Site news

I'm taking a brief hiatus (two weeks) from blogging at The Mystery of the Haunted Vampire. I'm wrapping up final (fingers crossed) edits on my vampire manuscript. Also it is sometimes good to just take a break. Behind the scenes, we're working on the site's redesign. Stay tuned for upcoming news regarding the site and the book.

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"Where to go in case of a zombie attack"

That's the title of this Metroblogging Seattle post - and the comments are a hoot... Lots of folks seem to think that surrounding themselves with a lot of water is the best way to go - me, I'm gonna borrow some wisdom from Neo in The Matrix: "Guns. We're going to need a lot of guns." So... where would y'all go/do?

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Del Toro to become 'The Wolf Man'

Benicio Del Toro, who if you think about it kind of looks like Lon Chaney Jr., wants to star in a remake of the Universal classic, The Wolf Man.

Del Toro, an avid Wolf Man fan and collector himself, will play the titular hairy hero after he wraps Steven Soderbergh's Che Guevara biopic "Guerrilla" next year. As in the original, Del Toro will play a man bitten by a werewolf in Victorian England, although scripting by Andrew Kevin Walker ("Se7en") will update the story.

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Prison erred in 'vampire's' death

From the BBC:

The Scottish Prison Service has been heavily criticised by a sheriff for its treatment of a convicted killer who hanged himself in his cell at Shotts. Sheriff Vincent Smith said it had failed to carry out an anti-suicide strategy even though Allan Menzies, 23, had a history of self-harm. Obsessed with vampires, he brutally murdered his friend before eating part of his skull and drinking his blood. snip Menzies, from Fauldhouse, West Lothian, claimed he had been visited by the female vampire Akasha, a character from the film Queen of the Damned.

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Anita Blake heading to the comic books

Vampire hunter Anita Blake of the long-running series by Laurell K. Hamilton is going to be adapted for the comic books. From iFMagazine:

Dabel Brothers Productions has a signed a deal with Anita Blake’s creator Laurell K. Hamilton to obtain the exclusive rights to adapt her multi-million selling books into a monthly series. The first of Hamilton’s novels, GUILTY PLEASURES, will be adapted into a two- issue series.

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Joss Whedon: 'Wonder Woman' like 'Buffy'

From Entertainment Wise:

Writer and director of the new Wonder Woman film, Joss Whedon has insisted that his version will be similar to his other bad ass female character; Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Whedon has revealed that the two characters have a lot in common, according to Contactmusic he said: "It's about girls maturing, a rite of passage, that kind of thing."

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Civil War ghost hunting

Civil War battlefields are popular with ghost hunters. For many possible reasons -all the death and destruction, bodies improperly or hastily buried, the dead separated far away from loved ones, lives cut short with promises unkept, etc. - the dead from the battles do not rest in peace. From The Washington Post:

As dusk fell, the group of amateur historians were in position, spread out across the grassy field with digital voice recorders at the ready and infrared cameras rolling. If someone -- or something -- out there so much as sneezed, they were fully prepared to catch it in action. Experts have scrutinized these Spotsylvania County battlefields for years, looking for clues to the past. Now this eclectic group of history buffs had come from Maryland to conduct their own homemade brand of Civil War scholarship: battlefield ghost hunting. Why limit yourself to letters and artifacts, they reasoned, when you can go straight to the source: firsthand, albeit dead, witnesses. The group of mostly middle-aged men had picked their spot carefully. Bloody Angle, part of one of three battlefields they visited on a recent night, was the site of the longest, most savage hand-to-hand combat of the Civil War. For 20 hours on May 12, 1864, soldiers shot, bayoneted and clubbed one another. "Rain poured down and the dead piled up in the mud," the welcome sign on the grounds says. If spirits were likely to appear anywhere, the ghost hunters said, this was the spot. More was at stake that night than a simple chase of the fantastical, members of the self-styled American Battlefield Ghost Hunters Society said. On a weekend break from their jobs -- mortgage broker, home remodeler, engineer, construction worker -- they had come looking for keys to historical mysteries -- such as the battle decisions of field leaders and the mentality of soldiers -- as well as answers about the very nature of life and death.

Entire article well worth the click.

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Texarkana ghost hunters investigate old dark house

Long and well-done feature in the Texarkana Gazette on a ghost hunting group:

Whitlatch and Faulknor chose to examine the back bedroom closet because a number of Texarkana paranormal investigators, including the psychics, said they felt a strong presence in that particular area. Whitlatch said the investigators entered the house at separate times to avoid contaminating each other’s initial impressions of the site. He said they conferred outside of the house after each of them had an opportunity to explore the site. “I felt short of breath when I walked through the door. Kevin (Christi’s husband) said he felt it, too,” Whitlatch said. Christi Faulknor said, “I wanted to run and hide in the closet.” The bedroom closet happened to be the location where Whitlatch and Faulknor would later focus their investigation for paranormal activity. Whitlatch asked any paranormal presence near the closet to please communicate with him and requested he be given a name. After a brief pause, Faulknor introduced herself as John Mitchell. Whitlatch asked “John” what year it was. Faulknor answered by saying it was 1871. According to Faulknor, Mitchell was a sharecropper who worked the farm and raised a family. Faulknor said Mitchell had a wife named Sarah and a son named Johnny. Faulknor later sounded surprised when Whitlatch informed her that she spoke using the first person narrative when answering questions as Mitchell. “I do not like to do a lot of channeling,” she said. “I really don’t care to do that. It kind of is a violation of a body.”

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The life and times of Christopher Lee

Singapore's The Electric New Paper catches up with Christopher Lee in Bangkok.

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Cheers to a good life, Rodney!

California wine lovers raise our glass to you, Mr. Strong.

Rodney Strong, who left behind a career as a professional dancer to pioneer the mass production of fine wines in Sonoma County, died Sunday in Healdsburg, Calif. He was 78. ...Mr. Strong was best known for Rodney Strong Vineyards, which, from its beginnings in the 1960's, was a leader in transforming Sonoma County's reputation from that of rustic farmland as the area became one of the finest wine regions in the country. He focused mostly on French varietals like cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay and merlot, though he made a well-regarded zinfandel, too, and the wines were generally considered to be excellent values. Mr. Strong was one of the first to plant extensive vineyards in prime Sonoma locations at a time when apples and prunes were still the leading crops, and he was an early advocate of making wines from single vineyards rather than blending grapes from many sources. "I knew I couldn't be an old dancer, but I could be an old winemaker," he said often over the years. - NYTimes

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A 'Gentleman' candidate

The Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Hush" might have had my favorite BtVS villain: the Gentlemen. They were creepy the way they stole voices and glided to their victims with insidious smiles. One of them is apparently running for lieutenant governor of Massachusetts.

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Friday vampire cat blogging

Hat tip to PhillyGal.

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Introducing www.hauntedvampire.com

Just a quick note: we have a new address! Ladies & gentlemen, boys & ghouls, I present to you www.hauntedvampire.com! Click it, if you dare! Back yet? Yeah, I know - it redirects you here, I don't want to hear about it... But one of the potentially cool things about this evolution is that you can now email us using this new domain. In Carnacki's words, if you've "Got a happy scary story?", let us know by dropping us a line at "editors.03.2006". New horror-related websites, events, stories, old websites with cool new stuff, movies, books, kitsch, toys - we want to hear about it. We'd also love to hear what you do and don't like about the site - so we can dispatch our armies of robotic flying monkeys and do in our critics leverage this new paradigm and think outside the box to meet and exceed our customers' expectations by growing this Web 2.0 experience. Ahem. Wow, that hurt. More than the flying monkeys. Much more. So have you got all that? "editors.03.2006", at the new domain name. Drop us a line and let us know what you think.

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I bid you welcome

A new, vampire-related blog, Taliesin meets the vampires is from the UK and definitely worth checking out to see a kindred spirit. Fatally*Yours has a very attractive and soothing site design for a blog dedicated to horror. Great reviews of the horror classics as well as posts on contemporary culture. Another kindred spirit, Alix, of Mound of the Blue Dykes, has a new blog, Captain Dyke. Argh! indeed. That's a pirate ship I want to sail aboard.

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Furry crustacean discovered

No, I'm not putting a picture of the newly discovered crustacean on this web site. Damn thing creeps me out. Cynical-C's got news of the discovery, however.

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What's the story behind your Internet name?

I chose my handle after an obscure character, supernatural investigator Thomas Carnacki, from the early 20th century horror stories by William Hope Hodgson. I used Hodgson's Carnacki as a character in my own (as yet unpublished) vampire novel and was in the middle of rewriting when I joined the orange place. I hadn't put much thought into a computer handle. For years I was known as Odysseus on various BBSes. There was a story behind why I chose Odysseus, but when it came time to sign up at another site, I just chose the first name to pop into my head. Since my manuscript was in my thoughts, I logged in as Carnacki. It seems a good handle because the name is strange enough to be memorable. In the Hodgson tales, which I highly recommend, Carnacki is an investigator of hauntings. The tales are told as if a friend is hearing them from Carnacki. Each of them begin in a similar way to this opening from The Whistling Room:

Carnacki shook a friendly fist at me, as I entered, late. Then, he opened the door into the dining-room, and ushered the four of us -- Jessop, Arkright, Taylor and myself -- in to dinner. We dined well, as usual, and, equally as usual, Carnacki was pretty silent during the meal. At the end, we took our wine and cigars to our usual positions, and Carnacki -- having got himself comfortable in his big chair -- began without any preliminary:-- "I have just got back from Ireland, again," he said. "And I thought you chaps would be interested to hear my news. Besides, I fancy I shall see the thing clearer, after I have told it all out straight. I must tell you this, though, at the beginning -- up to the present moment, I have been utterly and completely 'stumped.' I have tumbled upon one of the most peculiar cases of 'haunting' -- or devilment of some sort -- that I have come against. Now listen.

Hodgson's tales appeal to my love of English detective characters and supernatural horror. I do hope you read them. So I'm curious. What's the story behind your online name?

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Werewolves of New England

Gray wolves are making a comeback in New England. From Maine Today:

ERROL, N.H. — Somewhere out there, a Canis lupus roams. The North Woods harbor moose and coyote, bobcat and lynx, and thousands of deer. And, quite likely, a handful of North America's great predator, the gray wolf. "I saw him right there, standing broadside with that massive cranium," said Bob Lord, who jogged down this logging road last fall and came face to face with a wolf. "Oh, my God, what a beauty."

More on the gray wolves on the National Wildlife Federation's site.

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Cursed handtowel for sale on eBay

Via the Unreasoning group, a cursed handtowel. Why anyone would want to buy it is beyond me.

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Ghost Finders Scotland investigates inn

Good article on supernatural investigation team Ghost Finders Scotland and their investigation at the Abbey Inn in The Northern Scot:

REGULARS at one of Moray's oldest pubs are just dying to give you a warm welcome. There's little Christina and her brother David, an elderly woman called Irene and a mysterious bloke who goes by the name of Edward. You might not be lucky enough to see them if you pay a visit to the ancient Abbey Inn at Kinloss, but this very spirited bunch will certainly make their presence known and grab your attention in the most peculiar ways. Christina and David love to cause a chilly draft by running around the building, and the mischievous pair also enjoy moving objects and hiding them. Irene likes to grab hold of people by the arm, while Edward will whisper in your ear. All of them, however, have a favourite way to welcome guests. They make their presence known and, just as they are about to be spotted, vanish so they become nothing more than a dark figure seen out the corner of an eye.

The team has yet to put their report online.

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Lecherous ghost on the prowl

The Hindustan Times has the story of a ghost that gives new meaning to "goose" bumps.

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Friday vampire cat blogging

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Haunted Kentucky

My old Kentucky home must be haunted. Infowire has a long list of haunted places in Kentucky.

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The Mystery of Irma Vep

The Miami Herald makes a great point about a play I'd like to see:

Perhaps this is a bit presumptuous but I believe there are two kinds of theater goers in this town: those who don't mind werewolves in their plays and those who do. Call me elitist, but I tend to fall in the latter camp. While I haven't bothered to double check, I don't mind saying with some confidence that in the combined works of playwrights such as Shakespeare, Beckett and Chekhov, not a single werewolf could be found. With so many fine werewolf-free plays to choose from, I have a hard time discerning why one would go through the trouble and expense of staging a transmutative tale. Which is why I find it equally puzzling that I must admit an odd fondness for the Sol Theatre Project's production of The Mystery of Irma Vep, which not only features a werewolf but throws in a vampire and dancing mummy for good measure.

Just think what Shakespeare might have accomplished if he had worked in a vampire or werewolf into a few of his plays.

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Stephen King reviews Diesel Doug

Stephen King reviews Diesel Doug and the Long Haul Truckers and strikes a chord with me.

But how did a band this good, this tight, fail to make the big time (or even the middle time) in a country where a no-talent, off-key screamer like William Hung could sell hundreds of thousands of records? There may not be any satisfactory answer to this question. We like to say that talent somehow always finds its way; the idea is as American as Mom's apple pie and li'l ole Sun Records down there in Memphis. A truck driver cutting a record for his mama can become a star. An itinerant Greenwich Village folksinger can become the voice of his generation. A struggling boardwalk rocker from New Jersey can release his breakthrough album soon after his label almost drops him (or so the story goes) and be playing sold-out arena shows five years later. You can hear a hundred similar rock & roll stories, and if you widen your field of focus to include books and movies, you can make it a thousand. But you have to wonder how many bands like Diesel Doug and the Long Haul Truckers may have been left largely unheard, except by their small cadre of fans. Worse — how many potentially searing talents may now be pushing paper in offices or teaching band in Ohio high schools? Because sometimes mistakes are made. Sad, but true.

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Dead birds found from apparent ritual

Paging Dennis Wheatley. Mr. Wheatley to the courtesy phone please. From NBC10:

N.J. state police are bringing in an occult expert to investigate after Jersey Shore residents in Egg Harbor Township found eight large birds decapitated and lined up on the beach. snip The dead birds were found near the site of an old mansion known as a haven for satanic rituals.

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Katrina follow up

I haven't posted any Mardi Gras news because I find it too depressing. The latest news is not surprising, but somehow makes the situation even more sad.

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Chupacabra inspires terror

The chupacabra is the only monster that scares my children. From ABC News, a story on a Texas-bloodsucking monster that isn't named George Bush or Dick Cheney:

In south Texas, its frightening name resurfaces in the news every few months — especially after another neighborhood pet or farm animal mysteriously dies. "El Chupacabra," they say, "is back." Parents are cautious, warning their children to stay inside at night or risk a face-to-fang encounter with the chupacabra — a red-eyed, spiky-haired, blood-sucking creature with a green-blue tint to its hide.

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New England Ghost Project featured on CBS

From CBS4 in Boston:

The New England Ghost Project was founded by Dracut resident, Ron Kolek. On a rainy night the crew invited CBS4’s Pauline Chiou along as they investigated The Windham Restaurant in Windham, New Hampshire. Like Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character in the Ghost Whisperer, the New England Ghost project has a medium. Maureen Wood says she communicates directly with spirits. On this night, she tried to contact three spirits she believes live in the 200 year-old building. Ron stood by her side asking questions about the spirits in the house. With here eyes closed tightly, Maureen shook her head “no”, indicating the spirits did not want to communicate.

Hat tip to Becky on the Unreasoning yahoo group.

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Sleepy Hollow-inspired fashions

Now here's a fashion show I would have liked to have seen. From The Telegraph of London:

Tim Burton's dark fantasy film Sleepy Hollow inspired a ghostly procession down the Jean Paul Gaultier catwalk in Paris yesterday. With grey veiling floating from the ceiling - and horses whinnying, wolves howling and crows squawking from the loudspeakers - the scene was set for a fashion melodrama. The models were dressed in flimsy chiffon dresses in spectral white, grey, black and brown, with a hint of Victoriana in the flimsy frills and ruffles.

Next season, gowns inspired by the Bride of Frankenstein.

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Welsh monsters featured

A crew was attacked while working on a TV program on monsters of Wales. From The Western Mail, our favorite newspaper in Wales:

WALES' legendary monsters will be in the spotlight this week, in a new television programme. Beasts like "Teggie" - the nation's answer to the Loch Ness Monster, and ghoulish phenomena such as "corpse candles" will feature in a new ITV1 Wales programme Celtic Monsters. But series producer Neville Hughes said the production was blighted by some mysterious happenings that challenged his own opinion of the unknown. Among the unexplained events were those that occurred while working on the story of the Pontrhydfendigaid witch, Mari Berllan Biter. "While I was editing the programme, a massive hornet appeared from nowhere and attacked me," recalled Mr Hughes.

Say Pontrhydfendigaid three times while looking in a mirror. No witch will appear, but a smile will. It's Celtic magic.

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Ancient tunnel unearthed

From the BBC:

Workmen have unearthed 1,000 years of history on a County Down building site. They have come upon an underground stone-built tunnel in Raholp, where our ancestors might have hidden from the Vikings or from warring neighbours. Archaeologist Ken Neill said that with chambers off from the main tunnel it was a quite complicated souterrain, and probably built by better off farmers. The opening that led to the tunnel - which leads into the hillside - will be sealed and the passage left alone.

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Adventurers wanted

Read the BBC for details.

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