Vampires!

A huge phenomenon has spread over the US, with people screaming for blood. Well blood suckers anyway. The ever popular Twilight series has sparked a reborn demand for occult novels featuring everything from werewolves; to vampires; to faeries.

It all starts with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a fanciful story about Vlad Tepes, or Vlad the Impaler, being a vampire. But long before that there were several legends of vampires, such as the Chinese Jiang Shi, raised from the body of someone who died an untimely death and sucks the blood of the living. The Soucouyant of Trinidad was a female blood sucking shape shifting creature. (http://www.monstropedia.org/index.php?title=Soucouyant)

Legends aside, our vampires have always been popular. Several novels have their own claims to fame as vampire novels. For example Cirque Du Freak by Darren Shawn. Nosferatu (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0013442/) is a good example of a film based off of vampires. Another to be considered is 30 Days of Night a fairly recent horror movie produced on vampires.

Not all of us have a vampire heartthrob such as in Twilight; some would rather destroy them.  Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a TV show, and Castelvania, a video game, both exemplify this.

Nearly everyone knows how to kill a vampire now, although our writers keep changing their minds about what actually works and what doesn’t. The general consensus has been garlic, stake through the heart, or sunlight will destroy them. Twilight breaks all three, although I can’t imagine Edward Cullen feeling too good after a stake through the heart. Cirque Du Freak says garlic is ok, but the other two will do in a full blooded vampire. A favorite of mine, Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchet, suggests there are too many different types of vampires to be sure. The only real way to insure your safety is simply to give them another victim and run.

But what happens to the victims? Some become vampires, like in Dracula, but others merely become servants or ghouls of the vampire, such as a popular manga and anime known as Hellsing. Either way, you won’t die a normal death if one catches you.

My suggestion to Twilight fans? Grab some popcorn and enjoy the movies and books and hope if they were to exist they’d be more like your Edward Cullen. Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans? Hope she’s nearby if any of them show up.