Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart pucker up in “The Twilight Saga: New Moon.”
Summit Entertainment.

Hollywood gushes bloodsuckers in vampire boom

LOS ANGELES —

Vampires have been an eternal force in Hollywood horror since silent-movie days, yet they have risen to new heights as the “Twilight” franchise, TV’s “True Blood” and other incarnations put the bite on viewers.

In studio flicks, independent and foreign-language films and small-screen series, there are more bloodsuckers out there today than you can shake a wooden stake at.

With so many vampires afoot, will Hollywood’s favorite night creatures lose their flavor with fans?

“Will there be a vampire glut? Will the vampire market crash? I don’t know,” said Chris Weitz, director of November’s “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” part two in the movie series based on Stephenie Meyer’s vampire-romance novels. “It’s kind of the only growth industry in America, that I can tell.”

So many of Dracula’s brethren are being sired nowadays that Weitz and his brother have dueling vampire films out this fall.

Paul Weitz’s “Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant” opens Friday, with John C. Reilly as a centuries-old bloodsucker in a traveling freak show.

While vampires have a strong pulse in Hollywood, some expect the genre could bleed out from overexposure.

“Sometimes there are trends with audiences and with film studios, TV stations, and they go wild, and they run like lemmings in one direction until they go over the cliff,” said Werner Herzog, who directed 1979’s “Nosferatu the Vampyre.” “The genre of vampire films in its darkness and in its nightmarish aspect is a genre that will be forever, but sometimes, you have an overload, an overkill, and when the heap gets too, too big, everybody starts to turn away.”

In his 2007 Antarctica documentary “Encounters at the End of the World,” Herzog wisecracked that he was not making yet another movie about penguins, a reference to a spate of films on the cold-weather birds.

Penguins reached a glut after only a handful of movies, but the sheer variety of vampire stories lends them superhuman durability for exploring the issues and fears of mortals.

“I think vampires are richer veins than penguins,” Reilly said. “There’s only so much you can do with penguins. They’re cute. They can’t fly. They live in snow and ice.”

Vampires benefit from modern fans’ hunger for fantastic stories. Otherworldly tales once were aimed mostly at specialized horror, science-fiction or fantasy audiences, with a “Star Wars” or an “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” occasionally breaking out to huge crowds.

Movie-goers today besiege theaters for out-of-this-world stories, from “Harry Potter” and “The Lord of the Rings” to the latest adventures of Batman or the X-Men.

“We’re at a supernatural height right now with superheroes and science fiction. I think it’s all being embraced, with ‘Battlestar Galactica’ being a critical hit and `Iron Man’ being a huge mainstream hit,” said Meredith Woerner, whose book “Vampire Taxonomy: Identifying and Interacting With the Modern-day Bloodsucker” hits stores in early November. “It’s a great time where people are ready for some magic.”

Vampires have been hardy souls on screen for ages, dating back to 1920s and ‘30s classics such as “Nosferatu,” “Vampyr” and the original “Dracula,” with Bela Lugosi. Dracula has been played by countless actors, among them Lon Chaney Jr, Christopher Lee, Frank Langella and Gary Oldman.

Movies and shows such as “The Lost Boys” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” transfused teen power to vampire tales, helping to open the current vein of hip, pretty young dead things in the genre.

“What’s particular about them now is it’s coinciding with the optimum market for TV and film. It’s that young market, it’s kind of the `Dawson’s Creek’ thing,” said Michael Sheen, who co-stars as the vampire Aro in the “Twilight” sequel and played a werewolf in the “Underworld” vampire franchise. “Whereas in the past, I don’t think that has been the case. The symbol of vampires has never quite hit that marketing gold.”

Along with “True Blood,” recent TV bloodsucker sagas include “The Vampire Diaries,” “Blood Ties,” “Moonlight” and Britain’s “Young Dracula” and “Being Human.”

Among recent and upcoming big-screen stories are “Blood: The Last Vampire,” the horror comedy “Transylmania,” Ethan Hawke’s vampire armageddon thriller “Daybreakers” and foreign-language vamp tales such as Sweden’s “Let the Right One In” and South Korea’s “Thirst.”

“Twilight” leads the way, its love story between an immortal vampire stud (Robert Pattinson) and a sensitive school girl (Kristen Stewart) proving irresistible to teen and older audiences alike.

So far, fans seem willing to devour as many vampire stories as Hollywood can dish out.

“The truth is, you can’t have too many vampire movies, just like you can’t have too many zombie movies. Each movie is capable of being allegories for different things,” said “Cirque du Freak” star Reilly. “Ours is this whole other universe for vampires that have nothing to do with Dracula or good-looking teenagers making out. It’s this crazy underworld that exists, more like `Harry Potter’ than `Twilight,’ because the regular human world doesn’t even know they’re there.”

While their popularity may ebb and flow, vampires always will have a place in the audience’s heart, said Nicolas Cage, who starred in 1989’s “Vampire’s Kiss” and was a producer on 2000’s “Shadow of the Vampire.”

“The vampire is always going to be fascinating,” Cage said. “It’s like the vigilante cop, or it’s like the cowboy or the Western. It’s part of the fabric of society.”

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14 Comments

thepro at 08:45 AM JST - 2nd November

That boom has already passed by
IvanCoughalot at 08:48 AM JST - 2nd November

True Blood is first-rate TV. Good characters, well-constructed plot and plenty of shagging.
Bambigirl at 08:52 AM JST - 2nd November

Agree. True Blood is great. I can't wait for the next season.
Molenir at 11:17 AM JST - 2nd November

I enjoyed Twilight the book, the movie, not so much. Like most movies based off a book, it comes off as being shallow, and poorly told. Though perhaps had I not read the book before seeing the movie...
LoveUSA at 12:12 PM JST - 2nd November

Seems like all the mediocrate american trash movies
terebiko at 01:11 PM JST - 2nd November

Just recently they had a couple of Japanese vampire dramas too. Wonder what the fascination is with vampires in the US and elsewhere recently. Wonder when the werewolf boom will occur...
HonestDictator at 01:27 PM JST - 2nd November

Where there are vampires there are usually lycanthropes Teribiko :D natural enemies. Vampires for some reason are much more seductive than the bestial werewolves.

Personally though vampires aren't completely worn out for me but they aren't at the top of my list either. Any monster that has been identified isn't as creepy as they used to be. Now undead spirits such as ghosts are much more freaky and harder to deal with. Lets see a vampire or werewolf try and fight ghosts heh.
sctaber56 at 03:20 PM JST - 2nd November

@terebiko: Remember Micheal J. Fox as a rather cute Teenage Werewolf many years ago? And wasn't there an American Werewolf in London around that same time too? BTW, how do you say "werewolf" in Japanese? Just curious...
Makun at 03:40 PM JST - 2nd November

"You dont want this curse. You dont want to be absolutely perfect, live forever, and sparkle in the sun. No you dont want that" I remember when Vampires were tormented creatures of the night, not shirtless metrosexuals created for mom's and daughters to sigh over while sharing some Häagen-Dazs.
gogogo at 07:28 PM JST - 2nd November

Vampires have emo appeal and with social meaning social networking for the younger generation they have no idea how to communicate face to face.
Weasel at 03:10 PM JST - 3rd November

Does this mean that Kate Beckinsale has yet another sequel to add to the Underworld franchise?
hikikomorichan at 11:53 PM JST - 4th November

@sctaber56: Werewolf in Japanese is "ookami otoko," literally "wolf man." I suppose a female werewolf would be an ookami onna.

As for the vampires, MAKE IT STOP. x___X; I hated them when they were popular when I was a kid, and I still hate them now that they're everywhere. I'm glad I'm a hikikomori, or I'd be getting Twilight comparisons left and right. Albinism and a chronic body glitter addiction do not a difficult target make.
Sarge at 11:59 PM JST - 4th November

The best vampire ever was, of course, Barnabas Collins of The Dark Shadows.
bamboohat at 03:54 PM JST - 5th November

True Fact: There is a huge online market of erotic fiction for women. And by far, the best selling genre is where the vampire comes in, swoops the woman off her feet, and makes mad vampire love to her.

The whole twilight series is mind pornography for teenage girls. Strong dominant man giving up his power to be with the average jane that he loves.

Even the final scene in the first twilight was a metaphor for a man making love to a woman and holding himself off from orgasm because she couldn't take it. (the scene where he has to bite her to save her but not enough to turn her into a vampire)

The vampire boom will never end.