I've always loved vampires. There's something about a good vampire story... But in recent years it just hasn't been the same.
Vampires, you've changed. You used to be cool. What happened to you, man?
I. Pre-Literary: "Bar maid! Bring me stronger ale! And some plump, succulent babies to eat!"
Back in the day, vampires were monsters. That's it, plain and simple. They weren't conflicted-tormented-I-don't-want-to-eat-the-ones-I-love, and they weren't even suave stylish I-can-kill-you-before-you-blink-without-a-hair-out-of-place. They weren't pretty. They weren't sexy. They were monsters. Vampires were corpses--dead bodies--that killed the living.
One of the earliest legends is the Semitic/Babylonian story of Lilith, the first wife of Adam who swore emnity with the children of Eve (us). Lilith was said to live on the blood of babies. For the Greeks and Romans, vampires were pretty much interchangeable with witches, who either ate children or seduced-and-then-ate unwary young men.
The medieval era saw vampire legends become codified. Vampires (according to folklore) were not a seperate race of beings, and you did not become a vampire by being bitten. It was who you were in life that made you a vampire after death. Vampires were said to be the bodies of evil people, witches, or suicides (which is why suicides were pre-emptively beheaded and then buried at crossroads).
II. The Romantic Influence: Dead Sexy
The first vampire story in English was The Vampyre by John Polidori. Polidori had just had a falling out with Lord Byron, and the evil vampire of his story--the suave aristocratic Lord Ruthven--bears an uncanny similiarity to Byron. This was one of the first times that a vampire was seen to be handsome, rich, and noble... though still very much evil. (Ruthven binds the protagonist with an oath of noninterference before the protagonist knows what Ruthven is. Ruthven then proceeds to marry and feed on the protagonist's sister.)
Also developing throughout the Romantic Era is the idea of vampires as sexual beings. With a few exceptions, the early legends were fairly asexual: the vampire was a monster that wanted to eat your babies. But Ruthven couples his feeding with marriage. The bite--now a neat double-pinprick, a penetration--is often on the neck or breast. From Polidori on, the vampire now targets beautiful young women. (Even female vampires; it has been suggested that Le Fanu's Carmilla has lesbian undertones in the vampiress's choice of exclusively female victims.)
Which sort of distances vampires from their "monster" status. Vampires are sexy. Most monsters are not. There are very few romance novels written about falling in love with a zombie and meeting her family (and nearly all of them are written by one very peculiar kilt-wearing librarian of my acquaintance).
Stoker's was the last vampire story of the Romantic Era. He took elements from Polidori and Le Fanu and ran with them: Count Dracula is aristocratic like Ruthven, sexual like Carmilla, predatory like Varney...
Dracula introduces some crucial developments to the vampire legend. It was the first time vampirism was approached as a contagious disease--where one fed on by a vampire becomes a vampire themself (such as the ill-fated Lucy Westrake). As a disease, it is partly combatable through science, via blood transfusions and the like. And it depicts vampires, beings of folklore and pastoral legend, existing in an Industrial Victorian era of steamships and telegraphs and medical science. The vampire had become modernized.
III. The Late Twentieth Century: Whine and Dine
The twentieth century echoed and re-echoed with the impact of Dracula--the silent film Nosferatu, the Bela Lugosi film adaptation. For a while, vampires were the kings of scary. And then...
Anne Rice's Interview With A Vampire was a unique take on the vampire legend. Instead of an evil being reveling in his evilness, the central character Louis is a tormented, conflicted character--haunted by the moral implications of the predatory aspect of his existence. He tells his life story to the unnamed reporter--but when the reporter asks to be made a vampire himself, Louis flips out at him, angry that he's learned nothing from the story. Louis is brooding, melancholy, and ultimately depressed.
Which is fine for this book--the monster-as-victim was a new take on the genre. Or at least, it would be fine for this book... if every vampire protagonist since hasn't been a Louis. Every vampire protagonist since (save Rice's other character, the anti-hero Lestat) has been melancholy, morose... whiny.
"Oh, look at me! I need to kill in order to live, but I don't want to! Look at me, I miss the sunlight! Why oh why do I have to be such a monster, with no-one to love me!" *whinge* *whinge*
I understand why, of course. Dracula, Carmilla, Varney, Orlock, and Ruthven were all antagonists. Louis, Nicholas Knight, Angel, Selene, and Edward Cullen are protagonists--and the reader/viewer has a harder time identifying with a protagonist who is an unrepentant monster. So all the vampire protagonists must be reluctant monsters, and reluctant = whiny. Many don't even drink human blood anymore: Angel drinks the blood of rats, Nicholas drinks bottled animal blood, Blade has his serum injections, and I think Selene takes some kind of blood pill. (I won't subject myself to that movie again to find out.)
It's just become such a formula, such a cliche.
"Oh, Louis, Louis. Still whining, Louis. Have you heard enough? I've had to listen to that for centuries!" --Lestat, to the Interviewer
IV. The Twenty-First Century: Heaving Bosoms and Vegetarians
And now vampires are at the top of the charts again, but not for being the badass scary face-ripper-offers that they once were. Now it's all about the romance. Blech.
Listen, I'm a former (read: recovering) Goth. I can understand and appreciate a good story of tragic forbidden love. And a vampire is an awesome person to have a tragic forbidden love with, Romeo-and-Juliet-style. I mean, what pathos there is in loving someone who loves you back--but might accidentally eat you if they get a little peckish! Some of the better moments from the anime Trinity Blood or from season three of Buffy The Vampire Slayer come to mind.
But something in the Twilight series just turns me off. Maybe it's how mainstream it is. (Chris's Inner Goth says: 'If it's mainstream it probably sucks.') Maybe it's how all the actors in the movie trailers have PETULANCE permanantly ingrained on their faces. Maybe it's because it's set in a high school (and if I'm a kick-ass vampire, tell me why in the name of Caine the Bloody Father am I going to go to high school?). Or maybe it's just how very romance it is. This is like, if Dracula had been written as a TV movie for WeTV or the Lifetime Channel. Or if it was a Harlequin Romance novel--complete with cover featuring a vampire in a puffy shirt and a woman with heaving bosom.
I don't know, man. I miss the days of a good vampiric anti-hero. Give me Gerard Butler's Dracula (Dracula 2000): seducing women, breaking necks, cursing God, summoning storms... Give me Spike from Buffy Season Two (when he and Dru were the head villains, before he got a soul and went all Angel Part Two on us). When I read or watch a story about a vampire, I want someone that could either be my deadliest enemy who I'd stake in a heartbeat, or (more rarely) my most powerful (though never-trusted) ally. Somehow hair gel and vegetarianism and "Oh Edward!" never entered the equation.
"Hey guys... I don't want to be a dick or nothing, but... Aren't vampires supposed to be badasses...? Aren't you going to... cut off our faces and drink our blood?"
Blech. Blech blech blech.
I'd love to see less vampire protagonists in modern movies. Give me more vampire villains--that's how vampires were meant to be.
Maybe someday I'll read the Twilight books. Maybe someday (though far less likely) I'll see the movie. Though, to be honest, I think I'd rather take the time reading Twilight would have taken and instead re-read Stoker's original Dracula again.
I read Meyer's other novel, the one that's not in the Twilight series. It's called The Host, and it is a very good book. I enjoyed it immensely. It's about aliens instead of vampires, definitely has romance-novel elements, but is just a delightful read.
Several friends whose literary judgment I trust have recommended the Twilight series. Not as serious literature (or whatever), but as a delightful and thoughtful read.
What these books have done to the vampire myth, however, may be another matter entirely.
Good lord. Am I the only person on this planet who has never been particularly impressed by vampires and is frigging tired of seeing story after story about them? Twilight can suck it as far as I'm concerned. I saw Bram Stoker's Dracula and was disgusted (not the least by a cross being stabbed early in the movie). Interview was decent, but how many stories really need to be written about these creatures? Let's go do a story on some other monster, like Loch Ness or Sasquatch. Or Jim Belushi.
Are you kidding me? I could barely get a third of the way through The Host, it was so poorly written. I had to go find myself some Heinlein to cure my brains.
Sasquatch and Nessie fail to be as compelling as vampires because they are just out-and-out monsters--they are beasts, they are animals. Vampires are sentient, are anthropomorphic, are--in essence--human. They represent the Jungian shadow-self, the dark side of humanity, homo nocturnus to our homo sapiens. Their bloodlust echoes our own human id.
That is why so many vampire movies and stories get made, and so few Nessie movies and stories. Vampire lore resonates with something within the human experience for many people.
@ChrisRusso - lol. Well I was being facetious about Nessie and Sasquatch (and Belushi). But there are also werewolves, fairies, angels and demons, witches, elves, tons of other anthropomorphic characters which don't get near enough attention and are just as interesting (well, to me, but maybe I'm an oddball). I always thought that the thing that kept vampires so popular was that vaguely sexual element to their particular affliction. Either way, they kind of bore me. I'd rather watch Frankenstien than Nosferatu. Actually I saw both movies... Frankenstein stayed with me... I fell asleep on Nosferatu.
"Somehow hair gel and vegetarianism and 'Oh Edward!' never entered the equation."
Here, here!
I actually read the Twilight series because all things vampire = my personal guilty pleasure. The first three books were passable as a turn-your-brain-off beach read, but the 4th was the most vile, horrible blech I've ever read. I'm pretending the 4th one was not written. Meyer isn't that great of an author, which doesn't help matters, but at least she brought werewolves into it, and I liked her treatment of werewolves in the Twilight world (except for one slight thing that I won't mention), so I forgave her a lot for that.
BTW, it will take you longer to reread Dracula than it will take you to read the entire Twilight series. Very, very easy read.
Personally, if you're going to bother reading vampire fiction for teens, go with The Last Vampire series (I think that's Christopher Pike). I read it in middle/high school (unbeknownst to my parents) and I enjoyed it... although it does go off into some weird territory occasionally. Please keep in mind, though, I haven't read it in, oh, 10-15 years, so take the recommendation with a grain of salt.
Anyways, I'll still see the movie, eventually, out of curiousity to see how they treated it. Not tripping over myself to get to the theater, though.
Dude I love this post! Seriously! You are gettin Recd! I am a vampire fan myself. I secretly own all the buffy the vampire series. :D But I like how you took your point of view and explained the evolution of it. I agree though...haven't seen Twilight, everything I have heard about it doesn't sound entertaining or engrueling.
I love that you brought up Harlequin romances. I have a good friend who describes Twilight as the gateway drug to Harlequin romance novels. I have read and watched. I don't disagree with him. Hubby says (just based on what I have told him) that Twilight can't seriously count as a vampire novel because the vampires are "wussified." It makes me giggle.
lol. The only thing I can think of is the whole Goth v. Vamp episode of Southpark recently.
I was really into scary movies for a time in my life. The whole Fangoria reading thing. You forgot to mention Lost Boys which has elements of this, but I think Lost Boys is waaaayyyy better than Twilight at least of what little I know of Twilight. Wasn't that before the Anne Rice movie?
What about Fright Night? That movie is a classic.
Of all places I thought I might find hate speech, I never expected to find it here. Really Chris, I’m shocked, but more than shocked, I’m saddened. I really expected better of you. It’s the twenty-first century now, and I think that all educated people can agree that it is high time we stop judging others based on their lifestyles. Just because someone drinks the blood of children, this does not automatically make them monstrous or evil. Really, anyone can see that people don’t have a lot of control over this. Did you ever have a moment when you just suddenly decided “Gee, I don’t think I’m going to kill kids and suck their lifeblood from their rapidly cooling bodies?” Of course not, you just always knew. It is the same way for witches and vampires. Who are we to judge? I mean, I would never go around slaughtering the innocent and feasting upon their vital fluids, but I don’t feel that I have the right to tell other people what to do with their lives. I think we need a little more tolerance and a lot less hate around this place.
I bought and read Twilight in a moment of insanity. I am still dithering on whether or not to have a book burning. It is a badly-written book.
I deny that Dracula has any "romantic" themes in the modern sense of the word, though it is a romance. Dracula is a monster who pollutes the soul of the ultimate innocent: the female. (Hey, it's a late Victorian book. What do you expect?) He also eats babies and causes vampirism and/or madness and/or baby-eating in the living and dead. He is compared unfavorably to a lizard, a bat, a rat and other loathsome creatures, and the best adjective that is applied to him is "powerful." He's just your basic force of darkness, in my opinion. It was not until the American movie that he was supposed to be handsome and charming. I think, considering the time-period, the influence for portraying Dracula in this way were the dark/powerful/charismatic/romanticized Gangsters of the time and not the original novel. The German Expressionist movie Nosferatu is much closer in spirit to the novel.
You are also neglecting to mention The Historian, an influential book which upsets your progression somewhat.
By the way, I really, really agree with you about the whiney vampires. They deserve to be garlicked!
Hello. Let me introduce myself. I'm the lone person in your comments that loved, loved, loved the Twilight series! It was an escape from reality that I thoroughly enjoyed. I wasn't subjected to gore or absolute horror, but got to indulge in a beautiful love story. And the movie? Read my recent post. I guess us 40 somethings are hooked by a "romantic, vegetarian, whiny, gorgeous, chivalrous vampire"!
Oh, and watch out for Stephenie's werewolves. They're cute, cuddly and Native American! Looking forward to the evolution of werewolves.
I will never ever read Twilight, because I have read the parodies, and can not inflict the actual stories upon my brain. Seriously. Ultimate. Mary. Sue. With. Angst.
That said it's very fun to mock and mock and mock.
Would you believe over on Narniaweb (in our collective story) we've actually had a rather original take on vampires? The idea behind ours was that they are a separate, slightly subhuman species- having their own language consisting of barks and growls (though some were psychic and some could speak English), being 3-4 feet tall, and preferring to have humans choose their mates and to live as a sort of pet/servant (though of course in some cases they are slaves). They drink animal blood in the main but if they drink human blood, they become addicted and dangerous. Later on in the story, it's revealed that they were created by genetic experiments on humans gone wrong- a successful but twisted attempt to create immortality. Ethically it's all very weird and fun. (I have to give credit to their creator, Shawna, and to Cymru, for developing them.)
i use to rave on about vampires when i was in grade school, but i slowly moved my attention to zombis and other things
though i've grown my old love for vamps, ever since watching "Let The Right One In" a few days ago. great movie. going to try and snag myself a copy of the original novel when i get cash flowing again
This was good. I love vampires. Always have. My first intro to them was Interview with the Vampire, the movie, when I was 8. Been my favourite since I was little. Granted it was because of the Brad effect, but Lestat was really good for me because he was just so bad. He was a killer and just deliciously evil. The other books made him less evil, but the first one will always be with me. Plus he made a child vampire he knew couldn't survive. I didn't find Louis to be whiny, but regretting his choice to become a vampire. It's something you can't take back.
I haven't read Twilight. It's on my book list, but LA Banks is further up currently. My mom has been reading those and she says they're really good.
My other favourite monsters have to be zombies. From controlled humans of Voodoo to flesh eating, drool leaking zombies. Come on anything where I can tell my boyfriend to shoot me if I become one is a cool monster.
Maybe they should invent a new monster. I thought about writing a book about what if monsters, like witches, vampires and zombies existed outright with regular, work-a-day humans, but that would be a little far fetched. So I might have to move it to another planet.
And you forgot 30 Days of Night. That was a return to ugly, nasty, straight killer vampire.
Love this post. I thought i was the only one who thought the vampires were dying.....again What about Wes Craven's They? Did you see that? It was pretty good.
i have always liked vampired and read most about them too, recently i read the twilight book and i might go see the twilight soon.i dont know if you have heard about the show that recently show in HBO called "true blood" and it was really great, it really shows how vampires are...i didnt think it was that bad but there have been many changes about vampires,that now makes look in books like myths and change the personalities and powers of the vampires..
I totally agree. I'm SO sick of Twilight and i've never read the books OR seen the movie and i never intend to. I own Interview With the Vampire (both the book and movie), and Stocker's Dracula (the book). Those are REAL Vampire stories. Also a good one, which you didn't mention, Stephen King's Salem's Lot. One of the very few of his books i could actually get through. Yay for REAL vampires!
Buffy the Vampire Slayer series was terrible as I look back on it. Angel was no better. Interview with the Vampire I feel is a good movie. Queen of the Damned was a bit of a disappointment. Vampires certainly have changed through time.
yeah i've been getting seriously frustrated trying to find decent vampire books and movies to entertain myself adn each time i give up and fall off the face of the earth lol. I knew there was something about Twilight that annoyed me, not just the lead character but i guess it would be Edward who was always oh noes i can't bites you! Don't watch the movie it sucked ass cheeks. I just heard about this book called Fledgling gonna go check that out. True blood on HBO is okay, i watch it more for the drama in the small town than the love affair between some country bumpkin and her vampire lover. I mainly take what i get and roll with it. lol
Vampires aren't real. So, why must we stick to a formula?
They are all author's interpetations of their specific "vampire" and what exactly that word means to them.
Idea's evolve, people evolve; it's natural (as you've certainly shown us from your well-written entry above).
Maybe try to write your own version of a vampire story, someone might catch on.
I'm currently reading Dracula so as to get in my head the idea of what a real badass vampire antagonist should be before I have Twilight shoved down my throat by my sister and best friend (who are lovely people and usually have excellent taste in books, so... maybe it won't be so terrible? ...).
I would die to get my hands on The Vampyre you were talking about. I've never heard of it, and that sounds awesome.
Excellent post. Vampires should definitely stick to the realm of evil and shadows and monster...ness. Hear hear!
Comments (201)
Several friends whose literary judgment I trust have recommended the Twilight series. Not as serious literature (or whatever), but as a delightful and thoughtful read.
What these books have done to the vampire myth, however, may be another matter entirely.
At least we've got Blade.
@buddha_gazelle -
Are you kidding me? I could barely get a third of the way through The Host, it was so poorly written. I had to go find myself some Heinlein to cure my brains.Great read, great post!
@LucyWrites -
Sasquatch and Nessie fail to be as compelling as vampires because they are just out-and-out monsters--they are beasts, they are animals. Vampires are sentient, are anthropomorphic, are--in essence--human. They represent the Jungian shadow-self, the dark side of humanity, homo nocturnus to our homo sapiens. Their bloodlust echoes our own human id.That is why so many vampire movies and stories get made, and so few Nessie movies and stories. Vampire lore resonates with something within the human experience for many people.
@ChrisRusso - lol. Well I was being facetious about Nessie and Sasquatch (and Belushi). But there are also werewolves, fairies, angels and demons, witches, elves, tons of other anthropomorphic characters which don't get near enough attention and are just as interesting (well, to me, but maybe I'm an oddball). I always thought that the thing that kept vampires so popular was that vaguely sexual element to their particular affliction. Either way, they kind of bore me. I'd rather watch Frankenstien than Nosferatu. Actually I saw both movies... Frankenstein stayed with me... I fell asleep on Nosferatu.
"Somehow hair gel and vegetarianism and 'Oh Edward!' never entered the equation."
Here, here!
I actually read the Twilight series because all things vampire = my personal guilty pleasure. The first three books were passable as a turn-your-brain-off beach read, but the 4th was the most vile, horrible blech I've ever read. I'm pretending the 4th one was not written. Meyer isn't that great of an author, which doesn't help matters, but at least she brought werewolves into it, and I liked her treatment of werewolves in the Twilight world (except for one slight thing that I won't mention), so I forgave her a lot for that.
BTW, it will take you longer to reread Dracula than it will take you to read the entire Twilight series. Very, very easy read.
Personally, if you're going to bother reading vampire fiction for teens, go with The Last Vampire series (I think that's Christopher Pike). I read it in middle/high school (unbeknownst to my parents) and I enjoyed it... although it does go off into some weird territory occasionally. Please keep in mind, though, I haven't read it in, oh, 10-15 years, so take the recommendation with a grain of salt.
Anyways, I'll still see the movie, eventually, out of curiousity to see how they treated it. Not tripping over myself to get to the theater, though.
I love that you brought up Harlequin romances. I have a good friend who describes Twilight as the gateway drug to Harlequin romance novels. I have read and watched. I don't disagree with him. Hubby says (just based on what I have told him) that Twilight can't seriously count as a vampire novel because the vampires are "wussified." It makes me giggle.
lol. The only thing I can think of is the whole Goth v. Vamp episode of Southpark recently.
I was really into scary movies for a time in my life. The whole Fangoria reading thing. You forgot to mention Lost Boys which has elements of this, but I think Lost Boys is waaaayyyy better than Twilight at least of what little I know of Twilight. Wasn't that before the Anne Rice movie?
What about Fright Night? That movie is a classic.
I think we need a little more tolerance and a lot less hate around this place.
I deny that Dracula has any "romantic" themes in the modern sense of the word, though it is a romance. Dracula is a monster who pollutes the soul of the ultimate innocent: the female. (Hey, it's a late Victorian book. What do you expect?) He also eats babies and causes vampirism and/or madness and/or baby-eating in the living and dead. He is compared unfavorably to a lizard, a bat, a rat and other loathsome creatures, and the best adjective that is applied to him is "powerful." He's just your basic force of darkness, in my opinion. It was not until the American movie that he was supposed to be handsome and charming. I think, considering the time-period, the influence for portraying Dracula in this way were the dark/powerful/charismatic/romanticized Gangsters of the time and not the original novel. The German Expressionist movie Nosferatu is much closer in spirit to the novel.
You are also neglecting to mention The Historian, an influential book which upsets your progression somewhat.
Hello. Let me introduce myself. I'm the lone person in your comments that loved, loved, loved the Twilight series! It was an escape from reality that I thoroughly enjoyed. I wasn't subjected to gore or absolute horror, but got to indulge in a beautiful love story. And the movie? Read my recent post. I guess us 40 somethings are hooked by a "romantic, vegetarian, whiny, gorgeous, chivalrous vampire"!
I will never ever read Twilight, because I have read the parodies, and can not inflict the actual stories upon my brain. Seriously. Ultimate. Mary. Sue. With. Angst.
That said it's very fun to mock and mock and mock.
Would you believe over on Narniaweb (in our collective story) we've actually had a rather original take on vampires? The idea behind ours was that they are a separate, slightly subhuman species- having their own language consisting of barks and growls (though some were psychic and some could speak English), being 3-4 feet tall, and preferring to have humans choose their mates and to live as a sort of pet/servant (though of course in some cases they are slaves). They drink animal blood in the main but if they drink human blood, they become addicted and dangerous. Later on in the story, it's revealed that they were created by genetic experiments on humans gone wrong- a successful but twisted attempt to create immortality. Ethically it's all very weird and fun. (I have to give credit to their creator, Shawna, and to Cymru, for developing them.)
i use to rave on about vampires when i was in grade school, but i slowly moved my attention to zombis and other things
though i've grown my old love for vamps, ever since watching "Let The Right One In" a few days ago. great movie. going to try and snag myself a copy of the original novel when i get cash flowing again
This was good. I love vampires. Always have. My first intro to them was Interview with the Vampire, the movie, when I was 8. Been my favourite since I was little. Granted it was because of the Brad effect, but Lestat was really good for me because he was just so bad. He was a killer and just deliciously evil. The other books made him less evil, but the first one will always be with me. Plus he made a child vampire he knew couldn't survive. I didn't find Louis to be whiny, but regretting his choice to become a vampire. It's something you can't take back.
I haven't read Twilight. It's on my book list, but LA Banks is further up currently. My mom has been reading those and she says they're really good.
My other favourite monsters have to be zombies. From controlled humans of Voodoo to flesh eating, drool leaking zombies. Come on anything where I can tell my boyfriend to shoot me if I become one is a cool monster.
Maybe they should invent a new monster. I thought about writing a book about what if monsters, like witches, vampires and zombies existed outright with regular, work-a-day humans, but that would be a little far fetched. So I might have to move it to another planet.
And you forgot 30 Days of Night. That was a return to ugly, nasty, straight killer vampire.
What about Wes Craven's They? Did you see that? It was pretty good.
Vampires aren't real. So, why must we stick to a formula?
They are all author's interpetations of their specific "vampire" and what exactly that word means to them.
Idea's evolve, people evolve; it's natural (as you've certainly shown us from your well-written entry above).
Maybe try to write your own version of a vampire story, someone might catch on.
I'm currently reading Dracula so as to get in my head the idea of what a real badass vampire antagonist should be before I have Twilight shoved down my throat by my sister and best friend (who are lovely people and usually have excellent taste in books, so... maybe it won't be so terrible? ...).
I would die to get my hands on The Vampyre you were talking about. I've never heard of it, and that sounds awesome.
Excellent post. Vampires should definitely stick to the realm of evil and shadows and monster...ness. Hear hear!