Vampires

by Charlotte Montague

  As a metaphor for sexual development in modern-day teenagers, the novel works well. Although the young couple have intense feelings for one another, they cannot engage in a sexual relationship, as this would corrupt Bella and she would become a vampire. Sexual love is seen as a ‘forbidden fruit’.

  As regards the modern world, the story of Twilight seems to express some important themes. It recognizes that, contrary to sensational media coverage, many teenagers in actual fact approach the idea of sex with caution, and may sometimes feel they do not want to sully a ‘pure’ love relationship through having sex. In a society where the dangers of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases are constantly discussed in the media, and where sex is often represented as a cheap commodity, it is not surprising that sensitive and intelligent young people might have such a reaction. In addition, in the United States, there is a strong ‘chastity before marriage’ movement in some religious sections of the population. It seems that, since the days of sexual liberation in the sixties and seventies, and with the onset of AIDS in the eighties, the picture for many adolescents has changed, so that the complexities and dangers of early sexual relationships, as well as the pleasures, are given more consideration. And, for all its gothic elements of romance and horror, the Twilight series appears to recognize these concerns, which perhaps explains the stories’ current appeal to teenagers across the world.

  Vampires on Screen

  Since the early twentieth century, the figure of the vampire has inspired countless films, some of them classics. These films have influenced popular conceptions of the vampire legend, adding many features, for example, introducing the notion that vampires fear daylight, have fangs, and sport high-collared cloaks, which are not essential part of the original folklore.

  Femmes fatales

  Early screen vampires, in the days of silent films, were not literally bloodsucking fiends, but seductive women, known as ‘vamps’, or femmes fatales. These early screen sirens preyed on foolish men – and their wallets. The films include The Vampire (1913) and A Fool There Was (1915) starring Theda Bara. No actual vampire appeared until 1922, when F.W. Murnau made Nosferatu, based on the novel by Bram Stoker.

  In 1931, the first vampire ‘talkie’ was released: Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi. With his slow, menacing speech and deathly pallor, Lugosi personified the living corpse, and frightened audiences so much that some fainted with shock when they saw him. The film was a box-office sensation and for many, Lugosi became the definitive Count Dracula. Two sequels followed, Dracula’s Daughter (1936), and Son of Dracula (1943). The fact that the Count had been well and truly destroyed in the first film did not stop him coming to life again for further Hollywood horrors, including House of Frankenstein (1944), House of Dracula (1945), and a comedy, Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).

  The making of Dracula

  The Dracula film of 1931 was directed by Tod Browning and was based on a stage play by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston, which in turn drew inspiration from the original book by Bram Stoker. The play was already a big Broadway hit, and provided the producers with a blueprint for the film version. Bela Lugosi, a Hungarian actor, was cast in the central part, but there were reservations about this choice, and he had to accept a lower salary than many of his co-stars. Legend has it that Lugosi could hardly speak English when he made the film, which accounted for his heavy accent; however, this seems unlikely, since he had been working in Hollywood for some time by this point.

  There are many stories about the making of the film, including the rumour that Tod Browning took no interest in the process, and that as a consequence there was a great deal of chaos on set. It appears that Browning was upset by the death from cancer of his friend Lon Chaney, who would have been picked to play the part of the Count. Nevertheless, despite all these difficulties, the film became a milestone in the cinema, not least because it showed how the industry moved from the ‘silent’ era to the ‘talkies’. In contrast to today’s films, there were many silent moments during the movie, and most of the actors’ lines were brief and to the point. The script limited itself to explaining the story, rather than developing the characters’ relationships through dialogue, and in this sense, although a ‘talkie’, the film’s structure bore a strong resemblance to that of the silent movies.

  The premiere of Dracula took place on Valentine’s Day in 1931. The studio took care to circulate stories of the extraordinary effect it had on those present at the screening, including tales of people being carried out of the cinema suffering from shock. This drew large audiences to the cinema to see it, more perhaps from curiosity than anything else. It proved to be a huge hit, which was by no means a foregone conclusion at the time. Today, it is listed in the Library of Congress as a film of ‘cultural, historical and aesthetic significance’. For Lugosi, however, it was a mixed blessing; from that point, he was typecast as Count Dracula, and never again played a wide variety of parts.

  Medieval monsters

  Even though the portrait of the vampire as an elegant, cultured aristocrat with a decadent taste for blood triumphed in the cinema, the medieval monster of Slavic folklore was not entirely forgotten. Inspired by F. W. Murnau’s groundbreaking Nosferatu in the twenties, German director Werner Herzog followed up with Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), a homage to, and update of, the original film, which Herzog considered to be the greatest film ever to come out of his country. In Herzog’s film, the vampire is portrayed as a hideous, lonely creature to be pitied rather than admired. Other vampire films with this theme include Elias Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire (2000), a fictional account of the making of Murnau’s film, in which the lead actor turns out to be a vampire, much to the horror of the cast and crew.

  The Hammer Horrors

  In the fifties, the Dracula legend continued with the British Hammer Horror series. The first of these, Dracula (retitled in the US as Horror of Dracula) was released in 1958 and starred Christopher Lee as the Count. With an incredibly low budget of just over £80,000 the film nevertheless managed to capture the public imagination, and became an instant success, spawning seven sequels. Tall, dark and gruesome, Lee brought a chilling suavity and magnetic sex appeal to the role that thrilled cinema audiences throughout the following decade.

  The sixties and seventies saw a proliferation of vampire films covering all kinds of subjects, from sex to comedy to science fiction. There were a number of lesbian vampire films loosely based on Le Fanu’s Carmilla, including Roger Vadim’s Blood and Roses (1960), The Vampire Lovers (1970), and Vampyres (1974). Among the many comedy films was Roman Polanski’s entertaining send-up of the genre, The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967), and Love at First Bite (1979) starring David Niven. Several science fiction films, such as The Omega Man (1971) took their cue from Richard Matheson’s vampire novel I Am Legend.

  As the seventies progressed, the themes became more diverse: there was even a film about race, the blaxploitation movie Blacula (1972). One subject, however, continued to be a stable box-office draw: the vampire as sex symbol. By the eighties and nineties, a number of gay pornographic movies were being made, including Gayracula (1983). In the new millennium, the trend continued Lust for Dracula (2005), a lesbian remake of Bram Stoker’s classic.

  Barnabas Collins

  From 1966 to 1971, the ABC TV series Dark Shadows introduced audiences to a ‘sympathetic’ vampire. Barnabas, played by actor Jonathan Frid, is from an eighteenth century family, and has had an affair with his fianceé’s maid, Angelique. Angelique has cast a powerful spell on him, using voodoo. After a series of setbacks, Barnabas shoots Angelique, who summons a demon bat from hell to attack him. Angelique recovers, but Barnabas dies, only to rise again from the grave as a vampire, forever searching for his true love. Wracked by self-loathing and misery, Barnabas the vampire brings more chaos and despair to his family, and eventually asks his father Joshua to kill him. Joshua feels unable to oblige, and instead asks Barnabas’ devoted former servant Ben to do the deed.
Ben puts a crucifix inside Barnabas’ coffin and wraps it round with chains. The coffin is then placed in the family mausoleum, where it stays for many years.

  In ensuing episodes, Barnabas comes to life again, when a man named Willie Loomis comes to the Collins family crypt to look for lost jewels, and accidentally releases Barnabas from the coffin. More mayhem ensues as Barnabas falls in love with a young woman, Maggie Evans, and tries to make her his vampire bride; Maggie escapes but is traumatized by the experience and loses her mind. She is treated by Dr Julia Hoffman, who also tries to help Barnabas. The plots continued, with many twists and turns in true soap-opera style, until the series finally came to an end in 1971.

  The lovelorn vampire

  The Dark Shadows series drew on many aspects of vampire mythology, including the idea that Barnabas was a ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ character whose moments of cruelty were occasioned by his condition as a vampire. However, there was also some suggestion that Barnabas had always been prone to aggression, and that this had made him a willing victim to vampirism. In the series, Barnabas exhibits many of the traits of the classic vampire: he has super powers, including the ability to hypnotize subjects at will; he is very strong, enabling him to overpower his victims easily in a struggle; and he is able to change into a bat at any time. In addition, he is a sorceror, and can appear and vanish in different places, or adopt strange voices and shapes so as to strike fear into onlookers.

  The character of Barnabas Collins was introduced into the Dark Shadows series because ratings for the show were falling. The strategy certainly succeeded, and the show continued for five more years, with Collins becoming the undisputed star. In 1991, NBC revived the series, with Ben Cross in the role of Barnabas, a testament to the enduring appeal of the lovelorn vampire forever searching for his bride.

  The Dark Shadows series also inspired a series of spin-off novels by Marilyn Ross. These were written by Canadian author Dan Ross, using his wife Marilyn’s name. Ross was a writer for the Warner Paperback Library, who were contracted to produce a series of novels based on the show. Many of the storylines in the novel were original, but Ross used the characters in the show, especially that of Barnabas. According to Ross’s widow Marilyn, he did not watch the TV shows, as he felt this would be confusing. Although Ross was the main writer, Marilyn also had a great deal of input; her particular skill was character development, while Ross’s was the ability to write complex plots.

  The series of novels had many fans. There were also two more novels, Angelique’s Descent and The Salem Branch, written by Lara Parker, the actress who played Angelique in the series. To this day, there continues to be a cult following for the Dark Shadows series, which is regarded as something of a classic.

  Buffy the Vampire Slayer

  The character of Buffy, an apparently ordinary ‘valley girl’ teenager who leads a double life as a vampire slayer, first appeared in the film Buffy the Vampire Slayer, released in 1992. Buffy, played by Kristy Swanson, is a cheerleading young woman who finds out that she has an important destiny, to kill vampires with her superhuman powers. The film, directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui and written by Joss Whedon, was a light-hearted send-up of the horror genre, and was moderately successful.

  However, in an unusual twist, it was the more serious TV series of the same name, also written by Whedon, that proved to be more popular than the film. In the TV series, broadcast from 1997 to 2003, and starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Whedon had more scope to explore deeper themes, using elements of the supernatural to stand as metaphors for the anxieties of teenagers and young adults. The show also attracted viewers because it emphasized the idea of young women as empowered: Buffy and her friends are strong, brave, clever individuals who use a number of resources to track down and destroy the vampires. This characterization of teenage girl was in marked contrast to most depictions of this age group and gender as airheaded, vain, and silly. For all these reasons, Buffy the Vampire Slayer quickly attracted a devoted following that appreciated its fresh, intelligent approach. And although, in many ways, it subverted the stereotypes of popular culture, it also celebrated the more positive aspects of TV drama, pairing up elements of the horror genre with a high-school narrative to provide an exciting new twist on a familiar theme.

  The forces of darkness

  The series follows the adventures of Buffy Summers, the newest Slayer. The mystical prophecy of the Slayer states that in each generation, only one girl in the whole world is ‘the chosen one’ and that ‘she alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons and the forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers.’ It is Buffy’s destiny to be the Slayer. She is guided and advised by her Watcher, who is a member of a secret organization that seeks to prepare the Slayer to fight these evil forces. In most of the episodes, a villain is defeated or prevented from doing harm, while a longer narrative plays out, often involving Buffy and her friends’ relationships with each other. As the show progressed, the vampires they hunt are replaced by other creatures such as zombies, ghosts, and werewolves. In their quest to rid the world of evil, they use fighting skills, detective-style investigations, and research into ancient forms of folklore and mysticism.

  In the first episodes of the series, Buffy moves to a new high school, Sunnydale, which happens to be built on top of a demon portal to another dimension, known as a Hellmouth. Her new school mates, Xander and Willow, help her to stop The Master, a powerful and very ancient vampire, from opening the Hellmouth and invading the school. In later episodes, other vampires appear and must be thwarted. Matters become more complicated when Buffy herself falls in love with a vampire, Angel, and sleeps with him. As a result, Angel, who has been given a human soul, loses his humanity and becomes a dangerous murderer. Buffy is forced to kill him, and although emotionally drained by this, she once again gathers her strength, and sets out on more adventures.

  Buffy and Angel

  Buffy, the main protagonist of the series, has extraordinary powers of physical and mental strength, including the ability to heal quickly and to intuit the motivations of others. Buffy only sleeps for a few hours due to the night being her busiest vampire slaying time. However, when she finally gets to rest she receives prophetic dreams that help with her fight against evil. She is guided by Rupert Giles, her Watcher, and helped by her friends, Willow and Xander. In the various narratives of the series, the thoughts and feelings of Buffy and her high-school friends are explored perceptively and with sensitivity.

  The series inspired a spin-off, Angel, that was first broadcast in 1999. The story concerns Angel, a vampire who has a human soul, restored to him in revenge for a murder of a gypsy that he committed. His soul taunts him with guilt and remorse for his former crimes, and as a result he vows to battle evil in all its forms, though still prey to his own vampiric tendencies. Though darker in tone than Buffy, this show also proved very successful.

  True Blood

  True Blood, the HBO drama series about vampires, has become one of the most successful shows on today’s TV screen. Intelligent, sexy, and fun, it uses the vampire myth to play with ideas about the relationship between ordinary, law-abiding members of society and those who are considered outcasts, offering the suggestion that ‘supernatural creatures’ such as vampires, telepaths, and shapeshifters, can now ‘come out of the coffin’ and ‘mainstream’ themselves into small-town human communities.

  The series is based on the Southern Vampire Mystery novels of Charlaine Harris. The story goes that TV writer Alan Ball (who had previously worked on HBO’s Six Feet Under) was waiting for a dental appointment, and whiled away the time by leafing through Dead Until Dark, the first of the books, at Barnes and Noble. He was captivated, and when he brought the idea to the TV company, they gave him the go-ahead.

  The drama is set in a conservative small Louisiana town where hatred of vampires is rife (there’s a motel sign saying ‘God Hates Fangs’ in the opening credits) and those who tolerate them are r
eferred to as ‘fang bangers’. We follow the adventures of waitress Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) at Merlotte’s Bar & Grill, a local hang-out for ne’er-do-wells. Unbeknown to her customers, Sookie is telepathic and can read their thoughts. However, when a handsome stranger called Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) walks in, she finds she can’t tap in to his mind. As it turns out, that’s because he’s a vampire; but even when she realizes he’s 173 years old, she can’t help falling for him.

  When the sleepy town is rocked by a series of mysterious murders, Sookie begins to encounter the world of vampires, learning that they live on synthetic blood, called TruBlood, invented by Japanese scientists and sold in convenience stores. She also runs in to humans addicted to vampire blood, who are prepared to kill to get their fix. The message is, of course, a liberal, humanist one: that the distinctions between ‘normal’ individuals and misfits are never simple, and that vampires/outcasts can be victims, too.

  To date, the show has attracted over 12 million viewers per week, becoming HBO’s most watched series since The Sopranos.

  Vampire Movies

  Nosferatu

  Directed by F.W. Murnau, 1922. Starring Max Schreck. This adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula was not released at the time owing to a dispute between Murnau and Stoker’s widow over copyright. But bootleg copies of the film survived, and it has since become a classic, with a famously chilling performance by Schreck as the rat-like Count Dracula.