Hollywood Jane On Why Vampires Suck!

And what a rant Ms. Jane went on to let us know how unhappy she was with the modern as she refers to it, "neutered" vampire.  Obviously, I am going to disagree. I don't have a degree in vampires 101, but I have been a "fanpire" and horror fan since I was a kid.  I grew up on the early vampire classic's in TV and books.  I went from reading Nancy Drew  to  Stephen King's  "Salem's Lot".  I even ran home from school to watch the original "Dark Shadows". Yes some of the vampires in recent history have been tamed a bit to capture a younger audience (not every mom is like mine and hands her kid Salem's Lot to read). I "sucked up" (yes, I know, couldn't resist) every moment of that book. To quote "Hollywood Jane"and who she blames: " I blame Anne Rice.  Never mind that I've never read any of her books, and my knowledge of her basically stops after, "wrote about vampires, found religion, wrote about Jesus." She started it, this whole vampire craze. I used to be a fan, but enough is enough. Sure, vampires have been popular fodder for ages, but once you slap a pair of fangs on Brad Pitt, you can kiss the scary bit goodbye." Ms. Jane writes about what she calls "the vampire standards".  "There used to be rules. No sun, no garlic, a stake to the heart and kaput. Burnings were good, as were decapitations (both methods derived from the habits of Vlad III of Wallachia), and you were safe so long as God was your co-pilot. Vampires were evil, blood-sucking fiends from places like Romania, they owned castles and could turn into bats. They lived in shadows. They had style, but not necessarily sex appeal" Vampires have always had an allure and sex appeal although we may not have  admitted it to ourselves.  It is not a coincidence that a majority of vampire fans are women. Who would not want to be courted by an elite, overpowering, eternal lover? The allure of vampires in the 19th and early 20th centuries was the covert permission they granted women to have a sexual relationship without blame to themselves. The victim was mezmerized or glamoured and then attacked, clearly not in control of herself even if she later sought the vampire on her own. Other than in the earliest, most ancient folklore, when vampires were based on Vlad the Impaler, a man who chopped off heads and stuck them on pikes and burned people alive in their homes, vampires were always seductive beings. How else can they feed easily without hunting like werewolves? I don't remember any vampires being described as overweight and unattractive. Do You? There have been ugly screen vampires, Nosferatu prime among them. As for monstrous in behavior, it always existed even in Anne Rice vampire novels. Was Claudia "fixed"? She used her childlike nature to lure in her meals.  Lestat was selfish, vein and menacing.  If you read most vampire novels and follow movies both old and new, vampires still had attachments to their human selves. I do not love every portrayal of vampires, but we must remember they are mythological creatures created in folk lore. Therefore they can be changed with the creative view of the author inventing the world that surrounds them. Dear Ms. Jane, STOP BEING SUCH A CYNIC!! To read more of  Hollywood Jane's critique: hollywoodjane.com (photo credit: Starpulse)

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