Hollywood Vampires

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Author	Message
blitzkriegBOOM Cliché Catastrophe Age: 15 Gender: Female Posts: 488	July 20th, 2008 at 02:34am Due to the fact that I am truly enthralled with vampires in folk lore and history around the world, I thought everyone should know where their perception of the vampire really came from. (I'm going by memory from my source because it is not currently handy.) The Hollywood Vampire, which includes many movies today... but especially the t.v. series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and the older film "Dracula," are basically inspired from one of the first notable books about vampires: Bram Stoker's Dracula. It has been ingrained in our minds- and some will accept it to be basic fact- that Bram Stoker had Trannsylvania in mind when he wrote the book. However, that is not as true as some people believe it to be. Stoker grew up in Ireland, in the aftermath of the Irish Potato Famine. Vampire stories were circulating throughout the country at the time he grew up. During the famine, many people resorted to making 'relish cakes' [I think that's what they were called] or scant morsels made of animal blood and some small vegetable. Rumors that people used human blood for their food was getting around! Also, communities had created sites of animal blood-letting, which today are sometimes considered haunted. Even after the Great Famine, there were ideas that people were drinking human blood, so the probability that Stoker's mother telling him stories about human-blood-drinkers isn't even relevant. Of course, this topic is debatable.. (especially with my horrible paraphrasing) so that's why I'm leaving it at this.
Scarecrow Angel Cliché Catastrophe Age: 19 Gender: Female Posts: 351	July 20th, 2008 at 08:57am There are lots of things... I wouldn't doubt that those are some of them, but then there are also your historical vampires- Elizabeth Batharoy and good ol' impaling Vlad. Also, I wouldn't dismiss Stoker's contribution as irrelevent- his imaginative brilliance saved the concept of vampires for the western world, rather than letting them become lost in time like lesser folklore. blitzkriegBOOM: It has been ingrained in our minds- and some will accept it to be basic fact- that Bram Stoker had Trannsylvania in mind when he wrote the book. I don't think everybody assumes that at all. But regardless of whether Stoker actually visited Transylvania or not (growing up in Ireland. as you mention), he did still know a lot about it's folklore, and 'Dracula' does actually have a Romanian setting. Even today, in isolated pockets of Romania, the tradition survives of digging up corpses and removing the hearts and heads to stop 'wandering vampires'. In some villages it is believed that if family members get sick after somebody dies, it is the dead relative returning to feed on their spirit, and full-time vampire hunters are sometimes even employed by the council... Bizarre, but true.
blitzkriegBOOM Cliché Catastrophe Age: 15 Gender: Female Posts: 488	July 20th, 2008 at 04:27pm I'm very aware of what you mentioned... but that is not the only country in the world that digs up corpses or believes family members are returning from the dead. I'm still half dead (just woke up ) so I can't remember the country's names... but I will let you know once my mind clears. Wait, I just remembered something but it isn't concerning Hollywood Vampires... I might as well spit it out: In Malaysia vampiric entities came back to life, and sometimes weren't ever alive and were capable of detaching their heads from their bodies. So, the only way to kill a vampire in Malaysia is to find the body and make sure it can't rejoin its head or kill the sorceror who controlled it. Also, you misread what I wrote about what was relevant. I did not say what he wrote was relevant- I tried saying that it didn't matter that his mother might have told him vampire stories because they were circulating so much anyways. I would never find Stoker irrelevant.... Hollywood kicks ass, even if it is overrated. xDDD
Scarecrow Angel Cliché Catastrophe Age: 19 Gender: Female Posts: 351	July 24th, 2008 at 02:18am I never denied the existence of vampirism in plenty of cultures, or dating back over centuries. In Africa, there are even real life vampire bats that feed off of horses and livestock. It's just that the Romanian concept was the first one to permeate western popular culture- via the vechile of Stoker's novel and the gothic tradition that followed. Naturally, since then other cultures have become involved, but the Victorian gothic still has it's roots in that original source of horror. ...Thus your traditional cliche vampire still transforms into a bat, lives in a castle and speaks with a thick Russian accent. blitzkriegBOOM: Also, you misread what I wrote about what was relevant. I did not say what he wrote was relevant- I tried saying that it didn't matter that his mother might have told him vampire stories because they were circulating so much anyways. I would never find Stoker irrelevant.... Hollywood kicks ass, even if it is overrated. xDDD Don't panic, I knew what you were on about. I was just raising a further point.
Aiden Avenged Writer's Block Age: 17 Gender: Female Posts: 10	July 24th, 2008 at 03:03am In all honesty I would not acredic the Romanians or there Culture with the invention of vampirism. I would give credit to the ottamons and there freakish ways. Since Vlad Tepes was kidnapped by them as a boy and was witness to their brutal ways, which later gave him the idea of impaling people and drinking their blood with bread. Even though the Romanian culture has certain superstitions such as: if a family believes a ghost of a recent deceased family member is haunting them or is a vampire (the idea apparently caught on), they will go to the grave site...dig up the body cut out the heart, burn it to ash...which they put in a drink and consume it. Hence ending the haunting or vampirism. Hollywood has dulled down the morbidity of vampires by killing them through sunlight or steaks through the heart. What hollywood doesn' t know is that people still believe that vampires exist and resort to folklore ways to get rid of them. Also the Romanians don't believe that vampires turn into bats, they believe that they turn into werewolves. hahah gives a new twist to the twilight series
Scarecrow Angel Cliché Catastrophe Age: 19 Gender: Female Posts: 351	July 24th, 2008 at 03:10am Ann-DAngst: In all honesty I would not acredic the Romanians or there Culture with the invention of vampirism. I would give credit to the ottamons and there freakish ways. Since Vlad Tepes was kidnapped by them as a boy and was witness to their brutal ways, which later gave him the idea of impaling people and drinking their blood with bread. We did mention Vlad as one of the historical 'vampires' who contributed to Stoker's inspiration. Add to him the Transylvannian landscape and Romanian tranditions that so fascinated Stoker, and you have a recipe for the first gothic vampire. Quote Even though the Romanian culture has certain superstitions such as: if a family believes a ghost of a recent deceased family member is haunting them or is a vampire (the idea apparently caught on), they will go to the grave site...dig up the body cut out the heart, burn it to ash...which they put in a drink and consume it. That's what I mentioned in my first post, where villages sometimes hire full-time vampire hunters- usually respected older members of the community. Quote Also the Romanians don't believe that vampires turn into bats, they believe that they turn into werewolves. hahah gives a new twist to the twilight series Actually, in the original 'Dracula', the vampire is alluded to as taking on a 'bat-winged shape', like that of a shadow. Generations of readers misconstrued it until it eventually became bats.
blitzkriegBOOM Cliché Catastrophe Age: 15 Gender: Female Posts: 488	July 24th, 2008 at 08:06pm Damn, I wish I knew my dates in history better/years that things occured as well as which countries. I promise next time that I will have more information on that. xD Romania isn't the only place that people dig up bodies because they crawl out of them at night. It was popular to do in towns nearby the Black Forest in Germany (before it was called Germany), and when the Christian religion was spreading and priests saw this they were horrified and tried to stop it. In India, (I think it is India/in the Hindu religion... might be wrong), burial rights must be observed meticulously and done very carefully because the people buried could become angry for a burial done wrong could take away their chance to up their caste-level... If it hasn't been done right, the individual would come back to haunt the family until they reburied that person. (This was probably inspired by religion's monopoly over the people... the more burials a family has to do the more money they have to pay, right?) Quote Thus your traditional cliche vampire still transforms into a bat, lives in a castle and speaks with a thick Russian accent I guess I can never convince people i'm a vampire, then... (I'm not, but still fun ideas...) I grew up with that accent surrounding me and I can never fake one! All I can say with a Russian accent is "Pepsi cola" and "Hello." XDD Since meandering off topic is always fun, I was wondering if any of you know about the Aswang? (Vampire of the Philipines...). I just think the idea of a dragon-like monster sticking its long, sharp tongue into a pregnant woman to suck the life out of her is fascinating. Doode, there were vampires in Africa too... but I seem to have forgotten everything about them.... >_<
Scarecrow Angel Cliché Catastrophe Age: 19 Gender: Female Posts: 351	July 25th, 2008 at 03:17am blitzkriegBOOM: Romania isn't the only place that people dig up bodies because they crawl out of them at night. No, but it's the Romanian ones that were Stoker's inspiration and thus had the biggest impact on the concept of popular vampirism. Since then, the idea has been developed, and come to include aspects of other cultures' histories. Not that I am by any means dismissing your contribution. I find that bit about Germany particularly fascinating. Quote I guess I can never convince people i'm a vampire, then... Well, not a cliche one perhaps. It's not as though you couldn't still masquerade as any of the more modern vampire-types...
Brutal. break lights. Age: - Gender: - Posts: 164	July 25th, 2008 at 09:16am Interesting fact: the idea that vampires can be killed with sunlight didn't come up until the 1930's, when Hollywood invented it. Traditional vampire lore (mostly in Slavic and Eastern European countries) is a lot different from Lestat or Spike or whatever that guy is named in that new vampire series. Another interesting fact: a traditional legend states that vampires can be seen by fraternal different-sex twins born on a Saturday if they wear their clothes inside out. Oh yes. I do indeed have too much time on my hands.
Scarecrow Angel Cliché Catastrophe Age: 19 Gender: Female Posts: 351	July 25th, 2008 at 09:42am Elwood.: Interesting fact: the idea that vampires can be killed with sunlight didn't come up until the 1930's, when Hollywood invented it. Nosferato? Quote Traditional vampire lore (mostly in Slavic and Eastern European countries) is a lot different from Lestat or Spike or whatever that guy is named in that new vampire series. ...That's Hollywood for you. It's not as though old men digging up corpses to incinerate the hearts mixes very well with soapie teenage heartthrobs.
blitzkriegBOOM Cliché Catastrophe Age: 15 Gender: Female Posts: 488	July 26th, 2008 at 01:19am Scarecrow Angel: It's not as though old men digging up corpses to incinerate the hearts mixes very well with soapie teenage heartthrobs. I don't know 'bout anyone else in here... but the idea of a vampire hunter is pretty much hotter than an actual vampire. Well, if you cross out the old in 'old' men. I'm a lucky lil' beetch today because I have my favorite vampire book on hand. A Field Guide to the Creatures that Stalk the Night by Dr. Bob Curran is the source. Quote The dead were hostile toward the living, and they might attack and devour their victims if they so chose- the classic motif for the vampire or werewolf. In some instances, it was believed that the dead tore at their owsn funeral shrouds and dug into other graves to attack other bodies, which they then devoured. That is on something the people of the Germanic countryside would call the 'chewing dead.' The 'bood thirsty dead' were in the form of dwarves called tomtin, which eventually got morphed into Santa's little helping elves. XD
dark. Fanfic Fanatic Age: - Gender: - Posts: 2496	July 28th, 2008 at 04:58pm Stoker's inspiration was actually quite Hungarian. But shhh you didn't hear it from me. I think I've read that the Bran Castle was an inspiration for him. But there truly are many legends about vampires in Romania. The garlic thing for example is based on the fact that on Saint Andrew's night people put garlic at their windows and doors and eat garlic to protect themselves from ghosts, demons, vampires, etc. Nowadays everything has somehow something to do with vampires. It's yet an other scheme to attract foolish tourists. >_> I've seen way too many Dracula's castles. XD
Scarecrow Angel Cliché Catastrophe Age: 19 Gender: Female Posts: 351	July 29th, 2008 at 02:42am ^ It was Hungarian and Romanian, but eventually it was set in Transylvania, and included elements of both cultures. And yeah, you should see parts of Transylvania these days...
dark. Fanfic Fanatic Age: - Gender: - Posts: 2496	July 29th, 2008 at 10:27am Scarecrow Angel: ^ It was Hungarian and Romanian, but eventually it was set in Transylvania, and included elements of both cultures. And yeah, you should see parts of Transylvania these days... I live in Transylvania. >_> Yeah there's an important Hungarian minority but some people are still ... sensible when it comes to calling Transylvania Hungarian. Because Hungary has tried to prove that it is for hundred of years.
Opera Ghost Amateur Author Age: - Gender: Female Posts: 115	July 30th, 2008 at 12:43pm Was Carmilla not released before Dracula? I thought that was where Bram Stoker got the idea from... but if did then he must have been well-off after the Famine. His name isn't Irish and from what I understand not everyone was literate then. And I would know about the Famine, I'm Irish and it's taught in school.

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