Concerning Vampires

From the promo for a play I’m going to see, “DRACULA,” Bram Stoker, “We think you’ll find it nothing less than epic…”
I can believe it. There certainly must be something fundamental about the Vampire. There’s not much that competes with it for perpetual fascination. There used to be the gunfighter; I remember watching 15-20 Westerns a week, and the gunfight never got old. No more.
The Martial Artist is a contender. I don’t think The Rock Star is, not as the subject of stories anyhow. Angels were coming on strong for several years, but faded. Certainly, The Babe. (In the fifties, they came up with the phrase “Sex Symbol.” Marilyn Monroe was a Sex Symbol. Where did they get that? Jung, I suppose. So, it is probably true, but they were also in denial about just plain Sex.) The Babe who is also The Martial Artist is newish, but I think she’s here to stay; she has it all.
The Zombies are always hanging around, but in a second tier. Spies
need to be in really good movies now, to steer clear of farce. Then there’s the Slasher. Always a kind of farce, appreciated by the audience. I am just too old to get it, but they have the numbers.
The non-Slasher Serial-Killer has become an irresistible protagonist, but I suspect more to the screenwriters, as prefabs for loosely integrated and yearned-for multi-orgasmic plots. By now the story has to carry the appeal; I doubt it’s a bona-fide audience-driven archetype.
Superheroes, for sure! I don’t care what the superpower is; I want to see that movie. This place used to be filled by the Galahad Knight, or simply by The Hero. Hercules was mortal, but a demigod, based on his Heroics. He must have founded a thousand cities. He had an inexhaustible litany of locales and legends to his name. I don’t think Achilles had “legs” like that.
Anyway, I am always up for a vampire.
The Torah says many times, “Thou shall not eat the blood, for the blood is the life.” The Breath is mentioned at the Creation, but mainly it is the blood.
A non sequitur story I liked from the Buffy series spinoff, Angel. (He’s a Vampire with a soul. Drinks animal blood.) A Demon makes him go through memories of all the people he had killed (before the soul). He says he can no longer live with it. The Demon says he doesn’t have the courage to end his life. He says, “I don’t need courage. I just need the sun to rise.”
–David