Biblio Vampire by Robert Curran

Written by OBS Staff Member Katie

Summary: They sleep in coffins. They cast no shadows and show no reflection in mirrors. They drink blood—and as every reader will certainly recognize by now, they are Vampires! Horror movie fans and dedicated lovers of gothic tales will want a copy of this spine-chilling volume. An opening section presents a general description of vampires, offers tips to readers on how to spot them—and most important, tells how to avoid them. But to become a true vampire expert, readers must go to the book’s second section, which defines eight different vampire types.

For instance, there is the Sampiro Vampire of Albania, who wears a corpse’s shroud and totters around on high heels. And from Scandinavia we encounter Draugr Vampires, who guard stockpiles of gold in their stinking nests until nightfall, when they roam the earth in search of human prey. The book’s lengthy final section is a compilation of spooky vampire tales collected from around the world. The terror-inducing text is complemented with more than 100 creepy illustrations in full color—though mostly, in appropriately dark and shadowy hues.

Review:
When I received Biblio Vampire I was very excited to see that it was a relatively big book. It has an awesome cover and the design on all the pages looked very professional. I was very impressed by how well made the book was.

Now on to the content of the book. I had read another book similar a few months ago and this book puts the other one to shame. Everything was very well organized unlike the other one. At first while reading I was a little bit confused because the author would name different vampires and talk about things they did and I knew nothing about these vampires. And I was lost, but then the next chapter went and broke down each vampire and it cleared up the stuff from the last chapter.

The whole section on ‘types of vampires’ was great. I really learned a lot about the different kinds and how to know if I run in to one before. 

But what I really enjoyed was the chapter called ‘Vampire Tales’. It wasn’t overly detailed, just enough that I could take the names that they gave me and I could look up more info if I wanted. Which will really help me with the senior research paper I will be writing this year.

At the end of the book they had a map with listings of all the places that are known for vampires. Then there were some fun cheesy test you could take. Yes I called the cheesy, but they where still cute.

The only thing I wish books like this would have our some ‘scientific proof’ of vampires. I mean I know that there isn’t actual proof that supernatural beings a exist, but I know that there has to be some kind of information on scientist finding skulls or anything else that could hint at supernatural beings.

Name: Caitlin R. Kiernan

Date of Birth: 
May 26, 1964

List of Books:

• Silk
• Threshold
• The Five Cups
• Low Red Moon
• Murder of Angels
• Daughter of Hounds
• Beowulf
• The Red Tree

Link:

http://www.caitlinrkiernan.com/

Short Bio:

Author Caitlin R. Kiernan was born in Ireland and raised in Alabama. She has since moved to Rhode Island and now resides there. Caitlin uses her love for nature as much as her love for books to write her dark fantasy novels. She fell in love with books which opened up the doorway to her falling in love with writing. “There’s no way to come to writing unless one has first been a reader, and a careful, dedicated reader, at that. And one must remain a reader,” said Kiernan. “Everything about reading teaches me something about writing. What has it taught me in particular? Everything that I did not learn simply by living, that’s what reading has taught me about writing fiction.” She is the author to eight novels and one of which, Beowulf, was turned into a 3D motion picture in 2007. Her most recent book The Red Tree, was published in August 2009. (http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kiernan_interview/)

Review:

“Horror fans will recognize the familiar Lovecraftian gothic-horror elements-indeed, Lovecraft, Poe and other writers are explicitly referenced in the text-but Kiernan’s prose is thoroughly modern, even colloquial, with none of the gothic genre’s tendency toward archaic phrasings. She ably keeps the proceedings from devolving into formula, and her portrayals of Sarah’s growing obsession, and the violence surrounding the tree, are evocative and chilling. A multileveled novel that will appeal to fans of classic and modern horror.” ~Kirkus Review on The Red Tree

“Inevitable parallels will be drawn with Poppy Z. Brite’s Lost Souls, but just as apt are comparisons with the work Peter Straub. Like Straub and Brite, Kiernan is a vastly intelligent and superlatively imaginative. If Silk is the beginning of Kiernan’s journey, we can anticipate a magnificent trip into the new millennium.” ~Paula Guran from dark echo.com on Silk

Are you a fan of Caitlin R. Kiernan? Which of her novels and/or short stories is your favorite? What about her writing style do you like best?

The Deaths of Ian Stone

Rated: R

Written by OBS Staff Member Rose

The Deaths of Ian Stone was released in 2007 as part of the After Dark Horror Fest 8 Films To Die For and directed by Dario Piana (who is directing The Lost Boys: The Thirst) I found The Deaths of Ian Stone on Fearnet Free on Demand (my go to place for horror movie watching when I’m in the mood for a good scare). I am usually disappointed in half of the films I find because they’re just so silly, gory and the story lines are so played out. I wasn’t expecting to “get into” this dark, horror tale, of a guy, Ian Stone (Mike Vogel) who life ends (by murder) at exactly the same time each day and begins anew the next.

Thinking I found a hidden gem in a low-budget horror film, I was excited and intrigued by the interesting science fiction-like concept. Finally something different! I was in fact correct in my assumption but found it poorly executed. I say this only because it has a SyFy Channel air about it and I find movies on that channel amateurish. Maybe I’m spoiled.

The only thing that remains constant in Ian Stone’s “lives” is his girlfriend Jenny (Christina Cole) from his first life in college. But she doesn’t remember him in his new lives. In every new life he is being hunted by dark creatures that can turn into human form, who want him dead for reasons unknown, until more than half way through the film.

One such creature/human is Medea, played by Jaime Murray, (Dexter’s psycho ex-girlfriend, Lila Tourney, on the series of the same name), so we all know she plays crazy perfectly. Her performance was over the top, but so was her turn as Lila.

Certain scenes reminded me of Butterfly Effect in the sense that every time Ian Stone wakes up after being murdered, something has changed drastically about him in his new life. In other words it gets worse and worse.

Ian’s main focus throughout the film is trying to figure out who these creatures are, why they want to constantly murder him and protecting his girlfriend Jenny. One key to it all is remembering who he really is.

SyFy Channel movie distain aside, I did enjoy this film and just wished it had a bigger budget because it could have been badass as opposed to not that bad at all.

If you have Fearnet on Demand you can watch it now, if not, it’s worth the rental.

Running Time: 87 minutes

Rating: 6/10

Resistance Forms Against Hollywood’s 3-D Push

Source: nytimes.com

LOS ANGELES — A joke making the rounds online involves a pair of red and green glasses and some blurry letters that say, “If you can’t make it good, make it 3-D.”

The fans of flat film have a motto. But do they have a movement?

While Hollywood rushes dozens of 3-D movies to the screen — nearly 60 are planned in the next two years, including “Saw 3D” and “Mars Needs Moms!” — a rebellion among some filmmakers and viewers has been complicating the industry’s jump into the third dimension.

It’s hard to measure the audience resistance — online complaints don’t mean much when crowds are paying the premium 3-D prices. But filmmakers are another matter, and their attitudes may tell whether Hollywood’s 3-D leap is about to hit a wall.

READ MORE HERE

MGM Developing ‘The Outer Limits’ for Film

Source: screen rant

After receiving a sixth extension from creditors, MGM has curiously announced production on a film adaptation of the popular 1960s sci-fi TV show, The Outer Limits.

While MGM continues to sort out its plans for restructuring, the company has been forced to put a number of major projects on hold, including the new James Bond film and The Hobbit.

It would appear, however, that even amid all of its financial chaos, MGM has not given up on the movie-making business – because MGM is currently developing a feature-length adaptation of the landmark 1960s sci-fi series The Outer Limits.

According to a Variety report, MGM has hired Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan to write the script. The writing pair has previously worked together on the Saw franchise, scripting parts four through seven (aka the upcoming Saw 3D).

On the off chance that you’ve never heard of The Outer Limits, it was a science-fiction show written from 1963 to 1965. In some respects, The Outer Limits was a little brother to the more well-known and popular sci-fi TV series, The Twilight Zone, which ran from 1959 to 1964. In the decades since it aired, The Outer Limits has been recognized as a major influence on modern science-fiction and was even revived for an impressive seven season run on Showtime and then Syfy.

READ MORE HERE

Interview: M Night Shyamalan

Source: shadowlocked.com

The Last Airbender director M. Night Shyamalan discusses martial arts, changing a beloved source and the pressure of early success…

The film’s very different from your previous work, without twists or horror – what was the attraction to adapting The Last Airbender?

Most of my movies are connected to some childhood point of view and the moment we let go of some kind of belief system and become adults. What drew me to this particular movie was the Hayao Miyazaki influence, which was huge for me, and martial arts. There are two types of movie that were my guilty pleasures when I was a kid – horror movies and martial arts movies. I got to do my version of scarier movies and I’ve started to think about martial arts again. It’s interesting, as it’s something you learn so that you never have to use it and the philosophies that are involved mean it’s a great medium for entertaining but also talking about deeper things. The opera of The Last Airbender was something that interested me too, I think you can feel it become more operatic in the third act. If we get the opportunity to make 2 and 3, that’s what I want the language to be.

With your love of martial arts movies, could The Last Airbender be seen as an homage to Bruce Lee heroes?

In my office, I have a statue of Michael Jordan and a statue of Bruce Lee, in an action pose. Bruce Lee is like a god to me. He brought philosophy, he changed the game, he learned different forms and blended them and caused a lot of reactions. I like to think of my movies as blending genres and I like learning each thing and finding a new form of it, his philosophies were incredible. I referenced it with [lead actor] Noah [Ringer] a lot about how Bruce would show intelligence in his movements and listen to what was behind him – you could tell he was aware of seven or eight people behind him. One scene, with [Waterbender] Pakku with the water-whips was a straight homage to Enter the Dragon.

The Last Airbender has a strong fan-base from its TV success so you’re going to get lots of strong reactions to the film, some positive, some negative – how do you react to negative opinions?

Ultimately, it was the source material that really spoke to me – I was a fan of the show, it’s not like I was hired to do it. The influences – the Miyazaki, the martial arts, the Shakespearean back story for the royal family – all these things that became part of the language as the show progressed over the three years. When it started it was very young and had a completely different tonality but it evolved and in many ways, it didn’t quite fit the network. It was successful but shows like Dora the Explorer blow it away in terms of ratings – this is not a runaway ratings show, it was a cult following. With the movie, 85 per cent of the audience that’s going to see are going to be fresh [to The Last Airbender] and I’d love them to see the movie and then go back and watch the show and see how we evolved from that.

READ MORE HERE

Repertoire Of Horrors: The Films Of Roger Corman

Source: npr.org

Roger Corman — often referred to as the “King of the B Movie” — is something of a Hollywood legend, famous for making low-budget cult horror films like Piranha and Little Shop of Horrors. But Corman has also mentored many now-famous directors — including Martin Scorsese, James Cameron and Ron Howard — and employed many a star before they made it big. (He worked with Sylvester Stallone in Death Race 2000, released the year before Rocky.)

This year, Corman’s films are being re-released on DVD, one a month or so as part of the “Roger Corman’s Cult Classics” series. Ultimately, 50 titles will be released.

Corman, who has directed more than 50 movies and produced around 350, started to find success with “creature features” pretty early on in his career. In many cases, he would just come up with a title before fleshing out his ideas. His 1957 movie Attack of the Crab Monsters was just one example.

READ MORE HERE

What do you think of today’s movie news?

Join us in the forum to discuss!

I AM NUMBER FOUR: Trailer and First Chapter For The Book That Is Heading For The Big-Screen

By Jason Moore at Sci Fi Mafia

We have previously told you about the D.J. Caruso (Eagle Eye) directed adaptation of the upcoming young-adult science fiction book by James Frey and Jobie Hughes entitled, I AM NUMBER FOUR. The film stars Alex Pettyfer, Jake Abel, Timothy Olyphant, Kevin Durand , Dianna Agron, Callan McAuliffe and Teresa Palmer.

Harper Collins will be releasing the book upon which the movie is based on August 3rd and now we have our first look. Check out the synopsis, trailer and first chapter below.

I AM NUMBER FOUR invades book stores on August 3rd

Read More here

Carnivorous Cosmos: Laird Barron—And His Lovecraftian Stylings—is Horror’s New Messiah

by paulgoatallen at Barnes and Noble

No author has ever come close to terrifying me quite like H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937). His novella At the Mountains of Madness (1931), about an ill-fated expedition to the Antarctic, remains my all-time favorite horror work. His stories involving the Cthulhu mythos, in which humans are inconsequential specks in a hostile universe dominated by ancient, nightmare-inducing gods, had me checking under my bed and in the closet for weeks when I first stumbled across one of his short-story collections (Dagon and Other Macabre Tales, I believe) in a used bookstore when I was a kid.

From my years of experience as a moderator in BarnesandNoble.com’s online community, I’ve gotten the sense that many readers are sick and tired of the splatterific blood and gore that powers many of today’s horror novels…

Yes, having some zombie dismember a victim and crush his skull like an overripe beefsteak tomato then pull out his intestines like it’s stringing up Christmas lights may be entertaining to some—but is it truly scary? No. Inducing real fear in readers is no easy task—I can probably list the authors that have actually scared me in one breath… My point is that a lot of contemporary horror isn’t scary at all: it’s just gross. Shocking readers is easy. Scaring them takes talent.

Reading Laird Barron reminds me of what it was like discovering works from the aforementioned horror masters. The nine stories featured in his latest collection are painstakingly constructed—a darkly poetic narrative fuels these deftly plotted stories of existential angst.

Read More here

Stieg Larsson becomes first author to sell 1m ebooks on Amazon

Alison Flood at The Guardian

The late Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson has beaten Stephenie Meyer and James Patterson to become the first author to sell more than one million ebooks on Amazon.

The online retailer said yesterday that Larsson, author of the Millennium trilogy, had become the first member of its new “Kindle Million Club”, for authors whose work has sold over a million copies in Amazon’s Kindle store in the US. The crime novelist is likely to be joined by thriller writer Patterson – Amazon said last week that it had sold over 860,000 of his ebooks – while Twilight scribe Meyer, Sookie Stackhouse creator Charlaine Harris and queen of romantic suspense Nora Roberts have each sold more than 500,000 Kindle books in the US.

Read More here

Fashion Dos and Dont’s for the Paranormal Heroine

Kate Perry at Tor

Everyone knows that being a heroine is all about how you look. Forget about kicking supernatural ass—the skills are secondary, and you can always use props. Look at Rachel Morgan (from The Hallows Series by Kim Harrison). Most of her skills come from amulets she bought and potions she brewed based on recipes. She has backup to do the hardcore fighting.

In other words, it’s all about how you look while you do it.

Do you want to be a paranormal heroine? You can be. You just have to dress the part.

Do…
Invest in leather.

Read More here

Do you want to read I Am Number Four? Do you like H.P. Lovecraft?

Written by OBS Staff Member Rose

Move over James Bond, this secret agent’s cocktail is blood, warm, whether shaken or stirred.

By far this is the best vampire book I have read in a long time, and I’ve read my fair share.

Blood Oath, Christopher Farnsworth’s debut novel, takes the idea of the vampire and rests it on the opposite end of the well-known romantic and light bloodsucking tale on the vampire spectrum. Blood Oath is gritty, suspenseful and leaves vampires where they should be; as thirsty creatures that only live for blood.  Unless of course, you bind them to an oath to serve the United States and turn them into a hero instead.

This novel is an intricately woven fast-paced story of terrorism, political espionage and living dead horror all packed into one solid novel. It is apparent why Blood Oath was optioned for a movie, for it reads as one, fleshing out characters brilliantly and sucking you in immediately with non-stop action and breathes new life into the vampire genre.

Nathaniel Cade became a secret agent for the President of the United States by way of a blood oath after he was captured in 1867 after killing two crewmates. He was sworn in by a Voodoo Priestess to help President Andrew Johnson and each President thereafter for as long as he lived.  But one would wonder how does Cade keep his hunger subdued? Ironically, he wears a cross around his neck.

Now working for the current President, he is joined by Zach Barrows, a young and ambitious White House staffer, who is the newly appointed aide to the President’s Vampire, to stop an mad scientist who has created the ultimate monster, unstoppable zombie soldiers.

Dr. Johann Konrad, a present day Nazi-esque Dr. Frankenstein, has learned the key to resurrecting and manipulating dead tissue. Cade and a very wet behind the ears Zach, go on a top-secret mission to stop him and this takes them on a very deadly adventure. Deadly even for a vampire.

Farnsworth injects real world politics into Blood Oath and pairs zombie warfare with a plot by Arab terrorists and their American inductee, but not so much that this is the main threat or focus in the book. It is just a weft in the grand fabric of the story.

A lengthy flashback on how Cade became a vampire flips the current day setting to the 1800′s, allowing the reader to connect with his character and actually feel sorry for him. To add to this are insights about his history that starts each chapter in the form of excerpts from a classified briefing manual. It is a brilliant way to give more information to the reader without breaking up the fast paced action.

When finding out this story was optioned for the big screen, I could not help trying to cast actors for the major players involved, for each are very strong characters in their own right who rattle off extremely witty dialogue. There are certain horrific scenes in this book that I simply cannot wait to see depicted on screen. Such as the epic scene in the White House that should make Night of the Living Dead  look like third grade recess in a school playground, and the sickening depravity of Dr. Konrad who injects a bio-mutating serum that turns an unsuspected victim into a tree-like mass.

There is news that Lucas Foster, producer of “Jumper” and “Law Abiding Citizen”, who optioned Blood Oath, has also claimed the rights to Christopher Farnsworth’s follow-up, “Black Site”.  So those who wish for the return of Cade will be very happy.  I personally cannot wait.

For those of you who’d rather read lighter angst ridden vampire fair, I assure you…you WILL be missing out. This book was exceptionally written and has made me a die-hard Christopher Farnsworth fan. Go get a copy of Blood Oath now.

To whet your appetite here is the book trailer…