Remember the awesome documentary that was, Superhero Me? If you never saw it, you simply must. It followed a normal guy (Steve Sale) who attempted to create his own superhero and attempt to clean London’s streets of all wrong-doings! We absolutely loved it (read my review here), so much so that we ended up making our own short movie with Steve and some of the people that he met while making his documentary. You can see the fruits of our labour here and yes, that is me dressed as Kick-Ass!

Steve is back to direct another movie with the title Suck Buddy in which he does his best to investigate whether or not vampires really do exist!

Synopsis: In this current economic climate, that could be one explanation as to why it’s hard to turn on a TV set and not see or hear something about Vampires.  Every country has them in some shape or form. They are a worldwide phenomenon. Could this fascination be more than mythology, folklore and elaborate story telling, or could Vampires really exist? From the creators of “Superhero Me“, “Suck Buddy” (Release date tbc) follows filmmaker Steve Sale on a journey, with a cross and some garlic, to uncover the truth about Vampires. Delving into the ever growing subculture of Real Life Vamps and scaling the globe to find a genuine Real Life blood sucking Nosferatu.

You can find out more about the movie at www.SuckBuddy.com and scroll down to view the teaser trailer.

Full, nerdy caveat out front and centre – had you explored my teenage bedroom (and to an extent my adult flat) and rifled through my draws, you would’ve likely found DVDs, comics, books, action figures and (DON’T JUDGE ME) the sheet music to Buffy’s musical episode ‘Once More With Feeling’.

I loved and still hold a mildly obsessive adoration for all things Buffy and Angel. Joss Whedon’s seminal fantasy series managed to harness that rare televisual alchemy, and – duff episodes and wayward plot points aside – brought a reliable mixture of heart, humour and hammy monster ass-kicking to screens with a consistency unmatched by other genre TV.

So when it was announced that Whedon would be resurrecting the Slayer (not the first time, natch) in comic form, and would be continuing her adventures in canon, it cemented my geeky love for the man.

Yet for those not quite as fanatical or of my nerdy comic-loving disposition, it may well have passed you by. Henceforth, Buffy Season 8 Motion Comics Issues 1-18, a DVD that brings the stories to life using animation technology that’s been floating around Marvel and DC for a couple of years now.

In essence, it harnesses each of the panels from the 40 issue run (although you only get the first 19 issues on this first DVD), animating them, adding the odd flashy special effect and overlaying surrogate voice acting to bring the story to life.

For those of you who would rather eat a comic than read one, this is a superb and eminently digestible way to catch up with the escapades of the Scooby Gang – for those of a more diehard persuasion, this package doesn’t quite live up to the legacy of old.

The over-arching plot finds Buffy at the helm of a mega Slayer army following the TV series finale. Yet while the world has changed, Buffy’s troubles haven’t. She still has boy trouble galore (as in, she doesn’t have one), friend and family issues, and a portentous, illusive Big Bad (the not-so-subtly named, genre mocking ‘Twilight’) on the horizon. Throw in a US army who suddenly sees the Slayers as a viable global threat, the return of some old (insane) faces, and renegade slayers, and she’s got a lot on her hands.

Whedon admitted that with the shackles of production budgets and executive demands no longer an issue, Season 8 was an opportunity to go wild and explore some ridiculously OTT concepts he’d never have had the opportunity to play with on-screen. Which is why the opening four issues alone bring you flying Big Bads, Dawn as a giant, dream worlds, slayer army vs zombie/human army megafights, and a globe-hopping series of locations.

"'Cos you gotta have Faith..."

While the spectacle is undoubtedly fun, you can’t help but feel the show’s appeal and universal core was the ability to keep the tone grounded amidst all the ridiculousness of the supernatural, and some of that is inevitably lost amidst the transition to the ‘all bets are off’ plot tangents.

Visually, it’s a joy. George Jeanty’s beautiful pencils straddle the line between relatable authenticity and cartoony vibrancy to perfection. The animation is similarly engaging, making a surprisingly amount of fluency from what are essentially mildly animated comic panels. The FX and occasional KAPOW-esque on-screen effects lend it enough razzamatazz to entertain, and the score is certainly competent enough to support the different story arcs.

The main – and most distracting – issue is the voice acting. It’s testament to the original cast that you never realise quite how reliant and effective Whedon’s stylised dialogue is on its delivery. When you’re reading it in the comics, you’re aware of the flow and nuance of the tone – when it’s spoken by knock-off voice actors, the lack of timing and intonation is undoubtedly jarring. Still, it’s not a complete loss, and while some of the main players seems frustratingly off (Buffy, Willow and Andrew), there are some that capture the mood of the show (Faith, Xander and Giles).

Fundamentally though, it boils down to the storylines, and for Buffy fans there’s still more than enough to entertain, including the brilliant and poignant Whedon-penned standalone issue ‘The Chain’, Buffy’s futuristic Fray crossover ‘Time Of Your Life’, and Brian K. Vaughan’s cracking Faith and Giles romp ‘No Future For You’.

Whether hardcore Buffy fan or comics curio, I’d recommend you read the comics first. For those wanting a quick Slayer fix and a chance to explore the animated Buffy series that never was, the motion comic is an ample compromise.

***~~ (3/5)

Buffy The Vampire Slayer – Season 8 Motion Comic (Issues 1-19) is available on DVD from 3rd October 2011.

As one of the most successful franchises ends (the last ever Harry Potter instalment had its glitzy premiere yesterday in London) another one – The Twilight saga – is under way and captivating its audience with the love story between a human girl and a vampire.

Yes, the vampire genre has been back with a vengeance for a while now, and while it might not be everyone’s Bloody Mary, it is a lucrative pot of gold for producers all over the globe.

So, get ready for more blood sucking adventures on our big screens, as Warner Bros could not let the opportunity slip and is picking up the not-too-originally titled “Undying love” – a story about an ex soldier who falls for a vampire girl.

Originally a comic book mini-series, Undying Love will be produced by Stephen L’Heureux and Benderspink and written by its creators Tomm Coker and Daniel Freedman. In spite of a somewhat weak and kind of cheesy storyline, the movie seems set to appeal to a large audience by combining love stories with fights between man and ‘unnatural creatures’ a la X-Men.

The Hollywood Reporter describes it as a mix of “the traditional vampire lore with Chinese monster myths as well as the Hong Kong action genre.”

Interesting? We’ll have to wait and see…

We’ve got IMPawards to ‘thank’ for these new posters from Scott Stewart’s forthcoming Priest, starring Paul Bettany as the angry cleric, hellbent on hunting down some vampires for some reason. I’m sure it’s a good reason though.

It’s got a pretty good cast though, with Karl Urban and Christopher Plummer appearing alongside Cam Gigandet, Lily Collins and Stephen Moyer, and the previous images and trailers we’ve seen point to something better than the last collaboration between Bettany and Stewart, the gun toting angel thriller, Legion.

Anyway, here are the posters, which proudly proclaim their 3Dness.

Although that last one feels a little incomplete…

That’s better.

SlashFilm recently got hold of some new images from Scott Stewart’s (Legion) upcoming post-apocalyptic drama, Priest.

These images come a week before Comic-Con, therefore Screengems are supposedly hoping they pump up the anticipation levels. These images follow the first official image and a few set pictures, which you can see here.

Priest stars Paul Bettany (Wimbledon), who previously worked with Stewart on the hugely disappointing Legion, as a warrior Priest who disobeys Church law in order to hunt down a group of vampires who’ve kidnapped his niece.

The film also features appearances from Karl Urban (Star Trek), Christopher Plummer (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus), Alan Dale (Lost) and Maggie Q (Die Hard 4.0). It’s an adaptation of the Tokyopop manga by Hyung Min-woo.

In a similar vein to Legion, the film deals with themes of death, supernatural warrior Gods, vampires, violence and horror. However, if compared to Legion, Priest looks the superior of the two films, with the images showing a more polished, cooler film.

Check out the images below.

Those following the career of Paul Bettany might be wondering whatever happened to the man who stared into the dark abyss of our souls in Gangster Number One all those years ago.

He established himself instantly with his portrayal of a young Malcolm McDowell in Paul McGuigan’s film, and while he has dipped his toes in the rom com pool occasionally, he has often looked to distance himself from the mainstream and in taking roles such as Priest he is doing just that.

Since his last film Legion took an Icarusian plunge from favour at the box office, he remains undaunted and has reunited with director Scott Stewart for this new film which is currently shooting.

Take a look here for a brief history of the film Preist, along with the very first shots of Paul Bettany in character, and then scroll down for more on set shots of the man of bloodied cloth.

These came crashing into our consciousness by the divine duo of Just Jared and MovieWeb. Bow down in thanks.

Following their collaboration on the poorly received Legion, Paul Bettany and director Scott Stewart have reunited with another religious themed horrorshow for their take on Hyung Min-woo’s comic series Priest, which at its heart is a blend of cowboys, vampires and a host of hellbent craziness.

A behind the scenes clip surfaced a few months ago but the trail went cold until today when a single image from the film appeared online.

Bettany stars with Karl Urban, Christopher Plummer, Brad Dourif, Maggie Q and Cam Gigandet and in Entertainment Weekly director Stewart is quoted thusly,

In our world, priests are like Jedi Knights with special powers and training.

Our vampires are more feral and disturbing than, say, the teen-angst vampires of Twilight or the sexy vampires of True Blood. Those vampires are metaphors. Ours aren’t.

That’ll be news to True Blood star Stephen Moyer who also appears in the film.

Here’s the image, let’s hope there’s more in our future.

MovieWeb pointed us to EW who had this first. We’re like an internet version of the Human Centipede aren’t we?

Today, courtesy of Entertainment Tonight Canada, we have the first look at Scott Stewart’s new film Priest. This follows his pretty terrible Legion which David reviewed here and, like Legion, Priest also stars Paul Bettany in the lead role.

Although I don’t think I disliked Legion quite as much as David, I only thought there were about 10 minutes of enjoyable film in there and the rest was mostly awful. If Stewart can maybe build on those 10 minutes rather than the other 90 maybe Priest could be okay. Also, one of the weak points of Legion was the writing but Priest has a different writer and the film is based on a graphic novel so maybe with some solid visual effects (these were actually pretty good in Legion) and a decent script this could shape up to be a enjoyable vampire action film.

The synopsis of the film is as follows

Priest tells the story of a warrior priest (Bettany) who disobeys Church law by teaming with a young sheriff (Cam Gigandet) and a beautiful priestess (Maggie Q) to track down a band of renegade vampires who have kidnapped the priest’s niece before they turn her into one of them.  The film co-stars Karl Urban, Lily Collins, Steven Moyer, Brad Dourif and Christopher Plummer.

The clip is embedded below and includes some behind the scenes footage and interviews with Paul Bettany and True Blood vampire Bill, Stephen Moyer.

The film is due to be released in the UK on 14th January 2011.

After all the Vampire rule breaking nonsense that was Twilight, it was a real pleasure to watch the enjoyable Day Breakers and witness a bloody, gory, entertaining and faithful rule abiding Vampire film with a very interesting take on the Vampire story.

Day breakers is set in a 2019 dystopian sci-fi future where Vampires rule the world after an unknown virus turns majority of the worlds population into Vampires and now humans are the endangered species, at only 5% of the worlds population, which are hunted and farmed for their blood, but with the human race facing extinction and blood supplies running dangerously low a new food source is needed to sustain the population of Vampires.

So introducing another Edward the Vampire, Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke), who’s a hematologist working for the company that farms humans for blood. Edward is given the burdening responsibility in finding an artificial substitute for human blood to prevent Vampires turning into a vicious vampire killing Feral mutation due to starvation, a problem that is increasing within the poor society of the Vampire world.

Problem for Edward is that he has sympathy for the human race and gets involved with a group of human survivors that’s lead by Lionel ‘Elvis’ Cormac (Willem Dafoe) a human that claims to have once been a Vampire but was cured. Could this be the solution for the blood shortage, a cure to change everyone back. But that is the dilemma of the story, if you could live forever with no disease or pain (unless you walked into sunlight and fried) why would you want to change back into a human.

The film starts off brilliantly showing how Vampires live at night, living as they did as humans by commuting to work on the train and buying coffee (although with 20% blood in it) for their journey. They have adapted buildings, cars and their homes to prevent sunlight leaking in with a daily public address announcement warning that sunrise is due within the hour and as well as having alarms notifying you that your lights are on on your vehicle, there are alarms letting you know UV levels are high outside. It’s a well thought out concept.

Head of the Bromley Marks company that farms humans for blood is Charles Bromley (Sam Neill), the villain of the film that has become as complacent as almost everyone else as the stocks of humans diminishes and cares little for both races as long as he makes money due to the rises prices of blood stocks. There is a subplot involving Charles Daughter Alison (Isabel ‘ruined Transformers’ Lucas) that seemed completely pointless but led to a nice execution scene.

Edward joins the human survivors and learns how Elvis was turned back to a human, the idea is dubious but well carried out but difficult to bite as a solution to cure Vampires back to human, but to progress the story it works well and gives hope to the Human race and also gives hope to Charles Bromley as he can use this procedure to create more stocks of humans instead of using it to cure the world of Vampires which is what Edward and Elvis want to do, is another interesting dilemma for the characters to face.

Overall the film is a excellent idea, not executed as well as it probably read off the page but never-the-less it has enough to entertain and with Ethan Hawke in top form as Edward and Willem Dafoe clearly enjoying himself, the two actors make Day Breakers a decent film and without them I doubt it would have been anywhere near as enjoyable.
Sam Neill is solid enough as the blood sucking CEO but apart from them the rest of the cast were quite insignificant as characters and were just fodder for everyone else. The Spierig Brothers, who directed, competently make the film work with a superb visual look and use ideas that work well with the characters and the concept.

The Good: The story was brilliant, The Vampires are dam cool putting the Twilight versions to shame and the mutated Feral Vampires, that were seriously underused, were a formidable enemy to both humans and Vampires that will probably be explored more in a possible sequel but should have been more of an enemy force in this film instead of Charles Bromley’s business minded villainy.
The armour of the Vampire troops that enable day walking for Vampires was nice and of course the blood and gore was very realistically done with an experiement on a volunteer vampire of the effects of being injected with the artificial blood was a real pleaser as too was a main characters death in a lift at the end that was brutally pleasing.

The Bad: The plot went a bit crazy towards the end, Isabel Lucas was just used as eye candy in a pointless story arc, Cheesy dialogue, slowly paced at times and a desperate attempt to set up a sequel.

Day Breakers is well worth a watch for a new, interesting and smart Vampire story that I really liked and completely forgive it’s flaws.

Day Breakers is out now.

I was at the Twilight New Moon screening last night and I was sitting in a cinema with hundreds of very excited people, a majority of them girls from young teenagers to middle age women, already very eager for the film to start of this amazingly popular franchise.

But there is a delay as someone from behind the curtain announces that we are waiting for some special guests to arrive before the film starts and that leads for the blood thirsty audience to erupt into an orgy of excited screams and expectation that Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner are here, oh boy what have i let myself in for? here's my review with some spoilers.

And so the curtains draw back after a further delay, more over excited screams, and a man with microphone announces that Twilight star Michael Sheen is stuck in traffic and can't make it but new twilight actor Jamie Campbell Bower that plays Caius (Thanks to Sofia pointing this out to me, i had trouble hearing from the back through all the dam screams!) eagerly takes the limelight thanking everyone and introduces the film, more screams. 

The film starts, supplementary screams (a pattern is emerging which continues throughout the film at any appearance of Edward and Jacob, slightly annoying) and what unfolds is the continuing story of forbidden love between Bella and Edward that is put on ice by the arrival of Jacob sporting 30 ponds of extra muscle to confirm his role in the film. 

I need to admit something here, I am a 31 year old man with no previous experience of anything Twilight and was extremely surprised by the excitement that surrounded me and the passion the people had for the story and the characters and I can fully understand how this film is such a phenomenal success. 

The actors own their characters entirely and the story has, from what I've been told, a strong source material to draw from and so what I saw on screen was always going to please the fans in every way. Jacob, now a beefed up sex icon, pleased the ladies every time he appeared and probably stole the film from Edward as the werewolf clan member who became Bella's love Interest after Edward chooses to leave Forks with the Cullen family in a bid to protect Bella from harm.

Edward's plan backfires as the evil and revengeful vampire Victoria is seeking to kill Bella as revenge to Edward for killing her lover in Twilight but the werewolf clan hunt and keep Bella safe from the red headed vampire, this part was only touched upon and Victoria's vendetta will be expanded upon in the third film were she will build an army to fight the Cullen family where Victoria has been recast to be played by Bryce Dallas.

The story of the werewolves is explained and of the treaty they have with the Cullen vampire family that protects the humans in the town of Forks and so Bella is drawn to another supernatural family and eventually falls for Jacob after a long series of bonding sessions, boy does she pick her men with a closet full of secrets.

The film reaches a climax where Edward believes Bella is dead and chooses to sacrifice his life to the Volturi who reside in Volterra Italy, they are vampires who impose the laws of the vampire world that are led by Aro, played by Michael 'i can act as anybody' Sheen, and Bella eventually has to choose between Jacob and her true love Edward, only one winner really and she heads off to Italy to save him in. 

I won't spoil it but i suppose most of the readers of the book know the ending by now, it seemed to satisfy the crowd a lot with probably the biggest screams and cheers of all and so now the build up to Twilight Eclipse Begins.

The film is not to my liking but it's not trying to appeal to someone like me. It's well acted, well cast and the story is perfect for the people it is aimed for and that's enough for it to work and continue to be the huge success that it is and according to a few people i overheard speaking on the way out is no where as good as the first film but i doubt that it will matter, there is nothing like this that appeals to this generation more than The Twilight Saga and it will enjoy another couple of years of further success as it completes it's journey.

The fights are fast and solid although sparse, Kristen Stewart was again a very strong presence on screen but the special FX were a bit ropey, especially the werewolves. But overall for a film about supernatural characters like vampires and werewolves the underlining story is still a love story and probably it's defining legacy and one that seems to hit most with the majority of teenage fans in the cinema that will no doubt return for more in 2010 for Twilight Eclipse. Watch this space for more news.