Table of contents for Issue 105 October 2010 Halloween Special Issue in RUE MORGUE

I’m surrounded by Psycho. I go to a movie downtown and the theatre lobby has a mural featuring the film. I watch The Simpsons and see the relationship between Norman and Mother spoofed by Principal Skinner and his mom. I read a magazine article about the Clint Eastwood/Sergio Leone film A Fistful of Dollars and read a pull quote in which Eastwood says, “To me, Psycho was 30 times more violent.” While all this demonstrates the film’s pop culture staying power, it’s the Eastwood quote that I find the most intriguing. The star/director pairing of Eastwood and Leone was very similar to that of Anthony Perkins and Alfred Hitchcock in the way that both changed an entire genre by re-imagining it through violence – swift, brutal, nihilistic violence carried out…

Fresh off their work on Machete, makeup effects artists Doug Field and Susan Benson slip into an Austin hotel for a little downtime – and to fling some gory body parts around. The couple is there working with another Texas-based genre director, seventeen-year-old Emily Hagins, on her Twilight-inspired horror comedy My Sucky Teen Romance. Since the release of her zombie apocalypse-themed debut Pathogen in 2008, Hagins has progressed from papier mâché heads and homemade blood to effects that can go toe-to-toe with many multiplex scarefests. And it isn’t just that Hagins’ latest film boasts two of Rodriguez’s effects people, or has the director’s sister, Tina, in a role, that invites comparisons to the prolific independent filmmaker. “I’ve noticed that working with Rodriguez, Emily has the same kind of attitude,” Field…

TWENTY-THREE YEARS AFTER HITCHCOCK CHANGED THE COURSE OF HORROR HISTORY WITH PSYCHO, UNIVERSAL PICTURES LET LOOSE A LOW-BUDGET FOLLOW-UP THAT REMAINS ONE OF THE GREATEST HORROR SEQUELS EVER PRODUCED. BUT FOR THEN UP-AND-COMING SCREENWRITER TOM HOLLAND, IT WAS BOTH A DREAM PROJECT AND A DAUNTING PROSPECT. “It was a huge, huge challenge,” confesses Holland, who would go on to helm such horror hits as Fright Night (1985) and Child’s Play (1988). “I thought Psycho was maybe the greatest horror film I ever saw. Going in, it was impossible because you knew you were going to get savaged by the critics.” It was Holland’s suspense-filled scripts for ’80s minor cult classics The Beast Within and Class of 1984 that caught the eye of Psycho II’s director, the late Australian filmmaker Richard…

Xbox 360 Capcom Meet Chuck Greene and his preschooler Katey – they are about to become very important to you. So begins Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, a downloadable prologue to Dead Rising 2, which introduces players to their new hero (Chuck), the drug Zombrex (which Katey must be given every twelve hours in order to survive) and combo weapons (such as the drill bucket – a power drill attached to a pail, which turns undead noggins to mulch when jammed over a zombie’s head). It also serves as a deft refresher on gameplay, much of which has been retained from the first outing. Case Zero takes place in a small desert town over a twelve-hour period, during which you must find Katey her medicine, rescue survivors, reassemble a broken…

GHOST HUNTERS INTERNATIONAL Starring Robb Demarest, Andy Andrews and Barry Fitzgerald SyFy Overwhelmed by fascinating reports of ghosts from around the globe, Grant Wilson and Jason Hawes, founders of The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) and stars of the original Ghost Hunters, dispatch a second unit – Ghost Hunters International – from their Rhode Island headquarters to investigate. From Chillingham Castle, purportedly England’s most haunted, to Citadel Râsnov, deep in the heart of Transylvania, the new team, led by Robb Demarest, travels to three different continents to check out allegations of ghosts and ghouls wherever they go bump in the night. As with the original Ghost Hunters, the team approaches their work with as much scientific rigour as the field allows; even without their down-to-earth founders, they exude the same healthy…

ASSAULT OF THE SASQUATCH Starring Kevin Shea, Sarah J. Ahearn and Greg Nutcher Directed by Andrew Gernhard Written by John Doolan Synthetic Cinema As the title suggests, this is not a tear-jerking portrayal of the legendary creature nor a tension-building creeper. Indeed, it’s billed as an “assault” and that’s exactly what it is… on several levels. The premise is straightforward: a Sasquatch (a.k.a. Bigfoot) is ousted from the woods and forced to reckon with cityfolk. The movie wastes no time in making this happen as three sweaty bear poachers discover the angry beast in one of their traps. After the ’squatch knocks off two of ’em in grisly (or perhaps grizzly) fashion, it’s sequestered in a semitrailer by lead poacher Terry Drake (Kevin Shea), a Dukes of Hazzard Uncle Jesse-lookin’…

I HAVE A SPECIAL PLACE IN MY WITHERED HEART FOR MEIR ZARCHI’S I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE. Not only is the 1978 film a landmark exploitation work and arguably the most notorious entry in the rape/revenge subgenre, but nearly 30 years ago, it served as my introduction to both home video and extreme cinema. Camille Keaton stars as Jennifer, a budding author who rents a country cabin for a summer to work on her latest novel. She attracts the attention of a trio of local yokels and a dim-witted hanger-on who brutally attack her after she brushes off their advances. The centrepiece is the infamous 25-minute rape sequence, in which Jennifer is violated over and over. (Keaton’s fearless, full-frontal performance makes it absolutely harrowing to sit through.) Later, her character…

(DOWNLOAD THE MUSIC FOR FREE FROM HALLOWEENCAROLS.COM) 1. Have you heard of the Ghost of John? Long, white bones and the rest all gone! Oooooooh! Wouldn’t it be chilly with no skin on? 2. John belongs in a quaint nightmare. Wobbly jaw and a hollow glare! Oooooooh! Wouldn’t things look murky through sockets bare? 3. John is gone from feet to skull. Pointy elbows and clavicle! Oooooooh! Wouldn’t it be harsh to hug John’s fossil? 4. John’s not sad; he has had his day. Smile that’s fixed in a rigid way! Oooooooh! Wouldn’t frowning be hard when lips decay? 5. John once said, “I’ve lost my head!” Empty thoughts top his spine instead. Oooooooh! Isn’t it the truth now that he is dead? 6. Where’s the thumping of John’s red…

Sign up at RUE-MORGUE.COM. Email HAUNTS@RUE-MORGUE.COM UNITED STATES AMOK TIME 2949 Hempstead TPK Levittown, NY 516-520-0975 amoktime.com BERSAL’S CHOP OF HORRORS 1815 Trawood Space D El Paso, TX bersalschopofhorrors.com COLLECTORS CORNER 7911 Harford Rd. Baltimore, MD 410-668-3353 collectorscornermd.com CORNERSTONE COMICS 980 E. Orangethorpe Ave., Ste A Anaheim, CA DARK DELICACIES 4213 W. Burbank Blvd. Burbank, CA 818-556-6660 darkdel.com DIMENSION COLLECTIBLES 10 N. Main St. Ambler, PA dimensioncollectibles.net DREAMHAVEN BOOKS 2301 E. 38th St. Minneapolis, MN 612-823-6161 dreamhavenbooks.com THE HOUSE OF ODDITIES 421 Spring St. Jeffersonville, IN 812-285-1185 thehouseofoddities.com HORRORBLES 6731 W. Roosevelt Rd. Berwyn, IL 708-484-7370 horrorbles.com KEITH’S COMICS 5400 E Mockingbird Ln., Ste 120 Dallas, TX 214-827-3060 MONSTERS INK TATTOOS & PIERCINGS 3924 S. 51 St. Milwaukee, WI 414-545-6385 monstersinktattoos.com NIGHTMARE PRODUCTIONS 285 Derby St. Salem, MA 978-740-0500 nightmaregallery.com…

MORE BACK ISSUES AVAILABLE. SEE RUE-MORGUE.COM FOR A COMPLETE LIST.…

AFTER SEVEN WONDERFUL DAYS [at the Toronto After Dark Film Fest] I had the misfortune of sitting through a remake of the 1978 notorious exploitation movie I Spit On Your Grave. I was betrayed by the anger I felt after having watched this movie. I think that intense, heated emotions are the kind of reaction that director Steven R. Monroe was going for, and quite frankly, I don’t think this movie is deserving of such a response. Although it is polished and the cinematography is good, the controversy surrounding it is merely because of the extended sequence of sexual violence that befalls Jennifer Hills (Sarah Butler). Women have been treated like second-class citizens for centuries, and using rape as a vehicle for entertainment is both depressing and an outrage. There…

A ten-year-old British girl created an uproar this summer when she laid down and played dead while the Google Street View truck was photographing her neighbourhood. The images led some to believe that the cameras had captured the aftermath of a crime. In May 1998, while toasting director Wes Craven, famed producer Robert Evans (Rosemary’s Baby, The Godfather) collapsed from a stroke. Evans later reportedly quipped, “I really scared the shit out of the king of horror.” A contemporary Australian urban legend has it that if drivers accelerate to 111 mph on Lemon Tree Passage Road, between Newcastle and Sydney, they will find themselves pursued by a motorcycle-riding ghost, which is alleged to appear as a bright white light in the driver’s rear-view mirror. Brazilian soccer star Bruno Fernandes das…

“MY FIRST REACTION WAS, ‘OH, GOD, WHAT DO YOU DO WITH PSYCHO III?’” RECALLS CHARLES EDWARD POGUE OF LEARNING HIS SCREENPLAY FOR DAVID CRONENBERG’S REMAKE OF THE FLY HAD CONVINCED UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HE WAS THE MAN TO ESCORT NORMAN BATES AND HIS MURDEROUS MATRIARCHAL ALTER EGO BACK TO THE BIG SCREEN. Pogue began his journey by revisiting Alfred Hitchcock’s definitive 1960 shocker. “I had only seen the original movie once,” he recalls. “I knew it was a good movie; I now realized it was a great movie.” A screening of 1983’s Psycho II provoked a more mixed response: “I thought it was a better than average sequel, but I didn’t care for the pandering to the dead-teenager crowd and I didn’t like it messing with the original mythology.” That film…

HALLOWEEN WOULDN’T BE COMPLETE WITHOUT A GLOWING PUMPKIN ON THE FRONT PORCH, GLOWERING AT TRICK-OR-TREATERS, BUT DID YOU EVER WONDER HOW THIS RITUAL BEGAN? While the carving of gourds into ornately decorated lanterns dates back thousands of years to Africa, the most widely held theory on the origin of the jack-o’-lantern is that it was derived from a popular Irish folk tale about a miserly blacksmith known as Stingy Jack. Though the story has undergone many permutations over the years, folklore has it that Jack was stumbling back from a pub one Hallow’s Eve when he ran into the Devil himself. He agreed to make a bargain for his soul in exchange for one last drink before he went to Hades. Being a bit of a tightwad, Jack asked the…

EAT. PREY. LOVE. PIRANHA 3D Starring Steven R. McQueen, Elisabeth Shue and Jerry O’Connell Directed by Alexandre Aja Written by Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg Dimension A lot of stuff gets chewed up in Piranha 3D – skin, muscle, eyes, a penis, even Richard goddamn Dreyfuss! – but mainly any pretense that this movie should be taken too seriously. The plot for Alexandre Aja’s version may be different from Joe Dante’s (Roger Corman-produced) 1978 original, but Piranha 2010 sticks to the formula that made the original so much fun: blood, babes and boating mishaps. At the centre of the action is Jake Forester (Steven R. Mc-Queen, Steve McQueen’s grandson), a gawky teen living on Victoria Lake, the spring break party destination for tens of thousands of hormonal, keg-sucking shit-heads. His…

RUBE BLOOD INBRED REDNECK VAMPIRES SRS Cinema If you’re like me, you’re not easily dissuaded by incredibly ludicrous titles such as this one (a.k.a. Bloodsucking Redneck Vampires) and prefer reading the synopsis on the back of the box to get the lowdown. That’s where you’ll discover that this movie also features strip poker, beer drinking, shower peeping, bean eating, competitive farting and so much more. Set in the hick town of Backwash – where a vampire is trying to create an army out of the local in-breds – this is an extremely funny film that utilizes just about every derogatory Southern stereotype out there. And if that doesn’t pique your interest, it also features a standout performance by a midget named Cletus (Bill Bradford) who had me laughing until…

I bid you all welcome to the basement at this most wonderful time of the year. Are you sitting comfortably? No? Good. Let’s begin. Big shocker: there’s no accurate Danish translation for the Japanese word kaiju. Fair enough, there isn’t really a satisfactory one in English either. “Strange monster” is the term that comes up as often as not, and fair enough, that does describe Godzilla, Gamera, Rodan and King Ghidora to a certain degree. Going on the assumption that Google’s translation app is even halfway accurate (and halfway is about as good as it gets most of the time), that sobriquet comes back in Danish as mærkelige monster, which may explain why it never caught on over there. But what’s in a name? The Bard may have posed that…

BUILD YOUR OWN B-MOVIE ☠ MATHESON’S MINIONS ☠ SHEDDING LIGHT ON NIGHT THE FILMMAKER’S BOOK OF THE DEAD Danny Draven Focal Press Should you take advice from a hack? Mentored as he was by low-budget film guru Charles Band of Full Moon Films, horror moviemaker Danny Draven (Ghost Month, Deathbed) undoubtedly knows how to make films fast and cheap, having edited 34 of them and directed six. But the fact that none of the movies he has helmed have scored higher than a 3.7 on the IMDb would suggest that while he can make films, he’s not very good at it. That does not mean, however, that he can’t write about the experience, something he does quite engagingly in The Filmmaker’s Book of the Dead. Aspiring auteurs tempted to get…

WHAT DO YOU GET WHEN YOU COMBINE A GUTTURAL LOVE OF ZOMBIES AND AN INEXPLICABLE PUBLIC OBSESSION WITH CELEBRITY GOSSIP? Ask Rob Sacchetto, the monster-maker behind Zombie Portraits (zombieportraits.com) who, since 2006, has created over 900 original paintings that depict you and your loved ones (yes, he does couples shots) as flesh-hungry undead. Now releasing his second book, Zombiewood Weekly: The Celebrity Dead Exposed, Sacchetto displays his talent for high-detail (undead) portraiture by turning his brush on the rich and famous. Using watercolour, ink and honest-to-goodness White-Out (for maggoty detailing) Sacchetto created over 60 pages of zombie mock-ups of dozens of tabloid heavy-weight– Britney Spears, Brangelina, Paris Hilton and Mel Gibson are among the throngs – in iconic poses, only with more gore than glam. The book is rounded out…

SOUNDTRACK PIRANHA 3D Michael Wandmacher LAKESHORE RECORDS Michael Wandmacher’s latest work focuses on a community’s sense of being under siege by fishy elements, but unlike My Bloody Valentine 3D, it uses no central themes for misunderstood characters or wanton lovers – just a mélange of dissonance. A simple four-note motif slowly evolves into a full “End Titles” theme, but the bulk of Piranha 3D is comprised of brass and gliding metallic sounds for the dining sequences, and low strings for moments where humans are wandering too close to the danger zone. Wandmacher does add a few ephemeral bits of tranquility, such as the tender strings in “Rescue,” but any peace is usually smothered by aggressive emulations of gnashing orchestral sounds. The album does have a narrative flow, and while not…

“I want to be haunted by the ghost.”–THE POGUES Spiders don’t scare me. Neither snakes, nor even the threat of serial killers in the night. No, what terrifies me are roller coasters. Never have I strapped myself in for the thrill of high-speed twists and turns and loop-de-loops. Which means when I visit an amusement park, I spend most of my time scoping out the haunted houses. And there is no greater spookhouse than Disney’s Haunted Mansion. It even has its own theme music. Opened in 1969 at Disneyland in California and since spread to parks in Florida, Paris and Tokyo, the Haunted Mansion is a high-tech walk (and ride, in its customized “DoomBuggies”) through a Gothic mansion filled with special effects spectres and ghastly gags. To complete the experience,…

What do you get when you take one of the biggest directors in Hollywood, add an Oscar-nominated actor and introduce some aspiring filmmakers with a penchant for dead animals? Easy: Zombie Roadkill, a new web series from Sam Raimi’s Ghosthouse Pictures, featuring Thomas Haden Church and some taxidermied forest creatures. “It’s basically about a group of kids who are on their way to the lake in the middle of summer and they run over a squirrel and the squirrel comes back to life and attacks everyone in the car,” explains director David Green. “Then it’s up to the youngest person in the group, Simon, to save his older brother and his older brother’s friends. There’s a lot of adventures and it’s kind of a coming-of-age story. He’s going up and…

1 PSYCHO HOUSE $24.99 Mother says a boy needs a hobby to pass the time; take a break from stuffing the local wildlife and have a crack at building your own Bates Mansion from this detailed model kit. The windows light up, and it even comes with a “Mother” figure to oversee the whole operation from the second storey. Check in at entertainmentearth.com. 2 ZOMBIE WRAPPING PAPER $5.99 Holiday shopping may be more of a pain in the neck than your average sparkly vampire, but at least your gifts’ll have a spooky stamp on them with this zombie wrapping paper. Forget labels, everyone will know which parcels are from you – even if they don’t ooze or reek of sulphur. Wrap your brain around it, or in it, at thinkgeek.com.…

BEGINNING WITH THE WHAT-DO-WE-DO-WITH-THIS-CADAVER COMEDY THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY IN 1955, BERNARD HERRMANN SCORED EVERY ALFRED HITCHCOCK FILM UP TO AND INCLUDING MARNIE (1964), AND THEIRS REMAINS THE MOST REMARKABLE COLLABORATIVE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A DIRECTOR AND COMPOSER. HITCHCOCK MAY HAVE FELT HE HIMSELF WAS SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ARCHITECTURE OF HIS COMMERCIAL BRANDING, BUT PSYCHO PROVED HOW MUCH HERRMANN CONTRIBUTED TO THE SUCCESS OF “AN ALFRED HITCHCOCK FILM.” Dubbed “black and white music,” Herrmann’s all-string score was written over Christmas in 1959, as Hitchcock was having doubts about the film’s artistic viability. Paramount, it seems, didn’t like the movie, and according to Steven C. Smith’s 1991 Herrmann biography, A Heart at Fire’s Center (University of California Press), the director was seriously considering hacking it down to an hour for TV.…

BEING TAGGED TO HELM A SEQUEL IN A WELL-ESTABLISHED HORROR FILM FRANCHISE TYPICALLY PRESENTS A GREAT CAREER OPPORTUNITY FOR ANY NEOPHYTE DIRECTOR OR SCREENWRITER. BUT WHEN THE STAR OF THE SHOW IS LESS THAN COOPERATIVE – PRIMARILY BECAUSE HE WAS DENIED THE OPPORTUNITY TO DIRECT THE FILM HIMSELF – THINGS CAN GET A BIT THORNY. Case in point: following the box office and critical failure of 1986’s Anthony Perkins-directed Psycho III (widely regarded by even the most forgiving fans as the worst entry in the series), Universal staunchly refused to put Perkins in charge of the next installment, opting instead for the then-considerably lesser-known Mick Garris for 1990’s TV movie Psycho IV: The Beginning. Despite an impressive array of experience wearing multiple hats in many areas of both feature film…

Eric Powell’s rough-and-tumble pastiche of classic horror, Depression-era gangster melodrama and old-school pulp adventure is anything but predictable. Since the first self-published issues caught the attention of Dark Horse in 2003, the giddy, bawdy mood of the early storylines has given way to heartrending melancholy such as 2007’s “Chinatown and the Mystery of Mr. Wicker.” According to Powell, that evolution in tone is no accident. “[The tone] will continue to change,” says the writer/artist. “I never want The Goon to be predictable, become stale. I created the book so I would be able to tell whatever type of story I felt like telling. No boundaries.” To that end, Powell is hesitant to even label The Goon a horror comic, often referring to it as a “dark comic” instead. “It has…

FEW CINEMATOGRAPHERS HAVE HAD SUCH A HIGH SUCCESS RATE AS FIVE-TIME OSCAR NOMINEE OWEN ROIZMAN. Along with The Exorcist, Roizman’s credits include The French Connection, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The Stepford Wives, Network and Tootsie, plus various collaborations with directors as diverse as Woody Allen, Sydney Pollack, Robert Redford and Lawrence Kasdan. Roizman, who’s featured prominently in the new documentary features on Warner Bros.’ Blu-ray release of The Exorcist details capturing evil at 24 frames-per-second. Friedkin has described his filmmaking style from that period, which includes The Exorcist and The French Connection, as “induced documentary.” Is this accurate? As far as The Exorcist goes, we never talked about a documentary look. We just talked about making it look real, with the intent that if you keep it…

SAW (JAMES WAN) Jigsaw (John Kramer) starts his reign of terror with two men chained to a wall, two rusty saws, a convoluted conspiracy and that pig mask. Watch out for “dead” bodies – you just never know. BODY COUNT: 7 SICKEST TRAP: Head-exploding jaw trap. BELL: “What drew me to it is that I thought that the script was rather Waiting For Godot-like. Three guys locked in a room? Come on, I hadn’t seen that before. I wasn’t concerned that my guy didn’t say anything, it didn’t matter, he was this presence on the floor. When I got to the end of the script, I did not anticipate what was going to happen. And I thought if I don’t anticipate this moment, then the viewer’s not going to anticipate…

GIVEN THE INCREDIBLE SELECTION OF TOYS AND COLLECTIBLES CURRENTLY ON THE MARKET, it’s hard to believe that prior to the early 1960s there were hardly any horror-related toys available for monster-obsessed youngsters. Horror films were still primarily considered adults-only fare, and it wasn’t until the late 1950s that television airings of classic Universal monster movies and the creation of influential genre magazines such as Famous Monsters of Filmland and Castle of Frankenstein allowed horror to become more kid-friendly and, therefore, ripe for merchandising. Spurred by this newfound interest in monsters, Aurora Plastics Corporation – a hobby company known for its line of plastic model kits that included aircraft and knights in armour – gave budding Dr. Frankensteins a chance to build their own creation when they released a Frankenstein Monster…

ONE OF THE GREAT CHARMS OF HORROR IN BOTH FILM AND LITERATURE IS THAT IT’S BROAD ENOUGH AND FLEXIBLE ENOUGH TO SERVE AS A BACKDROP FOR TALES THAT MIGHT JUST AS EASILY BE TOLD OUTSIDE THE GENRE. In fact, no less an icon than John Carpenter has stated more than once that, in spite of the pitfalls of being “typed” as a horror director, it has at least allowed him to dabble in comedy, drama, sci-fi, action-thrillers, modern-day westerns and even the odd love story while remaining within its framework. The 1980 made-for-TV cult favourite Dark Night of the Scarecrow, directed by Frank De Felitta (The Entity) and scripted by J.D. Feigelson (One of the Missing), is another example of the genre’s thematic versatility, in that it occasionally brings to…

A friend of mine once admitted that he didn’t care for modern vampire stories because he believed that most of them were simply reworkings of the classic Dracula tale. While that may have been true a decade ago, many fresh revisions to the vampire mythos have recently propelled the creatures of the night far beyond Bram Stoker’s original vision. Scott Snyder’s American Vampire is the latest entry to add new spokes to the vampire wheel. Like my friend, Snyder was a fan of the genre but wanted to see something different done with the bloodsuckers. “What makes vampires scary for me is that they’re the people you know and love turned into murderous, undead versions of themselves,” the 34-year-old writer explains. “I wanted to make a vampire that was indigenous…

Where I grew up, in rural Ontario, if you wanted to see a haunted house at Halloween time, you had to make one yourself. The type of professional – hell, even semi-professional – haunts that pop up on the outskirts of American towns each October were nowhere to be found. So, I know that my twelve-year-old self would have lost her mind at Canada’s Wonderland Halloween Haunt. In fact, my adult self was pretty impressed too. Canada’s Wonderland, a 1.3 km² park located just north of Toronto, is the country’s pre-eminent amusement park, a kind of Canuck Disneyland. Many a Toronto-area kid’s summer has been spent queuing up to ride the rollicking wooden Wild Beast coaster. (Or working it.) And, since 2005, Wonderland has celebrated the season of tricks and…

HORROR GAMING ON FACEBOOK Social networks are here to stay, and these days, social network gaming is big business – just look at the hundreds of thousands of users who play Farmville and Mafia Wars, spending real-life dollars to buy additional in-game items. But what’s out there for horror fans who have little interest in raising livestock or avenging crime family vendettas? Rue Morgue takes stock of some of the most popular genre games on Facebook. VAMPIRE WARS Yes, Zynga, the company behind the mega-popular Farmville and Mafia Wars also has something for horror fans. Vampire Wars is essentially a point-and-click, text and static image-based game in which you create a vampire avatar, embark on grim missions, level your character, dominate minions, fight other players’ blood-suckers, play mini-games – and…