I have had it with these motherfrakking neo vampires on this motherfrakking plane!

It probably is a sign of the end times.

The Los Angeles Times found women who have nearly lost their marriages by neglecting their husbands in favor of “Twilight” fan sites, blogs, and message boards. One woman gushes that she’s seen the movies “over 300 times.”

“If there is a chemical that’s released when you’re falling in love, your brain has it when you’re reading or watching ‘Twilight.’ You get that utopic feeling of first love and you want to experience it over and over again,” one 50-year-old former engineer who has experienced her own “Twilight”-related marital problems, said. The names “Bella,” “Jacob,” and “Cullen” are climbing the popular-baby-name lists every year as more and more parents make their “Twilight” fandom a permanent part of their families.

I think I’ve discovered the entire formula of how to extract tons of money from 14-year old girls:

1. Pretty cast
2. Tawdry soap opera plots
3. Stalker-ish behavior

That’s it.

I’ve been trying for some time to figure out just exactly where things went wrong for vampires. A lot of people like to blame Anne Rice, but I don’t think that it is entirely her fault.

Consider that “Interview” came out over three decades ago (or even the film version from ’94)… that is a very long time to cast blame. Besides – all of her vampires were pretty much sexless assholes.

Suddenly, over the past 3 years or so, vampires have exploded into a phenomenon of unexpected proportions all over the world. Most all of the “new” vamps are a far cry from the ones that older vampire fans hold near and dear to our hearts.

Obviously, teen girls are looking for some element of escapism from their daily lives. And most of them are afraid to “go goth” or be emo like those “weird kids” at school, so they turn to these undead romantic safety nets.

But vampires are not supposed to be “safe”. Vampires are lusty predators with a need to drink human blood.

When Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, he created the most well-known vampire… a demonic creature who held all he gazed upon in a powerful, sexual sway.

Vampires are not all depressed, pale and emaciated models with weird hair.

Vampires probably do not have good manners and more than likely do not give two shits about the opposite sex.

A vampire will not be your boyfriend or girlfriend. They want to drain you of blood. Deep down, a vampire may not be “evil” the way that a mass murderer is, but they are not very nice creatures. And yes, I said creatures. They aren’t people – no more than a zombie or a werewolf is a person. They were a person at one point… but that train stopped the minute their heart did.

Let’s run down the powers and weaknesses of a real vampire:

Powers:

Immortality
Vampires do not age, except on some occasions when they have been deprived of blood for extended periods of time.

Most of the vampire’s powers increase over the centuries with age and experience. These centuries-spanning creatures may eventually become Vampire Regents or Elders, who are capable of even greater feats than the common vampire.

Multiply by contamination
The vampire is a negative image of the Christ – who gave his blood to save men, while a vampire gives blood to corrupt souls.

Invulnerability
Vampires have remarkable recuperative powers and cannot be harmed by conventional weapons. They are also immune to all forms of human diseases and illnesses. Only when moving about during the day or when resting in his coffin, the vampire is somewhat vulnerable and subject to physical harm.

Bullets and ordinary knives provide only momentary distractions, as the vampire can heal from such injuries within seconds. Moreover, the vampire does not feel pain from such conventional attacks.

They can only be harmed by weapons made of the purest silver and even then, their supernatural restorative abilities allow them to recover very quickly. Under optimum conditions (i.e. – when they have been feeding regularly), vampires never physically get tired.

Superhuman strength
Most vampires acquire superhuman strength anywhere from three to five times as great as they had in their mortal lives.

Moreover, a vampire’s speed, agility, and reflexes are up to five times as great as they had in their mortal lives. All vampires possess acute hearing (equivalent to that of a wolf) and night vision, enabling them to see with better than 20/20 perception in total darkness.

As a vampire grows “older” over the years its strength can increase, and the strength level of Vampire Regents can be 10 – 20 times stronger than they were in their mortal lives.

Dracula is described as having the strength of twenty men.

Shapeshifting
The vampire may command several animal creatures such as the wolf, the rat, the fox, the owl, the bat and the moth and is also able to assume the form of a wolf or a bat and possibly any of the other animals subject to his command (spiders, weasels, cats, ravens, scorpions…) while retaining their own intelligence. Some of the more powerful vampires or Vampire Regents are able to transform into a bat of human proportions.

The vampire may also transform himself into a mist or dust cloud drifting in the air through only the oldest and most powerful vampires or Vampire Regents are known to assume such forms.

The vampire may alter his size within certain limits, becoming either larger or smaller so that he can easily go out from his grave or coffin .

The vampire may climb walls much like a large insect. He may climb normally or with his head toward the ground much like a spider.

Mind control
Much like the snake and the bird, the vampire can control the will of humans through a form of hypnotic, even to the point of inducing a catatonic state and amnesia. This power explains why victims often have no memory of being attacked.

This hypnotic control can be conveyed either verbally or telepathically, depending on the power of the vampire.

Powerful vampires and Vampire Regents need only to catch the gaze of their intended victim for a few seconds, through stronger minds require more time to mesmerize.

Victims bitten by a vampire are much easier to control, requiring little – if any – concentration from the host-vampire.

League with demons
“Older” vampires are able to command some form of magical or monstrous beings (demons, zombies, ghouls, etc.). However, controlling large numbers of these lesser undead creatures requires greater concentration and strength.

Some very powerful vampires or Vampire Regents can even summon such creatures if they are in the general vicinity (about a 5 – 10 mile radius).

Command Animals
Similar to the vampire’s ability to mesmerize the lesser minds of humans is their innate ability to summon and control various “lower” nocturnal creatures, such as the wolf, bat, and rat if they are somewhat local to the vampire’s area.

The range and extent of control over such creatures is based upon the power of the vampire. An “older” vampire could conceivably summon entire populations of bats, rats, and wolves within a 10-mile radius.

Some animals, such as horses, and cats in particular, have an aversion to vampires and can often “sense” the presence of these creatures.

Weaknesses

Inability to Enter a Dwelling without Being First Invited In
Vampires also have a mystical aversion to entering any human dwelling place which they have not been verbally invited. Once invited, they may enter the place anytime thereafter.

Inability to Cross Running Water
The vampire may not cross running water, except at the ebb and flow of the tide. He may be carried over or at certain times he may change shape and fly or jump over. This is not to say that they cannot swim, but running or flowing water such as rivers, streams, or waterfalls mystically impede the creature’s ability to swim and stay afloat, causing it to drown and perish. This is but a temporal “death”, however. Once a vampire’s body is removed from running water, it will return to “life”.

Coma during day time
Most vampires fall into a semi-conscious, trance-like state during the daylight hours that keeps them aware of things happening around it.

The vampire may only leave its resting place at sunrise, noon or sunset. This is clearly the vampire’s time of greatest vulnerability since it is helpless when resting within its coffin. During the daylight hours, the vampire’s powers are considerably weakened; although it should be pointed out they are still dangerous and certainly powerful enough to wipe out reckless vampire hunters.

Older and more powerful vampires do not require such rest; they only need to avoid direct sunlight.

Inability to Withstand the Direct Rays of the Sun
Direct exposure causes a vampire to completely dehydrate and burst into flames or crumble into dust within minutes.

Reflection Not Seen in a Mirror
Vampires don’t reflect in mirrors. This also means that their images do not appear on film or any other device that requires a light (or heat) source to produce and image. A flame can be seen through his body. In some areas, vampires are believed not to show in photographs or to cast shadows.

Vulnerable to Apotropaic Objects
‘Apotropaic’ is a word generally used to mean something that ward off demons and other evil spirits, but is often used to describe the various methods of stopping a vampire.

Types of Apotropaic:

• Seeds, knots and grains
• Religious objects
• Wolfsbane
• Garlic
• Stakes and other sharp objects
• Thorns and roses

Repulsion to holy ground
Vampires are unable to enter churches, temples, or other religious sanctuaries that represent “light” or goodness, whether they have been previously invited or not. They may only enter such holy places if they have been somehow desecrated beforehand.

The vampire, as any pagan creature, is not admitted in the holy sanctuaries of the Church but there are no testimonies that he can be harmed if he doesn’t follow the rule.

Today’s fake vampires

With today’s fake vampires, traditions are just carelessly ignored. Some authors, like Stephenie Meyer, give the excuse that she “didn’t research vampires” before writing the Twilight books. Bulldrek. A 36-year old woman doesn’t know even the most basic vampire facts?

A few examples of neo-vampires gone wrong:

In Twilight

• Unharmed by holy items or wooden stakes.
• Some vampires have no special abilities.
• They have reflections.
• Are able to be out during daylight (in fact, they “sparkle” in daylight).

In The Vampire Diaries

• Vampires can go out in sunlight if they wear Lapis Lazuli. The sun does, however, tire them out.
• The characters cast reflections in mirrors.

In VAMPS (books so bad that Harper Collins canceled them)

• This isn’t even worth getting into. The books were an entire cannibalization of Harry Potter (which is bad enough), Gossip Girl, and Sex and The City (just without the sex). There’s going to be a TV series coming for this.

Kids, please (and this goes for you, too, grown-ups)! If you’re going to experience vampires, here’s some examples of non-trash that I beg you to try out:

Books:

• Dracula
• Interview with the Vampire
• The Vampire Lestat
• The Queen of the Damned
• The Tale of the Body Thief
• Guilty Pleasures
• The Laughing Corpse
• Circus of the Damned
• The Lunatic Cafe
• Bloody Bones
• The Killing Dance
• Burnt Offerings

Film:

• Bram Stoker’s Dracula
• Nosferatu
• Near Dark
• The Lost Boys
• Fright Night
• Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in)
• From Dusk Till Dawn
• Blade
• Underworld
• Vampires
• 30 Days of Night
• Interview With the Vampire

TV:

• True Blood
• Buffy: The Vampire Slayer
• Angel
• Kindred: The Embraced
• Ultraviolet
• Dark Shadows

The Final Word

A lot of people will just tell me to ignore all these trashy neo-vampires. But that isn’t really a possibility anymore. Even my normally good-tasted 28-year old sister-in-law thinks Twilight is a “really cool” movie.

Anyway, earlier on I was looking for someone to blame. Anne Rice isn’t the one. White Wolf Publishing didn’t help with their emo-ridden Vampire: The Masquerade in 1991 (don’t get me wrong… I loved this game, but some of the clans were ridiculous). There was a bit of angsty vampire nonsense in Buffy, as well – thanks to Angel – but the way his character was written made it interesting (which is also why the True Blood show is fantastic – aside from an amazing cast and lots of sex and violence).

At the end of the day, I blame J.K. Rowling and her Harry Potter franchise. And while I have gone on at length before about how much of a rampant plagiarist she is, so that’s not the point. Harry Potter – for the huge steaming pile of shit that the entire brand is – is an absolute financial juggernaut. There was money to be made finding something to go up against Harry Potter, and some (very smart) person said , “hey… let’s go with vampires”.

And there it was. That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.