Let me just say that as a hardcore horror geek. After watching the likes of beady eyed vampires turning an entire town in to fanged specters while they slept in “Salem’s Lot” and then to watch Christopher Lee turn his victims in to vampires who were more about being vicious animals than falling in love (with Hammer’s take on Dracula), after Anne Rice began releasing her novels the vampire sub-genre was thoroughly pissed on by everyone seeking to emulate the author.
Every comic book I read from Morbius to Blade went from vampires seeking survival to self-reflective diatribes about life, their past romances, and poetry. Morbius became a whiny metrosexual and the vampire sub-genre suffered a massive self-destruction that relied on turning its demons of the night in to frilly, aristocratic artists with a nasty habit for falling in love. Hell even “Buffy” copped from Rice bringing to the forefront characters like Angel and Spike who were all overly emotional basket cases forever ruled by the strong female presence.
Many say that the sub-genre’s been doused with that cheesy romance theme since the original “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” novel that’s been described as being a heavily soapy vampire romance, but none of it really managed to drain in to the pop culture until Anne Rice mucked it up with her endlessly self-aware storytelling. Her success managed to turn psychotic vampire tales in to heavy handed looks at immortality, and my, what suffering we’ve endured.
Rare vampire tales like “Near Dark” were generally drawn in to obscurity or the underground while sanitized versions of the bloodsuckers were all but extinguished in the haze of “Buffy” geeks and Anne Rice wannabes. From junk like “Dracula 2000” to confounding derivative dreck like “Moonlight,” the vampire sub-genre was reduced to clichés and rehashed stories without ever covering new ground. Vampires have always been that allegory of the human condition that seeks immortality without boundaries of sexuality or basic human law, while also serving as a horrific lapdog of Satan.
And suddenly, there was a bit of a call for change. While David Slade’s vampire horror film “30 Days of Night” wasn’t a masterpiece by any definition of the word, Slade tried to bring us the vision of the vampire from folklore, the hungry, ravaging monster with long nails, very little remorse for humanity, and jagged fangs. Slade’s film could have been and should have been the start of a brand new re-awakening for the vampire sub-genre. These demons of the night were horrifying. They were smart, fast, quick witted, traveled in packs, and were never afraid to mutilate children and animals.
Now the upcoming “Twilight” promises to neuter the genre bringing it back to the same state Ms. Rice dropped it in so many years ago. While it can be blamed on the adaptation craze that studios have marked as their source for blockbusters, Stephenie Meyer’s story of vampires in love with humans in love with vampires is hitting theaters with a painfully silly marketing campaign reliant on cheesy romance novel posters, and fan girls who are pulling subtext out of simple promotional images leaving almost every other horror geek scratching their heads and wondering when we can see a real vampire movie.
What’s worse? “Twilight” is a PG-13 vampire romance that knows its audience well and just may be a big hit at the box office. This is what I soon realized after reading “Entertainment Weekly” to see the huge crowds of Goth fan girls at a mall for a book signing of Meyer’s novels. I saw this picture and felt my chest sink, for I knew these emo women would surely fuel “Twilight” as a money maker, and like “Sex and the City” them there IMDBer’s would definitely be there opening day proving to Hollywood that blood and gore are simply passé.
And everything that David Slade and Robert Rodriguez with his chaotic “From Dusk Til Dawn” tried to push will be destroyed in a hail of Hot Topic leather pants, and heavy black eye liner. I don’t particularly lament the coming of the potentially successful PG-13 franchise starting at “Twilight” because its appeal is only to women, don’t get me wrong. I’ve yet to read the books. It’s just that the soapy often dull stills resembling “Dark Shadows” sans the dread that have surfaced matched with the massive coverage has signaled that the vampire sub-genre is doomed to even more MTV pop culture neutering with everything great about the vampire concept being drawn in to the background yet again.
We’ve already seen the werewolf concept dragged in to the ground with “Blood & Chocolate” which was also essentially a movie based on a teen novel, as well as the slasher flick with the success of “Scream,” but after reading the play by play per novel descriptions over at Entertainment Weekly, I can only say that if you’re a horror fan, odds are you will not enjoy this.
Where are the blood drenched monsters I once knew from “Vampirella”? Where are the vicious demons intent on ravaging the human body like “From Dusk Til Dawn”? Where are the Christopher Lee’s and Count Yorgas of my generation? Why aren’t more films like “30 Days of Night” being released? They’re gone, nothing but wishful thinking, and “Twilight” is the sign of things to come.
And I mourn the loss of the potential for this wonderful sub-genre.
Sadly it's the way the genera has been turning to.
I attend the World Horror Convention in the year 2007. Where I learned that vampires are difficult to make scary due to the fact they have been turned into these "sensitive, emotional' creatures yearning for love and affection.
However, there is also another problem, due to this fact about the vampires, there is more of a market for "romance vampires" than it is for horror, they have lost their touch.
I myself am working on a vampire novel, and making them scary is difficult. I will admit one does gain a love interest but not until the very end of the novel. (in the mean time he rips out heads, limbs and anything his claws sink into!)
Anywho, I hope that explains anything. The market for vampires is romance, not horror, and much to my own when I pitched my idea the first words out of the publisher's mouth once I explain it was a vampire novel they said "Oh so it's a romance story!" -.-
As someone who does know something of the books, thanks to my wife telling me about them, I have to ask...
If the vampires in the book don't have fangs, aren't hurt by sunlight (having their skin shimmer like thousands of diamonds instead), or stakes to the heart, then why make them vampires at all?
A rags to riches story would work equally as well without turning vampires into a bunch of whiny overly sensitive metrosexuals that must fight their own killer instincts in order to fill some kind of necrotic fantasy.
The only way I see this story offering any validation at all to true vampire fans would be to have Edward admit he was using Bella as a play thing right before he rips her throat out, feeds her to his kindred and moves on to the next meal.
I will just say i like Anne Rice Books their is some gore but i think her trying to make vampires more humane is cool. But i also agree with the fact that the gory parts of these humane movies could be a little more gory. I would love to see a vampire movie with those crazy blood hungry kill anybody vampires in them.
But about Anne Rice i would love to see them make a move out of her Mayfair witches storyline I think that is the best ever.
Anybody ever heard of Brian Lumley Necroscope series now that is a gory series and i read all of them and they would make a really good movie and or series if we had good writers. Sometimes I think the writers are afraid to get down and dirty.
Hmmm, you do raise some interesting points regarding newer forays into the vampire subgenre (particularly your most deserved bashing of Dracula 2000 and Moonlight), but I would recommend reading the Twilight books before judging the upcoming film. The books themselves are most definitely not Anne Rice - they are clearly meant for a much younger audience, as they disregard a lot of the established vampire mythology that originated with Bram Stoker's Dracula (they don't die when exposed to sunlight, you can't stake them, garlic and crosses are ineffectual, they have the capacity for guilt, love and remorse - though they can choose to disregard these emotions - and they do not travel around the countryside in chests of dirt).
But there is actually still quite a bit of gore in the books; at the ending of Twilight there is a vicious vampire battle and a psychologically-chilling entrapment, and in Eclipse (the second sequel) I recall the leading man viciously tearing another vampire limb from limb, and then burning the still-twitching corpse, right in front of his 18 year old girlfriend.
While a lot of the marketing to do with Twilight has focussed on the romance - which is, after all, the significant focus in the books - it seems to be a bit more about shilling to 14 year olds than about the film's (directed by the controversial Catherine Hardwicke, of "Thirteen" fame, who I'd hardly expect to water down the material) actual tone - don't judge a movie by its advertising.
Perhaps Twilight is a 'woman's book' because it involves a female protagonist who is fairly unnassuming and intelligent, falling in love with a shockingly beautiful and unobtainable man much older than herself (sound familiar?). The main vampires are in a constant battle against their baser natures - but it's clear that they are the minority, and the story is awash with the bloodthirsty fiends we all know and love.
The focus of the novel - rather than vampires wishing to crush or devour humanity - is more about the vampires wanting to BECOME human, and the way they mourn the lives they have lost. Two of the female vampires are highly tragic figures because all they wanted were children in their human lives, and were completely thwarted by rape, infant death, and suicide. Still sounding like a romance novel?
In the end I don't think Twilight's biggest problem is that it neuters vampires (the point, after all, I think, is to reflect humanity - as you point out) - but that it's a good story that's not terribly well written.
Oh, and if you checked, you'd find the vast majority of Twilight fans found the Mills-and-Boon-esque "Entertainment Weekly" cover totally ridiculous.
Keyboard Cuts: The ... 
(1).jpg)
