Draculas are great. Far scarier than Frankensteins.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 9:30 AM on July 24, 2014 [3 favorites]

I'm at work but want to peruse this. Can someone whip a transcript real quick? Thanks
posted by ian1977 at 9:37 AM on July 24, 2014

I listened to this a few weeks ago because it had the delightful Cleolinda Jones as a guest star, and it was so much fun I've been working my way back through the Anglo-Filles archives ever since. Definitely recommended. Although I didn't hate Rhys-Myers' Dracula, The American Alternative Energy Mogul, quite as much as Cleo does. (I found the show sort of weirdly riveting and am just as glad it got cancelled, because I might not have had the strength to walk away from a second season. Especially if Renfield had returned.)
posted by Stacey at 9:51 AM on July 24, 2014

I'm pretty sure sunlight doesn't kill Draculas. It just slathers on Teh Sexay.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:07 AM on July 24, 2014

Draculi, dracula!
posted by benito.strauss at 10:10 AM on July 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'm pretty sure sunlight doesn't kill Draculas.

It kills Nosferati. Nosferatuzees. Noosfatoozles.

Here's a classic article on why vampires fear crosses (or why they used to fear crosses)

I believe in vampire stories. I don't mean that I believe these stories are "literally" true ¡ª they're not that kind of story. But I believe they are true stories ¡ª stories by which we tell ourselves true things so that we do not forget them. Vampire stories tell us, for example, that any of us can have great power if only we are willing to prey on others. Feed off the blood of others and great power will be yours. This is demonstrably true. It's how the pyramids were built. And Standard Oil.
...
The cross confronts vampires with their opposite ¡ª with the rejection of power and its single-minded pursuit. It suggests that no one is to be treated as prey ¡ª not even an enemy.
...
At least the time of Constantine [crosses are often] sanctified symbols of power. Crosses like that aren't the least bit disturbing to a vampire ¡ª they merely proclaim vampirism by other means...The apparent immunity of modern vampires to such crosses isn't what it seems. Sacrificial powerlessness still confounds them, but that idea is no longer quite so effectively signified by this particular symbol.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 10:19 AM on July 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

It appears to be missing Abhay Khosla's Bram Stoker's Dracula (previously, but the link is dead).

A wooden stake's going easy on him. Let's fuck his shit up. Let's shove an electric toothbrush up his nose!
posted by filthy light thief at 10:32 AM on July 24, 2014

MAN IS HIS SUSHI
posted by The Whelk at 10:38 AM on July 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

topics discussed include Varney The Vampire . . .

"Hey Vern, graves give up their dead, and the night air grows hideous with shrieks, knowhutimean?"
 
posted by Herodios at 10:53 AM on July 24, 2014 [8 favorites]

I am not into vampires, but am curious. Is there a word for a group of them, as in "a murder of crows?" Do we speak of "a drain of vampires?"
posted by Kirth Gerson at 10:55 AM on July 24, 2014

A brood of vampires. Cuz they're so brooding
posted by ian1977 at 11:02 AM on July 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Chocula vs. Blacula vs. Scott Bakula: DISCUSS.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:15 AM on July 24, 2014 [3 favorites]

A sparkle of vampires?
posted by Strass at 11:16 AM on July 24, 2014

I'd just like to point out this incredible book, Vampires, Burial, and Death, if you're interested in the historical origins of such things.
posted by mykescipark at 11:16 AM on July 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

I love Jonathan Coulton's "Blue Sunny Day," which is either about a man taking the first steps to overcome depression or a vampire committing suicide (not least for the brilliant "The Nine Billion Names of God" allusion).
posted by straight at 11:24 AM on July 24, 2014

A degraded folk myth of vampires.
posted by maxsparber at 11:26 AM on July 24, 2014

The plural of Dracula
posted by Legomancer at 11:55 AM on July 24, 2014 [3 favorites]

It's Dracsula.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:02 PM on July 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

This must have come up in other threads, but: [Hannibal is] a vampire show passing itself off as a show about people.
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:08 PM on July 24, 2014

The commentary on the pilot episode says they where deliberately holding back on the vampire tropes at the start ("He has to be invited in, almost." )
posted by The Whelk at 12:11 PM on July 24, 2014

Apropos of vampires, I am enjoying the heck out of cstross's latest Laundry novel.
posted by figurant at 12:12 PM on July 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

(not to get too into it but Hannibal's M.O is to seduce people into becoming monsters just like him by feeding them parts of the human body it's not subtle.)
posted by The Whelk at 12:18 PM on July 24, 2014

It is the plural: of draculum. And as everyone knows, a 'draculum' is the international standard unit of measure for horror.


I keed, I keed
posted by eclectist at 12:21 PM on July 24, 2014

I had no time for long audio segments - will wait for the transcript. But I can tell they've got good taste with this quote on the page: "Penny Dreadful, a Showtime series that is what the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen wishes it could be."
posted by Ber at 12:55 PM on July 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Draculen?
posted by vibratory manner of working at 1:02 PM on July 24, 2014

Draculpodes
posted by The Whelk at 1:15 PM on July 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

The book mykescipark linked is fantastic. I looked the author up on amazon and apparently since he wrote that one book in 1989 he has not yet written a second.
posted by bukvich at 1:19 PM on July 24, 2014

A basement of vampires.
posted by MrBadExample at 3:47 PM on July 24, 2014

Oh man that book mykescipark pointed to sounds awesome. Bought. Especially since a dracula's been popping into the back of my head wanting to be in a story of some sort of another.

I like 'draculas' as a plural. It feels dismissive. "Man, can you stop with all this mooning about in lace and whining about your tragic lot? Y'all are being such a bunch of draculas."

and yes I know Stoker's Dracula didn't do that either.
posted by egypturnash at 3:47 PM on July 24, 2014

A basement of vampires.

Thank you.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:15 PM on July 24, 2014