How To Kill A Vampire

Vampires are fascinating creatures - scary but fascinating. They appear in human form and survive off the blood of their human victims.

In fact, once you get bitten by a vampire, its said that you become undead and become a vampire as well.

Vampires have some distinct traits about them that are fascinating, frightening and make them what they are.

Before knowing how to kill a vampire you will first have to determine that the person is in fact a vampire. So how do you tell. Popular movies and books have shows us the traits of a Vampire.

1. They come out at night because sunlight has devastating effects on vampires. Vampires sleep all day, roam all night and have to get to bed by sunrise. In the movie, Blade, daywalkers are vampires that come out in the daytime.

2. When vampires come out in the day as some stories have them, they wear dark sunglasses and stay in the shadows. Their pupils cant handle the amount of sunlight that a mere mortal can handle.

3. They have very pale skin, due to them having very little blood in their veins. Their fingernails may be clawlike and vampires have long canines for biting into flesh.

4. They thirst for and will get excited at the sight of blood.

5. Vampires sleep in coffins or upside down like bats. They may also morph into bats as well as in the movie Fright Night.

6. Vampires do not have a reflection and can't be seen in mirrors.

7. They're already dead...or undead...so you cant usually kill them easily using conventional means.

Here's how to kill a vampire as shown in some popular films/movies or books.

1. Stake Through the Heart

This is the most traditional method of killing a vampire, along with some others and was popularized by Bram Stoker who bought the vampire, Dracula to life...er...reality. Most vampire movies, including the numerous remakes of Dracula, shows the vampires being staked through the heart.

There are some variations to this, where the vampire is traditionally killed with a wooden stake through the heart, some say you have to stake a vampire with a stake of silver or stake him through the heart in addition to other methods.

Staking a vampire through the heart is supposed to cut off his lifeforce or weaken him and with other methods you could do away completely with the vampire and kill him.

Popular movies with this method include, Dracula (1931), Fright Night, Salem's Lot, & The Lost Boys to name a few.

2. Break His Neck/ Behead a Vampire

In the movie, Night Hunter (1996), the traditional ways of killing a vampire are abandoned. They'll just laugh at your garlic and holy water and sunlight doesn't do a thing to them. To kill a vampire you will have to be able to get close enough to him and break his neck/spine.

Beheading a vampire will usually kill a vampire as well.

3. Burn A Vampire With Fire.

Vampires don't like fire. One way to kill a vampire would be to light them on fire and burn them completely to ashes. They must be burned to ashes or else they will heal themselves and you will be their next victim.

Combine this method with another, for example stake him in the heart and then burn his body to ashes and you are sure to get rid of a vampire.

In Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles you would have to scatter the ashes of a burned vampire in order for this to work or else the vampire's clan can spill their blood on the ashes to bring him back.

4. Silver Bullet

Silver bullets will kill a vampire as well as any other silver object such as a silver dagger or silver stake. Silver is known for its pure qualities and is used to keep away evil spirits, werewolves and other evil beings for centuries.

In the comic book movie adaptation, Blade, vampires disintegrate when hit with silver bullets from Blade's gun.

5. Kill The Head Vampire

Finding and killing the head vampire will destroy the rest of the vampires in his/her clan.

But killing the head vampire is very hard to do because of two things. It can be difficult to find out who the head vampire is in the clan and the other vampires will do everything they can to protect their master. Also head/master vampires are difficult to kill even with the usual techniques because they have more power and skill than their other counterparts.

In The Lost Boys, the head vampire has to be killed in order to get rid of the rest of the clan.

Pop culture will usually come up with all sorts of creative ways in which you can kill a vampire.

There are many other ways of getting rid of these pesky, bloodthirsty creatures of the night but until we know for sure, be very careful when you go into the night.