Vampires’ Influence on Today’s Society
Since ancient times, vampires have been known as blood thirsty creatures who feed on the blood of others to keep themselves alive. The word Vampire itself comes from the word vampirism which means to feed on the life essence of that of another person. It has been stated that vampires were the spawn of Lilith, the mother of all demons in ancient Babylonian folklore.
However, many people in today’s society believe that the story of vampires started with Count Dracula. The story of Dracula has been said to have been connected to the story of Vlad the Impaler. The name Dracula itself is connected to Vlad Tepes family. In fact the name Dracula was given to Vlad the Impaler years before because of his father’s, war name Dracul (meaning dragon) given to him by the order of the dragon in the fifteenth century and as such his name became Dracula meaning son of the dragon. Vlad Tepes was later named Vlad the Impaler during his reign as king of Wallachia. He is mostly known as Vlad the Impaler because his style of execution, which involved placing the bodies of his enemies on the spikes that stuck out from the ground.
The later story Dracula, claims that the vampire Dracula was a man who practiced alchemy (the practice of achieving ultimate wisdom) and sorcery (magic) that he used to revive himself after death to become a vampire and then seek to rule the whole world. However his plan was cut short when the vampire hunter Van Helsing killed him.
Today, on the other hand, vampires are becoming more of a fad than scary monsters. Today, vampires have inspired a variety of things from books, and movies, to fashion. In the past decade alone there have been a drastic increase in vampire movies. Here are just a few that have been considered great movies because of their vampire themes:
Twilight: The romantic fantasy movie adaptation of the best seller by Stephenie Meyer.
Twilight New Moon: The sequel to the 2008 best selling book/movie by Stephenie Meyer.
Underworld: The 2003 movie about action packed vampire/werewolf story starring Kate Beckinsale.
Underworld Evolution: The 2006 sequel to the action-horror movie starring Kate Beckinsale.
Underworld Rise of the Lycans: The prequel about the 2003 action-horror movie, telling how the war between Vampires and Lycans began.
Blade II: The sequel to the 1998 vampire box office hit. This time a whole new race of vampires are introduced.
Blade: Trinity: The final installment of the Blade series, this time Blade will have to face the very first vampire, Drake.
Van Helsing: The story telling of the vampire hunter Van Helsing travels to Transylvania to hunt down the evil Count Dracula.
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant: The story about a high school student named Darren becoming a vampire to save his best friend Steve’s life from a poisonous spider bite.
Ultraviolet: The futuristic tales of a woman named violet traveling with a young boy while trying to fight off an army of mutant vampires.
Not to mention that at lest three of these movies were based on best selling books of the same name.
There has also been a dispute on whether or not vampire culture has any effect on Gothic’s. As you may or may not know Gothic’s are typically described in today’s society as people who have a depressing out look on life and have a tendency to wear black and other things considered dark (ex. tattoos, face paint, piercing etc).
However there are some who still debate as to whether or not there is a similarity between Goths and vampires. “I don’t think there’s a similarity with Goths and vampires today since most people who act like vampires today are acting more like the vampires from twilight instead of the old kind of vampires”, says UHS student Lee Chan. So that goes to show that not only are people seeing vampires differently, it shows that the representation of vampires is changing completely. This may go to explain why most people are changing their opinion on vampires.
That however does not answer the following question is why do people like vampires so much? What makes these blood-sucking corpses so interesting? While the real answer to that question may never be fully known, some students at UHS have their own opinion why. “I think that people like vampires so much because of movies like twilight, and because people like the idea of being scary and have a second life,” says UHS student Alan Sotelo. So there are many reasons why people like vampires, and if you like them, then go find out all you can about them, and see whether you still like them or not.
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