Vampires are big business these days, thanks in part to such popular book and movie series as Twilight in addition to various television series. Of course, vampires have never really been out of style. They were popularized in literature by Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, Dracula. But stories of vampires go back many centuries before that.
Where did the concept of vampires come from? The answer to
that question exists somewhere in the space separating science and
superstition. Some sources claim the stories of vampires began with the
Romanian prince Vlad Tepes who lived 1431-1476 and fought for independence
against the Ottoman Empire. His methods of dealing with his enemies included
slowly impaling them on stakes, drawing and quartering, and burning them alive.
It all seems very brutal and sadistic by today's standards, but not all that
uncommon for those times. The same methods were used by the Catholic Church
during the Spanish Inquisition and by other rulers and powerful leaders during
the Middle Ages to torture and kill their enemies.
Bram Stoker is said to have patterned some of his Dracula
character after Vlad Tepes as the birth of the modern fictional vampire.
However, the roots of real vampires
have very different origins. Stories of
vampires are a worldwide phenomenon with localized versions of vampires coming
from almost all cultures. Before science progressed to the point where it could
explain such things as weather patterns and germ theory, any bad event that did
not have an obvious cause could be blamed on a vampire. The mythical creature
was an easy answer to the age old question of why bad things happened to good
people.
Superstitious villagers took their belief that something had cursed them and put it together with their fear of the dead and came to the conclusion that recently buried people who had risen from the dead to do evil deeds were responsible. They dug up graves and were surprised by the way the corpses looked. Not understanding the process of decomposition, they assumed bodies immediately turned to skeletons.
Even with the original vampires being long gone, the cultural phenomenon of vampires continues to fascinate the world. And it isn't just the macabre and horror stories that draw on the vampire character. We have several examples of vampires being used as objects of humor such as Al Lewis' Grandpa character on the old Munsters television series. We have comedy vampire movies such as Love At First Bite and Mel Brooks' 1995 film Dracula, Dead and Loving It.
And more recently, we are just as likely to see the vampire
on television and in movies as the drop dead (pun intended) gorgeous sexy hero
as we are in the role of villain.
Even children have been caught up in the commercialism of
the vampire world. There's General Mills' Count Chocula breakfast cereal,
marketed to children. And not even the long running award-winning children's
television series Sesame Street was able to ignore the vampire allure.
One of their popular Muppet characters is Count von Count, complete with black
Dracula style cape and fangs. His function on Sesame Street is to teach
children numbers and how to count.
Vampire movies have been around since the days of silent
films with the 1922 classic, Nosferatu, featuring a grotesque
frightening looking monster type vampire. In 1931, Bela Lugosi showed us a new
and different type of vampire—the charming, suave, and urbane Count Dracula who
dressed in formal attire consisting of tuxedo and cape.
Do you have a favorite vampire movie or television series?
Next week, I'm going to post the second part of my 2-part blog about Vampires And Other Immortals, including a top ten list of immortals from myths, literature, and movies.
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