I was re-reading Eric Nuzum's book on vampires, The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula, trying to figure out what movies to put on my list. This quote hit me like a brickwall:
"All told, I made it through 216 films- 389 films short of my goal. At first it may seem like a failure or a cop-out, but 216 films is probably 200 more than should be humanly permissible."
And I'm shooting for 365 movies. Great.

When I was a kid, there were two things that led to me doing this blog.

The first was the afternoon movie on channel 13, WVEC, here in Norfolk, Virginia. Since Oprah showed up, the movie went the way of the dodo. But in the pre-Oprah years, you could catch all manner of movie, the best ones for me- the horror and sci-fi- getting shown periodically, but especially the week of Halloween or weeks ending on Friday the 13th. I remember watching Hammer's Dracula Has Risen From the Grave, the resurrection scene just blowing me away- terrifying to my younger self, even with the sun still up.

I always knew I was in for a treat when they were showing one of those "English movies."

The second thing was this book:
My elementary school library had a whole series of books based on Universal Monsters films and I'd check them out over and over again. The first part of the book was a childrens abridgement of the Universal Dracula story. The rest of the book was a nonfiction look at the historical Dracula and the whole spectrum of Dracula movies- like the Hammer Films, Kolchak the Night Stalker, Nosferatu, and Blacula.
I've been lucky and found copies of this and other books in the series at thrift stores over the years.

Last night, I was telling Perry about this blog.
He asked me if there were 365 Vampire movies out there.

He's not that familiar with the genre... yet.

Yesterday, we had a flat tire.

Today, I had to get it fixed at Walmart.

I had a little time to kill while they were doing it, so I wandered around the video section thinking about movies I'll be watching and I had a terrifying realization: I was going to have to watch at least one of the Twilight movies.

I tried to read the first one- I used to work at a bookstore (eighteen years as a bookseller), so I felt I should be familiar with the series. Ugh.

I suppose if you're a teenage girl, there's an appeal. But I was hoping for a teenage vampire story, not some angsty romance. Maybe I should have read further. Maybe the movies have something for me- I know I'll be watching one of them because of a connection to another movie- something I'll discuss when I watch the movie.

Post Script:
There was some discussion among my facebook friends about Poppy Z Brite's Lost Souls, now out as an audio book, and how that was a teenage vampire story. I agree.
I'd love to see the reactions of Twilight fans after reading it.

Just as a lark, I said "Could I possibly watch one vampire movie a day over the course of a year?" on facebook last night. I've been pondering it all day- could I take the time? Would Perry put up with it?
I think probably to both questions.

Of course, I'd created this blog before I went to bed last night, just in case.

I'm not going to start officially until January 1st, 2011. I'll be posting here off and on until then, warming up the blogging skills, getting into the right mindset.
Here's a little mood music to help...


I deliberately chose the full version- which I actually heard once on the radio- because most of the short versions I could find were from The Hunger and I want to save the commentary for that for the day I watch the movie.