99 things I learned from Dracula AD1972
1. If you pour some of Dracula’s ashes into a hole in the ground outside a church and then stick a wooden stake into the hole, the stake will still be there 100 years later. It will be in pristine condition, even though the church itself will be derelict.
2. If you gatecrash a posh party in Chelsea with a small group of hippy friends, the legitimate guests won’t try to eject you. They will simply sit there watching you dance on top of the piano.
3. When the host does eventually call the police you will be able to get out before they enter the house, even though they are pulling up outside before you start making your escape.
4. Rebellious young people in the early 70s didn’t take drugs or drink much alcohol, even during the evenings. They did go to black masses, though.
5. If you’re planning a black mass in an abandoned church you will only tell your mates about it a few hours before it’s due to take place.
6. If you are planning a black mass you should hold it on the Feast of Belphegor. It’s significant. God knows why, but it is.
7. If a weirdo you’ve only known for a few months invites you to a black mass in an abandoned church you will go along willingly, because it’ll be a giggle. Further, if he then invites you to lie on the altar and take part in a blood ritual, you will play along (unless your name is Jessica Van Helsing).
8. When the blood ritual takes a nasty turn and one of your best mates becomes totally freaked out and starts screaming hysterically, you will run off and leave her there alone with the weirdo. You will not call the police, neither will you at any point bother to go back to find out if your friend is alright.
9. If you enter a strange churchyard at night you will immediately notice your girlfriend’s name on one of the tombstones.
10. If your name is Jessica Van Helsing, your grandfather’s grandfather is your great-grandfather – not, as you might imagine, your great-great-grandfather.
11. As the world’s leading expert on vampires, your interest will naturally be piqued when you learn that one of your granddaughter’s friends – the weirdo who initiated the black mass after which a girl was found brutally murdered and drained of blood – has the surname Alucard. However, it will not be until later that night, when you have written out the name and then painstakingly reversed it using lines to connect up all the letters, that you realise Alucard is Dracula spelt backwards.
12. If you are a disciple of Dracula you will declare this fact to the world by changing your surname to Alucard.
13. You must wait exactly 100 years to resurrect Dracula.
14. Rebellious young guys in early 70s London often used to wear a monk’s habit for days on end.
15. You will be able to return unnoticed to the scene of a brutal murder the night after it was committed, as the police won’t have bothered to put a guard on it. They will, though, close down the coffee bar where you and your friends hang out and put a guard on that instead.
16. Don’t worry about that, though, as you can avoid the guard simply by going round the back and jumping over the fence.
17. If you want to take your girlfriend to the pictures you don’t need to tell her the name of the film you want to see. You just tell her that there’s a good one on.
18. The police were very short-handed in the early 70s. Only two detectives were assigned to multiple murder cases.
19. A crucifix will inflict a painful burn on a vampire if he touches it. However, should this actually happen to a vampire he won’t drop the crucifix, but instead will stare at it and hiss while it scorches into his palm.
20. Dracula himself isn’t so stupid. However, he does share the habit of staring at his hand after it gets burnt by a crucifix.
21. A 60-year-old man will be able to fight off a 25-year-old vampire.
22. Vampires are very clumsy and during a fight are quite likely to stumble backwards into a bath, turning the shower on in the process.
23. Showers are fatal to vampires. However, the only evidence of their toxic effect will be a small, Vaseline-like blister on the vampire’s cheek.
24. While in the process of dying under a shower, vampires will speak in a silly high-pitched voice.
25. Vampires leave the plug in their bath at all times.
26. When you turn on your shower your bath will instantly fill up with water.
27. The best way to kill Dracula is to dig a pit in the churchyard where he hangs out, plant a bunch of upturned stakes in it, and then camouflage it. You then lure Dracula into the churchyard and throw holy water into his face. Even though he has seen the pit full of stakes, Dracula will fall into it nevertheless, enabling you to finish him off by pushing him onto one of the stakes with a spade.
28. ....
If they move, kill em!