My knowledge is larger than life. Especially when it comes to fantasy movies! So when May told me she’d seen a great vampire movie recently, I had no idea how come it could have been released without me being aware of it. From what I understood, there’s a war going on between vampires and werewolves, vampires hang out outdoors in daylight, and also they sparkle… What?? But that goes against all the rules, doesn’t it? I tell you buddies, whoever pitched that idea won’t go far… It’s never gonna work!
Let’s start with a little Vampires 101, shall we? Vampires come from the legends of Easter Europe, more precisely from the Balkans, where they’re basically perceived as harmless material living-dead. It’s since 1897 that they’ve reached fame, thanks to Bram Stoker’s classic novel “Dracula”. Stoker’s Dracula is described as a super-powerful and blood-thirsty count who sleeps in a coffin and can metamorphose into animals… Well, the whole vampiric folklore as it's still embedded in our minds.
The vampires got their second wind thanks to Anne Rice and her Vampire Chronicles, whose famous first volume Interview with the Vampire was published in 1976, followed by The Vampire Lestat in 1985. This same year witnessed the surprise success of Tom Holland’s Fright Night, which will lead a brand new round of vampire movies.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula is made into a full-length movie in 1992 by Francis Ford Coppola, featuring Gary Oldman as the main character, to find an overwhelming success. The other leading characters are played by the very time-appropriate Keanu Reeves and Wynona Ryder. If it works, why change it? In 1994, Interview with the Vampire is made in a movie as well, and not without an A-list cast: retrouve Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Christian Slater and even a young Kirsten Dunst occupy the main roles. At the same time, another vampire movie is a huuuuge…bomb: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yup, the movie. What, it had an amazing cast! Luke Perry (Beverly Hills), Paul Reubens (Pee Wee Herman), David Arquette (Scream) and even Miss Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby) in her first movie role were starring. Well, there’s not much to cry on, as Joss Whedon later adapted his original idea to a better-suited TV show format. Long story short: Buffy the Vampire Slayer will meet an overwhelming success for 7 seasons-long. Just to compare:
The late 90’s and early 00’s saw more or less successful vampire-inspired projects spawn, such as the first installment of the Blade trilogy, Queen of the Damned and its neo-metal soundtrack, John Carpenter’s Vampires, Wes Craven’s Dracula 2000 starring a young Gerard Butler (of "300" fame) as Dracula, the futuristic-slash-gothic-sinpired Underworld, and the amazing and over-the-top From Dusk Til Dawn, penned by the non-less amazing pair Rodriguez/Tarantino.
If the late noughties saw the genre take a dramatic turn thanks to movies such as 30 days of night or Let the Right One In who succeded in taking the vampire out of his manor in the Balkans and the surrounding romantigo-gothic imagery, it was nothing compared to the brewing revolution… The vampire came back to life thanks to the cinematic adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” saga… Cue hysteria! Everyone wants their slice of the bloody cake, wso The CW adapts L.J. Smith’s novel series The Vampire Diaries into a TV Show. Instant success! But my own crush is for another show, True Blood, whose third season just started being broadcasted on HBO. It’s definitely worth being seen, if only for the opening credits produced by Digital Kitchen, the agency who also created the ones of Dexter!
So I may be totally immune to the charms of a guy who just happens to sparkle in the sunlight (come on, my bling does that too!), I have to admit that Robert Pattinson, the rhero of Twilight, fits his character like a glove. Indeed, genealogists from the website Ancestry.com even discovered lately that he’s a distant nephew of Vlad “The Impaler” Dracul, who inspired (wait for it) the fictional character of Dracula! What goes around comes around.
