Monstrum

I've noticed this trend for years-- vampires keep changing.

One moment, they're monstrous and terrifying, and the next they're attractive and brooding.

And just when they settle into one form, they shift again.

[blood burbling] Sexy, scary, sexy and scary, sexy, scary.

The cycle has played out for centuries, but why?

Why can't we decide if vampires should be scary or sexy?

And what does it reveal about our fears, our desires, and the way we see ourselves?

[dramatic music intensifies] To really dig into why vampires cycle between scary and sexy, we need to take a look at the story that launched it all, Bram Stoker's "Dracula," written in 1897.

This tale launched the popular vampire legend that we're most familiar with today.

You've certainly heard of Dracula, but this original version is perhaps a little different than the one you might know.

This is how Stoker describes Count Dracula in his novel.

"His face was strong.

"His eyebrows were very massive, "almost meeting over the nose, "and with bushy hair that seemed to curl "in its own perfusion.

"The mouth, so far as I could see it "under the heavy mustache, "was fixed and rather cruel looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth."

Let's recap.

The original Dracula had a mustache, a massive unibrow?

That's definitely not the vampire stereotype we know and love today.

Why can't we decide if vampires should be sexy, scary, or both?

While Stoker's "Dracula" is perhaps the most well-known vampire tale in Western literature, it wasn't the first.

That would be 1819's "The Vampyre," by John Polidori.

This is really the start of the sexy, vampire.

Vampire folklore existed long before Polidori's novel, and vamps pop up in poetry earlier, but his story established the aristocratic, seductive vampire archetype.

The main vampire in the story, Lord Ruthven, is influential and eerily charming.

He's a cold, calculating seducer who preys on young women by emotionally destroying them.

He's a part of elite society, using charm and manipulation, rather than brute force.

Vampires became vastly popular in the 19th century after the release of "The Vampyre."

Part of the reason was a boom in the demon-lover trope, where an outsider is in conflict with other characters who find them repulsive but also alluring.

So you had a lot of stories about devilishly handsome characters like the brooding, hopelessly romantic, and abusive Heathcliff in Emily Bronte's, "Wuthering Heights."

The gothic vampire genre loved this trope and used it often.

"Varney the Vampire," a serialized, gothic horror story, first published in 1845, also featured a vampire that was more charming than grotesque.

He was described as having "hypnotic eyes" that would entrance his victims.

"Carmilla," written in 1872, was one of the first lesbian female vampires.

Following the alluring characteristics of other vampires, she was described as aristocratic and irresistibly seductive.

So, there's a clear trend here.

Going from 1819 to 1897, this is our first real sexy vampire era.

The vampires were deadly, but also charming, influential, and aristocratic.

But with "Dracula," this is where things shift.

Bram Stoker wanted to set himself apart from the crowd with a more grotesque looking vampire that drew more heavily on folklore.

The vampire in Stoker's novel, Count Dracula, is more monstrous and threatening than the other vampires.

He's described as being tall, thin, very pale, having pointed ears and protruding teeth that curled over his bottom lips.

He spreads fear, commanding wolves and bats, and attacks victims more aggressively.

He also possesses a wide range of powers, including shape-shifting into a bat or mist, -[bat flapping] -and superhuman strength.

[spooky music] Flash forward ten years.

In 1922, the film "Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror" was released.

The story was a simplified version of Stoker's "Dracula," using the same general plot and named vampire antagonist, but with different character names.

The film added a more obvious romantic plot with Ellen, who shares a strange psychic bond with the vampire.

Our vampire is Count Orlok, a very odd looking creature.

But his appearance bears a striking similarity to Stoker's Count Dracula.

Both are tall, thin, and have incredibly pale skin.

They both have an aquiline nose with arched nostrils and large bushy eyebrows, long sharp fingernails, and pointed ears.

Sharp white teeth protrude from both characters' mouths, and they both dressed completely in black.

However, they are different in how they died.

Count Dracula is decapitated and stabbed in the heart.

He crumbles to dust.

Count Orlok, on the other hand, dies when sunlight hits him as he feeds on Ellen.

In some early folklore, vampires were sensitive to sun, but "Nosferatu" was the first to make it deadly for vampires.

The film "Nosferatu" brought the vampire back into popular culture.

So both Count Dracula and Count Orlok established the vampires as scary, but that all changed in 1924, when we go back to sexy.

That's when a stage adaptation, approved by Stoker's widow, Florence, depicted Count Dracula as a gentleman in modern formal dress, complete with opera cape.

She seemed to be more concerned with setting Dracula apart from Nosferatu, than wanting to be completely faithful to her husband's rougher character design.

This marks a return to the well-healed vampire.

Then the novel was again adopted in 1927.

This iteration of "Dracula" featured Bela Lugosi, who would go on to play the part in the 1931 Universal film adaptation.

He fits right in with humans in formal settings.

It's a far cry from Stoker's version, or "Nosferatu."

Both the change in appearance and behavior became integral to the public's perception of Dracula.

What music they make.

By the 1950s, Dracula's likeness and name were firmly in the public domain.

The story was widely adapted for both film and television.

Adaptations focused on the cinematic legacy of "Dracula" and "Nosferatu" though, rather than the novel.

What replaced it was more obvious allusions to female sexuality, particularly in regard to chastity and promiscuity, likely in response to the emergence of second-wave feminism and shifting roles of women in private and public spaces.

In all the Dracula movies produced by Hammer Film Productions, for example, the women bitten by Dracula go through a sexual personality change, becoming more aggressive and more attracted to the vampire.

They also added connections to the civil rights movement in the U.S. in the late '60s and early '70s.

Some of these were tongue-in-cheek, some obvious, like in the truly stellar 1972 Blaxploitation film, "Blacula."

But it helped open up the possibilities of the vampire figure, and what one looks like.

Werner Herzog remade "Nosferatu" in 1979, which is even more of a mashup between Stoker's novel and the 1922 film.

Dracula is also more traditionally attractive, with more subdued fangs, full lips, and higher cheekbones.

The movie also has a stronger, more assertive female lead, who outsmarts even Van Helsing.

With the second-wave feminist movement growing in popularity and notoriety, it's a choice that fits the times.

From 1924 to around the late 1970s, our vampires were sexy.

Then we saw another shift.

Things started getting spookier again with Stephen King's "Salem Lot."

The book was published in 1975, but the television adaptation in 1979 popularized King's ancient vampire, Barlow, and he certainly fits more into the scary category, with yellow eyes, fanged front incisors, and a Nosferatu-like appearance.

[vampire groans] So, we're now firmly back to scary territory, right?

Well, it actually was a mix of both sexy and scary.

Vampire films boomed in the 1980s, giving us both sexy and scary vampires.

Casual dating and sexual freedom were trending, but so was moral panic, and science fiction and horror genres were gaining popularity, which led to mashups like the erotic 1983 movie, "The Hunger," which centers around a beautiful female vamp looking for a new partner and lover, much to the dismay of her current companion, played by the impossibly cool David Bowie.

It's all high cheekbones and sleek business suits.

[actors yelling indistinctly] 1985's "Fright Night" includes vampires who are both attractive and grotesque.

They look like normal people by day, but at night they develop a fanged mouth and yellow eyes.

In 1987's, "The Lost Boys," teen angst and blood sucking go hand in hand, with a leather-loving gang of rebellious vamps, and also this guy.

We're in sexy territory here.

[upbeat rock music] It was all a far cry from "Dracula," or even the original "Nosferatu."

The 1990s picked up on the sexy vampire trope that became the new norm.

Largely, it's all about sexy, strong vampires, with excellent jawlines and great wardrobes.

Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 "Bram Stoker's Dracula," is a highly stylized, erotic version of Dracula that is just damn pretty to look at.

Despite the name, Dracula used themes and allusions from previous films rather than adhere strictly to Stoker's novel.

This was followed by "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," first the movie, then the show.

"Blade," "From Dusk till Dawn," "Vampire in Brooklyn"-- they all took the edgy and goth vampire culture of the '80s and made it more mainstream attractive.

Given that the 1990s were also the golden age of supermodels, along with the boy band and girl band boom, there was definitely a look Hollywood was going for.

By the time the new millennium came around, it was pretty hard to escape the sexy vampire trope.

"Twilight" had teens and adults alike swooning over a morally upright, ancient vampire family, the Cullens.

First a book series written by Stephanie Meyer, the "Twilight" romance saga gave the vampires skin that sparkled, not burned in daylight.

They have a vegetarian diet, meaning they don't prey on humans.

Meyer's Mormonism shapes the romance.

Her main characters don't get together, if you catch my drift, until marriage.

The series includes the idea that becoming a vampire not only grants them immortality, but also enhances their physical beauty.

It fits the legend's romantic narrative, but also reinforces unrealistic beauty standards.

Then again, it's just part of a much longer trend.

The same can be said for "True Blood," "The Vampire Diaries," and "Penny Dreadful."

I think this type of vampire is about eternal youth as much as it is about impossible beauty standards.

Then with "The Strain" in 2009, vampires started getting gross looking again.

The first book in Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan's vampire trilogy, "The Strain," hit shelves.

The vampires are created by an incurable virus produced by parasitic worms.

They have a retractable proboscis to drink the blood of their victims.

Oh, and they continuously release their excrement when feeding.

They are gross, scary, and frankly, glorious.

This is a far cry from the vampires of beautiful, eternal youth.

Other grotesque vampire depictions followed.

"Boys from County Hell" featured blackened and mummified vamps.

Then there's the bat-like creature from 2023's "The Last Voyage of the Demeter."

That same year, "The Vourdalak" featured skull-faced vampires.

So, where does that put us today?

Director Robert Eggers', "Nosferatu," released in 2024, depicts Count Orlok with a monstrous voice, barely any hair, a thick mustache, and rotting flesh.

I'd argue this version of Count Orlok resembles Stoker's Count Dracula more closely than even the original Nosferatu from 1922.

Eggers intentionally strayed away from the attractive vampire trope in his film, but still relied on Transylvanian and Romanian vampire folklore traditions, with period-specific costuming and the ancient motif of leading a virgin on a white horse across a supposed vampire grave.

There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but I think right now, we are in a scary era again.

Personally, I think audiences are growing a bit tired of the sexy version-- at least I am.

Right now, there's also an increased attention to body horrors.

With so much social and political discourse surrounding bodies right now, it's a relevant topic.

We are increasingly questioning our knowledge of the body itself and how we can fight against human nature by trying to live as long as possible or be young looking forever.

The body of the undead forces us to confront the passage of time and the monstrous changes bodies can endure.

Being human is weird.

Being an undead human, even weirder.

"With high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly-ly-lay..." [laughing] Can we just...

Peculiar, peculiarly, nope.

Make vampires scary again.