Has anyone ever taken werewolves and vampires seriously?

[Paradox74]

With all the Twilight craze going around, I was wondering if there's a group out there that believes in the existence of such creatures (excluding mental patients with clinical lycanthropy and whatnot). I know that I can google it but all I come up with are histories and folklore. Any findings?

 

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Yes, people in some parts of Africa take vampires seriously to this day:

http://whatstheharm.net/vampires.html

There is evidence of people stabbing corpses with stakes, putting bricks in their mouths, putting garlic around the house, etc. in previous centuries in Europe and in America.

All due to mistaking the symptoms of tuberculosis for vampires sucking the blood out of their living human relatives, of course:

http://www.ghostvillage.com/legends/2003/legends20_06142003.shtml

Or the mistaking the symptoms of the plague for it:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...aeval-vampire-skull-found-in-near-Venice.html


Until fairly recently, it was an existing belief in Romania and other parts of Eastern Europe. A rural and backwards belief and fairly rare, yes.

Nevertheless:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/jun/19/theobserver

Unbelievable. In 2004! In this day and age, to believe in something like that.

Psychics and ghosts and things like that are fake but at least it's a modern superstition. At least it's pseudoscience. People who believe in it aren't necessarily idiots or mentally ill.

Vampires, on the other hand, are a medieval superstition that you can hardly imagine even an illiterate villager actually taking seriously for even a moment. Anyone who actually believed in them would have been laughed out of town and rightly so in the 1700s and 1800s, let alone now.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Well, yes.
But not since I was about six.

 

[Apology]

Hollywood takes them very seriously. They've been making big money off them since the very first vampire movie in 1922.

Nosferatu, 1922

This classic film was followed not long after in 1935:

The Werewolf of London, 1935

And the money's been rolling in ever since.

 

[skullerello]

It would seem that some folks take it way too seriously; look at Don Henry the "vampire" from the "MAD, MAD HOUSE" sci-fi tv reality show. That poor clod actually imagines himself to be a real vampire. He believes he either needs to drink blood, or feed himself off other peoples' energies.
He likes to wear his gold fangs and scare normal folks because he imagines himself to be a "real vampire". I use to watch that show and think what a poor, deluded, self-absorbed, Mamma's boy he was.
Next to the whacky Miss Cleo Voo-doo queeen clone and the failed Aussie pop-star white witch, he was the worst!

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Hollywood takes them very seriously. They've been making big money off them since the very first vampire movie in 1922.

Nosferatu, 1922

A movie which was not only German, but also promptly destroyed due to plagiarism of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Well, it's worth remembering though that even where some traditional popular belief actually existed, it was quite different from the Dracula kind of vampire. That one was pretty much used invented by Polidori in "The Vampyre", sort of reused in "Carmilla" (where it got some sexual part added too), but only really became mass known via "Dracula".

Most of the popular myths about "vampires" were actually best described as "revenants" or what we'd nowadays call "zombies." E.g., in the plague outbreak in Venice you'll notice the fear was that they'd feed on other corpses, rather than go slip someone Caine's kiss n the neck. And the concerns usually were along the lines that they'll go around spreading disease, pretty much by just being there, rather than the transmission by bite kind. (E.g., in some Greek versions just opening the door at the first knock by a passing undead could get you infected.) Remember that it was in ages when even an educated medicus would think that diseases are spread by smells (the miasma theory, seriously) and everyone knew that corpses simply cause disease.

ETA: And just to drive the "zombie" aspect home, most of these were supposed to be literally brain dead. E.g., the ones from Venice could be prevented from biting anything ever again by just shoving a brick in the corpse's mouth. Your average Dracula or White Wolf kinda vampire would be sentient enough to basically go "oh, i have a brick in my mouth" and spit it out. Heck, even the dumbest animal would. But the version those people believed in would be forever thwarted by that brick because they weren't even able to figure that out. Other forms of thwarting an undead included the equivalent of the frat prank of tying someone's shoelaces together, except it was more like tying the ends a piece of string to the big toe on each foot. Yep, that would thwart them. Even when myths gave them a couple of neurons still working, then they'd be riddled with a crippling OCD, so they'd irresistably stop and count the grains in a pile of rice or whatever. Basically they're not quite the smart and scheming baron kind, nor the kind who'd blend in and maintain a Masquerade.

So basically if the question is if anyone ever took something seriously that even vaguely resembles the guys from Dracula or Blade or Vampire The Masquerade, then I'd have to say "no". Even where they actually had something called a vampire (read: Serbia), it was a very different creature actually.

The one from Twilight... ironically that might actually be somewhat closer (though still not particularly close) to actual myths. Various forms of incubus were a major theme all over Europe, and sometimes even the undead would pretty much just rise in search of pussy. (Hey, can't blame them)

The idea of an immortal, magical and supremely seductive prettyboy who's into young unmarried girls is for example almost exactly the myth of the "zburator" in Romania. Well, ok, except that one still mostly came at night and didn't particularly hang around schools, but I guess one has to move with the times. Sneaking into someone's house to bone their underage daughter at night wouldn't make a likable character nowadays.

Move a bit south and you even get the undead version of it. And apparently it even got popular enough for some boys to dress and act like the living dead in order to get laid. Must have been a great age to be a goth

So did people believe that some immortal guy would seduce their daughter? Most definitely yes. Lots of people, all over the place.

Werewolves are a complex case too.

Did people believe that some people could transform into wolves? Hell, yeah. Again, all over Europe, that's one myth more widespread than even the undead and incubus ones combined. They really really believed in that stuff.

Did they resemble our modern White Wolf idea of a werewolf? Mostly not really, though in different ways across time and space.

In many places it was actually believed that people would transform into, you know, an actual wolf. (The thought of where does the extra mass and volume go when an 150 pound human transforms into a 50 pound dog, apparently didn't occur to them. Since Piaget ascribes that failure to only the mind of a small child -- see the experiment with pouring into a different shaped glass -- well, that's as good an excuse as I'll ever get to not just call half of Europe retarded but add a figure of authority to that too.)

Also, these tended to be not just cursed people, but evil witches and warlocks, who were serving Satan in exchange for that power. Basically it wouldn't be just some guy at school who's a nice boy except every 4 weeks when he gets his menstrua... err... transforms into a wolf, but the kind of guy or gal who'd also poison your well, infect your cattle and use the wolf-shape to kill your little brother, all just to please his/her dark master. Or just for lulz.

That describes most of the western and central European werewolf myths.

In other places (Serbia or Greece again), the transformation to werewolf would be a bit more monstruous than just becoming a sheepdog, but it would happen (A) post-mortem: a lot of those undead came back as werewolves actually, and (B) full time: the beastie would then run somewhere into the woods and live in a cave, preying on lost children, lone merchants and travellers, and so on. It's not someone you'd go to school with, unless your school is particularly open minded about having a misshapen furry monster sitting there in class, eating a classmate.

Or then we have places where they basically just said "screw it" when voting on who can transform into what, and just went libertarian about it I mean, anything goes. For example, a strigoi in Romania could transform into pretty much any damned thing it felt like being at the moment, from owl (which actually gave it its name) to wolf to any other wild beastie. Actually, forget even "wild", as it could be a cat or a puppy too.

(And these guys obviously put even less thought into the conservation of mass or the incompressibility of all that water in a human body, if they thought a 150 pound guy can just change shape into a 5 to 10 pound cat.)

If that doesn't sound too scary, now think: that puppy your daughter is playing with, could actually be an undead monster who could kill her and eat her heart... or rape her in her sleep and get her pregnant. Yeah, they could go the incubus route too.

 

[Marduk]

Hollywood takes them very seriously. They've been making big money off them since the very first vampire movie in 1922.

Nosferatu wasn't a Hollywood film, and after a german court ruled it infringed the copright of Bram Stokers Dracula Novel all prints were ordered destroyed

The film company that produced it went bust, so no one made any money from it

A movie which was not only German, but also promptly destroyed due to plagiarism of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Akkk, that'll teach me to read all the posts before rushing into print
apologies

 

[fuelair]

Nosferatu wasn't a Hollywood film, and after a german court ruled it infringed the copright of Bram Stokers Dracula Novel all prints were ordered destroyed

The film company that produced it went bust, so no one made any money from it



Akkk, that'll teach me to read all the posts before rushing into print
apologies

For a destroyed film, the copies I own seem awfully good. And since it is PD, lots of people have made money off it in the last half century or so.

 

[Vortigern99]

"If there is in this world a well-attested account, it is that of the vampires. Nothing is lacking: official reports, affidavits of well-known people, of surgeons, of priests, of magistrates; the judicial proof is most complete. And with all that, who is there who believes in vampires?" --Rousseau​

In the early 1700s there was a "vampire epidemic" in Serbia. The following is an excerpt of Zopfius's dissertation on the event, written in 1734:

"The vampyres, which came out of the grave in the night-time, rushed upon people sleeping in their beds, sucked out all their blood, and destroyed them. They attacked men, women and children; sparing neither age nor sex. The people attacked by them complained of suffocation, and a great interception of spirits; after which, they soon expired. When these Vampyres were dug out of the graves, they appeared in all parts, such as the nostrils, cheeks, breasts, mouth, etc, turgid and full of blood. Their countenances were fresh and ruddy; and their nails, as well as their hair, very much grown. And, though they had been much longer dead than many other bodies, which were perfectly putrefied, not the least mark of corruption was visible upon them. Those who were destroyed by them, after their death, became Vampyres; so that, to prevent so spreading an evil, it was found requisite to drive a stake through the dead body from whence, on this occasion, the blood flowed as if the person was alive. Sometimes the body was dug out of the grave, and burnt to ashes; upon which, all the disturbances ceased."​

Word of these events spread westward into the more "civilized" portions of Europe until a "Vampire Controversy" had erupted throughout the continent. Travelers returning from Hungary and the Balkans brought with them tales of animated corpses which sucked blood from the living. From the east, an epidemic of accusations and purported cases of vampirism spread westward through Germany, Italy, France, England and Spain.

In 1746 a respected French theologian, Dom Augustine Calmet, wrote a treatise which compiled such reports from many regions, and philosophized on the existence of vampirism. Some readers, including the famous essayist Voltaire, interpreted the scholar’s musings as giving credence to the tales.

Disinterments, stakings and other revenant-quelling rites were commonplace and widespread, until the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, based on the investigations of her personal physician, outlawed such practices. Despite her condemnation, the vampire endured in local superstition and in colorful works of literature and stagecraft.

 

[Marduk]

For a destroyed film, the copies I own seem awfully good. And since it is PD, lots of people have made money off it in the last half century or so.

It was distributed before the court order and no one wanted to give it back
whats PD

 

[Vortigern99]

Yes, also, the producers claimed bankruptcy to avoid paying damages to Stoker's widow.

 

[Segnosaur]

whats PD

PD=Public Domain.

 

[Apology]

PD=Public Domain.

Yes, Nosferatu is public domain now, and the link I gave y'all is the full version of the movie on Youtube. Whether anyone made any money on Nosferatu or not, its notoriety definitely got Hollywood's attention and started the rush to pump out a slew of bad horror movies.

My favorite was Blood for Dracula, Andy Warhol, 1974

I don't think it was intentionally funny, but it was hilarious in the end, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes their vampirism mixed in with soft-core porn and camp comedy. Naturally it's not for children or the faint of heart.

 

[Tatyana]

I used the concept of werewolves to scare the crap out of myself so I would run faster while I was at university.

I would run late at night around campus, even in the dead of winter.

I have a very active imagination, and I can't watch horror films because of this.

Intellectually I knew they didn't exist, however, I did have a very guttural, animalistic instinct to the idea of being predated.

 

[Marduk]

Yes, Nosferatu is public domain now, and the link I gave y'all is the full version of the movie on Youtube. Whether anyone made any money on Nosferatu or not, its notoriety definitely got Hollywood's attention and started the rush to pump out a slew of bad horror movies.
.

Are you sure, I thought the influence was the Broadway production of Dracula from 1924. The first Hollywood dracula wasn't until 1931 and starred Bela Lugosi who played Dracula on Broadway and also had the same writer Hamilton Deane, more significantly it was authorised by Stokers widow who held the copyright.

 

[Vortigern99]

I used the concept of werewolves to scare the crap out of myself so I would run faster while I was at university.

I would run late at night around campus, even in the dead of winter.

I have a very active imagination, and I can't watch horror films because of this.

Intellectually I knew they didn't exist, however, I did have a very guttural, animalistic instinct to the idea of being predated.

I had a similar experience in my early adolescence.

An American Werewolf in London was the main culprit behind my late-night-out-in-the-open-alone fear of werewolves. I was no longer a small child (at about 12-14, still a minor) and I loved horror films and watched them frequently and without consequence. Yet something about the idea of werewolves scared the living bejeezus out of me.

I couldn't even take the trash out to the end of the drive way at night -- in a suburban neighborhood in Houston, TX!! -- without being frozen with terror at the thought of being ripped apart by hideous lycanthropes. Weird, huh?

Are you sure, I thought the influence was the Broadway production of Dracula from 1924. The first Hollywood dracula wasn't until 1931 and starred Bela Lugosi who played Dracula on Broadway and also had the same writer Hamilton Deane, more significantly it was authorised by Stokers widow who held the copyright.

The 1931 Lugosi/Browning film had three major influences: Nosferatu the 1922 film; the Deane/Balderston play which hit Broadway in 1927 (adapted from earlier London production); and of course Stoker's novel. And BTW, Deane did not actually work on the film; he is credited because the screenplay owes a lot to his 1924 stage play.

It is really the 1931 Lugosi/Browning film to which the flood-tide of vampire pictures owes its genesis. The revitalization of the genre in the 60s and 70s was the result of a direct and acknowledged re-make, Hammer's Horror of Dracula from 1958.

 

[Apology]

Are you sure, I thought the influence was the Broadway production of Dracula from 1924. The first Hollywood dracula wasn't until 1931 and starred Bela Lugosi who played Dracula on Broadway and also had the same writer Hamilton Deane, more significantly it was authorised by Stokers widow who held the copyright.

One might say that the Murnau/Stoker trial over Nosferatu gave Bram Stoker's novel more attention and interest than it had ever received before, inspiring the 1924 play and vaulting Stoker and his Count Dracula into the cultural phenomenon that it is today

Did the trial popularize Dracula, or was it the 1924 play? You decide!

 

[Vortigern99]

Whether anyone made any money on Nosferatu or not, its notoriety definitely got Hollywood's attention and started the rush to pump out a slew of bad horror movies.

See above about how the film that began the "rush to pump out" horror films was really Dracula (1931). A little research into the matter on your part will support this beyond all doubt.

Also, many of that "slew of horror films" so inspired were actually quite good. I see by your selection of the Warhol film that you prefer garish tales of tongue-in-cheek absurdity and over-the-top performances, but believe it or not there are some incredibly well-made, beautiful and even moving vampire and other supernatural horror pictures from the 30s through the 70s, and beyond.

 

[Vortigern99]

One might say that the Murnau/Stoker trial over Nosferatu gave Bram Stoker's novel more attention and interest than it had ever received before, inspiring the 1924 play and vaulting Stoker and his Count Dracula into the cultural phenomenon that it is today

Did the trial popularize Dracula, or was it the 1924 play? You decide!

From the supplied link:

The battle over Dracula, taken so loudly to the streets by the leading English actors and stage performers of the day, had raised a newfound interest by the public. They wanted to know what this Dracula thing was all about, and why it was appearing in their magazines and newspapers. They wanted to have an opinion about the whole magilla, and some of them even wanted to appear knowledgeable about the subject. Dracula began to sell.

Even more importantly, show business operated on the same general principles back then as it does now. If it's hot, and on the public mind, put on a show and cash in. Enter Hamilton Deane.​

I challenge this as the invention, or exaggeration, of this singular writer, Bob Bankard. What are his sources for his assertions? In all my years of studying the origins of Dracula, book and films, I've never come across this account. The idea that English actors "loudly" took their concern for Murnau's film "to the streets" where they in turn inspired public interest is to be found in no documentary, major article or book on the subject of which I am aware. In short, I'd like to see his references.