Blood Predatoress

I can’t pass this one up… this takes vampire-hood into the rarified heights of presidential history books… or does it?

Because…

Rumor has it that Tim Burton will be tackling another novel, “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” together with Timur Bekmambetov and Jim Lemley. They are to be the producers for the film, as they did for the first time on “Coraline.”

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As reported by Yahoo: “Lincoln’ reimagines one of the great U.S. presidents as an axe-throwing, highly trained vampire assassin, promising to give new context to real historical events such as the Civil War and Lincoln’s ascension to the White House. It begins with his mother’s murder when he was still a young boy and his vow of revenge.”

Although no location has been set yet, Burton and Bekmambetov are reported to be ready to get the ball rolling. Burton’s latest film, “Alice in Wonderland” hit theaters March 5 and racked up $115 million in its first week.

A wonderfully wicked treat, that movie.. don’t miss it!

I find this tidbit quite amusing. Trust so will you.

There are over 925 kinds of bats, but the only real vampire bats are in Central America and the northern part of South America, NOT in Transylvania or Hungary. They are a little over two inches long, weigh a couple of ounces and they don NOT suck blood. Instead they make a small slit with a razor-sharp tooth, they insert some saliva that contains a non-coagulating substance, and they lick the blood from the small slit in the victim. The victims are usually large mammals, such as a horse, cow, and yes, even a human. The vampires come only at night and usually the victim never realizes he has been attacked….

photo credit: Design Haus

The little critters usually fly along the ground before lighting on their victim. They navigate not by sight, but by a sort of radar, bounding sounds off objects. To achieve flight, they make a powerful leap into the air.

Vampire bats can only live two or three days without drinking blood, which is their only food supply. They do not have the traits that are well-known to the mythical vampire fans, such as not reflecting their image in a mirror, dying if caught in the sunlight and they don’t live in coffins or drive Porsches.

Usually they are nocturnal, so you can find them in dark woods. They are also sometimes called goatsuckers, because in olden times, people believed they fed off the milk of goats at night.

By the way, if you go to see the movie Avatar, you’ll lay your eyes upon some of the strangest creatures ever, in 3D….

How many vampire mystery romance novels appeared on the New York Times hardcover fiction best-seller list in the last decade? Can you remember? Guess? Certainly, Charlaine Harris’s Dead and Gone was one of my early reads and favorites. It was a first for the author who had published 26 novels in nearly thirty years. Ms. Harris did nevertheless find her voice and her audience’s ear with the Sookie Stackhouse character in nine novels to date, didn’t she? Without doubt she deserves acknowledgement for her perseverance and stick-to-it-ism!

The formula of small-town life regularly disrupted by the supernatural world — and some mind-blowing sex with vampires — has propelled her through nine Sookie novels. Living through a “normal day” is the kind of juggle that is familiar to Sookie, the telepathic human barmaid, who narrates the novels and lives in the fictional small town of Bon Temps, La., amid an ever-expanding cast of vampires, shape-shifters, fairies and witches.” Ms. Harris, a deep Southerner by birth, located and modeled Sookie after a time and a place that she is familiar with.

According to her, “…she decided to try something new. She had always wanted to write about vampires. From the outset, she wanted to set the story in the prosaic trailer park and strip-mall landscape of northern Louisiana, to distinguish it from the gothic opulence of Anne Rice’s New Orleans.” Obviously the distinction caused no damage. Being so much based in reality, Charlaine Harris is attuned to and influenced by mundane occurrences, experiences and impressions of everyday life, which help her to expand on her novels’ characters and plots. Noting esoteric, thought provoking musings, just the stuff of daily life. Sookie has the power to read and comment on the most sordid thoughts of others as a way of giving consideration to the veil of courtesy that permeates small-town Southern living. Vampirism, that seems to find a habitat everywhere these days, have found a very comfortable home in this milieu.

Guess what? The books have also spawned True Blood the HBO adaptation created by Alan Ball, of Six Feet Under fame. The first season of the series, which roughly followed Dead Until Dark, became the cable network’s most popular show since The Sopranos and Sex and the City.

A veritable pop-vamp phenomenon, isn’t it? Wonder when, where, and how it will all end? Are the Undead being their own undoing?

Sam Worthington is, supposedly, in talks with Universal Studios to play Dracula in the upcoming Dracula: Year Zero movie.

Let’s get this straight: from a good marine metamorphosed into a world-saving avatar turned into a world-destroying vampire… how will THAT play for Sam and you?

Anyway it’s no surprise that Worthington is in the running, together with Ryan Reynolds or Robert Pattinson, is it? You should pretty much expect that their names are going to be attached to any big role that comes along.

Dracula: Year Zero is an original take on Dracula, telling the story of, “Vlad the Impaler,” the Wallachian prince. According to Bloody-Disgusting, “It depicts Dracula as a flawed hero in a tragic love story set in a dark age of magic and war, repositioning him more as a vengeful hero than the monster seen in Bram Stoker’s classic novel.”

So, what will a new take on Dracula be like?

The movie reportedly has a budget of over $100 million; by comparison, Universal spent over $150 million on its new Wolfman movie (yowza!), but I imagine the special effects needed to create the actual Wolfman were much more costly than what you would need to put Dracula on-screen. Not unless they’re going for some CGI version of the bloodsucker…

Dracula: Year Zero is said to be one of eight films that Universal needs for 2011. With the success of the Twilight franchise, as well as vampires being popular on TV with True Blood and The Vampire Diaries, it’s no surprise Universal would want to choose the movie they already have a script and director for, which is about vampires. Recent attempts to bring Dracula to life have been unsuccessful with examples being Blade: Trinity (one of THE worst excuses for a vampire flick) and Dracula: 2000 where Gerard Butler portrayed the character. Can Universal revive arguably the most famous horror character of all time and draw in audiences? We’ll have to wait and see.

Would you like to see Sam Worthington play Dracula? Are you looking forward to a new take on the character? And can the project play off of the current vampire mania to become a success?

There’s no official release date set for Dracula: Year Zero but it looks to be slated for a release sometime in 2011.

That’s at least one more year in the Twilight zone… nuff already! Can’t my kind have peace, ever???

So it’s true… you CAN become young again via vampirism….

photo credit: Divine Harvester

Recent research by a Howard Hughes Medical Institute team found that through exposure to “young” blood cells, bone marrow stem cells start to act young again as well.

The researchers have not yet isolated the blood-borne factors that can switch old stem cells back to a more youthful state. Their results, nevertheless, are consistent with other recent studies that show stem-cell aging may be reversible.

Together, these results suggest that it might one day be possible to boost the practical lifespan of stem cells, and thereby increase the body’s resistance to disease and age-related degeneration, EVEN WITHOUT US, my current and former vampire sisters and brothers.

As a former Undead, I do laud this latest development!

Reality has a way to catch up with you. How many ways can the same vampire story be told? How many times? With how many distortions, half-truths, and sex thrown in, to make it a mass consumption phenomena? How much can you write about this without becoming repetitious? Is there anything worse than a boring Undead, former or present?

This is another way of saying that while I’m keeping this blog going, I will only post irregularly, when I’m absolutely certain it is worth your time to read and mine to write. I’m involved in a number of other projects. One of them could lead to a sequel to Predatoress. I haven’t decided yet.

With love (real, not that blood-soaked variety) and appreciation to each one of you, my blog members and readers, I remain

Your eternal Emma, the Predatoress

by Staff, Brand Republic 11-Dec-09, 12:15

LONDON – ITV and Warner Bros are to make the hit US show ‘The Vampire Diaries’ available to buy on Apple’s iTunes at £1.89 per episode before it broadcasts the series on ITV2.

The drama, which airs on the CW network in the US, has been a smash hit with its stories of brooding vampires, drugs, drinking and sex.

The show, sold to ITV by CW’s parent Warner Bros, is not due to be broadcast on British television until February, but episodes are being made available while it is still airing in the US as part of an effort to fight online piracy and satisfy fans of the L. J. Smith-written books on which the series is based.

Josh Berger, president and managing director, Warner Bros. Entertainment UK, said: “We’re committed to providing our shows with the best possible launch platform. This highly innovative approach to releasing ‘The Vampire Diaries’ gives us and ITV2 the chance to maximise excitement ahead of its UK premiere in February, and provides consumers with a high-quality legal alternative to pirated versions.”

The first episodes will be made available this Friday at a standard price of £1.89 and £2.49 for the high definition version. The show is only half-way through its 22-episode run in the US, having debuted on September 10.

‘The Vampire Diaries’ tells the story of two vampire brothers – one good and the other bad – as they compete for the attentions of a high school girl Elena Gilbert (played by Nina Dobrev). Elena, like Bella from ‘Twilight’ and Buffy from ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ before her, has to deal with teenage life in a town where supernatural events take place.

The show is CW’s best performing series and was given the go-ahead for a full, 22-episode first season, a strong indication that it will be back for a second year.

Adapted for the small screen by Kevin Williamson of ‘Scream’ and ‘Dawson’s Creek’ fame the show appears to echo the smash hit ‘Twilight’ vampire movies from the books penned by Stephenie Meyer, but L.J. Smith’s books came first.

The show joins a growing cast of US dramas airing on ITV2 and available on ITV’s iTunes store, including ‘Gossip Girl’, ‘Supernatural’ and ‘Entourage’.

Van Helsing’s personality is described by Jack Seward, his former student, thusly: “He is a seemingly arbitrary man, because he knows what he is talking about better than any one else, so it comes to him naturally to keep jumping from one thing to the next. He is a philosopher and a metaphysician, and one of the most advanced scientists of his day, and he has, I believe, an absolutely open mind. This, with an iron nerve, a temper of the ice-brook, and indomitable resolution, self-command, and toleration exalted from virtues to blessings, and the kindliest and truest heart that beats, these form his equipment for the noble work that he is doing for mankind, work both in theory and practice, for his views are as wide as his all-embracing sympathy.”

The Van Helsing character was created by Stoker as a counterpart, as an equal but opposite of Dracula. By that standard these are two very strong characters facing off in the battle of good versus evil.

Well…

Van Helsing may have been a white knight for Bram Stoker; Dr. Barabas, my nemesis, was also a very talented person, but a publicity-hound who would’ve caused irreversible damage had we, my beloved Zoltan, friends, our families, and I not fought the totally antiquated treatment he wanted to use at first!

I do have a winner and will announce her name as soon as my congratulatory email is confirmed by her!

12/19 UPDATE

She is: Nyah Watson from Austin, TX. Congratulations!

Hopefully she’ll get the gift set before Christmas; if not, let me wish her and all of you who participated in my contest and who read my blog a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Yes, I have a soft side too … don’t count on it for too long, though!

Vampire humor or comedy, as a genre, has its genesis in stage plays. In a play, written dialog must be interpreted and performed before a live audience. The exchange in between author and reader while reading a novel, is no longer an intimate experience. It is transformed into a group affair with its own nightly dynamic. The experience between concept and delivery is altered radically – there is the playwright’s conception, the actors’ interpretation and delivery of that vision, and finally the audience’s response to the total package.

Jean Charles Emmanuel Nodier introduced the vampire theme to the French stage in 1819 with his play Le Vampire. Despite mixed reviews, the drama was an immediate success and had a long run. Nothing like success to breed imitation and there followed two other vampire plays along with several comical and satirical plays lampooning Nodier’s work. The British actor and playwright, Hamilton Deane, had a similar experience. The thought of being lampooned kept Dean from bringing his play “Dracula”(1924), which had been quite successful in rural England, to London. In time, a comic version of the play, “Dracula, the Comedy of the Vampire” appeared in various European cities in the 1930s. Dean’s play was successfully transferred across the Atlantic, the vampire played by Bela Lugosi, a defining moment in the Dracula/Vampire lore.

As the play or the actor’s performance becomes more popular, the greater the chances of it being lampooned or parodied. The spread of popular vampire humor awaited the creation of the widely recognized stereotypical cinematic vampire by Bela Lugosi in the 1930s. The first major attempt to exploit the humorous possibilities of Lugosi’s Dracula occurred in the 1948 Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. The plot of the movie revolved around Dracula’s attempt to steal comedian Lou Costello’s brain and place it in the head of the Frankenstein monster.

Vampires as comical figures have continued to evolve. The 1960s saw the production of one of the best comic vampire movies ever made, Roman Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Killers or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck (1967). Polanski’s film (originally called Dance of the Vampires) concerned the antics of two vampire hunters, Professor Ambronsius and his assistant (played by Polanski), as they tracked down the villainous Count Von Krolock (Ferdie Mayne). Television also became a source for humorous vampires with shows such as The Addams Family and The Munsters.

The lighthearted theme continued to carve a niche for itself in plays, movies and television. The decade of the 70s closed with what generally is considered the best of the many comedy vampire movies, Love at First Bite (1979). George Hamilton played a modern Dracula in pre-revolutionary Romania.

Possibly second in popularity only to Love at First Bite as a humorous treatment of the vampire theme is Andy Warhol’s Dracula (a.k.a. Blood for Dracula, an Italian production in which Dracula traveled to Italy looking for the blood of “wirgins.” The humor centers upon his comment on modern society and the inability to find a virtuous (sexually pure) young woman — a fact graphically displayed by his regurgitating every time he got blood from an apparently virginal female.

I must admit I enjoy fun vampire stories, characters, and plays. My fav is Love at First Bite — George Hamilton is a riot in that movie!