ChicagoVampire.com is pleased to announce that your Host and MC for the night will be none other than Mr. Chad Hawks from ChateauGRRR.com – one of our favorite local vampires and one helluva fun guy.

Details about Saturday’s Daybreakers/Vampire events

ChicagoVampire.com is pleased to announce a night of vampire-fueled fanged fun courtesy of the new Lionsgate movie DAYBREAKERS on January 2, 2010.

We’ll start with VAMPIRES ON ICE at the McCormick Tribune Ice Rink in Millennium Park starting at 7:30 pm: Come out and meet Kitty Zombie dressed as your favorite vampire (or type of vampire) and get great DAYBREAKERS shwag, photos with Kitty and other Chicago vampire fans and enjoy the general merriment that ensues when the Undead Take Over the Ice!

Then head north to Club Neo for DAYBREAKERS NIGHT from 10:00 pm to 5:00 am. There’ll be vampire-centric music, vampire drink specials, Daybreakers giveaways and passes handed out for a SPECIAL SCREENING of DAYBREAKERS on Monday, January 4.

Vampires on Ice is ALL AGES. Daybreakers Night is 21+.

DAYBREAKERS This January, Lionsgate takes vampires in a new direction with the futuristic sci-fi thriller, DAYBREAKERS.

The year is 2019. A mysterious plague has swept over the earth, transforming the majority of the world’s population into vampires. Humans are now an endangered, second-class species – forced into hiding as they are hunted and farmed for vampire consumption to the brink of extinction.

It’s all up to Edward Dalton, a vampire researcher who refuses to feed on human blood, to perfect a blood substitute that might sustain vampires and spare the few remaining humans. But time and hope are running out – until Ed meets Audrey, a human survivor who leads him to a startling medical breakthrough. Armed with knowledge that both humans and vampires will kill for, Ed must battle his own kind in a deadly struggle that will decide the fate of the human race.

Stylish, provocative and action-packed, DAYBREAKERS stars two-time Academy Award® nominee Ethan Hawke (Supporting Actor, TRAINING DAY, 2001; Adapted Screenplay, BEFORE SUNSET, 2004), two-time Academy Award® nominee Willem Dafoe (Supporting Actor, PLATOON, 1988; Supporting Actor, SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE, 2000) and Sam Neill.   Make-up Effects were created by WETA Workshop.   DAYBREAKERS is written and directed by the Spierig Brothers.

Northwestern University’s Medill Reports weighs in on the current (and past) popularity of vampires:

This sexual predator is not cruising chat rooms or walking into a sting operation with “To Catch a Predator’s” Chris Hansen.  For centuries belt buckles and bra clasps have unfastened at their  whim.  These long-toothed, porcelain hemo-fiends bit their own chunk out of the fleshy literary almanac.

Katherine Ramsland, a forensic psychologist at DeSales University, a Catholic school in Philadelphia, prefers her vampires with  a bit more bite.

She is the author of more than 35 books, an Anne Rice biographer and “vampirologist,” who has studied vampire culture for more than 20 years. She likens the worldwide phenomenon known as “Twilight,” to prolonged heavy petting, less the classic appeal of sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Read the full article at http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=152517

Editor’s Note: The reporters gave me way too much credit in this article. I’m flattered and embarrassed.

Marty Riccardo sent this bit of fanged holiday fun:

ChicagoVampire.com has a couple of nifty new features to make it even easier for you to find and connect with other vampire fans in and around Chicago!

First, you can now login to the site using your existing Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo or other accounts.  Look for the Login box on the right.

Second, you can now create a profile on the site, add friends, post to the site, etc. All you have to do is create an account to get started!

PLEASE NOTE: If you try to leave a comment on another user’s post using CV’s new social interaction features, it may appear as if nothing happens when you click the “COMMENT” button. It’s a bug that we’ve alerted the developer to; your comment DOES post, you just won’t see it unless you refresh the page after you click the button. For what it’s worth.

ChicagoVampire.com has 25 Admit-Two passes to give away for a November 23rd advance screening of the upcoming vampire/comedy TRANSYLMANIA. To win, send an email to transylmaniachicago@yahoo.com – the first 25 people to do so will receive a return email with a printable eTicket and specific time/location for the screening. Enjoy!

…at least according to the front page of ChicagoMagazine.com today:

Looks like ChicagoMagazine.com decided to capitalize on New Moon's opening weekend...

I’m more annoyed that the article leads off with “Chris Savage”, but what the hell – at least they’re linking back here, which is cool (thanks, CM!). You can now read the article from the November issue of Chicago Magazine online at http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/November-2009/Bitten-Chicago-area-vampire-enthusiasts/

For every excited teenage girl (and her won’t-admit-that-she’s-also-excited mom) that’s going to see Twilight: New Moon this weekend, there are a dozen horror/vampire fans who would rather die a slow, painful death than be sparkly. For that latter group, here are 20 vampire movies that really deliver the goods. The vampires are rarely the Good Guys here, but even when they are, they’re still really, really dangerous:

1. Near Dark
2. Fright Night
3. Let the Right One In
4. Vamp
5. 30 Days of Night
6. Perfect Creature
7. From Dusk ’til Dawn
8. Innocent Blood
9. Shadow of the Vampire
10. Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
11. John Carpenter’s Vampires
12. The Hunger
13. The Lost Boys
14. Thirst
15. Blade
16. Vampire Hunter D
17. Blood, The Last Vampire (Anime)
18. Salem’s Lot (1979)
19. Cronos
20. …oh, go ahead and pop in your favorite version(s) of Dracula while you’re at it!

Did we forget your favorite vampire movie? Is there a glaring omission? Hit the COMMENT button to leave your additions!

Dominican University will present a program titled “Fangs A Lot: The Vampire in Myth, Movies, and Popular Culture” at 7 p.m. Dec. 8 in the Martin Recital Hall, 7900 W. Division St. The panel, featuring Dominican faculty, will examine the current mania in literature, film and television for vampires and other supernatural beings.

The panel will cover such pop culture phenomena as Anne Rice’s vampire novels of the 1970s and ’80s, the current “Twilight” series in books and movies, the “True Blood” and “Vampire Diaries” television shows and the upcoming Tim Burton feature film treatment of the 1960s television show “Dark Shadows.”

Janice Del Negro, assistant professor in Dominican’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science and an award-winning children’s author, will explore the history of paranormal romance in young adult literature and the conflicting roles of the feminine protagonists in popular series such as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Twilight.” Carlissa Hughes, associate clinical professor of psychology, will examine the psychological roots of this genre’s popularity, especially amongst adolescent girls. The Rev. Richard Woods, professor of theology and the author of several books on fantasy and science fiction, will discuss the theological significance of vampirism and share his expertise in films focusing on the paranormal.

The panelists will entertain questions following the discussion. In addition, a bibliography of books and films focusing on the paranormal will be made available.

For more information on this free program, contact Jessica Mackinnon, director of public information, at (708) 524-6289 or jmack@dom.edu.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE FROM SUN-TIMES MEDIA HERE.

The Chicago Sun-Times has a feature article on the new book Friday Night Bites, which features the Windy City as its setting:

“You would think an author who writes a series of books subtitled “A Chicagoland Vampires Novel” would be a native Chicagoan, or at least a transplant. You might be wrong, though.

“I don’t live in Chicago, but I do live in the Midwest,” admits Chloe Neill, author of the recently released Friday Night Bites. “Chicago had left an impression on me. The first time I visited was when I was a campaign staffer in 1996, and it was such a magical and meaningful experience for me both personally and professionally that I filed Chicago in the back of my mind as a place I might want to visit at some point in my writing.”

When Neill sat down to write her first novel in the series, Some Girls Bite, she was looking for the ideal big city in which to set her tale. New York and New Orleans have been the settings for numerous vampire tales. Her memories of Chicago came back to her and she realized after doing a bit of research that the Windy City had never been prominently featured in any vampire book…”

Read the full article by Misha Davenport HERE.