The Wild Evolution of Vampires, From Bram Stoker to Dracula Untold

Historical Context: Le Fanus lesbian lady-vamp novella came to fruition at a time when the British empire was full-tilt obsessed with morality. Sex and sexuality werent necessarily repressedit was (weirdly) understood at that time that both men and women enjoyed sexbut conversation surrounding the topic was often incredibly euphemistic. Still, homosexual acts had been de-listed as a capital offense a decade prior to Carmillas publication, and just a year before, psychiatrist Carl Friederich Otto Westphal had published a medical paper describing contrary sexual feeling in two male patients, thus classifying homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder (though it wouldnt be named until 1895). Carmilla, the immortal bloodsucking namesake of this story, about a secluded father and daughter and what happens when they take in a seemingly ill stranger as a young companion for the 18-year-old girl, is explicitly a lesbian; she also walks through walls, shapeshifts into a cat, loathes Christianity and steals the lifeblood of young Laura (as well as other young female victims) in the dead of night, all of which made her the perfect embodiment of the moral terror that gripped readers of that era.

Contribution to the genre: Carmilla is the most obvious counter to the assumption that vampire horror stories began with Bram Stoker. In fact, Western Europe had been raking it in for at least a century before Count Dracula, thanks to terrors stemming from religious misgivings about the crazy amount of imperialism going on at the time. (More on that in a minute.) Remember that summer Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley spent in Lake Geneva with her baby-daddy/future husband Percy and several other writers in 1816, during which she wrote Frankenstein? Poet Lord Byron, also in attendance, and his physician John William Polidori both came away from the summer-long ghost story competition with vampire stories very similar to those later tales credited with the genres genesis. Carmilla in particular is notable for the progressive groundwork it laid for LGBT-centric and otherwise liberally sexual vampire lore.

Creator: Bram Stoker Archetype: The Archetype

Historical Context: For much of the 19th century, the literate English public was transfixed by stories about threats of invasion. Imaginative authors like H.G. Wells and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made a killing off stories that involved supernatural beings that menaced the country (see: War of the Worlds). Ironically, this was at the tail end of the Victorian era, a century-long period in which England had been doing pretty much 100% of the actual invading, into countries like India, Argentina, China and Siam (modern-day Thailand).

Contribution to the genre: By most accounts, Stokers Count Dracula invented the genre. (Or at least, his was the template most authors thereafter decided to use.) Theories abound when it comes to Stokers inspiration for the title character, a hermity, weirdly hairy aristocrat (scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion[and hands with] hairs in the centre of the palm) with pointy ears and teeth and the ability to shapeshift. Most, including the forthcoming Dracula Untold, agree that Vlad the Impaler (Vlad III, prince of Wallachia and son of Vlad II Dracul, a member of the Ottoman Order of the Dragon) gave Dracula his name, but Stokers inspirations also may have come in forms ranging from the original Slavic folklore (see: Transylvania) to predecessor Le Fanus Carmilla toyesWalt Whitman, who had had a profound effect on the author.

Creator: Tod Browning (director), Hamilton Deane & John L. Balderston (playwrights) Archetype: Definitive/Classic-Cinema Vampire

Historical Context: This adaptation of a 1924 stage play (there was an almost identical Spanish production filmed on the exact same set at night, after the English cast and crew had gone home) was the first true horror movie American viewers had ever experienced. Filmmakers didnt minimize the seriousness of the supernatural terrors on-screen; in fact they actively encouraged people to believe vampires were real, to the point where audience members openly fainted in the theaters. The infamous Hays Code had been enacted a year before, which meant that the effectiveness of Dracula and its brethren (like Frankenstein, which premiered later that year to similar success) didnt last for long; just three years later, the MPPDA (now the MPAA) began strictly enforcing the code, which dramatically sterilized horror films until the mid-1960s, when director defiance and an influx of foreign films rendered it impossible to enforce.

Contribution to the genre: Like its literary inspiration, it birthed the horror genre and influenced its tropes for decades to come. It was so defining, in fact, that Lugosi was immediately typecast and basically couldnt play anything but a vampire for the rest of his career.

Creator: Terence Fisher (director), etc. Archetype:Fancy Charismatic Vampire

Historical Context:The Horror of Dracula films were the Britishanswer to Tod Browning and Bela Lugosis 1931 Stokeradaptation, and effectively established horror as a profitable genre. The original installation arrived in cinemas at a time when postwar England had finally gottenback on its feet, and its citizens were enjoying the same kind of prosperity as Americas middle classincluding going to the movies.Thus was born Hammer Horror, the wildly successful, seemingly endless seriesof monster movies produced by Hammer Films from the 50s through the 70s.Thanks to Alfred Kinseys sex studies, which had been published in 1948 and 1953, sexuality was seeing a revolution, too; the glamorous, aristocratic vampirethat Christopher Lee portrayed was less an abjectterrorthan an erotic one: slightly dangerous, yet irresistible.

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The Wild Evolution of Vampires, From Bram Stoker to Dracula Untold

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero