It seems that lately, there’s been a sort of paradigm shift in cinematic trends as of late. Especially since the phenomenon of Twilight has captured the youth of today, the resurgence in both the cinematic legacy of the vampire, and the cultural mythology has been both timely and effective for ushering in renewed vigor, for the classic movie monster. And one can easily understand why, you can’t help but be inspired by the classical trends of vampires as being aristocratic immortals without the slightest pangs of existence, sharp canines, and a brooding demeanor.

It’s really not what they are at all, at least not all of them, and certainly…not in today’s world.

It’s the shifting of the guard, the changing of hands; vampires are adopting a new face and a new being within the many facets of artistic mediums. There is a new breed, a conceptualization of vampires being monsters, representing the fear, the despair, and the utter culture clash between bands of pathetic and inept humans, and vicious thug like vampires who speak in tongues. 30 Days of Night did more to add some sort of creed back into the mythos of vampires in modern day culture, and we can trace this entire not just back to the trend of adapting graphic novels into cinematic overtures of grandiose CG extravaganzas, but what I call the Mccarthy effect. I speak highly of the author Cormac Mccarthy and his workmanlike prose, efficiently carving narratives of fear, hatred, isolation, and above all violence into epistemic reactions of societies both modern and ancient in American culture.

The country has shifted its view of a classic Hollywood creature in favor of a reckoning of a multi cultural nightmare. It’s the effect of 2007, one of the most stunning and striking years for cinema seen yet, a year in which we saw a hyper violent mediation on the changing of times/neo-western with an antagonist representing the inexplicable and inescapable death of humanity, take away best film at the Oscars. I am of course talking about the powerful and mythic No Country for Old Men. Its effects have been felt to this day, and let’s not forget that 30 Days of Night also saw its inception in 2007, standing out as one of the only decent horror films in ages, one that captured the audacity of Ben Templesmith’s art, and the simplicity and minimalism of Steve Nile’s writing form.

But Twilight is the case against. It brings vampires down to the level of attractive outlaws; it desperately tries to recapture the Anne Rice theory of “stylistically rich” characters with an impeding and over-brooding narrative to embody them with. It leaves a swathe of plot holes and rampant imperfections across a thick layered series, (in page count especially) which seems to be the trend in young adult literature. While Twilight borrows heavily from the standard mythos of vampires, we are seeing resurgence in the likes of masterful pieces like 30 Days of Night. But where did this Vampire begin, and Bela Lugosi end?

What could have started the deconstruction of the vampire in western culture itself was indeed a relatively unknown film called “Near Dark”. It was directed by Kathryn Bigalow, it had an extraordinarily talented cast and featured the stunning cinematography of Adam Greenberg, who was fresh off the path of eternal darkness on film with Terminator. Near Dark, a neo-western written by the masterful Eric Red (The Hitcher). Of course Eric Red’s films within the sphere of famous horror film screenwriters, is notorious for his ability to not only add legitimacy and realism to a jaded fantasy, but also taking classic horror movie monsters and deconstructing them and creating a much more imposing, if not exceedingly intimidating monster. He breathes strange life into the almost immortal stalker of The Hitcher, played by Rutger Hauer, and drives the focus of the film not into fear, but instead in the relationship of predator and prey, a very, very uncomfortable intimacy that of course is part of the relationship between typical vampires and their often counter heterosexual prey. While The Hitcher doesn’t even for a moment lend any thoughts to the stalker being a vampire, his actions, strength, speed, intelligence and timelessness on screen seem to point to something much more sinister, much more human. So we know what to expect from Near Dark, both in its presentation and execution.

Near Dark was made near the peak of Vampire mania in the 80’s, when The Lost Boys had hit the screen as a sort of revisionist Vampire film and ended up a pop culture phase instead. But in this mode of transition, Near Dark is born, not out of imitation, not out of frustration, but out of extremes. And the tale of Near Dark is the opposite polarity of The Lost Boys, nightmarish, dark, and nihilistic. After the massive failure of the film, and almost straight to Video release, the potential of the film seemed to be removed, only to be rediscovered later by fans and horror film devotees. So a period of restoration and of renaissance came to be, leading us up to triumphs like 30 Days of Night, and the awful status quo of Twilight. Yet, the burning question still remains, should there not be a potentiality in the field of allowing the classic image and word “vampire” to exist? The answer is: of course. Of course there should be the potential and classic image and mythos to work with, it’s the problem of over saturation or the grand lowering of intelligence and wit of metaphor and complexity that ruins the whole fragile meme, and renders it numb and foolish. This is a common cinematic trend, in last ditch effort to reestablish credibility to dying franchise that ever had credibility in the first place; the makers attempt to inject a lavish depiction of jaded realism in order to reinforce the franchise and its waning credibility.

This is an eternal argument, while some franchises like Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins have been more stunning then ever, (especially in the wake of The Dark Knight, the most literary form of Batman seen to this day.) The same could be questioned with James Bond, Miami Vice, Mission Impossible, Star Wars, and other popular franchises.

Yet on the same hand, should this action be reinforced? Yes. Yes, by all means, because it forces competition, it lights a proverbial fire underneath Hollywood’s Screenwriter’s Guild and forces them to rethink, re-imagine, and retread old ground with a much fresher perspective. So films like 30 Days of Night and Near Dark pride themselves on not saying the all too familiar word and letting the convention of familiarity of the audience fill in the blanks, what can be said of the other series? What can be said of the status quo?

Like many things, we cannot afford to base success on critical reception, or of box office success. The familiar conventions of a film like Twilight are indeed, the crux of comfort, the illusion of a fantasy within a fantasy, and no one can say that traditional form with a bit of gloss won’t sell. It’s just the idea that so many like to perpetuate the worth of the series, as if they themselves base their pride on the ability to Vampire and “Twilight” in the same sentence. The thought, is just about as dry and stunted as the prose of the film’s novel. It’s understandable I suppose. Twilight prides itself on the heroine uttering the word “Vampire” as some sort of incantation of loving intrigue and possibility, on the other hand Near Dark never even uses it; in fact, its vampires don’t even have teeth. Near Dark not only prides itself on it’s use of nihilistic, Ballardian Texas landscapes and broken neon city displays, it prides itself on allowing the vampires to flourish without being overtly obvious about their powers or special place. They are a band of nightmarish psychopaths on the verge of extinction, and much like The Glanton Gang in Mccarthy’s Blood Meridian, they have their own special bouts of existentialist plight and fear. It’s a unique film that doesn’t just rely on the viewer to participate in a young man finding himself changed by a band of violent vampires, it relies on the viewer to realize that they are indeed, watching a horror film. They are not watching a western, a crime film, or a neo-noir drama, but instead, yes indeed, a true horror film about vampires. I suppose if one may consider Taxi Driver to be a post modern horror film about humans, then Near Dark would be its contemporary, instead, fixated on Vampires with guns and psychological shortcomings. Yet still, Near Dark wasn’t even the first film to remove all that is magical and well known about the vampire. Let’s go even further into this deconstruction.

George Romero’s Martin and its titular main character, Martin, doesn’t even possess teeth or strength or any other powers, in fact he’s just a sick teenager, with a violent obsession with blood and sexual intercourse with tranquilized women. Martin is without a doubt, a sociopath with a fear of people and an attraction to the night. He calls in his daily exploits to a Radio station specializing in the macabre and the surreal and is a fan favorite simply because of the outlandish narrative that Martin weaves about his own, true, life as a “vampire”. And it’s true to an extent, Martin within the fabric and tapestry of society is indeed a social vampire, feeding off women in a violent fashion, gaining not only sexual pleasure out of it, but blood, his temporary “life-force” and what forces him to commit such violent crimes. Romero himself is of course, a horror film contemporary that is a visionary in his own right, redefining Zombies from brain dead slaves, into flesh eating cannibals, he took to social satire to add a legitimacy to his legacy of horror cinema that didn’t exist before. As for Martin, Romero has stated that it is his personal favorite film.

I’m sure if we delved deep enough into cultural circumstances and even small regions of the world, we could find films in foreign cinema that redefined Bram Stoker’s classic tale long before Eric Red, or George Romero even thought of how silly the vampire was at the time. The uniqueness of the vampire and its effect in western culture relies not on the silent Nosferatu, nor its ability to shape forms in all of the pop-culture eras and mediums, but to remain a product of the fear that the monster should represent. A terrible immortality, a beast that feeds off our own blood, our own life force, no matter how savage, precise, or sexual it may be; the vampire should remain a both a literary and figurative creature in the face of culture today. So let the Mccarthy effect take it’s toll, I’m all for Ben Templesmith’s cruel vision of vampires in Alaska, of headless victims, white snow blossoming into scarlet shades, and mourning over the idea that all of our nightmares are true. That indeed from the depths of dreams, our desires of power, our fear of death, and our love for the macabre, that the concepts and ideas of traditional culture, especially in cinema are constantly challenged, by the depths of our own imaginations, something much more frightening then man, or a beast, with pronounced canines could ever be.