New Vampires and The Dark Attitude

Today’s vampire heartthrob of romance, Young Adult fiction, and fantasy is a far cry from the shambling Gothic revenant of folklore. The vampire which is popular with contemporary audiences, and who has moved out of the Transylvanian castle to live the American dream, is also very different from Bram Stoker’s Dracula archetype and its subsequent cinematic representations at the hands of Universal Studios and Hammer Film Productions. These film renderings promoted and popularised the notion of the use of Catholic iconographies such as holy water, the host, and the crucifix to frighten, contain or cause physical harm to vampires. However, as critic Victoria Nelson notes, this brand of Gothicised faux Catholicism is exoticized and fictionalized until it bears little resemblance to real-life doctrine.

For the current incarnation of the vampire, these religious talismans are no longer effective anathemas and thus faux Catholic Gothic has been relegated to the realm of monster movies, whilst the contemporary revenant has made the unexpected move into modern-day Christianity.  Inspired by the popularity of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga with its underlying Mormon rhetoric, there are now dozens of published Christian books and Bible study guides based upon it. Rather than decrying the vampire presence as evil, these authors use its themes, characters, and events as a way of passing on the Christian message. The vampire tale may have abandoned the need for traditional Christianity, but it would seem that the Christian world has embraced the vampire and its rich Gothic history.

This publishing revolution has spawned a new genre called Christian vampire fiction, defined as a vampire story or novel written by a Christian author and containing Christian themes. The vampire has always been representative of the marginalized subject position so perhaps it should be expected that s/he would become a Christian in a society where members of historic, organized religions are decreasing and where Militant Modern Atheism is on the increase. Culturally Militant Modern Atheism has taken on the traditional role of the priest/vampire hunter in popular vampire stories, with real-world religion, as the traditional vampire, as the beast being hunted.

Ellen C. Maze’s The Judging (2010) is one work of Christian vampire fiction trying to stem this tide. Her vampire claims he isn’t a monster because he doesn’t “hide in the shadows and kill the innocent”, but rather “fear God and perform His will” (128). This vampire-as-tyrannical-antihero and dangerous love interest epitomizes the vampires of old, religious affiliations aside, and takes the Edward Cullen school of broodiness to the next level. He menaces the would-be damsel-in-distress who has inexplicably fallen in love with him and repeatedly harks back to his cursed pre-Walpole creation in the 1600s when he was a priest. While seemingly authenticating itself as a Gothic narrative because of its checklist of genre traits, this text foregrounds Christianity both from the perspective of the vampire’s misinformed doctrine and the guiding hand of a theology student.

When Christianity first came to Europe it used local folk belief in vampires to bolster its standing and add to its congregations by siting itself as protection against the revenants that tormented villagers. Today vampires are being used to stop the hemorrhaging of those believers by bringing the Christian message to the masses through the popular vampire figure and his nascent Christianity. 

By The Dark Attitude

PhD Candidate, University of Worcester

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