For centuries people have frightened themselves, friends, family or children with the legends and lore of things that bump in the night. From ghosts and ghouls, goblins and spooks, monsters that lurk under your bed or even hide in the tool shed; the undead or the dead. Given enough imagination anything can be made real even if only for a short period of time.

Whether your favorite is brains or blood, there’s certainly enough to keep horrorists happy in October. Though, for today we have a focus. That of the vampire, or more specifically Dracula.

Where as multitudes would proclaim the bastardized version of Count Dracula as a horror timepiece, those who have delved into the original Bram Stoker novel would find that beneath the bloodsucker and his minions lies the heart of a true love story.

Sure, Drac bites people and feeds off them, turns them into his brides, Renfields others, and of course turns others completely into vampires to wreck havoc as he does on the mortal world. He is a vampire after all and that is what vampires do in the end. The father of vampire lore though, Dracula himself, loved once. Loved so deeply and so eternally that when he found her spirit reborn he moved heaven and hell to regain her love. Find me a modern day man who would do that…

What cracks me up is that Dracula dies at the end. Usually, when the story is told right, he’s killed by the hand of his beloved because he can’t condemn her to the life he’s lead since her original death. So where has all this “Son of Dracula” stuff cropped up? If Stoker wrote a second book about Dracula I’d personally love to read it. I’d especially like to know where the concept of Dhampir came from.

The mythos of Dracula has been beautifully bastardized as the centuries have rolled by. People have created whole new vampire legends that stem from bits and pieces of original prose. Can’t walk in daylight, crosses won’t affect them, only wood will do anything, wood only paralyzes, holy water doesn’t hurt, can/can’t have sex. At least it makes for good fodder for stories down the line and opens the doors for new ones as well.

I can prattle on for ages about vampires, gods only know they fascinated me long enough and there really are some good ones out there. Lestat de Lioncourt among them (though I recommend you STOP reading at book 5). I mean, come on I think I’ve even seen mention of them in J.K Rowlings work (though I’m probably wrong on that point, been a bit since I read the series).

So there you have it, vampires in a Dracula shaped nutshell. Who’s your favorite bloodsucker?

(And sorry for the delay, was having some serious technical difficulties in the last week.)