This has been a longtime complaint of mine (see here and
here and a bunch more). At some point in fiction vampires stopped being considered monsters.
There was a tortured romantic that replaced the idea of the murderous
bloodsucker that pop culture just didn’t want to let go. And then I saw the TV
show The Strain on FX and I had hope once again. These vampires didn’t sparkle,
didn’t lament their existence, and they certainly didn’t date. They were
straight up murderous blood drinkers. Once again the vampire was being
portrayed as a monster.
If you’re not familiar with The Strain, it is an adaptation
of a book series by Guillermo Del Toro. Yes, he of Hellboy, Pacific Rim, and
Pan’s Labyrinth fame. And he also directed the movie Blade II, the sequel to
the popular Wesley Snipes film. Blade II shows the seeds of what will
eventually become the Strain vampires. Pale skin, gaping mouths and long blood
sucking tongues, all aspects that were enhanced even further for The Strain.
There is no way a teen girl could fall in love with these creatures. Nor could
these creatures fall in love either. Their only concern in life is to feed and
kill.
Though I can’t really be too angry at all the
interpretations of vampires as tortured loners. The most popular piece of
vampire literature, Dracula, certainly has many of those elements in its pages.
Dracula is a sadly lonely loser just trying to mend his broken heart with a
woman who resembles his long dead wife. Granted there is a lot of murder and
blood drinking along with his quest for romance, but still at the heart of the
story Dracula is a romantic tale. So I can’t really get mad at a Stephanie
Meyer when she has a young Bella fall in love with hundred year old Edward.
Though I will never forgive her for the sparking (VAMPIRES DON’T SPARKLE!)
And it seems the idea of returning the vampire to monster
status is becoming a more common occurrence in Hollywood. The marketing for the
new Universal picture Dracula Untold is filled with references to him being a
monster. Dracula became a vampire because as he says “Men do not fear swords,
they fear monsters.” So even though Dracula is the hero of the tale, the
scarier aspects of Dracula will be emphasized. The blood drinking, the turning
into a bat, the scarier aspect of the Dracula story. (I am writing this before
I have seen the movie so don’t be surprised if after I post this I post another
article screaming and bitching like a maniac because Dracula starts to
sparkle).
The desire to make monsters likeable has always eluded me.
The purposed of monsters is to show creatures that ARE NOT LIKEABLE. When a
movie comes out in which a zombie falls in love (see my review of Warm Bodies
here) there truly has been a jumping of the shark for monsters. Being a
werewolf is a curse. Being a vampire is a curse. Being a zombie is a… viral
outbreak that will end mankind. Nothing romantic about any of them. I picture
the Creature from the Black Lagoon and instead of thinking this is a terrifying
creature I’m wondering how someone could make out with that (by the way if
Universal wanted to make a romantic Black Lagoon movie I would happily pitch
them my take on it).
When you read the paper and watch the news you can almost
argue “why do we need fictitious monsters?” There is certainly no end to the
atrocities committed by normal real life humans. The problem is, the only way
humanity can join together is if it is attacked by an external force. It has
been written in plenty of stories, the only time humans get together is when
something threatens them. We need monsters to give something to focus on. The
“enemy” needs to be some inhuman other that we can look towards. When all we
see are other humans then we have to make the humans the committers of
atrocities and that just causes us to be more and more suspicious of our fellow
man.
As a horror fan, I have great respect for the movie monster.
The classic creatures of film are a part of cinematic history. And the vampire
is a prominent figure in that group. But every time a movie or TV show comes out
with a vampire romance story, the idea of the iconic bloodsucker gets a little
more watered down. It seemed fitting that the Twilight vampires didn’t have
fangs since that series has done the most to completely take out the teeth of
the vampire genre. Ironically it is The Strain vampires, who have no teeth at
all, that will give the vampire back its fangs.
Uh, I don't think you've ever read Bram Stoker's "Dracula", have you? No, Dracula is NOT a "sad, lonely loser"; he's a soul-less THING who kidnaps a toddler and throws him to his 3 blood-lusting vampiresses for a meal. The only time Dracula speaks is to Jonathan Harker when Dracula's trying to establish himself in England. Throughout the rest of the book he is nothing more than an animated corpse. The whole long-lost love sub-plot was injected into the story by Hollywood, borrowed from another Bram Stoker novel that was made into the original "The Mummy", and, is not at all a thing in "Dracula".
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