I vill suck your blooooood...

[icepixie]

Note to self: Reading vampire books late at night? Not a good idea. Not a good idea at all.

I'm 150 pages into Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian, which is a bit like The Da Vinci Code would be if it had well-written prose and interesting characters who are more than just ciphers to move the plot along, were about Dracula and the history thereof, and were generally not crap. (I don't dislike it because it's popular, I dislike it because it's bad.) It's very good so far, and I hope the following five hundred pages won't disappoint.

However, vampires, when well-written, are just about the only horror genre trope that can genuinely scare me. So, in addition to Kostova really knowing how to reel out tension, this book is really quite creepifying. I think it goes back to childhood. Remember that series of "Scary Stories" books (Scary Stories 1-3)? The ones with the really quite spooky illustrations that were basically just urban legends retold? Mostly I just thought they were kind of disgusting, but one of them did actually get to me. It's the one where there's a girl on a lonesome farm in the middle of nowhere (naturally), who has to face various vampires, whose glowing red eyes she can see at night through her window, coming towards her. I think her two brothers, and probably various farm animals, fall victim to the vampires (who are randomly showing up from a cemetary nearby, or something like that) before she does herself. Anyway, we used to live on a fairly busy road, and out my window at night, I could see the brakelights of passing cars, which, to my eight-year-old mind, looked exactly like glowing red vampire eyes. The fact that they were inevitably going away from me didn't really help things much.

So, yes, vampires, not so much. But the book is still really good.

(Actually, the whole "go into a bathroom, turn off the lights, chant Bloody Mary/Mary Worth x amount of times, spin around a few times, and then look to see her escaping the mirror to scratch your eyes out" always kind of freaked me out as well. Remind me again why this is a popular sleepover game?)

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Comments

[icepixie]

For me, the mirror was where I tried hardest not to look, particularly late at night when the house was very quiet. Stupid Bloody Mary.

Is Buffy actually creepy? What little I've watched of it seemed very much more camp than creep. Forever Knight, the vampire show I used to watch (the one with the main characters, who are in lurve, named Nick and Natalie...hence why Kate, Nick and I decided at one ScaperCon to refer to them as Maldis and Jane *g*) had a few creepy moments due to LaCroix, the evil Roman general vampire. Nigel Bennett is kind of scary looking anyway, though.

[elflore.livejournal.com]

Oh, Buffy could do both the camp and the creep. (Not unlike Who, really. *g*) A lot of times it felt less horror than superhero show, but sometimes...yeah, it could get very chilling. Angel even more so.

One Buffy episode in particular is known for creepiness...there's an episode called 'Hush', which is almost entirely silent. Monsters come to town which steal everyone's voices, no one can speak...it's very creepy, in places (intentionally and brilliantly) hilarious...just utter genius.

And Forever Knight's another show I think one day I should probably remember to check out...

[icepixie]

I've meant to watch "Hush" for a while now. It was the other one I was going to give a chance to (along with "Earshot," which according to Koren, was one of the best). I also watched the pilot last year. It was okay, but oy, high school.

FK is entertaining, but don't exect great things. It was very fond of some heavy-handed preaching, if I remember correctly. But some entertaining bits nonetheless. (Nick is a detective on the night shift, and he drives around in a sea-green Cadillac from the fifties. His first partner, Schanke, loved garlic. Heh.) Also, lots of OMG!angst-doomed ship from a lot of corners. And a terrible, bitter finale that kills everyone off... *sigh*

[elflore.livejournal.com]

Buffy: The pilot is decent, but not the best place to start. The whole first season is fun but mostly campier. They only had a half season...it was the second season where they really spread their wings. So yeah, epis to check out...Hush is definitely a great one. I would also suggest...

Surprise/Innocence: The classic two-parter where Buffy's vampire boyfriend Angel goes bad. One of the best examples of the metaphors the show was so brilliant at employing.

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered: One of the funniest and most fun eps IMHO...a love spell gone wrong.

Once More With Feeling: The in/famous Buffy musical. Personally I think it's brilliant. If you're a Sondheim fan at all, I'd especially recommend it...Joss has commented on the Sondheim influence and it shows. The songs are fantastically layered...often fluffy on the surface but most of the lyrics have a double meaning, a bittersweet undertone.

Of course all of these play even better in context, I'd say...Buffy was an inspiration for the new Who, actually, in so far as how it would build character and story arcs often subtly through the season, and things would pull together towards the end. And the musical especially...that one, while still standing alone as a story, takes about four or five different plotlines involving each of he major characters, stories that have been building through the season up to that point, and spins them all off in a different direction.

Forever Knight: Heh. But gah...I do hate those nihilistic finales! One reason I don't know if I'll ever bring myself to really watching Space: Above & Beyond, despite the love I know some Scapers have for it...

[icepixie]

Buffy: The pilot was a bit lame, yeah. ;) I had seen "Earshot" earlier, and it didn't do much for me. Maybe when I'm further past high school, I'll be more able to tolerate the whole thing.

Ooooh, the S:AAB finale is painful. The show is really good, though; the New BSG is extremely reminiscent of it, in my mind.

[elflore.livejournal.com]

Buffy: 'Earshot' is a brilliant epi, but most of it plays much better in context, when you already know the characters. Oz is Mr. Taciturn, for instance, so his philosophical ponderings when Buffy can read his mind are really funny. And the final revelation Buffy has about her mom and Giles...utterly *hysterical* if you already know them, and especially if you've seen the episode where it happened (offscreen, we never knew as fans until Earshot), 'Band Candy'. Actually, for pure wacky camp fun, Band Candy is a great epi to try out...magically-spiked marching band chocolate turns the entire adult population of the town mentally back into teenagers. Hilarity ensues. But anyway, all that said...I do adore to pieces the final message of Earshot, about how in high school (and it's true of life as well), no one is paying attention to your pain because they're all so wrapped up in your own...

You also might want to try getting into Buffy sort of backwards, through Angel. Buffy is the high school show, Angel is 20-somethings in the city. It's also got a very cool noir vibe going on. I'd recommend you trying out that show with an epi called 'Waiting in the Wings', which focuses on a haunted ballet...gorgeous stuff, written by Joss himself. And Summer Glau stars as the ballerina, it's how Joss found her.

New BSG and S:AAB? From what little I've seen so far of Space, that makes sense...

[icepixie]

Haunted ballet? Oooh. That sounds like fun. I did enjoy the puppet episode quite a bit.

If you like Space at all, I think you'll very much enjoy BSG. It's so well-written and well-acted. (Well, less son in S2 than in S1. But.)

[elflore.livejournal.com]

Angel's Haunted ballet ("Waiting in the Wings"): I really think you'll enjoy this one...just gorgeous.

S:A & B: Okies, good to know. Have to admit when I saw the pilot it wasn't doing a lot for me, but... a) pilots are often like that and b) I was watching it in a room full of Scapers in a very MiSTy mood!

[icepixie]

Okay, I put the disc with "Waiting in the Wings" on it in my Netflix queue. *g*

Did you see the BSG mini? If so, the series is much better. Like, by orders of magnitude. If you saw the first episode of S1, "33," then...hmmm. There's less hope for you, let's say. ;) (Personally, I think it's the most birlliant first episode of anything ever, and probably one of the best of S1 as well.)

[elflore.livejournal.com]

Waiting in the Wings: Awesome! Especially since the DVD has a *great* deleted scene. The episode was actually written because of an idea Joss had for a scene...and then the scene ended up not fitting the flow of the final ep. But the scene itself is hilarious. *g*

BSG: Oh, no, I was talking about the pilot for Space: Above & Beyond not grabbing me. I'm a full blown BSGer these days! *g* Jodie tried to hook us at Talia's birthday party, and showed us "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down" and "Colonial Day", which out of context did nothing for me. And I'd tried watching the BSG mini before that, and got about an hour in and it hadn't done anything for me. So as much as I wanted to like BSG, I thought it wasn't going to work. But then, right before we left Tal's, Krissy showed us the most *amazing* BSG music video to the tune of 'Proud' by Heather Small...if you've never seen it I'll have to show you the link...and that vid gave me all the feeling I'd wanted to get from BSG and was missing. So...yeah, I ended up getting hooked after all, and now I've seen all of both seasons and can't wait for S3. *g*

You're right, btw..."33" is insanely brilliant. All though my favorite eps of S1...and the series as a whole...are still 'Act of Contrition' and 'You Can't Go Home Again'. That story had absolutely everything I wanted from BSG...angst and redemption, psychology, shippiness, family ("If it was you, we'd never leave..." *kills* me...I mist up just thinking about how EJO delivers that line!), and kick-butt starfighter combat. *g*

Rambleramble.