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BRAMARAMA Creating a festival in 2020 has been a
whitewater rafting exercise on the most challenging of cultural rapids. After numerous course alterations owing to the ever-changing restrictions, Bram Stoker bobs its head above water. Here is what we’re most stoked about! Walk with DracuHa! Declaration of deadly here, our editor is one of the co-producers of this self-guided audio walk. The curdling call-out was made to some of our finest scribes to recount, depict and imagine some horrors in the city. Expect horror hotlines, violent brides, goths, werewolves and – the most dreaded horror of all – scavenging seagulls as you make your way from O’Connell Street to Molly Malone. The sick ink is coming from humorists including Hannah Mamalis, Séamas O’Reilly, Sonya Kelly, Michael Fry and Tony Cantwell. En route, there will be visual interpretations of these tales by The Project Twins (Trinity College), Holly Pereira (GPO) and Lightscape (Barnados Square). The audio file for the tour will be available to download or stream from Friday October 30 via bramstokerfestival. com. Projections and animation will be visible 5-10pm each night. Create Macnas at home Macnas are the maestros of conjuring up giant imaginations and creatures to inhabit it. Their annual parade was one of the highlights of Bram but in times of a pandemic, while one may have to retreat indoors there remains no limits to our flights of fancy. The Boy Explorer will be on hand, via a series of online tutorials released during the October midterm, to help kids magic-up creatures for their own parades. On Hallowe’en, everyone is encouraged to upload their creations to social media using the hashtag #BramStokerMacnas, for the whole world to be spooked and raptured by. Listen to ETERNAL Eternal “I want you to believe… to believe in things that you cannot,” said Bram. Eternal is the creation of British theatre company Darkfield – who craft exceedingly popular, goosebumps-inducing, immersive at-home theatre experience. Eternal explores the quandary of eternal life and wonders what price you would settle for to achieve it. We’re not sure we’d be tempted to sign up for eternitybased on the shitshow of 2020 but we’re willing to find out. The suggested venue is your bed so you may want to quench your eternal flame at the outset too. Friday October 30 to Monday November 2, Daily at 5pm, 6pm, 7pm, 8pm & 9pm, €5 Watch I am NOT Legend Cult horror film Night of the Living Dead undergoes a radical reworking by Italian artist and filmmaker Andrea Mastrovito. Creating a screenplay composed entirely of quotes from famous films, books and other sources; it calls to mind Christian Marclay’s acclaimed The Clock where he looped a 24-hour video montage of scenes from film and television that feature clocks or timepieces. Mastrovito augments the film’s original frames to create a completely new story arc. His characters use the words and gestures of others to propel his narrative forward, which Mastrovito likens to how people communicate today via social media and memes – reusing and recycling quotes and images from other sources to comment on their own experiences. The accompanying score has been created by Matthew Nolan and Stephen Shannon. 9pm each night of the festival, access link sent with booking, €5 I AM NOT LEGEND MACNAS Bram Stoker Festival runs from Friday October 30 to Monday November 2 Full programme details at bramstokerfestival.com 59