Book of the Vampire Wisley: AAPPL,2008 Nigel Suckling Illustrations by Bruce Pennington Hard to imagine as it is, Nigel Suckling does not appear to be a nom de plume invented specifically for a book on vampires as one might expect: he has written and co-written books on a number of fantasy topics ranging widely from werewolves to mermaids. Indeed, Book of the Vampire is an example of what one might call the popular gothic in that it is an accessibly written, sometimes even arch, unannotated and glancingly referenced, text with broad non-specialist appeal. This is reinforced by the rather p

Extended deadline.

Filming to start in April

  By way of the Modern Gothic, the vampire has come to represent the outcast and disaffected people in our lives. Troubled individuals, social problems, and even our own senses of personal alienation have been transposed onto and expressed by the vampire. However, moving away from the popular theory expressed by Nina Auerbach where it is society that produces vampires, these vampires are now, in turn, affecting this very society and bringing about resolution to its problems. There is a movement towards accepting vampires and their otherness: a demonstration where both they and humans can

Post 4 (suggested soundtrack – Felix Mendelssohn, The Hebrides Overture (“Fingal’s Cave”*) I mentioned in my first post the frequency of the ‘journey North’ motif in Scottish texts. This is particularly evident in film, both from within and outwith Scotland. English director Neil Marshall’s 2001 horror Dog Soldiers has already been cited, and the journey North is taken a stage further in his 2008 post-apocalyptic flop Doomsday (despite its many laughable qualities and adverse reviews, I rather enjoyed this – definitely a guilty pleasure). The fi