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Deana: Having studied vampires myself a little bit for this comic book that we do called Delicious Drippings, a lot of the new vampires, who go to the goth clubs and that, say that if a vampire does not believe in Christ - that is, if they're atheist - that folklore no longer holds true. The crosses and that don't bother them; holy water doesn't affect them. I guess it depends on what you believe.
Karl: You have to look at the character. If there really was a vampire by the name of Tom Lane, and if he existed today, how could he exist? First of all in order to feed he would have to be amongst people. So to be out in the country or some castle somewhere… anything goes wrong they point the finger at you! Where in the city you get away with a lot more.
Jennifer: About ten years ago [for a documentary] I was trying to get permission to film in places like Penn Station and different public sites. How difficult was it for you to get cooperation, or did you just not ask?
Karl: Didn't ask.
Jennifer: So you didn't ask St. Benedict's or anything?
Karl: St. Benedict's, we did. But we had no permission to go into Penn Station, we had no permission to go to some of the other places.
Jennifer: I think that's funny, that the most cooperation you get for a vampire movie is from a church!
Karl: In New York City if you put a tripod on the ground you need a permit. If you carry a camera you don't need a permit. So we didn't use a tripod. That's how we got away with that… Actually a few years back I was going to do a documentary on Newark. See the tunnels that were discussed in [Ironbound Vampire] are true. Those tunnels do exist. They're under the Ironbound. There used to be a brewery on [a street not on a current Newark map] in Newark… During Prohibition they built tunnels that went underneath the streets through people's houses through their basements. To this day certain people in the Ironbound can go to their basement, open up a trap door in the floor and start walking around tunnels.
Jennifer: It's just like Chicago.
Karl: …I wanted to do a positive documentary on untold stories of Newark. One of the stories happens to be the tunnels. And there were a couple of other things I wanted in the [documentary]. I approached the Council of Newark. The head of the Council was Hank Martinez. He is from the Ironbound. I started explaining what I wanted to shoot… He says, "I think this is so terrific. Anything negative?" I said, "Absolutely not." So I went to see Mayor James. He had this public relations person, this woman who I guess fields everything before he gets to hear it. And she was nasty, vicious, belligerent, and practically threw me out of the office just for being there. She says, "What's the bottom line?" I says, "I just want to tell you what I'm doing. I have financial backing, I'm ready to shoot this thing." She'd throw her eyes up and shake her head, and she says, "Did you come here for a reason?"