Vampire

Anyone waiting for another installment of Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight’’ or sitting on the edge of his sofa for a new episode of HBO’s “True Blood’’ might want to hold on. Don’t let the subtitle of “Blood: The Last Vampire’’ alarm you. The finale of this tedious piece of Asian-ish action-schlock based on a popular anime series implies an intention to make more. One was plenty for me. It’s no fun not enjoying a story about a half-human, half-vampire samurai, especially one that appears to be aiming for vigorous nonsense.

PICK OF THE DAY Shedding light In the old days (before fancy-shmancy technology), sailors relied on lighthouses for safe navigation. The Egan Maritime Institute presents "Guiding Lights: Nantucket's Lighthouses, Keepers & Their Families," an exhibit of photos, stories, and tales of shipwrecks at the Nantucket Shipwreck and Lifesaving Museum . Daily 10 a.m.-5 p.m. through Oct. 8. $5, $3 ages 5-18. The Nantucket Shipwreck & Lifesaving Museum, 158 Polpis Road, Nantucket.

NEW YORK - It's something Gawker's snarky arbiters of culture would normally find irresistible: an advertisement for a TV program in the form of a blog that's embedded within a popular website and made to look just like it. It might, if the fake vampire blog paid for by HBO to promote its series "True Blood" wasn't on Gawker itself. Gawker Media added a short disclaimer at the bottom of the "Bloodcopy" blog to distinguish itself from editorial copy shortly after it was initially posted on Wednesday, and a Gawker editor objected to the blurring line between editorial and ad copy.

Remember last year when it seemed as though "Bridesmaids" would herald some exciting new era in which women would have a bigger stake in the summer? Oh well. It's back to the usual assortment of capes, cars, and codpieces — back, in other words, to action. At least, though, the vision has expanded enough to let more women in on it. "The Dark Knight" has Catwoman. Ridley Scott's return to scary outer space ("Prometheus") has Noomi Rapace and Charlize Theron. "Battleship" has, um, Rihanna.

Fledgling , By Octavia E. Butler, Seven Stories, 317 pp., $24.95 Octavia E. Butler, the first successful female African-American science-fiction writer and a winner of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, is skilled at persuading her readers to reconsider social norms while immersing them in the alternate reality she's created. The settings are usually familiar (Los Angeles a few years from now, for example), and her main characters seem fairly ordinary -- at least, at first.

Throw a bulb of garlic right now and you’ll hit a vampire. But “Daybreakers,’’ a long-gestating action-thriller that opens today, seems to have made room to accommodate both vampire fatigue and those who can’t seem to get enough. Just when you think popular culture has exhausted all the metaphorical and allegorical possibilities, the film unifies all the usual tropes (bloodlust, heliophobia, fangs) into a complete science fiction whole. “Daybreakers,’’ which is written and directed by the twin brothers Michael and Peter Spierig, has unexpected flashes of brilliance.

Oh, the many pesky issues that can tear apart a rock band. The frontman’s itch to “explore solo projects.’’ The drummer’s jealousy that he’s not the frontman. Or, for the wannabe superstars of “Suck,’’ the group’s growing resentment of its bassist, who rockets them all toward the big time not because she can flat out play, but because she’s a vampire. Writer-director-rocker Rob Stefaniuk’s indie isn’t to be confused with the current “Twilight’’-glomming insta-spoof “Vampires Suck’’ — but that doesn’t mean it’s an altogether sharper comedy, either.

Rhode Island State Police say two girls who visited the grave of a 19th-century teen rumored to have been a vampire were killed after their car missed a turn on Purgatory Road and rolled over. Capt. Darren Delaney says the Warwick teens were leaving Chestnut Hill Cemetery in Exeter on Wednesday night after visiting the 1892 grave of Mercy Brown. He says they decided to drive down the "dark, windy road" because they thought it looked "haunted. " Lt. Kevin Hawkins says the driver tried to navigate a turn on the unfamiliar road, but swerved and rolled...

Deborah Harkness’s sure-to-be a blockbuster Gothic romance novel is a Dan-Brown-worthy blend of horror-movie kitsch, New Age cheesiness, and romance-novel saccharine, as it explores the challenges of love between a perky witch and a handsome vampire. Think “Twilight’’ for adults. As in all good romances, the obstacles facing witch Diana and vampire Matthew are internal and external. Harkness shows these two academics (she’s a professor at Yale; he’s at Oxford) meeting in the library, then slowly falling in love during yoga classes, discussions about evolution, and over...

. STAKE LAND Directed by: Jim Mickle Starring: Nick Damici, Connor Paolo, Kelly McGillis, Michael Cerveris Running time: 98 minutes At: Brattle Rated: R (general undeadness, gore and violence) Post-apocalyptic scenarios never used to be inundated with the undead. Take the classics: “Soylent Green,’’ “Planet of the Apes,’’ “The Terminator.’’ Plenty of unsavory characters who’ve fashioned impressive wardrobes out of leather, your pick of unspeakable acts.

NEW YORK - Jonathan Frid, a Shakespearean actor who found unexpected - and, by his own account, unwanted - celebrity as the vampire Barnabas Collins on the sanguinary soap opera "Dark Shadows," died Friday the 13th in Hamilton, Ontario. He was 87. He died of complications of a fall, said Kathryn Leigh Scott, who played several characters on the show. Mr. Frid, who lived in Ancaster, Ontario, leaves no immediate survivors. Mr. Frid, along with several castmates, makes a cameo appearance in Tim Burton's feature film "Dark Shadows," to be released May 11....

Despite having dozens of television, movie, and book projects on the horizon, 1998 Emerson College grad Seth Grahame-Smith managed to make time Tuesday and Wednesday to fly to Boston and visit with students at his alma mater. The author of the soon-to-be-released novel "Unholy Night," met with students to explain how he got started in the entertainment business, and to assure them that the only way to fail is to bow out of the race. "It took me a decade," Grahame-Smith told us yesterday of his stalled beginnings in Hollywood.

IN 1983, a biologist studying vampire bats in the forests of Costa Rica made a remarkable discovery: Bats that spent the night gorging on blood returned to their caves and routinely fed fellow bats that didn't find enough to eat. The story of how well-off bats care for their hungry brethren by regurgitating into their mouths made vampire bats the darling of scientists who ponder why - in a world shaped by "survival of the fittest" - so many creatures...

Vampires and werewolves are back at each other's throats in "Underworld Awakening," a sequel seemingly eager to assert that monster mashes are about B-movie chills not "Twilight" melodrama. Eager to a fault, ultimately. After sitting out the series' third installment, Kate Beckinsale wriggles back into her rubber catsuit as heroic vampire Selene, a "Death Dealer" tasked with eradicating enemy Lycans. Selene's mission was complicated over the first couple of movies by her romantic involvement with vampire-werewolf hybrid Michael Corvin (Scott Speedman, oddly subbed for...

WHO: Joseph Creedon of ImprovBoston WHAT: It was just a matter of time before the improv troupes took a crack at spoofing Stephenie Meyer's ubiquitous ‘‘Twilight" saga vampire novels and the movies they've spun off. ImprovBoston hopes to take a comedic bite out of the melodramatic tale of Edward, Bella, and Jacob with ‘‘My Dark Love: An Improvised Teen Gothic Romance," complete with audience participation and, just maybe, Ewoks....

Don Sharp, a veteran film director who had never watched a horror movie until Hammer Films enlisted him in the mid-1960s to help revivify its presentation of Gothic terror, died last week. He was 89. To aficionados like Martin Scorsese, Hammer's vampires, monsters, werewolves, and exposed bosoms were the perfect escape, particularly in Technicolor. The joke that Hammer started with a title and a lavish poster and then figured out the story was pretty much true. But the acting mattered, particularly that of Christopher Lee, known for his Dracula and his...

“What happens in Romania stays in Romania.’’ Doesn’t exactly roll right off the tongue, does it? This weak bit of nudge-nudging from “Transylmania’’ is indicative of what a forced idea directors David and Scott Hillenbrand are selling with their lowbrow vampire spoof, in which party-hardy college students sign up for a study-abroad program with a curriculum straight out of the Universal horror vault. (You’d guess the movie is trying to latch onto would-be ticket buyers shut out of “New Moon’’ screenings, except that the whole thing seems to be so squarely aimed at the “Dorm Daze 2’’...

HBO says "Law and Order" veteran Chris Meloni will be sinking his teeth into a role on vampire drama "True Blood. " The network confirmed Wednesday that Meloni will be joining the popular series as an ancient, powerful vampire who controls the fate of the show's major characters. The series' fifth season is expected to air next summer. Its stars include Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer. Meloni recently ended a 12-year run on NBC's "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," where he played Detective Elliot Stabler.

** THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN Directed by: Bill Condon. Written by: Melissa Rosenberg, adapted from the novel by Stephenie Meyer. Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner. Running time: 117 minutes PG-13 (werewolf-vampire violence, implicit sex, explicit childbirth ) Reprinted from late editions of yesterday's Globe. According to a recent study, 726,000 women who take the pill haven't had sex. They must be "Twilight" fans.