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Written By: Ken Hulsey The former London Lyceum Theatre manager Bram Stoker is often credited with creating modern vampire lore through his 1897 novel Dracula. However, contrary to popular belief, Dracula was not a successful novel and is not considered an important work in Victorian literature, despite inspiring countless films, TV series, books, and plays. While it is a common notion that Stoker's inspiration for the vampire character was the infamous Vlad III Dracula ("Vlad the Impaler"), most scholars agree this is not the case. Stoker did discover the name "Dracul" (meaning "Dragon") while studying Romanian history, which he used for his vampire character, but the connection ends there. Stoker's main inspirations actually came from earlier vampire stories such as Emily Gérard's "Transylvania Superstitions" (1885), Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla" (1871), John Polidori's "The Vampyre" (1819), and Lord Byro...

In the 1950s and 60s the UK film studio, Hammer Film Productions, made a name for itself by making modern (for the time) remakes classic movies like "Dracula", "Frankenstein " and "The Mummy" along with numerous sequels, dinosaur films and an occasional sci fi epic. These films turned both Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing into international icons. As the decades passed, the market for campy horror began to fade and the studio found itself making their films racier and racier in an attempt to keep up with the times and lure more people into movie theater seats. These more erotic takes on classic horror themes, proved initially profitable, but ultimately lead to the studios demise. Seems that movie goers of the time preferred a good fright to naked women. In 2009 Marcus Hearn cast a spotlight on the unsung heroines of these now iconic horror films in his book, "Hammer Glamour." The cover of the book features a rather titular photograph of ...