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.