Yowazzup: A Directory of Happening Things

Are vampires real? Check out the testimony of a living vampire by National Geographic.

Popularity: 1%

Halloween is less than three weeks away. Most folks would have gotten their Halloween costumes by now, but yet, many are still pondering what’s the in-season costumes for 2009.

The easiest way to pick your Halloween costume is by looking at the summer blockbusters for the year. Let’s see, we have “Transformers 2″, “Star Trek”, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and not forgetting “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”. Now, Transformers may be a cool movie but dressing up like Bumblebee or Optimus Prime is not cool at all, especially for adults. Dressing up like Spock in Star Trek in the meantime is only cool if you’re a “Trekkie”. What about “Harry Potter”? The first “Harry Potter” movie was released nearly 8 years ago, so it’s not happening anymore.

So, what’s hot?

Let’s see, after generations and generations of vampire movies, we are still getting plenty of those now. The second season of “True Blood” was just over. And in a month time, the sequel to “Twilight”, namely “New Moon” will be released in the cinema. So, you won’t go wrong with being a vampire whether your lover is Sookie Stackhouse or Edward Cullen.

Here are the list of things you’ll need if you plan to dress up as a vampire: -

1. Vampire Fangs

$14.99 from Amazon

2. Vampire Makeup Kit

$19.00 from Amazon

That’s about all you need as nowadays, unlike the ancient vampires, the modern vampires wear T-shirt and jeans just like the rest of us. The total cost? Around $30 bucks for your 2009 Halloween costume.

However, if you have the extra cash, you can still get the gothic vampire dress for the women and the vampire cape for the men.

For me, I’ll just get this cool vampire bites tattoos and my 2009 Halloween Costume is… “Fang banger”. Oh yeah. Will only cost me $2.70.

And no, I’ll not play Lafayette, the fang banger. Jessica Hamby is my favorite vampire, get it?

Popularity: 1%

Blood: The Last Vampire is a live-action movie adapted from an animated series of the same name. The movie stars Korean actress Jun Ji-Hyun, who adopted an English screen name Gianna Jun.

SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Gianna Jun in "Blood: The Last Vampire"

Saya (Gianna Jun) is a 400-year-old half human-half vampire who hunts full blooded vampires. Her dad was a vampire hunter as well but was killed by the greatest vampire, Onigen (Koyuki). Vow to avenge her dad’s death, Saya joins a coveted government agency to hunt down vampires with the goal to eventually meet Onigen.

Saya disguises as a Japanese student in an American military school in order to find the demons hiding there. In the process, Saya kills Linda and Sharon, two demons who disguise as students in the school. The slaughter is witnessed by Alice Mckee (Allison Miller), the daughter of General Mckee (Larry Lamb). Alice reveals what she has witnessed to her dad but to no avail since the cleaners manage to disguise themselves as CIA.

Utterly disappointed, Alice goes out hunting for the truth when the sky goes dark but is surrounded by vampires. Alice runs for her life and is saved by Saya, who manages to wipe out all the vampires without even a scratch.

Alice returns home only to find her dad is dying and the government agents try to kill her as well. Alice finds Saya in a motel downtown as her last resort as she has nowhere else to run. Together, they steal a military truck and escape into the jungle as both of them are wanted by the military. While in the forest, they encounter demons which can fly, although with Saya’s abilities, they manage to fend off the demons.

Although the truck plunges down in the end, both of them somehow survive the fall. When Saya finally encounters Onigen, she realizes Onigen is her mother and all the while she kills vampires, she’s becoming more vampirish rather than becoming more human. In the end, Onigen willingly lets Saya to kill her so she would become her.

While the special effect department did a really great job, the character, Alice added some flaw to the film. Although Alice is human, she’s more invincible than Saya. In fact, the only time she bleeds is when she fed her blood to Saya to relieve her. Anyway, Blood: The Last Vampire is still enjoyable to watch, especially if ones like blood.

My ratings: 8 out of 10.

Popularity: 1%

The Twilight Saga: New Moon is the sequel to 2008 Twilight starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson. The movie opens on November 20, 2009.

Popularity: 2%

Good news for Twilight fans as Michael Sheen, the actor who plays Lucian, the leader the Lycans in the Underworld series, has joined the "Twilight" sequel, "New Moon" as Aro, the leader of the Volturi, an Italy-based coven of vampires according to Variety.

Popularity: 1%

Blood: The Last Vampire is a live-action action thriller based on a Japanese manga. A vampire named Saya (Gianna Jun), who is part of covert government agency that hunts and destroys demons in a post-WWII Japan, is inserted in a military school to discover which one of her classmates is a demon is disguise. The movie will be released on May 29, 2009 in Japan and June 12, 2009 in UK. There is no US released date yet.

Popularity: 2%

Twilight is a romantic thriller based on a Stephenie Meyer’s novel of the same name. As of December 21, 2008, Twilight’s rating at Rotten Tomatoes is only 50% from a total of 180 reviews.

SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in "Twilight"

Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) moves to a small town of Forks to live with her dad, Charlie, after her mother remarries another man. The students at her a new high school are welcoming and befriends her. Somehow, she is more curious by a mysterious group of siblings known as the Cullens, especially the tall and lanky Edward Cullen. Bella happens to sit next to Edward Cullen in her Biology class, and he seems to be avoiding her for some reason. During the next few days of school, Edward Cullen is nowhere to be seen and this intrigued Bella even more. When Edward shows up in the Biology class, he is apologetic and quickly introduced himself to Bella.

A couple of days later, Bella is almost hit by a van driven by one of her new school mates but Edward somehow appears out of nowhere and stops the vehicle with his bare hand. Bella is shocked and demands an explanation from Edward even though he refuses to tell her. Bella then does some research and ends up with a book to learn that Edward is a vampire. As they fall in love, Edward introduces Bella to his family, Carlisle, Esme, Alice, Jasper, Emmett, and Rosalie and they even play baseball together even though Bella only acts as the umpire. Three nomadic vampire, James, Victoria, and Laurent shows up during the baseball game and James, the vampire with a hunter instinct can smell that Bella is a human and decides to hunt her down. The Cullen go through great lengths in order to protect Bella but James manages to trick Bella into believing that he’s holding her mother hostage and almost kill her before Edward and his family arrives to fend off James. The Cullen siblings finish off James while Edward sucks the venom out of Bella in order to save her from becoming a vampire.

Back in Forks, Edward and Bella go to the school prom and Bella tells Edward that she desires to become a vampire so that they can be together for eternity. Edward somehow rejects her idea. The couple has the faintest idea that Victoria is watching from the windows, hoping to seek revenge for the murder of James.

Overall, Twilight is more like a romantic film rather than another vampire movie. The vampires don’t even show their fangs, let alone any other characteristics other vampires would possess. In fact, the vampires in Twilight can have their skins becoming shiny and glittering like diamonds under the sun. Somehow, it is a movie above the par, considering many novel-adapted films in 2008 has failed miserably.

My ratings: 6 out of 10.

Popularity: 3%

Kristen Stewart plays a teenage girl risks everything when she falls in love with a vampire in Twilight.

Popularity: 2%

30 Days of Night, based on the original graphical novel by Steve Niles, is a fresh but a more bloody vampire movie – unlike most of the other vampire movies. The movie is considered a horror flick rather than action movie and contains quite a lot of violence.

Josh Harnett stars as Eben Oleson, a sheriff in a small Alaskan town called Barrow. His performance was quite flawless, considered his age. Ironically, he acted in a movie called ‘40 Days and 40 Nights’, a romantic-comedy that has nothing to do with vampires. Melissa George, who plays Stella Oleson in the movie also put up a strong performance as the town’s sheriff and Eben’s wife.

SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The movie begins with townsfolk in Alaska packing up and evacuating the place as there will be no sun for 30 days. Though the movie is set in Alaska, the actual shooting took place in New Zealand. Stella Oleson is on her way driving to the airport when her fellow sheriff crashed into her car, making both unable to move. She calls Eben as she desperately wanting to get out of the town. When Eben knows Stella is in town but never let him know, he sends his fellow colleague, Billy to pick her up instead. As expected, Stella misses the last plane and is stranded in Alaska alongside the rest of the community.

Next, some dogs are mysteriously killed and Eben goes to investigate but to no avail.

Then, Sheriff Eben somewhat encounters a huge guy called Beau Brower (Mark Boone Junior) with his huge tractor and issues a summon to him.

A rusty and mysterious stranger is making some trouble in the bar by demanding alcohol and raw meats when Eben single-handedly manhandles him and puts him in the sheriff’s jail. Eben’s adorable wife, Stella follows him to the sheriff’s office as well. Meanwhile, the stranger speaks cryptically of an invasion by a terrifying evil but no one believes him. Eben’s grandmother and brother are staying in the sheriff’s office all the while.

Shortly, as the town goes dark, the phone lines are out as well – Eben goes to investigate the cause of the power failure, leaving Stella, his brother, Jake and his grandmother together with the stranger in the cell. As the stranger continues to provoke him, Jake throws a pen’s cover towards the stranger but misses it. The stranger then tricks Jake into believing he can break the pen cover into half and lock picks the cell. When Jake runs to grab the pen cover which is located just right in front of the cell, the stranger grabs him and tries to strangle him when a gun shot is suddenly heard. Eben has shot the stranger in the shoulder and handcuffs him before he and Stella leaves the office to do a further investigation.

At one point when Eben thinks he saw something, they stop their 4 by 4 by the roadside and Stella looks into the binocular. When she sees somewhat something terrifying, she abruptly tells her husband to get into the car and they speed away. However, the creature that Stella saw earlier runs so fast he manages to hope onto the car and tries to destroy the roof. Despite numerous gunshots by Eben, the creature is still alive and kicking, until Stella suddenly brakes – the creature falls onto the road as she runs over him to end the life of the creature.

Sheriff Eben goes back to the town to warn all the townsfolk about the ongoings and tells them to go home or gather at the diners for those who don’t have a home. As the movie proceeds, the legion of vampires has finally arrived and they ruthlessly kill the people of Alaska. These vampires are strong, though not invincible, they easily outnumber the helpless townsfolk.

When Eben returns to the sheriff’s office, he is saddened by the fact his grandmother and brother are killed by the vampires. The stranger is, however, not taken by the vampire. As Eben and Stella drives away in vain in order to escape from the vampires, their 4-wheel vehicle is somewhat lifted by several vampires led by Marlow (Danny Huston), the vampire leader and is thrown upside down. This time, Beau comes to their rescue with his powerful tractor. Stella manages to hop into the tractor follows by Eben. When Eben is in the tractor, Beau gives him a look that says “hey-thanks-for-the-summon-and-I-am-here-to-save-your-ass”.

Marlow, the leader of the vampires

Soon, Eben, Stella and Beau arrive in Carter’s house only to find his brother and a few survivors are hiding in the house.

Later on, the group chooses to hide out in a house with a hidden attic because it’s been boarded up and appears to be abandoned and when the owner left the house, the house has a board nailed onto the door. At one point, the vampires uses Kirsten Toomey, a young and beautiful woman as a bait to get Eben and the other survivors.

From the attic, the group chooses to move to a nearby mart in order to get some supplies. They only manage to walk to the mart during a heavy snow storm to avoid being seen by the vampires. Over there, they encounter a young girl who has turned into a vampire. Despite her size, the group has some trouble finishing off the girl.

After getting much of their needed supplies and staying in the mart for days, Eben knows they need to distract the vampires for the group to move on to the next location especially when the snow storm has subsided. This time, he runs into a house of whom Stella has earlier mentioned has got a very strong floodlight project. Eben manages to distract the vampires, kills Iris by flashing the floodlight onto her and at the same time, escape from the entire gang of vampires while the rest of the gang except Stella and Beau has left and manages to reach the next hideout.

Next, Beau tries to be a hero by distracting the vampires from Eben, by running his tractor over the vampires and shooting any that comes near to him. In the end, he mysteriously crashes into a house only to let us know he plans a bomb-suicide to kill as many vampires as possible. However, when the explosives are let off, the house burns into flame but none of the vampires are killed. Beau ends up destroying nobody but himself and is killed by Marlow, who later on says, “When man comes up against something he can’t destroy, he destroys himself instead.”

While Eben and the rest of the survivors are in the hideout, Stella and a little girl are hiding underneath a car. When the vampires set the entire town on fire, Eben has no choice but to inject himself with blood of Billy, who has earlier turned into a vampire. He orders his brother, Jake to use the walkie-talkie to tell Stella to run as he distracts the legion of vampires with his enhanced strength. Though he manages to kill Marlow, the leader of the vampires and save Stella, Eben is a vampire himself and will suffer the same fate as other vampires when the sun rises. Somewhat, Eben and Stella sits on the top of the mountain to watch the sunrise as Eben has promised earlier but Eben dies and turns into ashes when the sun rises.

Eben encounters the legion of vampires as a vampire himself

Though the movie is superior in many aspects, including great cinematography and great cast of acting, the movie lacks a few substance in some area. In many instances in the movie, when less popular townsfolk goes out from hiding, they always end up killed by the vampires, but Eben is barely detected by these vampires – even if they see him, he always manage to run away. Even more, Eben shows that he’s even more invulnerable than the vampires as he never get hurt, especially during his encounters with the vampires as a human. When he has turned into a vampire, he easily kills Marlow, the boss of the vampires.

From the novels, it is said the second part of the three issue mini-series sees the resurrection of Eben when Stella seeks help from a powerful vampire. So, as you can see, he’s invulnerable.

A must-watch movie.

My rating: 7 out of 10.

Popularity: 1%

30 Days of Night trapped with the vampires, how does that sound? Opens on October 19, 2007.

Popularity: 2%