NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The spooky aura of New Orleans offers a fitting atmosphere for Friday’s opening of the occult-themed Vampire Film Festival.
“There’s no better city on earth for this festival,” said Asif Ahmed, Los Angeles-based independent filmmaker and director of the four-day event just ahead of Halloween, showcasing international films, a vampire-themed ballet and discussions of vampire literature.
For decades, New Orleans was home to author Anne Rice, whose novels are credited with reviving interest in vampires.
“The genre has been around forever,” said Ahmed, “but Anne Rice made vampires beautiful and alluring and New Orleans was a big part of her inspiration.”
The city’s ties to the supernatural were well-established before Rice’s “Interview with the Vampire” (with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt) was filmed in the 1990s.
Buggy drivers captivate French Quarter tourists with tales of haunted Creole houses, and 19th-century voodoo priestess Marie Laveau lives on in pop culture.
So Ahmed said it was natural fit for the Vampire Film Festival. The event was last held in Los Angeles in 2004, drawing attendance of about 500, then went on hiatus.
“We’re hoping in New Orleans it will be a lot bigger,” said Ahmed, though he did not have attendance projections.
Mary Beth Romig, spokeswoman for the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau, said she hoped the festival would make New Orleans its permanent home.
Rice and Laveau are hardly the city’s only links to the occult.
The city’s spectral cemeteries have provided movie backgrounds for decades, and stories abound of haunted plantations. The Eddie Murphy film “The Haunted Mansion” was set locally.
Even the NFL’s New Orleans Saints have been touched by the supernatural, some say.
In 2000, the team faced the St. Louis Rams in a playoff. The Saints had never won a playoff game, so voodoo priestess Ava Kay Jones was hired to “remove” the curse on the Superdome. She showed up, complete with a massive snake.
Late in the game as the Rams were threatening to take the lead, New Orleans was forced to punt. Just before the play, the stadium screens flashed with a shot of Jones kissing the snake. Incredibly, a Rams player fumbled, the Saints recovered and they went on to win the game.
So New Orleans seems just the place for a festival of the weird.
More than 50 international films from directors in Japan, Spain, France, Australia, Canada and the United States will be screened, but not all are about vampires. They’ll also cover werewolves and other bump-in-the-night things.
Seattle-based filmmaker Jeff Ferrell’s short “Morella” — based on the Edgar Allan Poe story — is to be shown Sunday.
“New Orleans is so different from L.A.,” he said. “I’d much rather go to New Orleans, where the vibe and energy of the city will fit the genre of the festival.”
A ballet, Lisa Starry’s “A Vampire Tale,” will broaden the festival’s scope beyond film. Ahmed calls it “the Nutcracker of Halloween.”
The literary series includes best-selling writer Erin McCarthy — whose Vegas Vampires books include “High Stakes,” and “Bit the Jackpot.” Also participating will be graphic novelist Van Jensen, whose novel “Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer” will be released at the end of October.
“Our goal is to create a complete arts event,” Ahmed said.
 
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