Bloodsucking Feminists

The last time we dipped into the science fiction end of vampirism, it was humans using science as a response to vampirism in Ultraviolet. Now it’s the vampire’s turn, using technology to shape the world around them as half the day proves lethal and humanity’s numbers dwindle. Okay, so it does kind of devolve into standard action movie at the ... Read More

Some things we have liked. Some things we didn’t. And some things were Eclipse. But behold, the movie that feels like it was made for us, a high-brow Cannes award winner that just gets us. Sure, there’s awkward sex, awkward men, awkward ghosts, awkward ghost men interrupting awkward sex, but we’ve also got religion, power within families, moral quandaries, a ... Read More

Sometimes there is such a thing worse than being bad: it’s being nothing. And in this case, taking some interesting ideas and squandering them. Yes, we totally noticed you dropped that plotline there, move. Take BBC’s adaptation of Dracula back in 2006. Raiding the BBC period costume closet may seem like a good idea, but looking at a text and ... Read More

Behold, the Id of the great director Quentin Tarantino – there’s more feet than you can shake a stake at! Also boobs, discussion of toxic masculinity, feet, boobs, the monstrous feminine, two plots smushed together, feet, some more tits, discussion of sexual violence and the men who perpetrate it, the lack of development of female characters, and breasts. And feet. ... Read More

Full title: Total Eclipse of the Plot, Characterisation, World-Building, and Everything That Isn’t Bella and Edward Or, in short: Fuck. This. Book.   For further Quileute reading: Home http://www.burkemuseum.org/static/truth_vs_twilight/ Home Home http://www.hcn.org/issues/44.11/the-quileute-reservation-copes-with-tourists-brought-by-twilight

Let’s be real for a moment: you’re only here because Idris Elba is in it, aren’t you? Well regardless we’re glad you’ve tuned into Ultraviolet, a six episode BBC series from the 90s with a very scientific and police procedural approach to vampires. Think The Bill with vampires. And that guy from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. But a ... Read More

Just when you thought teenagers couldn’t be even more asshole-ish, someone decided to give them fangs – and mullets. These vampires aren’t going to high school to pick up girls way younger than them – if they ever did set foot in a high school, it’d be to pause their motorbikes in a cool 80s pose before riding away after ... Read More

Take the granddaddy of all vampire books, adding a director in desperate need of a hit and the screenwriter for Hook. Combine with actors who all think they are filming different movies, copious amounts of alcohol, and hot air balloon adventures. Finally top with operatic costumes, an unneeded romantic subplot, and a gorgeous score. And boobs. Lots of boobs. Congrats: ... Read More

In the Iranian ghost-town of Bad Town, the living are trapped and the dead… skateboard? Described as the first “Persian-language American vampire western film”, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is made of so many more genres and so many more influences than even we could fit into a(n admittedly rather short) episode. Also, Dracula is high as [censored].

It’s our second fangiversary, so let’s celebrate by taking a trip not down under but down south, one step out of urban fantasy and into a small town where everyone is ridiculously good-looking and willing to get naked. What began as a paranormal mystery series by a cozy mystery writer became an HBO extravaganza, while our attempt at sticking to ... Read More

It’s finally here: the very first Very Special Episode of the Bloodsucking Feminists! So throw your hands up in the air, wave them around like you just don’t care, and join us for some seriously bloodsucking feminist critique. Episode Details Title: Rock Your Undead Body Subject: Everybody (Backstreet’s Back) Release Date: 01/04/2017 Length: 00:25:53

How many times can you hear Ceilidh say “American Exceptionalism”? You’re about to find out, as the Bloodsucking Feminists discuss the rise of the Old West and Hollywood, the rape revenge fantasy (and why it’s always written by men and in the same way), lament women not being friends, and debate a new breed of vampire and how that plays ... Read More

Everyone loves an origin story, right? Not the Bloodsucking Feminists, who in this case firmly believe that this is one origin story that should have remained untold. Be prepared for more talk about the Universal Monsters and the upcoming reboot (and how Dracula Untold failed to be a part of the latest attempt), how the film missed both opportunities in ... Read More

Fifteen years before Twilight, twelve years before The Moth Diaries, six years before Secret Vampire and the year before the first Vampire Diaries book, Annette Curtis Klause published her first novel about a girl struggling to deal with her mother’s impending death from cancer… when she meets a vampire. Forgotten by many YA readers, The Silver Kiss has more in ... Read More

Last episode had us watch Kate Beckinsale in the role of the love interest then complain about what Universal is doing with their monster franchise. In this episode we watch Kate Beckinsale in the role of protagonist, then complain about what Universal is doing with their monster franchise… just a little less. So join us as we appreciate a vampire ... Read More

Some vampire movies are thoughtful, compelling, and faithful adaptations. Others have Hugh Jackman with really luscious hair. And do we really have a problem with that? So join us for a monster mash of a fun afternoon, as we discuss who knows what kind of movie they are in (hint: not Hugh Jackman), a paternal Dracula, and a rebooted Universal ... Read More

One year ago we did our first episode in the Twilight series, and this Halloween the scariest thing we’ve faced has been New Moon. That means you too can suffer along with us as we look back on the book after several years of ignoring it – a book, we discover, replaces the heightened longing of the first book with the scent of contractual obligation. In this episode we discuss gaslighting and other elements of emotional abuse, the introduction and portrayal of the werewolves, silly things that think they are plots, how on earth could a book be all set-up, and sparkles. And as an added bonus, plenty of jokes about werewolf puberty. Warnings: Vampire-typical violence Rape/Sexual Assault Discussion of depression and mental illness. Discussion of abusive relationships, domestic violence, and gas-lighting. Discussion of racial stereotypes and racism Do visit our episode page for links relevant to this topic: http://bloodsuckingfeminists.com/episode/episode-18/

Way back in our ninth episode we looked at Interview With The Vampire; now in episode 17 we take a look at his second, more recent vampire film, Byzantium. It’s another course of a toxic, obssessive relationship between two vampires, only this one comes with a mother/child relationships and an examination of vampire society that truly is the upper class ... Read More

Remember our sixth episode, Vampire Musicals Suck, about the German-language vampire musical Tanz der Vampire? Well nearly a year later we’re back on the topic of vampire musicals – and the ones that truly, dreadfully do suck. From a flop hit about Dracula by the master of public domain flop hit musicals, to a small chamber musical which does the ... Read More

In the film industry, adaptations of Bram Stoker’s famous novel are especially popular. To the dedicated fangs, these adaptations can be split into three separate but equally important groups: the good, the bad, and the so-bad-it’s-good. Dracula 2000 falls into the last. Grab your leather, open up IMDB (because you’ve seen that actor somewhere, you just know it), and blast ... Read More

In 2005, Little, Brown published a vampire book that rocketed to the top of the bestseller charts and became a record breaker. Actually, there were two, one of which was The Historian, a doorstopper of a novel (240 000 words!) that had people devouring the adventures of three generations of academics, as they try to solve the mystery of where ... Read More

When we picked a book entitled “Hotel Transylvania”, we expected three things: a hotel, Transylvania, and vampires. Unfortunately, we learned the hard way that, while a real place, the titular location is neither a hotel nor in Transylvania. Thankfully there is a vampire, and watch us as we try and figure if this is a vampire book or a book ... Read More

We’re all about the vampire pop culture here at The Bloodsucking Feminists and so no movie is more fitting for us to discuss than one about using pop culture as your reference point when fighting bloodsuckers. So what could make it better? A remake with a more female-friendly eye – not to mention David Tennant in leather trousers. So gear ... Read More

It’s iconic, to blame for a number of major vampire tropes, and widely considered one of the greatest horror movies ever made. And yet if a copy had not escaped destruction after a suit by Bram Stoker’s estate, what would vampire fiction be like today? In this episode of Bloodsucking Feminists, we tackle the original Nosferatu, its 1979 remake and ... Read More

Break out the Bowie and the Bauhaus because this month we are looking at The Hunger by Whitley Strieber and its movie adaptation. In this episode we’ll be discussing sexual violence, white Egyptians, and the male gaze (and how an adaptation can correct this). So in honour of the late great David Bowie, put on your best black for what ... Read More

Every so often a text comes along that is a game-changer for a genre or topic. Carmilla. Dracula. Nosferatu. Buffy. Twilight (sigh). In 1976 another vampire game-changer was released: Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire. A tale of immortality, violence, grief and abuse – not to mention homoeroticism – Interview With The Vampire was released to a mixed reception but ... Read More

Vampires are metaphors for many things, and in no place is this more true than in Rachel Klein’s 2002 novel The Moth Diaries. In the pages of a journal written by a girl in the 1960s, the claustrophobia of a boarding school fuels the obssessions of teenage girls to gothic horror heights. Whether you believe this is a story about ... Read More

Yes, Virginia, meat raffles are actually a thing. Why? “Because,” our resident New Zealander Catherine explains, “you can win meat”. While more well-known for sweeping epic movies with loving panoramic shots of its beautiful landscape, New Zealand’s film industry also has quite the history of horror – not to mention horror comedy. Its second major vampire film, What We Do ... Read More

Hallowe’en episode, everyone! Take a trip with us to Austria, birthplace of Mircalla Karnstein and resurrection place of… a German-language musical adaptation of a Roman Polanski film with music by Jim Steinman? Really, there’s no way to describe Tanz der Vampire in a way that does it justice. So be prepared, starchild, for discussions of women, Drew Sarich, a terrible ... Read More

On the morning of June 02, 2013, a young mother woke up from a dream and began to write. Just over two years later, that book was published and soon became a phenomenon. It’s been ten years since Twilight was published, so take a trip back in time to 2005 and see what we remember, what do we have to ... Read More

In 2013, director Jim Jarmusch released a film that looked like the Bloodsucking Feminists’ – not to mention fangirls everywhere – dreams come true: a Tom Hiddleston vampire movie. With a stellar cast and beautiful visuals, it’s a veritable feast of a film. But look a little deeper, beyond the big hair and big drama, and you’ll find cultural appropriation, ... Read More

Get ready as we throw so much shade on Lord Byron even a vampire would curse the night as we touch on the last of our “big three”: The Vampyre by John William Polidori. A short episode for a short story, we’ll discuss syphilis, the pains of being Lord Byron’s doctor, that night in Geneva in the year without a ... Read More

After seven years of research (and one nightmare caused by too much crab meat covered in mayonnaise), Bram Stoker wrote and published the seminal work Dracula. An epistolary novel, Dracula tells the story of the titular vampire’s attempted move to England from the point of view of his lawyer, his victims and their friends. Join us as we discuss the ... Read More

In 1871, a serial work by Irish author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu was published in The Dark Blue. Titled Carmilla, it told the story of Laura, a lonely teenage girl whose life is forever changed when a beautiful but strange girl is invited to stay at her family’s schloss. Carmilla either created or helped set in stone a number of ... Read More

The very first episode of The Bloodsucking Feminists is live! Once upon a time there lived two young women, half a world apart. One day one of them said, “I want to do a podcast about vampires.” And the other, who also liked vampires, replied, “Can we call ourselves The Bloodsucking Feminists?” And so, a podcast was born. In this ... Read More