In America today, we are surrounded by borrowed images. People from all over the world flock here, and bring with them a background of cultures and beliefs, filled with imagery reflecting those ideas. Often times, these elements take on a life of there own in the cauldron known as the American "melting pot," and through interaction with their new surroundings, evolve into something quite different from their original form, becoming an integral part of our culture.
The following text is a translation of one of the oldest surviving versions of the story of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia -- known to his friends as Vlad the Impaler, or Prince Dracole. It was printed in Nuremburg in 1488.
Emerging author, Raven Starr has been writing since she was 15 years old. In 2007, some of her poems are featured in When Times Moves On (Anchor Books), a new poetry anthology. She is also publishing her first novella, The Vampire's Embrace (TreePress.net) and a short e-book, Fantasy (Red Rose Publishing).
Vampires are definitely in vogue right now. Browse through any bookstore's racks and you'll find a score of novels with ‘vampire' in the title. This theme is especially notable in the young adult lit sections, where the reader will observe pieces such as the Twilight series, Vampire Diaries, Vampire Kisses, Vampire Academy and, my personal favorite, Vampire Beach. Has anyone noticed a trend?
Bollywood might have played its part in petrifying the audience with a fair share of horror flicks, but one character that still manages to evoke bloodcurdling screams is Dracula. Bram Stoker's exceptional vampire may have completed 110 years of its reign of terror, but the vicious Count still continues to inspire filmmakers in Hollywood as well as India. While Bela Lugosi's potryal of this frightful visage had been a runaway hit, the Indian parallels haven't been popular. So why has the desi Dracula failed to blaze similar trails of terror?
In 2004, Romanian police were called to investigate the desecration of a grave in a remote village just south of Transylvania. What they discovered there could have come straight from a Hammer Horror film. Here, renowned cannibalism expert Dr. Timothy Taylor revisits the scene of the crime.
A necrophile, rapist, and killer, Peter Kürten targeted almost any vulnerable person. His mild manner charmed women and children alike, and in his confession, he claimed that he got his start when a neighbor taught him how to torture animals. He learned to stab them to death while he was raping them.
On Dominica there exists a creature known as the soucoyan. The "official" explanation of this creature's origin is that it is a curious combination of West African spiritualism and 18th Century Catholicism.
Dracula's powers and weaknesses: This is a series of quotations from the book Dracula by Bram Stoker (the Signet Classic version). I hope through these quotations from the book to help interested parties get some ideas of the powers of vampires, for Stoker basically introduced the myth of the vampire to the masses (in other words, he made it more widespread than it had ever been before).
