I’ve always really liked them. As a kid I was genuinely scared of them, and as an adult Buffy: the Vampure Slayer is about my favorite show. The problem is that at some point they lost their edge. Actually I’d say this about most horror, hell, most villains these days. Maybe it just happens because people want to write new villains without ripping old ones off but in the meantime lose what made them scary, but most of the bad guys I see don’t cut it.
But vampires used to. And I think I’m a pretty good judge. I even took a class about them once. If you wanted my to I could produce all of the important vampire works ever written in just a few minutes. (Okay, I couldn’t actually, but once I get a real job and pay the rent I’m going to buy a bookshelf. Then I’ll go home and get my books, and THEN I’ll be able to.) I’ve just been treated to a wonderful article on X-Entertainment that reminded that vampires used to be scary. Back in the day vampires were this folk legend in Europe and peope were very frightened by them. Granted that was before television accompanying desentization, but the superstitions were there and enough fact seemed to back it up. You lived in your village and the cattle started dying, a few people went missing unexpectedly and you got spooked. The ruler of your countryside had the reputation of being a ruthless killer and hideously slaughtered people in public. This all got rolled up into folk legend and became great stock for horror authors. Out came some pretty chilling tales.
Then Anne Rice came along. She had a brilliant idea to turn the notion of the vampire around and make the stories be ABOUT the undead monster - make it the hero. She wrote a masterful series of work which turn being a vampire into an eternal existential plight. The Vampire Chronicles are great and I’ll never deny that. But Anne Rice gave birth the the self-aware vampire - the one that wasn’t evil. Sure he had to feast on blood to live, but he wasn’t a villain anymore. Being a vampire was about what you were once you died and how you dealt with eternity. And those are great questions and make great stories, but they give up something wonderful and, I fear, have ruined the chance for the undead to be scary again.
Here’s what I think the vampire tale is all about. First, the fact that the monster used to be a person. And if you think about it in terms of its roots, probably a person from your village who you know. To employ a modern vampire tale, think about how scary and terrible it was when Picard showed up as Locutus at the end of The Best of Both World part 1. (For those of you who didn’t watch Star Trek: TNG, you missed out.) You’ve got this person who you know, and suddenly that person’s visage has been stolen by a demon. He’s still the one you know, calls you by name, but now he’s evil and wants nothing more than to either eat you or to make you a vampire too. Vampire stories rarely clue into that kind of reality. Imagine living in a world where there actually were vampires. How terrible would it be to see your friend now one of them.
This brings me to my next point - free will. A good vampire story allows for two kinds of vampires. The first kind are the servants - the bulk of the vampiric horde. These are the poor souls who’ve had their humanity ripped from them. Death would have been a blessing, but instead they’ve been deprived of that in the cruelest of senses. While they should be dead, enjoying heaven with all its naked-chicks-in-fields-of-flowers-serving-you-nachos-glory, you’re an undead monster. Your soul is trapped and your body is being used and you’re a prisoner until the head vampire dies when you can finally get some rest. That has to be how it is played out. The reason why you have to kill the vampires is both because they’re trying to suck your blood and because you have to save them from their torment. And you have to fear them because you know they have the power to make you one of them, and the thought of that is unimaginably scary. And then there’s the OTHER kind of vampire - the truly evil one. The first kind isn’t really evil. Evil necessitates choice. You have to know what good is and choose to be bad, because the dark side can give you power even at the cost of everyone else’s suffering. The truly evil vampires are of that kind - they know that they’re succumbing to darkness and ask to be changed. They want to be vampires, want to make that pact. What’s more, they have this seductive magic that allows them to convince you to join their side - to make you want it all to, even at the price of your soul.
Anne Rice’s vampires weren’t scary (nor were they intended to be admittedly) because they aren’t evil. Her story was about something else. Vampires live forever. In her world, as they live they begin to see the futility of human life. We go about our days doing what we do as if it were all so important and then we die. We never make a difference. That’s why her vampires (but not her title characters) don’t care about us. They see that our lives are meaningless and fragile and that religion to us is just a crutch for hope. They’re just another form of life with more perspective. Enough perspective to make us seem trivial. And while this view is a cool one, and makes for great storytelling, I prefer the monsterous ones with the blood and the rot.
One of these days I’m going to write a screenplay or a tv miniseries or something and it’s going to be that scary. You’ll watch it and close all of the drapes before you go to bed because you fear looking out and seeing a pair of glowing eyes in the dark. Or maybe I’ll just read Salem’s Lot instead.