Jason Henderson digs vampires. He digs their graves.
“Our organization,” explains Henderson, “is ostensibly a gigantic, well-funded, UN-connected, black-ops operation made up of former military people operating out of a military base in Winter Park, Colorado.” Headed by Veronica “Ronnie” Van Helsing, the organization, known as the Polidorium, has aligned itself with no less than Dracula, ex-sanguinator supreme and cad-about-town, to battle the Nephilim, the fallen angels who brought about this whole vampiric mess in the first place.
At least, that’s the premise of Sword of Dracula, the comic book that local writer Henderson cooked up with artist Greg Scott that debuts this fall from Image Comics. Take it from us: We know our vampire comics, and this one doesn’t suck. That’s Dracula’s job.
Henderson, who clearly knows his fanger history even better than we do, is hosting Dracula Night at the Alamo this Friday, which works as both a sort of pre-release push for Sword … and a perfect excuse to spend an evening sipping the Alamo’s house merlot while being deluged by all things pointy and dental and red. Henderson knows there’s nothing like that first freshet of gore spurting from a severed artery to make you really appreciate life, so he’s packed the bill with everything from John Badham’s quasi-erotic Dracula, with Frank Langella (he crawls!), to Ricky Lau’s Hong Kong vampire epic, Mr. Vampire 2 (he hops!), and then caps off this cinematic crimson tide with the “hot lesbian vampire action” of Daughters of Darkness (they snog!).
The Alamo Drafthouse Downtown hosts Dracula Night on Friday, July 25, at 7pm. Tickets are available at www.drafthouse.com.
Sword of Dracula can be previewed at www.swordofdracula.com and www.jasonhenderson.com.
This article appears in July 25 • 2003.