Nostalgia, like arthritis and constipation, is a curse of the elderly. Some get teary about the house they grew up in or the joys of their high school years. Others yearn for their first car or the songs that accompanied their courtship. Personally, I pine for the days when vampires didn't look like J Crew models.
It's hardly news that the undead have returned as a major force in popular entertainment. The Twilight series of books and movies and the HBO series True Blood have captivated a new generation of gore-addled youth. But compared to their predecessors, this crop of vampires is a pretty anemic lot. I've only seen a few episodes of the TV series and a couple of trailers for the movies, but what I have seen is about as scary as a Clearasil ad. The "children of the night" have devolved from Dracula to Dawson's Creek of the Damned.
My love of the bloodsucking genre dates back to my childhood when Chiller Theater on Channel 40 in Springfield would show horror double features on Saturday nights. The movies were the classic 1930's films about the unholy trinity - Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolfman - along with their sequels, "Return of...", "House of...", and "Bride of..." My first vampire role model was the great Bela Lugosi, who played Bram Stoker's Count with a debonair malevolence yet to be matched.
Which brings me to problem number one with contemporary vampires; the notion that they can be good as well as evil. A good vampire is as ridiculous a concept as a helpful tornado or beneficial dose of the clap. Once you allow them moral ambiguity, you effectively neuter the species and turn their gruesome behavior into nothing more than an alternative lifestyle. Where's the conflict? A vampire saga used to be a battle where heroic but fragile mortals fought against more powerful and thoroughly depraved creatures bent on enslavement and exsanguination. Today, it's just a cross-cultural teen romance with some supernatural arm wrestling thrown in.
Not only are today's hemoholics well intentioned, they are sometimes cast as the sympathetic victims of anti-vampire prejudice. Aren't there enough real issues of bigotry and hatred to be dealt with in the world? Can't we have one fictional realm apart from Santa's list where there's a general consensus on who's good and who's bad?
Once you allow a vampire to be just like you and me except for an unusual eating disorder, you drain the genre of its primal terror and diminish its ability to be cathartic. I also think you lose the fun, but that's likely a factor of my age as are my other preferences for how the undead should be portrayed.
• Vampires don't have gooey romances with mortals. Even during the censorship-heavy thirties, it was all about sex and blood, not dinner and dancing. Vampires don't have "relationships" and never discuss their feelings. They don't have any.
• Vampires don't shop at Urban Outfitters. Draining blood requires a more formal look than a trip to Starbucks. A frock coat with black pants a la Schreck is acceptable, but the full Lugosi monkey suit and cape is preferable.
• Vampires come from Eastern Europe. I know it's the era of globalization, but what else has Romania to boast about? The rec room of a split-level in Dayton is no place to stow a coffin. Home should be a castle in the Carpathians with a weekend retreat in Berlin or London to stock up on fresh provisions.
• Similarly, Vampires speak with an accent. Lugosi's Budapest-flavored speech and drawn-out cadence were the result of never learning English properly, but the effect is unsettling. No one is afraid of a vampire who sounds like a GAP clerk or Delta Airlines pilot.
• Vampires don't drink artificial blood. You might as well have them swig Red Bull. I'm not a natural food fanatic, but the organic stuff right from the source is the only way to go. Which would you prefer, biting a beautiful woman's neck or dropping by 7-Eleven for a six-pack? "Try new Plasma Lite® - more taste, less clotting."
Immortal though they may be, I don't expect the vampires of yore to make a comeback soon. Kids today won't even watch a black-and-white movie much less a seventy-five minute parlor drama starring a tuxedoed Hungarian with halting English. But back when visual effects were in their infancy, there was a greater reliance on mood and character to make the audience shriek, and I doubt any of today's bloodsucking millenials have that power. You don't need garlic or wolfbane to scare them off; just threaten to block their Facebook pages.
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Comments
I totally agree. They've lost their bad-ass Mittel-Europa edge. Sorry Stephanie Meyers-- Edward Cullen as a vampire is too vanilla, for me.
Rated.
(And congrats on scoring Opening Day tickets, and on the win!)
Which is probably the biggest offense in my book.
This was a highly entertaning column, and I am a downright fanatic of the archetype.
The only book I've read lately that seems to convey that amount of repulse toward the character is Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Linqdvist.
I've read the Twilight Saga and seen the movies (I'm a teens teacher, it's like airborne pollution, there's no escaping it). The nightly news inspires more terror.
I have no problem with vampires being handsome, I think it works the idea of seduction as part of the hunt. I mean, face it, no one wants to be bitten by Nosferatu. Carmilla (Le Fanu) uses the idea of seduction, so does Polidori.
Excellent post.
R
I agree totally, having spent my formative years reading Bram Stoker's Dracula over and over and convincing my five younger siblings I was a vampire. I had your same fascination with the original undead and I am so done with the teen vampire genre.
Actually, I conceived a vampire novel over twenty years ago that I finally wrote the first four days of last year (it's very short) that puta the tooth back in the vampire's bite. My vampire is on par with serial killers from Criminal Minds, the most grisly show on TV. When I attended school in a small central Texas town that mirrored South Africa's apartheid culture, there was a closed movie theater on Main Street.
My novel grew out of speculation about why that theater was closed for decades and a need to tell the story of the terror that rained down on people of my race previous to and after my birth in 1951. The story begins with a black farmer bravely taking his four sons to the opening night of a new movie theater in a small central Texas town on Halloween night in 1930.
A silent movie about a vampire is being shown that night and the youngest son, seven year old Elijah, is frightened about seein q vampire and his father tells him he saw the movie in Houston when it ws first released in 1923, the year 'Lijah was born, and there were no "colored folks" in it. Reassured by his father that vampires "just be killing white folks" Little 'Lijah's fears dissipate only to return due to terrifying events that he witnesses after the movie.
The vampire demon summoned by a fear so great it manifests physically inhabits a person so wickedly evil and violently abhorrent he is the only person in the small community who could become a vampire. The ensuing battle of good evil includes Native American, African, and Christian mysticism and descriptions of historically recorded horrors that actually happened in the region of Texas where I was born and educated as a child.
They Just Be Killing White Folks (A Vampire Tale of Bloodlust, Terror, and Horror) by VaJo PaJefChat - a nomme de plumme - is available at Amazon.com and lulu.com. Several excerpts have been posted on OS and there's a link to my Lulu webpage on
my blog. Strike a blow for REAL vampires. Read my novel!
R.
1. The Hunger. One of the sexiest, scariest, most stylish vampire flicks ever made, and in our general timeframe. I bet you wouldn't mind it if Catherine Deneuve nibbled on your neck. Or Susan Sarandon, for that matter. Loved the Bauhaus/Schubert/Iggy/Delibes score too.
2. FF Coppola's Dracula was relatively recent and I think stayed fairly true to the original. I thought Gary Oldman was a pretty horrifying villain, and not that much of a heartthrob.
3. It was a natural progression for the horror genre to invade the romance genre (Twilight) or the murder mystery genre ( the Sookie Stackhouse novels, on which True Blood is loosely based). Now, we're getting zombies in Pride and Prejudice - it's a publishing shortcut, that's all.
Shiral - I just can't imagine that the new breed will have the resonance that the Lugosi Dracula has. Even Count Chocula and Sesame Street's Count Von Count are his stepchildren.
Pilgrim - I really like "Love at First Bite." Parody on that level is more an homage than a dilution of the original. I particularly love the line, "I never drink...wine, and I never smoke...shit."
I was lucky to get a ticket last night and saw one hell of a game - Steven Tyler and Neil Diamond included.
geezrchick - Thanks for your kind words. You might want to rent one of the classics just to get a sense of how much fun they are.
vanessa seijo - You make a good point about the seduction element. The interplay between good looks and repulsive behavior does add a shot of pizzazz to the genre.
sixtycandles - I know the new series don't have the same intent as the classics - i.e. to scare the crap out of you - but I wish they'd found some other type of protagonists for their mushy message...lifeguards, maybe.
happygolucky432 - It's a point well taken, but I think if you make a movie with vampires, their proclivities should be more than a subplot.
Donna - You had me at "Maturity is very sexy."
Maureenow - You're right. I just can't imagine a vampire with trust issues.
Diva - Thank you so much. Your novel sounds wonderful. I'll check out the links.
nolalibrarian - Nighty-night!
Blue in TX - The werewolf saga has different dynamics. The hero is a victim who doesn't seek his fate and is appalled by his actions against those he loves. Once you're a vampire, there's no regrets.
femme forte - There has to be some solution to the vampire obesity crisis.
Bonnie - I understand. After I saw "The Exorcist," I slept with my hockey stick for a week.
Steve - Good taste is timeless.
aim - It's interesting to contemplate "lack of sucking" as an insult.
Kevin - I never read the books, but the fact that Tom Cruise played Lestat in the movie is the kiss of death for me.
But this is not new. It has been brewing for a long time. If you were to visit another writing site ... commonly called WDC ... going back years, you'd find a vast asortment of youthful writer-wannabes whose sole specialty is stories from the underbelly ... vampires, zombies, werewolves, et. al. ... all of whom are sorely misunderstood, and therefore *good* if you only knew them as they *really* are. Ergo, young writers.
Nonsense: Vamps are bad, belong in a coffin, must be stabbed in the heart, after a large dose of garlic ... two whole cloves ... and never, ever ... EVER ... revered. God bless Bela Lugosi!
You, sir, have exposed what others have up to now silently accepted ... Total and complete misrepresentation! Maybe now it will end. And you, for your efforts, deserve a thousand "Rs"!
{{{R1,000}}}
The great thing about the vamp is that there's room for all manner of interpretations and dears and desires that you can very neatly project onto it to make it your own.
I agree though - it's time for some vamps that are repulsive and truly frightening, that you fear instead of want to hook up with. The trick is making them NOT look like zombies.
R
Vampires use to be evil, void of good and dark and deadly. They became children of darkness and preyed on the innocent. Now they are just misunderstood shirtless heart throbs who just want to fit in. They are the perfect bad boy ready to fulfill every immature teen girl's fantasy about love sex and relationships.
I thought that "Interview with a vampire" kept to the insights, but todays mess is not worth watching.
Even "Forever Knight" made more sense than "Twilight."
suzie - There are many opinions in these comments about when the decline of classical vampirism began. I think it came when they stopped wearing tuxes.
ChillerPop - I dream of a world where vampires of all kinds are welcome...because I know these teenage creampuffs wouldn't last five minutes against Count Orlok.
Owl_Says_Who - What's next for these weenies, orthodonture?
John - Thanks, Buddy.
Angela - I always wondered why Papa Smurf disappeared at daybreak.
Linda - I appreciate the kind words.
SheilaTGTG55 - I think cowboys underwent their transition to moral relativism with "McCabe and Mrs. Miller."
Lunchlady - We're the minority, but we're right.
dianaani - I try to keep an open mind because I have two very argumentative daughters. About Mina Harker, however, there's no question. Hubba, hubba.
Nick - As I commented to Kevin, I never read the series, but thanks to both of you for enlightening me. Ya learn somethin' new every day in this joint!
Auntie - I guess each generation is less susceptible to the fictions of their predecessors.
M Todd - As I told Rod above, I don't like it, but I can't argue with its success.
xenonlit xl - We can challenge, but I don't think we can conquer. Keep wearing garlic just in case.
DeniseW - I'm sorry I missed the earlier posts on this subject including yours. As for the issue of seduction and physical attraction, I've already confessed above that I would love to go tooth-to-neck with Catherine Deneuve.
motherwell - I'm still waiting for someone to explain "The Fifth Element."
OEsheepdog - I'm not that bloodthirsty.
La.
Ri.
OUS.
odetteroulette - High school does a pretty good job of sucking the life out of its victims.
Denise W - One man's opinion, but I think Tom Cruise is possibly the worst actor of all time. I have never found him believable in anything.
Denise M - Thank you.
Stim - As I get older, that's how I look when I get out of bed in the morning.
Karin - I think you're still a teenager at heart, and I think that's great.
Poor Woman - Kind of paradoxical, isn't it? Hollywood won't portray humans as evil despite their capacity to be otherwise, but a malicious bucket of bolts is just fine.
tomreedtoon - Now I know why Karl Rove has no reflection.
I never heard of Rifftrax, but I loved MST. Thanks for the tip.
SherritheWriter - Thank you for stopping by.
Cranky - My own favorite is "Listen to them...children of the night...what music they make!"
sweetfeet - I'm always happy to find another classic horror fan.
Oh, and Ramses isn't a vampire, he's one of the 'true immortals' ;).
You wait in vain, o foolish one. Explaining that movie only ruins its stoopid, campy, balls-out-pointless glory. The best comment I ever heard about that movie was: "If Ru Paul was a movie, this is the movie he'd be." What more do you need to know?
One man's opinion, but I think Tom Cruise is possibly the worst actor of all time. I have never found him believable in anything.
He was PERFECT as "Austin Pussy" in the third Austin Powers movie. If you ever need someone to play a good-looking-but-going-to-seed overgrown spoiled jock with less emotive range than William Shatner, look no further. Oh, and I hear he and his church have a special talent for auto accidents (but not earthquakes, apparently).
PS: The "Blade" movies were just plain silly. Too much new tech all around.
Try reading Tanya Huff's Blood series (Blood Debt, Blood whateverelse). Her vamps are Sensitive, but still capable of being really dangerous when provoked. And Barbara Hambly's Those Who Hunt The Night really captures how vampires live outside the passage of time.
That said, I do agree that diluting (sorry-ish) vamps is unnecessary candy-coating. They're supposed to be dangerous, dammit.
Plasma Lite -- look for it at Store 24!
Vanessa Seijo - I'm so happy you mentioned "Let the Right One In" by John Ajvide Lindqvist. I wrote about recently. Have you seen the Swedish film yet? The American one is coming out soon... we'll have to see how they do it.