tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/vampire-68482/articlesVampire – The Conversation2023-04-18T10:51:29Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2039582023-04-18T10:51:29Z2023-04-18T10:51:29ZRenfield: Nicolas Cage’s reimagining of Dracula pulls the vampire film into the 21st century<p>“Don’t make it a sexual thing!” Nicolas Cage’s Dracula tells Nicholas Hoult’s Renfield in this new interpretation of the classic vampire movie. “I eat boys … I eat girls.” </p>
<p>In a line, the film deftly dismisses a century of <a href="https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/dracula-couch">post-Freudian interpretations</a> of Bram Stoker’s vampire story – and with justification. Renfield is not about sex, but about power.</p>
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<p>This is most obvious when Renfield, Dracula’s servant or “familiar”, attends a support group for codependent people. When the group facilitator, Mark (Brandon Scott Jones), asks Renfield what would happen if he were to stop focusing on his boss’s needs, he responds: “He won’t grow to full power.”</p>
<p>The group finds this apparent metaphor weird, but resonant. In its recognition that gaslighting and emotional abuse are about control rather than desire, the film provides a version of the vampire myth in tune with contemporary debates. There is more than a whiff of #TimesUp about Renfield’s mission to distance himself from his abusive employer.</p>
<p>The film’s most striking power move, however, is on behalf of its production company, Universal. In its latest attempt to reboot its <a href="https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a829209/universal-dark-universe-the-mummy-bride-of-frankenstein-the-invisible-man-trailer-release-date/">“Dark Universe” franchise</a> – a collection of movies based on the iconic horror film characters the studio established in the 1930s – the production company is aggressively laying claim to the Dracula story.</p>
<h2>Citational vampires</h2>
<p>Vampire films are, according to critic Ken Gelder, “<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/New_Vampire_Cinema/uQn8DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover">citational</a>”. This means that they compulsively reference other vampire films, playfully reworking the conventions of the genre. The vampire film talks endlessly about itself.</p>
<p>In Renfield, an eye-catching sequence transposes Cage and Hoult’s faces onto footage from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoaMw91MC9k">Tod Browning’s Dracula</a> (1931). This was the film that forever identified Hungarian actor <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bela-Lugosi">Bela Lugosi</a> with the iconic vampire. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/vampires-rebirth-from-monstrous-undead-creature-to-sexy-and-romantic-byronic-seducer-in-one-ghost-story-114382">Vampire's rebirth: from monstrous undead creature to sexy and romantic Byronic seducer in one ghost story</a>
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<p>Renfield wants to draw our attention to the “original” (itself an adaptation of a stage version of Stoker’s novel) even as, almost 100 years later, it wants to remodel the vampire movie to 21st century specifications.</p>
<p>Recasting Cage in the image of Lugosi repurposes Browning’s film as an origin story for what is ultimately a kind of superhero movie. Renfield eats insects in order to stimulate turbocharged combat skills reminiscent of <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-exciting-additions-to-marvels-cinematic-universes-according-to-a-comics-expert-180634">Marvel characters</a>.</p>
<p>It also, however, evokes the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070930173700/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,952724,00.html">lawsuit that Lugosi’s heirs brought against Universal Pictures</a> in 1966. They accused the studio of profiting from Lugosi’s image after his death through merchandising, initiating a protracted case they eventually lost. It was a landmark ruling, determining that celebrities do not own their own images after their death.</p>
<p>In Renfield, the retrospective adjustment of the original film to star Cage rather than Lugosi is not only a canny joke that plays on the extreme recognition value of both actors. It is also a strategic move intended to bolster Universal’s association with the Dracula brand, as the Browning film’s copyright is due to expire this decade.</p>
<h2>Action versus comedy</h2>
<p>Renfield has the feel of the first instalment in an action franchise. But unlike previous attempts to hybridise the vampire and action genres, such as the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaU2A7KyOu4">Blade</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_IoL7g5Ub8">Underworld</a> series of the early 2000s, it does not take itself too seriously.</p>
<p>Stars Cage, Hoult and Awkwafina deliver their lines as if with permanently arched eyebrows. Indeed, at one point, Cage rapidly raises both eyebrows twice in such an exaggerated manner that it almost breaks the fourth wall. </p>
<p>Elsewhere, extreme gore is exploited for its slapstick potential. In the screening I attended, a scene in which Renfield tears off a villain’s arms with his bare hands and uses them to whack other opponents had some audience members in stitches.</p>
<p>There is a long tradition of vampire comedy. Stoker’s novel has vampire hunter Van Helsing break down in hysterical laughter, blaming “<a href="https://www.shmoop.com/dracula/chapter-13-full-text-11.html">King Laugh</a>”, a grinning skeleton who combines hilarity and death in the manner of the <a href="https://www.thecollector.com/danse-macabre-middle-ages-danse-of-death/">medieval danse macabre</a>.</p>
<p>The self-referential nature of vampire cinema gives rise to comedy. Appreciation of Renfield’s visual gags and snappy one liners is enriched by familiarity with previous vampire films. Cage’s characteristically over-the-top interpretation of his role inevitably recalls any number of his previous performances.</p>
<p>He even seems comparatively restrained besides his extraordinarily unhinged appearance in the 1988 black comedy <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnoSxO_2ghQ">Vampire’s Kiss</a> – another film that uses vampirism as a metaphor for gaslighting and abusive relationships.</p>
<p>The film never quite delivers what it promises, however. While comparable contemporary vampire film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAZEWtyhpes">What We Do in the Shadows</a> and its <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrEg-QGEonI">spin-off TV series</a> allow emotional insights to surface through the comedy, in Renfield any potential profundity is deflected into action stunts.</p>
<p>The gleeful lashings of ultraviolence result in a kind of moral murkiness, in which audiences are never sure whether they are rooting for the underdog or the violent enabler of a centuries-old serial killer.</p>
<p>A film less determined to please its audience might lean into this ambiguity and allow genuine complexity to emerge. Here, however, an uneven tone betrays an uncertainty of purpose. Ultimately, Renfield’s witty attempt to reframe a familiar story is compromised by its corporate brief: to shore up an unstable cinematic empire.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203958/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Spooner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Renfield attempts to remodel the vampire movie to 21st century specifications.Catherine Spooner, Professor of Literature and Culture, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1830842022-05-20T12:15:39Z2022-05-20T12:15:39Z‘Dracula Daily’ reanimates the classic vampire novel for the age of memes and snark<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464139/original/file-20220519-12-eujbju.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C34%2C1075%2C841&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An online audience is reading the vampire novel for the first time, en masse.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/vampire-teeth-to-go-with-story-on-boston-ballet-companys-news-photo/141665303">Diane Barros/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’re an active social media user, perhaps you’ve noticed a surge in posts recently <a href="https://dramatic-dolphin.tumblr.com/post/684034902439706624/i-love-how-you-guys-are-discovering-spicy">about paprika</a>, <a href="https://noritaro.tumblr.com/post/683727305352298496/he-threw-out-my-shaving-mirror">reflective shaving glasses</a> and <a href="https://banrionceallach.tumblr.com/post/684435414397927424/darchildre-friends-we-have-reached-the-point-in">castle hospitality in Transylvania</a>. One hundred twenty-five years after its initial publication, Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” is having a resurgence. </p>
<p>The current popularity bump is thanks to an email newsletter called “<a href="https://draculadaily.substack.com">Dracula Daily</a>.” The original 1897 version of “Dracula” was told in epistolary format, meaning the novel’s plot is presented through journal entries, letters, newspaper articles and the like. <a href="https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/dracula-daily-interview-matt-kirkland/">Matt Kirkland hit on a simple idea</a>: Release the novel “Dracula” by entry, by date. Subscribers to his Substack newsletter receive messages in their inboxes day by day as the vampire tale unfolds in real time. If there’s no action on that date, there’s no message sent.</p>
<p>“Dracula Daily” has become the <a href="https://twitter.com/woniiwasp/status/1522763544751747072">coolest book club on the internet</a>, <a href="https://nienna14.tumblr.com/post/683508500300759040">taking Tumblr, especially, by storm</a>. As <a href="https://skepticalinquirer.org/authors/stanley-stepanic/">a Dracula and vampire scholar</a>, I’m not surprised to see a new example of the story’s persistence and its tendency to find new life with modern audiences. Considered by many to be a classic of horror literature, Stoker’s “Dracula” is frequently <a href="https://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=dracula&so=rel">referenced</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/dracula/">discussed</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=dracula&ref_=fn_kw_kw_1">adapted</a>. What makes the phenomenon of “Dracula Daily” so interesting, though, is not just <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856516675256">how it is finding a new audience</a>, but the way the material is being consumed by these fans.</p>
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<h2>Following the action in real time</h2>
<p>Stoker’s “Dracula” is not unique in using an epistolary style; it’s not even the first work of vampire fiction to do so. But by including the new technologies of his time – such as the phonograph and the typewriter – Stoker gave his tale a modern feel, much as if it were written today using Reddit entries composed on a smartphone.</p>
<p>The novel starts on May 3, with Jonathan Harker, a young English solicitor, describing his travels to visit a mysterious client in Transylvania. “Dracula Daily” readers received this particular entry on the same date, <a href="https://draculadaily.substack.com/p/dracula-may-3-590?s=r">with a flippant summary stating</a> “Meet Jonathan Harker, on a fun road trip for work, as he collects some new recipes.” With that intro, the opening Stoker wrote in the 19th century to set the scene comes off like a naïve travel blog to 21st-century readers scrolling on their phones.</p>
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<p>The only difference between the original novel and the emailed content is that Kirkland opts to release the material in chronological order. For instance, Jonathan Harker witnesses Count Dracula scaling the wall of his castle in “lizard fashion” for the third and final time on June 29. His fiancee, Mina Murray, writes a letter to her friend Lucy Westenra on May 9. In the novel, the description of Dracula’s uncanny exit is presented before Lucy’s chatty letter. In “Dracula Daily,” it’s the reverse. Subsequent sections are published in the same way.</p>
<p>Newsletter subscribers are thus consuming the novel not just in a different format, but in a different order. While faithful to the original text, “Dracula Daily” is, in a sense, a partial retelling of the book.</p>
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<h2>Protectively mocking ‘my buddy Harker’</h2>
<p>Upon initial publication, “Dracula” was dismissed by some influential critics. One comment was that “the early part goes best.” And it’s these first entries that have grabbed the “Dracula Daily” audience’s attention in 2022. They follow Jonathan Harker’s journey to meet Count Dracula to assist with his purchasing of properties in England. It hardly sounds like the sinister scheming of a centuries-old undead vampire lord. To audiences in 1897, the novel was quite similar to previous vampire literature, and such details were largely overlooked as par for the course. </p>
<p>But today’s audience meets Harker’s descriptions with more critical scrutiny. Readers laugh as Harker marches past <a href="https://hydroflorix.tumblr.com/post/683450842647560192/loving-the-way-time-and-context-has-turned-dracula">what are obviously red flags</a>. When locals stare at him and talk among themselves of Satan, hell, werewolves and vampires after hearing his travel plans, Harker simply adds a parenthetical note to himself: “(Mem., I must ask the Count about these superstitions).” For Harker, who does not believe in vampires, this would hardly seem a nonsensical idea.</p>
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<p>Modern readers, even if tackling Stoker’s writing for the first time, however, are well aware that Count Dracula is a bloodthirsty vampire who has much more than British real estate on his mind. Trained by social media to mockingly scrutinize online content, “Dracula Daily” readers revel in minor details that <a href="https://selkielore.tumblr.com/post/683597812391428097/omg-the-count-kept-him-up-all-night-talking">are easily mocked</a>. For instance, the fact that Dracula, maintaining the pretense that there are servants in this remote vampire’s lair, secretly makes Jonathan Harker’s bed himself, is viewed in a new and humorous light. “<a href="https://ashtry.tumblr.com/post/683781830922698752/i-appreciate-draculas-efforts-in-running-a-one">I appreciate Dracula’s efforts in running a one man hotel</a>,” commented Tumblr user ashtry.</p>
<p>In Stoker’s time, one critic called the book’s descriptions “probably quite uncanny enough to <a href="https://beladraculalugosi.wordpress.com/contemporary-reviews-of-bram-stokers-dracula/">please those for whom they are designed</a>” – meaning, essentially, trash written for trash. Tumblr audiences in particular seem to have picked up on this quality, approaching the material with plenty of snark. It’s the mocking analysis of the novel by modern readers that <a href="https://fandom.tumblr.com/post/683789213230137344/email-isgood-again-the-dracula-daily-newsletter">sent “Dracula Daily” trending</a>.</p>
<h2>Consuming the story as a social experience</h2>
<p>Readers always interpret a book’s style and meaning through the lens of their own knowledge and experiences. But the majority of previous “Dracula” interpretation I’ve seen has been at the hands of scholars and devoted fans. The social media response to “Dracula Daily” is different, with a primarily younger audience riffing on the novel in a new way.</p>
<p>As audiences analyze the novel piece by piece, they are engaging one another with memes and artistic interpretations of the plot as it unfolds. For instance, Harker’s description of Dracula climbing down the walls of his castle in “lizard fashion” has elicited visual art of <a href="https://horseboneologist.tumblr.com/post/684336161182892032/serve-it-id-a-digital-drawing-of-count">fashion looks</a> <a href="https://draculaesque.tumblr.com/post/684328757123842048/looks-for-climbing-vertically-down-the-walls-of">inspired by lizards</a>.</p>
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<p>Because “Dracula Daily” reveals the plot day by day, readers follow the story together and are all at the same place in the narrative at the same time. As in the heyday of radio or network series television, the audience can gather around the (<a href="https://vampirediaries.fandom.com/wiki/Blog:Recent_posts">now virtual</a>) water cooler to discuss the latest revelation and speculate about what’s to come. Anyone could easily read ahead in the novel. But people are waiting with bated breath for the next installment to hit their inboxes.</p>
<p>It’s like a chapter-by-chapter book club. The forced slow pace leaves plenty of time for the ecosystem of memes and posts to flourish as the delicious dread builds about just what Dracula will do. As the plot further unfolds, I look forward to continuing to be entertained by the “Dracula Daily” audience – at least until Nov. 6, when the story will draw to a close for this year.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183084/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stanley Stepanic does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A newsletter sends out chronological snippets from the 125-year-old novel ‘Dracula.’ Fans on the internet go wild.Stanley Stepanic, Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1707672021-11-04T12:26:03Z2021-11-04T12:26:03ZNetflix’s ‘Midnight Mass’ joins a long line of horror that plays with Catholic beliefs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430046/original/file-20211103-25-13tp80n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C16%2C3486%2C2376&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A still from the Netflix series "Midnight Mass."</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eike Schroter/Netflix</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Horror and Catholicism have walked hand in hand on screen for almost a century. From <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0013257/">Benjamin Christensen’s 1922 film “Häxan</a>” to Mike Flanagan’s 2021 Netflix series “<a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81083626">Midnight Mass</a>,” scary films and television shows have portrayed the Catholic religion in both reverent and shocking ways. </p>
<p>“Midnight Mass” incorporates both approaches. </p>
<p>Set in a small, mostly Catholic community, the series gives a detailed depiction of everyday Catholic life. It also suggests an uncanny side to some elements of the religion, particularly the central sacrament of the Eucharist, or Communion, in which participants are understood to partake of the literal body and blood of Christ.</p>
<p>For many believers, Catholic ritual is meant to evoke a sense of wonder. For others, it can call up distrust of the religion’s overt mystical and supernatural claims and <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/ct-dfr-blaser-catholic-church-tl-0906-story.html">anger at the ongoing scandals</a> within the Church. </p>
<p>In my experience as a <a href="https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823297900/giving-the-devil-his-due/">scholar of religion in film</a>, horror movies can offer a complex picture of Catholic belief, ritual and daily experience.</p>
<h2>Demon-fighters and exorcism</h2>
<p>Many horror films depict Catholic ritual as a means of fighting evil, especially demonic possession. </p>
<p>For instance, “The Conjuring,” a horror film franchise, fictionalizes the experiences of Ed and Lorraine Warren, a married couple, who are self-professed demon hunters and lifelong devout Catholics. <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/franchise/the_conjuring_universe">In the films</a> – “The Conjuring,” its two sequels, and the prequels “Annabelle” and “The Nun” – the Warrens employ the instruments of their faith, including prayer and sacramental objects such as rosary beads, to free possessed people. </p>
<p>In other films, often with the words “exorcist” or “exorcism” in the title, Catholic clergy are the heroes in the fight against evil. These movies often depict priests as martyrs whose sacrifices may even absolve them from violence they commit during the ritual. </p>
<p>In the 1973 film “The Exorcist,” which centers around the possession of 12-year-old character Regan MacNeil, two priests give up their lives in an <a href="https://www.warnerbros.com/movies/exorcist">attempt to expel the demon</a>. The film has also been criticized for representing physical violence in a way that it appears necessary for <a href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/the-terrifying-power-of-girls-and-second-wave-feminism-backlash-in-the-exorcist">saving the young female protagonist</a>. </p>
<p>Similar violence is questioned within the 2005 film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0404032/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">The Exorcism of Emily Rose</a>.” In it, a priest is found guilty of homicide after the titular character dies during an exorcism. The movie’s narrative ultimately absolves him of moral, if not legal, guilt for her death because he believes himself to be acting according to the will of God. </p>
<h2>Catholic symbols and the fight against evil</h2>
<p>Screen heroes often don’t have to be priests, or even Catholic, to fight evil with Catholic ritual and symbols. In horror television and film, vampire hunters employ religious symbols like the Christian cross, but also specifically Catholic elements such as holy water and the consecrated Communion wafer. Francis Ford Coppola’s “<a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/328942">Bram Stoker’s Dracula</a>” leans heavily on such Catholic symbols. </p>
<p>Still, not all screen vampires fear the emblems of Catholicism. Many narratives make a point of the inefficacy of sacramental objects. <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2009/11/why-vampire-movies-always-break-all-the-vampire-rules.html">These films and series</a> include “The Strain,” “Interview with the Vampire” and even the “Twilight” franchise. </p>
<p>More importantly, many vampire narratives make use of the Catholic doctrine that the bread and wine consumed during Mass are the literal body and blood of Christ. Such stories connect Catholic rituals and vampirism. In fact, “Midnight Mass” creator <a href="https://ew.com/tv/midnight-mass-ending-mike-flanagan-postmortem-interview/">Mike Flanagan has stated</a>that Catholic ritual and vampirism are “explicitly linked. You are dealing with a mythology that is steeped in blood ritual and resurrection.” </p>
<p>Other types of screen horror subvert or dismiss Catholic ritual and symbolism altogether. According to scholar Jana Toppe, modern zombie stories <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Roman_Catholicism_in_Fantastic_Film/AtALOnale4QC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover">represent the opposite of Catholic belief</a> regarding eternal life. </p>
<p>Toppe suggests that zombie narratives have come to “satirize” the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist. In most zombie films, the eating of flesh does lead to a resurrection of a body, but one without a soul. </p>
<h2>Gothic Catholicism</h2>
<p>For every horror film that sees the rituals of Catholicism as instruments in the fight against evil, another portrays the Church itself as evil.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430025/original/file-20211103-25-ud62p1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A priest blesses the young girl who is a in a possessed state, in the 1973 film, 'The Exorcist.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430025/original/file-20211103-25-ud62p1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430025/original/file-20211103-25-ud62p1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430025/original/file-20211103-25-ud62p1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430025/original/file-20211103-25-ud62p1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430025/original/file-20211103-25-ud62p1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430025/original/file-20211103-25-ud62p1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430025/original/file-20211103-25-ud62p1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Swedish-born actor Max Von Sydow blesses actress Linda Blair as she lies in a possessed state in the film ‘The Exorcist.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/swedish-born-actor-max-von-sydow-blesses-actress-linda-news-photo/2703168?adppopup=true">Warner Bros./Courtesy of Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>This representation dates at least back to horror’s roots in the 18th-century Gothic novel, which <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/213080618.pdf">dramatized the Enlightenment distrust</a> of the irrational in general and the supposedly occult and uncanny nature of Catholicism in particular. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.uwp.co.uk/book/the-gothic-and-catholicism/">Gothic’s use of Catholic tropes</a> – ruined abbeys, lecherous priests, nuns walled up in convents and so on – created a picture of the religion that could be both repellent and fascinating to readers. </p>
<p>According to scholar <a href="https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=8aM9LzwAAAAJ&hl=en">Susan Griffin</a>, in England and in 19th- and early 20th-century North America, Catholics – usually from countries outside the English-speaking world – were often portrayed as a “<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/literature/american-literature/anti-catholicism-and-nineteenth-century-fiction?format=HB&isbn=9780521833936">racialized other</a>” in Gothic as well as early horror. </p>
<h2>Horror’s critique of Catholicism</h2>
<p>For years, horror film and television have also critiqued the Church’s secular and political influence, as well as the moral failures and sins of its adherents and hierarchy. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-44209971">Horror narratives often reflect</a> the Church’s reluctance to recognize or acknowledge the evil in its own midst. This has <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2021/06/30/native-american-boarding-schools-catholic-church-investigation-240950">tragic relevance</a> both in light of the child sex abuse crisis and its cover-up, as well as revelations about the <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2021/06/30/native-american-boarding-schools-catholic-church-investigation-240950">treatment of Indigenous children</a> in boarding schools administered by Catholic religious orders, among other groups. </p>
<p>Horror can call up historical abuses. The 2018 film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6793280/">The Devil’s Doorway</a>” is a supernatural film inspired by the abuse experienced by women at Ireland’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/06/world/europe/magdalene-laundry-reunion-ireland.html">Magdalene Laundries</a>, where the so called “fallen women” were confined and subjected to hard labor. In another example, the 2015 Polish film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4935158/">Demon</a>” combines Catholic characters with the Jewish mythological figure of the “dybbuk,” a spirit of the dead, to interrogate <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/christianity-and-the-holocaust">Catholic complicity in the Holocaust</a>. </p>
<p>Other narratives critique the institutional church while treating faith respectfully. In the television series “Evil,” for example, a Catholic psychologist and an atheist raised in the Muslim faith <a href="https://www.paramountplus.com/shows/evil/">investigate supernatural occurrences</a> for the Vatican alongside a tortured but devout Catholic seminarian. In doing so, they address issues within the church such as abuse, racism, misogyny and clericalism, or the privileging the clergy over everyday believers. </p>
<h2>Complexities of Catholicism and horror</h2>
<p>The representation of Catholicism in horror is varied and complex, and emphasizes the narrative and aesthetic creativity, as well as the subversive nature, of a genre so often undervalued as merely shocking and violent. Flanagan’s show is a case in point. </p>
<p>“Midnight Mass” exposes religious intolerance, including the othering of the community’s Muslim sheriff, which recalls representations of Catholics in the Gothic novel. The show also decries false piety and draws attention to the evil that can result from blind religious belief. </p>
<p>At the same time, the series emphasizes the possibility of redemption, as well as the complexity and authenticity in each character’s religious experience. </p>
<p>In “Midnight Mass” and other narratives, screen horror’s evocations of Catholicism parallel the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/13/world/europe/francis-the-activist-pope.html">intricacies and contradictions</a>, along with the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/07/opinion/the-argument-catholic-church-gay.html">good and the evil</a>, within the Church itself, and perhaps within all powerful institutions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170767/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Regina Hansen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar of religion in film explains the varied representation of Catholicism in horror. In some films, it is used in the fight against evil, while others show the Church itself as evil.Regina Hansen, Master Lecturer, Rhetoric, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1478352020-10-25T12:43:37Z2020-10-25T12:43:37ZDressed to kill: 6 ways horror folklore is fashioned in the movies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365099/original/file-20201022-13-5cbzhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C66%2C1482%2C968&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'The Craft: Legacy,' to be released this fall, is a remake of the 1996 teen witch film 'The Craft' and suggests the continued relevance of punk and goth influences for rebellious teens. Here, detail from the 2020 poster.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Sony Pictures/Blumhouse Productions)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Beauty is pain,” goes the famous adage. The phrase suggests that in order to fully understand what a society considers beautiful, you must explore ugliness. Enter the horror movie. </p>
<p>Horror often examines “<a href="https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/grant-dread-of-difference-second-edition">the dread of difference</a>” seen in society, and cinema scholars like Barry Keith Grant have studied how horror films explore gender roles.</p>
<p>Women’s <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691166292/men-women-and-chain-saws">violent struggles</a> as perpetrators and victims of horror — in the pursuit of sexual freedom, social empowerment and fulfilment of desire — are reflections of the concerns of a conflicted and changing society.</p>
<p>In the book we edited, <em><a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/fashioning-horror-9781350036185">Fashioning Horror: Dressing to Kill on Screen and in Literature</a></em> we explored how horror literature, film and folklore are expressed through fashion and costume. <a href="https://traversingscribes.wordpress.com">Our approach</a> was informed by our background in fashion studies, folklore and literature, as we investigated the central importance of clothing to the horror genre.</p>
<p>Here, we demonstrate how common fears around femininity are expressed through costume and roles in the movies. </p>
<h2>The ghost</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://io9.gizmodo.com/why-are-there-so-many-ghost-stories-about-a-woman-in-w-5851037">well-known popular image of</a> a haunting woman in white is a classic gothic and horror trope rooted in <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1259197">European folklore dating back to pre-Christian and pagan times</a>. Whether dressed in the white of a burial shroud, or the white of mourning, “the White Lady” often appeared by moonlight. </p>
<p>The film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0000000000298130/"><em>The Ring</em> (2002)</a> based on the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0178868/">Japanese horror film</a> of the same name derived from the <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/Ring.html?id=ss0k8a1myFcC&redir_esc=y">novel by Koji Suzuki</a>, shows a contemporary reading of the ghost as related to anxieties about new technology, social change and family relationships. The ghost in white is not seen by moonlight but by the blue glow of a television screen. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0915208/">Naomi Watts</a> portrays a journalist who investigates a cursed videotape that seemingly kills the viewer seven days after watching it. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DvvhLPq_kFk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Scene showing the ghost-in-white, Samara, emerging from the screen in ‘The Ring.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2008, designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy took inspiration from the white shirtdress worn by Sadako, the vengeful video ghost in the 1998 Japanese original film, for their <a href="https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2008-ready-to-wear/rodarte">Rodarte fall show</a>.</p>
<h2>The bride</h2>
<p>In horror, the figure of the bride represents the thwarted promise of the virginal woman abandoned or killed before she was to be wed and is related to anxiety about domesticity. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144120/"><em>Bride of Chucky</em> (1998)</a> shows the depths to which two murderous dolls will go to turn human again. </p>
<p>Dolls have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/507499">traditionally</a> been used to instruct girls into their future roles as mothers and wives, and fashion dolls herald new trends. The doll in this movie presents quite a different set of possibilities for those who dare to play with her. Bored by expectations of conventional womanhood, both as a sex symbol and as a housewife, Tiffany (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000236/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm">Jennifer Tilly</a>) transforms herself into a Martha Stewart in the kitchen and a crazed serial killer outside the home. <a href="https://barbie.mattel.com/shop">Barbie</a>, eat your heart out. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The Bride of Chucky and Chucky, two horror doll characters." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364561/original/file-20201020-15-nqujsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364561/original/file-20201020-15-nqujsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364561/original/file-20201020-15-nqujsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364561/original/file-20201020-15-nqujsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364561/original/file-20201020-15-nqujsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364561/original/file-20201020-15-nqujsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364561/original/file-20201020-15-nqujsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Characters Tiffany and Chucky, from the horror movie ‘Bride of Chucky,’ part of the Child’s Play series, at the Hollywood Wax Museum in Los Angeles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The mother</h2>
<p><a href="https://lwlies.com/articles/motherhood-horror-cinema-a-quiet-place-hereditary/">Mothers subverting expected norms</a> is a common theme in <a href="https://www.npr.org/2015/10/28/450657717/why-are-old-women-often-the-face-of-evil-in-fairy-tales-and-folklore">folklore and horror</a>.
In the film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7958736/"><em>Ma</em> (2019)</a>, actor <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0818055">Octavia Spencer</a> plays a traumatized and psychopathic mother who locks up and drugs her daughter to keep her close. In the film, veterinary assistant Sue Ann (Spencer) is called upon by a group of (mostly white) teenagers to buy them alcohol; the teens nickname her Ma. </p>
<p>Spencer has noted that <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/2020/07/viola-davis-betrayed-the-help-systemic-racism-1234573862">due to systemic racism</a>, Black women in Hollywood have faced limited dramatic opportunities for roles that push the stereotypes of Black women as caregivers. The actor said one appeal of starring in <em>Ma</em> was pushing beyond that mould and subverting the idea of <a href="https://variety.com/2019/scene/news/octavia-spencer-on-ma-these-types-of-roles-havent-been-available-to-women-of-color-1203218410/">Black people dying at the beginning of horror films</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/i-am-not-your-nice-mammy-how-racist-stereotypes-still-impact-women-111028">I am not your nice 'Mammy': How racist stereotypes still impact women</a>
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<p>Viewers learn Sue Ann experienced humiliating teen years and what begins as apparent friendly support soon spirals out of control. </p>
<p>The film mines the hidden depths of Sue Ann’s resentment and fears for her own daughter as she seeks to avenge her own past. A classic transformation scene sees Sue Ann change from wearing mostly scrubs, a reference to self-effacing caregiving roles, into a glamorous outfit. Ma sits at her mirrored vanity table applying lipstick surrounded by red candles. <a href="https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-igq60-Y5Q&list=RDAMVMZ-igq60-Y5Q">“Pow,” she says to her reflection</a> before heading downstairs to kung-fu kick a pyramid of beer cans.</p>
<p>Her retro looks include acid-washed denim, black lace, and leopard print. Through the lens of the teens who laugh at her and find her “uncool,” these outfits suggest society’s discomfort with women stepping out of their roles as matrons and caregivers to maintain an equal place in society. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman sits at a vanity table applying lipstick." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364533/original/file-20201020-17-14ex0p0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364533/original/file-20201020-17-14ex0p0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364533/original/file-20201020-17-14ex0p0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364533/original/file-20201020-17-14ex0p0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364533/original/file-20201020-17-14ex0p0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364533/original/file-20201020-17-14ex0p0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364533/original/file-20201020-17-14ex0p0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Octavia Spencer in role as Sue Ann in ‘Ma.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Universal Pictures/YouTube)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The vampiress</h2>
<p>The female vampire turns the notion of female sexuality on its head in horrifying ways. So popular was the archetype of the man-eater in early cinema, that the “vamp” became a recognizable look for fashionable silent film actresses like <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000847/">Theda Bara</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0615736/">Musidora</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0620519/">Nita Naldi</a>. </p>
<p>The undead female vampire costumes herself for seduction and disguise. Consumption therefore takes on a dual role, unlocking anxieties about capitalism. The stylish film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1714915/"><em>Only Lovers Left Alive</em> (2013)</a>, featuring fashion icon <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0842770/">Tilda Swinton</a>, played with this by costuming her character in a mixture of old and new fabrics, with an emphasis on loungewear. </p>
<p>Swinton’s shock-blonde hair was supplemented by <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2014/04/vampire-costumes-of-only-lovers-left-alive.html">yak wool</a>, further hinting at the not-quite-human nature of the vampire. <em>Vogue</em> even encouraged readers to “<a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/dress-the-part-only-lovers-left-alive-fashion">get the look</a>.” Swinton presents a new type of vampiress; one not reliant on her sexuality to stand out. She has style.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ycOKvWrwYFo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for ‘Only Lovers Left Alive.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The witch</h2>
<p><a href="https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol22/iss3/6">Fears that women will escape patriarchy</a>, particularly through sexual independence, underpin this mythology, and stories of witches can be both terrifying and empowering. </p>
<p>The 1996 film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115963/"><em>The Craft</em></a>
inspired <a href="https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/qv8qe5/how-the-craft-empowered-a-generation-of-teen-misfits">a generation of teenage girls</a> and included frank explorations of teen suicide, depression, racist bullying, sexual harassment and slut-shaming. <a href="https://www.fairuza.org/">Fairuza Balk</a> plays the iconic teen witch Nancy Downs, an aggressive, angry goth girl, at odds with everyone outside her own small circle. As she gains in power, her appearance becomes wilder. </p>
<p>Films about witches remind viewers that alternatives to the <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Waking-the-Witch/Pam-Grossman/9781982100704">dominant narratives about beauty and women’s bodies are possible</a>. A remake, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J60ueFp-jv8"><em>The Craft: Legacy</em></a> is set to be <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/09/the-craft-legacy-trailer-release-date">released this fall</a>. The presence of chokers, chains, dark lips and short hair in the trailer demonstrates the continued relevance of punk and goth influences for rebellious teens.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Four teen witches walking in a row." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364845/original/file-20201021-15-o6rhyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=42%2C0%2C889%2C429&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364845/original/file-20201021-15-o6rhyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364845/original/file-20201021-15-o6rhyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364845/original/file-20201021-15-o6rhyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364845/original/file-20201021-15-o6rhyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364845/original/file-20201021-15-o6rhyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364845/original/file-20201021-15-o6rhyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 1996 teen witch film ‘The Craft’ followed an angry goth girl, Nancy, second from the left, and her coven.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Columbia Pictures)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The monster</h2>
<p>The fear of a woman’s appearance hiding something monstrous is an ancient trope. From the <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/Dangerous_Beauty_Medusa_in_Classical_Art_The_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art_Bulletin_v75_no_3">ancient Greek gorgon</a>, to the folk tales of many cultures featuring <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004366251_008">seductive female</a> <a href="https://upcolorado.com/utah-state-university-press/item/2924-seven-demon-stories-from-medieval-japan">shape-shifting demons</a>, female beauty has the potential to kill onlookers. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Movie poster shows a giant wasp with the face of a woman." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364574/original/file-20201020-21-1t17yo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364574/original/file-20201020-21-1t17yo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364574/original/file-20201020-21-1t17yo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364574/original/file-20201020-21-1t17yo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364574/original/file-20201020-21-1t17yo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364574/original/file-20201020-21-1t17yo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364574/original/file-20201020-21-1t17yo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">1959 poster for ‘The Wasp Woman.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(The Filmgroup/Wikipedia)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, beauty may also come at a cost to the fashion victim, as seen in the morality tale of female vanity in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054462/"><em>Wasp Woman</em> (1959)</a>. </p>
<p>The fear of female aging, as well as the perceived arrogance and aggression of female executives, underpins this story which is an imaginative take on the of <a href="http://www.sarahalbeebooks.com/2012/07/reel-bugs-the-wasp-woman/">royal jelly in cosmetics</a>, still <a href="https://www.burtsbees.ca/product/skin-nourishment-hydrating-gel-cream">a cosmetic ingredient today</a>. </p>
<p>The character Ms. Starlin (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0127693/">Susan Cabot</a>) is depicted as one with an intemperate desire for youthful good looks, but she is inadvertently transformed into a hideous wasp woman. How similar is this tale, at its core, to the gleeful take-downs of women who have undergone <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3781836/">botched plastic surgeries</a>?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147835/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some horror films explore women’s struggles for empowerment, sexual freedom and self-fulfilment. Six movies show the ghost, bride, mother, vampiress, witch and monster as guises of vengeful women.Julia Petrov, Adjunct professor, Human Ecology, University of AlbertaGudrun D Whitehead, Assistant Professor of Museology, University of IcelandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1408302020-06-23T14:40:28Z2020-06-23T14:40:28ZVampire myths originated with a real blood disorder<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342281/original/file-20200616-23255-h4uj5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=52%2C46%2C3750%2C2683&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A street painting in Bucharest, Romania, depicts Bram Stoker, right, the author of Dracula, sharing a drink with Vlad the Impaler, left, the medieval Romanian ruler who inspired the book.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photos/Vadim Ghirda)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The concept of a vampire predates Bram Stoker’s tales of Count Dracula — probably by several centuries. But did vampires ever really exist?</p>
<p>In 1819, 80 years before the publication of <em>Dracula</em>, John Polidori, an Anglo-Italian physician, published a novel called <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/6087/6087-h/6087-h.htm"><em>The Vampire</em></a>. Stoker’s novel, however, became the benchmark for our descriptions of vampires. But how and where did this concept develop? It appears that the folklore surrounding the vampire phenomenon originated in that Balkan area where Stoker located his tale of Count Dracula.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342292/original/file-20200616-23247-1wf5585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342292/original/file-20200616-23247-1wf5585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342292/original/file-20200616-23247-1wf5585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342292/original/file-20200616-23247-1wf5585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342292/original/file-20200616-23247-1wf5585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342292/original/file-20200616-23247-1wf5585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342292/original/file-20200616-23247-1wf5585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bram Stoker’s <em>Dracula</em> has become the benchmark vampire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Penguin Random House)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Stoker <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/bram-stoker-a-hero-for-struggling-corner-of-romania-1.1850499">never travelled to Transylvania</a> or any other part of Eastern Europe. (The lands held by the fictional count would be in modern-day Romania and Hungary.) </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bramstokerestate.com">The writer was born and brought up in Dublin</a>. He was a friend to Oscar Wilde and William Gladstone. He was both a Liberal and a home-ruler — in favour of home rule for Ireland. He turned to theatre, and became business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London. It was his friendship with Armin Vambery, a Hungarian writer, that led to his fascination with vampire folklore. He consulted Vambery in the writing of <em>Dracula</em>, whose main character was loosely fashioned on <a href="http://www.english.upenn.edu/%7Emgamer/Etexts/prince.dracula.html">Vlad the Impaler</a>, a bloodthirsty prince born in Transylvania in 1431.</p>
<h2>Medical source of the myth</h2>
<p>But where did the myth of vampires come from? Like many myths, it is based partly in fact. A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(09)61925-5">blood disorder called porphyria</a>, which has has been with us for millennia, became prevalent among the nobility and royalty of Eastern Europe. Porphyria is an inherited blood disorder that causes the body to produce less heme — a critical component of hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to the body tissues. It seems likely that this disorder is the origin of the vampire myth. In fact, porphyria is sometimes referred to as the “vampyre disease.”</p>
<p>Consider the symptoms of patients with porphyria:</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342284/original/file-20200616-23213-1btom74.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342284/original/file-20200616-23213-1btom74.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1200&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342284/original/file-20200616-23213-1btom74.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1200&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342284/original/file-20200616-23213-1btom74.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1200&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342284/original/file-20200616-23213-1btom74.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342284/original/file-20200616-23213-1btom74.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342284/original/file-20200616-23213-1btom74.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Elements of vampire folklore correspond to symptoms of porphyria.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Pixabay)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Sensitivity to sunlight</strong>: Extreme <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamadermatol.2015.6066">sensitivity to sunlight</a>, leading to facial disfigurement, blackened skin and hair growth.</p>
<p><strong>Fangs</strong>: In addition to facial disfigurement, repeated attacks of the disease causes the gums to recede, exposing the teeth, which then look like fangs.</p>
<p><strong>Blood drinking</strong>: Because the urine of persons with porphyria is dark red, folklore surmised that they were drinking blood. In fact, some physicians had recommended that these patients drink blood to compensate for the defect in their red blood cells — but this recommendation was for animal blood. It is more likely that these patients, who only went out after dark, were judged to be looking for blood, and their fangs led to folk tales about vampires.</p>
<p><strong>Aversion to garlic</strong>: The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/pbm.1990.0051">sulfur content of garlic</a> could lead to an attack of porphyria, leading to very acute pain. Thus, the aversion to garlic.</p>
<p><strong>Reflections not seen in mirrors</strong>: In the mythology, a vampire is not able to look in a mirror, or cannot see its reflection. The facial disfigurement caused by porphyria becomes worse with time. Poor oxygenation leads to destruction of facial tissues, and collapse of the facial structure. Patients understandably avoided mirrors.</p>
<p><strong>Fear of the crucifix</strong>: During the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834), 600 “vampires” were reportedly burned at the stake. Some of these accused vampires were innocent sufferers of porphyria. Porphyria patients had good reason to fear the Christian faith and Christian symbols.</p>
<p>Acute attacks of the disease are associated with considerable pain, and both mental and physical disturbance. This condition has been ascribed to the English King George III, although subsequent analysis has <a href="https://doi.org/10.7861/clinmedicine.15-2-168">shed some doubt on porphyria</a> as the cause of his “madness.”</p>
<h2>Porphyria</h2>
<p>Nowadays, with our scientific knowledge of porphyria, instead of fearing these folks, <a href="http://canadianassociationforporphyria.ca/Porphyria-Treatments">we can love and care for them</a>. Porphyria remains incurable, and treatment is mainly supportive: pain control, fluids and avoidance of drugs and chemicals that provoke acute attacks. Some success has been achieved with stem cell transplants.</p>
<p>Could Stoker have known of the existence of porphyria, and/or its link to vampire folklore? It was only in 1911, eight years before Stoker’s book appeared, that the diseases of porphyria (there are several types) <a href="https://porphyriafoundation.org/for-patients/about-porphyria/history-of-porphyria/">were classified by H. Gunther</a>. However, physician, researcher and author George Harley had described a patient with porphyria a few years earlier.</p>
<p>Through his gothic novel, Stoker surely wins the prize for the best example of myth entangled with medicine!</p>
<p><em>This story is an edited excerpt from the book</em> Of Plagues and Vampires: Believable Myths and Unbelievable Facts from Medical Practice <em>by Michael Hefferon</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140830/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Hefferon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Did vampires ever really exist? The myth is likely related to a medical condition with symptoms that may explain many elements of centuries-old vampire folklore.Michael Hefferon, Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1259822019-10-30T16:06:19Z2019-10-30T16:06:19ZBBC and Netflix have resurrected Dracula: a short history of world’s favourite vampire<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299423/original/file-20191030-17878-1itv2x0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1997%2C1332&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">John Heffernan as Jonathan Harker in Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat's Dracula.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC/Hartswood Films/Netflix/Robert Viglasky</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>British screenwriters Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss are dipping their toes in the waters of late-Victorian fiction again. Following the success of their take on the most famous of all detectives, Sherlock Holmes, the pair have turned their sights on the most famous of vampires: <a href="https://youtu.be/IC9TjMNqPEo">Dracula</a>. A new series based on the novel and co-produced by the BBC and Netflix will reportedly <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2019/10/28/dracula-start-bbc-one-cast-10995995/">hit screens early in 2020</a>.</p>
<p>Like those of Holmes, this will hardly be the first adaptation of Dracula (1897). Bram Stoker’s novel is 122 years old, and the character has appeared on screen nearly <a href="https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=dracula&ref_=fn_al_kw_1">350 times</a>. This might leave us to wonder: what new ground could they possibly cover?</p>
<p>Yet, each incarnation of Dracula offers a new story and a new vampire, no matter how closely the script follows the novel. Unlike Sherlock Holmes, Moffat and Gatiss won’t be using a <a href="https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2019-04-30/dracula-will-be-the-hero-of-his-own-story-in-radical-reinterpretation-by-sherlock-creators/">modern setting for Dracula</a>, but there is no doubt that his story will be modernised. He will be transformed to suit the interests and needs of a 21st-century audience.</p>
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<p>Gothic fiction has always had the power to both respond to and transcend its own historical moment. Dracula can be said to be “about” a number of very specific social contexts of the mid-1890s – such as the <a href="http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/2409/">political turmoil</a> in the Transylvania region which followed the 1877 Russo-Turkish war. Yet, year after year people read and enjoy Dracula who have never heard of these political events. </p>
<p>This is because displacement is at the heart of Gothic literature’s cathartic function. Gothic fiction projects contemporary anxieties (the church, new science, the crumbling empire) onto supernatural monsters, allowing for a safe exploration of social and political fears. They are given embodied form – a villain that can be confronted, fought, and killed. </p>
<p>This displacement also allows Gothic works longevity past their own historical moment. Because these monsters are distanced from the actual source of anxiety that may have inspired them, they can be reinterpreted by subsequent generations to represent any number of anxieties. </p>
<p>And Dracula is uniquely well suited to reinterpretation. Unlike other eponymous Gothic villains of the 19th century (Frankenstein’s Creature, Dr Jekyll, Dorian Gray), Dracula does not narrate any portion of his own story. The epistolary novel presents us with diary entries, newspaper clippings, and ship’s logs, which give us insight into the thoughts of everyone except for the titular vampire. We know his movements, but never his motives. It is this inscrutability that has allowed filmmakers to reshape and redefine Dracula since the first unlicensed adaptation of the novel in 1922 (Nosferatu).</p>
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<p>Bela Lugosi (Dracula, 1931) transformed the unattractive Count into a suave and handsome aristocrat, who all the women find “<a href="https://youtu.be/dTr8dXob7YI">fascinating</a>”. </p>
<p>Subsequent iterations of Dracula, including by directors Dan Curtis (1973), John Badham (1979) and Francis Ford Coppola (1992) followed suit, with Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula providing Gary Oldman with a tragic backstory (a dead wife), an all-consuming passion for Mina, and transforming the novel’s sexual assault into a <a href="https://youtu.be/_OFfuZY_Pvk">love scene</a>.</p>
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<h2>Hammer nails it</h2>
<p>By contrast, the years between Lugosi and Oldman were dominated by Hammer Horror’s Dracula, portrayed by Christopher Lee across six films. Violent, animalistic and practically non-verbal – the Count does not speak at all in Dracula Prince of Darkness (1966) – Lee’s Dracula is far from a hero. Instead he seems to represent the threat of Eastern powers during the <a href="https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/2000.htm">Cold War era</a>.</p>
<p>Each generation’s interpretation of Dracula reflects its own political climate. Second-wave feminists in the 1970s saw the novel as a misogynistic rape fantasy that punished women for their <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3827492?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">sexual liberation</a> (an interpretation that quickly lead to sexploitation films like <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066380/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1">Vampyros Lesbos</a>, 1971, and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080080/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1">Vampire Hookers</a>, 1978). Queer theorists responded to the climate of LGBT activism and the AIDS crisis in the 1980s by reading <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2928560?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">suppressed homosexuality</a> into the novel (primarily between Jonathan Harker and Dracula, but sometimes also Mina and Lucy). </p>
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<p>Post-colonial scholars shifted their focus from sex <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3827794?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">to race</a>, and suggested that the novel reflects similar concerns to those they saw in the wake of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jan/25/race.world">increased immigration</a> in the 1990s: fears of mass migration and anxieties about rapidly multiplying numbers of foreigners. This interpretation lingers into 2014’s Dracula Untold, which has been called “<a href="https://io9.gizmodo.com/dracula-gets-a-makeover-for-the-isis-age-in-dracula-unt-1644837610">Dracula for the ISIS age</a>”. </p>
<p>The dizzying pace of technological change at the millennium led scholars of this period to read the novel through its <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SFSqoX0gTygC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">technology</a>, as telegraphs, phonographs, and typewriters form the principal “weapons” mobilised against Dracula. These concerns are apparent in films such as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367677/">Dracula 3000</a> (2004), which sends the vampire to space.</p>
<h2>Modern monster</h2>
<p>So what will Dracula mean to us (or at least to Moffat and Gatiss) in 2020? Maybe a combination of all the above – the anxieties that scholars have traced in the novel still remain at the fore of our political landscape. Attempts are still made to police women’s bodily autonomy, evidenced by a political campaign against the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/northern-ireland-abortion-stormont-protest-dup-arlene-foster-a9095351.html">decriminalisation of abortion</a> in Northern Ireland in 2019. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299425/original/file-20191030-17878-1899rj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299425/original/file-20191030-17878-1899rj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299425/original/file-20191030-17878-1899rj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299425/original/file-20191030-17878-1899rj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299425/original/file-20191030-17878-1899rj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299425/original/file-20191030-17878-1899rj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299425/original/file-20191030-17878-1899rj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Danish actor Claes Bang is the latest incarnation of the undead Count.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC/Hartswood Films/Netflix/Robert Viglasky</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other familiar themes are resurfacing – “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/aug/27/immigration-panic-how-the-west-fell-for-manufactured-rage">immigration panic</a>” in the West in the wake of Brexit and the rise of US president, Donald Trump – whose base obsesses over alt-right claims of “<a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/white-genocide-a-dangerous-myth-employed-by-racists-1.3981739">white genocide</a>”. We’re bothered by technology, too, which is increasingly seen as out of control, finding endless new ways to invade our <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/24/facebook-accused-of-conducting-mass-surveillance-through-its-apps">privacy</a>. A new Dracula has the potential to engage with all of these contemporary anxieties. </p>
<p>The teaser trailer from Gatiss and Moffat hasn’t told us much. Reminiscent of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal, but less stylised and more gruesome, it seems we can expect a show that doesn’t flinch from violence. “It’s really hard” to drag a shadowy villain into the spotlight of the hero, Moffat and Gatiss admitted. It will be interesting to see if they succeed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125982/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jordan Kistler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ever since Dracula was born in the late 19th century, every age gets the vampire it deserves.Jordan Kistler, Lecturer in Victorian literature, School of Humanities, University of Strathclyde Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1256722019-10-29T13:14:37Z2019-10-29T13:14:37ZRabies’ horrifying symptoms inspired folktales of humans turned into werewolves, vampires and other monsters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298932/original/file-20191028-113998-liuu8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=336%2C266%2C3286%2C2145&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A rabid dog's bite can make a person seem to have animal characteristics.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/red-glowing-eyed-doglike-aggressive-demonic-540753655">Taras Verkhovynets/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1855, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported on the gruesome murder of a bride by her new husband. The story came from the French countryside, where the woman’s parents had initially prevented the couple’s engagement “on account of the strangeness of conduct sometimes observed in the young man,” although he “otherwise was a most eli[g]ible match.”</p>
<p>The parents eventually consented, and the marriage took place. Shortly after the newlyweds withdrew to consummate their bond, “fearful shrieks” came from their quarters. People quickly arrived to find “the poor girl… in the agonies of death — her bosom torn open and lacerated in a most horrible manner, and the wretched husband in a fit of raving madness and covered with blood, having actually devoured a portion of the unfortunate girl’s breast.” </p>
<p>The bride died a short time later. Her husband, after “a most violent resistance,” also expired.</p>
<p>What could have caused this horrifying incident? “It was then recollected, in answer to searching questions by a physician,” that the groom had previously “been bitten by a strange dog.” The passage of madness from dog to human seemed like the only possible reason for the grisly turn of events. </p>
<p>The Eagle described the episode matter-of-factly as “a sad and distressing case of hydrophobia,” or, in today’s parlance, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/index.html">rabies</a>.</p>
<p>But the account read like a Gothic horror story. It was essentially a werewolf narrative: The mad dog’s bite caused a hideous metamorphosis, which transformed its human victim into a nefarious monster whose vicious sexual impulses led to obscene and loathsome violence.</p>
<p>My new book, “<a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/mad-dogs-and-other-new-yorkers">Mad Dogs and Other New Yorkers: Rabies, Medicine, and Society in an American Metropolis, 1840-1920</a>,” explores the hidden meanings behind the ways people talked about rabies. Variants of the rabid groom story had been told and retold in English language newspapers in North America since at least the beginning of the 18th century, and they continued to appear as late as the 1890s.</p>
<p>The Eagle’s account was, in essence, a folk tale about mad dogs and the thin dividing line between human and animal. Rabies created fear because it was a disease that seemed able to turn people into raging beasts. </p>
<h2>A terrifying and fatal disease</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298838/original/file-20191027-113991-1gz753x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298838/original/file-20191027-113991-1gz753x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298838/original/file-20191027-113991-1gz753x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298838/original/file-20191027-113991-1gz753x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298838/original/file-20191027-113991-1gz753x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298838/original/file-20191027-113991-1gz753x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298838/original/file-20191027-113991-1gz753x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298838/original/file-20191027-113991-1gz753x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A werewolf wreaks havoc in this 1512 woodcut.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Werwolf.png">Lucas Cranach the Elder, Herzogliches Museum/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The historian Eugen Weber once observed that French peasants in the 19th century feared “<a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=3200">above all wolves, mad dogs, and fire</a>.” Canine madness – or the disease that we know today as rabies – conjured up the canine terrors that have formed the stuff of nightmares for centuries.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/hives-of-sickness/9780813521589">Other infectious diseases</a> – including cholera, typhoid and diphtheria – <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3546115&view=1up&seq=493">killed far more people</a> in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The cry of “Mad dog!” nonetheless sparked an immediate sense of terror, because a simple dog bite could mean a protracted ordeal of grueling symptoms, followed by certain death. </p>
<p>Modern medicine knows that rabies is caused by a virus. Once it enters the body, it travels to the brain via the nervous system. The typical lag time of weeks or months between initial exposure and onset of symptoms means that rabies is no longer a death sentence if a patient quickly receives <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/rabies-immune-globulin-intramuscular-route/description/drg-20065738">injections of immune antibodies</a> and vaccine, in order to build immunity soon after encountering a suspect animal. Though it’s rare for people to die of rabies in the U.S., the disease still <a href="https://www.who.int/publications-detail/who-wer9207">kills tens of thousands of people globally every year</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298839/original/file-20191027-114011-1yx3lh0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298839/original/file-20191027-114011-1yx3lh0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298839/original/file-20191027-114011-1yx3lh0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298839/original/file-20191027-114011-1yx3lh0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298839/original/file-20191027-114011-1yx3lh0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298839/original/file-20191027-114011-1yx3lh0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298839/original/file-20191027-114011-1yx3lh0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298839/original/file-20191027-114011-1yx3lh0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The virus affects the brain, as seen with the darker purple inclusions, called negri bodies, in the brain cells of someone who died of rabies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rabies_negri_bodies_brain.jpg">CDC/Dr. Makonnen Fekadu</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiuo.ark:/13960/t77t2vj2d&view=1up&seq=85">According to 19th-century sources</a>, after an incubation period of between four and 12 weeks, symptoms might start with a vague sense of agitation or restlessness. They then progressed to the wracking spasmodic episodes characteristic of rabies, along with sleeplessness, excitability, feverishness, rapid pulse, drooling and labored breathing. Victims not infrequently exhibited hallucinations or other mental disruptions as well.</p>
<p>Efforts to mitigate violent outbursts with drugs often failed, and physicians could then do little more than stand by and bear witness. Final release came only after the disease ran its inevitably fatal course, usually over a period of two to four days. Even today, rabies remains essentially <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/cjn.2015.331">incurable once clinical signs appear</a>.</p>
<p>Centuries ago, the loss of bodily control and rationality triggered by rabies seemed like an assault on victims’ basic humanity. From a real dreaded disease transmitted by animals emerged spine-tingling visions of supernatural forces that transferred malevolent animals’ powers and turned people into monsters.</p>
<h2>Bites that transform people into animals</h2>
<p>Nineteenth-century American accounts never invoked the supernatural directly. But descriptions of symptoms indicated unspoken assumptions about how the disease transmitted the biting animal’s essence to the suffering human.</p>
<p>Newspapers frequently described those who contracted rabies from dog bites as barking and snarling like dogs, while cat-bite victims scratched and spat. Hallucinations, respiratory spasms and out-of-control convulsions produced fearful impressions of the rabid animal’s evil imprint.</p>
<p>Traditional preventive measures also showed how Americans quietly assumed a blurred boundary between humanity and animality. Folk remedies held that dog-bite victims could protect themselves from rabies by killing the dog that had already bitten them, or applying the offending dog’s hair to the wound, or cutting off its tail.</p>
<p>Such preventatives implied a need to cut an invisible, supernatural tie between a dangerous animal and its human prey.</p>
<p>Sometimes the disease left eerie traces. When a Brooklynite died from rabies in 1886, the New York Herald recorded a freakish occurence: Within minutes after the man’s last breath, “the bluish ring on his hand – the mark of the Newfoundland’s fatal bite…disappeared.” Only death broke the mad dog’s pernicious hold.</p>
<h2>Vampires’ roots in rabid dogs</h2>
<p>It’s possible that, along with werewolves, vampire stories also originated from rabies.</p>
<p>Physician Juan Gómez-Alonso has pointed out <a href="https://doi.org/10.1212/WNL.51.3.856">a resonance between vampirism and rabies</a> in the hair-raising symptoms of the disease – the distorted sounds, exaggerated facial appearances, restlessness and sometimes wild and aggressive behaviors that made sufferers seem more monstrous than human.</p>
<p>Extreme oversensitivity to stimuli, which set off the tortuous spasmodic episodes associated with rabies, could have a particularly strange effect. A glance at a mirror might set off a violent response, in a chilling parallel with the living-dead vampire’s inability to cast a reflection.</p>
<p>Moreover, in different eastern European folkloric traditions, vampires turned themselves not into bats, but into wolves or dogs, the key vectors of rabies.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298934/original/file-20191028-114011-1wmvy3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298934/original/file-20191028-114011-1wmvy3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298934/original/file-20191028-114011-1wmvy3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298934/original/file-20191028-114011-1wmvy3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298934/original/file-20191028-114011-1wmvy3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298934/original/file-20191028-114011-1wmvy3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298934/original/file-20191028-114011-1wmvy3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298934/original/file-20191028-114011-1wmvy3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The fun of a Halloween werewolf hints at the fear of a person becoming an animal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-New-Jersey-Unite-/d8ea2a1fbbe5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/1/0">AP Photo/Daniel Hulshizer</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So as aspiring werewolves, vampires and other haunts take to the streets for Halloween, remember that beneath the annual ritual of candy and costumed fun lie the darker recesses of the imagination. Here animals, disease and fear intermingle, and monsters materialize at the crossover point between animality and humanity.</p>
<p>Cave canem – beware the dog.</p>
<p>
<section class="inline-content">
<img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248894/original/file-20181204-133095-1p2xxs2.png?w=128&h=128">
<div>
<header>Jessica Wang is the author of:</header>
<p><a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/mad-dogs-and-other-new-yorkers">Mad Dogs and Other New Yorkers: Rabies, Medicine, and Society in an American Metropolis, 1840-1920.</a></p>
<footer>Johns Hopkins University Press provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.</footer>
</div>
</section>
</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125672/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Wang receives research funding from the University of British Columbia. Over the past decade, she has also received grants and fellowships from the Social Sciences Research Council of Canada, the National Science Foundation (U.S.), the Hampton Fund (UBC), the Killam Trusts, Harvard University, and other sources.
</span></em></p>Fear of a disease that seemed to turn people into beasts might have inspired belief in supernatural beings that live on in today’s creepy Halloween costumes.Jessica Wang, Associate Professor of U.S. History, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1108462019-03-28T21:19:21Z2019-03-28T21:19:21ZPerverse passions that will not die: The modern vampire first walked among us two centuries ago<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265995/original/file-20190326-139364-1md2pk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bela Lugosi's portrayal of Dracula in Tod Browning's 1931 horror film is influenced by John Polidori’s tale of terror, 'The Vampyre,' first published — suggestively — on April Fools’ Day 1819.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Universal Pictures</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Vampires have stalked humans for thousands of years, but it was just two hundred years ago that a young English doctor named <a href="https://global.oup.com/ukhe/product/the-vampyre-and-other-tales-of-the-macabre-9780199552412?cc=us&lang=en&">John Polidori introduced the modern version of the ancient demon</a>. </p>
<p>Although far less well-known than <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/first-edition-of-dracula">Bram Stoker’s <em>Dracula</em></a>, Polidori’s <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-vampyre-by-john-polidori"><em>The Vampyre</em></a> was first published — suggestively — on April Fools’ Day 1819. This brief tale of terror set the pattern for all future representations of the vampire, including Stoker’s, and it launched a vampire craze that after two centuries still retains its ability to grab us by the throat. </p>
<p>It is hard to imagine, but <em>The Vampyre</em> as well as <em>Frankenstein</em>, two of western literature’s most enduring myths, were the results of the same ghost story writing contest.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265944/original/file-20190326-36270-1xdwkb7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265944/original/file-20190326-36270-1xdwkb7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=739&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265944/original/file-20190326-36270-1xdwkb7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=739&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265944/original/file-20190326-36270-1xdwkb7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=739&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265944/original/file-20190326-36270-1xdwkb7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=929&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265944/original/file-20190326-36270-1xdwkb7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=929&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265944/original/file-20190326-36270-1xdwkb7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=929&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A portrait of John Polidori by F. G. Gainsford, circa 1816.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp03596/john-william-polidori?search=sas&sText=Polidori">F G Gainsford/National Portrait Gallery</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Vampires today inhabit a wide realm of the popular imagination in everything from novels, films and television shows to cartoons, video games, comic books and advertisements. They are also a powerful metaphor for conceiving and representing all manner of cultural practices and social problems, from the spread of sexually transmitted disease, through the mental and bodily pains of drug addiction, to the many ways in which technology and social media penetrate our daily lives.</p>
<h2>The writing contest</h2>
<p>Handsome, arrogant and hot-tempered, <a href="http://www.keats-shelley-house.org/en/writers/writers-john-polidori/john-polidori-the-vampyre">Polidori</a> was educated at a Catholic boarding school and then at the University of Edinburgh, where in 1815 he received his medical degree at the age of just 19. Less than a year later, the course of his life changed dramatically when <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lord-byron">Lord Byron</a>, the most famous literary man of the day, hired him as his travelling companion and personal physician. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265942/original/file-20190326-36276-x4552d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265942/original/file-20190326-36276-x4552d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265942/original/file-20190326-36276-x4552d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265942/original/file-20190326-36276-x4552d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265942/original/file-20190326-36276-x4552d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265942/original/file-20190326-36276-x4552d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265942/original/file-20190326-36276-x4552d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The poet Lord Byron, oil on canvas, circa 1835, based on a work of 1813.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.npg.org.uk/">Thomas Phillips/National Portrait Gallery</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Quick to see the commercial potential of the arrangement, Byron’s publisher, John Murray, commissioned Polidori to keep a diary of his time with the notorious poet, whose passionate interest in young men and scandalous love affair with his half-sister Augusta had hastened his departure from England. </p>
<p>Polidori immediately saw the predatory side of Byron’s personality. “As soon as he reached his room,” Polidori wrote from Belgium in April 1816, “Lord Byron fell like a thunderbolt upon the chambermaid.”</p>
<p>Shortly thereafter, Byron and Polidori took up residence at the Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva. Polidori saw himself as a rival to Byron and relations between them soon deteriorated. “What is there excepting writing poetry that I cannot do better than you?” Polidori demanded. </p>
<p>“First,” Byron snapped in reply, “I can hit with a pistol the keyhole of that door – Secondly, I can swim across that river to yonder point – and thirdly, I can give you a damned good thrashing.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265949/original/file-20190326-36270-coifqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265949/original/file-20190326-36270-coifqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265949/original/file-20190326-36270-coifqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265949/original/file-20190326-36270-coifqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265949/original/file-20190326-36270-coifqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265949/original/file-20190326-36270-coifqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265949/original/file-20190326-36270-coifqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The site of the ghost story writing contest: Villa Diodati at Lake Geneva, 1833.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Edward Finden/British Library</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The aristocrat and his doctor were soon joined by a like-minded trio of literary and sexual renegades: the radical poet and free-love advocate Percy Bysshe Shelley, his 18-year-old lover Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, and Mary’s stepsister Claire Clairmont, also 18 and Byron’s most recent amour. It was an extraordinary meeting of minds and bodies.</p>
<p>Bad weather kept the group indoors, and in mid-June <a href="https://publicdomainreview.org/2014/10/16/the-poet-the-physician-and-the-birth-of-the-modern-vampire/">Byron challenged each of them to write a ghost story</a>. Claire defaulted. Shelley may have produced a brief verse fragment as his contribution to the competition. Byron started but did not complete the short tale of terror now known as <em>Augustus Darvell</em>.</p>
<h2>The winners are…</h2>
<p>Godwin (the future Mary Shelley) and Polidori each produced a finished and immensely influential work. She created <em>Frankenstein</em>. He composed <em>The Vampyre</em>. </p>
<p>These spectacular results make the competition the most famous in all of English literary history. It is a striking thought that the same writing contest gave us both <em>Frankenstein</em> and <em>The Vampyre</em>, the two most enduring myths of the modern world.</p>
<p>Before Polidori, vampires were very different creatures. Shaggy, fetid and bestial, they preyed on family members, neighbours or livestock in nocturnal raids that in many accounts approached both the risible and the revolting. Polidori changed all that. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265993/original/file-20190326-139356-8dhpdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265993/original/file-20190326-139356-8dhpdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265993/original/file-20190326-139356-8dhpdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265993/original/file-20190326-139356-8dhpdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265993/original/file-20190326-139356-8dhpdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265993/original/file-20190326-139356-8dhpdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265993/original/file-20190326-139356-8dhpdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">After Polidori, vampires became handsome predators, creatures of polite society.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>His vampire was highly resourceful and haunted, not the village or the district, but the drawing rooms of polite society and the pleasure dens of international travellers. What is more, instead of the peasant-turned-ghoul of ancient folklore, Polidori elevated the vampire to the ranks of the aristocracy, where as a hypnotically handsome predator he seduced beautiful young women and sucked their life away.</p>
<p>Polidori’s tale centres on fatal vows, paralysis, isolation, betrayal and the return of the dead. <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/605410/the-regency-years-by-robert-morrison/9780393249057">He clearly models his vampire, Lord Ruthven, on Lord Byron, for the two have in common good looks, callousness, high rank, mobility, wealth and keen sexual appetites</a>. Aubrey is Ruthven’s friend and travelling partner, and his relationship with Ruthven is usually read as Polidori’s own complex fascination with Byron — a fascination that both attracts and appals him.</p>
<p>In the tale, Ruthven sucks strength from Aubrey as their relationship declines, but he takes a much more deadly interest in Aubrey’s unnamed sister and Aubrey’s close friend, Ianthe, both of whom he dispatches with his insatiable fangs:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Upon her neck and breast was blood, and upon her throat were the marks of teeth having opened the vein: – to this the men pointed, crying, simultaneously struck with horror, ‘a Vampyre, a Vampyre!’”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A 200-year-long fascination</h2>
<p>There have been many more sophisticated and explicit renderings of vampiric lore in the two centuries since Polidori’s tale first appeared. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu popularized the female vampire in his tale of terror <em>Carmilla</em> (1872), Stoker took the lordly fiend to new heights in <em>Dracula</em> (1897) and over the course of the last 100 years novelists, poets, playwrights, artists, movie makers and screenwriters have returned obsessively to vampires.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265894/original/file-20190326-36252-1egxpdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265894/original/file-20190326-36252-1egxpdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265894/original/file-20190326-36252-1egxpdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265894/original/file-20190326-36252-1egxpdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265894/original/file-20190326-36252-1egxpdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265894/original/file-20190326-36252-1egxpdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265894/original/file-20190326-36252-1egxpdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A scene from the 1922 silent horror classic, ‘Nosferatu,’ influenced by Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula.’</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Polidori’s tale touched off this fascination. Two centuries ago he corrected the drastic deficiencies of the folklore and reimagined the vampire as a suave, mysterious, sexually dynamic elite who defies time and place, who consumes ravenously and without guilt, and who represents perverse passions that will not die.</p>
<p>But the spread of vampirism does not end there. Vampires terrify us now because, in the hands of the countless writers and artists who have drawn their creative lifeblood from Polidori’s reincarnation, they serve as potent and protean representations of whatever we most fear about foreignness, sexuality, selfhood, disease, the afterlife, history and much else. They represent our undying urge for gratification. They embody the monstrous return of what we bury both in ourselves and in our collective past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110846/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Morrison has co-edited an edition of Polidori's The Vampyre for Oxford University Press. He has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p>One of the reasons the myth of vampires endures and captures the popular imagination is that vampires are a powerful metaphor for a wide range of cultural practices and social problems.Robert Morrison, Professor of English Language and Literature, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.