Fear Fest: Vampires.
OCTOBER 29th, Vampires
“The strength of the vampire is that people will not believe in him.”
-Garrett Fort
Vampires are everywhere. They are in our movies, they are in our books, they are in our children’s programs, hell they even sell us breakfast cereals. Metaphorically speaking, these creatures have lost their teeth. However there was once a time when these majestic creatures were more feared than cancer and aids combined.
The origin of the Vampire is still widely contested, as almost every culture has demons that prey on the flesh. However, traditional vampires start to take shape in the pre-Christian Slavic countries. It’s no mistake that Transylvania is often a place associated with Vampires.
Vampires dominated popular culture in the 1800’s. The first such story that gained steam was 1819’s “The Vampyre” by John Polidori. This is one of the first instances of the Vampire ingratiating themselves in our society, appearing as a British noble as opposed to a demon from hell. ‘The Vampyre’ is also considered the first time that a vampire is used as a metaphor for lust. Ironically, ‘The Vampyre’ achieved fame because it was mistakenly credited to Lord Byron.
You can’t talk about Vampires in the 1800s without mentioning Bram Stoker’s work. Published it 1897, “Dracula” is considered the seminal work when it comes to vampires today. Stoker mixed history with his fiction, using dates a locations along with names gave the story a larger than life feel. Stoker modeled Dracula’s mannerisms after his friend Henry Irving. Much has been made about Stoker’s sexual orientation, so it’s possible that the reason we have the vampires we do today is because of a crush Stoker may have had.
Stoker may have been gay, but more recent works have totally out gayed his vampire. The Anne Rice vampire took a suave aristocrat and turned them into spoiled nancy boys. Somehow, that wasn’t vampires at their gayest. Those Twilight fuckers took the spoiled nancy boys of Anne Rice and put them in hot pants and had them tapping their toes in bathroom stalls. Seriously, they fucking glitter in the sunlight. I know I’m not the first one to tackle this topic, and I wouldn’t even try to top Cracked’s article on the subject.
THE ANSWER: Vampires need to go away for a while. They need time out of the public perception so they can become mysterious again. As it stands, if Vampires were real, we’d kick their asses. Also as a side note, you need to read “I Am Legend” by Richard Mathison. If you thought the movie sucked, good, it did. “I Am Legend” is, in my opinion, the best work involving Vampires (Not including the Dresden Files). While I intended Fear Fest to cover fears, this is a first as I would like this reestablish a fear.