True Blood and Twilight: Are Vampires a New Fad

You can't go anywhere without seeing something about vampires or werewolves these days. But is this just a passing fad, or have these monsters been hiding in plain sight for years?

Back before I was born the vampires in the black and white movies like Nosferatu which was made in 1922, were scary, ugly, creepy blood suckers that roamed the alleyways at night., scaring women as they snuck into their bedroom windows, their black capes flapping in the wind and drained their hypnotized victims of their life blood. The synopsis for the movie Nosferatu, according to imdb.com "Vampire Count Orlok expresses interest in a new residence and real estate agent Hutter's wife. Silent classic based on the story "Dracula."."

Or in later films like Dracula starring Bela Lugosi, where Dracula would turn his female victim into a blood sucker to be his mate forever after.

Later on we had shows like Angel, Buffy the Vampire Hunter, Forever Knight and now shows like True Blood and The Vampire Diaries. So if you think about it, vampires have been around for a very long time, in movies, shows, comic books, novels and probably camp fire tales.

Vampires are no longer seen as horrible, vile creatures that live in sewers and bite the heads off of rats. Now they go to school, run businesses, interact with humans, fall in love with humans, drink blood from a bottle and have half human half vampire children. No longer do vampires turn to ash at the mere hint of sunlight, some sparkle!

No longer are humans afraid of vampires, some even want to be willing blood donors and will do anything to be with their vampire friends because women find them incredibly sexy, virile and intimidating in a 'make my toes curl' kinda way.

Twilight is now a world wide phenomenon especially to the younger generation and women. But we also have True Blood and The Vampire Diaries to keep our fascination with vampires going.

If you look in the romance section of any bookstore right now, you are likely to see more paranormal romance with vampires being high on that list of hero's, than any other beast including werewolves in the books on the shelves.

I myself have a healthy appreciation for a good vampire romance and highly recommend books like, The Dark Series by Christine Feehan, The Chicagoland Vampire Series by Chloe Neill and books by Sherrilyn Kenyon just to metion a few authors who write outstanding vampire romance.

With so many extreme fans out there for each of these shows and movies, they have no problem telling anyone who will listen why one is better than the other and why we should like one more than the other. Just look at all the buttons, bumper stickers and forums that came out saying things like "Team Edward" or "Team Jacob". Even if you weren't a fan of Twilight, you knew what they meant when you saw them.

Before the HBO series came out, there were Sookie Stackhouse books which are what the series is based on. I started reading those books years ago and I also like the show. I like reading a vampire book as much as I like watching a vampire movie or show.

So are vampires a new fad? The answer is no, they have been around for a very long time and I suspect they will always be around in one form or another.

Sources:

http://extratv.warnerbros.com/2009/07/53_twilight_vs_true_blood_fact.php

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0013442/