A Vampire a Day: L.A. Banks' Vampire Huntress Legend series

One of the things that has always bugged me about vampire stories is that most of them are about white male vampires. Most of the mythos in these books is derived from Eastern Europe and except for a few things, hasn't really changed since Bela Lugosi first donned his cloak,. Where are the Chinese vampires? Where are the Turkish vampires? Where are the African vampires?
You can find some African-American vampires on screen. (Essence Magazine put together a gallery of their favorites from Vonetta McGee to Eddie Murphy to Grace Jones.) But there are still not that many black blood-suckers stalking the pages of paranormal romance novels.

A handful of authors have multi-racial casts, but as often as not, they get tagged  "urban," as if vampires, like actors who play James Bond, have to be white. (Seriously, for a while there the rumor was that Idris Elba was in the running to be the next James Bond and that would have brought a LOT of people back to the franchise, including me. Although I'd also like to bring Judi Dench back. Maybe as a vampire.)

A Vampire a Day: Vamp

I have a theory about vampire movies and the lackluster performance of 2014's Vampire Academy bears it out. I don't think audiences really like comedy blended with their vampire stories. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a hugely successful television series but the movie it was based on only made $16 million domestically and was never released overseas.
Vamp was a movie I saw one weekend when my roommate and I scooped up a ton of videos more or less at random because our local video store was already out of all the new releases. I wasn't expecting much, frankly, but as it turns out, I was pretty entertained. for one thing, Grace Jones as the vampire was both sexy and scary. For another, some of the comedy really worked. (I particularly liked amoment when a character gets staked through the heart but doesn't die because it's formica and not wood.) Robert Rusler as Chris Makepeace's hapless friend was darkly handsome (yes, I can be shallow), and Gedde Watanabe starred as well. Billy Drago and Sandy Baron also co-starred and were perfect.
If you're looking for something pulpy and silly to watch one Halloween night, check out Vamp.