Murnau the Vampire

I watched this a while ago, and I think Tajian watched it when I told him to.  http://www.vimeo.com/2233809.  Sorry, I can't embed it.  Here's a frame from it.
What it is, is a retelling of "Nosferatu" done entirely in blender, THE opensource 3d animation program.  It's in black and white, very often in the stark contrasts seen above (but without all that snow/noise), until near the end when red comes into play.  It's full of dramatic shots, etc.  Good soundtrack too, which is unfortunately off a bit - but I'm working on fixing it, and if I do I'll upload it.  It's not very long, either - less than half an hour.  It's especially creepy in that there is no dialogue whatsoever - not even the video of written words that were occasionally in Nosferatu.  You have to already know the story.  Anyway, enjoy.

Let Me In

Ellen and I watched "Let Me In" (2010) tonight, which you may or may not be aware of.  It's an American film based on the Swedish book "Let the Right One In," of which there is a Swedish movie of the same name (2008).  We watched it.  It was very good.
"Let Me In" is also very, very good.  It's not an American remake of the film in the style of remakes as I know them - it's more like an American version.  It's the same movie, but with different actors and a couple changed names.  A few unimportant facts are changed - Owen (not Oskar) doesn't actually visit his dad's house in this movie, but the scene that takes place there still happens, for example.
I once read that even better than Bela Lugosi's "Dracula" is the Spanish version - considering dubbing to be an inferior technique, the English-speaking crew would film in the morning, and the Spanish crew in the afternoon - same sets, same everything, different language (and I guess different people).  This allowed them to see what worked and what didn't, and use such information accordingly.
I'm not saying that "Let Me In" is better than "Let The Right One In."  I don't think that's true.  However, I have to say that they're about even.  The only important thing missing from "Let Me In" is the definite, visual realization that Abby (Eli in the Swedish version) is not a girl - there's a scene where he peeks in at her getting dressed.  That scene is here, but you don't actually see the visual confirmation he gets, which you do in the Swedish version.  On the other hand, this movie makes it clear that the old man who goes and gets blood was, in fact, in exactly the same position as Owen, probably about 50 years ago.  It hadn't even occurred to me when watching "Let The Right One In" - I was curious about the guy, and about what would happen to Owen, but I didn't connect the two.  This film does.
That's the only major difference - and it's not a difference in plot or anything like that, just in what you see.  I think I like the Swedish version more, but that's probably at least partly because I saw it first.  "Let Me In" is just as good, but in English instead of Swedish.  It's more dramatic, perhaps, a little scarier, a little less light, a little more creepy music, but the same story, almost scene-for-scene.  It is very good.

Fool Moon

ok. back to werewolves. so i read fool moon which is the second book in the dresden files series, and this one deals with werewolves.
here is a basic recap of the premise. there is this guy. harry blackstone and he is a magician that you can hire and he lives in chicago. i guess in the last book there was some sort of incident with something or whatever and he isnt getting hired for anything...UNTIL there is this bloody gruesome murder and he gets called up to investigate. where it pretty much leads is to werewolves.
now here is what i found interesting. there are three types of werewolves: hexenwolves, lycanthropes, and loup-garou. now there is a significant difference between these different werewolves.

lets start with hexenwolves. they were the one type of werewolf that we did not really look at, but i think we did talk about. hexenwolves have an enchanted amulet that enables them to change form from human into werewolf (or hexenwolf in this case). i thought that is was pretty cool because there is nothing other than the magic object that makes them transform. that means that they did not need to be bitten. i thought that this was an interesting take on werewolves. after a little bit of research i found that this was not an original interpretation, but instead is is actually rooted in legend. which i also thought was pretty cool because we hadnt come across it yet.

ok. lycanthropes: they are basically just crazy strong and wicked powerful and can change at will.. but they also heal quickly. they are pretty much the same as the lycans (wow who would have thought of that) in underworld. nothing really especially interesting there.

loup-garou: this is just the french word for werewolf. these ones only change at the full moon against their will. so they are similar to some of the werewolves that we looked at. sort of like lawrence talbot in the wolf man. in fact exactly like him.

anyhow, i thought that it was interesting to incorporate three different types of werewolves throughout the book and have them all explicitly explained.

as far as the book goes, i wasnt crazy about it, but it was entertaining. the writing isnt great and there is a lot of dry humor along the way that got sort of old, but i guess i would recommend it to a friend that was interested in werewolves.

A Thought

I've had a thought on zombies and vampires in popular culture and the way society has been progressing. Vampires are of the old country - even the updated versions stay necessarily old-fashioned. Most of the individual vampires are centuries old. Zombies can be created by modern viruses, etc. So zombies are more modern that way.
But I've noticed something more subtle. Vampires feed on blood, which is kind of equivalent to life force, or liquid life running through your veins. It makes sense that people would fear losing it. It is something that can be lost without really noticing it too much (unlike, say, a limb), but that loss of can kill you. But it's also been recognized as such for a long, long time, and been very important. In a time when one method of healing was to bleed people, you know blood was important.
Nowadays, we have zombies claiming popularity. Zombies do not eat blood. In most of the movies we have seen, they eat flesh. However, in pop culture (and at least one classic movie we haven't seen), zombies eat brains. Is it because now, in the 20th and 21st centuries, we value thinking and cognitive ability so much that the loss of one's brain is scarier than the loss of one's blood? Probably not entirely, but maybe somewhat. That's all.

COMICS ABOUT ZOMBIES

HERE ARE SOME GOOD ONES YOU GUYS

DinosaurComics

XKCD

DinosaurComics

I'd have posted them here but whoever made the blog in the first place decided to make it skinny enough so that comics would get CUT OFF (someone doesn't like webcomics >:-<). They're really funny, just read them.

The Zombie Survival Guide (and I Am Legend) reviewed with help from Aragorn

I am reviewing I Am Legend and The Zombie Survival Guide at the same time, as are similar in a couple of ways. Each presents itself as taking place in this world, with real science applying. Not only this, real science is applied - in I Am Legend, the guy does all sorts of experiments on the vampires he kills. He finds that it's maybe a virus and/or a bacteria, that sunlight burns it, garlic repels, but crosses and a couple other things are purely psychological. The Zombie Survival Guide mentions countless times that "studies have shown/proven" this or that. No studies are actually cited, but they have still proved things - scientifically. Unfortunately for both books, they start out by showing that the beings, vampires and zombies, are not mythical, not magical, that they exist in the real world. Then, it explains certain aspects of the conditions in scientific ways. It then goes on to mention certain aspects of these monsters that are total scientific BS - and sometimes disagree with what was previously said. What do you think about it, Aragorn?I agree. I'll start with I Am Legend: there was only one thing that still bothers me about this one, after I've read it. First of all, vampires are split into two groups: undead ones, and living ones. I feel like there was something else read/watched where vampires were not undead. Anyway, there were the two groups, with the undead acting more like zombies and the still-living eventually taking over and restarting society, albeit vampiric society. Stakes were the preferred method of dispatching, but the guy couldn't figure out at first why they worked so well. Finally, he figured out that it wasn't any organ being pierced, but the body as a whole, which had been dead for some time on the inside but airtight (the virus/whatever made your body airtight), and puncturing that let it decay all at once. Uh huh.Quite. Then, The Zombie Survival Guide, which comes highly recommended. I'll say this for it: it got better. It started off reminding me of Aragorn here, but it did progress to some potentially helpful information. I'll give a quick synopsis: BS scientific explanations which don't actually make sense and disagree with each other, good advice, stories. Here we go with the science.
Solanum is a virus which infects the brain, shuts it down, changes it to work without oxygen, and reboots it. It also devours the frontal lobe. The brain then reboots the body, which it has less coordination because the brain is kinda effed up. This is OK so far - but then things get added on which don't add up. The author, Max Brooks, mentions that using muscles = tearing muscles - that's how they work. Also, zombies have no organ function of any type - it's just the brain telling the muscles what to do. So the muscles are getting no oxygen or nutrients, and they don't heal when they tear - in fact, nothing ever heals. This means that a zombie will get progressively slower - it can't heal its muscles after it uses them. Forget that there's no chance they could use them at all without nutrients and oxygen.
Also, because the heart, etc are not in use (wait, what?) pretty much all the blood coagulates, which is handy for close combat, as a human is less likely to get showered in wet blood.
Oh, and before I forget, Brooks uses the terms "zombie" and "ghoul" synonymously. This really bothered me as, while both are possibly undead and sometimes eat people, zombies are human, or formerly so, while ghouls are not human.
To lend credence to the difference between his zombies and other legendary zombies, Brooks talks about Voodoo zombies and the difference between them and real zombies - only most of the stuff he has on Voodoo zombies he totally made up. His claim is that the Voodoo zombies are made too look dead and consequently buried (good so far) and then all suffer brain damage from lack of oxygen, which gives all of them the same symptoms. First of all, the buried zombies are using very little oxygen in their state of hibernation, so they're unlikely to run out. Second, they are revived and fed a second drug to induce lack of free will and obedience, but still be able to work - it is incredibly unlikely that someone would bother to make Voodoo zombies if it was just making randomly brain-damaged zombies. Random brain damage is not an effective means of establishing control. Also, many of the symptoms given in this book for the brain-damaged zombies are absurd.
I take exception to a number of things Brooks says about weapons. First, he says a section of lead pipe is too heavy to carry, and instead recommends a crowbar. Anyone having ever carried a crowbar will know what I'm saying here.
That's pretty much what I'm saying. Also, just in case any of you didn't read the Cracked article, I'll mention something Brooks gets quite wrong. While it is true that to kill a zombie one must kill the brain somehow, a head shot from a distance is not a good idea. Headshots are extremely difficult, and not something worth taking the time to do against multiple opponents. Also, to save ammo, Brooks recommends not using any type of machine gun, ever. However, a machine gun aimed at leg height through a crowd of zombies would certainly break some legs and put enough leg muscle out of commission that the zombies would stop moving. If zombies aren't moving, headshots can then be made. But expecting to pull of a headshot every time, even with training...
After this, Brooks gets into some good details about securing homes, how to travel, locations to stay, etc. He offers some excellent advice on a number of counts, not least to beware of other people as much as zombies. He ends with a number of stories fabricated to coincide, occasionally, with unexplained historical occurrences. Most of the information in the book is worth reading, should virus come into existence which creates "zombies" - but the actual information on zombies is not only worthless, it could be dangerous should an actual outbreak occur with a slightly different cause. Also, as stated before, the biological information does not make sense. A brain which has been "converted" to not run on oxygen does not mean that the body can survive and move around without it. Also, Brooks says that no normal bodily functions work (the senses do, except feeling), so zombies do not digest anything - they devour people, sometimes to the point where their stomach/intestines will burst out of their body, but they do not digest and therefore get no energy from them. Their ability to remain alive and moving (with no muscular repair) for as long as it takes to decompose (their are factual issues with what he says about this, too) is not possible. I commend his advice, but I have to call foul on his facts. It would have been easy to create, fictionally, a virus like the "rage" virus of 28 Days/Weeks later, but he had to make up a new, inconsistent one, which I find to be sloppy work. He had a couple grammar mistakes too.
Oh, Liana and Tajian: you both told me the coolest thing about this book is that he "believes it!"

You Don't Wanna Be A Vampire

I was looking for more CC music for use in our movie while writing some script, and I came across this track. You have to click where it says [Download] and Download the song in order to hear it, but it's kind of fun. It sounds like it's a backlash against recent vampire popularity. Unfortunately, it's not CC, so we can't use it unless I contact the person, but I feel like it might be a good song for our credits, so I might. Anyway, you should give it a listen, but you won't, so I'll play it for you when we get back.

Just a Thought on Zombies in our Movie...

So, I don't know if we have already decided to do this or what but I was thinking that it would be cool to use the description of the zombie virus from Zombie Survival Guide to explain how zombies come to be. I realize it's the vampire blood and all that but maybe we could work it in there because it is a pretty interesting concept that the author believes... like I said.. just a thought.

Zombie-like creatures in "The Phantom World"

The Phantom World was my ancient source (1850) on vampires and, with any luck, I will be able to glean some zombie-like information from it. I think many of the vampire legends will be directly applicable to zombies, as the main difference between the two is that vampires know who they are, whereas zombies are mindless. Other than that, they are both undead and seek to sustain themselves by eating/drinking things that are alive.
I would like to note, first, that this text is very interesting. It is two books, the first being on apparitions (angels, demons, ghosts), and the second on "ghosts who return to earth bodily." It also says: "First of all, I lay it down as an undoubted principle, that the resurrection of a person really dead is effected by the power of God alone." I thought I'd include that so that we can understand where this book is coming from.
It is mentioned that Odysseus has to deal with some form of dead human, who can tell him the future (as often ghosts, etc can), but they want to drink his blood. He does not let them have any until they have told him what he wants to know.
Jesus's resurrection is also mentioned. He did it himself, but he was God. Also as God, he resurrected Lazarus, who had begun to show signs of decay (that's how you know he was really dead and not just pretending). The other biblicial resurrection mentioned here is where Ezekiel prophesies the raising of an army from bones. Read the first bit here. It's very good.
As it is written from such a Christian perspective, there is a lot of detail about excommunicated people who have died, who appear to not rot and often return to life, especially to ask to be allowed back into the church. However, all the undead being in this book (vampires, ghosts, and these excommunicated people) have some or almost total recollection of who they are, and they often have some purpose or task at hand. They are not the zombies we are used to, which are undead but very primal, with no memory to speak of.
There is a story of a demon who caused a young man to kill himself (to show love for a woman), and then, by inhabiting that young man, caused him to live again, until the demon left. When in this demon-infested state, the young man was more stupid and slower than he had been previously - here's someone bringing someone else back, and slow a slow zombie. He also stank terribly (like he was dead and rotting).
There was a legend in Germany that said that the dead in their graves would often chew and eat everything they could reach with their mouths - the shroud, even their own flesh. This could sometimes be heard from above ground. One of the methods of preventing this was putting a stone in the mouth.
In general, the vampires/ghosts that appeared to people had some purpose for doing so, or could tell things of the afterlife, etc. They remained the same person. I hypothesize that in these times, werewolves and other, normal animals filled the need for a primal creature to fear. However, nowadays when zombies are much more violent and popular, we have little fear of primal animals, as it is unlikely we will encounter them. Nowadays, zombies answer that call for us.
For amusing but still very logical reasons zombies are so popular nowadays, click here (cracked.com).

Zombies

so ive been thinking a lot about the point mary ann made about zombies just being bloodthirsty and all zombie movies being just violence. While those two things are mostly true, there are many important factors that we need to consider when looking at zombies. One such thing is origin. Zombies can come as a result from many different things from chemical warfare/military experiments to haitian bela lugosis. This is one thing that i would personally like to look into.
Another interesting thing is the concept of memory that zombies have. in some films (like 28 weeks later), the zombies actually retain memories from their previous lives which allows them to return to places where they grew up or show mercy to those they loved.
most importantly, the thing that we really need to look at in zombies is their evolution over time. beginning with white zombie and finishing off with zombieland (i think that is the most recent zombie film) we will notice many thing that have changed including speed, strength, agility, brain power, and even appetite for human flesh. while the films that we watch may be gruesome, it is important to note what has changed about zombies and why they have been such an important monster in not only the usa, but also countries around the world.