Strangely enough, this is not the first time writers and filmmakers have given the vampire a blood transfusion--springing them back from the dead. Spooooky, eh. The two possible reasons at work, I posit, must be the personality of the modern vampire, coupled with a rebellious youth putting dollar signs into some writer's eyes. Yes, that's right; buckaroonos.
No monster has gleaned as much empathy and empowered disgruntled teens as well as the vampire. For one thing, the modern vampire's appearance is not hindered by any unsightly feature. His face is not covered in warts--unless incidental. He is not slimy--unless incidental. He does not eat brains... In fact, most films have depicted vampires as quite desirable, seductive beings; highly educated as a result of eternal life, and usually very well dressed. They, therefore are able to win over the more mainstream portion of the conditioned hearts and minds of the youth, while still embodying a loneliness that is understood among fringey teens. Furthermore, they sleep all day and go out at night--very much in agreement with the lifestyles of the youth since the 70s. You would be hard-pressed to see teenagers aping around as trolls or ogres, unless you were to visit a frathouse or a sports bar on a Friday night.
The other reason is that dollar savvy writers have keyed into this ebb and flow of counter-culture for years now. While Anne Rice managed to sell millions of books with her Vampire Lestat series to my fellow teens in the early 90s, so has Stephenie Meyer recently with her Twilight Saga. My generation may have enjoyed The Lost Boys, Interview with a Vampire, and Coppola's redux of Dracula; but now it's all Twilight and Trueblood. It's pretty clear to see how goth and emo culture lends itself perfectly to the recent reappearance of the vampire. But it really doesn't matter. My high-school years were pre-goth; grunge was on the upswing, and while there were still lingering punks--even headbangers, marketing is marketing.
The truth is though: Vampires are lame. "Cool, they drink blood." No, screw that; vampires are the worst monster...ever! Lookit--they are immortal but can be killed by wooden stakes! Like from a fence??!! Is that what vampire daddys tell their spawn? "Son, you will live forever, but make sure it's in a castle without a picket fence, and don't get holy water splashed in your face or it'll burn off your face, make a hissing sound, and you'll never get to bite the neck of another virgin so long as you live." I understand that every evil being or creature has some weakness, but come on. If I were a vampire, I'd just go live somewhere that didn't have any trees or priests.
Now, my main point: and it's a bit of a leap, but I can't be thinking about this crap forever....
Twilight was the not only the worst vampire movie I've ever seen, it was perhaps the worst movie I've ever seen. You are probably thinking: "that's impossible." But it is possible, you see. Some bad movies are just bad. But Twilight was BAAAAAAAAAD. And not just in a typical teenager movie kind of bad. Instead of hanging around in a cave, or flying around like in The Lost Boys, these vampires like to play baseball?? These are modern yuppie vampires? With Ikea catalogue homes? The whole thing smacked of a glorified commercial for Better Homes and Gardens.
Okay, worst part ever: The end of the movie when the boy decides to show the girl what vampires really look like. He opens his shirt and reveals this sparkly skin, and she's like....."it's like diamonds." Had I been a real vampire when I saw that, I would have stabbed in my face with a stick.
Ok, I'm done. But before I go, if you really wanna see a good vampire movie, I recommend: Vampire's Kiss, starring Nicholas Cage. Everything else is crap. Especially that 3 hour music video, Twilight.
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