I don't know when it happened, it certainly wasn't something I was distinctly aware of when I was growing up, and yet I can remember several instances of this trend occurring throughout my life...I have a major thing for Vampires.
Clearly this has been awoken by the surge of Vampiresque franchises on the market quite recently, namely Twilight and True Blood, both of which I adore, but it goes back further than this trendy and teeny-boppery phase.
I think everyone's first experience with Vampires has got to be "The Count" from Sesame Street. Seriously, I've seen the show in recent years, and that character is so ‘effing' annoying he makes me want to never count anything again. But I guess as a kid, he was mildly interesting.
I remember, when I was still young enough to go trick-or-treating, I was a Vampire four times. When you think that it's really only socially acceptable to go trick or treating up until a certain age, that's a whole lot of youth to be spent dressed as a vampire. In all honesty, I think it was, at the time, more of a convenience thing than an ‘I'm obsessed with vampires and must dress like them as often as possible' thing.
My neighbour Lisa used to babysit me when I was like 10 or so, and on one occasion her friend Rachel accompanied her and brought their favourite movie of the time: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the movie, not the show. Complete with catchy cheerleading chants (How funky is your chicken? How loose is your goose? Our goose is totally loose! WTF?), Valley Girl speak at every turn, Luke Perry in the heyday of his hotness, and general comedic awesomeness, I loved this movie. Plus, as a kid there's that whole idolization of your hip and cool babysitters thing that pretty much makes anything they like, the coolest thing on earth. I remember we had an old bootlegged copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula, the one with Keanu Reeves, and when I was younger that movie used to scare the shit out of me! Plus that whole weird orgy scene with Keanu and the conjoined triple-woman vampire bride scene was a bit disturbing...albeit kind of hot. Yep, that movie scared the pants off of me...right up until I saw Dracula: Dead and Loving It, with Leslie Nielson, which is one of those Mel Brooks inspired parody's like Robin Hood: Men in Tights, or Scary Movie.
Those are my early memories of this little obsession of mine. It wasn't until I graduated High School that the first phase of this Vamp thing came into play.
It was my first year of University and one of my floor mates had a major thing for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", the television show. I never used to watch this show, first because I thought it was a complete bastardization of the utterly cheesy and fantastic movie, but also because when it first came on, I was too young to get it. It also petrified me, which is stupid because that show ain't by any means frightening, (except for the episode "Hush"...that shit is terrifying at any age; floating grinning ‘doctors' who steal everyone's voices so they can cut out hearts with their carnival-esque, straight jacket-wearing henchmen. NOT COOL.) Anyway, as my floor mates were the closest thing I had to a family at that point in my life, I decided to give the show a shot, just to give us all an excuse to hang out together. Every night at 12AM, and every Tuesday, we would commandeer the TV room and have "Buffy Time".
With the appearance of the darkly beautiful and brooding vampire with a soul, Angel (enter big *sigh* right here), I was quickly hooked. I think the zenith of our Buffy hysteria occurred when the Musical Episode aired. Fan-freaking-tastic stuff man! A dancing/singing demon is accidentally called to Sunnydale and makes all its inhabitants spontaneously burst into song and choreographed dance numbers, until they dance themselves into a frenzy and combust into flames, thusly ending their life. I defy any non-believer who thinks that this show is crap, to sit down and watch a few episodes. Few can remain immune. After my year in college, I stopped watching the show, mostly because I didn't have the channel that it was on, and once you miss one episode, the story gets all messed up and you lose interest for a while. That's what happened with Buffy...until a few years later...
2007, my dear friend DQ and I were getting ready to head to Europe for our Field Study (see Europe Travel Blog for details), and I had just started watching the first two seasons of Buffy again with her, as she'd never seen the show. We went out and bought all 7 episodes at the EVIL Wal-Mart for next to nothing and did not leave my apartment for several days.
After I got back from Europe, and had moved to another apartment with new roommates, I hooked one such member of the house into watching the whole series with me again! This show is epidemic! You cannot escape its clutches! Or its fangs, I should say? I quickly added all five seasons of "Angel" to my collection as well, (thank you price matching policy at Zellers!) which we watched with diligence.
The summer of 2008 rolled around, and with another looming Field Study to Southeast Asia (see Asia Travel Blog), I went in search of some reading material to take with me to keep me occupied during long flights and general downtime. I had briefly seen a teaser trailer for an upcoming movie called "Twilight" which looked mildly entertaining, and after reading the synopsis online, I came across a discounted copy of the book Twilight in Save-On-Foods while grocery shopping and purchased it immediately. I have a bit of a craving for instant gratification, and it was a real stretch for me to hold off reading Twilight until we left for Cambodia. I had the damn book finished by the time we landed in Hong Kong for our 10 hour layover.
During the long flight, my travel mate Hop-Along caught me on several occasions giggling at the various moments of high-school like scenarios portrayed in the book. To say I was hooked was an understatement. The greatness that is Twilight can be summed up in just two words: sexual tension. An inhumanly gorgeous, telepathic, ‘vegetarian' Vampire who falls in love with an ordinary girl who's thoughts he can't hear, but who is also so inflamed at the scent of her blood that he hangs on the edge of a knife trying to control his ‘urges' any time they are together...that's just hot. I don't care who you are, it's just HOT.
After a week in Cambodia, and during another layover in Hong Kong, Hop Along and I found a copy of the Twilight sequel New Moon in a bookstore in the airport. We needed it. We thirsted for it. It had to be ours.
Two days before we were set to go home, I found the other two books in the series, in the airport in Phuket Thailand, and by the time we landed in Vancouver, both Hop Along and I had both read the books. Who needs sleep on a trans-pacific flight when you have Edward Cullen to occupy your time? Once back in Canada, we were inundated with hype about the movie...oh and how there was movie hype! For the next few months it seemed like every facet of human life had some sort of reference to Twilight mixed in. I bought the movie Penelope because I love James McAvoy like a fat kid loves Twinkies, and lo and behold, a special sneak peak of the movie just MAGICALLY appeared before the film. At this point I had successfully converted one of my roommates into a Twilight obsessed vampirophile and I hate to admit that after talking for a good hour about the wonderfulness that is Edward Cullen, when this little sneak peak popped up right in front of us out of nowhere, we might have overreacted just a bit. There was a good ten seconds of pregnant pause before the enourmity of what we were seeing finally hit us...and then came the shrieking. We watched in three times in succession and could barely focus on the actual movie we set out to watch.
This whole thing is ridiculous. The books aren't great works of literary genius, the movie is not Oscar material by any stretch of the imagination, so what is it?
I think the reason why the story has so many people captivated is similar for both the young and the old...and the female. Let's face it, Twilight is not widely read among the manly. For me, what is great about the books is that it brings me back to my youth. It reminds me of the hysteria that I experienced surrounding my still favourite band Hanson. Tweens love it because it's full of sexy angst and semi-gothic vampiric themes. Mom's love it because it preaches sexual restraint and marriage before sex. Girls love it because it is chalk full of sexy boys who love ordinary girls...it's just got it all, in a very teeny kind of way.
So, with Twilight holding a now permanent spot on my inexplicable obsession wall I move on to the final stage of my Vampsession...While out with some friends for drinks at a local bar in Kamloops called The Commodore, the conversation turned to Twilight, obviously, because what better a topic of conversation at a bar, than underage sexually frustrated vampires? After a good gush about how much we all loved the books, one member of our little drinking cohort asked if I'd ever seen True Blood. I hadn't at this point, but shortly after went home and watched them online.
True Blood is like the adult version of Twilight. Where Stephenie Meyer strategically leaves out any description of sexy times in her books, True Blood exudes nudity and delectable sex scenes at least once an episode. It sports characters that swear like sailors, and gore aplenty. Where Twilight is tame, True Blood is risqué and dangerous. It is dirty good fun, and everything from the song playing during the totally sultry credits, to the withering looks vampire Bill gives Sookie, to the hot-damnedness of Eric Northman Sherrif of Area 5 and Viking Vampire GOD; this show exudes sex and danger. It's not hiding beneath the surface hinting that there might be something naughty happening behind closed doors like in Twilight...it's right there on the surface, being all inappropriate and R rated and fuckhot steamy.
So where does all this stupidness leave me? Well, I'd like to say that all this obsession stays firmly inside my house and in the conversations I have with my buds, however, lets face it, I'd be lying.
I have also come to the realization rather recently, that I have Alice Cullen hair, not on purpose! Or at least, not consciously on purpose; I can't speak for my subconscious, but I have an inkling that its running the show here.
So, is this Vampire thing just a phase? All indications suggest not. This has been a lifelong increasing progression of the undead taking a permanent hold on me and making me their minion.
Would it be too cheesy to say " I am theirs"?
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