Vampires are draining.
I just got finished watching a couple of episodes of CW’s The Vampire Diaries for a television review. Tonight, I’m going to a screening of Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant. Entertainment media is buzzing over the next onscreen appearance of über-angsty vampire Edward Cullen in The Twilight Saga: New Moon (coming out next month). The vampire industry is sucking my creative juices dry. Because, really, how much more can I say about vampires?
Well, maybe just a little more.
Back in the day, vampires were loathsome, ugly creatures. Nosferatu, the great-granddaddy of all vampire flicks, featured a bald, bushy eyebrowed, rat-fanged, pointy-eared monster that makes me look like quite the handsome dude. (And that takes some doing.) He was a cold, soulless creature of the night, eternally cursed and set apart from God. He was frightened by crucifixes, afraid of running water and fearfully sensitive to sunlight.
Vampires were, in those times, reassuringly, predictably evil.
Not so these days. While vampires still have cold, cold hearts, their souls are in fine working order. Sure, they may flaunt their eternal youth and flex their superpowers (Speed! Strength! Mind control!). Most don’t fear crucifixes or holy water. Stefan from The Vampire Diaries professes a love of garlic. Many can walk in full-blown sunlight (though Edward glistens like a cheap Christmas decoration if he does so). But deep down inside, most just want to be loved. One wonders why they don’t set up some sort of support group, where they can sit in a circle and chat about the traumas of being undead.
“I only bit her once!” one might say. “Is that so bad?”
Vampires now are predictably … human.
It’s been an interesting transformation, and it reflects how modern society (I think) processes evil. Back in Nosferatu’s day, and well before, evil was seen by the rank-and-file as a foreign presence lurking outside the door. The old phrase “the devil made me do it” reflected the (unbliblical) idea that we were, essentially, good people, and that something outside ourselves makes us do bad things. Now, of course, we understand that good and evil lurk inside each of us: We’re all hopelessly flawed but, paradoxically, not beyond salvation—and if we, the most pitiful of creatures, can be saved, why not vampires?
But should vampires be saved? I gotta be honest: I miss vampires that shied away from crucifixes or were burned by holy water. There’s something powerful about the idea of battling beasties with representations of faith—spiritual warfare in the flesh, as it were. Today’s vampiric lore feels a little … squishy.
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