I've been thinking a lot about the current state of our vampire world. I mean...the main stream, universally accepted vampire world. Now, don't get me wrong, there are many, many novels and movies out there that depict vampires in various ways. In general though, when we talk vampires, nowadays, most people think the romantic hero kind of vampire. The suave, beautiful, desirable vampire. The hero with a dark side or the villain with a good side. And I don't dislike this type of vampire...unless it's the sparkly kind...but I feel like there's something missing...like we've castrated our monsters, defanged the fanged, turned our nightmare into our fantasy.
I've been craving the blood and gore kinda vampire. The ghoulish monster who will rip limbs off and suck them dry. The kind of vampire who stalks the streets in search of prey...not the kind who stalks the halls of the local high school in search of a girl friend. I want to be scared. I want to have nightmares. I want to read about vampires who need to be destroyed, who deserve to be destroyed. Like Dracula...Stoker's version...the kind of vampire who eats babies and corrupts young innocent women, not for love but for pure, animalistic pleasure.
I want to move away (at least for a while) from the whole idea that vampires, that monsters, are simply misunderstood. That deep down they have hearts that love and consciences that keep them from being truly evil. Really, what are we teaching our youth? That monsters are really good? That there's nothing to fear? That we need to just give them a chance? It's a terrible injustice to the next generation when you think about it. We've set them up to be little, naive lambs...we've gifted them a world where vampires can be boyfriends who have enough self control that they suck animal blood instead of human. And we've made them practically unkillable...but that's a topic for another post.
Now, I know you're all thinking, Angie, why don't you write that kind of novel? Well, folks, because I'm a hypocrite...and a romance writer and although I want to be scared by a brutal vampire killer, I can't bear the thought of veering too far away from my own vampire heroes. So, this is a call out to someone, anyone, who is brave enough...write me a monster...give our vampires back their balls.
Gothsis, get a copy of Lindquist Let the Right One In...my fav baddie vamp EVER.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, totally agree with you, our vamps don't have balls anymore:(
Gothsis, get a copy of Lindquist Let the Right One In...my fav baddie vamp EVER.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, totally agree with you, our vamps don't have balls anymore:(
Yep, in popular fiction vampires have become sweet and cuddly. We need the nasty, vicious monsters of the night back.
ReplyDeleteNo matter how horrific vampires are, someone will find them attractive and want to either be with them or be like them. So really, what's happened is they've just become more enticing to the general population rather than a select few. But even with horrific vampires, people still craved to read about them so there was still an element that made them enjoyable. Today, there's just more of those and less of the "bleh!" moments hehe.
ReplyDeleteI agree though, it's good to have vampires that aren't desirable. I love Ilona Andrews' version of vampires for this reason and I'm not sure if my previous statement would be true - could anyone find something desirable about those?
You have a point, and as things have swung so far away from vampires with real machismo they need re-reinventing. I thus propose a completely new type of vampire - the vampire testicle. Their only concession to cutsy-ness is they like to cuddle up together in the sack in pairs, but add a dose of vampirism and I can't think of anything more scary - or that would make a more memorable story. ;)
ReplyDeleteI agree with Anne that the vampire in "Let The Right One In" is great.
ReplyDeleteI would recommend seeing the Swedish film (and not the American remake which hit the mechanics but lost the heart) over even the book.
The book is good - don't get me wrong. But I felt Lindquist went off on many long tangents and his pacing and storyline was very inconsistent as a result. The film improved on the movie by getting right into the essence of the story and portraying it unflinchingly.
And there were aspects of the book that the film ignored which I felt improved the story - such as making the length and nature of the relationship between the vampire and human familiar more ambiguous. In the book, it was entirely spelled out and by doing so lost a lot of the resonance that the glimpses the film gave managed to do.
As far as other scary vampires, I was impressed with Patricia Briggs portraying seriously creepy vampires in her "Mercy Thompson" series. They aren't heavily featured through the series, but their appearance - and a few times lengthy ones - are eerie and memorable.
Nope, I don't accept that this is a mission for another--especially since I'm not on the same page. I don't mind vampire as hero, though it's not my favorite scenario.
ReplyDeleteI think you could write romantic horror where the blood sucking baddies really are blood sucking baddies.
Thanks for the blog love, friends! ;-)
ReplyDeleteI like my vampires bad. But it's hard to write a compelling character that is one-sided. Writers search for ways to give them dimension. Having said that, I'm drawn to vampires who are evil, whether they like it or not.
ReplyDeleteVampires have become slightly boring and bland in recent years, we've cut their hunter instincts down so much that they've been made into people's boyfriends, who want to share their feelings and sparkle in the sunlight. They're called Fairy's.
ReplyDeleteVampires are killers. You can have nice ones and bad ones, but they kill to survive, that's sort of the whole point of the mythology of a vampire. That they're sexy, seductive and dangerous as hell.