Die Young, Stay Pretty
Vampires, and why they don't suck.
      by Rachel Hyland

Mickey Mouse + Princess Leia = Gary Oldman as Dracula.

Vampires are actually quite disgusting, when you think about it. They kill people. They drink their warm blood as though it were ice cold Coke. They're room temperature and often blindingly white-hued. They're dead, and yet they're walking around.

Creepy.

They can shapeshift into all manner of beasties. They can control wolves and bats and rats (oh my!). They can read thoughts, invade minds, and force the hapless into being their minions. They wear capes. They're dead, and yet they're walking around!

So... just why do we love them?

How can we love them? After all, the origins of the vampire myth are nothing if not shrouded in the scariness and the horror, and even the latter-day bloodsuckers we've come to know, adore and lust after are cold-blooded killers... literally. And yet this fascination persists, this slightly -- or not so slightly -- morbid captivation with what are, basically, homicidal corpses who see us as their next meal.

Is it possible we've all been enthralled?

If so, we don't seem to be ready for it to stop. Vampires are becoming increasingly popular as the decades go by, and that doesn't look like it's a'changing any time soon; at least, not in our mortal lifetimes. Just look at how many vampire films have come out this year. The incidence of vamp-related books, movies and TV shows is alarmingly exponential, as more and more otherwise lucid individuals succumb to the mesmerizing idea of life beyond death beyond all that is actually life.

And that we can blame on Dracula.

Evil Vlad -- and no leather pants in sight!

Oooh, doesn't the very name just send shivers up and down your spine? Drac-u-la. The ultimate bad guy, the ultimate evil, the vampi-est of all the vamps ever immortalized on page, stage and screen. Yes, Dracula. He and he alone revolutionized this ancient pagan bugaboo of blood-stealers and made them a race of proud and pretty people to be feared and worshipped the world over.

We all know the legend of bad ol' Dracula -- a legend that has grown and evolved and been mocked more in a century than almost any other. The spooky castle, the hypnotic eyes, the ever-so-seductive accent. Red satin-lined cloak, burnished Blackwood coffin, amorous and scantily-clad harem. He can fly. Transmogrify. He vants to suck your bluuuuud.

Which is no more terrifying than the reality on which this fiction was based.

Vlad Tepes Dracula -- Vlad the Impaler -- was responsible for all of this by becoming so damn freaky in his lifetime that he inspired Bram Stoker to base the gruesome Count on him. Of course, no one has seriously suggested that Vlad was a vampire. It's just that he was so into the cruel and unusual punishment that he had all the characteristics of the powerful and pitiful villain that Stoker was attempting to capture. A tyrant, a despot, a sociopath who gloried in the pain of others, Vlad is the real monster of the piece, before which ol' Drac just pales in comparison.

After a turn as a more Hollywood-ized Dracula on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Rudolph Martin tackles the serious role of Vlad Dracula in USA Network's Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula.

Stoker never refers to any of the atrocities committed by this lunatic, however. And why should he? After all, it wasn't until the 1970's that the book In Search of Dracula by Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu introduced Vlad to a receptive, horror-stricken Western world. But how much do even we, with the benefit of a vast pop-cultural collective consciousness, know about this sixteenth century Wallachian prince? (How many of us even know where Wallachia is?) Just as today we have a vague idea that the Marquis de Sade was not a man you wanted to invite around for a few beers -- 'cause he was a sadist -- we have the hazy, almost inbred knowledge that Vlad was mad, bad and dangerous to know... but did Bram Stoker know this? Or did Stoker just see the name in a dusty historical tome and think it suitably irksome for this anti-est of anti-heroes?

Whatever the provenance, it was certainly an inspired choice. Since his introduction to a ghoulish world in 1897, Dracula has become the most famous of vampires, the most terrifying of horror stories told to the kiddies -- his adventures with Abbot and Costello notwithstanding. And while Vlad himself did die -- though not soon enough, by all accounts -- he yet lives on, a caricature of himself doomed to the eternal humiliation of being the genesis of Grandpa from The Munsters. (There's definitely a lesson for all modern day dictators and bloodthirsty generals in there somewhere.)

There's no doubt that Dracula is the most famous undead guy of all time. A search for the title "Dracula" at The IMDb brings a result of over a hundred movies and TV series about the man. He permeates our culture, and our psyches, so that it is difficult to think "vampire" (if one is inclined to think such) without thinking immediately of his name.

He even fought Buffy.

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