And it is a phenomenon.
History
Vampire myths lived in the shadows for centuries, born in Eastern Europe and stealthily creeping westward. They pierced the public bloodstream with the 1897 book Dracula by Bram Stoker. This love story is not a triangle, but a pentagon, as three besotted men hunt down Count Dracula as he emaciates Lucy and Nina. What makes this villain unique is his irresistible magnetism. The book is spattered with intriguing phrases like “diabolically sweet,” “lovely, blood-stained mouth,” and “voluptuous wantonness.” Who could resist?
Actually, titillating romanticism involving a charismatic vampire didn’t originate with Dracula. Much earlier The Vampyre by John Polidori gave life to the dashing Lord Ruthven, a debonair aristocrat who seduces and drains the blood of every young maiden he encounters.
Polidori and Stoker must have hit upon something in our psyche that’s attracted to titillating danger. These and all subsequent vampires are attractive and romantic, so I guess the attraction of the dangerous, the forbidden, combined with lust, was irresistible. The attraction is somewhat inconsistent however; vampires variously see humans as nourishment, enemies, or recruits. Whatever they were, they went underground after the initial popularity of Dracula, relegated to a few costume balls.
Reincarnations
The 1927 play Dracula gave us the tuxedo-and-cape-clad Bela Lugosi (really Blasko) with his Hungarian accent, an image that has never died. He was described as “handsome and alluring … sexy and haunting at the same time.” Later he beat out Lon Chaney for the movie role due to Chaney’s death shortly before. (Hmmmmm?) The movie tagline, The Story of the Strangest Passion the World Has Ever Known, continued the emphasis of the mystique of forbidden attraction.
In a subsequent reincarnation we met campy seductress “Vampira” (Maila Nurmi) with her TV show and guest appearances in the 1950s and ’60s, and then Barnabas Collins of Dark Shadows. For awhile in the 1970s stupid kids even gathered clandestinely to attempt to drink blood, missing the point(s) entirely. Hallowe’en partygoers with plastic fangs “vanted to drink your bloood.”
But then he vanished into the night again. He was given new life in a 1992 movie version with Winona Ryder and Anthony Hopkins, again with an intriguing tagline: Love Never Dies.
Meyer chose the right subject at the right time, giving fresh blood to vampires by combining them with contemporary wildly popular high school romance. The implausible books and especially their movie versions gave them new life … again.
And what a rebirth! I even found an ad for a hand-numbered, limited edition ceramic “Count Cat-ula” for only $29.99 (plus shipping and handline). “I vant to spend my nine lives with you!”
It seems we can never really kill them. Nor do we want to. Happy Hallowe’en.
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