wrote a sequel to Bram Stoker's
Dracula (Dracula the Un-Dead)
alongside Stoker's great-grand
nephew, Dacre Stoker. Holt also
serves as writer and producer for the
supernatural thriller film, Episode 50.
We caught up with this vampire
expert just in time for Halloween.
Q: Why are vampires portrayed as
sexy monsters?
A: That was just a happy accident. As
written, Bram's character of Count
Dracula was old, he smelled like the
grave, he had hair on his palms and
the facial features of a rodent. Bram's
Count Dracula was not at all sexy.
It was not until Bela Lugosi was
cast that the play and the book
became the mega-success we all
know it as today. Bela came to
England from Hungary where had
just completed a hugely successful
run as Romeo in Shakespeare's
Romeo And Juliet. His good looks
made him a national sex symbol and
his erotically charged performance as
Romeo had women swooning in the
aisles.
A: (continued) Bela brought that
same sexual energy and good looks
to his stage and film performance as
Count Dracula. Thus, the dye was
cast and the vampire as sexy
monster was born.
Q: What do you think is the most
misunderstood factor about
vampires?
A: Vampires do exist. I have met
them. They have a culture and
religion and they do drink blood. It's
given to them by willing donors who
have to pass an HIV test and are
screened for STDs. I've even seen
Vampires protest in the streets of
Hollywood when Los Angeles
proclaimed a Z-Day (Zombie Day)
and didn't have a V-Day (Vampire
Day) for Vampire-Con.
Katherine Ramsland in her book,
Piercing The Darkness, meets with
and interviews vampires that kidnap
and murder people because they
have an insatiable desire to drink
human blood. There's even a clinical
term for this, Renfield's Syndrome.
Vampires have existed throughout
antiquity in every culture.
Shapeshifters in American Indian
culture are just vampires under a
different name. Those warrior tribes
who ate their victim's flesh were said
to gain strength and agility and
eventually the power to change form
into a deer, a wolf and even an eagle.
In the early settlements in the USA,
like Salem, there are graves that say
the person buried here is a vampire
and they carried the disease
Consumption (Tuberculosis). When
the gave was opened the limbs and
head had been cut and the bones
rearranged just like Van Helsing
says you have to do in Bram's book.
Q: What's next for you? More
vampires or something else?
A mix of both. I have a vampire
reality series I'm working on where a
group of Twilighters pledge to a real
coven of vampires, a prequel to Bram
Stoker's Dracula, a non-fiction book
about why we love vampires titled
Vampire Lust that I'm working on
with celebrity clinical psychologist
Dr. Belisa Vranich of the Today
Show and Fox News and of course
the film version of Dracula The Un-
Dead.
Q: What human factors do vampires
retain in their new supernatural
form?
A: They retain the choice of doing
good or doing evil. They have the
ability to love and fall in love. They
can be magnanimous and forgive
trespassers against them or be petty
and seek revenge. They all seem to
be good dressers, so they maintain
pride and vanity. They can be shallow
or deep. Vampires are really just us
magnified. Since bullets pass right
through vampires and with the
strength of twenty men they can
bend the bars of any prison,
vampires don't have to worry about
the police or the rule of law. They're
already outsiders, trying to hide who
they really are from society, so
vampires don't have to worry about
being PC or polite or manors or even
morality. In other words, vampires
retain all human factors, except a
fear of death, aging or being
ostracized for bad behavior. They are
just us unbound.
Q: What is it like working with Dacre
Stoker and the Stoker family?
A: It was a real honor to work with
Dacre and the Stoker Family on
Dracula The Un-Dead. When Bram
died and his legacy was passed on to
the family, they only were able to
maintain control of it for a few short
years before the copyright fell into
the public domain. The last time they
were involved in the story was the
1931 Bela Lugosi/Todd Browning
film. Having to stand aside and
watch the many liberties Hollywood
and dozens of novelists have taken
with Bram's story over the decades
was difficult for the family and left
them scared and jaded. Rightfully so.
Bram Stoker was one of my heroes
growing up. He not only created the
vampire genre, but also modern
horror and maybe even James Bond.
These are all my favorites.
With Dracula, Bram created the
megalomaniacal "foreign or oustider"
villain with a certain skill-set that the
heroes had to discover and find a
way to overcome. This is the basic
storyline for Michael Meyers, Freddie
Kruger, Jason Voorhees and yes, even
James Bond.
Helping to give the Stoker family
back control over Bram's legacy by
re-establishing lineage and a new
copyright with Dracula The Un-Dead
has been a life long dream come
true.
Q: What was your experience
shooting Episode 50?
A: Episode 50 is based upon a real
story that occurred at two of the
most haunted sites in the country,
Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in
West Virginia and The West Virginia
State Penitentiary.
At Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum,
using copper divining rods, I had a
twenty-minute conversation with a
female ghost who at one time had
been a patient at the facility and died
there. The divining rods cross when
encountering a disturbance in the
electro-magnetic field. It's believed a
ghost, that's some sort of conscious
energy, can cause such a disturbance
when approaching the rods. So, I
asked this ghost to approach the
rods and make them cross for a "yes"
answer and to move away from the
rods so that they would separate and
open to a full east-west position for a
"no" answer. In this fashion, we
carried on a conversation that lasted
twenty minutes. I mean, I have done
some incredible things in my life, not
the least of which is spending the
night in Dracula's Castle in Poenari
Transylvania, but I think this
conversation took the cake.
At The West Virginia State
Penitentiary, there's a basement
room off the exercise yard called The
Sugar Shack. The guards would lock
the prisoners in there and leave since
there weren't enough guards to
handle all the prisoners. Using this to
their opportunity the prisoners
created their own hell down there.
Murders, rapes, drug deals and
usage, you name it, it happened
down there. Naturally, this is one of
the most haunted sites in the prison.
When we went down there the lights
were on in the front section. Just
thinking out loud I said, "Gee, it's not
that scary down here." Almost on
cue, there was a loud bang from the
darkened rear hallway. The air in the
place became real heavy and it was
hard to breath. Our whole bodies
were tingling and shadows started to
move against the light. It was real
creepy.
So we went into the darkened area
and found a lead pipe lying on the
floor. We looked up and saw pipes
running across the ceiling. We hit the
pipes on the ceiling with the pipe we
found on the floor and exactly
recreated the bang we had heard.
Realizing there was no other
explanation than a ghost lifting that
pipe off the floor and hitting the
pipes on the ceiling, I out loud
apologized if I offended anyone by
what I had said. Again, almost on
cue, all activity stopped.
NOTE: This interview was edited for
length.
Posted by Maryann Yin on October
29, 2010.
Tags: Bela Lugosi, Belisa Vranich,
Bram Stoker, Dacre Stoker, Dracula,
Ian Holt, Katherine Ramsland, the Un-
Dead, Todd Browning, Van Helsing
No comments :
Post a Comment