I was thinking about Vampirism recently, which naturally led to Telkom, how they spend fortunes of our money on TV adverts telling us how good they are (despite their incompetence), how they’re protected by law from competition (bribes and kickbacks, anyone?) and how wonderful it will be when a real communications company comes into South Africa and kickstarts the beginning of the Internet for everyone at a cheap price.
And in fact, the column this week was going to weave back and forth between the bloated corporate leech vampire-parasite we know as Telkom, and a potted history of different aspects of traditional vampires. But unfortunately my take on Telkom rapidly degenerated into wild obscenity and libelous statements involving anatomically impossible suggestions, which just wouldn’t get printed – so instead – it’s all just vampires from here on.
Now, the vampire is an enduring figure in popular culture, take a look at Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Vampiresand Vampires of the World. Another useful page, for those starting off, is By Light Unseen.
Part of the original vampire myth has its roots in UFO sightings as far back as the 15th century. Space prohibits going into explanation – so trust me on this one – but generally, most researchers will point towards the real life person Vlad Drakul, also known as Vlad the Impaler. And despite having a name that sounds like a rather successful rentboy, Vlad had a certain Colonel Kurtz approach to the people under his control. Read Vlad The
Impaler.
In modern film, the vampire essentially emerged with FW Murnau’s Nosferatu in 1922. Follow the further links and read about the legal wrangling that happened between Bram Stoker’s estate and the filmmakers at Nosferatu.
Then came Bela Lugosi. (If you saw the movie Ed Wood, you’ll have a glimpse of how the next screen Dracula’s life ended.)
A related link between Bela and now – if you saw the cult vampire flick The Hunger, you’ll recall seeing uber-Goth band Bauhaus at the start of the film singing their tribute song Bela Lugosi’s Dead.
As the Fifties rolled around, a UK company assumed the “horror producers” mantle, and an actor by the name of Christopher Lee donned the velvet cape of the Count. Go read how a smallish British film company – Hammer Films – almost single-handedly revitalised the horror genre, and rolled out a series of Dracula films that even today, don’t date too badly.
Meanwhile, in the late Sixties, jacuzzi-fiend Roman Polanski (and his wife Sharon Tate) – prior to falling foul of the Manson family – made a strange little film that has authentic atmosphere by the shovel-load. From the real architecture of Carthapian castle, through to the very bizarre Yiddish-accents of the first onscreen Jewish vampire, Polanski’s Dance of the Vampires is wonderfully creepy stuff. MGM got scared and retitled it The Fearless Vampire Killers.
Read this informative essay on the film. Still hungry for more? Try also Dance of the Vampires.
By this time, Hammer Films had descended (ascended?) into making schlocky lesbian-vampire flicks – often woven loosely around the true story of Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who by all accounts, sounded like an interesting babe to watch from a safe distance.
And for more proof that truth is often far more gruesome than any movie, try The Blood Countess.
And in a similar er – vein – you might want to take a browse through an interesting essay titled Sucking the Evil out of the Lesbian Vampire.
So Hammer Films began to fade, and with it, Christopher Lee as The Count. Grab the garlic pizza and run towards Dark Charisma – Vampires Then And Now.
In independent films, meantime, the vampire theme took on a slightly harsher dimension with the emergence of Robert Quarry as Count Yorga. That’s not to say that Big Mistakes weren’t made with vampire movies. I had the cheerful misfortune to have actually seen the frighteningly foul “blacksploitation” flick Blacula!
Even Andy Warhol‘s crew got in on the act, making a fairly forgettable Blood For Dracula. (Although I still recall the vampire throwing up blood in a bathtub, unable to digest the blood of non-virgins – rather a neato touch.)
Mainstream cinema began – like Pop, eating itself and looking for ideas – to spawn the sad version of Dracula with Frank Langella and Laurence Olivier. Audience worldwide, myself included, had fun booing this one.
Then for a while nothing really new appeared to demonstrate the power of the vampire theme, which was clearly stuck in a rut of some kind, unable to scare audiences who were in a world full of real horrors like Nixon, Vietnam and protest. Despite the richness of the genre, there’d been little or no successful attempts to update the now laughable Count. (Even the almost completely exhausted Western genre had managed a frightening look at the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, by retelling the story of a real Old West massacre, in Soldier Blue.
Pop ate itself again, this time in European cinema – and Werner Herzog remade the original Nosferatu, making perhaps the most authentic and repulsively real Count Dracula the screen has ever seen. Starring Klaus Kinski and Isabelle Adjani, Herzog retold the story for the art-movie fans.
For a close look at Nastassia’s dad as The Count.
And here’s the poster, showing the stylish angle of approach.
It took a while before the next Big Step Forward came, to inspire a whole new generation of film makers and fang-fans. Setting a vampire film in California, and mixing in dollops of humour, hippies and hipper music, this next one breathed new life into the undead and made the idea of vampirism utterly attractive to a whole new audience. (“Sleep all day / Party all night / Never grow old / Never die / It’s fun to be a vampire,” went the tagline, appealing to a generation of bored filmgoers who didnt have to worry about Vietnam). Try The Lost Boys.
The previously mentioned The Hunger also appeared, making more than a few comments on modern society. The tale of vampires feeding and hunting while disguised as sexual predators on the prowl in singles clubs, brought a much needed adult edge to the mythos. Read people being rude about The Hunger.
One of the finest vampire films ever to emerge, which never once even used the word ‘vampires’ – was the eerily beautiful Near Dark, which showed modern vampires moving through the American mid-West (in a Winnebago no less), complete with tinfoil for the windows and nose guards against the sun.
Then, if you cant find it tucked away at your local vid shop, read the Bite Me! Or, take a walk on the wild side with Queer Vampires.
Until the next time, if sunlight or Telkom lawyers don’t get me.
Ian Fraser is a playwright, author, comedian, conspiracy nut, old-time radio collector and self-confessed data-junkie. Winner of numerous Vita and Amstel Awards, he’s been an Internet addict and games-fanatic since around 1995, when the Internet began to make much more sense than theatre.