30 Days of Night #3

[cyberghostface]

"Vampires weren’t scary anymore. Dracula has become a joke, on TV vampires date teenage girls and we have breakfast cereals named after vampires. When Anne Rice 'humanised' vampires she was pulling vampires from B-movies and making them sophisticated creatures with feelings and emotions. That was new then. It revolutionized vampires.

Unfortunately it also tamed them. Rice made us want to be vampires. I wanted to make them scary again. It really was just that simple. The vampires in 30 Days of Night could care less about seducing you. They want your blood and all the begging and praying in the world won’t stop them." -- Steve Niles

Comments

[redmagpie]

they're really proud of those vamps huh?

[cyberghostface]

They helped jumpstart his career in comics and launched a successful franchise so yeah.

[redmagpie]

nah it's not that I don't get that, but just all their interview clips here have been about how original they are and sort of trashing on the things people like about a lot of vampires. like, fine, you made scary vampires. but it's not like even twilight didn't have scary vampires as well as the romantic ones.they even sort of went into tragic vamps with the ending.
plus they had that spooky little girl with the pigtails which has uh. been done.
Not a comment on the comic's quality or anything.

[cyberghostface]

Well fwiw I don't think Niles hates the idea of romantic vampires period... he's cited 'Let the Right One In' as his favorite modern horror film. But I do think at the time this was written (early 2000s) vampires were effectively being neutered. In my mind 'True Blood' was a proper balance; plenty of vampire romance but also scenes where a vampire would rip someone's spine out.

[redmagpie]

Yeah, i guess. And it's not like his interviews were carried out yesterday or something so i shouldn't judge them like they were. Bashing on 'emo' vampires did used to be cool.
I like what Templesmith said last time more- that they've just been done so many ways- but even he gets in on that whole vampires that aren't my vampires suck thing. I don't know. I guess I'm not seeing what's so strikingly original about them, though I do like the lamprey-shark mouths.

[goattoucher]

It might be a context thing. This was the era of Sexy Twilight Vampires and Sexy Angst-Ridden WoD Vampires. They simply were not objects of terror any more. They were objects of pity: allegories for (white) people who felt rejected by mainstream society, packaged in a way that fulfilled a power fantasy. Regular humans were cattle, but The Kiss was erotic (try reconciling those).

This doesn't ring as true today. A lot of people have told Scary Vampire stories since 30DoN came out. American Vampire is a favorite of mine.

This series is very much an artifact of it's time, but it was innovative in that it was the tipping point back to Vampires being monsters.

[redmagpie]

I don't know if I'd call it the tipping point, but I get what you're saying. People were tired of one sort of vampire so they went to another sort. I just don't like the implication that these vampires are better than those vampires. Like however you feel about Twilight, it was loved by a lot of people. You don't have to like the sparkly vamps, but you don't need to belittle the people who did.

[goattoucher]

They weren't my favorite, but I saw the appeal, and people who did/do like them don't bother me. I certainly see nothing to gain by antagonizing anyone.

That said, people have a right to not like things. You can't take it as a personal affront if someone dislikes something you enjoy. Criticism is not a bad act.

If he were making fun of people who like Twilight, that would be rude, but he isn't. He is saying that he found them (Sparkle-Pires) laughable. That's his opinion. You are welcome to not like it, but it's a bit of a stretch to say he is insulting you just because he criticizes things you like.

Hell, turn it around and make fun of him for viewing a monster that was meant to be an incarnation of Victorian fears of female sexuality: a curruptor and a defiler, and making it a simple tooth and claw monster story.

[redmagpie]

I'm not taking it personally. I don't even like Twilight. I'd feel the same way if a Twilight fan bashed on Dracula.

Where we disagree is that I think he /is/ making fun of people who like things that aren't the things he likes, and that specifically here he's aiming it at the stereotypical twilight fan- teenage girls. The vitriol aimed at teenage girls for everything they do is unpleasant. That's the issue.

[cyberghostface]

He’s not attacking teenage girls anymore than he’s attacking people who like Count Chocula.

[redmagpie]

I dunno. I think the cultural context is different. Like hating on twilight and twilight fans (the teenage girls) is sort of a Thing. Not really the same for people who eat count chocula.

[cyberghostface]

Well for starters he doesn't specifically call out Twilight or its fans. And at the end of the day Twilight was reviled for a number of reasons by different people so I don't think attacking it period is synonymous with attacking teenage girls.

[redmagpie]

OKAY this is an agree to disagree situation.

[cyberghostface]

Fair enough, sorry.

[redmagpie]

Nah, you don't need to apologise. We're all just nerds who care a lot about nerd stuff.

[kore]

how original they are and sort of trashing on the things people like about a lot of vampires

Yeah, along with misrepresenting the history of horror (funny 'defanged' vampires go way back, man).

[kore]

Unfortunately it also tamed them. Rice made us want to be vampires.

//eyeroll

Blame Bela Lugosi if you want to whine about people who made vampires sophisticated and desirable, buddy.

(First successful horror comedy film with vampires: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. With Lugosi. 1948.)

[cyberghostface]

There's a huge difference between what Bela Lugosi did to vampires as a whole and what Anne Rice did. Bela Lugosi's Dracula was charming but he still played him as a leering predator as opposed to a romantic heartthrob.

[redmagpie]

I mean. Anne Rice's vampires did kill a lot of people.