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France 24
19 hours ago
- Entertainment
- France 24
France's Luc Besson resurrects new 'romantic' Dracula
Besson, best known for "The Fifth Element" and embroiled in sexual assault allegations and financial problems in recent years, has produced what he believes is a "romantic" vision of one of the most notorious Gothic figures. Titled "Dracula: A Love Story" and based on a relatively minor plotline in the original Bram Stoker book, the 66-year-old director puts Dracula's search for the reincarnation of his late wife at the heart of his story. "I'm not a fan of horror films, nor of Dracula," Besson told Le Parisien newspaper about his production, which straddles several centuries in the life of the immortal blood-sucking count. It was sparked by discussions with Landry Jones, the star of "X-Men: First Class", whom Besson directed in his last film, 2023's "Dogman". "I'd love to do all my films with him. He's a genius," Besson told RMC radio in France this week of the 35-year-old Texas-born actor. Releasing first in France on Wednesday and then in other European and South American countries over the next month, the film is the biggest-budget French film of the year, according to media reports. Besson's career and personal finances took a major blow in 2017 with his hugely expensive flop "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets", which cost an estimated $180 million and had an A-list cast that included Rihanna. The year after, the man behind the popular thrillers "Leon" and "Nikita" faced rape allegations from the Dutch actress Sand van Roy, which he always denied. The case was dropped without charges after a legal battle that went all the way to France's top court in 2023. Initial reviews for Besson's "Dracula" are mixed, with Paris Match magazine calling it the "best horror film of the summer" while Le Figaro newspaper said it "unfortunately failed to bring fresh blood to the vampire myth." The original 1897 book has been adapted over a hundred times to the silver screen, with the two modern classics considered to be the 1958 version by British director Terence Fisher and a 1992 production by Francis Ford Coppola. Another Gothic literary masterpiece, "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley, is to get another overhaul later this year in a big-budget Netflix-funded production by Guillermo del Toro which will premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
Irish Times
20-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Haunted house? Dracula author's Dublin birthplace available for €400 a night on Airbnb
Are short-term lets sucking the lifeblood out of Ireland? The debate rages on , with a new data point to consider: you can now rent Bram Stoker 's house on Airbnb. The Dracula author, the only true northsider among Dublin's 19th century literary greats, was born at 15 Marino Crescent, beside the aptly named Bram Stoker Park at the point where Clontarf, Fairview and Marino join. The Crescent, built in 1792 by the enjoyably named Charles Ffolliott as a means of blocking his enemy's view of Dublin Bay, is a pleasantly curved street of classic Georgian houses that seems a nice enough place to spend a Dublin holiday. The Airbnb listing is disappointingly light on references to Count Dracula, citing instead 'elegant sash windows' and 'fresh towels' as selling points of the three-bed. READ MORE Halloween is already unavailable, but a sample Thursday-to-Sunday stay in September would set you back €1,641. That's €413.67 a night plus a €400 fee for professional cleaning – which seems a lot, but vampirism can be a messy business. Seo libh canaig' 'Have modern fans lost their respect for true Gaels past?' Photograph: Ryan Byrne/ INPHO One of the more curious aspects of attending matches at Croke Park these days is the lecture that precedes the playing of the national anthem, chiding people for any cheering they might be tempted to do before the final word is sung. 'When we sing our national anthem before we play our national games, we take pride in our unique identity and the culture that has been entrusted to us,' says the disembodied voice of the GAA. 'We all have a duty to honour that tradition and to set an example for others and for future generations to always give our anthem at our games the respect it deserves.' Have modern fans lost their respect for true Gaels past, fallen under gunna scréach and lámhach na bpiléar? One other possible explanation: they don't know the words. Sinn Féin TD Conor D McGuinness has pointed out that Amhrán na bhFiann isn't actually in the curriculum for Irish children, at primary or secondary level, something he considers 'shameful', 'outrageous' and, of course, a 'disgrace'. In response to a parliamentary question from McGuinness, the Minister for Education Helen McEntee suggested that 'curricular frameworks provide clear pathways for schools to include Amhrán na bhFiann'. They 'might choose' to teach it in primary school history class or 'could choose' to teach it under the heading of Song Singing in primary music class. Secondary school history 'enables study' of the anthem at various points, and in Junior or Leaving Cert music, students 'may wish' to sing the anthem as part of their practical performance exam. Which is all to say that, no, it is not on the curriculum. 'Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are actively undermining Ireland's republican heritage,' McGuinness said, citing also the possible conversion of the GPO into a shopping centre. 'Amhrán na bhFiann should be taught to every child in every school. It's a basic expression of national identity and civic belonging.' They could include a 'no whooping during the second last line' rule on the curriculum while they're at it. The rocky road to Dublin Presidential candidate Catherine Connolly arrives to a count centre in Salthill during a previous election. Photograph: Joe O'Shaughnessy Meanwhile, Catherine Connolly , the left-wing independent vying to inherit the Áras, is no stranger to the trappings of power. Though seen more often these days sailing through Galway on her trusty bicycle, the firebrand was once used to a more opulent mode of transport. In 2004, as mayor of Galway, she racked up a bill of €650 – €900 or so in today's money – on a trip in the mayoral car to see the county's minor hurlers win the All-Ireland at Croke Park. Leaning on the services of Limo Corporate Hire Irl Ltd, as the Galway City Tribune reported at the time, she was paying a rate of €25.20 per trip, plus €34.98 for waiting time. Her markedly unsupportive deputy mayor at the time, Padraig Conneely, noted that it would have been cheaper to fly to Los Angeles – although the Galway minors weren't playing there at the time. Trips to Croke Park to see her county should be cheaper if she wins the presidency: it's well within cycling distance up the North Circular Road. Never say never RTÉ's Dáithí O'Sé, 2012 Rose of Tralee Nicola McEvoy and Leo Varadkar, then Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, on board a replica Famine ship for the Gathering. Photograph: Alan Betson / The Irish Times With choppy waters ahead and the Ireland's small boat at risk of being capsized once again by global waves, the Government has kept an important lifebuoy on hand. Remember The Gathering? The 2013 'initiative' largely entailed the diaspora being wheedled into coming to Ireland and spending money in order to lift the economy out of the doldrums. Despite not offering anything in particular other than the general idea of welcome to affluent third-generation Irish-Americans, it did actually work. Fáilte Ireland's final report found that around €21m of Government and third-party cash was spent to make an estimated €170m for the flagging economy, with 250,000 more tourists than would otherwise have been expected. Like many a figure from folklore, The Gathering disappeared from view once its job was done, but it remains ready to creak back to life when it is needed most. The company set up by the Government to run it is still alive, filing accounts, dormant but available if needed by tourism chiefs or ministers. Its directors, according to its accounts, are Deborah Nolan and Michelle McEvoy, heads of operations and finance respectively at Fáilte Ireland, and it has assets, liabilities, income and expenditure of zero. For now. Grimefighter Signsy is a masked man who has taken to cleaning up graffiti and grime. Image: Signsy/ YouTube Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a council worker? No – it's Signsy, a masked man who has taken to cleaning up graffiti and grime on the streets of Northern Ireland . A version of Superman who is more concerned with the cleanliness of the public realm than crime per se, he uses WD40 and the superpower of being willing to actually do it himself to return obscured road signs to their shining-metal glory, among other amazing feats. 'I've become a hero in disguise cleaning signs, graffiti and maybe even fixing some of the potholes that seem to be everywhere,' he told Belfast Live this week. 'I may do it at any day any time in the cover of darkness to remain hidden.' He uploads his resulting clean-up and repair videos to YouTube with his voice disguised and his face covered. He doesn't have a cape 'yet', he says. He even pledges to tackle spray-painted slogans that 'cause division within our community'. A positive force for his locality no doubt. If he tires of anonymity, that combination of unity rhetoric and pothole-fixing ability sounds like electoral dynamite.
Daily Mirror
18-07-2025
- Daily Mirror
'Magical' coastal town named UK's most popular staycation destination
The stunning Yorkshire town of Whitby has been named the UK's most popular staycation destination - and it's easy to see why Staycations are all the rage these days, with a surge in Brits choosing to holiday at home rather than venturing overseas. A recent survey has revealed that a whopping 63% of Britons are planning a UK-based break this year, and by 2025, the average holidaymaker is expected to enjoy three domestic getaways, each spanning roughly six days. Sykes Holiday Cottages has put together a list of the top ten staycation spots, crowning the picturesque Yorkshire town of Whitby as the number one choice. The charm of this northern gem has tourists raving, with one visitor recently describing Whitby as "absolutely magical" on TripAdvisor. It's no wonder Whitby has emerged as Sykes's most booked destination for the fast-approaching school summer holidays. Whitby boasts an array of attractions suitable for the whole family, including the Whitby Museum, brimming with fascinating collections from fossils to maritime memorabilia, and the awe-inspiring historic abbey that sparked Bram Stoker's imagination for his novel Dracula. Additional highlights include the Whitby Marine Discovery Centre, the Captain Cook Memorial Museum, and the enchanting Falling Foss Tea Garden and Waterfall, reports the Express. Not to mention, Whitby is dotted with beautiful sandy stretches such as Whitby Beach, Sandsend Beach, and Saltwick Bay Beach. These beaches are a haven for dogs, offering either full access or dedicated dog-friendly zones even during the height of summer, ensuring your pooch can also bask in the charm of this picturesque town. James Shaw, managing director of Sykes Holiday Cottages, commented: "It's no surprise to see Whitby leading the way for school summer holidays this year. "It's mix of natural beauty, rich history and family-friendly activities continues to draw visitors, both with and without children, from across the country. "We're seeing more families prioritise stress-free getaways that cater to all ages - whether that means scenic coastlines, charming local towns or easy access to the great outdoors. "The destinations featured in the top 10 strike the right balance between convenience and character, making them ideal for switching off, reconnecting, and creating lasting memories together." Following closely behind Whitby is Windermere in the Lake District, securing second place, while Weymouth on the Dorset coast clinched third. Both locations are renowned for their outdoor pursuits, vibrant town centres, and an array of walking paths. Top 10 most popular locations for the school summer holidays Whitby, North Yorkshire Windermere, Cumbria Weymouth, Dorset Ambleside, Cumbria Lyme Regis, Dorset Keswick, Cumbria Scarborough, North Yorkshire Dartmouth, Devon Salcombe, Devon Carbis Bay, Cornwall
National Geographic
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- National Geographic
How vampires became allergic to the sun
In the 1922 film, Nosferatu, the main character gets struck by sunlight and bursts into flames a few seconds later. This moment caused a key shift in vampire folklore, creating the concept that vampires are night creatures who are unable to exist in the sunlight. Photograph Courtesy of Allstar Picture Library Ltd, Alamy Stock Photo The trope of vampires burning in the sun is a 20th century invention—but daywalkers are making a comeback. Thanks to centuries of folklore, novels, movies, and TV shows, the tropes of vampires are carved deep into the popular imagination: The creatures drink blood, sleep in coffins, recoil from garlic and crucifixes, and are susceptible to a wooden stake through the heart. Perhaps most of all, they're creatures of the night who can't handle daylight. But that's not always the case. Some vampire stories even imagine the mirror opposite, a parallel creature who can exist in the sun: a daywalker. The daywalker is both a new idea in vampire lore and an old one—a testament to the endless flexibility of these creatures as a narrative device. (Tracing the blood-curdling origins of vampires, zombies, and werewolves.) With the release of Zombies 4: Dawn of the Vampires, available now on Disney Channel and Disney+, we took a look at how the vampire trope has evolved. The origins of nightwalkers Vampire lore is rich, diverse, and very old, with deep roots in folklore, and the creatures have a long association with darkness and nighttime. Humans have even used this to their advantage: 'Specifically in China, there was this idea that if you put out a bag of rice in front of your home and the vampire of Chinese mythology comes across a bag of rice, they will obsessively count every grain, and then they won't realize that the sun is coming up,' says Laura Westengard, professor of gothic literature at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY. In Bram Stoker's 1897 Dracula, although weaker during the daytime, Dracula was still able to live in sunlight without burning. Illustration Courtesy of the British Library archive, Bridgeman Images But many of the vampires of the 19th century's great wave of Western European vampire literature were in fact capable of moving around in the sunlight. The creatures of John Polidori's 1819 The Vampyre, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872 Carmilla, and even Bram Stoker's 1897 Dracula were weaker in the daytime, but they didn't catch like a pile of tinder. 'They prefer to be sleeping, but they are not going to burn up and die,' says Westengard. ('Faerie smut' is having a moment — just like it did in 1500.) That narrative development owes much to F.W. Murnau's silent 1922 German Expressionist film Nosferatu, which drew heavily on Stoker's Dracula but added a major twist: At the end, the malignant Count Orlok is caught out by the rising sun and vanishes in a puff of fire. 'That's where it starts, that one particular moment, that little change that he makes, which is only about three seconds of the movie,' says Stanley Stepanic, assistant professor at the University of Virginia. It's not entirely clear why Murnau did it, but the addition has proven tenacious. 'That shift in folklore occurs right there, and afterwards we see it becoming a big theme.' How daywalkers became more prominent By the late 1990s, vampire vulnerability to sunlight was so deeply ingrained in popular culture that Ray Ban made it the punchline in a cheeky late '90s ad campaign, featuring stylish vamps protected by the brand's offerings. It's one of the tropes that writers using vampire lore are obliged to tackle, weaving their interpretation of the rule into their worldbuilding. Twilight author Stephanie Meyer famously chalked her vampires' preference for darkness and rainy gloom up to the necessity of concealing their sparkly skin. But a huge part of the perennial power in vampire lore lies in the possibilities for reinvention, so some stories choose to play with the power of a vampire-like creature that can also survive in the day. One of the best examples: the landmark 1998 superhero movie, Blade. Originally created as a Marvel superhero in the 1970s, Blade straddles the line between vampire and human. In both the comics and movie adaptation, his pregnant mother was bitten by a vampire, rendering him immune to a vampire's bite and especially gifted as a vampire hunter. But the movie ramped up both his abilities, Stepanic explains, giving Blade an ominous name—the Daywalker—and a heightened mystique among his enemies. The story pits Blade against a vampire society split between two rival factions: 'pureblood' vampires, born to vampire parents, and 'made' vampire, who were born human and later turned. The film climaxes with a vampire coup attempt that requires harvesting Blade's blood for an arcane ritual to summon an ancient god. It's Blade's existence caught between two worlds that makes him such an enigmatic and compelling character. Blade shows how centuries of vampire stories have spawned the creation of ever-more elaborate backstories and new plot twists that keep the mythology fresh and engaging to audiences. Reimagining the daywalker trope Another project that centers on the daywalker idea is Zombies 4: Dawn of the Vampires. The film is the latest installment in a Disney Channel original franchise that's fundamentally about conflict resolution and working through differences. Its first few iterations saw zombies versus cheerleaders, then integrated werewolves and aliens, and is now adding vampires to the mix—but with a twist. 'The story is about opposites, right? It's about opposites learning about each other,' says director Paul Hoen. Hence: nightwalkers versus daywalkers. From that basic idea, the team built out two parallel communities. The daywalkers live in and revere the sun, hence a town of glass, pools, and light, Hoen explains. They have the power to create a ball of energy they can use to do things like light fires and create fireworks. The vampires, meanwhile, have the power to control the wind. Since the franchise is aimed at kids, there's no immortality or blood drinking; instead, the two groups subsist off the same 'blood fruit.' Here, instead of using the daywalker trope to portray a blood-soaked world riven by insurmountable conflict, the Zombies 4 team turns it into a different theme. 'It's very much truthful to the Zombies franchise,' says Hoen. 'It's always been about tearing down walls. This is still a theme like that—we need to understand each other.' How the vampire archetype continues to evolve But the traditional nighttime-only vampire still holds tremendous sway in popular culture. Take Ryan Coogler's smash hit Sinners, which takes place over 24 hours as a pair of twin brothers launch a juke joint and then face a vampire named Remmick, who emerges out of the pitch-black Mississippi Delta night to besiege their establishment. The protagonists just have to make it through the night—if they can. Ultimately, Westengard explains, 'there's no one true version of a vampire.' But that's a huge part of what gives the vampire such power, and why these undead creatures reappear again and again in pop culture. 'We're able to project our anxieties and desires upon these figures and at any moment, what that looks like changes.' Vampires have emerged as charismatic, powerful, and elastic symbols that can serve an astonishing array of narrative needs: 'Over time, the vampire has transformed in media so much that it has become a general symbol of basically anything in human existence,' says Stepanic. Storytellers can use vampires any way they want, in any medium they want. 'It's become basically a mirror of the human race.'
Yahoo
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Major Count Dracula Finding Rewrites History
Count Dracula wasn't only a fictional character created by Bram Stoker. He was a real-life man named Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, or Vlad the Impaler. And history shows he was just as dangerous. Vlad the Impaler, who was born in Transylvania, once invited hundreds of feuding nobles to a banquet. Then, he "had his guests stabbed and their still-twitching bodies impaled," NBC News reported. But now a new finding is shedding light on how Vlad himself might have died. The finding could "rewrite portions of European history," according to the Greek Reporter. The Greek site Prototheme reported on June 30 that a new "decipherment of an inscription on his supposed burial plate" seems to confirm the theory that Vlad's relics are buried in "the monastic complex Santa Maria la Nova" in Naples, Italy - not in Romania. Professor Giuseppe Reale said that "the mysterious inscription is a eulogy for the Vlad III of Wallachia," Prototheme reported. The findings were first reported by the Italian-language news site Il Mattino. 'It emerges that the mysterious inscription is an epitaph in praise of Vlad III of Wallachia, widely known as Count Dracula," he told Il Mattino, according to Greek Reporter. According to Prototheme, the theory that Count Dracula was buried in Naples, Italy, first emerged in 2014 from Italian and Estonian researchers. For years, it was believed that Vlad was killed in battle. However, the new theory argues that, instead, he was "captured by the Ottomans and later freed by his daughter, Maria Balsa," the Jerusalem Post reported. She had been "adopted by a noble family in Naples to escape persecution," and, when he died, it's argued that she buried him "in the tomb of her father-in-law, Matteo Ferrillo, inside the Turbolo chapel," the Post reported. The inscription, described by the Post as "mysterious" dates to the 16th century and "seems to strengthen the theory that Count Dracula was buried in Naples," reported the Post. According to Greek Reporter, the tomb in Naples drew attention because of unusual decorations, namely "a carved dragon and symbols linked to ancient Egypt." Major Count Dracula Finding Rewrites History first appeared on Men's Journal on Jul 6, 2025
