Vampires have saturated pop culture the past few years and I’ve lost the ability to suspend disbelief enough to enjoy any shows, movies, or books with vampires in them. The occasional vampire used to be fun; now when I see one in a movie or show or book, I stop watching or reading.
Anyone else sick of vampires?
All of them except Bitey.
I was sick of them by the end of Season 3 of Buffy; why they’re still around 10 years later, I have no idea.
I was sick of them about 1 year ago. I can no longer enjoy True Blood. I wish they’d all go away. Werewolves, shape shifters, and any other supernatural creatures too.
Shouldn’t they be undead to you?
Underworld destroyed it for me.
I’d love a scary vampire movie (horror scary, not action scary like 30 days of night) to come out. I’m sick of vampires as sex symbols, i want them to go back to scary monster status.
I thought the phenomenon would die after all the lame spinoffs and copycats, but sadly no.
I googled that, ew.
I’ve never read or seen Twilight and I mostly avoid shows themed on vampires, but lately vampires show up everywhere. I was reading a book by a favorite author last night and halfway through the first chapter up popped a vampire. I couldn’t keep reading, hence this thread.
Vampires are a cheap gimmick, in my opinion. I suppose it’s not much different than using magic, but the vampire theme is less versatile and more contrived.
There’s a pretty limited number of horror tropes that get recycled with various innovations thrown in from time to time. I’m not sure Vampires are anymore overexposed then ghosts or zombies.
Used to be that it was Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, and the werewolf that got recycled on a fairly regular basis. And they still do, but Buffy et al seem to have taken vampires away from Dracula and into a different realm. Sort of like Westerns in the 1950s, vampires are now omnipresent. This fad, too, will pass.
The problem isn’t that vampires are omnipresent, the problem is that vampires are now sex symbols or action packed badasses. Twilight and Underworld aren’t vampire movies, they are a really bad Romeo and Juliet rip off and a really bad Matrix rip off.
I’ve never liked Vampires. I’m also over zombies, husband-and-wife spies, and reality talent shows.
Vampires are being humanized…“definged”-if you like. In the old Bela Lugosi flicks, vampires were dangerous and deadly…now they are handsome adolescents…kinda like the “kid next door”.
Vampires now have sex with people, worry about communicable diseases, and pay taxes.
They are not exciting or scarey anymore… that role has shifted to the zombies.
And don’t even ask me about werewolves!
I’m sick of emo-pires, emo-wolves and emo-monsters in general. But don’t worry, sooner or later the real deal will be back…
Bram Stoker’s Dracula was a Victorian allegory for sex and little else. It’s a good read.
Actually, Bram Stoker was the first to humanize a vampire. (Previously, vampires of legend were more like zombies or revenants.)
Yes, his Dracula was evil – but it was evil you could identify with, or at least recognize in the human world.
There was the even earlier Varney and Lord Ruthven, and all the adaptations and ripoffs.
It was really John Polidori’s The Vampyre that gave us the not only the humanized vampire, but the titled vampire and the sexy vampire. Before him, as fuzzy suggests, vampires were more like zombies. More to the point, they existed in communities that knew they were dead. Polidori’s Lord Ruthven* was the first vampire that could pass for human, stayed with people who didn’t know he was dead, and seduced and married a woman. Before him, vampires weren’t all sexy**
*with the possible exception of Goethe’s Bride of Corinth, which I yhaven’t read.
** According to David Skal, who’s researched this rather heavily, Dracula wasn’t really sexy, either, despite all the efforts of stage and screen to make him so. In the book, he’s definitely neither sexy nor a seducer.
Dracula, Anne Rice’s vampires, and the vampires in the show from the 90’s (Forever Knight) are the only ones I can tolerate.
which is impossible for me to take seriously, since I keep imagining Jim Varney, as an undead Ernest P. Worrell. KnowhutImean?