Written by: Jaylin Emond-Hardin | Entertainment Editor

Bloodsucker, a creature of the night, the living undead. For centuries, vampires have been known by many names and guises.

With Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu” in theaters, the vampire craze that followed “Twilight” is reoccurring, but this time the obsession isn’t with vampires that are sexy and glitter in the sunlight — it’s with vampires that represent sickness and malaise.

Since the Bronze Age, people have feared that the dead could return and harm the living. Stories of creatures — called vrykolakas, empusas and lamias — that attacked people in their sleep and drained them of their bodily fluids were popular in ancient Greece, and especially so in more rural areas.

These tales flourished further in medieval Europe during times of plague and disease. With a lack of knowledge of infectious diseases came the belief that those turned into vampires would prey upon their family first. 

Of course, modern research and medicine have found that the characteristics of vampires during these times can be traced back to specific diseases like porphyria, tuberculosis, pellagra and rabies.

The word vampire itself comes from Eastern Europe, where these myths were the most popular and likely originated in the first place. Digging up the bodies of those suspected to be vampires was culturally practiced in Eastern Europe, and it was the natural signs of decay — receding gum lines and the appearance of growing nails and hair — that led many to believe that the dead were continuing to live. 

Another lead-up to this belief was incorrect pronouncements of being deceased. Drunk people, the very ill and even people in a coma or a state of shock were pronounced dead, only for them to miraculously recover and come back to life. This led to stakes being driven into corpses’ hearts before burial, now known in vampire pop culture as a way to kill them.

Modern vampire tales stem from the Gothic literature of the 18th and 19th centuries. The most well-known of these is Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” and is where the most well-known supernatural abilities of the vampire come from. For his undead creature, Stoker took influence from Vlad III Dracula of Transylvania, more commonly known as Vlad the Impaler, and Countess Elizabeth Bathory. Both real-world figures were known for bloody histories of torture and murder. 

The film “Nosferatu” then followed in 1922, but Stoker’s widow sued for copyright infringement because of how similar it was to the original novel. However, in the decades that followed, vampire fiction showed the influence of “Dracula.”

The early 20th century continued with this violent, deadly portrayal of vampires, the most notable work that came out of this period being the 1958 movie “Horror of Dracula” with actor Christopher Lee in the titular role. 

It was in this period that vampires began to take on a more sympathetic role. Anne Rice portrayed vampires as brooding and self-loathing in her book “Interview with the Vampire,” where the protagonist, Louis, often grapples with the morality of feeding from humans. Gone were the animalistic qualities of the undead creatures — now, they were closer to humans, or as close as they could get with their humanity stripped away, almost becoming creatures to pity. 

This portrayal of vampires continued into the 90s, with the creature becoming romantic. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” featured a star-crossed romance between Buffy and vampire Angel. Angel eventually got a spin-off, which was named after him.

“Interview with the Vampire” also returned to the forefront in the ‘90s when its movie adaptation was released, starring Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Kirsten Dunst. The movie grossed over $223 million in its opening weekend alone. 

The turn of the century saw vampires being marketed towards teenagers. “The Vampire Diaries” and the “Twilight” saga put the supernatural beings into high school, where they tangled with love triangles, saving the world and blending in as a “normal” teenager. The two series were eventually developed for the screen and are still extremely popular, with an average of 45,000 “Twilight” fans making the pilgrimage to Forks, Washington annually.

Vampires as action heroes were also extremely popular in the 2000s, with characters such as Blade from the “Blade” trilogy and Selene from the “Underworld” series thrust into roles of heroics. These stories portrayed vampires as hunters, tracking down and killing depraved vampires and werewolves. They also dove into nuances of rivalries and social class, giving much more life to the creatures.

After the success of “Twilight,” vampires began to die off in popular culture in favor of superheroes and dystopian heroes, though there has been a smattering of vampire-related media. In 2017, the anime “Castlevania” was released, based on the 1989 video game of the same name. The series was popular on Netflix until its end in 2021 and the anime has now been moved to Apple TV, where users must buy it to watch.

2020 saw the release of “From Blood and Ash,” the first book in Jennifer L. Armentrout’s “Blood and Ash” series. Currently, “From Blood and Ash” sits as the second most popular romantasy book, though only popular in that circle of readers.

With the newest “Nosferatu” movie taking cinemas by storm, it makes sense that vampires are once again trending in social spaces. Gothic circles are especially the most excited, as the movie’s aesthetics focus heavily on that time period. 

A remake of the original, the film follows Ellen and Thomas Hutter, played by Lily Rose-Depp and Nicholas Hoult, and their entanglement with Nosferatu, played by Bill Skarsgard.

The plot is unchanged from the 1922 version, though Eggers emphasizes sensuality and sexuality, with Ellen understanding the role sexuality takes in defeating Nosferatu. 

The film grossed almost $41 million during the Christmas holiday and earned another $20 million the weekend after, beating out “The Lion King: Mufasa,” which had been released five days before. 

Only time will tell if the popularity of “Nosferatu” will continue to push vampires into the forefront of media once again, or if it will die out once the craze has stopped.

Contact the author at howlentertainment@wou.edu