Let Me In - Hollywood Adaptation of Swedish Film - Let The Right One In

As outcasts of society, two children create a fervent and deadly bond with one another in the soon-to-be released film, Let Me In - an adaptation of the Swedish film, Let The Right One In.

During cold winter’s nights, a friendless, bullied boy (Owen) of divorced and neglectful parents befriends Abby, the girl-next-door (hardly the typical girl-next-door) who lives with her elusive guardian.

Only at night this young lady appears in bare feet as the harsh winter doesn’t seem to bother her deathly cold flesh.

The people of this small town are rattled by a series of murders, and the boy’s classmate bullies become the bullied as his new friend proves to be eerily adept at providing protection as part of her undying friendship to Owen.

Let Me In will be available to entertain vampire sycophants, slaves and puppets at theaters October 2010. Until then, my fingers are crossed that this film proves to be thirst quenching, however, I remain dubious it will match its Swedish predecessor.

Photo/Image Credit: Let Me In movie, ComingSoon.net

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True Blood Season 3: Sookie, Bill and the Rest

Photo Credit: HBO Poster

Let’s just say I’ve woken from a long slumber. Thus the long silence in vampire news.

As all vampire lore seekers are aware, this evening introduced the third season of True Blood, the HBO television series based on the Charlaine Harris novels about a supernatural Louisiana town called Bon Temps.

Until now the show has featured vampires, shape shifters and a mainad who temporarily took over the town. According to the lore on the streets, werewolves will be added to the mix of legendary beings. They actually brought in real wolves that the actors interacted with.

Like the previous season, season three began where season two left off – right where vampire Bill is seen being taken from the French restaurant he’s just proposed to Sookie at.

Amidst wolves howling in the background, a group of rough and dirty men shove vampire Bill into the backseat of a car. Pinning him with silver chains, the men swinishly steal Bill’s blood. At least one of the men is shown baring the tattooed sign of the werewolf.

Typical of True Blood, other side stories are materializing alongside the main plot: Sam Merlotte in search of a family by the name of Mickens and the Queen of Louisiana desperate for cash – even by means of selling V (vampire blood) on the streets. The Queen has vampire Eric embroiled in a sticky V drug ring that proves to entangle V dealer, Lafayette who’s indebted to the vampires for sparing his life for selling V in the first place. Then there’s the vampire Magister who oversees the vampire rulebook. He’s also keenly aware of a V conspiracy that he’s determined to get to the bottom of it.

Readers of the novels can look forward to changes in the story keeping the twists and turns unpredictable. Reading the books and watching the show are like alternate realities to one another.

See this season's cast of characters.

Thirst

Thirst (Bakjwi), the 2009 vampire foreign film written and directed by Park Chan-wook is a story of a priest who volunteers for a secret medical experiment that will hopefully wipe out a deadly virus. The experiment goes awry, and the priest has to get a blood transfusion that happens to be infected turning him into a vampire. It seems to tell the tale of a tortured soul (the priest) who find himself seeking pleasures of the flesh and all the things a priest shouldn’t do.

I’m not sure this sounds like an interesting vampire plot for people like me who feed on classic lore with shadowy willows, dusty lairs, misty graveyards, and flamboyantly glamorous vamps, but I haven’t seen the film yet, so I’ll wait to review it.

Photo Credit: IMDB photos from Thirst

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Blood Canticle

Anne Rice’s final book to the Vampire Chronicle series, Blood Canticle, is a supernatural symphony for her readers as it connects the Vampire Chronicles with the Mayfair Witches and the Taltos before she moves on forever to writings inspired by Catholicism.

In this canticle, vampire Lestat continues his struggle against his dark vampire nature as his quest for purity continues to transform him. At the same time, he discovers the secret of the Taltos as he tries to rescue a witch from madness and save a witch baby. He interacts with a few ghosts too.

Other favorite characters include the witch, Rowan Mayfair and her husband Michael Curry, their niece, Mona (a dying witch), Quinn Blackwood of Blackwood Farm and the ghost of the patriarchal witch, Julien Mayfair as he tries to protect his family from vampirism.

In 2003 when this book was published, I had the opportunity of having my copy signed by Anne Rice. Coincidently, two blood bank buses were parked in front of Warwick’s Bookstore in La Jolla and Anne Rice was inside with her team sitting regally behind a desk and wearing all black with a large silver cross dangling from her neck - a perfect ending to my favorite vampire legends of all time.

Photo/Artwork Credit: AnneRice.com

http://www.annerice.com/Bookshelf-BloodCanticle.html

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Since I’ve savored the various Dracula movies from Tod Browning’s 1931 version starring Bela Lugosi to Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 version starring Gary Oldman and some others like Erle C. Kenton’s 1945 House of Dracula starring John Carradine, I determined it was nigh time I read the writings of the author who inspired such vampire frenzy and cult following for over a century.

So, I picked up Bram Stoker’s Dracula and haven’t been able to put it down since. The story develops by journal entries and letters between the characters with dates that aren’t always in perfect order, which keeps you hanging on as a reader wondering which character will write next.

The beginning section where Dracula’s solicitor, Jonathon Harker travels from England to the far edges of Eastern Europe to the Carpathian Mountains to Dracula’s dilapidated and musty estate is foreboding. As you discover along with the solicitor that his visit is actually an imprisonment that will end in his death, you feel his fear with each journal entry. Conversations between the solicitor and Dracula give insight into the creature’s past as well as plants seeds to many questions as to his abilities and motive.

Bram Stoker began penning Dracula in 1890, and it was published in 1897 where it was then acted out on stage at the Royal Lyceum Theatre.

Photo/Image Credit: Postcard of Bran Castle

http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~emiller/index.html

True Blood: Episodes 18 and 19 Commentary

Is everyone as enthusiastically anticipating the destruction of the perfidious Fellowship of the Sun church as I am? Next week…

The past two episodes of True Blood have been overflowing with supernatural strangeness while the pieces come together and unfold to reveal more secrets of the extraordinary town of Bon Temps.

While vampire Bill is in Texas with human girlfriend Sookie and vampire sheriff Eric getting to the bottom of a vampire gone missing (they believe he's being held hostage by the Fellowship of the Sun), Bill's maker Lorena returns and holds him hostage while Sookie gets into a snare. Meanwhile, Eric’s maker (also the missing vampire) shows up in the final scene saving Sookie from a savage attacker.

Pothead Maryann attempts to use Sam Merlotte as a pagan sacrifice after his new girlfriend betrays him, but after he shape-shifts into a bird and flies away, Maryann must sacrifice one of her loyal followers.

We found out Maryann is the offspring of Dionysus, the god of wine who inspires ritual madness and ecstasy. Maryann is a powerful goddess of the underworld. That explains her goblets of wine, fat joints and dance parties that get out of control.

An amusing scene is when Detective Andy Bellefleur stumbles from the woods into the midst of a satanic celebration where the whole town of Bon Temps dances naked around a pit of fire–all with glazed-over black eyeballs. Maryann controls them from the center wearing a horned devils head while her hands turn into beast-like claws. Detective Bellefleur ventures to break up the party, but is stopped when his possessed cousin snaps his arm. The next day, no one remembers a thing except the Detective and they all think he’s a drunken lunatic.

Photo Credit: TruBlood beverage

See recaps and previews.
http://www.hbo.com/trueblood/video.html

Preorder your supply of TruBlood.
http://www.trubeverage.com/

Let the Right One In: Swedish Vampire Film

“Let the Right One In” (Låt den rätte komma in) is a 2008 Swedish film by director, Tomas Alfredson based on the novel by horror writer, John Ajvide Lindqvist. Receiving numerous Best Foreign Language Film awards and nominations, it’s been said to be one of the most original and haunting vampire movies ever made.

The characters, a pale, bullied boy, Oskar and an ethereal raven-haired girl, Eli drift through dreamy snow scenes to icy ambient music. Friendship between them is sweet yet intensely chilling.

Eli is twelve and will continue to move through time as a twelve year-old as long as she stays out of the sun and gets fed.

Photo Credit: IMDB Movie Poster

http://www.lettherightoneinmovie.com/
http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/movies/24righ.html
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