049 - Vampires with Karen (MK Oldman) - Weird Reads

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to the Weird Reader podcast, an extension of
Jason's Weird Reads found on YouTube.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome, hello everybody today.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Well, first of all, welcome to episode forty nine of
the Weird Reads podcast. I'm Jason Waite, and today I
have a real exciting guest. I was thinking for a
long time of how I could get this person on
to my channel and just discuss something with her, and
it kind of hit me recently. I could talk to
her about vampires because we both love vampires. And this

(00:54):
is Karen from mk Oldman her TikTok channel. I highly
recommend every you want to go and check out her
channel there and she would follow her there, and like
I said, we've talked on TikTok here and there, and
once it was about vampires. I remember actually maybe even twice.

(01:18):
And I encourage people to go and check you out.
So thank you for coming on and talking about vampires
with me, Karen, Thanks for having me.

Speaker 4 (01:26):
He picked one of my hyper focuses.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
So, so can you tell us about your TikTok channel
and how you came about starting making videos there. That was.

Speaker 4 (01:40):
I had actually stopped watching horror when my son was
really little because he's autistic, and so I didn't want
him to run into a scene and get scared and
not be able to like ask questions. And I didn't
realize it, but I stopped reading at the same time,
like if it was he doesn't care, but it just happened.
Ized it one day and then I was behind on horror,

(02:03):
looked at Facebook, saw a couple of random TikTok videos
and figured out book talk was where the reviews I
was looking for were. And then I just needed to
get used to my voice. My first couple of videos,
I used one of those voice masking things. So yeah,
I've just stayed ever since, like the short video format

(02:27):
works for me.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
Did you ever watch book tube channels on YouTube at all?

Speaker 4 (02:36):
I didn't find them until after TikTok, so they're still
I know, there's a lot of them that like, I've
subscribed to, but I haven't really watched.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yeah, I have a weird history with TikTok because I
was kind of prejudice against TikTok when I first went
over there. I thought I was just like dancing teenagers
and funny goat videos, which actually I still like watching those,
the goat videos and the cats and whatnot. But when

(03:06):
I found book Talk that really changed my world.

Speaker 4 (03:10):
Yeah, that's what got me to go from oh, look,
well it's better that the kids are dancing weird in
the street than some of the other stuff they could
be doing too. What do you mean this is where
the books are.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
You read a lot of splatter and extreme horror.

Speaker 4 (03:27):
Right, yeah, it's not necessarily like exclusively a favorite, but
I I think I must have been born somewhat desensitized
because people would just be like, oh my god, it
was so much. Even when I was little, I grew
up on horror. Like I was allowed to watch anything
but MTV. Yeah, I don't know what MTV had that

(03:50):
bugged my mom compared to some of the movies that
I could watch. But like I'd just be like, why
does that bother you? So somewhere around ninety nine two thousand,
you remember in the the old paperbacks, they'd have like
the mail away thing you could do a book of
the month. Oh yeah, that to try to find new
horror authors because the bookstores still weren't genrified. And the

(04:14):
first book we got was Richard Lahman, and my tiny
quiet mom read it lost her mind. She reads unbelievably
fast and was just like quarantine. You have to read this.
I went through it in a day and we just
started hunting down Layman.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
What is it about this type of horror that draws
you to it?

Speaker 4 (04:38):
With me, it's mostly when I want to be distracted
and read, because I'll get really sucked in and it
tends to be so over the top that, like, I
have fairly bad anxiety and that can't really break through
the Oh my god, did they just say what? So

(04:59):
it's good for that. But the same time, if you
trigger easily, like there's a reason I always tell people,
feel free to ask me if there's something specific.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
Yeah, what's like the most discussed We'll get to the
vampires in a minute. But what would you say is
the most disgusting, over the top book you've read?

Speaker 4 (05:21):
Oh, I don't even know. The only one that's made
me gag was actually a vampire book. And it's weird
because I know I've read worse by the same author.
That was Bloodsuck by Judith's Sonnet And it's three sisters
that are vampires and it's a very kind of white

(05:43):
trash aesthetic going on, and they make snuff films and
you can make a better snuff film when you can
make the victim unkillable for a little while. So they
do some really crazy things, and there was just this
sequence of events that hit the right way that I
actually had to put the book down and walk away
for a minute.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
Judith Simon's good for that though, right, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (06:09):
Yeah, she's getting into quieter stuff now. But yeah, also
with her most of the time, I end up somehow
really attached to a character too. It's not like she's
definitely splatter and not extreme. It's not like shock value only.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
Yeah. Absolutely. So we're here today to talk about vampires
because we both have a love of vampires, and so
I was wondering what was your origin story? Where did
you start consuming vampire either fiction or movies.

Speaker 4 (06:49):
Movies first that my mom, It's got to be. I
think Salem's Lot nineteen seventy nine was the first one
I ever saw. Nice and that's still a favorite. I
watched the recent remake. I didn't hate it. I thought
I was gonna hate it. I didn't hate it.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
But that's interesting because I watched that too, and I
didn't hate it either, but so many people did hate it.
I just don't think it's a I think it's a
good movie on its own, but it's not exactly a
great representation of the novel itself. That's the way I felt.

Speaker 4 (07:23):
Yeah, we did that The Lost Boys around the same time,
and then I was a Countdakila kid. I don't know
if you remember that. Yeah, yeah, I actually recently binge
watched it on YouTube trying to get my little one
to watch, and he's just like, I don't know what
this annoying thing is, mom walks away. But my mom

(07:46):
always liked them, and she liked a lot of the
They're all just one giant blur to me now, but
a lot of the so the Hammer films, it's like
Christopher Lee. Yeah, and uh it just went from there. I,
way too young, watched Vamp. They had it in a
video store, and I drove my mother crazy for like

(08:08):
a year and a half to rent it, and she
finally broke down. And I absolutely did not just need
to see it that young, and it was a favorite
for like a month.

Speaker 3 (08:18):
Yeah, did you like continuously watch it?

Speaker 4 (08:22):
Yeah? Yeah, I was. There were signs that I was
neurodivergent that we see now, but then I was just
annoying that one BELT watched on a loop.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
Yeah. I remember when I was a kid, they used
to play those old Dracula films on Sunday afternoons. And
I don't know why they did that on Sunday. It
almost seems blasted on us back then, right, But I
just remember them being on the TV in the background
while we had family over eating dinner. And you know,

(08:57):
seeing Dracula melts at the end was always it was
always fun. There was always those old Hammer films with
Christopher Lee and uh. And then I went and saw
Lost Boys at the theater and I was in that
That's the movie that made me fall in love with vampires.
I was just like wow, you know.

Speaker 4 (09:19):
Yeah, Lost Boys was a big one for me too.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
Yeah. And both the Fright Night films parts one and two.
I have you watched those ones?

Speaker 4 (09:29):
Yeah, I don't remember the second one as well. I
need to rewatch it. Fright Night is like an all
time favorite though.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
If you like what I'm doing here and want to
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You can also write a review on Apple Podcasts or
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leave a review on Apple Podcasts or rate the show

(10:06):
on Spotify. As I just said, each and every way
you can help out the channel and podcast grow would
be greatly appreciated.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (10:21):
What do you think draws you to vampires? Are there
elements that vampires have that draw you to them?

Speaker 4 (10:30):
And when I originally got into them, I've always loved horror,
but they were They're kind of a perfect predator in
that if unless you write them a certain way, we
can't tell that they're not one of us, so they
can just mix in. But once I realized like it
wasn't always just Dracula and they could be really feral,

(10:54):
they could be scheming. You can have head vampires with
really feral things. Some of them can turn to bats
or miss some of them can't. That's what originally kept
me with it was I think there was some level
of comfort in the monster, but you could always make
it different. And I am very novelty seeking.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
Did you ever fall into like the Twilight stuff at all?

Speaker 4 (11:19):
I got attacked with the Twilight stuff, so I don't know.
I was like mid to late twenties when that got huge,
or at least when I noticed that it got huge,
and I had friends that were like, you like to read,
you love vampires, You have to read this. It's the
best thing. If nobody told me it wasn't actually horror,
nobody told me anything. They drove me crazy. I read

(11:42):
the first book, took me like five weeks to get through,
and then I pushed through the second book out of
like sheer force of will, and I gave up. And
it's I just I hate Bella. I hated being in
Bella's head so much.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (12:00):
And then when the movies came out and I could
like watch them on demand or streaming or whatever, I
watched them thinking I won't be in her head as much.
They're not going to do a constant voice over. No,
it still didn't work for me.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
Yeah. I remember Stephen King was quoted just saying that
is that Stephanie Meyer Meyer who wrote that Meyer? I think, Yeah,
he said that she couldn't write worth us shit. And
once he said that, I was like, Okay, I'm curious,
and so I went and I read the first book,

(12:35):
and surprisingly I didn't hate it, but I could see
maybe why there was so much hate towards it. And
then I watched the movie and it wasn't bad either.
But then I was on a plane ride and the
second movie was on, so I was like, you know what,
I just I'll sit down and watch that. See if
I like it too. And I hated that movie. That
movie was just that was awful.

Speaker 4 (12:56):
Yeah, I'm like some of the I can get past.
I make a lot of jokes about the I don't
want sparkly vampires, but like I appreciate she came up
with a different reason why they don't go out in
the sun. Yeah, I can get through a lot of stuff.
But I really like that they got to take Bella
out of that for me.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
To be able to Yeah, it's like constant.

Speaker 4 (13:16):
Whining and oh let me just jump off this cliff
to get their attention.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
Yeah, that's it's like such terrible representation. Also, I agree
with you about the vampires being glittery. It's it's an
interesting concept because they you know, they glitter in order
to attract people and and that's how they feed. I

(13:43):
always found that kind of clever.

Speaker 4 (13:44):
But yeah, I do have a friend that would definitely work.

Speaker 3 (13:47):
On if we could all glitter, that would be great.

Speaker 4 (13:53):
Right, No, No, we have an anti glitter rule in
this house.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
There's enough slime and stuff. I know what you mean.
Glitter like the actual glitter is awful. I hate it
gets everywhere. Do you have a favorite vampire character that
you return to?

Speaker 4 (14:13):
Oh, that seems to go with mood, but it's funny.
I ended up I loveless, sad, and when I reread Interview,
I did not. I hated him. And then I read
the rest of them, and I'm like, Louis does a
lot of whining. I say, that might be my problem.

(14:33):
I think I just don't like whiny vampires.

Speaker 3 (14:38):
He's not as bad as Armand though armand the vampire
he's he is such a whiny baby and a passive, aggressive,
sort of menacing evil entity.

Speaker 4 (14:49):
It's like, oh, that's it. I'm having feelings. I'm going
to go walk into the sun now.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
Yeah, every two minutes too.

Speaker 4 (14:57):
That's one of the I have to reread that whole series.
I had started to actually around the time I started
by TikTok in twenty twenty two, and I did Interview again,
which this is the time that I realized that she
didn't use chapters in that book.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
Yeah, they're just like section breaks or whatever.

Speaker 4 (15:17):
Right. Yeah, I was just like, where are the because
I was buddy reading and we were finally like, we're
going to have to pick the end of the scene
and just tell each other a page number. And I
redid the SAT and then I put it down for
a bit. And when we said we were going to
do this, I grabbed memnoc on audible because it had
been years and that is still far and away like
it's one of my favorite books of all time. Yeah,

(15:38):
and I was like, no, we got to make sure
that's not. We remembered that one pretty clear, but it
definitely pointed out to me how much I forgot about
the others.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
Yeah. Some comments in here James. He says that he
likes the Necker Scope series by Brian Lumley. Have you
read any of those? I read the first one, but
I never really continued because I'm awful with serious.

Speaker 4 (16:03):
I read the first three, but my mother read most
of them. They didn't stick with me that well. And
then a few years back I reread the first one
and I need to start them over because I did
not realize how much I'd enjoy it, Like as an

(16:23):
adult in ninth grade. I was not set for it, but.

Speaker 3 (16:28):
Yeah, I want to. I want to read that series through.
I don't think I gave it a fair chance when
I It's not that they didn't like it, I just
you know, I didn't follow through with it.

Speaker 4 (16:39):
Yeah, and it's it's definitely like kind of of its time.
When I reread it, I was like, oh, we know
better than right. He's writing technology in the seventies, like
it's futuristic. Got to stick with that. But the covers
I don't have them anymore.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
Those covers are cool.

Speaker 4 (16:56):
Yeah, and they changed them because I think there was
talk of turning it into a TV series and I
am so upset. I'm like, I want the original covers
and they're they're like a white whale to find now.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yeah, that's true. Also on the comments, W Smith, he
he really likes the strain by Chuck Hogan uh and
Galermo del Toro. What do you think have you read that?
I've read the same thing. I read the first one,
but I never continued.

Speaker 4 (17:28):
I was about halfway through the first one. I have
to replace those, but that that I the setup that
I did get through. I really like now I'm mama
hunt to get a new set of them.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
Yeah, I want to reread all those, well the first
one and then finish it off. I really like the
concept of you know, the plane landing and and nobody
it's like everyone in there is dead. Uh. That that
really drew me. Uh. And of course, well you know,
it's it's not that big of a secret that they've
all been changed into vampires, which is a really cool concept.

(18:07):
So do you have a I'm gonna assume that your
favorite type of vampire would be the ghoulish beast that
climbs out of the grave at night.

Speaker 4 (18:17):
Yeah, it's funny. Most of my favorite books are they're
a little bit calmer than that. But I really like feral,
like just completely feral was always the most fun for
me to read.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah, Or when you.

Speaker 4 (18:31):
Get where there's like a master vampire and they're fine
and you end up with like this Lost Boys really
was just don't make teenagers vampires but me too, where
you end up with like a hierarchy of types.

Speaker 3 (18:47):
Yeah, I absolutely love the ghoulish feral beast too, Like
Stephen King's Salem's Lot type vampire. One of the first
books I've read which I forgot to put in any
of these, so I'm gonna mention it now. Is Robert R.

(19:07):
Mccammon's Did They Thirst? That was the first one of
the first vampire books I ever read, and it knocked
my socks off. Something I got to reread in the future.

Speaker 4 (19:21):
Yeah, that's somewhere on the pile to be read. I
haven't that I haven't read yet.

Speaker 3 (19:27):
It's pretty, it's pretty if I remember correctly, It's like
Salem's Lot but set in.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
La MM.

Speaker 3 (19:35):
And it's pretty crazy. But Robert R. McCammon can go
into those crazy sort of situations. I think. So sorry, No,
I was gonna say there's.

Speaker 4 (19:49):
Salem's Lot. I think was the first one I read
because my mother collected Stephen King and I would just
pull books off of her shelf.

Speaker 3 (19:57):
Yeah. So, adding to the to the question I asked
about your favorite type of vampire, I was wondering if
you have any favorite vampire traits, like, for example, sunlight
burns them to death, crosses can kill them, holy water,
they don't reflect in a mirror, and whatnot.

Speaker 4 (20:16):
I typically just like that you can kind of play
around with them and mix and match it as long
as like once you've set the rules for them in
a story, it stays that way unless there's some reason
for it, like I don't know, some mutation. The missed
thing always got me though, because it was like if

(20:37):
they'd ever been invited locking the doors and going to
work as they're always going to get in. I tried
to think about that ahead, and I just I don't
think I have a particular favorite. That's just kind of like,
let's see what they're going to do with them this time.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
Yeah, I can be particular. I think it's because of
how I was introduced to vampires. But if a vampire
is out during the day, that annoys me.

Speaker 4 (21:08):
I think I remember you saying that once.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yeah, I don't like that, but you know it won't
It's not like a deal breaker. But I'm not a
huge fan of vampires running around in the daytime and
not being hurt. And I've kind of as I've grown older,
I've gotten maybe a little more annoyed with religion in
vampire fiction, like how crosses and holy water and all

(21:33):
that will hurt them. I kind of like the Anne
Rice vampire for that because they you know, as Louis said,
I'm quite fond of crosses. I kind of like that
sort of approach, and you know, they.

Speaker 4 (21:47):
At least like put us Jerry Dangers was that his
name in Fright Night, and he's like, you have to
have faith for that to work on me. That's I
can get behind the kids.

Speaker 3 (21:56):
I can get behind that. Again, I don't have it.

Speaker 4 (21:58):
I could grab cross all day, but I'm going to
I'm just gonna be like, I hope they're right.

Speaker 3 (22:04):
Yeah. They played around with that in the New Salem's
Lot reboot recently too, because well that's from Salem's Lot
as well. The book you had to have the faith
in order for the cross Stork. Yeah, yeah, all right,
so just out of curiosity. And it's not important if

(22:25):
you have or haven't. But I'm wondering if you've read
many of the vampire classics, such as Dracula or Carmela.

Speaker 4 (22:35):
I read Carmilla two ish years ago. I finally got
around to it, and Dracula I actually haven't read since
I was like ten. I got it at the schoolastic
book fair. Yeah, split it, and I have a copy
that i'm little by little. I pick up like a
chapter at a time. I'm barely into it because I

(22:56):
have so many books that are like retellings or sequels
that I want to get into that I want to
actually read the book. So most of my memory is
actually from movies.

Speaker 3 (23:05):
For Dracula, yeah, I've read both those examples. There's a
couple others that I haven't read. But Dracula I really enjoyed.
There's some things that I didn't like about it, though,
I don't know if I want to go into spoiler territory.
If I were to exxplain, it might spoil it. But

(23:27):
I'm I think I'm gonna anyway, because it's like, what
over one hundred year old story.

Speaker 4 (23:31):
Right eighteen ninety seven. There's a reference on my shirt.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
But the part that annoyed me is like in all
the movies, Dracula's badass until the end, but in the book,
once they start fighting back, they realize what they have
and what they're fighting against. He runs back home with
his tail between his legs, just to survive, like a
like a scared little animal. It's not terrifying anymore. It

(24:00):
would have been more terrifying if he thought right up
until the end. I think, anyway, yeah, she'll get to
I have to. So before we get into our honorable mentions.
Do you have any favorite horror movies vampire horror movies
that you keep returning to.

Speaker 4 (24:21):
I made myself a cheat sheet because my memory fairly exists.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
Oh, I got to teach sheet too. My memories awful.

Speaker 4 (24:29):
There's and I have the book. I have to read
the book now too. But vampires. John Carpenter did it
with the James Wood. Yeah, it's like the vampire Western.
I love that Lost Boys. Salem's Lot seventy nine thirty
Days of Night was like my thank you for putting

(24:52):
really really Faroh monsters on the big screen? H where
is it? Because I keep forgetting the names at the time, Like,
I went out and saw it in theaters and I
don't know, but it hit the right way. It was
Dracula two thousand. I loved that so much. I just

(25:14):
rewatched it and I was like, I still like this,
but I don't know what quite had me obsessed then
although it came out, I was like a nineteen year
old girl, so completely different. Yeah, yeah, it's fine. I
was trying to remember from when I was a kid. Also,

(25:37):
was my best friend is a vampire?

Speaker 3 (25:40):
Okay? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (25:44):
And Near Dark?

Speaker 3 (25:46):
Near Dark? That movie is brilliant. That movie is on
my list too. I absolutely love Near Diark also Lost Boys,
because that's, like I said, that's the one that floored me.
I remember just being like, that's that's you know, honestly,
that's the movie that made me want to become a vampire.

(26:08):
So it's it's weird, but because you know, it's like,
the vampires are bad in that movie. I don't know
why I wanted to become a vampire after that.

Speaker 4 (26:19):
And they made it.

Speaker 3 (26:20):
Look good, yeah they did.

Speaker 4 (26:22):
Everybody else looked like they were having a real crap time.
The vampires were having a good dive way.

Speaker 3 (26:26):
Yeah, and you're you're I'm also on board with Thirty
Days of Night because that movie is just brutal and
it's scary. Those vampires are scary as hell. They're they're mean,
they're they're nasty, they fight right to the end, and
and like you said, they're far. Oh they're just beasts
that can talk.

Speaker 4 (26:46):
And then they put them in a situation where you
you're not just trying to survive for eight or twelve hours.

Speaker 3 (26:52):
Yeah. I have one more movie on my on my
list here that I don't know if you've seen, but
if you haven't recommend it. It's really interesting. It's called Afflicted.
It's a found footage movie from twenty thirteen.

Speaker 4 (27:06):
I haven't actually watched it.

Speaker 3 (27:10):
Yeah, it's about two I think they're a gay couple
who go traveling to like some foreign country I can't
remember now, it's like Spain or something, and they get
attacked one night. I think, well, one of them ends
up becoming a vampire, and so he starts transforming while
they're on their vacation, and it's just horrifying. It's like

(27:31):
crazy body horror with's like other things going on. It's
creepy and it's very well done. I haven't heard. When
it came out in twenty thirteen, everyone was talking about it,
but then everyone stopped talking about it. It's like soon after.

Speaker 4 (27:49):
For a little while, I remember, it was like they
seem to always kind of be trending to some degree,
and then all of a sudden, you'll get these periods
where people like no vampires are old and ye will
refuse to do anything but trash them, and then something
happens and they come back, and then there's me just
waiting as if I don't have more than a lifetime's

(28:11):
worth of backlog, I can't. On the other side of
my shelf is the collection.

Speaker 3 (28:18):
Yeah. I think Twilight kind of killed vampires for awhile
people got burnt out because they were sick of I
think that kind of vampire honestly. Yeah, that's not exactly
you know, the vampire that I'm thinking of when I
think of vampires.

Speaker 4 (28:33):
Yeah, that overlapped with like them turning Vampire Diaries into
a show and a few.

Speaker 3 (28:40):
Yeah. Did you ever read any of those, like The
Vampire Diaries or or watch the series?

Speaker 4 (28:45):
When I bought that Hall of the Mass Markets, I
got two of the I want to find somebody who
would appreciate them. It's like book one and four or
two and four. They're not quite together, but they're the
original paperback. I don't know if I'll actually sit through
reading them, though, but I remember watching I watched like

(29:07):
the first two or three seasons of it.

Speaker 3 (29:11):
Yeah, was it any good? Because I always wanted to
watch it, But at the same time, I'm just like, yeah,
maybe not.

Speaker 4 (29:18):
I just I stumbled on it. And as long as
you're not going into it thinking, oh, it's horror vampires,
it is more. I mean that they'd be killing people
and getting brutal here and there, but it is more
like urban fantasy vampires. Yeah, but it definitely had like
a soap opera quality, which when I want to numb out,

(29:38):
that's all I want. Just give me a train wreck
to watch and be like, oh my god, what are
they going to do?

Speaker 3 (29:43):
Yeah, I don't know. I still might watch it at
some point. I was a big fan of Buffy the
Vampires Layer the series, and I want to rewatch it now,
but I don't know time, you know, I swear to god.
I thought when I start getting older, time would loosen
up a little bit, but seems like my time's just
getting tighter and tighter.

Speaker 4 (30:05):
Yeah. I rewatched the first season of Buffy. My husband
I thought had seen it because his best friend for years,
there was some night of the week they'd all get
together and watch Buffy, and I didn't realize you never
watched the beginning of it, so like he didn't know
that she had a thing for Angel, And I'm just like,
oh Lord, I can't handle I'm going to say some

(30:27):
things and if you're not prepared.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
You know, it's funny you mentioned that, because it's funny
that you introduced Buffy to your husband, because it was
my wife who made me watch the show. She was like,
you like Corey, you like vampires, You're going to love
the show. And so I was like, all right, let's
do it. I guess right, and then I have ended
up falling in love with it. It's a really good show.

Speaker 4 (30:52):
Yeah. I avoided it the first like two years round
about that it was out because I really thought that
they were going to take them and manage to destroy
it and just make a completely ridiculous thing. And then
somebody I know had an episode on oh no, we
have to check this out.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
The movie is actually pretty good on the one before
the series with Pee Wee Herman and I forget his
name right now, but.

Speaker 4 (31:21):
God, oh that's out of my head now.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
And Luke Perry.

Speaker 4 (31:26):
I got to see that in theaters because my friend
was a Luke.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
Perry fan and yeah, Luke Perry.

Speaker 4 (31:30):
Yeah that be her birthday party.

Speaker 3 (31:35):
That's such a funny movie. It's it's ridiculous, over the
top and ridiculous. I love it, all right. So we're
gonna move now into our honorable mentions. I I have
four books here, I think I sent you a list,
and then of course our top three So how about you.

(31:58):
How many books do you have in your honor well mention?

Speaker 4 (32:01):
I don't know. I have a pile of books that
I might forget the name of, kind of combined. Yeah.
I tried to come up with the top three, but
it's more like a four because I couldn't pick between two. Yeah,
and then yeah, I just I was like, I can't

(32:22):
remember anything I've ever read, and I ended up with
an entire page.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
So what would you like to name? First? Then?

Speaker 4 (32:33):
Uh, my old time favorites mem Not the Devil, and
I listened to it and to February again and yeah, no,
I still that's the book to beat with me.

Speaker 3 (32:46):
Yeah, I love that one too.

Speaker 4 (32:51):
And Salem's Lot, which I actually have kind of a
I guess an honorable mention, but it's marketed as a
reimagining of Salem's Lot, but when I read it, it
felt like it and I really liked it. Was Dark
Corner by Brandon Massy.

Speaker 3 (33:10):
Dark Corner, but it's a little bit.

Speaker 4 (33:12):
More modern because I mean it was written well after
and it's more urban, and he did this thing in
it that I liked. There's guy goes he inherits his
father's house and really no dad. Dad was a prolific writer,
and he decides to move there for a year and
I don't know, sort out his feelings and whatnot with that.
And there's a creepy house that gives them vibes. And

(33:35):
the creepy house there's a naturally born vampire who goes
there because somewhere under that is his father buried. So
there's these like two very mirrored stories happening while you
get the small town slowly being taken over by vampires
and it's just a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
Who's that by again, Brandon Massy? I have to check
that out. One book I want to discuss for honorable
mentions is and I have to thank you for it.
Almost made my top list, but when I went through
all the vampire books I've read, I was just like,
I just can't do it. But you messaged me on

(34:20):
TikTok and you're like, have you read you can't take
it with you by Marcus Hawk, And then you went
in and say like how good it was, And I
was like, you know what, I haven't read it, And
so I put it on my TBR immediately and I
read it right around Christmas time, and I have to
thank you for suggesting it, because that book is incredible.

Speaker 4 (34:40):
Yeah. Yeah, I had high hopes, like I had put
out I think on my Facebook that I was looking
for more Christmas horror rex because I love Christmas and
bonus points if they happened to have vampires. And he hinted,
He's like, I might have a Christmas one coming up,

(35:01):
and this is like my favorite author. So he says
something like that, my husband clutches his wallet, and then
like the next day he answers his own comment and
it might have vampires. Yeah. I really just walked up
and I was like, Marcus Hawk is writing a Christmas
vampire horror book. And John's like, I don't get over time,
and he sent me the arc and I read it,

(35:22):
and then before I reviewed it, I wanted to double
check some detail and I just read it a second
time in like two weeks, and I never do that.

Speaker 3 (35:32):
Yeah, that's such a good book and it fits for
Christmas too. It has uh it has like a the
Charles Dickens uh Christmas Carol kind of feel to it.
I mean it's it's very cleverly done. I think you'd
have to be familiar with the story to see the connections.
But it's so oh my god, it's such a good book.

(35:54):
I love it.

Speaker 4 (35:56):
And then the end he did one of my favorite things.
It's funny you mentioned before that's the thing that made
me want to be a vampire. I have never wanted
to be a vampire. I have always looked at them
and been like, well, if I stay human enough to
feel close to things, I'm gonna want to turn everybody
y if that seems lonely, or I'm not going to
be me anymore, and i won't want to be different.

(36:18):
And he did that, like that spiral of him looking
at what eternity would really look like. I was just like,
I'm done.

Speaker 3 (36:24):
We have to you know, that's a good interesting story idea.
What if what if somebody who's like a family man
or you know, a family woman gets bitten by a
vampire or whatever, becomes a vampire, and because she doesn't,

(36:45):
she loves her family so much she wants to convert
them into a vampirehood, like getting into the family dynamics.
When when somebody you love and trust turns you into
a vampire. That would be interesting. I think, yeah, be
you should contact Marcus Hawk.

Speaker 4 (37:04):
I'll all towards tore him to write anything. He's a favorite.

Speaker 3 (37:08):
You love Mark, I've seen you like with Marcus Hack's
clothing and stuff like because he has yeah, and a
cooking apron.

Speaker 4 (37:19):
Right, yeah, it's the apron. I have a thing for aprons.
So that was a gift. Have you read The Miracles
then yet?

Speaker 3 (37:26):
No, I haven't a mini spoiler somewhere.

Speaker 4 (37:29):
I don't know, fifteen or sixteen chapters through the book.
I remember it from making comments about it at the time.
I ended up throwing it because he gifted me my
original copy of it, and I'd had it on a
wish list. But it doesn't suggest it in the blurb
and it won't like ruin the story, but there's a
vampire in that. And by then we had already talked

(37:52):
like he also loves memnoc and I was just like
the son of bitch knew he sent me a vampire
book and didn't.

Speaker 3 (37:59):
Say, yeah, yeah, that I was going to ask you
that actually about Miracle Sin because he's he's talked about
it and he's sort of said, it's sort of a
vampire story. But is it a vampire story or is
it just a vampire in it?

Speaker 4 (38:18):
Yeah, it's hard to describe that way. I actually pictured,
So it's it's a lot of things. It's definitely like
the horror, urban fantasy and the like. The main protagonist
is a vampire, but it's not necessarily it's not really

(38:40):
about oh he's a vampire, Like we just find out,
Oh that's what the hell he is?

Speaker 3 (38:44):
Oh okay, but you turn his.

Speaker 4 (38:46):
Book into a purse and you get a picture.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
Oh nice.

Speaker 4 (38:52):
I can't tell how much I'm blind.

Speaker 3 (38:54):
That looks really cool? Is that like the main character?

Speaker 4 (38:57):
Yeah, that's Novak, that's the vampire.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
Do you Is that a book that you reread often?

Speaker 4 (39:03):
I was going to reread last year and I just
kept getting shiny objects syndrome. I'm probably going to reread
it like after this month because I have one more
arc and my buddy Jim is putting out a charity
anthology and I'm reading for that.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
Also.

Speaker 4 (39:25):
Yeah, that's definitely getting a reread. Plus, it's been a
little while so the details of blurred, so I tend
to want I reread wait a couple of years.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
Yeah, okay. We have another comment here Kate. She says
that she loves Draculas by White Crouch, which is a
really awesome book that's definitely over the top and kind
of crazy. And also The Lesser Dead by Christopher Buelman,
which is on my Honorable Mentions list here. That book

(40:02):
is so well done. Have you read that one?

Speaker 4 (40:04):
No, both of them are on my like really want
to read list.

Speaker 3 (40:08):
Oh God, you're gonna love it. You're gonna love both
of them. I think for different reasons. The Draculas is
way more like a splatterpunk type story where the Lesser
Dead it gets it does get nasty and gory, but
it's more, I don't know, it's just not splatter punk.
I don't think you know what I mean. It kind
of veers into that territory, but it's without necessarily being it.

(40:32):
But it's still really well done and so entertaining. It
takes place in like New York sewers and whatnot, and
it's just it's an absolute blast.

Speaker 4 (40:43):
That one's been on my list for a while. I
keep I have so many little book lists, and at
this point I have one that's like the most wanted
vampire books that's in there. It's another one that like
I'll see when people list or they recommend stuff, but
I don't have to run into people talking about it.

Speaker 3 (41:02):
Which book was that h the lesser did?

Speaker 4 (41:04):
That's one Like I'll see it when people are like, hey,
I want a vampire story or something, and it gets
like added to like a list of comments. But I
don't really run into like reviews.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
Yeah, I don't think it's very popular on book talk.

Speaker 4 (41:20):
Yeah, and I'm finally getting I'm getting more active on
Facebook and ig again because I'm in the States and
I don't know how long I'm going to have book talk.

Speaker 3 (41:30):
Yeah, that's got to be upsetting, especially when yeah, yeah,
you could always go to YouTube.

Speaker 4 (41:39):
Yeah, I got to learn YouTube, and I'm toying with
but I'm not one hundred percent. I got to do
actual homework, maybe doing a substack. But I'll find something
I like doing this, so I'll find something else.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
I have one more honorable mention, and I just want
to clarify here that there's probably a ton of books
that I just didn't remember that I read that belong
on this list because I did forget to put they
Live on here. That one is like a hugely important

(42:17):
in my life, but my last one has let me
in by John Edward's link fist. That book is just
so it's messed up on so many levels, not just
the fact that there's a child vampire, but there's so
much more going on. Did you read that one at all?
Or watch the movie?

Speaker 4 (42:33):
No? I saw the American movie because I know there's
the two, but I have not read it. The movie
was quiet enough that, honestly, I fell asleep. And it
wasn't because the movie was boring. It was because I
had a toddler and the movie was quiet.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
You know, having a toddler will help you sleep whenever
you can.

Speaker 4 (43:00):
I could give you a whole list of movies where
it's like, oh, but she fell asleep, and it's like
and it had nothing to do with anything, but I
sat still, or you.

Speaker 3 (43:08):
Light or you laid down. When when I'm watching a
movie with my wife, the second she's gonna lie down
on the couch, I'm like, nope, nope, nope, because that's
the end right there, all asleep. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (43:20):
My husband does horror, but some stuff, if it gets
under his skin, it keeps him bothered for a little while.
And uh, I think the worst one I knocked out
on him like that from Autopsy of Jane Doe. And
he has not forgiven me yet and I'm like, I
still gotta find out how it ends.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
That's a good movie. I haven't seen it a while.
Now I love it. Do you have any more honorable
mentions before we get to I guess the final three?

Speaker 4 (43:48):
Whereas I just just read two that Like, there's Young
Blood by Sylvester Barzi and it's y a but he
he really played around with the tropes and that was
a lot of fun. And I haven't reviewed it because
I can't do it justice. I'm gonna sound like an
idiot right now. I need to get my adjectives straight.

(44:11):
But there's like New York gets quarantined and basically abandoned
from the rest of the world. Like there's an outbreak,
kind of like a zombie outbreak, but they call them
something else. And when they come up with a vaccine,
the people who get vaccinated turn into vampires, and then
there's a mutation, and then there's reason to believe that

(44:35):
the things have gotten smart, so they send in the army.
And it's a lot of fun and a lot different
and I just right now me talking about it is terrible.
So that'll get reviewed when I can make sense of it.
And Knuckles Suffer by Drew steppek me, I need to
find somebody who's read it because his explanation for how

(44:57):
vampires started. I threw the damn book.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
Through it for a good reason or because you're like, no, no.

Speaker 4 (45:03):
It was good, like it was. I just I'm like,
I don't want to spoil this for people who has
somebody has read it. I just haven't found the person
I know that's read it yet.

Speaker 3 (45:16):
And what was that one again.

Speaker 4 (45:17):
Knuckle Supper. It's flatterpunk Drew Stepik's the guy that created Godless.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
Okay, okay, good guy.

Speaker 4 (45:25):
But it's heroin Addicted Vampire Gang in La And I
was like, oh, this could be interesting, and it's like
the cover's really gritty and fun. And I picked it
up because my friend was like, but what do they
call the gang? And I opened the page to see

(45:47):
and the next thing I know, I'm five pages in
and I just read it in twenty four hours and
just put it down. Yeah, it's like right, and you
find out right in the beginning, so I feel like
it's not spoiler. They don't have fangs.

Speaker 3 (46:03):
They don't have fangs, no.

Speaker 4 (46:04):
And then they don't. They don't do well when they
like the main characters anyway or heroin addicted. They don't
shoot up because it doesn't last, so they shoot up
a live victim and then rip off whatever limb and
drink out of that and it's just it's crazy, it's interesting,
completely nuts.

Speaker 3 (46:23):
I like that.

Speaker 4 (46:24):
It's very much like a La Street gang story and
they happen to be vampires.

Speaker 3 (46:30):
That kind of makes me think of a song I
really like by Electric uh, a metal band called Electric Wizard.
It's called The Satanic Rites of Drugula, and the whole
song is about a vampire who's addicted to drugs, but
he has to feed on you know, junkies and whatnot

(46:53):
in order to get you know, high, and so he
finds himself kidnapping people and getting them drugged up so
you can feed on them. It's an interesting song.

Speaker 4 (47:07):
Yeah, that would fit the bill for this.

Speaker 3 (47:12):
Maybe that was an influence.

Speaker 4 (47:14):
Who knows, it could have been.

Speaker 3 (47:17):
All right, So we're gonna move now into our final three,
the top three. These These are definitely the ones I
have listed anyway, or I would say my absolute favorite
vampire novels. But how about you lead us off?

Speaker 4 (47:36):
Okay, it's me. It's definitely Memnoch The Devil Salem's Block,
even though it has been long enough that I'm overdue
for a reread. And then I kind of got tied.
And it's funny because it's kind of the more modern,
gritty or more gothic academic and I can never so
it's by Mood the Historian by Elizabeth Kosova or Bunker

(48:00):
Dogs by Gage Greenwood, and I like, I could not
narrow it to three. I was like, four is pretty
good for me.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
Interesting Booker Dogs, what's that about?

Speaker 4 (48:14):
That? Is a younger college student is babysitting and like
you get alarms and sirens going off outside and some
catastrophic end of the world type event is happening, and
the family she's sitting for just happened to have a bunker,
so her and the kid go in the bunker and

(48:35):
turns out they're keeping vampires down there nice and then
you find out that there's something down there that the
vampires are scared of.

Speaker 3 (48:44):
So if they're scared of something that we should be
very scared of them.

Speaker 4 (48:47):
Yeah, So there's a lot of real clausterphobic Like the
vampires are basically caged, so we don't want to let
them go, but they can do the telepathic thing, so
there's mind games, and there's the problem of risk, what's
happening in the outside world or stay here?

Speaker 3 (49:03):
And yeah, you know, I remember Bunker Dogs was being
It was pretty popular on both book Tube and book talk.
It's one of those books I keep meaning to read.
I really need to, I really need since you I
wrote it down here because if it's in your top three,
then I definitely need to read it.

Speaker 4 (49:26):
Yeah, I want It moved pretty quick, it was. You
get like two timelines too on it, so there's like
the current events and then you get these like flashbacks
in the girls background, which they don't make a lot
of sense right at first, and then once but the
way he pulls everything together was just like, OK, I'll.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
Go with this awesome, all right. So my top three
are The Southern Book Club's Guy Just Slaying Vampires by
Grady Hendrix. And one reason why this is on my
list is because it really reminded me of Fright Night
but in modern day suburbia with a commentary on women's rights,

(50:17):
and I absolutely loved it. Salem's a lot, of course,
I've read that one a couple of times and it's
always fun. But I love that movie that you mentioned,
the nineteen seventy nine I think it was movie adaptation
that was serialized on TV. And my top one I
have to go with Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice,

(50:38):
because that one I've read the most and I just,
you know, it kind of goes away. It's almost like
this these books could have influenced Stephanie Meyer from or
could have influenced her, because it's it's based on the
vampire's point of view, and of course they're all glamorous

(51:01):
and whatnot, and they're all beautiful, but there's just something
to the writing and the characters that pulled me in
every time. I love Louis. I love his sadness. I
love how he overcomes his sadness and triumphs in the end.
I love Lestat because he's such a little brat who's

(51:24):
like always ready to destroy everything just to serve his
own needs. And of course Claudia the Little Girls, she's
tragic character because she was turned as a child, right.

Speaker 4 (51:37):
And so terrifying.

Speaker 3 (51:39):
Yeah, and she was a terrifying little child vampire. And
it's just such a good story, man. I just absolutely
love it. It's very art too.

Speaker 4 (51:48):
I want, like not from the movie I want fan
art of There's that scene where Louis and Claudia this
when they find like the Theater of Vampires and they're
just She's curled up with him in like the carriage,
and I'm like, I want that picture.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (52:05):
Everybody's like, oh, well, you could have it, and it's like,
you don't understand. Like Kirsten Dunst did an amazing job,
but she was like ten or eleven, and Claudia is
like four years old in the books. This is this tiny,
little doll sized child doing this.

Speaker 3 (52:18):
Yeah, yeah, but she she did a good job though,
But yeah. Have you watched the recent adaptation of The
Vampire Chronicles on AMC. I think it is.

Speaker 4 (52:31):
I think I want to I'm really afraid to hate it.

Speaker 3 (52:37):
Yeah, you know, I went into it with the same
feelings and I wouldn't say I hated it, but it
really doesn't feel like the Vampire Chronicles at all, and
so I stopped watching it. It feels like its own thing,
And that's fine. It looks great and the acting's all
done very well, but it's just not It's not what

(52:57):
I'm looking for. I guess, you know. The actual The
first adaptation was brilliant. I thought it was like almost
it wasn't the book to a t, but it followed
it very, very faithfully.

Speaker 4 (53:10):
Yeah, and generally most of the places where they made
changes you could see why, versus some stuff it's like, oh,
we took the names and the idea and we made
this whole separate thing.

Speaker 3 (53:22):
Yeah yeah, yeah, So okay, So I guess that's that
wraps it up for us. I had a lot of
fun talking vampires with you. Thank you for coming on,
and I'm really hoping that we can stay in touch.
And I hope that you can just message me more
books so that I can check out, because that one

(53:44):
that you messaged me about you Can't Take It with
You by Marcus Hawk, that one could have made the
top three. Honestly, that was what I was thinking about
when I said, Okay, top three. First one I'm gonna
add is you Can't Take It with You, And then
I was like looking at all the other ones and
it was just like, oh, man, I can't. I just
can't do it.

Speaker 4 (54:03):
It's right at the top of my list with mine too.
I'm like, but I had I mean, granted, he's a
favorite author of mine anyway, but from getting into odd conversations,
like I knew what he liked in a Vampire two
and I was like, he's going to do this, He's
going to do this really really freaking well.

Speaker 3 (54:20):
Yeah he did too. Knocked out of the park. I
really love the themes in there, becoming something else, becoming
a feral beast, and then finding your humanity again. It
was just so brilliantly done, Like my God, so well done.
I need.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
It made me.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
Once I read that, I was like, Okay, I've got
to read The Miracles in the only reason that I haven't.
It's like five hundred pages and long books like that
tend to frighten me off a little bit, but I've
got to make the plunge y.

Speaker 4 (54:49):
It's not. It didn't feel as long as it was
when I was reading it. Like I love a chunky book,
but usually I have to be in the right state
that one. I picked it up and it starts off
a little bit ya, because Mason's like seventeen, you have
the I don't know what I'm doing after high school kid,
so you get like a basic introduction and the concept

(55:12):
there he survived. There was an earthquake like fifteen years
prior and Jerusalem sank into the earth and he's the
only survivor, so it kind of covers a little bit
of that, but it's just really naturally put into the world.
And then he goes to go do some stupid teenage
stuff and all hell breaks loose and I couldn't put
it down except for yelling that, of course there's a vampire.

Speaker 3 (55:39):
All right before we go? Is there anything else you'd
like to pimp, anything that you've got going on or
where people can find you.

Speaker 4 (55:49):
With me right now? I'm primarily I'll stay on TikTok
until it's not an option for me because it works
for my brain. But Facebook and Instagram I know how
to work the best until I figure out where I
want to be And everything is MK oldman, but there

(56:09):
is they Where did I made sure I wrote it
down so I don't screw up her name. I don't
know if you've run into Donna Taylor on book Talk,
but we've been mutuals like since I first started, and
she is about to do the cover reveal finally for
It's a ya series, but the sam Niko Slayers, okay,

(56:30):
and the first book will be called Blood on the
Boardwalk and She's another one that like die hard Lost Boys,
so it's going to be very much Lost Boys vibes
and nice. I've been watching her talk about this for
three years and it's a four or five book series.
Most of them are done, so, like I am, sometime

(56:50):
this week hopefully we get to see the new cover.

Speaker 3 (56:53):
Nice is it is the are any of the books
out yet?

Speaker 1 (56:56):
Are coming out?

Speaker 4 (56:57):
She's They're just about to start coming out. I've been
watching video after video on Details and Decisions for about
three years now, so I'm like, I'm dying and if
you're a Lost Boys fan too, that's worth checking out.

Speaker 3 (57:11):
Well, thank you so much. I'm definitely going to check
that out. And she's on TikTok right.

Speaker 4 (57:15):
Yeah, and I know ig I don't. I don't think
I found her on Facebook. I don't I Facebook for
so long.

Speaker 3 (57:25):
I'm going to look her up and follow her because
I want to. I want to check out this series.
If it's anything like Lost Boys. I have a real
soft spot for that. You know. I've read other Lost
Boys based horror fiction, things that were influenced by it,
and nothing really matches up to the original. But I'm
always willing to read more Lost Boys influenced stuff. All right, Well,

(57:49):
I want to thank everyone for coming and commenting throughout
the video and I want to thank you again Karen.
And you're invited to come back anytime, just let me yeah,
and uh bye bye everyone Bye,

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049 - Vampires with Karen (MK Oldman)

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