Dracula

Who and what is Dracula? Well, Dracula is a 1897 novel by the author Bram Stoker featuring the Count Dracula. The story of Dracula has been attributed to many literary genres including vampire literature, horror fiction, the gothic novel and invasion literature. It is told as an epistolary novel, that is, told as a series of lettires, diary entries, ships' logs, etc. Although Stoker did not invent the vampire, the novel's influence on the popularity of vampires has been responsible for many theatrical, film and telivision interpretations throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.
Ok, so that's the novel but what about Dracula the actual guy? Who was he? Or did he even exist?
Vlad the Impaler was real. He was also known as Vlad Dracula, and was a ruler of Wallachia in the 15th century and became famous for his use of impalement as a form of execution. Even today he is still considered by some form of leadership.
     He was born in 1431 to a Transylvanian father and Moldavian mother of royal descent. He was educated by his mother and her ladies-in-waiting. His military education was provided by his father and an old boyar who had trained with the Turks. At the time of Dracula's birth Transylvania was ruled by Hungary.
            In 1444, he and his brother Radu were taken hostage by the Turks. They spent the next four years in Turkey, where Vlad received his political and military training.
           In 1448, when he was 17, he ws freed and given his own army by the Turks. He ruled Wallachia for 2 months before fleeing to Moldavia. His father and older brother Mercia had been assassinated in 1447 by the family's enemies, the Hunyadi family. Dracula had received word that the Hunyadi family was in Wallachia.
          In 1456, after the death of his mortal enemy, John Hunyadi, Vlad gained the Wallachian throne. He set up is capitol in the city of Tirgoviste and it became the center of political power and the home of the Orthodox Church.
Dracula was deposed by the Turks in 1462. For twelve years, from 1462- 1474, he remained a prisoner of King Matthius in Hungary. During this time, Vlad had married a member of the royal family and he also became a Catholic.
For a short period of time, he regained his throne in 1476 and after two months, he was killed fighting the Turks near Bucharest.
Today, Dracula is known as a hero of Romania. He is respected for fighting the Turks and he unified Wallachia and created a strong sense of pride in its native people. He was also the last Wallachian prince to remain independent of the Ottoman Empire.
The folklore of Romania is full of stories of his horrific treatment of his enemies. There are many legends of who he was and how he lived. There are stories that remain strong in establishing Vlad as a bloodsucking, cruel tyrant.
Vlad, the Impaler. Supposedly, the real Dracula.

 In movies, he is portrayed as a bloodsucking vampire.
Whether you believe he was a vampire or an emperor, it is still interesting to watch him as a vampire in movies.

The Haunting in Connecticut!

As you should know, the movie is based on a true story. The movie is really good and pretty intense.
But if you want to know the true story, here it is:
       In 1986, Carmen and Al Snedeker moved to the small town of Southington, Connecticut, with the purpose of being closer to the hospital at which their oldest son was being treated for Hodgkin's Lymphoma. The family was down on their luck and decided to rent what seemed to be the perfect house. It was large enough for their family, which included three children and a cousin and the rent was affordable for them.
      While they were moving in, Al made a very startling discovery; in the basement their were embalming tables and equipment. It turned out the house used to be a funeral home. The basement, which was split into several rooms was big enough to be the two boys' bedroom.
       Not longer after they moved in, Carmen says she started experiencing strange phenomena like items disappearing and the children saying they have seen things and also hearing voices and sounds of hundreds of birds taking flight. Her oldest, who was in the middle of radiation treatment, began to show huge personality shifts. becoming angry and withdrawn. He began writing poetry with the obsession of death and corpses themes. During one extreme episode, he attacked and tried to rape his cousin. His family had him arrested and taken for an evaluation, where he was pronounced schizophrenic. At that, he was removed from the house and would not return until he was better.
      Other strange events that were reported by the family included the brutal and repeated rape of both Carmen and her niece, as well as acts of sodomy being performed on her husband by unseen entities. Even more incidents also include mop water turning blood red and the scents of rotting flesh and decay throughout the house. She was also scared of apparitions she saw, including one with black hair and black eyes and the other with white hair and eyes wearing a pinstriped tuxedo.
           It was to these events Carmen decided to contact paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren.
                  Along with John Zaffis and a few other investigators, the Warrens moved into the house for several weeks until they experienced everything the Snedekers claimed. During their time in the house, they claim to have seen first-hand the damage the "demons" could inflict. Many members were being slapped and beaten, pushed, and slammed to the floor. Investigation into the histroy of the house said that one of the undertakers of the funeral home was found guilty of necrophilia. It got so bad that the Warrens considered doing a full-scale exorcism of the property. After that, the Warrens judged the property "cleared".
                    With the evil banished from the house, that should have been the end. But it wasn't.
                The Controversy?
Like another Warren investigation, the infamous Lutz house in Amityvillle, there have been very many claims by the people who lived there, both before and after the Snedeker family, that there have never been any "evil entities" in the house. In fact, the family's cliam to have no knowledge that the house was once a funeral home. Perhaps the most considerable evidence that the whole event was a hoax came from horror novelist Ray Garton, who wrote the book In a Dark Place with the Warrens and the Snedekers. According to Garton, it was hard to write the "true" story  because none of the people involved could keep their stories straight. It seemed everyone was denying the statements of everyone else. When he went to Ed Warren with the problem, Garton wrote in a post dated April 27, 1999:
                  " He told me not to worry, the family was 'crazy'. I was shocked. He said, ' All the people who come to us are crazy. You think sane people would come to us?' He knew I'd written a lot of horror novels prior to that, so he told me to just make the story up using whatever ideas I could put into the book, and make it scary."
Furthermore, others who have lives in the house during, and prior to, the same time have similar stories to tell. They say therewere a few odd experiences, but nothing compared to what the Snedekers claimed.
                 Whether this is true or not, it does make a great story. The house surely seem like it would be a place for a haunting, and whatever did go on in the house, the effects of it are being felt now by the current owners, but not in the supernatural form.
The Snedekrs lives in the house for two years after the exorcism and then moved to Tennessee. The children are now grown with their own children and Carmen is now a "spiritual advisor".
No one knows for certain if anything actually happened in the house, but it is doubtless that the story will become as famous as The Amityville Horror, and much for the same reason.
Photos from the movie:

Scary Christmas!

Who says you have to watch just good jolly movies for Christmas? Why not watch scary Christmas movies?
Here's a list of some pretty scary movies:
 Santa's Slay (2005)
This movie is the only killer santa flick of all time that pictures the actual Santa as a murderer; not some guy dressed up as santa. It seems that santa has been pretending to be good for the past 1,000 years because he lost a bet with an angel; and now it seems he is actually the spawn of satan. I don't really think this movie would be real good for little kids because, instead of being scared of the boogie man or whatnot, they might be scared of Santa.
 Black Christmas (2006)
This is a very odd remake of the 1974 version which attempts to give a back story to the anonymous killer that includes incest and yellow skin. Yikes!
  P2 (2007)
Leaving her work on late Christmas Eve, Angela, which is played by Rachel Nichols, is at the mercy of a deranged security guard (Wes Bentley) in her empty office building.
 Wind Chill (2007)
This movie is much like Dead End, which finds people- this time a pair of college students- heading home for Christmas, only to take a wrong turn and end up on a strange road that seems to have a mind of its own. I guess the moral of this is: don't go anywhere on Christmas Eve.

And last but not least:
 The Nightmare Before Christmas (2008)
Despite having recently taken control over a very successful Halloween, Jack Skellington, aka the Pumpkin King, is bored with his job and feels life in Halloweentown lacks meaning. The he stumbles upon Christmastown and decides to make the yuletide his own. This is a very good movie for all fans that love Tim Burton!