Over the weekend I was parked on the History Channel (which I love!), and they ran a few programs on the real Vlad Dracula, vampires, etc. It got me thinking, not for the first time, what it is about vampires that is so appealing.
Granted, they weren’t all that appealing until after Bram Stoker created Count Dracula back in 1897. Before Stoker got a hold of them, they were reanimated corpses, many times coming from their graves to attack family members. It was an explanation people came up with to explain why, when the bodies were disinterred, they were bloated (and sometimes even groaned!), the hair and nails appeared to have grown, and there was blood (at least a red fluid) around their mouths. Not exactly very appealing.
If you go back to Max Schrek and his portrayal of Nosferatu… Yeah. Nothing appealing there at all.
I’ll be honest. I never could quite get into Bela Lugosi’s Dracula. But Christopher Lee…! Absolutely. And then came Frank Langella. Rawr! Then you get young, hot vampires in the movie version of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire. And while Dracula 2000 wasn’t the best vampire movie ever made, it did have one redeeming feature: Gerard Butler. (Yeah, I’m that shallow.) It’s not just that these modern-day vamps are sexy. It’s also that we want to have sex with them. But there’s more to it than that, I think.
In these times of economic uncertainty, terrorism and war, people are attracted to vampires more and more. Why? Why not, I say. There’s something to be said about being powerful, immortal, always in control and desired by all. Let’s face it. Vampires have had centuries to perfect their skills, both in and out of the bedroom. But their biggest appeal is that they are eternally young. They don’t have to worry about wrinkles, or arthritis, or osteoporosis, or Alzheimer’s.
That, my friends, is irresistible, don’t you think?
