by Eric Levy
A few years back, the world was fascinated with zombies. You saw zombies everywhere… hell, even Comic heroes were zombiefied and left to prowl on the meek and innocent. Zombie this, zombie that and then have some more Zombie sprinkled all over your morning coffee. You know what they say, a Zombie a day, keeps the necrophiliacs away!
Anyhow, this undead craze came up to a point where i began to hate zombies for a while. I am an avid zombie fan, collecting even the most lamest of zed’s movies i can get my hands on. I’ve also sat down and written down some outbreak stories here and there, all based here in my hometown. Maybe someday, i will tell you about them.
Zombies are my favorite monster of the lot out there. I’m tempted to say my favorite modern monster… in the same bag as genetic altered creatures/mutants, robots, aliens and so on and so forth. The classical roster, Dracula, The Wolfman, The Frankenstein monster, The Mummy, etc. are not that dear to me, maybe because i did not grow up with those monsters on the screens of the movie theater. I do like werewolves a lot too, and on several occasions have found myself arguing that there is indeed a difference between The Wolfman and a werewolf.
But what i can’t really stomach is the way the media has a feeding frenzy on everything that has to do with those blood sucking freaks, The Vampires.
Back in the 90s, like a lot of you out there, thought that the humanized, romanticized and elegant characterization of the Anne Rice vampire was cool. The classical vampire -Count Dracula, not Nosferatu- was nothing more than a Halloween joke. But nowadays, i see vampires sink even lower than that Hallmark version we hang out on our doors on October 31st.
What happened to the view of the Vampire as a junkie? That is what vampires are, junkies, who need to feed/injest their substance of choise/blood in order to function on the world out there. Given this status quo, and amplified by ancient folklore, they stick to the dark… and seldom venture out during daylight; they are ashamed of what they are, and it is due to this prolonged exposure to the darkness -internal and external- that the sun hurts ’em.
I wanted to be a vampire when i was a teenager. All my teen angst found a kindred spirit in the Anne Rice version of the vampire. I wanted to be like Louis, who was a reluctant vampire… way too human for his own good. But then i grew up, and realized that all that vampiristic wanabeism was nothing more than my teen hormones speaking.
I really hope to Chtulhu, that this new breed of glow in the dark, sparkling, strawberry scented version of the undead goes the way of the dodo as well, following in the steps of the Rice Vamp.
If you wanna see a really kick ass vampire, go and rent Joel Schumacker’s The Lost Boys (1987) or that other one with David Bowie, The Hunger (1983). Now, THOSE are kick ass Vampires, and a true testament to the thought current/parallelism of the Vamp as a Junkie.
Maybe even pop in the classic Nosferatu (1922) or Coppola’s Bram Stocker’s DRACULA (1922)…
You wanna know what is the sad thing about this? I don’t even like Vampires at all! I just find this trend we are going trough really ridiculous! I’m gonna have to get my hands on a couple of seasons of The Vampire Diaries and True Blood and see what’s that about, as i have not seen one episode of either.
Then again, I might just stick to my Zombies, and my Werwolves… and let this thing be. what do you think ah?
