Hideous Henchmen & Putrid Pals

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Hello Boils and Ghouls! The Thrift Keeper here (named for my devilish ability to find the Best Bargains among Blood-Curdling titles!), and today I'd like to talk to you about the importance of FRIENDSHIP.

The movie Renfield releases April 14, the story of a rather debonair man-shaped parasite and his groveling, bug-eating manservant. And it's also a story of friendship! You see, we creepy types have special challenges when it comes to making friends. We can't just publish a Personals ad in the back of a groovy magazine that says something along the lines of "loathsome personage seeks same for caterwauling shenanigans in moldering castles" or "lurking in the dark alone? Would you like a calamitous chum to help make the moonlight less appealing?"

I met my best fiend by lucky happenstance (no, not by slashing right on some gruesome friend finder app for glowering adults—even I'm not that decrepit!). I just so happened to be digging up a grave in the same cemetery as Salvatore, and we both groaned from exhaustion at the same time, eliciting a buoyant cackle of recognition. Isn't friendship a strange thing? Now we pal around all the time, going to Rollerball games and Bloodsport competitions, watching parades of the undead, or sometimes taking gentle, conversational strolls through beautiful forests and marveling at the various fluffy animals tearing each other to shreds. Even my Predatory Life-Mate (and possessed doll) Winifred approves of my new buddy (or as she puts it: "Why not? He's accident-prone. Maybe he'll kill you both!").

In Renfield, Nicolas Cage plays the Prince of Darkness Dracula, and from the trailer he looks pretty scary. Oh, he didn't have a terrifying dual man-bun like Gary Oldman in Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula, but still, he IS Nicolas Cage, and this isn't his first rodeo playing a neck-biter. Vampire's Kiss, anyone (actually, in that movie, he plays a man who IMAGINES he's becoming a vampire, but when it's Cage doing the imagining, it ends up being MORE scare-ifying than the real thing)?

Nicholas Hoult plays the title character. We'll have to wait and see how he does. Unless he really pulls a rabbit out of his hat, he'll have a tough time beating Tom Waits from Coppola's classic.

While we're jawing about vampires (fanging?), I thought I'd share some of my favorite batty flicks: The Addiction has the best description I've seen in a long time: "A New York vampire fights cravings for blood as she tries for her Ph.D. in philosophy"— and here I thought feeding on the lifeforce of others was a REQUIREMENT for getting a Ph.D. Fright Night is filled with all sorts of odd friendships, but my favorite is a worldly vampire and his buddy/manservant who happens to be filled with toxic green slime (I chastised Salvatore once for not being filled with toxic green slime, but then I went into a bathroom after he used it, and I started to question if that was true). And while we're talking buddies among creepy chums, we'd be remiss to forget the Hotel Transylvania series, where vampires, mummies, werewolves, and Frankenstein's monsters can hobnob. And speaking of Frankenstein, Young Frankenstein not only features a fantastic manservant but a crackling (forgive the lightning-pun) friendship between Dr. Frankenstein and The Monster! And how about Lestat and Louis as blood-sucking buddies on a wild tear through New Orleans?!

Criminal history has shown us that all sorts of frightful characters can find friendship in unexpected places and for all manner of horrendous reasons! Real life monsters such as Leonard Lake and Charles Ng, Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, Anne Perry and Pauline Parker (what's up with all the Perrys? And yes, I mean THAT Anne Perry!), Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, Frank and Jesse James, Leopold and Loeb, William Burke and William Hare, The Menendez Brothers, Aileen Wuornos and Tyria Moore, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, and Jason Burkett and Michael Perry (another Perry!).

So many pals doing putrescent things together! Anyway, I must bid you adieu. Salvatore and I have a bro-date at midnight to go wander around the village while gasping and gurgling and stopping only to dress all the local scarecrows in ballerina tutus (our little attempt at humor). Ta-ta!

Read more by Terry Fleming