I didn't see this coming

Because we're about to shuffle off for the holidays shortly, this seemed like a nice, silly addition to the pre-vacation revelry we have in the ParanormalPopCulture offices.

Courtesy of the hilarious social commentators over at FAIL Blog, I give you "Psychic Fail":

'Daybreakers' bloody, gooey good clip

The more I see of Daybreakers, the more I'm excited to see an honest-to-goodness blood-and-guts vampire movie that takes traditional bloodsucker tropes and mashes them with sci-fi.

Set in 2019, the plot takes place in a near future where vampires are the dominant species and humans are farmed for blood. But as the human population dwindles, vampires experience a blood shortage and must find a way to survive. At the same time, a vampire scientist (played by Ethan Hawke) has a soft spot for humans and wants to create a synthetic blood source to save the blood-bags and preserve both species.

Now, in this new clip after the jump (courtesy of Cinema Blend), Hawke's character is chatting with his brother over a glass of chilled - thick and gooey - human blood before being interrupted by a nasty Nosferatu.

Good stuff but NSFW if you happen to have a squeamish work environment.

Rental Reviewer: '28 Days Later'

Each week, at-home critic Denise Purvis dons the guise of the Rental Reviewer and explores the best (and worst) of paranormal pop culture movies.

28 Days Later

Released in 2003, this zombie flick from genre-tackling auteur Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Sunshine, Slumdog Millionaire) not only spawned the sequel 28 Weeks Later, but also kickstarted a new undead era in mainstream movies.

The plot: The movie begins when animal rights activists set free a bunch of lab monkeys infected with the "rage virus" and have a serious anger management problem that causes them to attack and eat their primate pals.  The virus jumps species and humans get hungry eyes (one look at you and they can't disguise). So that's how the Zombie Apocalypse begins? See that PETA?

Anyhow, our hero Jim (Cillian Murphy of Batman Begins) wakes up after being unconscious for 28 days to find London is seemingly vacated. As the tagline says, “His fear began when he woke up alone. His terror began when he realised he wasn't.”

(Very catchy, eh? I couldn’t have phrased it better myself.)

Jim meets up with two other non-infected Brits, and without them wouldn’t have lasted very long in rage-infected London. The cadre eventually meet up with another man and his daughter, and they make their way to a military survival compound where the film shifts tone from just scary to disturbing and scary.

The scene: There are many jump shots in the movie where I nearly bounced to the ceiling, but the best scenes come early in the movie when Jim first wakes up and walks around a lifeless London. The eeriness of a major city ceasing to bustle is chill-inducing before we see the zombie.  Then Jim pops into a chapel for a little solace, and the real fun begins that doesn't let up for the rest of the movie.

The take: Technically, the victims of 28 Days Later are infected with the “rage virus” and undead, but they have that I-will-eat-your-brains vibe, so they're zombies in my book. As such, this is one of my favorite of the zombie genre movies. I'm a sucker for indie movies, and this one is right on up there with the best high-budget terror flicks.

'Twilight', the reality show? And official 'Eclipse' image

Last week, MTV.com reported a casting call went out on the Forks Forum in the Washington state town where the Twilight Saga is based.  Well, it turns out a reality-TV show is in the works for the small town, reports The Wrap.

Producer Zig Gauthier (a name destined for a James Bond villain) tells the entertainment site the show is intended to examine life in the town and inspect the Twi-hard fascination with Stephenie Meyer's books and movie franchise. Sadly, he adds the show will not be staking out "real" vampires or werewolves.

'Thor' writers take on vampire flick 'Damn Nation'

Moving from Norse deities to nocturnal creepies is actually a step in the right direction for writers screenwriters Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz. The duo - who wrote the upcoming Avengers-tie-in super hero flick Thor for Marvel (to be directed by Kenneth Branagh) - have landed scribe duties for another comic adaptation, Dark Horse's Damn Nation, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

Dark Horse describes the 2005 comic from Andrew Cosby and J. Alexander as "a vampire epic of global proportions." In it, "most of the living have fled the U.S., but a group of scientists remain behind, working on a cure. Now that they've succeeded, a military operation is launched from the President's current offices in the U.S. Embassy in London, to save the cure from the encroaching undead."

Already writer-producers on the paranormal Fox show Fringe, and previously on the canceled Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Miller and Stentz are adapting the story for Paramount.

Katy Perry takes a bite out of vampires

Katy Perry is fighting back against Internet rumors she's snogging Twilight's Robert Pattinson. After sites said she was flirting Edward Cullen in an L.A. bar last week, Perry declared on her Twitter feed she isn't into bloodsuckers, and reiterated she only has eyes for Brit comedian Russell Brand.

According to the Saturday tweet, she "Read a bunch of yesterdays-news-BULLOCKS. Ppl should know by now that I don't do vampires, but I do, DO @rustyrockets [Brand's Twitter name]. Don't get it TWISTED!"

There, don't you feel better now you know that? Personally, I feel like I need a shower for reporting it, but it is paranormal pop culture.

Cryptozoology fashion show paranormally fabulous

Paranormal pop culture looked fab when cryptids overran the Old State Capitol in Baton Rouge, La. on Dec. 12. As part of their UnCommon Thread Wearable Art Show, community arts group Culture Candy's themed Cryptozoology fashion show featured artists' takes on creatures of fantasy.

In an article by Karen Martin of 2theadvocate.com, a local Baton Rouge news site, the show "spawned nocturnal disturbances with visions of tree people, swamp monsters and vampire bat girls ... On the sunny side were sugar-plum fat polar bears, birds of dazzling plumage, a sock monkey come to life and maids trailing the sweet scent of magnolia."

To the left is the living exhibit "Treefolk" by Barrett Hutchinson, winner of the show's $1,000 first prize. If you're wondering, the description of treefolk, according to Hutchinson, are "trees that can take on humanoid shape and move a short distance from their root or in extreme cases uproot the entire tree and use the roots as a form of locomotion."

So for all those doubters out there, the paranormal is definitely in vogue.

LiveParaCon Appearance tonight!

Head on over to liveparanormal.com tonight at 9 p.m., EST, where ParanormalPopCulture.com editor Aaron Sagers will be holding a video Webcast to discuss all things paranormal pop culture. Aaron will be joining a great lineup of other LiveParaCon guests such as Dustin Pari, Amy Bruni, the Klinge brothers, Michelle Ayers and Jen Brown of Para411, and many others.  So spend your Friday night with Aaron and you won't regret it.

Jack Black to bring cryptozoology to big screen

After his last animated film, Kung-Fu Panda, made a bundle of cash, Jack Black will be returning to the toon world with a untitled cryptozoology film for 2012.

Reported by Variety, Black will produce the Illumination Entertainment animated film about "the search for legendary creatures whose existence has never actually been confirmed, like the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot."

Black is not going to provide a voice in the film, but it's still an interesting development for all you crypto fans out there.  Like I've been saying for a while now, the world of mysterious beasts is the next big thing for paranormal pop culture.

The Conspiracy Nut Report: 'Angels & Demons' and the real Illuminati antimatter

Known only as The Conspiracy Nut, this writer comments frequently on his theories of machinations, scandals and conspiracies in paranormal pop culture and their connection to the real world. The views reflected in The Conspiracy Nut Report are wacky and (probably, hopefully, maybe?) completely untrue, and definitely not those of ParanormalPopCulture.com.  However, they are fun to read.

The Conspiracy Nut Report

Angels & Demons is a 2000 bestselling mystery-thriller novel written by author Dan Brown adapted into a 2009 movie starring Tom Hanks, recently released on DVD.

The plot revolves around the quest of fictional Harvard University symbologist Robert Langdon (the same protagonist from Brown's The DaVinci Code) to uncover the mysteries of the secret society the Illuminati, and to unravel a plot to annihilate Vatican City using destructive antimatter. Angels & Demons focuses on the historical conflict between science and religion, and particularly between the Illuminati and the Roman Catholic Church. Additionally, the antimatter is known as the CERN, or God, particle. 

This is what I want to talk about today.

Lost city of Atlantis found?

To wrap up the day, here's a bit of news to bring out my skeptic side. HuffPo is passing along word that undersea archaeologists say they've found proof of the sunken city of Atlantis in the Caribbean Sea. These mysterious scientists released a batch of grainy satellite photos showing what they say is evidence of buildings and a pre-Egyptian pyramid.

(Man, Aquaman must be sooo pissed his 'hood is going to show up on Google Earth now.)

OK, sounds great, right?  Yeah, but then you read this line in the report: "The archaeologists have so far refused to divulge their identities or the location in the Caribbean. They say they are raising money for an expedition to confirm their findings."

Sometimes they come back: 'L4D' survivors join 'Left 4 Dead 2' add-on

For those of you who spent a year fighting for your character's survival in video game Left 4 Dead only to unceremoniously watch their existence disappear with the sequel Left 4 Dead 2, you will finally receive the closure you need in early 2010.

L4D developer has announced the first game add-on for the co-operative zombie-killing sequel, released in November, will be called "The Passing" and will bring the original Survivors to L4D2's Southern habitat.

Mark Twain's ghost encounters

To mark the Twain lecture (pun intended) at Samuel Clemens' house this evening by Dustin Pari (aka "The Paranormal Rock Star") and John Zaffis (aka "The Godfather of the Paranormal"), it seemed like a good idea to discuss the author's connection to the paranormal.  Not only is Twain's house in Hartford, CT, is supposedly haunted by his daughter Susie, but maybe Twain himself decided to stick around after his death. 

After all, the great American author was fascinated by ghosts and wrote about them on more than one occasion. For instance, in The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn, he even wrote that, "I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving." If that's not the account of an author who knew about ghostly sounds, what is?

So, if you're fortunate enough to attend the lecture tonight - and even if you're not (although tickets are still available) - get into the spirit of the Twain house by reading this March 1866 article from a San Francisco weekly called The Golden Era, where the author relates an encounter with mediums and ghosts:

Rental Reviewer: 'Altered'

Each week, at-home critic Denise Purvis dons the guise of the Rental Reviewer and explores the best (and worst) of paranormal pop culture movies.

Altered

This alien abduction movie has been brought to you by Eduardo Sánchez, director of The Blair Witch Project (promoting motion sickness for 10 years going!)

The plot:  It revolves around Wyatt (played by Adam Kaufman), who was abducted 15 years ago with his group of friends. One of Wyatt's friends never survived the experience, so when the group - being the good old boys they are - hunt and capture one of their alien abductors, it's time to get revenge.

The scene: Things get really creepy when the alien tracking device Wyatt digs out of his intestines starts clicking in its Mason jar (seems like an unsafe place to keep an alien tracking device to me, but would you expect him to keep it anywhere else?)

The take: Altered is dark, frightening and is in the low-budget realm just like its Witch sister. But instead of the shaky handheld camera work you would expect from Sánchez, it's shot with concise and oddly-surprising poignancy. The film is mostly set at the home of the main character Wyatt, which makes Altered captivating and intimate.

Dustin Pari returns to Connecticut for another round with Mark Twain

Mark Twain famously said he could live for two months on a good compliment, so maybe all the attention his spectre has been receiving lately from the paranormal community will last him an eternity – especially since he said of ghosts that, “I find them better company than a good many live people.”

Still, it’s a good many live people Twain’s ghost will host at his home in Hartford, CT, on Dec. 16 when Dustin Pari, paranormal investigator from the Syfy channel’s Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International, will give a lecture on the field with religious demonologist John Zaffis, “The Godfather of the Paranormal.”

Two weeks after a Dec. 2 Ghost Hunters episode investigating the Twain House aired, attendees will be able to join Pari as he returns to the home to share behind-the-scenes stories from the show investigations and to “educate people on the paranormal realm.”

Jackson Rathbone: From 'Twilight' Jasper to 'Airbender' Sokka

Just like Twi-hards fawn over Robert Pattinson as dreamy bloodsucker Edward Cullen, Avatar: The Last Airbender fans have popularized the dark and brooding firebender Prince Zuko (a character that dodged the Jesse McCartney-casting bullet earlier this year).

Well, with the 2010 release of M. Night Shyamalan’s film adaptation of the series, (titled The Last Airbender to avoid confusion with James Cameron's flick), we're starting to see a Twilight-Avatar connection. Especially when both movies have an actor in common: Jackson Rathbone.

But did you know Jackson Rathbone narrowly escaped both the roles that would set upon him mobs of rabid tween-and-teenage girls?

This past November, at the Twilight-arts hybrid festival event dubbed NewCon2009, Rathbone shared his casting experience for Airbender and revealed he originally auditioned not for the role of comic-relief Sokka (shown right), but for the dramatic Zuko.

Of course, as you'll see in the video below, somebody in the audience had to bring up his original audition for Edward Cullen, before he was cast as the charismatic Jasper Hale.

Creepy coincidence? Maybe, but we're just glad Jackson Rathbone will be churning out Sokka’s witty banter, and he won’t have to so much as touch the continual I-must-have-the-Avatar mantra. Thankfully, Jesse McCartney won’t have to, either.

-Tanya Marcy

Psychic Tiff Suggests

And now, a few thoughts from our friend Tiffany Smith Johnson, psychic and medium, and author of Picture Yourself Developing Your Psychic Abilities. Every so often, Tiffany pops by to share some wisdom, talk about pop-culture and discuss her role in the paranormal community.

Psychic Tiff Suggests:

So I watched Angels & Demons the other night, and based on the title, it seemed right up my psychic alley. But not so much. I didn't feel it. I kinda get the "Angels" thing, but the "Demons"? That part was severely lacking.

John Zaffis would have been like, "WTF?"

Meanwhile, I LOVED G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Frankly, if it's a comic-turned-movie, I'm in. X-Men, Fantastic Four, Blade: You name it, I'm there.

Tiffany will be appearing next for a group gallery reading on Saturday, Jan. 30 at the Wingate Hotel in Fargo, ND, at 7 p.m. Purchase tickets for $40 at http://www.wix.com/cocovinna/laska. Tiffany will also be conducting a group gallery reading at the Gulf Coast Para Con on Feb. 26-28 in Fairhope, AL. Get tickets at the Para Con Web site.

Zombie Reagan raised from grave to lead GOP

In a move to desperately find their next Reagan-esque leader, the Republican party decided to simply re-animate their last Reagan-esque leader, the formerly alive 40th president, Ronald Reagan.  It took a lot of brains to figure out how to do it, and those brains will likely be rewarded by some gumming from the Gipper.

It's dawn (of the dead) in America again, and under the re-leadership of Zombie President Reagan, our country is prouder and stronger ... and hungrier.

Here's the report from the Onion News Network:


Zombie Reagan Raised From Grave To Lead GOP

Kristyn Gartland TAPS into the power of 'Ghost Hunters,' reality TV

It's best to let Kristyn Gartland speak for herself. The TAPS case manager, occasional Ghost Hunters co-star and co-founder of Anomalie Paranormal is the kind of person whose opinion is best when unleashed and unedited.

The Contrarian's Chris Parizo recognizes this and lets Gartland do the talking in a Q&A about life before and after the show hit big. She also discusses her take on the world of TAPS, and about how fame and editing can affect one's perspective of the world.

It's an enlightening piece with an honest voice of one of paranormal pop culture's funniest, most forthcoming figures.

'Twilight' parody excerpt: Harvard Lampoon's 'Nightlight' knocks 'em undead

As New Moon continues to pull in the cash with a specially-made money rake, now seemed like as good as any to run a short excerpt from Nightlight, the excellent Harvard Lampoon parody of the tween vamp saga.  The language is so eerily similar to the source material that I half-expect Stephenie Meyer wrote the spoof herself just to squeeze every possible ounce of blood out of the franchise.

Enjoy:

Bite to the future? New 'Daybreakers' trailer hits

Vampire scientists in the not-too-distant future face a diminishing blood supply from near-extinct humans. One researcher wants to save his blood-sucking race and the humans, while an evil corporation wants to farm what's left of their natural resources.

Who will win? How will humans fare? Will the future have a fluorescent glow and have human blood banks filled with Matrix-esque harvesting pods? Find out on Jan. 8 when Daybreakers hits.

Personally, I'm looking forward to it. Sure, a science fiction vampire flick with an environmental conservation message does sound hokey.  Then again, it's better than sparkling, fey vamps, right? And if the trailer below is any indication, we can expect a lot of bloody vampire action. Plus, even if the plot sucks (word play!), we can expect some scenery chewing from Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill and Ethan Hawke.

(via SCI FI Wire)