Interview with a Vampire Expert

This thesis compares the Gothic qualities manifest in the Count from Bram Stoker's "Dracula" with those of Edward Cullen of the "Twilight" series, as well as other 21st-century vampires. It utilizes concepts from both traditional and contemporary Gothic, and seeks to exemplify the ways in which contemporary vampires, while being superficially Gothic characters, now lack the element of horror and transgression with which they had previously been associated.

The representation of vampires in horror movies and television programmes has changed considerably over the last two decades. No longer is the vampire portrayed simply as a monster or representation of death. Now, the vampire on our screen such as True Blood’s Bill Compton, or Twilight’s Edward Cullen, passes as human, chooses to make morally sound decisions, becomes an upstanding assimilated citizen, works in the community, and aspires to be a husband to mortal women. The success of recent series such as The Twilight Saga (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012), The Vampire Diaries (2009 - ) and True Blood (2008 - ) has popularised the idea of vampires who cling to remnants of their humanity (or memories of what it means to be human) and attempt to live as human, which builds upon similar – albeit embryonic – themes which emerged from the vampire sub-genre in the 1990s. Within these narratives, representations of the other have shifted from the traditional idea of the monster, to alternative and surprising loci. As this chapter argues, humans themselves, and the concept of the human body, now represent, in many instances, both abject and other. The chapter begins by considering the nature of the abject and otherness in relation to representations of classical vampires and how they have traditionally embodied the other. This provides a backdrop against which to examine the characteristics of the contemporary mainstreaming vampire ‘monster’. An examination of the broad thematic and representational shifts from other to mainstream vampire demonstrates how mainstream monsters are increasingly assimilating into mortal lifestyles with trappings that many viewers may find appealing. The same shifts in theme and representation also reveal that humans are frequently cast as mundane and unappealing in contemporary vampire narratives.

University of Bucharest Review-A Journal of Literary …, 2011

Just as Count Dracula from Bram Stoker's novel could change and mutate at will from bat to wolf, and from swarm or rats to a miasmic mist, this paper will show the many and varied transitions and transformations of the vampire in European culture. From factual starts of eye-witness accounts and official reports from the 18 th century, to evolutionary endings in cinematic pre-cursors to actual medical advancements, the blood-sucking undead have metamorphosed across genres and mediums, from fact to fiction, and from page to screen and beyond. Nina Auerbach, in her influential book Our Vampires, Ourselves famously said that each generation creates the vampire that it needs and this observation will, indeed, form the trajectory of this examination. It will also highlight the revenant's capacity to act as a buffer and so not just reflecting the age it lives in but prefiguring the next.

1st ASSINDO International Conference and Congress, 2014

This paper endeavors to analyze the representation of vampire as a popular culture product of transnationalism in American horror films. In the development of American horror films, the monster’s presence strongly relates to urban legends, and it is emphasized by Noel Carroll, as the writer of Philosophy of Horror, who argues that one of horror film main characters is the monster’s presence. American horror films as product of popular culture need to determine what monsters that could represent American culture. Moreover, as a nation built by immigrants, the immigrants’ culture, urban legend, and believe have influenced American culture significantly. As a result, vampire’s legend which is famous in the Eastern Europe is taken into a part of American horror monsters. Dracula (1931), directed by Todd Browning, is the first vampire Hollywood movie based on Bram Stoker novel Dracula (1897). Elizabeth Tilley states that Bram Stoker is considered as a part of Anglo-Irish late Victorian Gothic writers who concern on fascination with the occult, terror on the psyche, repression, and monsters. In the 21st century Hollywood cinema, the emergence of vampire movies still becomes the main focus of the stories. One of the most successful vampire movies is Twilight Saga (2009-2012) based on Stephenie Mayer novel, an American novelist who successfully presents vampire as both romantic and threatening monsters. To analyze the representation of vampire as a product of transnationalism, the writer of the paper uses library and online research dealing with vampire, american films, and popular culture to obtain a comprehensive understanding. Therefore, the writer of the paper finds that the representation of vampire in the 21st American films, as a product of transnational popular culture, still strongly relates to Europe, but there are some variations influenced by the spirit freedom in American culture. Key words: Vampire, transnationalism, popular culture, American films, horror.

History of Representation of Vampires in Film and Moral repression, 2018

It seems rather difficult to imagine creatures of classic horror films, such as the monster of Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Wolfman or Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde as icons that an audience could admire and understand empathetically. Furthermore, the sins these monsters represent are recognised immediately as reprehensible, punishable and worst of all, unattractive. This is perhaps the reason as to why their appearance and themes in film have remained practically unchanged throughout their different iterations. Vampire films on the other hand are a different case altogether, as they are so varied in their themes that they have managed to become a film genre of their own. Vampires have fascinated generations of cinemagoers; with depictions of hideous vampires such as the rat-like Count Orlock in Nosferatu (1922), to the silent and sensualised Christopher Lee's Horror of Dracula (1958). These creatures have taken a hold of audiences all over the world. These vampire films would later go on to inspire a generation of filmmakers to pose the question of what it could mean for a human to become a vampire. As a result of this question the humanisation of the vampire was made possible. This change has altered entirely the vampire film genre and it provided the films -notably during the 1980s and 1990s- with a different narrative. In these films the vampire's role as the villain is not so clear anymore and the monster becomes the protagonist to the detriment of its victims. However, the vampire remains the representation of evil whilst allowing the audience to experience the power of the vampire. The fantasies vampires represent are those of sex, control of others and of nature and ultimately of guilt-free power. Jeffrey Weinstock observes in his work The Vampire Film, Undead Cinema: "What cinematic vampires have arguably done for much of their existence is to provide representations of tabooed sexuality in order to establish and reinforce proper sexual roles." (Weinstock, 2012: 8). It is precisely this idea that filmmakers and writers alike, employed to convey the attraction of becoming one of the undead, the possibility of enjoying an eternal life free of moral and physical boundaries. The film industry adapted Dracula for first time in F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922). This adaptation inherited Victorian models of horror literature, thus, it carried in its narrative the repression against the vampire's unnatural sexual behaviour. The Count's appearance did nothing but emphasise the horror of that which is both forbidden and unknown. It is precisely the forbidden nature of the vampire, which helped filmmakers to make them so appealing in the films of the 1980s. The vampire then becomes the figure of the renegade, helping those members of the audience who consider themselves different, or 'not normal' to identify themselves with this new generation of bloodsuckers. Milly Williamson explains this idea in her book The Lure of the Vampire: "Thus the vampire is no longer an expression of terror, it is the expression of the outcast and this helps to explain its enormous popularity" (Williamson, 2005, 183). There was yet another dramatic change to the vampire's narrative with the poorly critically received Twilight (2008). This iteration is perhaps one of its most puzzling transformations. This creature of unfathomable and uncontrollable power appears in these films to be submissive to the desires of what would have been its prey. It is the idea of the romanticised vampire that fuels this work. The primary aim of this project is to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of the vampire with regards to human fantasies of power. This will allow me to understand the reason as to why this supernatural creature has changed so much throughout its different iterations in film. In order to do this I will use a textual analysis on a series of films as well as academic texts to better analyse the libertine nature of the vampire and the repressive narrative in its different films.

This work examines the blurred lines that separates humanity and monstrosity, analysing this ever-challenging relationship in the horror genre. Horror, being a haven for all sorts of monsters, is perhaps the safest spot to locate creatures defined as evil or menacing by the uncanny mixture of man and beast. Although shape-shifters, such as werewolves, illustrate this blend in a more obvious way, I am going to focus on vampires, whose animal traits may not be as conspicuous as the wolf men´s, but remain, nonetheless, a defining part of their characterization as monsters. Dracula offers a rich site to delve our probing academic instruments, in search of new layers to explore a literary juggernaut that remains relevant and fresh in spite of being 120 years old. As far as the literary vampire myth is concerned, no other author deserves more credit for its endurance than Bram Stoker and his 1897 spawn, Dracula. Although not the first, Stoker´s vampire is certainly the most popularly known and recognized, being easily identified even by those who have never read the novel. Part of this identification lies precisely in Dracula´s animality: protruding fangs, bat wings, red eyes, and sharp clawlike nails. Stoker was not the only fiction author to suggest that animality can add another frightful layer to a vampire, but he may have been the first to take advantage of the post-Darwinian perception of the monster as a liminal being that lingers on the threshold of man and beast. Count Dracula not only boasts his beastly nature physically, but he is also able to summon, command and shape-shift into animals at will. Throughout the novel, wolves, bats, and rats are metaphoric and metamorphic representations of the Count – much in the same way that, as a cultural metonymy, Dracula stands for vampires themselves. In order to further examine instances where vampirism seems defined by animal traits, one should first analyse how Dracula set the tone for the fanged creature who still thrives as a horror staple. A good place to start is by examining Dracula´s relationship to folkloric werewolves. We know that Stoker relied heavily on Sabine Baring-Gould´s book on werewolves to create Dracula´s appearance, thus making animality an important vampiric feature1. In the novel, the Count does share a handful of traits commonly associated with Baring-Gould´s descriptions of werewolves, such as bushy eyebrows meeting over the nose, canine teeth protruding over the lower lip and hairy palms. Such traits are rendered even more disturbing by Count Dracula´s noble poise; in other words, the more civilized he presents himself, the more his animality stands out. Unlike the werewolf, whose animality is subjected to an alternate state of oblivion, incompatible with the civilized behaviour that dictates the rules of social interaction, Dracula´s animality is hidden in plain sight. Stoker masterfully overlays man and beast, making the beast seem even more hideous by enhancing the man´s educated mien. Thus, besides being born out of an assemblage of folkloric data, the novel also draws inspiration from former literary vampires to render Dracula both animalistic and aristocratic. Dracula´s noble heritage nods to John Polidori´s Byronic vampire, but the Count´s kinship with animals is even more reminiscent of Carmilla, the 1872 novel written by Sheridan Le Fanu, where the vampire turns into a large black cat. Le Fanu´s vampire is also ingeniously placed within the higher ranks of society, a formula constantly updated in modern and contemporary renditions of vampire stories, from