How do we explain the lurid fascination that most people experience when confronted by real or simulated acts of violence, murder, horror, and crime? This is the subject examined in this candid assessment of our dark vicarious thrills. Based on a series of interviews with perpetrators, victims, and "consumers" of violence, including several celebrities, the author of a best-selling book on serial killers explores what there is about this subject that draws such a wide audience. Unlike many other books that attempt to probe the murky psyches of deviant individuals, this book focuses on normal, average people who, despite themselves, enjoy getting close to the most forbidden, perverse side of destruction and evil. The persons interviewed range from homicide detectives and emergency room personnel to a heavyweight boxer and groupies of serial killers on death row. The author considers ideas from a variety of theories and research to explain our responses to violence, raises questions about the shifting line between normal and abnormal, evaluates the confusion and ambivalence that many people feel when witnessing others'' suffering, and suggests future trends in society''s attitudes toward violence.
THE APOCALYPSE CODEX PROPHESIZES THE COMING OF THE APOCALYPSE, UNLESS, OF COURSE, THE UNDERGROUND APOCALYPSE RESISTANCE CAN PREVENT THE APOCALYPSE FROM HAPPENING. HOWEVER, IN THE TRICKY PROCESS OF TRYING TO PREVENT THE APOCALYPSE, THE APOCALYPSE RESISTANCE INSTEAD CAUSES THE APOCALYPSE TO BEGIN. IS THE ZOMBIE DOOMSDAY UPON US: IN SHADOW OF TOMORROW, HELLREBEL AND HELLDEVIL ARE ORPHANED TWINS RAISED AS DAY-WALKING VAMPIRE HUNTERS BY THE BROTHERHOOD OF BLOOD, OTHERWISE KNOWN DOWN THE ROAD AS THE UNDERGROUND APOCALYPSE RESISTANCE. WALKING DEAD MEN WANTED AS VIGILANTE OUTLAWS HUNTED DOWN BY THE LAW, HELLREBEL AND HELLDEVIL MUST HUNT DOWN THE DEVIL INCARNATE BEFORE THE DEVIL INCARNATE HUNTS DOWN SIN INCARNATE. OTHERWISE, SIN INCARNATE WILL GIVE BIRTH TO DEATH INCARNATE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DID YOU KNOW ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON PENNED DR. JECKYLL AND MR. HYDE ON A SIX-DAY COCAINE BINGE? LIKE DR. JECKYLL AND MR. HYDE, EACH ONE OF US HAS A SPLIT PERSONALITY. THE GOOD SIDE THAT WE SHOW OFF DURING THE DAY, AND THEN THAT DARK SIDE THAT WE TRY TO KEEP HIDDEN IN THE DARKEST CORNER OF OUR CLOSET. I HIDE THESE EPISODES INSIDE THE CLOSET. WE ALL HAVE SKELETONS BURIED IN OUR CLOSET. BUT ME, I HAVE A CEMETERY BURIED IN MINE. HOWEVER, I FEAR SOMEONE WILL UNLOCK MY CLOSET. I SEE IT EVERY NIGHT IN MY NIGHTMARES, NIGHTMARES THAT WAKE ME EVERY NIGHT. LIKE FRANKENSTEIN, I SEE MYSELF FLEEING IN FEAR, RUNNING FASTER AND FASTER, RUSHING DOWN A DARK ROAD DISAPPEARING THROUGH THE SNOW-SWEPT WOODS GROWING DARKER AMIDST A BITTER WINTER, RUNNING FARTHER AND FURTHER AWAY, RUSHING THROUGH THE WIND-SWEPT WILD. IT WANDERS WAYWARD ACROSS UNFOLDING VIRGIN VISTAS AS IT WONDERS TO GOD IN HEAVEN, WHY THE HELL IN THE WORLD ARE THE RABID DOGS IN SUCH RUTHLESS, PITILESS, RELENTLESS PURSUIT? THERE ARE SOME DOGS THAT BARK. HOWEVER, THERE ARE OTHER DOGS THAT BITE. SAVE ME FROM MY SINS BEFORE THEY CATCH UP TO ME. MAN MAKES HIS HELL AND MY MIND IS MINE. SAVE ME FROM THE DEVIL AND FREE MY SOUL FROM THIS LIVING HELL. AS A WALKING DEAD MAN HUNTED DOWN IN THE DEAD MANS LAND, YUPPIE CITY WAS HOOKED ON MALE FUEL. MALE FUEL TURNED YOU INTO A MAN. MALE FUEL TURNED YOU INTO A MACHINE. MALE FUEL TURNED YOU INTO A MONSTER. HOWEVER, WHEN BIO/CIDE WENT UNDER, BIO/CIDE CITY NO LONGER MASS-PRODUCED MALE FUEL. THE ALICE-IN-WONDERLAND WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOM OF MALE FUEL WAS THAT YOU DEVELOPED VIOLENT ZOMBIE-LIKE BEHAVIOR THAT TURNED YOU INTO A HUMAN BEAST THAT BEHAVED LIKE A ZOMBIE. WHAT WAS STILL LEFT AT THE BIO/CIDE CITY WAS HORDED BY HUMANS THAT TOOK REFUGE UNDERGROUND. HOWEVER, FOR THOSE THAT WERE STILL ALIVE, THE UNDERWORLD WAS NOT ANY BETTER THAN THE WORLD THEY LEFT BEHIND. FOLLOWING THE GRAVEYARD WARS, THE WORLD OF HORROTICA WAS RECLAIMED BY THE OUTCASTS AND THE OUTLAWS WHO WEATHERED THE STORM WHILE LIVING UNDERGROUND WHERE THE REMAINING REMNANTS OF THE HUMAN CIVILIZATION RETURNED TO THE MORTAL WORLD WHERE THE OUTCASTS AND THE OUTLAWS TOOK CONTROL OF THE HUMAN WORLD, WHICH BECAME KNOWN AS THE LAWLESS LAND.
A new supplement from Ranger Games for the Dice & Glory game system containing specialist (traditional) character classes. This book is a great resource for both Players and Game Masters introducing classic archetype specialist classes as well as new and strange hybrids. Requires the Dice & Glory Core Rulebook This book contains: Over 70 Fantasy Specialist Classes with full descriptions of class abilities and level progression tables! Of these, there are 4 Brick classes, 16 Fighter classes, 7 Adventurer classes, 5 Rogue classes, 6 Psychic classes, 19 mage classes, 7 Clergy classes and 13 NPC classes! NPC tables which can be applied to NPC's to easily apply specialist class levels! Multiple forms of stylized Martial Arts forms! ...And advice on how and why to pick a specialist class, advice for Game Masters about NPC's and monsters with specialist classes. This book is an invaluable resource for any player or GM of the D&G system.
An "authentic" guidebook to vampire watching and hunting that will excite vampire fans everywhere, "The Vampire Watcher's Handbook" presents a wealth of information on the lore and history of vampires.
The Monster Magnus I contain descriptions for over 100 monsters not including sub-types plus templates to modify those. The manual also contains information for Player Races which include the traditional RPG stand-bys as well as several new races! This is the first in a short series of Monster Manuals for the Dice & Glory Roleplaying Game focusing on the basic creatures, Player Races, Animals, Vermin, Undead, Therians etc.
Before Bella and Edward; Stefan and Damon Salvatore; and Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, there was Lestat and Louis, The Lost Boys, and Buffy Summers. Before True Blood and Let the Right One In, there was Dark Shadows and Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. And then there is the most prominent of them all: Dracula, immortalized by Bram Stoker in 1897. Whether they’re evil, bloodsucking monsters or sparkling like diamonds in the sunlight, vampires have been capturing our imagination since their modest beginnings in the rustic fantasies of southeastern Europe in the early eighteenth century. Today, they’re everywhere, appearing even in movies in Japan and Korea and in reggae music in Jamaica and South Africa. Why have vampires gone viral in recent years? In The Rise of the Vampire, Erik Butler seeks to explain our enduring fascination with the creatures of the night. Exploring why a being of humble origins has achieved success of such monstrous proportions, Butler considers the vampire in myth, literature, film, journalism, political cartoons, music, television, and video games. He describes how and why they have come to give expression to the darker side of human life—though vampires evoke age-old mystery, they also embody many of the uncertainties of the modern world. Butler also ponders the role global markets and digital technology have played in making vampires a worldwide phenomenon. Whether you’re a fan of classic vampire tales or new additions to the mythology, The Rise of the Vampire is a fascinating look at our collective obsession with the undead.
Explores the intersection of the vampire and zombie with 21st Century dystopian and post-apocalyptic cinemaTwenty-first century film and television is overwhelmed with images of the undead. Vampires and zombies have often been seen as oppositional: one alluring, the other repellant; one seductive, the other infectious. With case studies of films like I Am Legend and 28 Days Later, as well as TV programmes like Angel and The Walking Dead, this book challenges these popular assumptions and reveals the increasing interconnection of undead genres. Exploring how the figure of the vampire has been infused with the language of science, disease and apocalypse, while the zombie text has increasingly been influenced by the trope of the areluctant vampire, Stacey Abbott shows how both archetypes are actually two sides of the same undead coin. When considered together they present a dystopian, sometimes apocalyptic, vision of twenty-first century existence.Key featuresRather than seeing them as separate or oppositional, this book explores the intersection and dialogue between the vampire and zombie across film and televisionMuch contemporary scholarship on the vampire focuses on Dark Romance, while this book explores the more horror-based end of the genreOffers a detailed discussion of the development of zombie televisionProvides a detailed examination of Richard Mathesons I Am Legend, including the novel, the script, the adaptations and the BBFCs response to Mathesons script
Portrayals of death and the dead are everywhere within popular culture revealing much about contemporary society’s engagement with mortality. Drawing upon celebrity posthumous careers, organ transplantation mythology and the fictional dead, this book considers how representations of the dead in popular culture exert powerful agency.
Vampires have been a fixture of film since Bela Lugosi brought Bram Stoker's Dracula to life on the big screen in 1931. Over the decades the genre has been far from static, as vampire narratives changed and evolved with the appetites of their viewing public. First depicted as formally dressed villains, vampires would later be portrayed as supernatural beings with some human characteristics, and still later as sympathetic figures. Focusing on 19 representative films and television productions, this critical study tracks the evolutionary changes of the screen vampire. It explores the factors that cause a genre to change and examines the alternating cycles of audience expectation. The author identifies three distinct modes of depiction: the Malignant Cycle (1931-1948), comprised primarily of the Universal films; the Erotic Cycle (1957-1985), which encompasses Hammer films and popular television shows such as Dark Shadows; and the Sympathetic Cycle (1987-present) including recent offerings such as The Lost Boys, Interview with the Vampire and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Each film is evaluated in seven key areas including the act of the vampire biting the victim; process of the victim's infection; physical appearance and demeanor of the vampire and the vampire expert; and the eventual destruction of the vampire. Appendices include a complete filmography of the films examined. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
Zombie Talk offers a concise, interdisciplinary introduction and deep analytical set of theoretical approaches to help readers understand the phenomenon of zombies in contemporary and modern culture. With essays that combine Humanities and Social Science methodologies, the authors examine the zombie through an array of cultural products from different periods and geographical locations: films ranging from White Zombie (1932) to the pioneering films of George Romero, television shows like AMC's The Walking Dead, to literary offerings such as Richard Matheson's I am Legend (1954) and Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride, Prejudice and Zombies (2009), among others.
