The French Revolution constituted for the conscience of the dominant aristocratic class a fall from innocence, and upturning of the natural chain of events that resounded all over Europe; the old regime became, in their imaginary, a paradise lost. This explains why some romantic poets born in the higher classes were keen on seeing themselves as faded aristocrats, expelled from their comfortable milieu by a reverse of fortune or a design of destiny. Byron and Shelley are the prime instances of this vital pose. In The Giaour he writes on a vampiric character: “The common crowd but see the gloom/ Of wayward deeds and fitting doom;/ The close observer can espy/A noble soul, and lineage high.”

Byron departed from England leaving a trail of scandal over his marital conduct and since then saw himself as an exiled expatriate. Shelley was expelled from Oxford and he fell in disgrace by marrying an in-keeper’s daughter; he always struggled to reconcile his origin with his political ideas: “Shelley could find no way of resolving his own contradictory opinions” (Cronin, 2000).

This icon of the fallen aristocrat is rooted on another character revered by romantic poets: the fallen angel. As Mario Praz proves, miltonic Satan became the rebel figure of choice among romantic poets. Milton reversed the medieval idea of a hideous Satan and wrapped its figure with the epic grandeur of an angel fallen in disgrace. Many of the byronic heros share with Milton’s Satan this fallen-from-grace condition, such as Lara: "There was in him a vital scorn of all:/ As if the worst had fall'n which could befall,/ stood a stranger in this breathing world,/An erring spirit from another hurl’d" ( Lara XVIII 315-16)

There is another social factor that is behind the formation of the romantic myth of the vampire. In the early nineteen century, the foundations of what would later become a mass society were laid; the expansion of the press and of the reading public produced an increased diffusion for literary works and fostered movements such as the gothic and the sensation novel. Byron himself experienced the event of being turned into a proto-bestseller. The unification of literary taste and preferences that was a correlate to this social changes could not be more alien to the romantic notion of individual gusto and original sensibility. In order to combat this unifying forces, romantic poets revered the individual who stands outside society and is free from common concerns. Many of Byron’s heros look down on the masses from above, even though they walk among them and do not lean towards wordsworthian escapades into nature; they achieve to remain untainted by the masses in a sort of exile within the world akin to that of a ghost or a dammed spirit. This self-definition of Manfred is revelatory:

From my youth upwards My spirit walk’d not with the souls of men,

Nor look’d upon the earth with human eyes;

The thirst of their ambition was not mine,

The aim of their existence was not mine;

My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers

Made me a stranger; though I wore the form,

I had no sympathy with breathing flesh, (Manfred II, ii, 50-58)

Not only Byron’s works contrived to produce the modern image of the vampire in relation to the Male Seducer archetype, but also some odd events in his life and the life of those surrounding him exercised a decisive influence. A critical study bundled with an anthology of vampire tales (Conde de Siruela, 2001) attributes to the short story The Vampire (1819) by John William Polidori the fixation of the “classical images of the literary vampire as a villanious, cold and enigmatic aristocrat; but, above all, perverse and fascinating for women”.

Mario Praz, in the same line, also states that Byron was “largely responsible for the vogue of vampirism”. Polidori was the unfortunate doctor and personal assistant of Lord Byron who died half-crazy at 25. The idea for the tale published in 1819 came from the famous meetings at Villa Diodati on June 1816 between Byron, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley and Polidori, in what was probably the most influential gathering for fantastic fiction in the history of modern literature. In order to pass the stormy and ether-fuelled nights, they agreed to write each one a ghost story. Mary Shelley (who was then 17 years old) got during these nights the idea of what later became Frankenstein and Polidori wrote the tale The Vampire that he would publish three years later.

The story appeared in the New Monthly Magazine falsely attributed by the editor to Lord Byron (taking advantages of the aura of Satanism that surrounded the poet in the popular view to promote the sales of the magazine). A misguided Goethe hailed the story as the best that Lord Byron had ever written. The tale was, actually, a covert portrait of Lord Byron disguised as the vampire Lord Ruthven, a cruel gambler and killer of innocent girls. Polidori had introduced in the story fragments from an autobiographical and revengeful novel called Glenarvon written by Caroline Lamb, an ex-lover of Byron. The Lord´s reaction was a threat to the editor and the denouncing of a commercial imposture with his name. Eventually Stoker´s Dracula (1897) blended, according to Siruela (2001), this tradition derived from Polidori´s Lord Ruthven with some old romano-hungarian tales of wandering dead and enchanted castles, fixating thus the modern images of the vampire.

The vampire is closely linked to another romantic archetype: the dissatisfied lover. Rafael Argullol summarizes its traits: “el enamorado romántico reconoce en la consumación amorosa el punto de inflexión a partir del cual la pasión muestra su faz desposedora y exterminadora.”. The romantic lover begins to feel a sense of dissatisfaction, caducity and mortality at the very moment when his passion is fulfilled. This feeling prompts him to embark in a sentimental rollercoaster where each peak of satisfaction is followed by a valley of despair and the impulse to seek satisfaction in a new object of love in order to renew the faded passion (the extreme of this attitude is the character of Don Juan). The vampire goes one step further than the seducer: for him the loved one stands as an image of his own dissatisfaction and it must be destroyed at the very moment when the longing for her disappears; at the instant of consummation.

Again Byron in Manfred expresses this transference, which Argullol opportunely labels as romantic self-mirroring: “I loved her, and destroy'd her! (211)”. Keats conveys in his Ode on Melancholy the feeling of mortality that is hidden in the moment of pleasure for the romantic: “Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:/ Ay, in the very temple of Delight/Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,/ Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue/Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine”. La belle dame sans merci is according to Argullol also a poem where “vida y muerte se vivifican y complementan mutuamente [...] se hallan en total simbiosis”. But there is a crucial difference between Byron and Keats in their approach to the fatal lover: Byron’s characters are fatal males, epitomized in the vampire, while Keats’ characters are femmes fatales.

This difference underlines a different attitude to gender issues: Byron liked to emanate a dominant masculinity which is imprinted in all his leading characters. Keats, however, had a passive approach to love, his poetic personas like to be seduced even if that means, as we have seen, to be killed. Byron is the male aristocrat who thinks all women are naturally his, they are his possessions and, as such, disposable at will. Keats, who disliked Byron’s Don Juan - in a letter to his brother, he referred to it as “Lord Byron's last flash poem”, announces a more modern and non-patriarchal approach to love where the woman is free to be the seducer.

Nevertheless, as we have seen, they both share the extreme notion of love as creation and destruction at the same time; and their characters, though of different gender, are vampire lovers. This different attitude is not only personal but it mirrors a wider and epochal distinction. Mario Praz has observed how the fatal and cruel lovers of the first half of the nineteenth century are chiefly males, while in the second half of the century the roles are gradually inverted until late century decadentism is dominated by femmes fatales. This literary process mirrors the advancement of social changes throughout the century, and the slow but continuous emancipation of love from patriarchal standards. Gender issues shift focus, but power and domination remain at the core of the portrayals of love even in the fully bourgeoisie society of the late nineteenth century. Goodland (2000) has explored the role of women as a redundant class subject to another classes and the gender/class dialectic found in the vampire.

Not only Byron and Keats were fascinated by the myth of the vampire, but we can find its presence in most romantic poets, even in the proto-romantic early Goethe. A list of authors who use such characters made by Twitchell (1981) comprises: Southey in Thalaba the destroyer, Coleridge in Christabel and Wordsworth in The Leech Gatherer.

As we have seen throughout this paper the figure of the vampire is shaped in the romantic period under the form of an ideological knot where many social forces converge: the French Revolution, an embryonic mass society, the decline of aristocracy and the gradual shifting apart of gender divisions from the patriarchal model. Therefore, it constitutes a myth that may be read as a battleground for the play of discourses of its era, shedding light on other romantic attitudes towards existence. As such it is subject to an analysis that, as new historicisms maintain, is aware of the historicity of a text and the textuality of history.

Vampires stalk our collective imaginations. The stars of books, movies, and even role playing games, they are at once both dangerous and alluring. No Halloween celebration would be complete without wax teeth, fake blood and a black cape.

But were there ever any real Vampires? Probably not, although there are any number of historical figures whose bloodthirstiness may have provided a basis for the legend.

Countess Elizabeth Bathory certainly stands as a prime example.

Born in Hungary in 1560, Bathory was married at age 15 to a warlord who apparently spent much of his time away fighting the Turks. Left at home, Bathory satisfied her own bloodlust by torturing and killing young girls.

Her victims at first were peasants, but as her sadistic urges grew, Bathory expanded her prey to include the daughters of minor gentry.

It was this that proved to be her undoing. Missing peasant girls is one thing, but the gentry were wealthy and educated. Local priests brought their suspicions to Emperor Matthias II, and an investigation was launched.

George Thurzo, the Palatine of Hungary, led the inquest, and on December 29, 1610, caught Bathory in the act. The Countess and four suspected accomplices were arrested.

Over the next three years, more than 300 people were interviewed and a chilling story emerged. Always a harsh mistress, Bathory apparently came to truly enjoy the pain she inflicted on her servants. Her cruelty was regrettable, but certainly not unheard of.

One day, a servant pulled Bathory's hair while brushing it. The Countess raked the girl's cheeks with her long nails, spilling blood on her wrinkled hand. Bathory imagined that the drops of blood smoothed away her wrinkes, and concluded that the blood of young girls could restore the beauty of her youth.

That's when the horror really began. Bathory began to kill young girls to bathe in, and drink their blood. Evidence at the trial put the body count at more than 600.

Following the trial, Bathory's accomplices were burned alive. Because she was nobility, Bathory escaped execution, and was instead walled up in a room in her own castle, where she died three years later.

But horrible as it is, Bathory's story is usually overshadowed by that of another Eastern European noble.

Vlad III was a Romanian nobleman who lived from 1431 to 1476. Held hostage by the Turks as a child, Vlad later came to rule his father's kingdom, which has variously been identified as Transylvania and Wallachia. He was also known as the Son of the Dragon (Dracula) in reference to his father's position as a Knight of the Order of the Dragon.

Because his kingdom served as a buffer zone between Moslem Turkey and Christian Europe, Vlad's life was one of constant warfare. Leading frequent raids into Turkish territory, he burned crops, pillaged, and poisoned wells. Legend has it that one of these excursions resulted in the deaths of 20,000 Turks.

Both home and abroad, Vlad gained a reputation for cruelty and ruthlessness. His father was murdered in a political intrigue, and Vlad apparently was determined not to suffer the same fate.

In one story, he is said to have invited his political enemies to a meeting at his castle. Vlad then locked the doors and burned it to the ground.

Another story tells of the visit of an Ottoman ambassador. When the ambassador refused to remove his turban as a sign of respect, Vlad had it nailed to the poor man's head. That surely did not do anything to improve relations between his Kingdom and the Turks.

But the cruelty for which Vlad is best known also gave him his nickname: Tepes, which means "impaler."

To serve as a warning to his enemies, Vlad would impale his prisoners on long poles, leaving them to twitch and rot in the sun. It is said that the roads to his kingdom were lined with these poor unfortunates.

So much of Vlad's history is mixed with legend that it is imposible to know how many of these stories are true. But contemporary reports seem to verify many of them.

Accounts vary as to the circumstances of Vlad's death. Tradition holds that he died in battle with the Turks and that his head was sent as a gift to the Sultan of Turkey. Another version claims that he was killed by the Hungarians. It's also possible that he was killed accidentally by his own troops.

Strange as it may seem, Vlad Tepes is seen as a folk hero to many in that part of the world.

Vlad may have been lost to history, except for the research of a writer named Bram Stoker. Planning a novel on vampires, Stoker rediscovered Vlad and made him the central figure in the novel that bears his name: Dracula.

In more modern times, several serial killers have been dubbed "vampires" by the press.

Fritz Haarmann committed at least 24 murders in Germany between 1919 and 1924. He killed his victims by biting their necks. During his trial, which became a media circus, Haarmann was variously called a werewolf and a vampire. He was beheaded in 1925.

Haarman wasn't the only "vampire" in Germany at that time. Peter Kurten, a serial killer who was beheaded in 1932, was known as the "Vampire of Dusseldorf." He was charged with nine murders and a variety of other offenses, including sexual assaults.

It is said that Fritz Lang's movie "M" was based on the Haarmann and Kurten stories.

In England, John George Haigh, the infamous "Acid Bath Murderer," also was known as the "Vampire of London." Haigh, who was hanged in 1949, claimed to have drunk the blood of his victims before destroying their bodies in a vat of sulfuric acid.

Are there real vampires?

Again, probably not. But there are those whose monstrous crimes make us wonder about the terrible creatures of night and legend.

More on the haunted history of Halloween can be found at Top Halloween Links at www.thingsinthebasement.com .

This article is derived from his lectures on the haunted history of Halloween.

Halloween - The History of Vampires

By Bill Knell

I. It Started With Blood

The Vampire persona has evolved from many true and untrue facts, legends and myths. At various times vampires, real and imagined, have been considered fiends, supernatural beings, shape-shifters, mentally disturbed deviants, satanic servants and fetish followers. However, it all began and still revolves around a taste for blood!

Contrary to the popular belief that Vampire history, stories and legends began with Vlad the Impaler, they go back much further than that. Many ancient societies worshipped blood thirty gods. This caused people to begin to associate blood with divinity, leading to the development of the early vampire cults. Regardless of the spiritual value, some people have always had a desire to drink blood and the reasons are as varied as the practitioners. In some societies the practice was accepted, as in ancient Egypt. But in others, vampirism was considered deviant behavior and condemned.

In Africa, most civilizations and tribes greatly feared vampirism. The fear was eventually turned into legend as people began to believe vampires were evil spirits that would come in the night to drink blood, kill livestock and steal children. Archeological evidence shows that fetishes, in the form of dollhouse-sized huts, were built as a protection against them. Some modern African tribal medicine men still hold to this belief and continue to build the fetishes in the same way that their ancestors did.

During the glory days of Rome, vampire cults abounded. Roman citizens, mostly females, began to believe in the concept delivered to them by captured peoples that drinking the blood of fertile females would cure the infertile. Likewise, for males, blood drinking was a way to become more potent. It wasn't long before blood drinking cult members started to get sick and spread their sicknesses to others. Though it's doubtful that these people understood much of anything about the diseases transmitted through blood, Roman physicians did see a connection between blood drinking and the spread of sickness.

Eventually, the Roman government moved against the cults and outlawed the practice. Some members of vampire cults refused to stop drinking each other’s blood and continued to meet in secret, despite the physical dangers and threats of severe punishment. When this was discovered and sickness continued to spread, the Roman government dispatched paid assassins to hunt down and kill the renegade blood drinkers. Because they were paid by the number of cult members they killed, these early vampire hunters became legendary. Seeking to get rich from their trade, there is no doubt that these "pay per kill" assassins took the lives of as many innocent people as they did cult members.

The weapon of choice for the Roman vampire hunters was a small, easily hidden dagger. This allowed them to infiltrate the secret cult meetings and then attack without warning. The daggers were highly ornate leaving the Roman public with the impression that the assassins were on a divine mission. The handles were in the shape of a cross and looked very much like any ornate, modern crucifix! In an attempt to scare off the government sanctioned assassins, cult members began to spread stories designed to frighten their trackers. They claimed that drinking blood gave them the ability to change into fierce animals and devour any attackers.

Thanks to the meticulous records kept by Romans and Egyptians, as well as the traditions passed orally by the Africans, vampire legends were well known on local and international levels by the arrival of the Middle Ages. Had it not been for the proliferation of plague and other pestilences during that time, vampirism probably would have re-emerged as a popular fad. Even so, some drawings in religious books of the period seem to suggest that blood-drinking cults continued to exist. Devils, demons and human servants of Satan were often portrayed as committing unspeakable acts, including the sucking of blood from other humans and animals. One may assume that these portrayals were not just shadows of the past or complete figments of over zealous imaginations.

As explorers from the Old World began to visit the New World, the vampire legend took on a new and frightening form. Spanish explorers traveled to the Americas in search of gold and other treasures. Although dreaded by the native peoples living there, the Conquistadors themselves began to fall prey to an unknown and terrifying enemy. In an attempt to escape the pervasive heat, humidity, bugs, snakes, hostile peoples and monsoon-like rains of the South American jungles and rain forests, the Spaniards would take refuge in caves at night whenever these could be found. It wasn't long before a strange disease began to claim the sanity and lives of the conquering army. The only thing noticed about those who became ill was that they had strange bite marks on their bodies.

The sick moved quickly towards death and a terrible fear settled in among the Spaniards. The source of the bite was finally discovered when those on late night guard duty watched in horror as bats gently attached themselves to members of the sleeping army. With no real understanding of rabies or how it was spread, the Spaniards just assumed that loss of blood was the cause of death. They believed that the bats were killing the men by feeding on the same subjects night after night until they were drained of blood! Though staying out of caves stopped most of the attacks, some were still bitten.

II. Dracula

By the time Vlad the Impaler came along, the vampire legend had already been well established. His contribution to the history of vampires was largely due to Bram Stoker's fictional story of Dracula. Already known as a rabid, bloodthirsty killer, Dracula suddenly became a virtually unstoppable, supernatural force of evil.

Bram Stoker's 1897 book, Dracula, was inspired by existing vampire legends and the brutal acts of a legendary tyrant. Stoker found the name Dracula in a book on the history of Wallachia. The name was associated with a 15th century Transylvanian despot known as Vlad the Impaler, also called "Vlad Dracul," which means "the devil" in Romanian. Impaling was the gruesome practice of forcing a long wooden spear through the body until the victim gradually dies. Dracula favored impaling as a form of execution and a scare tactic used to instill fear in his enemies. Vlad hated non-Christians, making it a policy to kill any non-practicing residents under his authority. Fearing for their lives, his subjects placed crosses on their front lawns and doorways to keep Dracula at bay.

Transylvanian traditions were also a source of great inspiration for Bram Stoker. They believed in what were called "strigoi" (the undead) who would walk the earth because they were improperly buried or had lived an evil life. Like vampires, they would stalk and kill humans. Stopping them meant driving a stake through their heart. They would then be placed in a coffin where the same stake was driven through the coffin and into the ground. That was the only procedure known to keep the undead in the ground where they belonged.

Although the marriage of fact, fiction and folktales that came together in Bram Stoker’s Dracula forever changed and deluded original traditions and beliefs about vampires, it also created a huge amount of interest in them. More then a few people read the novel believing it to be a true story, thus adding to the legend. Younger readers were especially susceptible to the suspense and fear created by the main character. Many would place crosses all over their rooms and nail windows shut!

III. Vampires As Entertainment

Several attempts were made to turn the novel into a stage play, but known were financially successful until Bela Lugosi entered the picture. Though legend has it that Bela initially wanted nothing to do with the project, Dracula became the role of his lifetime. Each night an ambulance was parked outside the Broadway Theater where Dracula was performed, and this wasn't just for publicity purposes! People would faint or get trampled as audience members tried to run out of the performance with the appearance of Bela on the stage as Dracula.

With reactions like that to the book and Broadway Play, the story was a natural for early filmmakers. While it is unclear who actually tried to bring Dracula to the screen first, it's certain that the 1922 silent film Nosferatu was one of the first uses of a vampire as a major character in a motion picture. In this German film, the vampire is a blood-sucking fiend with no redeeming values. Realistic make-up and great special effects make Nosferatu still worth watching on video.

If Nosferatu secured the vampire's reputation as a fiend with movie audiences, it was the 1931 American film DRACULA that gave a slightly more human face to all creatures of the night! In Dracula, Bela Lugosi brought his stunning stage performance to the big screen. The pace was slow allowing each moment of suspense and terror to be fully felt and appreciated by the audience. Rather then being just a predatory monster as in Nosferatu, Bela played the Master Vampire as a royal, dark and manipulative force using the few human attributes he had left to build an army of the undead that existed to serve his needs.

The 1940s brought the movie character of Dracula into contact with other well-known monsters like The Werewolf and Frankenstein. During that time, a string of reasonably well made "B" Movies forced gothic horror purists to endure watching their favorite characters mixed with everyone from mad scientists to Abbot and Costello. During the 1950s and 1960s, movie vampires faced new friends and foes in the form of atomic monsters and space aliens. If you want to see what may be the stupidest vampire movie of all time, buy a copy of 1967’s Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck by Roman Polanski on video. The 1960s also brought an unusual soap opera to TV.

Dark Shadows, the parent of all other vampire TV Shows, was a daytime soap opera that began in the 1960s and ran through part of the 1970s. Although set in modern times, the show drifted across the centuries to tell the story of the ill-fated Collins Family and the vampire curse that hounded them. This was modern gothic horror at its best! The show's primary character, a vampire named Barnabus Collins (played by the scary Jonathan Frid), became wildly popular and made the soap a massive success. Dark Shadows gave birth to fans clubs, books, magazines, several major films and a short-lived revival series which lacked the punch the original had. Thanks to the Sci-Fi Channel, the original Dark Shadows can now be seen on cable.

Most 1970’s theatrical releases with a vampire theme were merely color remakes of earlier films or ideas. Many were cheap exploitation pieces made to fill time at a buck fifty a carload Drive-Ins. There were a few exceptions. Andy Warhol's 1974 film, Andy Warhol's DRACULA, was well received and became a good companion to his highly acclaimed Andy Warhol's FRANKENSTEIN. 1979's Dracula featuring Frank Langella and Sir Lawrence Olivier gave the master vampire a more sophisticated sexual identity that went over well with even the most devoted gothic horror fans. Vampires on TV faired better then those on the big screen in the 1970s.

1972 brought us a made for TV horror film called The Night Stalker. The vampire was a centuries old killer discovered and tracked by an annoying and slightly washed up reporter named Carl Kolchak, played by veteran character actor Darren McGavin. The Night Stalker spawned another film and a Television Series that still airs in reruns today. The 1979 made for television mini-series, Salem’s Lot, was based on a Stephen King story and featured David Soul (of Starsky and Hutch) and master actor James Mason in one of his last performances. It is a classic and can still be seen in a shortened or full-length version on cable television. It’s also been released on DVD.

The only other big screen vampire movies of the 60s and 70s that gothic horror fans enjoyed were those starring Christopher Lee. His portrayal of the Dracula character was sincere and compelling. Though most of his vampire films were exploitation pieces designed for matinee audiences, Lee's performances in those movies gave them class amid weak story lines. While most laugh at it, another 1970’s exploitation film, Blackula is oddly addicting and joins the ranks of Love At First Bite, with George Hamilton and Arte Johnson, and the cult classic Rocky Horror Picture Show as films many vamp fans like to revisit. Each of these movies contain elements of horror, suspense and comedy that mix well and do no real harm to the vampire legend.

By the time the 1980s rolled around, the vampire theme had been covered so much on film that little was offered apart from comedies and cheap exploitation flicks. One notable exception was Joel Schumacher's 1987 film The Lost Boys. This movie offered us an updated version of the vampire look as seen by comic books of the time. As scary as it was interesting, The Lost Boys has become a gothic horror and vamp fan favorite. Almost invisible in theaters, the1985 comedy Once Bitten starring Lauren Hutton and Jim Carrey became a cable television standard after Carrey hit the big time in the 90’s. The 1988 teen comedy flick, My Best Friend Is A Vampire, also made it bigger on video and cable then on the big screen.

The 1990s brought us some quality vampire flicks. Francis Ford Coppola's BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA told us more about the traditional Transylvanian character then previous films and remained faithful to the original novel. The 1992 film based on the comic book character, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, has become a cult favorite. The comic book character also turned into a successful television series with the same title a few years later. The 1994 box office hit, Interview With The Vampire, was based on the Anne Rice book. The film brought Anne’s popular characters to a much larger audience and featured a young cast that hit a home run with most vamp fans.

Eddie Murphy’s 1995, A Vampire In Brooklyn, was both funny and frightening and should not be missed. 1998’s Blade starring Wesley Snipes hit a home run as a an action film with a total update of vampires and those who hunt them. Another 1998 film, John Carpenter’s Vampires hit a home run with a lot of vamp fans, but didn’t make much of a mark at the box office. Some felt that the western setting and motif hurt the film, but I thought it was original and fun.1999 brought us the start of Angel, a dramatic television series with a touch of humor based on the vampire character introduced in the Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV show.

Wes Craven’s Dracula 2000 was a very scary treat and a great way to usher in the Millennium, from a supernatural perspective. In 2001 John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe starred in Shadow of the Vampire, a movie which presented the fictional idea that a real vampire was used for the filming of Nosferatu. Although it’s kind of an arts film, the slow pace is equaled out by some very frightening moments. 2002’s Queen of the Damned was a less successful adaptation of an Anne Rice story that lacked the star power and humor that Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Christian Slater and a very young Kirsten Dunst brought to Interview With the Vampire.

A non-stop selection of cable documentaries about Dracula, his castle and vampires seems to indicate that people have yet to get their fill of these creatures of the night. More films are planned and, unless they cancel Halloween, we are likely to be informed and entertained by vampire stories on the large and small screens, as well as online, for years to come.

IV. Motivated By A Thirst For Blood

Most people labeled as Vampires after being accused or convicted of a terrible crime may have had an unusual thirst or need for blood. Hungarian Countess Erzebet Bathory, who lived in Vienna in the early 1600s, beat and tortured her servants and may have bathed in their blood believing it would restore her youth. Another Hungarian, Bela Kiss, murdered his wife, neighbor and up to twenty young girls in Budapest before he died while at war in 1914. The bodies were later discovered stored in metal drums, with bite marks on their necks and completely drained of blood. In 1996 a sixteen-year-old boy named Roderick Ferrell organized a group of Kentucky Teens into a Vampire Cult. They were all fans of the role-playing game, Vampire: The Masquerade. The group went to Florida and murdered the parents of a former girlfriend. Ferrell was later arrested, convicted and sentenced to execution.

Not all vampire incidents are as easy to explain as the crimes committed by wannabe vampires who end up dead or arrested. One of the most puzzling of all factual vampire-related crimes and incidents is the case of the High Gate Cemetery Vampire of England. Oddly enough, it was the western section of that British Cemetery that inspired Bram Stoker in his depiction of some settings for the tale of Dracula.

During the late 1960s, several British children found a shortcut to their school through the western section of High Gate Cemetery in London. As they started using the shortcut on a daily basis in the early morning, some strange things happened. Several of the children became sick and were diagnosed as having experienced a significant loss of blood, along with unusual bite marks on their necks. At the same time, residents of the area began reporting their dogs missing.

Dog carcasses began to turn up inside and near the cemetery. Most died of blood loss and also had strange bite marks on their bodies. A number of credible witnesses reported seeing hooded figures hunched over the dogs as they were dying. An occult group dedicated to the eradication of vampires started patrolling the area, adding to the confusion and weirdness. They actually went around digging up bodies and sticking them with stakes! Needless to say, the group quickly wore out their welcome and had problems with local law enforcement. By the early 1970s, things quieted down as children stopped taking the shortcut through the cemetery and most people kept their pets indoors at night. Although the case remains unsolved, one event put a cap on the whole thing.

A British Policeman on patrol just outside High Gate Cemetery one evening noticed a hooded figure bent over the body of a dog. The animal seemed to be in great distress. As the Officer approached the hooded figure, it turned to look at him. The Officer could clearly see that the hooded figure had no face! It then turned and vanished before his eyes. The dog died of a loss of blood and this is the how the Officer reported the incident. Like so many unexplained events, the case was quietly filed away.

V. The Gothic Lifestyle

For years people have dressed up as Vampires for Halloween and other special occasions. But some never stopped! Over the past forty years more then a few people have spent a good part their lives living like vampires. For most, just dressing the part is enough. Others feel a need to actually drink or suck blood. Although dangerous in a day when blood born diseases pose such a threat to humanity, most involved in the blood drinking or sucking only participate in the fetish with one person or an exclusive group of people.

Today, people who dress like vampires as politely referred to as participating in the Gothic Lifestyle. It’s an umbrella term that covers everyone including those with a blood drinking or sucking fetish. The mere fact that people are still emulating what was laid down as vampire characteristics, dress and behavior in the Dracula novel and films after so many years, indicates the strong appeal and enduring quality of the legend. Since it’s publication in 1897, Dracula has never been out of print! Read more at http://halloween.billknell.com