Making vampires scary again

I think this thread is a testament to our culture, creatures that drain humans blood untill they are just an empty shell should mortify and appall us but now vampires have been turned into some kind of pop icon for teen girls. I would imagine it would be no easy task to change societys view but If it were me I would go back to what made vampires so scary in the first place. First make them more mysterious, what I mean is don't try and explain how they do what they do. A person is always more scared of the unknown than something they can explain. Secound I would dehuminise them as much as possible, create them so they only view humanes as a source of food (no emotions). Though Im on the fence If you should make them more animal like in appearance because their are plenty of other monsters out their that you could use, but what makes a vampire scary is that they can hide in plain sight and you would never no what they are untill they strike. Also you mention giveing vampires more powers, I think this is a bad idea because vampires are hard to kill, despite what television may say i imagine it would be pretty hard to drive a stake through ones heart. Last I would only use one vampire because if there are multiple one then the reader assumes that they are less powerfull.

(I honestly did not know I had so much to say about this subject...lol)

 

Not strictly true. A lot of the supernatural stuff you're attributing to vampires is the creation of Bram Stoker. My understanding is that, prior to that, vampires were shambling undead corpses, much closer to what we'd now call zombies. And the term zombie referred to something different again.

In other words, various other individuals appropriated a term and then changed the definition and rules. So this guy can too.

People do it all the time. Blade's vampires couldn't care less about the cross. Dracula does. Sometimes it's likened to a virus. Other times, it has to be willingly "embraced." Lots of room for individual interpretation. Nosferatu looks nothing like Dracula, yet both are prototype vampires.

 

I think what's important here is to justify calling them vampires even though they're completely different. So a good idea would be to take each vampire myth and come up with a good reason for how that came about. I don't know if I missed someone else mentioning it but you might want to look up the oriental "vampire" which to my recollection is some sort of undead monkey. Personally I think a simian appearance would be good.

 

Because vampires are fictional/mythological creations, the author has a large degree of latitude in giving them whatever characteristics she wants. There is no real example of a vampire one can point to in order to prove the author wrong.

 

ok, man. there's a very old movie made before the dracula movies called nasferatu. not sure if that is correct spelling, but has the vamp as more of a creature than human. also-the vamp in the stephen king movie "Salems Lot" (hope i dont get in trouble for that)

However, defending my point of veiw, Was playing rpg with vamps and it was pretty adrinalized. one of us got to the point where he was checking everyones neck because he was so afraid a vamp would appear. suspense, shock. just sayin'.

have you checked out the library, do some research into myths, you know that in alot of the european myths vamps didnt even feed on blood. check into oreintal vamps. do some research in that direction also. different cultures had different vamps.

 

"Nosferatu"

There were two versions of it. The later (1970s) one was Klaus Kinski. Can't remember off-hand who starred in the original. Though I saw a screening of it years ago at a museum in DC with live musical accompaniment. (It's a silent film.) Very cool.

That feral, rodent-like depiction of the vampire crops up in the King story you mentioned and (to my mind) Guillermo del Toro's take on the "reapers" in the second Blade movie. Just for starters. At this point, I'd say it's nearly as pervasive an image as the suave but tortured vampire (e.g., Anne Rice).

 

Max Schreck played the vampire in the original, silent Nosferatu.

 

There we are! Cheers.

 

In my previous post, when I mentioned a long and unpronounceable word for vampire, I actually meant something different than the Nosferatu. As I believe, the Nosferatu refers to the old-school, Dracula-style vampire. The story I read referred to a more animalistic, nonhumanoid vampire, similar to what WriterDude is describing. The word (which I can't remember) was in an ancient European language -- one of the really small, rural European countries -- and it meant "hag" or "witch." The creature itself would completely eat a human's insides, leaving a shriveled empty skin and bones behind. Not eviscerating them, but literally eating their insides in a mechanical, precise way that left just an empty sack of skin.

Anyone know the word for it?

 

If you get a chance, check out Shadow of the Vampire. It is a fictional story surrounding the making of Nosferatu, and stars Willem Dafoe as Max Schreck.

 

I picked these three quotes as they are more or less addressing the same issue, and I will try to explain my decision as best I can.

All three of you, and everyone else who has posted in this thread and considered posting here, have a clear view of what a vampire is. Most people think of them as "once human", that they still look very human (and often sexy and seductive), have superhuman strenght, speed, agility etc, have to drink blood to survive and so on and on. The one thing they are not is scary.

Now think about four or five friends having their usual movie night. They are all bored and slightly drunk, and the movie they are watching just happens to be about vampires. They talk about how easy it is to kill vampires, and before you know it, they have set up a website offering their services as vampire hunters. It's just a stupid joke, and none of them belives in vampires. But then one day, they get an e-mail from someone requesting their help. They don't take it seriously at first, but the payment is really good, and they will get all their expenses paid. After discussing it for a while, they decide it could be a fun vacation, at least. And seriously. Vampires? First of all, they don't exist. And second, even if they do exist, they should be easy enough to kill.

But then when they get to work, they quickly find out that vampires are very much real... but they are nothing like the vampires they know from the movies. The real vampires are far more dangerous than anything they could imagine, and there is nothing sexy or seductive about them. The real vampires have evolved into perfect kiling machines over thousands of years, and they only see the humans as prey. They can't be reasoned with. They can't be fought one on one (they are far too dangerous; it would be safer to fight a tiger one on one with a kitchen knife), and they can't be stopped. Suddenly the vampire hunters realize the only way to survive is to escape... a task easier said than done, as the vampires are toying with them and blocking the exists. (not quire how, but you get the idea.) Instead of the vampire hunters butchering a few vampires, the whole situation turns into a deadly game of cat and mouse - with the vampies hunters as the mice.

See what I mean? They are vampires, but they are nothing like the ones we know from the movies. The real ones are actually deadly and scary.

 

A rather new move "Priest" (2011) has vampires, and those ones actually are more like scary monsters you would rather avoid at any cost. If I remember correctly they didn't have eyes. A nice movie, worth checking out if haven't seen already.

 

Thanks, I'll check out that movie if I get the time. The big question is if they are scary?

 

I guess if you were to meet one of those in real life you'll probably crap through your pants. They have four limbs and that's where the similarity seemed to end.

 

Well, I do like the idea of the vampire not being the usual, run-of-the-mill regular blood-sucking, fanged, people like monsters. Your point of view is very interesting - I would suggest adding to this idea. The point that vampires are not handsome or beautiful, but eerie, gross animals that look like rotting dead scary things is controversial to normal stereotype and therefore is an original story. I kind of think of them as animals on all fours, but awkwardly so. They may be able to move fast, but they look a bit like a human acting as a tiger in charades. Very hunched, awkward, and not very comfortable. But they move surprisingly fast, and that is what makes them feral. I also appreciate your view on the blood drinking - vampires cannot solely exist on fluids alone and would probably need to actually EAT. I also see a problem with the whole blood type thing, but I guess fantasy stories kind of run around that. Or, you could actively incorporate a science thing into a vampire's mind, making "targets" for the vampires that is a natural stimulus for them to eat.
Example:

Vampire's "attack" part of brain gets a nervous signal - the vampire has smelled prey which is a legitimate target
Vampire's "attack" part of brain automatically sends the vampire into stalk mode, and eventually kills them
Vampire eats, feels full after drinking some blood and consuming some flesh, and goes back into normal mode
Vampire waits, occasionally eats a small rodent, and does not attack until it feels hungry again.

I really appreciate your view on things - it would make for a really interesting and somewhat humorous story!

 

I like the idea of vampires running on all fours like an animal, but I think I want to mix that up a bit. They could run on all fours to move faster, and the claws on their hands and feet makes it easier for them to climb things like threes, walls and so on. If you have a seen a cat run up a tree, you know how quickly they can move. This could be the origin of the myth that vampires fly. They don't, but if they are on the ground behind you one second and up in a tree the next, it can look like they flew up, even though they just climbed. However, they would also need to be on two legs like a human when stalking and hunting. Climbing up on two legs makes it easier to get momentum when charging at the prey, and they can use the momentum and body weight to slam the victim to the ground for an easy kill. If they were to run on all four feet all the time, they would have to use extra energy to jump at the target, and it would be a high risk of missing. Running on two legs when going in for the kill seems more practical, in a way.

 

Strigoi?

 

I'd forgotten about that one. I actually did see it years ago. That's the one with Eddie Izzard in it yes? Good call. Fun movie.

 

Okay, I haven't really bothered to read any of the other posts, so maybe someone else have already said this. Vampires can be monsters rather than humans with fangs. This is going back to the basics of slavic folk lore. The original vampires. Kudos to you. I'm all for going back to a creature's roots. HOWEVER, vampires must have been humans once, and they MUST drink blood. Those two things are what makes a vampire a vampire. Take it away, and you have a different creature entirely.

To give you some inspiration, the ancient lore is actually about humans who have died of plague. They were bloated and disfigured and had purple skin. They believed this spread by the dead rising from the grave to drink the blood of others, thus killing them and making them die and become vampires. Actually, some say vampires are the forfathers of zombies.

 

Sorry if I am repeating anything that's already been said, but here's my view:

A vampire's greatest weapons are their intelligence and seduction. What better way to lure a potential victim in for the kill? And such things happen in nature already. They are fast because they do not breathe, meaning they can keep running long after the prey has exhausted itself. Perhaps they aren't really super strong. Maybe they can only achieve "superhuman" feats of strength because they can push their muscles past the point of breaking and not feel any pain. Also a reason why they can be shot, stabbed, burned or otherwise mutilated and still keep coming without slowing down. They can be wounded just like you or I, but they don't show pain, giving the illusion of being unstoppable killing machines. Something to keep in mind...fast healing means faster metabolism. So in order to heal their wounds they need an equivalent amount of blood (or whatever sustenance) in addition to what they would normally consume.

Strip away anything that makes them inwardly human. Morals, values and the like should go right out the window. People should be like cattle to them, a source of food and nothing else. But leave the human appearance. Having them appear human adds an almost matrix level of paranoia to the protagonists. Anybody could potentially be a vampire, who can they really trust?

Again, I apologize if any or all of this has been said. I haven't read the whole topic. Just the first post.

 

Why must a vampire drink blood and have been human once? Because the lore says so? Vampires have changed a lot over the years, from the undead creatures of the night that can't take garlic, look at a cross and all that to the Twilight-vampires to countless other variations. Vampires weren't sexy and seductive at all until Anne Rice wrote "Interview with the vampire", so we can cross out a lot of things on the list right away. But like zombies, the 'real' vampires are nothing like the ones in the stories. In fact, vampires were normal people who suffered from a disease that made their skin pale and made their eyes very sensitive to light. Not that different from albinos, when you think about it. But hundreds of years ago, people saw things differently. It was enough to be slightly different to be accused of being in league with the Devil. A lot of people have been accused of being witches and burned alive simply because some idiot accused them of being witches. But if the vampire-myth origin from real people, they don't drink blood and are not undead. They aren't vampires at all in any way, but they still are the base for the entire vampire myth. Even the slavic ones.

 

I don't think there is any 'must' about it. You can do all sort of creative things with vampires. You could even make them alien creature who were never human and are not dead, but who have been living on earth for centuries and have spawned the vampire myths.

 

All you need to do to make vampires scary is strip their humanity. They can still look at least mostly human. Give them certain animal qualities such as not pitying [and certainly not falling in love with] their prey.

 

Yes, it was the Strigoi. Thank you. +rep.

I looked up the trailer for the movie "Priest," and the vampires in it seemed of the "there are hundreds of them, but relatively easy to kill" category. But the body shape and face style is kinda scary. You could use something shaped sort of like that, but hunched over and more rotted-looking with an awkward, lurching (but fast) crawl.

 

Ah, vampires, one of my favorite mythological creatures of all time, as long as they don’t SPARKLE . In reality even the idea that they burst into flames when they are exposed to the sun is a myth. This I’ve heard through a documentary that the myth was made up by the director of Nosferatu. Personally, I view vampires as the Greeks did. Lost souls that were not so pleasant people in life and neither are they in death. These nocturnal spirits feed off the blood of the living because it gives them fragmented memories of being alive.
Interestingly enough, I read a book on ghosthunting that talked about spirits that are referred to as psychic leeches. These spirits seem to want to feed off the life force of their victims. They can manipulate others into committing acts of violence. Hence, these spirits use others to do their killing. I believe the book was call The Science of Ghost or something along those lines. It’s been a long time sense I read it.
There is even a subculture in our modern society of a group of people called psychic vampires. Individuals who claim that they can feed off life force from other people. I have a theory that there may be some kind of truth behind the Greek myth, the parapsychology version of vampires and the subculture. There’s my two cents.