Saturday, June 7, 2014
Red Baron Vampire Killing Kit
Red Baron Antiques brings us this interesting vampire killing kit. It's filled with a whole lot of stuff, which actually works to its detriment. The assembled items are a bit too disjointed and it seems like there's a lot of filler pieces. After all, how many different styles of crucifix do you need? That said, I'm happy to see they're not trying to pass it off as "authentic".
Clearly this lot should be broken up into useful packets and distributed among the multiple helpers this vampire hunter requires to move his kit. My suggestion is a caparisoned war elephant with an etherically armored howdah if you must drag the hardware store along. If you have steamer trunks of equipment, subtleness and stealth are not high on the list.
ReplyDeleteAbraham Van Helsing, MD, D Ph, D Litti & etc., put together an ad hoc carpet bag of goodies, mostly assembled on the spot. It was easily portable, to the point (pun intended) and didn’t require a large retinue. Note that guns were not on his list of must have crypt busting. Come on guys, it’s not tiger hunting in Rajastan in the Victorian Era or the tool kit of a bunch of naavies (no, not those blue cat people).
@ CoastConFan
ReplyDeleteYou raise a good point. There comes a point where you're so loaded down with supplies that it becomes dangerous. Feature creep can kill you.
And, now that you've touched upon the idea, I'd kill to see a vampire killing kit themed around the British Raj. It's a setting all too rarely used in horror, with the notable exception of Kipling's "The Mark of the Beast". Easily one of the most terrifying stories ever written, with nightmarish horrors on multiple levels.
Ah, I had completely forgotten Mark of the Beast, good point. The only problem with an Indian continent themed vampire kit is that you would technically need to know if your vampiric quarry was a Hindu, Moslem or Christian (not to mention Buddhist, Jewish and other religions found but seldom in India). Waive a lignum at the wrong party and you might get in trouble. Yes, it can get pretty complex when you finally trap you vampire fiend in it’s lair only to find out that your quarry is … atheist! Oops.
ReplyDeleteThe story Mark of the Beast (1891) can be read online here: http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/2420/
An interesting write up about the story: http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_markbeast1.htm
I didn’t catch the movie version, Rudyard Kipling's Mark of the Beast, which was supposed to be out in Oct 2012. – was it ever released? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1555074/
Still I like the patina, and there's some good axes int there. As for the idea of the British Raj idea. The two MOST vampire-infested countries in history (per capita occurances) is/was India and Greece. Greece in particular had a buisness for taking care of them. Mainly it was burying the suspect on an island.
ReplyDelete@ CoastConFan
ReplyDeleteBased on the trailer on YouTube I can see why the movie sank without a trace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPm6yhSac6Y
I'm not a master filmmaker, but I suspect turning a horror tale set in British controlled India into a "cabin in the woods" survival flick was...unwise.
@ bea
It had never even occurred to me that Greece was a hotbed of vampirism. That's another themed kit I'd love to see.
Propnomicon, I went to Youtube and saw the trailer for Rudyard Kipling’s Mark of the Beast – yeow, fan made movies filmed over a weekend are better than that mess.
ReplyDelete@ Bea, yes Greece has had a history of vampiric activity. I hadn’t thought of the idea of marooning a vampire on an island, since they are supposed to not be able to cross water. Also there are plenty locations in previously Hellenized areas such as the Balkans (ahem, Transylvania) and the Ottoman Empire as in the story by John Polidori, The Vampyre (1819): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vampyre
Also since we are talking about Greece and islands, consider the 1945 film, Isle of the Dead with Boris Karloff takes place on an island stalked by a Vrykolakas, a type of undead might be of interest. It’s my understanding it is loosely based on a book with the same name by Arnold Bocklin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vrykolakas
The Vampyre, available free for download on Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6087 and at http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/polidori/john/vampyre/complete.html
A Mark of the Beast movie seems redundant since they pretty much stole that to explain Anthony Hopkins in The Wolfman.
ReplyDelete