+VAMPIRES+

Vampires are interesting. The way they've been represented in films, literature and TV has changed with society, and continues to change. But there are some things which remain central to anything, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which portrays vampires. These I call the Rules. The Rules were gradually evolved from myths some several hundred years ago, and were finally set down in Bram Stoker's 'Dracula', the main genesis of all vampire stories.

THE RULES
The first thing any vampire movie sets down is the Rules, or rather which of them it's going to follow. The Hammer Horror movies generally followed Bram Stoker's original rules, but there have been many films and novels which deliberately break them.

Many of the rules are to do with how vampires must be killed; obviously, this is central to any vampire-slaying text, but in texts where the vampires aren't necessarily the clear-cut baddies, this is less central.

• Vampires can only be killed by a stake through the heart, sunlight or decapitation. Some movies attempt to rationalize the vampire myth, and therefore vampires are often just humans with a need for blood and a dislike for sunlight. Staking kills them in the same way it kills anyone. But generally, in all modern vampire stories, vampires are very hard to kill, and feeding on humans or the blood of other mammals is a necessity. In Buffy, Angel is a lot like the vampires in movies like 'Near Dark'; essentially human, but cursed with a need for blood.
• Vampires are unnaturally strong. This is pretty much universal, because vampires are only threatening if they're dangerous.
• Vampires are the embodiment of evil, and have no soul. This is the point of vampires in the original Bram Stoker novel, and the majority of vampire texts bear this out; vampires are evil, and are their to be killed. On the other side are the modern, humanized vampires, which are more like people with a disease, than human-like monsters. The recent adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel, and also 'Interview With a Vampire', are somewhere between these two extremes; vampires are evil, but also tragic, with human qualities. Typically, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is more complex; vampires are of course soulless, and similar to zombies, but it's possible for them to regain their soul, ala Angel. It's also possible for 'neutered' vampires like Spike to exist, who are demonic and evil, but somehow accepted as 'less evil' than active vamps. I think Angel is probably unique, being the only vampire who does good which I can think of. As I've said, in the original myth, the vampires were essentially evil, and the distinction between good and evil was very black and white; like most modern texts, BtVS blurs the boundaries between the two sides.
• Vampires can change form, into bats, wolves, etc. One of the more problematic aspects of vampires, the problem being that cute little bats aren't very scary. Most modern movies do away with this idea, even though it was central to the original myth (where vampires are the bestial side of humanity).
• Vampires are immortal. Again, in the more scientific vamp stories, vampires are often perfectly mortal. However in most, immortality is the only advantage to vampirehood. Of course, with the more angsty, Angel-type vamps, immortality is almost a burden.
• Vampires dislike certain things, but cannot necessarily be killed by them. In the Bram Stoker novel, vampires dislike garlic and certain herbs (I'm nor sure if garlic is actually used in the book). They also are adverse to crosses and holy places in general, although not graveyards, obviously. In Buffy, vampires obey these rules, but interestingly the fear of the cross was seen as more mental than physical; as far back as Season 1, vampires were trying to break free of these boundaries, and master their fear of religion, and God. This is an example of a modern, psychological slant on the myth. Typically, in most modern vampire stories garlic and crosses are dismissed as superstition by the vampires themselves.
• Vampires cannot cross running water, except when resting in their coffin. Well, I think this one died with the dodo, because it seems increasingly impracticable, what with customs and so on. I'm not sure if you could get a vampire past the X-ray machine.
• Vampires sleep only in a coffin. Well, see above. Though many modern vampires are known to hang around tombs, your basic 'new vampire' generally sleeps in a bed. Although with black sheets, of course.
• Vampires cannot be seen in mirrors. This is one which is very variable; when vampires have to pass for human in the real world, frequently this rule is ignored, and they reflect like anyone else. Buffy sticks to this rule, for the shock value and the 'Oh, so you really are a vampire' factor.
• Vampires can turn a human into a vampire by biting them. This is where parallels with blood-borne diseases like syphilis and AIDS come in. Bram Stoker's novel is often seen as an allegory for the sexually-transmitted, and blood-borne, syphilis. Equally some modern vampire texts have drawn comparisons with AIDS; thus vampires are not evil, but simply misunderstood, in the same way that AIDS victims are in no way evil, and are frequently misunderstood. Therefore the biting becomes a transfer of a disease through the blood. Buffy the Vampire Slayer deliberately draws itself away from this; it's made very clear from the very start that vampires are simply evil, and are no longer human. Vampires become not a symbol of contagion, but a symbol of, in this case, the evils of growing up, and adolescent angst. Insofar as the mechanics of vampirizing are concerned, almost all texts maintain this bite-and-you're-turned aspect.
• Vampires have big teeth. Broadly speaking, the more modernized the story, the smaller the teeth. Buffy goes against this by making vampires hideous and bat-like; in their vamp face, they're inhuman. This expresses the show's attitude to vampires; namely, they are something separate from humanity, and are not human.

WHAT THEY REPRESENT
Broadly speaking, vampires have been, and remain, such a pervasive part of society that over the centuries they have been used to represent almost anything. The reason why vampires never die out, in the way that other monsters have done, is because they are continually evolving into different things. Within a framework of this popular genre, authors and directors have been able to express things they want to. It's what I call the Simpson's Factor; disguise serious issues in a familiar framework, and no one complains or tries to censor you. And equally, there is almost always an audience for vampire stories.

In the original myth, and the Bram Stoker novel, vampires frequently represent fears of 'foreign contagion'. This can be in the form of disease brought from foreign lands, or the fear that foreigners may be more exotic, and more attractive to women. Dracula's foreigners is central in the novel, as is his seductive nature. However Dracula also represents the fear that evil can be in apparently normal people; that evil can not necessarily be easily seen. Dracula plays upon Victorian fears about sex, and sexuality, particularly in women, as being a violent andk destructive force for evil.

In the numerous vampire films made after the book was first published, typically these ideas of the vampire have been reinforced. Often the vampire has been seen as exciting, rather than terrifying; however the 'foreigness' of the vampire was always a key element, and racism and xenophobia are present, to some degree, in most early vampire or Dracula movies. Interestingly, however, in 'Nosferatu', the first vampire movie, the figure of the vamp was tragic as well as frightening; however because he was grotesque, and less sexualized, he was able to be seen as less threatening.

More modern vampires often represent things which are specifically relevant to one aspect of society. Films like 'The Lost Boys' show vampirism as a metaphor for juvenile delinquency; rather than being a single, lone figure, vampires live in packs and terrorize the community. When someone is bitten, they are subsumed into the pack, or the gang. In the film 'Near Dark', this gang theme is also present. However the film shows vampires as essentially human, and without any obvious physical traits. Also, the possibility of redemption from vampirehood is present; it is possible to become 'normal' again.

The idea that vampires could be scientifically possible was explored in some late 70s and early 80s B-movies, where the vampire myth was deliberately rationalized and Scullyed into believability; in the movie, vampirism was an infection, and possibly curable. Though such films were made before the AIDS epidemic began, parallels with vampirism and contagious diseases are obvious.

Recently there's been a return to the original style of the early texts. Anne Rice's Vampire novels represent vampires are tragic figures in part, and I'm certain the rise in awareness about victims of disease is partly responsible for this. Equally the movie adaptation of 'Dracula' portrayed the count as not a motiveless monster, but rather a humanized character drawn to evil by love. The idea of a vampire being infect because of love, and therefore sex, seems to bear up with the AIDS parallel. However vampires can been seen, in these texts, are symbolizing any minority of people who are forced to live underground because of some compulsion they cannot control.

Similarly 'Blood Ties' (1991) portrayed 'new vampires', attempting to live in human society without killing. The immigration of the family of vampires was central to the movie; vampires were more like a small religious sect trying to escape persecution than the embodiment of evil on earth. Point of view is key in these types of modern vampire stories; we see things from the perspective of the vampires,  and our sympathies are with them, rather than seeing them as the big bad evil, and sympathizing with the hero trying to kill them.

As I've said, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, vampires are the big bad evil. In the series, they chiefly are the symbol of everything a teenager has to go through; therefore it makes sense that Buffy, as the heroine, spends her time fighting them. However, the series has borrowed from pretty much all of the other vampire stories and movies; elements of  'The Lost Boys' are often present in teenage vampire gangs, as is Angel the 'new vampire' I've talked about. BtVS has the advantage that it has had chance to assemble it's own complex mythology; vampires are demons, and therefore evil. They only appear human, but are not.

Therefore the grey areas are not strictly present; Angel is only half-vampire, as it were; he has a vampire's body, but a human soul, whereas a vampire is really a human's body with a demon within it, which has no soul. However, Angel's 'dark side', namely his repressed demonic nature, is a metaphor for the darkness of humanity, or perhaps the violence in men. This idea of the repressed returning to wreak havoc is both very Gothic and very Freudian.

Vampires, I think, are unique in that they are the only monster-myth which has endured so completely. Frankenstein's monster returns regularly, but it is always a metaphor for humanity dabbling where it should not. Other monsters do return, but none is so pervasive world-wide as that of the vampire, and none has changed it's meaning so radically, while remaining intrinsically the same.

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