In the fashion of Disaster Movie, Date Movie, Scary Movie, Meet the Spartans, ect a new Twilight parody movie is set to come out on August 18. I skipped all the aforementioned movies (although Meet the Spartans appears to have some nice eye candy) but I think I will actually see this one…. at matinee prices of course.

The trailer is below and is actually quite funny IMO…. Jasper visualizing Bella’s face as a hamburger, running after her with knife and fork, the Chinese “takeout”. And good lord the Team Jacob gal at the end hitting the Team Edward girl in the face with a shovel!! LOL!

This show just premiered last night and to my surprise, it was an interesting show. The Gates is a private community for the well to do with large wrought iron gates and amped up security to protect its citizens. Inside is a self sustaining community with shops, groceries, and even its own police force.

Nick and Sarah Monohan move to the Gates so Nick can act as their new police chief. Just as he arrives we meet their next door neighbors, the Radcliffs. Claire Radcliff’s daughter runs into the street and is almost hit by a contractor who is driving through. The man hits their mailbox and injures his head so Claire invites him in. Claire is actually a vampire and the site of the blood causes her to bite and drain the poor man over the sink.

Thus police chief Nick gets his first real case when a deputy informs him of the accident and the fact that the contractor never left The Gates.

When Claire’s husband Dylan arrives home we see that he is a vampire too and he is very unhappy with Claire. They argue over Claire’s indiscretion and the fact that if they are discovered they will have to leave The Gates and their adopted daughter will not fare well among their kind. Mr. Radcliff and his wife drive the truck and the body out of the community, drugging the guard with cookies, and they set up the scene to look as though the contractor was attacked by wolves as he chugged beers by the lake.

Nick finds the whole thing suspicious and starts stalking their home in the wee hours of the morning only to be discovered by the Radcliffs… with Clair once again about to attack. This provokes another arguement between the two, during which Dylan tells Claire that she cannot endanger their daughter or she will have to leave.  Claire confesses that it is not about the blood. Rather it is about the hunt that is innate in her as a vampire and is denied as she lives the life of a suburban housewife with book clubs, PTA meetings, and the mundane.  She also blames her husband for making her what she is.

In other plot lines we also come to know the two Monohan children, including their teenage son Travis. Travis immediately takes a liking to a classmate at his new school, Andie Bates. Andie is a human girl who is dating a werewolf (Brett), though she doesn’t know it. Her mutual admiration for Travis becomes a problem for Brett and he starts to lose control… something his pack friends warn him he must never do.

The Gates it would appear is a large community of those with dark, paranormal secrets… vampires, werewolves, and witches… all trying to live life under the radar not knowing that the new police chief is already getting suspicious.

Al in all this was a pretty good premiere episode and I can see tuning in to this one some more. It is very Stepford-esque, except the Stepford wives are vamps and werewolves.

I give it 3 out of 4 Stepford Vampire Wives…

Looks like Sookie has fans all of sorts.. even Snoop Dogg is not immune to the Southern telepath. Here is a song and video by the artist called “Oh Sookie”. The video was shot, in part, on the True Blood set.

“Oh Sookie,” “Come and play on my team / we’ll do it in the daytime / Bill won’t know a thing.” Hilarious! Enjoy!

No Such Thing As Vampires is the pilot episode for Moonlight. In this episode we get the set up for the series and an intro to the characters that will run with this vampire drama. The pilot episode was frankly not anything that would wow an audience. The dialog was rushed and felt awkward at times. The background details felt like they were being piled on faster than we could handle them and the special effects were downright awful. The car scenes in particular looked like they were born of 1950s technology. The plot had been done before too. Moonlight is essentially the story of a vampire private investigator named Mick St. John who uses his supernatural gifts to atone for what he is and help humanity. He is romantically drawn to a lovely and very human blond reporter. This sounds just like Angel right?

Well, despite all of these things the pilot does what it meant to do… it hooks us. We become entranced by this soulful vampire Mick St. John and we want to delve into his past and give him a big teddy bear hug while he relates it to us. Within one hour we start to really care about this man.. or vampire rather. Even if the effects are bad and the story has been recycled we cannot help but be captivated by the character and the actor that plays him… Alex O’Loughlin.

We also pick up on the amazing chemistry between Mick and his love interest, Beth Turner and we can’t help but be taken by her smile and her enthusiasm for uncovering a good story. The audience is privy to the fact that she and Mick have a history that she is unaware of and we become anxious to know how that will turn out. More amazing chemistry is created between Mick and his best friend Joseph… automatically we see a great bromance brewing.

In this episode Mick and Beth are investigating the death of a college co-ed who appears to have been savaged by a vampire wannabe. The deceased was involved in a blood cult run by a college professor who either really thinks he is some form of vampire or just uses the concept to bed his students. Did he take the vampire concept too far or are his female minions turning on each other in a jealous rage? We get answers to these questions and we find out that Mick’s path to redemption actually began with Beth, 22 years previous, when she was a kidnapped child he was hired to find.

In the final scene, when Beth hugs Mick in appreciation for his heroic rescue, we see the a vampire who craves human touch but is afraid to seek it and be rebuffed. We see the makings of a truly fascinating couple and a great story. It becomes easy to forget the flaws and look beyond them to the magic that is Moonlight.

Came across this cool product from Fred & Friends today… Fang ice cube trays!! These would be perfect for vampire TV viewing parties, Halloween, or for drinking up that bottle of True Blood. Enjoy!

Here is a clip of a new scene from Eclipse in shows Bella and Edward in her bedroom discussing Bella’s future as a vampire. Good stuff!

This recap has spoilers, you are warned!

Over the weekend I saw the new vampire thriller Daybreakers with Ethan Hawke. A decade or so in the future, a plague has transformed much of the world’s population into vampires. Humans, if spotted, are rounded up and farmed for blood. The world though is experiencing a blood shortage as the farmed humans do not live long after being captured and there aren’t many left. Feeding on vampire blood causes bizarre mutations that cause you to lose all rational thought and the body itself mutates into something resembling a huge white bat. The sewers are overrun with these creatures and home invasions are becoming commonplace. When all the blood runs out everyone will share that horrible fate.

Hawke plays Edward Dalton a vampire hematologist that is trying to come up with a blood substitute to save the species. He also naively hopes that humans would be permitted to repopulate and join society again but the corporation he works for intends for them to become a rare delicacy for the rich instead. In a twist of fate he gets in a car accident one night and the passengers of the other vehicle (which is totaled) turn out to be human. As the police approach Edward allows them to get in his car and hide while he indicates to the police that they got out and ran.

Later on they find them in his home, believing that they can trust him. They give him instructions for a meet the next day but he doesn’t realize that his brother, who is a military man charged with hunting humans, overheard the exchange. The next day Edward meets Elvis (William Dafoe) who was a vampire for years before an accident unexpectedly cured him and turned him back into a human. Elvis was exposed to sunlight for a very short time before falling into a river that put out the fire. When he emerged from the water he was human.

Edward goes on the run with Elvis and Audrey ( the lady from the car accident) as his brother shows up with the army. They escape and Edward decides to see if he can re-create the “cure”, using sunlight and a pressurized wine tank to extinguish the resulting flames. It works and Edward once again become human.

In a clever twist Edward finds it will be easier than originally thought to spread his “cure” even if the vampires don’t want to give up immortality. This revelation will ensure that humans will once again get to repopulate on earth.

I thought this movie was excellent albeit very bloody. The story was clever and something I have never seen before and since I am a big vampire genre fan that is no easy feat. I would recommend this to paranormal/scifi fans and vampire fans alike.

OLDIES AND UNHUMAN - Purely deadly

In the old days, in Dracula and Dracula’s Daughter, vampires were sensuous and deadly predators. They were not three-dimensional personalities with emotions or a conscience. Bela Lugosi’s Dracula was suave, gentlemanly, sophisticated. Part of that sophistication was his inscrutability. He did not reflect upon the suffering he was creating and we knew nothing of his thoughts except for their cunning manipulations.

Not human

The amazingly chic Dracula’s Daughter also showed us no human qualities. She was a faultlessly dressed and coifed predatoress with no qualms about her mode of existence. The last thing she would do is spill her guts to a shrink about how difficult it is to be a vampire.

Not warm and fuzzy

When Dracula spoke about children, he was referring to wolves and their howls. “Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.” He is not a warm and cuddly vampire with paternal instincts. He is syrupy in his charm and poise, knowing the destruction that lies ahead.

TODAY’S TRENDS

Vampires with feelings

We now have new vampires. Ones with feelings. Of course there’s the hero, Edward Cullen in Twilight. He’s moody and darkly brooding but he lives a respectable life with his vampire family. He feels bad about sucking the life out of humans, so he channels his vampirism to animal flesh. He even jokes, “We think of ourselves as vegetarians.”

Buffy The Vampire Slayer is a stylish soap opera about teenage and young adult angst. The vampires of Anne Rice are aristocratic in their extreme sensibilities and sensitivity.

Outcasts integrated

The vampires in True Blood, thanks to a Japanese scientist’s invention of synthetic blood, have progressed from legendary monsters to fellow citizens overnight. Humans are no longer on the menu. The waitress Sookie Stackhouse is open-minded about the integration of vampires into human society instead of being the outcasts they are today.

Seeking to be understood

This kindly view of vampires fits in nicely with my own experience. I want the reader to understand that all the atrocities I committed were performed under compulsions that were stronger than my merely human conscience. I strive to give humans a glimpse of the down-side of being a vampire–not in terms of being outcasts from society, but in terms of the suffering they know they create, in their lucid, human moments.

How brave are you? Can you handle the truth? Then read the story of how I, Emma, a gifted, beautiful college freshman, become a vampire in Transdanubia and selfishly vampirize my three best friends for companionship in my nightly quest for human blood. We rampage through Hungary, Vienna, and New York, spreading the scourge…It’s all on my web site, http://Predatoress.com. Sip my Blood™ dessert wine dessert wine while reading it, for a double treat!

Source

Here is a funny article from USA today that compares the rules created for the vampire worlds of Bill (True Blood), Edward (Twilight) and Angel (Buffy). It highlights the differences in strength, weaknesses, how to kill, and what they eat, among other things.