Cuddly vampires


Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen in 'Twilight'


Whatever happened to Nosferatu with his sinister glide and oversized fangs? Or even Dracula, blood dripping from his gaping jaws as he infects another victim with vampiric poison...

The vampires of today look like they've stepped out of a Levi jeans advert. Robert Pattinson flicks his tousled hair and gives his moodiest piercing glance to send shivers of a different kind down the spines of his female fans.

I blame Buffy, a friend of mine blames Anne Rice. Whoever is to blame, there can be no doubt that the modern vampire has been de-fanged. No longer a figure to provoke revulsion and intense fear, the vampire is now pin-up material, a rock star, a teen idol. Popular culture has sunk to new lows.


The shadow of Nosferatu

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Small World

Image
About three weeks ago, I accepted an invitation from a volunteer who helps me with Italian football research to join a website called 'A Small World'. ASW is a social networking website, very similar to Facebook with one major difference - it's invitation only. Once you join, you have access to all features of the site. However, despite gaining access you don't immediately have the means to send out invitations to others. ASW say that "Trusted and loyal ASW members who meet certain criteria have the privilege of inviting a limited number of their friends." As yet, I do not have the power to invite others to join. It's the highbrow Facebook, basically. Tiger Woods is a member, along with numerous other celebrities. However there are strict controls on who you can contact and what kind of things you can post in discussion forums and the 'events' areas of the website. ASW also has this to say about itself to potential advertisers: "An inte
Read more

The Mothers of Darkness Castle

Image
Some intrepid and courageous explorers posted their visit to the infamous "Mothers of Darkness" castle on Youtube. More information about this site, which may be of interest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chateau_des_Amerois https://fourhorsemen66.com/2018/12/16/chateau-des-amerois-mothers-of-darkness-castle-most-evil-place-in-the-world/ It's no surprise to me that a place like this would be in a sorry country like Belgium. I have personally met and had dealings with one or two extremely unpleasant people from Belgium. However, I digress. The story of this place helped inspire some of my ideas for my novel Staccato House.
Read more

Brian Lumley's Vampire World

Image
One of my favourite writers of horror fiction is an author called Brian Lumley. His stories are deeply imaginative and he evidently enjoys the frisson of describing the gruesome detail! He is very clearly inspired by H.P Lovecraft, and it's his earlier works and short stories which most clearly demonstrate his Lovecraftian influences. Although I enjoy the 'Titus Crow' series of novels, and the 'Psychomech' trilogy, the books that Lumley is probably most 'celebrated' for, if that is the right word, are his five Necroscope novels (the original series, as opposed to various prequels and sequels that he has published since), and his Vampire World trilogy, which was a series that chronologically followed those five books. I'm going to talk about 'The Vampire World' trilogy in this post mainly, but as they follow in terms of content the 'Necroscope' series, I'll briefly describe what those five books were about (SPOILERS ALERT).
Read more