Vampire Mania 2009
Love it or hate it, right now America is deep in Vampire overload. Between Twilight, True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, and now even The Vampire’s Assistant, even a long time vampire aficionado like myself is wondering “When the hell is this vampire shit gonna slow down??” Well, it might indeed slow down from the 2009 peak we are in the midst of, but I don’t see it going away all together any time soon I’m afraid.
The truth is, Vampires aren’t just another kind of horror movie anymore, it is a genre unto itself. And all genres have their life cycles, but very few movie genres go away forever. Westerns keep being written off as a dead genre, but they keep coming back, even if they haven’t been the dominant form of movie entertainment for the past forty years or so. And as far as genres go, the Vampire genre is far more malleable than the Western, or even Crime Fiction. Want a vampire indie coming of age story? Let The Right One In fits that bill. Want vampires as a civil rights metaphor? There’s HBO’s True Blood. How about Mormon abstinence propaganda disguised as vampire teen romance? There’s Twilight of course. And there’s even the 99 Cent Store version of Twilight now with the CW’s hit show The Vampire Diaries. And speaking of Westerns, next year brings a vampire/western hybrid in the form of Priest. I suppose it is only a matter of time before we get the Vampire Sports flick or the Vampire Animated Musical (actually, in the early 2000’s Fox was going to make an animated musical version of Dracula with Joss Whedon…at the time I thought it sounded like a bad idea, but between the Buffy musical episode and Dr. Horrible, I now wish this project had actually happened) All this bloodsucker media is starting to make even the most hardcore vampire fan like myself wonder if it is all just too much.
One complaint I keep hearing is vampires just aren’t scary any more. Well, let’s be honest….when were they scary?? Between Count Chocula cereal on your breakfast table and The Count on Sesame Street, I can’t remember a time when the vampire image actually freaked me out, or freaked anyone out aside from your grandma. Even sincere attempts to re-scarify the vampire mythos like 30 Days of Night leave me scratching my head wondering why they didn’t just tell a zombie story instead (Ironically, in actual folklore there was no real difference between a vampire, zombie or werewolf. It was novelists and Hollywood creators who really started making these totally different creatures) The vampire serves a different purpose in our culture now than just to simply give us a cheap jump scare. They are our culture’s current power fantasy du jour, and have far more in common with another geeky genre than they do with Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees. I speak of Hollywood’s other favorite genre of the moment, the comic book super hero.
THE LAST TIME ANYTHING VAMPIRE RELATED ACTUALLY SCARED ME WAS THIS SCENE FROM SALEM’S LOT.
AND IT STILL CREEPS ME OUT.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC5HZzjjI9Y
I actually believe vamps have more in common with the Super Hero genre than any other. The modern version of the vampire all stems from one source- Dracula. The modern super hero all stem from one source as well-Superman. Both vampires and super heroes have power and abilities beyond ordinary mortals, and every decent vamp/super hero comes with his or her own set of weaknesses. And like vampires, super heroes are very malleable too. Want your super hero story mixed in with a little teen angst? I’ve got a Spider-Man for your Buffy. How about as a civil rights metaphor? There was an X-Men way before there was a True Blood. Ultimately the Super Hero genre has more room for flexibility, but what the vampire genre lacks in flexibility in makes up for in sexuality. Almost all super heroes are chaste, with the sex appeal factor kept at a minimum, despite those tight ass costumes. I suppose the one exception to this rule is Iron Man, which goes a long way in explaining how that seems to be the one super hero movie that really resonated with women. Robert Downey Junior’s version of Tony Stark oozed sex appeal, which is why it is probably the only super hero movie that your sister or the girls at the office actually liked.
So while the current vampire fad my indeed burn itself out before too long, it’ll just come back again stronger than ever with a few years time. As long as there are emo teenage girls who want to “fix” the bad boy they have a crush on, there will be vampire romances like Twilight. As long as there are gay teenagers coming out of the closet, there will be someone reading Anne Rice’s Lestat books. As long as there are people who like to see bad ass vampire killers, there will be an audience for Blade. And for all our complaints of vampire overload, including my own, are there really more vampire themed movies and shows than say, cop dramas or action flicks? Maybe when we get to True Blood: Miami or Vampire Diaries: SVU will the world REALLY have had enough of the undead, and close the lid on that coffin for good. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.
