Mandy Says: Vampires and Bloodsuckers

Mandy Says:

Vampires and Bloodsuckers. The eternal question – just why do we love them so? Vampires. What’s not to love? Well, a lot, really. They kill people. In very nasty ways. And then there’s the disgusting habit of the blood sucking. And if they’re not the type to sate their hunger via a smooth, irresistibly pulsating human neck – they suck the life out of animals. Eew. Rat’s blood, pig’s blood. So not attractive.

Not to mention the ghastly white complexion and food allergy issues (I’m thinking garlic, here, or lemons if we’re talking medieval vamps.) So… why? Why are vampires the hottest thing around right now? Why can’t we get enough of them in books, on television or at the movies?

Actually, vampires have been hot for a number of decades now. For me, the love affair (yeah, I was just fooling with you) began in earnest with Anne Rices’ Lestat and Louis too many years ago in Interview with The Vampire. Not that they were my first. Good old Count Vlad himself was my introduction to the world of the damned. (I was five. Blame the babysitter.) Before I met Lestat and his buddies, I’d also experienced sheer terror with Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot among many other ‘traditional’ type vamps. But Rice’s vampires were different. They were impossible not to love. They were deep, meaningful, intriguing and spectacularly beautiful. So where did it really begin?

Bram Stoker was certainly the first to bring vampires to popular fiction, but it’s not like he made them up. No, vampires and their equivalents have been part of our mythology since – well – forever. Most cultures have their own version of the vampire, or a similar blood-sucking fiend. There’s the Aswang from the Phillipines, the Kukudhi from Albania, the Apotamkin that Native Americans told stories of to scare their children out of wandering off at night. The Roma Gypsies had the Mullo entrenched in their folklore and the Ancient Greeks had the Vrykolakas. In China you could find stories of the blood-drinking Chiang-shih and in Romania, the Strigoi Mort.

These days, most of our vampire mythology in popular culture derives from south eastern Europe. Except… none of these being were creatures to be lusted after. They were terrifying in the extreme. So what changed? When did vamps go and get themselves all sexy?

Even Mina from Bram Stoker’s Dracula knows the answer to that one. Danger, darkness, mystery. We all want a bit, don’t we? Mina still fell for Dracula when she already had the mortal Jonathan Harker (okay, okay, she was under a spell. I choose to ignore that.) And everyone knows that vampires are ridiculously good looking, even if they are undead. Really, suntans are soo passé. Vampires are seductive, irresistible – it’s part of how the modern bloodsucker lures their prey.

Today’s vampire sleeps all day (if he/she sleeps at all) and parties all night. They’re super-strong, young and gorgeous. But mostly, it’s the immortal thing that’s so alluring. Death is the one thing none of us can escape, but vampires have that one beat. Unless, of course, a pesky slayer cuts off their head, or stabs them with a pointy bit of wood, or sets them on fire. Ahh, The Slayer.

Almost as much a part of our culture as Vampires themselves. Abraham Van Helsing is the earliest famous vampire hunter to spring to mind. There were the slap-stick  Frog brothers in the late 80’s film The Lost Boys, which of course, introduced us to the totally awesome David (Kiefer Sutherland) and his band of motorbike riding vampires. But the most famous vampire slayer of modern times has to be Buffy. And even she wasn’t immune to the allure of falling for not one, but two vampires, the brooding Angel and the way-cooler Spike (actually, it was three if you count that episode when she had a ‘thing’ with Dracula himself). Then, there’s modern fiction. You can’t go into a book shop now without running into bloodsuckers, which, in my opinion, is more than a good thing.

Vampire Academy, The Morganville Vampires, The Vampire Diaries, Twilight, House of Night, Evernight, Darren Shan and Oliver Nocturne with their myriad of vampire-themed novels, The Blue Bloods, Vampire Beach, Vampire Kisses… I could fill a page with the series that can be found in the Young Adult section alone. Bring it on, I say. The more vampire tales, the better. All have their own individual take on vamp mythology, all with different quirks and issues.

So I’ll ask again, what’s not love? The diet? Get over it. We’ve all gotta eat. How was that steak you had for dinner last night? The pale, pasty skin thing? Like I said, suntans are so not cool, we all know that. Nocturnal sleeping patterns? Pfft, I know plenty of people who sleep most of the day and wake at night. It’s called shift work. And the garlic problem? Well, who wants bad breath anyway? Yes, it’s easy to see why we love vampires so much. If you can turn a blind eye to their minor downsides, vampires are the perfect form of escapism. Seriously, who doesn’t want to be young, gorgeous and live forever?