Dear Pop Culture,
What is the deal with vampires these days? Why are they everywhere? There's Twilight, there's TrueBlood, and a scary movie that came out within the last year where vampires were running out of regular people to prey on for blood (that I forget the name of), but apparently this isn't really a new trend. I typed in "recent vampire movies" in google and the first thing that came up was a link called "Top 70 Vampire Movies of All Time" which means that there have been SO many vampire movies that you can say that there are 70 (which is a big number, it's more movies than I have on my official summer movie list) that are the cream of the crop compared to possibly hundreds more.
So, I decided to throw in two vampire movies I hadn't seen (both adaptations of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula) into my list this summer: the silent movie classic, Nosferatu, and the 1931 version simply titled Dracula.
Although the two films stemmed from the same source, Nosferatu and Dracula were wildly different from each other (other than the fact one was a silent movie and the other a talkie). The way the vampire was styled in each version was very different. Count Dracula's costume and styling in Dracula is more the vampire image most people have. I feel like if I were to dress up as Nosferatu for Halloween, with the long fingers and the scary eyes, people would be like "And who are you supposed to be?". But, if I got the cloak and white face paint and fangs (which would be a much easier costume to find) people would be like "Yes, vampire. Cool costume. I want to suck your blood. Hahaha."
Which brings me to another point. I was waiting the ENTIRE movie for Bela Lugosi to say that famous line "I want to suck your blood" the ENTIRE time! And guess what? It never happened! Such a line does not exist in the film. And I wasn't watching the wrong Dracula movie either! Where did this quote come from? Why is "Play it again, Sam" never said in Casablanca either? I don't know. I was highly disappointed and confused.
Which brings me to another point of confusion. Despite all this vampire stuff in pop culture today, I still don't really understand vampirism (which is apparently actually a word, because spellcheck did not put the red squiggly line under "vampirism"). And, sadly, neither Dracula nor Nosferatu really helped clear that up. My main question is, when a vampire sucks your blood, what's the difference between killing you and making you a vampire? What is the process of becoming a vampire? Do you have to die before you become one (because you have to sleep during the day in the soil that they were buried in)? How am I not more familiar with the vampire myth after watching Nosferatu, Dracula, Twilight, and Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter?
**A Note About the Twilight franchise: I may not know the vampire myth all too well... but I DO know that Vampires DO NOT SPARKLE IN THE SUNLIGHT and this is the most RIDICULOUS thing I have ever heard. Twilight is entertaining because of it's ridiculousness (which induces laughter), and for no other reason.
So, are the vampire references in pop culture all based on the original 1897 Dracula novel by Bram Stoker because that is what the classic films are based on? Did Bram Stoker create the concept of the vampire (my spidey-senses are telling me no...)? In order to fully understand this vampire craze, do I watch those Top 70 Movies? Or read the book? Or should I read Dracula: Illustrated with Scenes from the Motion Picture that I read (a paragraph of) in high school? What is the pop culture meaning of that? When the book folds in the movie that is adapted from the book?
The conclusion is, all of these vampire movies just make things more confusing.
Perhaps I'll have more luck with Frankenstein.
COMING SOON:
PS: My opinion/ ranking of the vampire movies I have seen (if you give a damn):
#4. Twilight: Although hilarious (it makes soap opera acting look hilarious), I have to put it as my least favorite vampire movie because I would not watch it again. Well, I might watch this scene over and over again because it's so hilarious (the song added in the youtube version just says what we're all thinking).
#3. Dracula: I honestly did not like this version as much as I probably should have. I certainly appreciated the cinematography (I enjoyed the spotlights for Count Dracula's eyes to make them glow), but it wasn't my favorite of the week.
#2. Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter: Yes, I am not afraid to put this bizarre cult classic above THE classic. I just enjoyed it more than I did Dracula and if I had to watch one of them again, I would pick this one. It's the most creative interpretation of the vampire myth I've seen (not that I'm an expert by any means, especially since I don't fully understand the vampire myth). Well, we can't deny Twilight's creativity, what with the sparkling and all...
#1. Nosferatu: I really liked this silent film. I liked the bizarre costume for Nosferatu, and the very creepy ending. I also liked the now somewhat cheesy film tricks that were clever for the time (like tinting the film blue for night and auburn for day, even though it was all shot during the day, and speeding up the footage of the carriage to make it look like it was going faster). I must note though, that the wife looked like a man the entire time, and the music in copy I watched sounded like video game the whole time. I now have inspiration to make Nosferatu: The Video Game (coming soon to Xbox, Wii and the third video game system).
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