Chris: 0:00

Honorable Mention Blade. Gotta throw blade in there. That kind of kicked off, yeah, the the Marvel series. So we gotta, we gotta give played their flowers as well.

Terry: 0:12

Yeah

Brandon: 0:12

No doubt, yeah. Gotta give Blade some love there. Because, and you know, who gives Blade a lot of love to his marvel as a whole? Because that was kind of the introduction on how to do these superhero style movies and and really build on that story and make it into something. It gave, it gave the impression that Marvel could turn into something. So for sure, we can give Blade some love, Blade and Blade 2 for that matter. Hello and welcome to the Cup of Tea Critiques Podcast. I'm your host, Brandon Chaisson, and like always, I'll be joined today by the great team that brings you cupofteacritiques.com we are excited to get started on our podcast where we will share our unique perspectives on several areas in movies and television. At Cup of Tea Critiques, we review movie and television series and tag them with the tea brew that evokes a feel for the production in this way you can decide for yourself if they're your "cup of tea." Here on the Cup of Tea Critiques Podcast, we will dive even deeper into the productions and topics we broach on our website, engaging in conversation and sharing our unique perspectives. Ready for a deep look with a deep brew. This

week's topic: 1:24

Sinners and the Mystique of Vampirism. So let's get started. Cup of Tea Critiques is a family business, and I'm here with my brother Chris, my mother, Reba, and my father, Terry. And Fam. We wanted to start off today talking about Sinners, which is the brand new vampire production that just came out in theaters. And Mom, Dad, you guys have both had the opportunity to get this one out. So let me go ahead and kick it to you guys tell us about that experience and what you felt about that movie.

Reba: 1:53

I would call it an experience for sure. I am not, as you guys know, I am not a fan of scary movies, period. And I thought this was quite effective and being scary, but it was also very good though. I saw Ryan Coogler's interview with Jimmy Fallon earlier in the week, where he talked about, you know what, you know why he decided to do this film. He was on with Michael B Jordan, and he talked about, you know, his uncle's, you know, love for blues music, and that he lost his uncle, and he decided to do this film as kind of a tribute to him. And so Blues music was a huge element of this film, and it was done in the Delta. And I don't want to give away too much, but I thought it was a very, very well done film. I thought Michael B Jordan was just excellent as a set of twins in this film.

Terry: 2:54

Yeah, I enjoyed it for pretty much the same reason that the music really was an integral part of the movie. It flowed really well from beginning to end, and they mixed in the music and the occult, which is interesting. It's kind of reminded me of the whole notion of the devil goes down to Georgia and that kind of thing. I wouldn't say that I was scared so much by the movie. I found how they brought vampirism into the movie quite late into it, I'd say maybe about, oh, a third or more of the way into it before they actually got into that. So it didn't present itself as a scary movie. It evolved into that. So I thought that was pretty cool. That was a nice way of bringing around that and pulling in all those different elements, the music, the occult and vampirism.

Chris: 4:03

I thought it really showed how creative you can be with anything that's that's, you know, been been done before, any genre that we've seen before, any subgenre that we've seen before, because it just took vampire movies, but it also included, you know, like you said, Blues, you know, elements of cultural appropriation and and it put it in a new set, in a slightly different setting. Whereas, you know, when I hear vampire movie, I think of like, it's Victorian era, or I think, you know, there's a certain aesthetic that comes to mind in terms of where it's taking place. You know, the characters involved, the attire, you know, so on and so forth. And they've removed that and kind of put the backdrop as just 1930s Mississippi. It just showed how much you could change about about a genre and create something that we haven't really seen before. And so, yeah, I loved it for all those reasons too.

Brandon: 5:05

You know, Chris, you mentioned the Victorian era and how vampire movies typically, you know, shoot back to the past. So with that, I'm going to politely try and kick it over to our father here, because, Dad, you have the most history with vampire movies out of all of us or vampire productions. So can you give us, give our audience an insight as to like, what really drew you into this sub genre as a whole?

Terry: 5:27

Sure, I'll go past the part where you just called me old. But you know, vampire movies in particular have kind of piqued my interest for a long time, ever since I was a kid. I really did enjoy them, and a lot of it was because of the mystery of those stories. I know there's there's the mystery, and then there's the the thought of the imagination. Part of it. Here's a being that literally could live for hundreds of years, but not really living. You know, it was that, that weird thing of the walking dead. They were dead, but yet still alive. They saw the people in their lives come and go, and that supposedly was part of the curse of it, because vampirism was supposed to be a curse, you know. This person was cursed to live but not live. And those, to me, were kind of like interesting dichotomies, so to speak, so that that's kind of what sort of drew me into it. It's the whole mystery of it. And we'll get into the more detail about what those elements are.

Brandon: 6:49

Chris, you and dad got together and saw Nosferatu when you were in town for Christmas break. So I'm just curious for yourself, is there something within this sub genre that really appeals to you as well.

Chris: 7:00

Um, it's the the the intimate nature of it, the the seduction of it all. I mean, I think it's interesting that, like vampires are generally they, they're very sophisticated, like they're dressed kind of, you know, to the nines a little bit. And they, they speak very regally, and it's all part of this, you know, seducing people. It's all part of luring people in. And I also love that that vampires can have, you know, they can be three dimensional in a sense. They could sometimes, you know, question themselves or question their nature, or fall in love with the people that they're, you know, supposed to be preying on. And so, the the, the way, you know, even, even though vampires have this, this mission, or this, this stated, you know, drive, essentially, they can, they can be complex enough to question it, or to to have regrets.

Brandon: 8:05

And then just speaking for myself, I know I was late getting into the sub genre of vampires, but for me, what's always appealing to me, anyways, is that I've noticed over the last 20-ish years that there have been different variations of how they want to cover vampirism, you can deal with it from, like, the action movie perspective, like we saw with Underworld. You can see it from a comedic perspective, a little bit from Dark Shadows. And so just my point is that I've kind of enjoyed that people have tried to dabble a little bit here and there on how they want to actually present this. But Dad, I'm going to go back to you here. You like I said, we've you've got the history with vampire productions. Can you take us a little bit through, like the history of vampires in cinema?

Terry: 8:48

Well, the first movie that is given credit for being a first vampire movie is Nosferatu in 1922. And as you can imagine, back then, the cinematography and everything was not that great. A lot of the portrayal of the character was sort of rough. And over the years, obviously, as cinematography got better and better, some of that stuff, you know, and even in terms of portraying some of the characteristics of vampires got better and better. Dracula is probably the most famous name surrounding vampirism and vampire stories. And in 1931 Bela Lugosi played Dracula, and that was kind of the the the iconic movie of Dracula.

Excerpt from Dracula (1931): 9:50

Excerpt from Dracula (1931)

Terry: 10:13

Then you know, you kind of move forward into like 1979, there was another portrayal of Dracula by Frank Langella, and that, to Chris's point, was kind of, he was specifically picked to portray that because of his stature, his being such a handsome character. So he played right into that hypnotic mystery and seduction.

Excerpt from Dracula (1979): 10:53

Excerpt from Dracula (1979)

Terry: 11:06

In most of those classic stories, there was a single vampire, and so that was the one central character throughout the movie that was preying on people and turning others into vampires. But as you move through the genre, it started moving towards covens and groups of vampires and even bringing in werewolves. So the stories evolved to portraying a single character as a vampire into multiple characters as vampires to you know, the modern day Underworld.

Brandon: 11:44

So Mom, given some of those things that Dad mentioned there, you've also talked about how, in general, scary movies just aren't your type of deal. But Dad also mentioned that when it comes to the history of vampirism and productions, it always had something to do with a bit of a sex appeal and or, you know, they always tried to make sure that vampires look good, all that kind of stuff. So I'm wondering how, why didn't that work for you in terms of drawing you into this genre?

Reba: 12:11

Because he bit, so that was that was it for me. The cinematography was always very dark in those presentations. And so, for example, when I was a kid, it was a show that came on called Dark Shadows. And I would get out of school at 3:15, I think that show went off at about 3:30 or it came on at 3:30 I can't remember what. My mom loved that show. The main character in Dark Shadows was a vampire named Barnabas Collins. My mom loved Barnabas Collins. I never understood how she could like a vampire, just, I never understood that that show ran for about five years.

Excerpt from Dark Shadows: 12:54

Excerpt from Dark Shadows

Reba: 13:09

Jjust a few minutes away, and so it would be on when I would get home from school. And I remember the scary music that came along with it when it would go off. I remember how dark, how dark the lighting was for the show. I remember it just always seemed so scary to me. And in terms of good, I mean, you're talking about, you know, 7-8-9, years old, and you're talking, I mean, I didn't care about that stuff then. So I just wasn't feeling that. And he, it was dark and he bit, it was enough for me.

Terry: 13:53

Yeah. I mean, the underlying theme in almost all vampire movies has always been the notion of sex, romance and mystery, and the power of the vampire to seduce people who may at first be weary or not wanting to be involved, or anything like that. The power of hypnosis, they could control people that were potential victims, or even people that, you know, they just wanted to get rid of, so to speak, so that they can concentrate on the object of their desire. And there was always this notion of this desire from the vampire.

Brandon: 14:36

Both of you make up some good points. And Mom, I think I want to go back to your your underlying point was that you were much younger when you were introduced to vampires. So

Chris: 14:43

Yeah. I mean, as somebody who likes horror, and you know, that's why the the physical appeal didn't work for you. You weren't developed. And that's that mindset at that time. You were under 10 years old, and to that point, I mean, my I enjoy a good monster movie. Generally, the monsters are, you introduction to vampires was The Count in Sesame Street and Count Chocula, neither of which had anything to do with looks, except for the, you know, the cereal for Count Chocula looks know, hideous and without thought, and in something that great, but that's about it. So I didn't get introduced to a lot more of those kinds of deals until I was more like into my you would very obviously run away from. And you know, 20s, which is why I think for me, I can understand the the physical or the characters and everything like that. Chris, when we were doing pre production, you actually pointed they're, they're ravenous without any refinement, almost, that out, in particular about, you know, the sex appeal of of the of the the actors and such, is that, what kind of did that play a role for you as well, and kind of expound, like, your and so, so I think that, I think that's the, you know, the perspective on that? usually we have very good looking actors, you know, playing the vampires, or even playing the people trying to catch vampires, and so, so I think just on a on a on in the sense of vanity, yeah, I think that's what drew me to. A lot of drew me to some of the vampire shows and movies that I that I consumed.

Brandon: 16:33

You know, to your to your point, in that sense, with the good looking actors and such, I don't feel, I personally feel like a lot of the careers were launched out of this type of sub genre for some of these people. But I don't feel like, obviously we can't ignore the fact that they were good looking. People had opportunities as it is. But I think back to, like The Vampire Diaries, and I didn't know any of those actors really like much. I was familiar with the two main male leads there, Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder. I had seen them both in previous shows, but they weren't main characters. But I absolutely believe that the combination of the two of them, with Nina Dobrev being good looking, not to mention some of the other at the time, at least when it first came out, the minor characters, with Candace King and Kat Graham playing those like the attractiveness of these actors is what drew a lot of people into watching these shows as it is, and then their careers seem to just take off as a result. And I admit I was a big fan of that and the spin off shows, but it was to your point, like the there's some sex appeal to definitely hold your attention. And then, thankfully, the shows actually had some pretty good writing to last at least a little while.

Excerpt from The Vampire Diaries: 17:54

Excerpt from The Vampire Diaries

Terry: 18:05

Yeah, a lot of those are, interestingly enough, predicated on the kind of star-crossed lovers theme. And it's interesting that they use the vampire this underlying theme for the vampire movies, I think about to your point of Vampire Diaries and then Underworld, you know, as a movie. The notion was that you had, you know, the vampire, the female lead was a vampire, the male lead was a werewolf. And, you know, they were from separate houses, but they fell in love and, you know, on and on and on. So a lot a lot of more modern day vampire stories are built on that star-crossed lovers idea.

Chris: 18:56

So I used to have a job where I had to kind of search for certain songs from different big record labels on on YouTube. And YouTube was kind of first becoming popular. And a lot of a lot of the videos I would find that had songs in them were just fan made videos, edited clips of, you know, WB shows. And the the most popular one, I would say, by a good margin, was The Vampire Diaries. It would be people cutting up clips of Damon, of Stefan, Elena, sometimes just the actors at conventions talking to people, like they were just these super fans that would make these tribute videos. And so I think that kind of illustrated, to me, the kind of star appeal behind the main characters. And you think Underworld, you know, if someone's a casual fan, I'm sure the first thing that's all you is the movie with Kate, where Kate Beckinsale is wearing a leather suit the whole time. So, you know, in this movie, you know, in Sinners Michael B. Jordan and Hailee Steinfeld. So there's been a lot of actors with sex appeal, you know, in these roles in these TV shows. I mean, True Blood, same thing. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, same thing, you know. And they and they even managed to create different spin offs, so they capitalized off the sex appeal to the fullest,

Brandon: 20:25

Absolutely, and the sex appeal definitely, I believe, plays role in people going to check out centers. Because as much as I'm not happy to say it out loud, Michael B. Jordan is not exactly an ugly dude. Just saying, quit taking the attention of all the women that I want to talk to Dude. But Hailee Steinfeld, for that matter, too, is definitely drawing in the male attention on that side too. Like, what's up Hailee? But spinning off of that, though, like, one thing with these movies and productions we're talking about is they actually, they're all under the idea of, like, monster stories. So what separates vampire stories from the other monster stories?

Terry: 21:02

Sure, I'll take that one. Um, most monster stories, as Chris said, they're the monsters. The whatever monster is is hideous, something that you you know you don't want to be. Everybody's running away from. And if you start zoning in on some of those zombies. Zombies are, they're mindless. They walk around, you know, biting people and turning them into zombies. There's not much to the character of a zombie. Mummies, similar types of things. Vampires and werewolves are creatures that are, well, at least they're portrayed as almost normal human beings. In many of those movies, you don't even know that they are what they are until it gets revealed in some way. You know, some attack happens, or whatever. So that's a huge difference between those two or several types of movies and TV shows.

Chris: 22:03

I would, yeah, I would say the same thing. You know, the the vampires are the most kind of relatable to an audience, to just to look at and empathize with on some level. Unless dating gets really hard, I don't think we're going to see anybody across from a zombie at, you know, Fago de Chao on a Thursday, you know. I don't think anybody's going to invite, you know, one of the creatures from Last of Us into their into their house, for, you know, for for a glass of wine or something. And I just think vampires are, they're the most humanoid, you know, of these, of these monsters. And also, I mean, they can live forever. They probably have some traits that we wish we had, you know, we wish we could seduce, seduce people or, I mean, you know, we wish we could, you know, have super strength and live forever. And, you know, they have some strengths that people would probably want. So I think they're relatable and both admirable, I guess in a sense.

Brandon: 23:12

Yeah, you know, for me, with the, in terms of the monster verse stuff, I got into vampires because of actually the at the time it was a two it was like a two day mini movie for House of Frankenstein. It was made in the late 90s. It was a remake of a previous production. I forgot when the original came out and everything, but that is actually what drew me into vampires and werewolves, because that production actually covered all of the monster verse. You had Frankenstein, you had The Mummy, you had Dracula, you know. So you got exposure to each one, and they did a good job of trying to portray each character as unique within their own, you know, style. And I still felt drawn into vampires and werewolves, Mom, do you feel like, in terms of the monsterverse anyways, just to take a quick tangent here, like does, is there a difference in your appeal to this genre as a whole, and it's more specific to vampires that you kind of shy away from? Or do you kind of just say all of them are scary and I'm good?

Reba: 24:12

I think you guys made very, very good points about the the link between sex appeal and and vampires. And the point about vampires being the most relatable because they are, you know, more in human form than any of the other monsters. I don't think I'm giving anything away when I say that Michael B Jordan becomes a vampire in Sinners, and I'm sorry he's good looking, whether he's a vampire or not, so I had absolutely no problem with him, either way. So, so yeah, I suppose there's a separation, but I still find, to be honest, I still find, you know the idea of, you know, being being bitten and blood being drawn. On out of me, or whatever the heck it is that werewolves do and don't want to be in the presence of mummies and, you know, no World War Z zombies.

Excerpt from World War Z: 25:11

Excerpt from World War Z

Reba: 25:27

Just avoid that altogether.

Brandon: 25:30

So y'all, she does not like things that bite, so that we already understand why you didn't enjoy like that. Mom, I get you, and by the way, just a reminder, Mom, you are happily married for a long time now, so Michael B is not an option, just, just, just so you know,

Reba: 25:46

Well, your dad looks and so do I.

Brandon: 25:50

I'm gonna stay far, far away

Reba: 25:51

We're not dead as your dad always says.

Brandon: 25:57

Okay, transitioning. So I ran right into that one, didn't I? Yeah, um, I do. I do want to say that we've brought up the other monster, you know, the other monsters within the genre and everything but Dad. Help us out here. What are some of the rules and like, the conventions of vampirism. Help our audience understand these.

Terry: 26:19

Okay, deep breath, because there's a long list of stuff associated with vampirism or so, so to speak, the rules are things that you pretty much expect in some sort of vampire production. There's the notion that garlic somehow burns them or they're repelled by it. So people wear clothes of garlic to ward off those vampires and and essentially even other evil spirits, so to speak. But they're it's particularly prominent in in vampire stories, the notion also that a crucifix repels them. They're repelled by daylight. Daylight stakes through the heart will kill a vampire. The fact that, and this is probably the spookiest part of it, is not being able to see them in mirrors, and because although they are walking, you can see them, they are dead, so they really don't exist. So that that's another one of those things, the fact that the sight of blood excites them, that they kind of lose control. That's typically vampires in most productions are well controlled until maybe you anger them, or something like that. But they kind of lose it when they see the sight of blood they're attracted to that. They have a power of hypnosis. They can hypnotize people to get them to do things that's being victims, or others that they're they're manipulating. So they have to have power of manipulation. And some of the funnier ones of the fact that they can turn into a bat and fly away, and I've mentioned the curse of the walking dead. They're, they're destined to walk among the living, but not be a part of them that they retreat to coffins at night so that they are not exposed to the daylight and silver bullets can kill them. And then the one that we were almost intrigued by is the need to be invited in. And they did that in Sinners, and they do it in many, many vampire productions, this notion that a vampire can't enter the place where people are unless they're invited in. And that kind of goes back to the notion of the house being a sacred place, and therefore the invitation is necessary for them to break that boundary.

Brandon: 29:04

Yeah, that, like you said, that was one that really intrigued us when we were talking about this in pre production. And just to give our audience a bit like we were really trying to figure out how to define this for you guys. And essentially, like you were alluding to Dad, it's, you know, the house is sacred. The idea of inviting the vampire in is akin to inviting evil into the home. So it's the idea that, you know, the home is a sacred safe space, and it's a choice of the living to invite evil or darkness into their house. And that's the reason for that part of the vampire lore. With that in mind, Dad, you listed a lot of different things in there. But not every production on vampirism has had all of those rules in place. Do you find yourself more intrigued with the more things they include? Or do you feel some of those to not necessarily need to be in place for a production to necessarily be to be appealing?

Terry: 29:58

No, I don't think all of those elements necessarily have to be in there. And quite frankly, you know, I don't think we're given any huge part away from the movie. The viewing of a vampire and mirrors was completely eliminated from centers. No where shape, form or fashion was that introduced in a movie whatsoever.

Brandon: 30:24

That that's interesting, though, because that's that leads me to the next question for me. So, as you can see, one of the things in vampire, the world was removed or changed in this case, but it didn't. It didn't keep you from enjoying sinners. You know that the app, the idea that you can see the vampire in the mirror. However, if some of those things in that lore that you refer to are changed, I know my answer to this question, but do you feel, Chris, I'm gonna kick it to you first. Do you feel if any of those things are manipulated in any way that it actually can detract from the enjoyment of a production of vampirism?

Chris: 31:02

Only if they're inconsistent. You know, some some movies, and this is a problem in horror, maybe more than anything, is that they'll, I think a lot of horror movies suffer from this, where they, you know, when it's a monster or a group of monsters, they're inconsistent about their limitations, or their abilities, or, you know, the effect of them, and I think it kind of hurts the overall logic of the script. I think if you make a choice and stick with it throughout the runtime, it's most likely going to work out, unless it's clumsily executed. So I think it's just about consistency.

Brandon: 31:39

So in other words, the consistency. You mentioned monsters, and I think this is part of the reason why I go crazy about this. But you know, if you change something, such as, you know, you put a vampire in the sun, and instead of burning, they turn into diamonds, they're no longer a monster. And if we're talking about this landing under a monster versus honor

Chris: 31:59

Is there some movie you're referring to?

Brandon: 32:02

Oh, I'm pretty certain I made, this is very well aware of my feelings on this. And I'm just going to reiterate it for our new audience members that are maybe checking us out for the first time of several episodes. But the bottom line is, vampires do not glitter diamond-like they don't their skin doesn't turn to diamonds. The sunshine kills them, and don't manipulate that and turn it into something crappy.

Excerpt from Twilight: 32:28

Excerpt from Twilight

Brandon: 32:39

Have to get on my soapbox for that. Go. Go ahead. You all run with it.

Terry: 32:43

No, that was pretty weak. I'm with you on that. That's yeah.

Reba: 32:49

This has been stuck in Brandon's craw for a while, so I'm glad he got it out. You feel better, Brandon?

Brandon: 32:56

No, because I need that person to apologize. The creator of that nonsense needs to apologize for, choose, I have to choose my words carefully here, for messing with vampire lore. That's what I'll say. They need to apologize for messing with that piece of vampire lore.

Reba: 33:12

I agree with you that you have to be true to, there's some main elements you have to be true to, to you guys point. If they didn't respond to the sight of blood, and they're supposed to be a vampire, I think that would just, yeah, I think that that that story would just lose all credibility. And I'm not a fan of these stories, but that would be problematic for me. I mean, Terry talks enough about vampires around me. He just loves this stuff. And so I know what to watch for. I know what's true and what's not. So that would be real problematic if something like that was was left out.

Chris: 33:48

You bring them up in context, right? That? You bring them up in context.

Terry: 33:53

Yeah.

Chris: 33:53

And another thing about vampires in the middle of middle of the Bulls game or something,

Reba: 34:02

Sometimes, your dad is giving a lecture on this. We have not watched anything that has anything to do with vampires. I don't know where they come from.

Terry: 34:12

Yeah. The, to your point about being true to certain things, you know, I don't have a problem with them taking license with things if they're being clever. But to your point, Brandon, that was going a little bit too far.

Brandon: 34:26

I mean, there's, I feel like there's, no matter what style of production we're talking about, there is always a romantic element to anything that deals with vampires, or, I should say a love element. I shouldn't say romantic element, because, you know, Vampire Diaries, we obviously saw, you know, Elena and Stefan, Elena and Damon, blah, blah, blah, with that situation. When you say Underworld, you know, there was obviously the appeal between the vampire and the eventual hybrid. Like, there's always, it's some sort of love element. And the reason why I say love element is there was also the TV show The Passage that was out. It came out in 2019 and there was a love between the the little girl in the production and her protector and everything. It wasn't a romantic love, but he did, obviously care for her and want to take care of her in that sense.

Excerpt from The Passage: 35:19

Excerpt from The Passage

Brandon: 35:45

She had a special story behind her. I don't want to ruin it for anybody that's going to check out the one season of the show. It was fun, but I get why it didn't last. But anyways, the point being is that there was a there was an element to this girl's existence that was hidden from the audience, and only this guy understood, and he wanted to protect her because of that. And so vampire productions as a whole, heavy love element, which is why, to me, it feels unnecessary to go over the top and introduce something like changing a vampire's skin, which I'm not trying to harp on that. I'm just saying that in general, we don't have to change much of vampire lore, because the centralized pieces of stories, in my opinion, is that they are somebody to be feared or something to be feared, and that there is some sort of love element. Those, I think, are like the two central factors in this. As long as there's something to be feared and that there's some sort of love element, then anything else can be done to make the production

Terry: 36:40

And that fear generally is out of the fact that the something good. power the vampires portrayed as this very powerful person. And so hence, part of the the fear is that, wow, there are lots of things that this person can do. They're very powerful person. One thing I wanted to hit on was some of the differences among vampire stories, things that were a bit atypical. The Interview with a Vampire wasn't your typical vampire story. It basically revolved around interviewing a vampire, not your typical vampire, stalking someone, as we mentioned when we're talking in pre production. Daybreakers, which was about vampirism as a disease. And one of my all time favorites in terms of, it was really it was a comedy, it was a vampire story, but it was a comedy, was The Fearless Vampire Killers, 1967 movie that was directed by Roman Polanski. But there's a scene in here, and, you know, I've went through this in pre production, and I laugh every time I I remember or think about this is like the the one thing that stood out in that entire movie that I'll always remember is this, the notion of repellents. We talked about garlic and crosses being repellents to vampires, but they took a little bit of poetic license in this movie. And one of the characters tried to fend off a Jewish vampire with a cross, and the vampire just dies laughing at him and goes, have you got the wrong Vampire? And he proceeds to attack them.

Excerpt from The Fearless Vampire Killers: 38:27

Excerpt from The Fearless Vampire Killers

Terry: 38:47

That that's kind of a license that I would see is, you know, something that's acceptable as opposed to what you were talking about. They just totally went against this notion of, you know, what's been typical is cross being a repellent.

Brandon: 39:01

See, I love that. And that's some, see now that's something you can change and still, you know, and you talked about it being a comedy as well. Like we talked in our pre production meeting about the question on, can vampire productions fall under multiple, you know, know genres of other umbrellas and not just have to be under like a monster, scary type of deal. You just mentioned comedy. There's a bit of the romance, we've had action. So that feels like the answer to the question. I'm going to spin this, though, the reason why I go to that is I want to know for the panel, if there is a favorite of these, a favorite type of vampire production for you?, Chris, why don't you go ahead and start for us?

Chris: 39:45

Definitely Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the show, I thought it was a good intersection of a lot of different popular genres. I mean, it was, it had a lot of humor in it. It had, you know, burgeoning stars, right? Sarah Michelle Gellar, David Boreanaz, James Marsters.

Excerpt from Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 40:21

Excerpt from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Chris: 40:37

And it had all, it stayed true to a lot of material. They and they, you know, traditional vampire material, and it had, you know, teen dramatic elements, which was, you know, a lot of the popular shows at that time were teen dramas. And it had action in it, and and they managed to kind of shuffle in and out a lot of different characters, and even other other types of monsters that she she had to deal with, and even other types of slayers that she had to deal with. So, um, so I just thought, um, I thought that was a very entertaining show. And, you know, I mentioned earlier how popular The Vampire Diaries became. You know, another, another, you know, another big category tribute videos was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So, so yeah, that's, that's definitely my favorite one out of all of them.

Brandon: 41:32

So for myself, I would have to say that Underworld was my favorite of those types of productions, or is my favorite, particularly the first one. For me, it is a matter of, I like this genre to be dark. I like there to be a little bit of an edge to it, a bit. And I felt like that was what pulled me into this, plus the fact that there's a fight and these werewolves, it was, you know, it's a battle between werewolves and vampires, and I felt like both entities were extremely dangerous.

Excerpt from Underworld: 41:59

Excerpt from Underworld

Brandon: 42:08

And that's what made me enjoy this, is that there's a fear factor that no matter who wins this war, we as humans have to contend with the winner of that, the victor of that battle. And that's kind of in the back. They don't really go towards that, but that's in the back of my mind, is that shoots, humans have to deal with the victor of this battle between this group the vampires that are, you know, they're elegant, they are organized, they're highly intelligent, you know, and they seem really prepared. And then, you know, the their counterparts with the werewolf. So that's why Underworld was my, my winner in this style. But I do also want to do a nod to the show The Originals, because it was a spin off of Vampire Diaries, but it had my favorite vampire of all time, which was Klaus Mikaelson, played by Joseph Morgan. And he's my favorite because he was a very complex individual. He was very smart. He obviously had a few characters that he fell in love with over time. He was very protective of his family, and he was absolutely ruthless.

Excerpt from The Originals: 43:41

Excerpt from The Originals

Brandon: 43:53

You know, if you get on his bad side, don't expect to live for very long. And the way they portrayed the vampires there, how quickly they could attack, you know, with their ridiculous speed. You knew that you crossed them, you were probably gone. So that, that is one thing I do want to nod out, is that, like out of all of these productions, that's probably my favorite vampire, out of everything I've seen so far, Mom, you look like you were about to say something as well.

Reba: 44:16

I would have to say it's Sinners. And the reason for that, I know this sounds cheesy, but the reason for that is I really liked the fusion of elements in that, in that movie. This movie had a really strong story line. I thought the acting was really strong. I love that it has such a diversity of characters. I like the costumes, how colorful the costumes were. I like the infusion of the blues with the storyline. I thought they had some of everything in this show that made it just work so very well. I mean, really, Ryan Coogler just did such an incredible job with this, with this, with this film. It is really a very, very, very well put together film. I don't know how you can go and not enjoy it, even if you're not a fan of vampires.

Terry: 45:12

Yeah, okay. For me, I could say there are a lot of stories that I like for various reasons, but if I had to land on one, it would be Underworld, the first movie, because it brought this notion of vampires, of the community, werewolves of the community, the covens, and the notion of a hybrid, which is to my knowledge has never been done in any vampire story.

Excerpt from Underworld: 45:43

Excerpt from Underworld

Terry: 46:00

There were always separate characters, and sometimes they were pitted against each other. And, you know, some particular movie or another, but this one really did it for me. I like the fact that Celine was a warrior. So there are just a bunch of elements to that story, and including the star-crossed lovers, part of it., I thought there was a good fusion of a lot of different things in that one that made it probably my favorite of all.

Chris: 46:27

Honorable mention, blade. Gotta throw blade in there. That kind of kicked off the Marvel series. So you gotta, we gotta give Blade their flowers as well.

Terry: 46:41

Yeah.

Brandon: 46:41

No doubt, yeah. Gotta give blade some love there.

Chris: 46:43

I think I was a teenager the last time. I don't remember the last time I saw it. It was

Terry: 46:47

You all bringing it up makes me think I gotta go see it again.

Chris: 46:52

Yeah

Brandon: 46:53

I'll say this about Blade. What was, what was, what was really cool about Blade is it was, for me, like one of the biggest and first, like action flicks with a Black lead. You know, that was one thing. The idea of a vampire being Black is another thing. You know, like every other vampire production to date, always was with White people. And there's obviously nothing wrong with that. It's just that it was one of those things that having Blade be a Black like superhero slash antihero. You know, being a vampire got to watch him be compassionate and ruthless and just straight, like a badass as a fighter in there, like all of those things were really appealing about it. They did a good job of having their themes, sticking with it, and it didn't feel rushed. And it made me curious when they started having more vampire productions later on, can they live up to this?

Excerpt from Blade: 47:49

Excerpt from Blade

Brandon: 48:10

Another dark one big action flick. There was some love in the first and second. So it's, it keeps that theme of what makes a good vampire movie, something to fear and there to be some sort of love involved. So with that, we're gonna go ahead and wrap up this edition of the Cup of Tea Critiques Podcast. Thank you so much for listening and figuring out your cup of tea along with us. Honestly, we could go on and on like we do at our dinner table, but we look forward to you joining us again next week for another great discussion. Make sure you rate and follow the Cup of Tea Critiques Podcast, wherever you listen to your favorite podcast, make sure to leave a comment and share your favorite vampire production with us. You can stay in the loop on all things COTC by subscribing on our website cupofteacritiques.com. You can also find us on Facebook. Check out our Instagram, at cupofteacritiques and on Letterboxd at COTCritiques. For Reba, Terry and Chris, I'm Brandon. We'll see you next week for another deep look with a deep brew.