Blood Moon

The moon passed through Earth's shadow on Oct. 8, 2014, marking a total lunar eclipse, the second of 2014, in a stunning blood moon. This Full Moon will be completely caught in Earth's shadow, known as its Umbra. At the onset of the eclipse, the moon will gradually become a rusty red color, known as a Blood Moon. It can be seen worldwide, but those in North America and South America will get the best view. The eclipse is expected to last about 80 minutes.

Marcus Corvinus

Marcus Corvinus is a member of the Corvinus Clan, the progenitor of the entire Vampire Nation, and the original Vampire Elder. He is the main antagonist of Underworld: Evolution, and is portrayed by Scottish actor, Tony Curran.

Born at some point in the mid to late 5th century, Marcus is one of the three known sons of Alexander Corvinus and his wife Helena, and the identical twin brother of William. Like his twin brother, William, Marcus inherited the virus in its active form, which had previously transformed his father into the first Immortal. Marcus shared a strong bond with his twin brother, whom he was closer to than anyone.

Marcus (portrayed by Tony Curran), and his brother William

According to the prologue in the Rise of the Lycans novelization, both twins, overconfident due to the knowledge of the fact that they were both immortal, would go out riding at night, with the belief that nothing could hurt them. They were wrong. While William was bitten by a wolf and became the first Werewolf, Marcus was later bitten by a bat, mutating his Corvinus Strain with bat DNA which resulted in him becoming the first Vampire and the progenitor of the entire Vampire species.

600 years later, in 1202 A.D., Viktor led a charge into a Hungarian village which William had previously passed through. Instead of finding only William, they found an entire village of newly turned Werewolves. Viktor's army (now the Death Dealers), including Amelia, subdued and severely injured William. Marcus pleaded for his brother's life, but he had been betrayed by Amelia and Viktor, who meant to lock William away for life. Viktor, thinking that if any of the Corvinus brothers were killed, the Immortal bloodline would eventually die (a lie told by Marcus), locked William far away from the reach of Marcus. Marcus then swore vengeance against Viktor and all those loyal to him, but was able to do little, as the Death Dealers were loyal to Viktor alone. 

As the army became the first Vampire Coven, the Chain was implemented, a system where only one Elder ruled while the other two slumbered in hibernation. Viktor, with the aid of Amelia and the Vampire Council, undercut Marcus's power, ensuring he would never have the strength to free his brother. Thus Viktor remained the true leader of the Vampires, going as far as to allow himself to be referred to as the "oldest and strongest" of them.

 Let the bloodbath begin! Celebrate Halloween all October long
with a new vampire post every day! Who's your favorite?

LEGO: Vampire Bat

It's no secret that I'm a huge LEGO fan. In fact, you'll find several posts throughout my blog highlighting some of my favorite LEGO minifigures. So, keeping with this October's Vampire theme, here's the Vampire Bat:

Vampire Bat

Now, while I think he's adorable, and a must have (which I do) for all gothic LEGO-lovers... his official description leaves a little something to be desired:

"What a lovely day!”

The clever and stealthy Vampire Bat may be his monster master’s chief hench-bat, but he isn’t entirely thrilled by wicked schemes to eclipse the sun and plunge the world into eternal darkness. After all, he might be one of the children of the night, but that doesn’t mean he wants to spend all his time there!
In fact, the Vampire Bat actually loves being out in the daylight. Sunny days at the beach are his idea of perfection (though he does get a lot of sand in his fur and it’s not easy to see through the glare when your eyes are so well-adapted to the dark). Now that there are a bunch of human monster-fighters trying to foil his master’s plans, he’s secretly rooting for them to win!"

Uhm... no.

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Barnabas Collins

Barnabas Collins is a fictional character, a featured role in the ABC daytime serial Dark Shadows, which aired from 1966 to 1971. Barnabas is a 175-year-old vampire in search of fresh blood and his lost love, Josette. The character, originally played by Canadian actor Jonathan Frid, was introduced in an attempt to resurrect the show's flagging ratings, and was originally to have only a brief 13-week run. He was retained due to his popularity and the program's quick spike in ratings, and became virtually the star of the show.

A defining feature of Barnabas' character development is his gradual but persistent transformation from a frightening creature of the night into the show's protagonist, who selflessly, heroically and repeatedly risks his life to save the Collins family from catastrophe.

In the 1991 NBC revival version of Dark Shadows, British actor Ben Cross played the role of Barnabas Collins. Alec Newman played the part in the unreleased 2004 pilot film. In the recent series of audio dramas produced by Big Finish Productions, he is portrayed by Andrew Collins, while Frid returned to portray the role a final time in The Night Whispers. He is played by Johnny Depp in director Tim Burton's 2012 film, Dark Shadows.

TV Guide named him #8 in their 2013 list of The 60 Nastiest Villains of All Time.

Barnabas Collins (portrayed by Jonathan Frid)

Barnabas Collins was a member of the late 18th century Collins family, from the fictional town of Collinsport, Maine. He was the son of Joshua Collins (Louis Edmonds) and Naomi Collins. Barnabas' many cousins included Millicent and Daniel Collins. During the flashback, Barnabas intended to marry an heiress from Martinique named Josette du Pres (Kathryn Leigh Scott), but had a brief affair with Angelique Bouchard (Lara Parker), Josette's maidservant.

Upon Angelique's arrival in Collinsport for the wedding, Barnabas was determined not to resume his affair. The spurned Angelique, a practitioner of witchcraft, used a number of spells to manipulate Barnabas and his family and force his agreement to marry her. Barnabas discovered Angelique's duplicity, and shot her. With what she believed to be her dying words, she took revenge on Barnabas by summoning a vampire bat from hell to attack him. Barnabas fell extremely ill and died. Angelique survived and attempted to rescind the curse, but was unsuccessful.

Dark Shadows (2012) Movie Poster

Barnabas shortly thereafter rose as a vampire, and immediately strangled Angelique. Collins later frightened his aunt Abigail (Clarice Blackburn) to death, and left the hatefully fanatic witch-hunter Reverend Trask (Jerry Lacy) entombed alive in the Old House basement. Sarah Collins died of pneumonia after a cold night spent hiding in the woods from her deceased brother. Adding to Barnabas' grief, his mother Naomi committed suicide after discovering his secret. Barnabas blamed Angelique for the deaths of both his sister and his mother, and also blamed Lt. Nathan Forbes (Joel Crothers), who had told Naomi about him. Barnabas strangled Forbes, and attempted to transform Josette into a vampire. Josette was willing, if not fully cognizant of what this would entail, until Angelique revealed a vision of what she would become. Fleeing from Barnabas, Josette leapt off the cliffs of Widow's Hill to her death.

Unable to bear what he had become, Barnabas asked his father, Joshua, to destroy him. Joshua was unable to slay his son, and ordered servant Ben Stokes (Thayer David) to nail a cross to the inside lid of Barnabas' coffin and to wrap chains on its outside, forever imprisoning the vampire in a secret room of the family mausoleum at Eagle's Hill Cemetery.

 Let the bloodbath begin! Celebrate Halloween all October long
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Claudia

Claudia is a fictional character in Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles series. She is one of the main characters in Interview with the Vampire, the first novel in the series. She also features in The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of the Body Thief, The Vampire Armand and Merrick.

Claudia (portrayed by Kirsten Dunst)

Claudia (her last name is never given) was a young girl who lived in the poor, plague-ravaged quarters of 18th century New Orleans. She lost both of her parents to the plague, and is first introduced as a crying child of five years old in her house, next to her mother's dead body. She is small and delicately shaped, with golden ringlets for hair and pale skin. She is found by Louis de Pointe du Lac, the protagonist of Interview with the Vampire, and begs him to “wake” her mother. Louis instead feeds on her, much to his self-disgust, and her life is temporarily saved by Lestat de Lioncourt, Louis' maker.

Claudia is taken to the vampires' townhouse in the heart of New Orleans, and there she is turned into a vampire by Lestat. Lestat tells her that she is his and Louis' “daughter” and that now that she is in their family, Louis can not leave them. Though Louis is at first horrified at the thought of a vampire child (and indeed he accuses Lestat of condemning Claudia to hell), he and Claudia become very attached, and the three form a vampiric “family” for decades.

Although the three vampires spend many years in happiness, Claudia begins to grow more and more detached, insisting on self-sufficiency and even gaining her own coffin so that she does not have to sleep with either Lestat or Louis during the daylight hours. Claudia becomes self-educated and philosophical under Louis' tutelage and also an indiscriminate murderer under Lestat's guidance. She would “appear to her victims as a little angel” and lure them to their deaths.

As the years pass, Claudia becomes increasingly dissatisfied with being constantly “dressed as a doll” by her two fathers, and her frustration leads her to kill a mother and daughter and leave them to rot in the kitchens of the townhouse. When her deed is discovered by Lestat, she flies into a rage and informs the two that she has been damned to a body never able to grow old, that she wants to be a grown woman and will never have that chance, and that she hates them both more than she ever thought possible.

 Let the bloodbath begin! Celebrate Halloween all October long
with a new vampire post every day! Who's your favorite?

Louis de Pointe du Lac

Louis de Pointe du Lac is a fictional character in Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles series. He began his life as a mortal man, and later became a vampire. He is the protagonist of Interview with the Vampire (the first book of The Vampire Chronicles). He also features in The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of the Body Thief, Memnoch The Devil, The Vampire Armand and Merrick.

Louis (portrayed by Brad Pitt)

It was in a tavern brawl that he caught the eye of the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt, who fell "fatally in love" with the tragic Creole planter, appeared to him as an angel and offered him an alternative to his desperate, meaningless life. Lestat, upon seeing for the first time Louis' "fine black hair" and deep green eyes, and sensing his passion, was completely and immediately seduced not only by Louis's beauty, but also by his tragedy and human heart; "He seduced the tenderness in me." Lestat made Louis into a vampire, his immortal companion in 1791, and it was Louis with whom he would live, love, and kill for nearly a century to come.

However, Lestat was damaged from his own experiences in France and the Old World. He was not as gentle a tutor or as much of a friend as Louis would have liked, one of the central themes in Interview with the Vampire. An example of this is an anguished comment recalled by Louis in his memoir, where he muses: "I was thinking how sublime friendship between Lestat and me might have been; how few impediments to it there would have been, and how much to be shared."

While Louis and Lestat were often at odds with one another, they did eventually form an uneasy sort of truce, with Lestat gradually coming to regard his friend as a kind of soulmate, albeit one who resisted his "teachings" on killing and living life as a vampire. There was a certain element of sexual attraction implicit in their relationship, in the books after Interview with the Vampire Lestat refers to Louis as his lover.

 Let the bloodbath begin! Celebrate Halloween all October long
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Lestat de Lioncourt

The Vampire Lestat (1985) is a Vampire novel by Anne Rice, and the second in her Vampire Chronicles, following Interview with the Vampire. Set in the late 18th century to the late 1980s, the story follows the 200-year-long life of the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt, and his rise from humble beginnings as impoverished nobility in the countryside of the Auvergne in France, to the cosmopolitan city of Paris, to become transformed by the Dark Gift into a vampire.

Lestat (portrayed by Tom Cruise and Stuart Townsend)

According to Rice, the character of Lestat was largely inspired by her husband, the poet and artist Stan Rice, and shared his blond hair and birth date of November 7. The name "Lestat" was a misspelling of "Lestan," which Rice believed to be an old French name.

Because of his boldness, enthusiasm, and defiance, Lestat's seniors refer to him affectionately as "The Brat Prince", a title of which he is very fond. He is very vain and concerned with fashion, and will pause mid-narrative to remind the reader what he is wearing. Lestat is portrayed in the books as being bisexual, and has male and female lovers as both a vampire and a mortal. He enjoys performing on stage, which he does as both a mortal actor in Paris, France and a vampire in his rock band called The Vampire Lestat (of course), that he forms with a group of humans in the 1980s. Yet despite his charisma, Lestat is often portrayed as a lonesome individual plagued by common philosophical questions, such as "Are my actions good or bad?", "Is there a God?", and "Am I in His plan?"

Lestat appears as a major character in both motion picture adaptations of The Vampire Chronicles novels. In Neil Jordan's 1994 film adaptation of Interview with the Vampire, he is portrayed by Tom Cruise. In the 2002 film adaptation of Queen of the Damned, he is played by Stuart Townsend. On stage, Lestat was portrayed by Hugh Panaro in the short-lived Broadway show Lestat: The Musical (which thankfully, I missed out on) composed by Elton John and Bernie Taupin.

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Gary Oldman

Bram Stoker's Dracula is a 1992 American horror fantasy erotic drama film directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. It stars Gary Oldman as Count Dracula, Winona Ryder as Mina Harker, Anthony Hopkins as Professor Abraham Van Helsing, and Keanu Reeves as Jonathan Harker.

Count Dracula (portrayed by Gary Oldman)

"I am the monster that breathing men would kill. I am Dracula."

 
Gary Oldman's Dracula brought to the the screen an elegant mixture of man and monster. He was ruthless, powerful, ancient and vengeful. Yet beneath all of that armor, he was still just a man who longed for and had lost everything (including his soul) for his one true love. Like Frank Langella's Dracula, Oldman was a seductive and charismatic aristocrat. His chivalry was as disarming as it was dangerous, for he was no less a monster regardless the form he wore. Which, by the way, was one of my favorite aspects of this film—Dracula was shown in all his glory. He was a rat, a bat, mist, a wolfman, and a creepy old woman in a red satin gown.

Perhaps one of the most brilliant parodies, ever...
Gary Oldman's Dracula (portrayed my Charles Montgomery Burns)

The Simpsons: Tapped Out ~ Mr. Burns as Count Dracula

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Frank Langella

Frank A. Langella, Jr. (born January 1, 1938) is an American stage and film actor. He has won three Tony Awards, two for Best Leading Actor in a Play for his performance as Richard Nixon in the play Frost/Nixon and for the role of Leslie in Edward Albee's Seascape. Additionally, Langella has won two Obie Awards and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in the film production of Frost/Nixon (2008).

Frank Langella is an important figure in the history of Count Dracula’s evolution. At the time of Dracula's (1979) release, he was very much the antithesis of what you would expect the Count to look, sound, or even act like. He was young, attractive and a very sexually appealing Dracula, which upset many the fans of the original novel, but delighted film critics and female viewers. Frank Langella transformed Dracula from a predator... into a seducer. He introduced the 'sexy' to the vampire genre and, without question, helped turn it into what it is today.

Dracula (portrayed by Frank Langella)

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Bela Lugosi

Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (20 October 1882 – 16 August 1956), better known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian-American actor, famous for portraying Count Dracula in the original 1931 film, his roles in various other horror films, and in Ed Wood's low-budget movies.

He had been playing small parts on the stage in his native Hungary before making his first film in 1917. In 1927, he appeared as Count Dracula in a Broadway adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel, where he was talent-spotted as a character actor for the new Hollywood talkies. He would appear in the classic 1931 Dracula talkie by Universal Pictures.

Dracula (portrayed by Bela Lugosi)

Through the 1930s, he occupied an important niche in popular horror films, with their East European setting, but his Hungarian accent limited his repertoire, and he tried unsuccessfully to avoid typecasting. He was often paired with Boris Karloff, who was able to demand top billing. To his frustration, Lugosi was increasingly restricted to minor parts, kept employed by the studio principally for the sake of his name on the posters. Among his pairings with Karloff, only in The Black Cat (1934), The Raven (1935), and Son of Frankenstein (1939) did he perform major roles again, although even in The Raven, Karloff received top billing despite Lugosi performing the lead role.

Let the bloodbath begin! Celebrate Halloween all October long
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LEGO: Lord Vampyre

Lord Vampyre is the evil ruler of the Monster Realms, along with his Bride. He originally planned to give his spooky moonstone to his beloved wife, but soon unearthed its true power, and built a contraption that would be able to eclipse the sun forever. Once he succeeds, all the monsters will be able to roam freely in throughout all the LEGO realms. With the power of his own moonstone, he was able to take control of all the other monsters, and made them retrieve the remaining 5 moonstones. Lord Vampyre owns a loyal zombie henchman, the Zombie Driver, and an army of man-sized bats who protect his castle. He owns a Hearse, as well as the Haunted House, which is home to his Monster Butler, the Zombie Chef, and 2 Ghosts. Lord Vampyre is constantly fighting the Monster Fighters, particularly Dr. Rodney Rathbone, for possession of the moonstones and will stop at nothing to complete his plan.

Lord Vampyre

 Let the bloodbath begin! Celebrate Halloween all October long
with a new vampire post every day! Who's your favorite?