, which is mostly shot in the kitchen, bedroom or drawing room.

On a funny note, we asked Harsh to react if he were a vampire in real life and he said, “No, I get dizzy when I get a cut or see blood on my own finger, how will I drink anyone’s blood? I am happy being an actor and enacting such interesting roles. I am really looking forward to this new beginning after spending many months at home during the pandemic.”

The Night Stalker Was a Vampire Horror About the Power of Stating the Obvious

By Charles Pulliam-Moore

GIZMONDO
8/11/20 5:15PM


Darren McGavin as reporter Carl Kolchak and Barry Atwater as Janos Skorzeny, the vampire.

Image: ABC

A protagonist’s utter unawareness about the supernatural danger they’re dealing with can oftentimes make horror-thriller films that much more enjoyable to watch. But there are times when all you want to see is a hero with a head on their shoulders who, when confronted with the reality that there are vampires in their midst, thinks to themselves: “Let me go get myself a cross and a stake.”

In John Llewellyn Moxey’s The Night Stalker, the 1972 TV movie adaptation of Jeff Rice’s The Kolchak Papers, a beloved (but also widely derided) journalist working out of Las Vegas stumbles upon the story of a lifetime. Though the Vegas PD initially believes that the latest string of murders plaguing the city are run of the mill, Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) is able to see the crimes for what they are and accurately deduce that there’s a vampire stalking Sin City’s streets. 

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As more and more young women go missing only to turn up days later, dead and drained of their blood, the police and the city’s health officials can scarcely imagine exactly what’s happening, even as the coroners explain to the public that trace amounts of human saliva are being found on victims’ bodies. But Kolchak—whose instinct for news is tamped down by a dismissive editor who only wants him producing fluff—realizes the danger people are in is abundantly apparent because unlike everyone else, Kolchak’s very inclined to take facts at face value, no matter how ridiculous they may seem.

As Kolchak becomes involved in the hunt for Vegas’ nighttime killer, he can’t deny that he’s out of his depth and then some. Clued into the situation though he may be, Kolchak’s a man of his time, which is to say that his world’s smaller by today’s cultural standards. As The Night Stalker opens, his mind isn’t particularly fixated on the idea of demons lurking in the shadows, but as the blood-drained corpses begin to pile up, Kolchak can’t help but seize upon the obvious idea that an actual vampire is killing people with impunity as the living population scratches its collective head in confusion.

While The Night Stalker isn’t what one would consider an anti-drug movie, there are elements of that sort of messaging sprinkled throughout the story, in a way that speaks to ‘70s filmmaking and the sort of moral panic around substances like weed that a number of people held at the time. It’s easier for the police chief and his colleagues to believe that there are simply people high out of their minds attacking people, rather than considering the possibility that the dead are reanimating with the intent of killing the living.

Unlike the genre’s more famous vampire hunters, Kolchak has little in the way of any training or innate superpowers that make him a formidable foe to demons. The Night Stalker presents its hero as a put-upon man wholly out of his depth in terms of the actual threat at hand, but his unfailing ability to use his eyes and piece metaphorical puzzles together gives him a decided leg up among his peers. Throughout The Night Stalker, Kolchak repeatedly recognizes that vampires are real and understandably reasons that if the human population would just get on the same page about their existence, they wouldn’t need to live in constant fear of them.

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While The Night Stalker has its fair share of scenes featuring its vampiric menace causing chaos as he murders people and steals jugs of blood from the local hospital, what the movie wants us to fear most is the idea of being profoundly unheard and then misunderstood. Even as it becomes clear that Kolchak’s hypothesis is on the money, no one around him wants to embrace it because to do so would require them to shift their worldviews in a profound way.

In a sense, that loneliness ends up being the thing that frightens Kolchak the most; though he’s almost constantly surrounded by colleagues, his girlfriend, and the countless people streaming through the casino he considers his stomping grounds, he’s by himself when it comes to vampires. No matter how much Kolchak screams and tries to get people to believe, his cries are ignored, something that becomes increasingly terrifying as the movie progresses because you see how that thinking unfailingly leads to more people dying.

Right up until the very end, Kolchak fights to use his voice to keep the people around him safe, but the film doesn’t end with him having any sort of meaningful impact on the larger fight against the supernatural. Instead, it closes out on the idea that even when things are made to be painfully obvious, there are certain people who’ll run and hide from the truth because it’s easier in the moment. That mentality, The Night Stalker insists, is a core part of humanity that’s not going away no matter how hard we try to fight it, and it’s really the thing to be afraid of.

Medical volunteers in rural Zambia: learning from attitudes to angels and vampires

Medical volunteers have been a common sight in African countries like Zambia since the colonial era. Engraving from The Illustrated London News, volume 96, No 2654, March 1, 1890/Getty Images

In the past decade, the work of medical volunteers in Africa has been heavily debated. These volunteers – often from Western Europe and North America – arrive in African countries to work in clinics and hospitals, providing medical treatment for patients in poor urban and rural settings.

Important criticisms have been made of this kind of work. The Nigerian-American writer Teju Cole coined the term “white saviour industrial complex” to describe a sector that does more to affirm the “sentimental needs” of white volunteers than to engage with the political dynamics that sustain inequality and poverty in African countries. Social scientists have also studied the work of international medical volunteers. This research shows that these volunteers often cause harm by undermining the authority of African health professionals or by performing risky clinical procedures.

But important voices are sometimes missing from these debates – particularly those of the people on the receiving end of this “help”.

In the area of rural Zambia where I have been conducting research since 2014, international medical volunteers are a common sight. In my recent research I have considered how people who live in rural Zambia regard these outsiders and make sense of their behaviour. One of the aims of this research is to examine how people in rural Zambia have come to understand the actions of the many medical volunteers who have been arriving in the area since the colonial period.

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But to understand how people in rural Zambia perceive these medical volunteers, it is important to observe that such volunteers have been closely associated with several kinds of non-human actors, whose behaviour is worth examining in more detail.
Angels and vampires

Historians and anthropologists have studied how medical interventions by white Europeans – from colonial-era missionary doctors to modern medical researchers – have been perceived by people in African countries in the past. This important work has shown that the presence and behaviour of these outsiders has often produced powerful anxieties and rumours. One of the striking findings of this research is that white medical doctors in central Africa were often identified as “vampires” (banyama). This was because people thought they sought to enrich themselves by extracting their African patients’ blood and vital body substances.

I found in my own research that white medical volunteers in rural Zambia were sometimes associated with vampire rumours. But I also discovered that they were connected to a less malevolent figure: the “angel spirit” or mungelo (bangelo, plural) in Chitonga, the language spoken in southern Zambia.

Traditional healers in the area explained that these spirits visited them and offered them powerful healing advice. One of these traditional healers – a woman I will call Dr Simamba – described the behaviour of these spirits. Arriving at Dr Simamba’s home with a friend, I was shown her shrine. In it, she had placed a tall white feather. This, she explained, was the kind of object that might attract angel spirits who sometimes visited her in person and in dreams.

Dr Simamba could not say for sure why these angel spirits were attracted to white objects. But she thought it might be because these spirits physically resembled white people (bakuwa) and always dressed in white clothing.

Nevertheless, these angel spirits were notoriously difficult to attract:

They come at whatever time they please … sometimes a whole year goes past and nothing!

These spirits were worth waiting for, though. They offered highly effective guidance on how to treat patients. This included advice about which herbs and plants to pick, how to prepare them, and whether to drink them, smoke them or rub them into an incision.

Sometimes angel spirits offered Dr Simamba advice about patients who were already under her care and living within her homestead. On other occasions bangelo offered advice about patients who were going to visit in the future so that Dr Simamba could prepare in advance for their arrival.

I encountered six traditional healers – and was told of many others – who also received visits from spirits. But Dr Simamba’s account also resembles the descriptions of diviners and healers throughout the region. In her work on vernacular healing in Tanzania, the American medical anthropologist Stacey Langwick notes that many people who become healers are “called into relationship with a variety of (new) actors”, including spirits and other non-human actors. And for bangelo diviners, one of the non-human actors with whom they were “called into relationship” was the angel spirit.
Ambivalent actors

Despite the advice they could offer, angel spirits were regarded in morally ambivalent terms. Although they could provide effective advice, they were essentially unpredictable. Diviners struggled to sustain long-term relationships with them.

Much like many of the international medical volunteers whom they physically resembled, these spirits acted according to a logic of their own. They arrived and left when they pleased, without offering a reliable and enduring form of care.

In this sense, both medical volunteers and angel spirits depart from the kind of relationships of care and mutual dependence that people in the region often value highly.

The idea that medical volunteers in Zambia stand outside local relationships – and are therefore not bound by social obligations to Zambians – is one that might explain their association with both vampires and angels. I am not suggesting that these non-human actors are simply metaphoric representations of the “real” white people whom they represent. Rather, I think the behaviour of these human and non-human actors should be considered alongside one another.

The moral attitudes that many people in rural Zambia have towards vampires and angels provide an interesting view – even a critique – of the work of medical volunteers. Perhaps it is time to take these criticisms more seriously and include them in debates about medical volunteering.

January 31, 2021
Author

James Wintrup
Research Fellow in Social Anthropology, University of Oslo

BLACULA EXPLORES SLAVERY AND REINCARNATION’S CONNECTIONS TO VAMPIRISM

by Tai Gooden
May 25 2021 •

Blacula shifted the vampire subset of horror with its debut in 1972. Until then, most vampire-centric entertainment overwhelmingly featured white characters. Some of them were everyday people but some were wealthy, including Dracula himself. However, this film looks at the genre through a Black lens with an aristocratic, intelligent, and complex protagonist. It sheds light on both the era of slavery and (at the time) modern-day through his perspective. Blacula is a romantic horror story; however, its brief explorations of slavery, imprisonment, and reincarnation draw interesting parallels with the concept of vampirism itself.

It’s no surprise that Blacula makes this social commentary and digs into heavy material because, well, that’s what horror does. The genre not only examines our fears of the unknown and seemingly impossible but it also intertwines those very real threats against us.

A Look at Slavery, Vampirism, and Race

The film starts off with an introduction to Mamuwalde, an African prince from the Nigerian Ibani nation. He and his wife Luva liaise with Dracula in Europe in 1780. Typically, a Dracula or vampire film set during this time would simply pretend that slavery was either nonexistent or downplay it as something trivial.

Mamuwalde, however, sought Dracula’s help in suppressing slave trading. Dracula’s response is what most would expect from a white person (or a centuries old being who presents as white) during that timeframe. He denies the request and makes not-so-subtle statements about Luva, particularly wanting to make her his slave. This causes a physical fight which ends with Dracula biting Mamuwalde. Dracula gives him the moniker “Blacula” and throws him into a coffin for eternity. Luva is left to starve to death in the same room as her husband’s coffin.

This scene alone gives viewers so much to unpack. First, there’s very real depiction of how someone like Dracula would have been towards Black people at that time, even those with high social status like Mamuwalde and Luva. Dracula refers to them as “dark people” and says they are “from the jungle,” with a derogatory tone. He lacks a basic level of respect towards Mamuwalde, making his fetish-laden statement about having Luva be one of his slaves with zero shame.

His thoughts about slavery are also not surprising. Dracula has the influence and power to aid with ceasing a violent and dehumanizing practice. He doesn’t want to because it benefits him. The concept of slavery itself is closely tied to vampirism when you think about it. They both involve someone imposing their will on someone else, stripping them of their autonomy, imprisoning them, and bringing them into this new place (or realm) where they have to learn to exist.

Sure, there have been vampire stories where a human consents to a bite like Twilight; however, the typical vampire-human exchange usually involves the former attacking the latter. The human becomes a vampire themselves or perhaps a ghoul-like creature, who is essentially the vampire’s slave. It’s often violent, sudden, shocking, and traumatic for the victim because they are imprisoned in their own bodies for eternity.

Dracula biting Mamuwalde and giving him the name Blacula is akin to a white slavemaster stripping someone of their native name and giving them another name. Mamuwalde goes from being royalty and his own person to Dracula seeing him as just an extension of himself. But, Mamuwalde fights back against this later in the film, going by his actual name even though he’s no longer the same. It’s a small reclamation of power despite the curse put on his existence. Also, no one would call themselves Blacula in real life.

Dracula dooms him to a “living hell,” which is what many enslaved people experienced – a life where they have lost their former identity and agency. Dracula wants to punish Mamuwalde for daring to exist in a manner that didn’t suit what he thought about Black people. Mamuwalde’s challenging demeanor and desire to disrupt the system fuels Dracula’s determination to make him “pay.”
“You shall pay, Black prince. I shall place a curse of suffering on you that will doom to you a living hell. I curse you with my name. You shall be…Blacula.” –Dracula

Furthermore, the treatment of Luva reflects how some white men view Black women. Dracula thought his desire/lust for a Black woman was somehow a compliment to Mamuwalde. In his opinion, Luva was more of an object than an actual human being like her white counterparts. This is a historical nightmare for Black women, many of whom deal with unspeakable sexual and physical violence stemming from someone’s dehumanizing fetish.

Luva watches her husband suffer while she endures the physical pain of starving, a truly harrowing sentence for someone who barely spoke a word. She is in a prison, her own version of a living hell, on foreign soil at a racist vampire’s house. Dracula imposes the same cruelty against them as a slave owner would for the same reasons – because he can.

Blacula‘s Depiction of Reincarnation Through Vampires

Mamuwalde spends years thirsting and desiring freedom before he’s inadvertently released into the world. This is where Blacula leans into the concept of reincarnation. There’s certainly an argument that vampirism and reincarnation have some tangential connection. When a person is bit by a vampire, there is the process of them actually dying only to be “reborn” again as either a vampire or ghoul. So, even though they aren’t in another body, it’s still a form of someone’s non-physical essence showing up in a body post-mortem.

In this film, Mamuwalde is dead and essentially reborn into Blacula; however, he still has the same memories and exists in the same body, albeit with ashier skin and deadly fangs at times. He also maintains his same charm and personality, which is what leads to the love story arc.

This isn’t uncommon for the genre. Plenty of humans become vampires and remember their former lives quite well. But does it really count as reincarnation? In a way. The being gets to live a new “life,” roam the Earth, never age, and do what they want to do. They are not truly whoever they were before.

Tina is more of the classic depiction of reincarnation. She’s a 1970s era (read: modern day) woman who encounters Mamuwalde and slowly falls for him. Tina is in an identical physical form as Luva; however, she does not have any of the memories nor connection to her previous life.

He has to detail past for her but she has this unexplainable soul tie to him that convinces her to believe him. Mamuwalde offers Tina a chance to fully be with him as a vampire, which she initially rejects out of understandable fear. To be fair, he does a poor job of explaining what will happen to her.

Mamuwalde eventually turns Tina into a vampire, but its to save her life and after she’s already expressed consent in being with him. He keenly understands what it means to have this happen against a person’s will. He loves her too much to force a decision on her, even though he could given his abilities. So Tina gets to live in a different sense because of his actions.

Sadly, their story meets a tragic end. Tina/Luva once again dies at the behest of a white man (a police officer this time, no less). Mamuwalde looks his resolve to live and steps into the morning sun.

Blacula’s love story is the crux of its plot but it hinges on some serious material. The institution of slavery and imprisonment and conversations around consent give fans a different look at vampirism. This film gave it a sexier edge with attractive protagonists and love. But vampirism is a pretty disturbing concept at its core. Even still, Blacula offers something more: a pushback against physical and spiritual chains in an attempt to reclaim life and love.

I Am Legend: how the vampire horror became an anti-vaxxer movie

The 2007 movie that sees Will Smith fend off mutant vampires has been used as a justification not to receive the Covid-19 vaccine
Will Smith in I Am Legend. ‘In truth, it is very hard to find any movie at all where the vaccine is the bad guy.’ Photograph: Allstar/WARNER BROS

Stuart Heritage
@stuheritage
Wed 11 Aug 2021

When it comes to the pandemic, plenty of films have had their turn in the spotlight. Contagion was one of them, for contextualising the scale of the virus and teaching everybody what an R number was. So was Jaws, with Amity Island’s safety-denying mayor, Larry Vaughn, serving as an analogue for any authority figure who was skeptical about the concept of lockdown.

To some extent, those films make sense. In times of great uncertainty, we reach for the familiar to guide us. But sometimes that’s a bad idea. Because sometimes what they reach for is the Will Smith movie I Am Legend.


Exposure therapy: why we're obsessed with watching virus movies

You will remember I Am Legend. Coming towards the tail end of his turn as the world’s biggest movie star, the film saw a lone Smith struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic New York that had been ravaged by mutant vampires (that look more like zombies). I Am Legend has entered the pandemic conversation because a small but insistent group has started to ask a simple question: “Wait, did those nice people turn into mutant vampires because they took the Covid vaccine?”

This isn’t necessarily a new development. Back in December, when vaccine trials were nearing their completion, the rumours that vaccines created vampires became so insistent that Reuters had to publish a factcheck article to deny it. The mutant vampires in I Am Legend became mutant vampires because they were exposed to a genetically re-engineered strain of the measles virus in order to cure cancer (courtesy of Emma Thompson’s ambitious doctor). No vaccines were involved whatsoever. But still, the damage had been done. When a globally respected news organisation has to use its precious resources to explain the plot of a disappointing Christmas movie from a decade and a half ago, you sense the battle has already been lost.

Still, though, the I Am Legend theory regained momentum this week when the New York Times ran a story about anti-vaxxers, claiming that an employee at an eyewear store had refused the vaccine because “she thought a vaccine had caused the characters in the film I Am Legend to turn into zombies”. This, in turn, caused the film’s co-writer Akiva Goldsman to tweet: “Oh. My. God. It’s a movie. I made that up. It’s. Not. Real.”

In truth, it is very hard to find any movie at all where the vaccine is the bad guy. In World War Z, for example, the zombies are created with a virus and the hero has to find a vaccine. In The Omega Man (the second adaptation of I Am Legend after the 1964 film The Last Man on Earth), Charlton Heston only survives a vampire-zombie wave because he is vaccinated. In Outbreak, a virus spreads and the heroes race to find a vaccine. The 1980 Japanese movie Virus ends with the protagonist embracing some vaccinated strangers and declaring: “Life is wonderful.” True, there is the 1973 horror movie Sssssss, where Dirk Benedict is put on a course of injections that tragically turn him into a snake, but unfortunately those injections are not vaccinations. They were designed to turn Dirk Benedict into a snake all along. Once again, it ultimately exists as proof that medicine does its job.

Arguably the only mainstream movie to ever depict vaccinations as a force for evil, in fact, is 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand, in which a wealthy industrialist discovers an inoculation that targets the gene that gives mutants their abilities. And even that doesn’t work, for a couple of reasons. First, the vaccine in the film is designed to deny mutants their truest versions of themselves, and not even the most frothing anti-vaxxer would claim that the coronavirus was an integral part of their personality. And second, you will remember that X-Men: The Last Stand climaxed with an out of control unvaccinated mutant threatening to tear apart the entire fabric of the universe as we know it, so maybe the idea of a vaccination isn’t that silly after all.

Not that any of this matters, of course. If anti-vaxxers can convince themselves that some half-remembered Will Smith film from 2007 can act as a watertight scientific explanation for not wanting to get jabbed, then they can basically use that rationale on any film. Their arguments are unforgivable for any number of reasons, not least that it sort of makes me want to watch I Am Legend again.

This article was amended on 12 August 2021. The first adaptation of I am Legend was The Last Man on Earth, not The Omega Man as an earlier version said.