On Vampires

Okay, let’s leave the annoying, water-downed ‘vampires’ in Twilight behind for good(but if you still wanna read some ranting, here is the link: http://vampirekiki.deviantart.com/journal/25599415). We should move on to find some worthy vampire books and films.

First there’re a few statements of my view on vampire literature:

1. I’m quite aware of the fact that image of vampire had been in a constant transition through the decades, i.e. nowadays vampires barely fear crucifix or garlic; certain adjustment is okay. The bottom line is, don’t remove far too many vampiric elements from your creation that people can’t even recognize them as ‘vampires’.
2. I’m okay with vampires doing things that their ancestors cannot, such as being able to stay under sunlight(like they do in Blood the Last Vampire or Blood+), being able to breed through sexual intercourse(Like they do in Lost Souls), etc etc. but the idea of vampire who can survive without human blood, I think it’s a bit too far.
3. To me, the essence of vampires is blood, sex and death(I’m not the one to come up with the conclusion, it comes from Vampire: Is It Real? showcase), the three most basic of human urges, THE FORBIDDEN. Vampire is the dark reflection we can find when we look into the mirror. When we open a vampire novel, or watch a movie about vampire we actually are looking into our own darkside(or dreamside in some case), a side of us that isn’t allowed to come under sunlight, a side in everyone of us that the ‘normal’ society finds unable to accept. If any vampire book failed to do it, it doesn’t really deserve to be put into the vampire genre.

If you were interested in how vampires are like in Chinese myth, you can check here:The Legend of Chinese Vampires(http://vampire-kiki.livejournal.com/116668.html)

Some recommendation of vampire novesl/literature, new and old:

Bram Stoker's Dracula
The foundation of Western classical vampire literature, I watched the film-version of it before I read the novel itself, both are good, though comparing with modern vampire literature the book looks old-fashion, but still……it’s a worthy read.

Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla
Classical lesbian vampire love, an elegantly written melodramatic romance between a lesbian vampire and a human girl; fatal, mysterious and intriguing all at once.


Edgar Allen Poe
You might be thinking: What? Poe never wrote about vampires! but let’s look at his short novels that featuring beautiful women coming back to life(i.e. Morella, Ligeia or even Berenice)…you can tell deep down, they’re the metaphors of the usual vampiric package: the fascination of death, the forbidden, darkness, rebirth and erotism.

Anne Rice
Author of the ground breaking Vampire Chronicles, she successfully transited vampire from blood-sucking mindless monster into the metaphor as ‘outsiders’ embroider with forbidden love and death and rebellion. She brought the ideas right into mainstream, I strongly recommend Interview With the Vampire, Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Dammed; while Blackwood Farm and Blood Canticle are also…kind of okay.

Poppy Z. Brite
As far as my knowledge can reach, Brite has only written two vampire stories, one is her first novel Lost Souls: story of a boy who felt out-of-place with the people around him. He searched for a place he belongs, only to find the dark secret of his origin. A dark, twisted Grow-Up Story with incest vampire romance. What more can you ask for?
Her second story on vampire: His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood, a homage to H P. Lovecraft’s short novel ‘The Hound’: two friends, tried of all kind of pleasures that money and sex can offer, seek their redemption in ‘the treasure and pleasure of the grave’, they soon met with a deadly discovery when encountering a pale, seductive beautiful creature in a bar.

Poppy Z.Brite as editor: Love in Vein Vol. I and II
Two collections of short vampire erotica, I won’t tell you all of the stories are great, but we can find a lot of jewels among the two books, exploring the life and death, the lust, the violence, the love and even the absurdity of different kind of vampires.

Whitley Strieber’s The Hunger
It’s a pity that I only manage to read part of the novel but never of it as a whole, but the part that I’d read is far more than enough to leave an impression. It’s a tale of modern vampires with numbers of twist and turn. Later I watched the film version starring Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie, oh! Bowie is so great as a vampire! The rest of the film’s also remarkable, not a perfect movie(far from that!) but the atmosphere of lust, needs and betrayal is so cool, we even got lesbian vampire love here.

The Addiction
A collage graduated student walks through the murky wasteland that is human nature after her bizarre transformation into a vampire. The film was shot entirely in black and white among streets of New York; it’s hard to describe neither the plot nor the charm of that film but once watch it, you might find it extraordinary.

They are so much more good work in the genre of vampires, I only listed out a few books and movies which I find remarkableand I haven't even come down to ANIME at all!!

Spike and Drusilla from Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Truth to be told I never really finished watching all of the seven seasons of BtVS, nor do I really like Buffy or Angel. My motivation for watching the series is that Spike and Drusilla fascinated me. They’re great as an evil vampire couple, Spike is the bad boy while Drusilla is kind of a manipulator despite her fragile look and imbalanced personality. Ah I just love them! It’s just sad that Spike&Drusilla as a couple only happened in season II and later Drusilla left Spike and the poor guy FELL IN LOVE WITH BUFFY! OMG!!!

Vampire Princess Miyu OVA/manga
The lonely quest of a vampire girl and her demonic companion fighting wander-off demons, the series is elegantly illustrated and written by Narumi Kakinouchi and Toshiki Hiran, unlike many vampire works this story is settled with a traditional Japanese background.
As the protector of the world of spirits and demonic creatures, Miyu’s goal is to send wandering demons back into darkness, and when encountering humans that she likes, she gives them eternal dream to let them stay in forever youth and ‘happiness’.
There’re manga, OVA, TV series and novels based on Miyu, among them I like the 7 volumes OVA and manga the best

Dahlia the Vampire vol. 1-2
Kind of a split-off from Vampire Princess Miyu, the story is nearly unrelated to Miyu’s world, thought Miyu’s ‘sister’, Yui made appearance in vol. 2.
The story of Dahlia is darker than Miyu’s or Yui’s. Dahlia, a vampire from Western origin, disguised as an ex-change student while traveling to Japan in search for the reincarnation of her lost lover Ranan D. Green. Like Miyu, there seems to be no end for her quest and her only relief is from her deed of killing and drinking of human blood. In her quest he met two other vampires girls, one of them is ‘China Blue’ Jasmine with her handsome male partner, both of the vampires pointed out to Dahlia that her search for Ranan would be fruitless, leaving Dahlia in loneliness and sorrow.

Among the two volumes, my favorite story is Salome Into the Mist, where Dahlia is selected for the role of Salome in the high school drama play, when she was seduced by a vampire boy, she killed him and danced with the cut-off head on stage.
In my opinion, Dahlia is attractive for she was the complicated mixture of elegance and cruelty, passionate love and indifference; giving her a clear vampiric attractiveness.

Blood The Last Vampire and Blood+
I first watched Blood The Last Vampire years ago and was impressed by its sharp, moving actions and style, Saya kind of become an icon in my heart. I consider Blood the Last Vampire one of the greatest action vampire anime I’ve ever watched.
Later when Blood+ arrived I was also happy to learn more about Saya’s past and her personality seems more full and developed. and I really like Saya’s twin sister Diva, she’s so evil and playful at the same time that it’s difficult not to get attracted by her.XD
As to the live action movie of Blood the Last Vampire…I don’t even plan to watch it because just as my girlfriend had mentioned previous that the fact “Jun Ji-hyun as the lead completely destroys Saya’s image in my heart :(”

Trouble Every Day(movie)
Shane is a successful professor visiting Paris during honeymoon with his newlywed wife, but something seems to be bothering him constantly. He desperately searched for an old friend called Leo, who was banished by the scientific academy. Leo’s wife Core seems to be suffering with mysterious disease and her mentality is falling apart to a point that Leo has to lock her in their home to prevent her from attacking people. Later Core begs her husband to allow her to die. When Leo failes to gain her wish, Core is left to lure inside the locked apartment, burning with hunger and needs for human’s warmth, flesh and blood.

Brooding in his hotel room alone, Shane’s gloomy gaze lingers around a chamber maid, thirsting for satisfaction that he couldn’t ask from his wife. While he was on his way to Leo’s apartment; two young thieves break into the house, and what they found hidden inside the apartment are far more than they had bargained for.

A modern tale of blood-thirst, desire, lust and macabre, giving us some insight about the untamed, fearsome nature of love and violence luring beneath façade of civilized human being; even though the word ‘vampire’ is never used in the movie.

the 69 Eyes- The Lost Boy
There was a teenage vampire film called The Lost Boy but I never have watched it, thought in the late 90s Finnish band the 69 Eyes written a song also called The Lost Boy in order to play homage to the said movie. The music video of The Lost Boy is so great! Playful, upbeat with awesome lyric! You wanna rock?^_^

The Fearless Vampire Killer(movie)
I watched this film when I was a child; it’s so funny and scary at the same time! It’s a classic for vampire comedy that’s all I need to say!

Kaori Yuki’s Earl Cain vol. 3 Kafka(comic)
A gothic tale setting in Victorian era’s England, the protagonist Earl Cain was a young noble who was infamous for his collection of rare poisons and the series of mysterious murder that seemed to be following him everywhere he went. He fell prey to an unknown illness suddenly and was sent to a recovery trip to a remote village. The village was plagued by hideous vampire attacks and upon his arrival Cain encountered a disfigured female vampire who believed she needed to drink the blood of young people(mostly maidens) to regain her lost beauty. Cain narrowly escaped the attack, but in the next day he met the young heir of a castle which was supposedly haunted by the spirit of a vampire countess, the said heir lived with his older sister, who looked extremely familiar with the female vampire from the night before….... So the tale of forbidden love, conspiracy and bloodlust begins.

Elegantly drawn and masterfully constructed with all the twists and turns of epic mystery, the Cain Saga by Kaori Yuki is a masterpiece that I strongly recommend.

Kaoru Fujiwara’s If You Wanna Break Out This World vol.1-3(comic)
A teenage girl encountered a mysterious young man who showed up in her workplace constantly. The girl fell in love with the boy even though she had never talked to him, and her love-interest seemed to be oblivious of her affection. What she didn’t know was that the boy, who went by with a fake name ‘Ren’, was actually a vampire who had been in existence for a few hundreds of years, and he too had been secretly taking notice of the girl, simply because she reminded him strongly of the vampire girl whom was his Sire and lost lover……when the girl was fatally wounded in a car crush, the boy was forced to turn her into a vampire. What they didn’t know was that it would be a point of no return and the wheel of tragedy had already been spun for them both.

Coolly and delicately illustrated with an angst undertone, it’s a star-crossed lovers story which might at first look familiar with Twilight(God forbid!), but as the story progresses the readers are drawn into Ren’s dark past and experiencing with him and his fellow vampire companions the lonely existence as immortal, that sanity was constantly threatened by unavoidable pain, sorrow, longing, madness and loss; cursed with a fate that even the love of a soul mate might not be enough to be your redemption.