Vampire World Record

Post Reply New Topic

This might appeal to some of the UK membership:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/ ... ram-stoker

It doesn't appeal to me. For the last 20 years, I've only worn light blue shirts and dark blue jeans. Can you really imagine the Count dolled up like that?

Not even all fictional/movie vampires wear the garb described in this article. (For example, the vampires in "Near Dark" and "The Lost Boys" did not.)

And the vampires of most traditional folkloric vampire beliefs certainly did not dress this way.

It all originated here:



Not only do you have to dress that way to be recognized as vamp, you have to appear to have arthritis.

By "it all," I assume you mean the garb?

The idea of vampires, both in literature and in folklore, is much older of course.

The pop culture traditional garb, hairstyle, pale face etc all used to depict Dracula in the 1931 movie. The same with Frankenstein (who's not Frankenstein but rather Frankenstein's misguided creation). Just like the Santa Claus you see in malls and on street corners ringing a bell, originated from early Coca-Cola ads depiction of St Nick.

Whereas this is the real Count Dracula:

Like Santa Clause, vampires evolved. You cant say "it all started at this point".

Balkan peasant folklore about undead vampires predates even Vlad the Impaler, the Idi Amin type ruler of parts of Middle Ages Rumania (Wallachia and Transylvania). But old Vlad had the moniker "the Dragon", or "Dracula"- adding that name to the vampire lore package. The original vampires of folklore were foul smelling corpses walking around (much like the undead George Romero creatures- which movie goers called "zombies", but are never called that in his movies). Hollywood turned vampires into sexy aristocratic guys with slicked back black hair. Though even Hollywood was building upon novelist Bram Stoker's already glamorized image of them.

Japanese folklore inspired art has cool pictures of vampire kitty cats attacking sleeping humans.But European vampires tend to be human, but they get around by turning into bats and flying around at night. Though they dont suck blood as bats.So vampires are also associated with bats. But as luck would have it -when Europeans discovered America they discovered that there is a kind of bat in Venezuela that does live by sucking the blood of larger animals like cattle. So this real species is called "the vampire bat". An odd coincidence between folklore and real nature.

I can say the vampire outfits and makeup depicted in the OP article came from how they decked out Bela Legosi in Dracula 1931. That look is the quintessential pop culture vampire. Even Bela Legosi's accent is part of it.

I think I work with him.

Must be a job you can really sink your teeth into.

Ha ha ha!! !

Fair enough. It did all get crystalized at the moment, and became iconic with that movie. Legosi himself kind made up drac's dialect off the top of his head out out of hybrid of various central European dialects. And it worked.

Vlad's actual title had been Prince.

Vlad Tepes was his name. He's still highly regarded in Romania for defending his country, despite his brutal methods.

All of these heads of Slavic countries...ancient and modern...good, evil, and in between. Theyre always named Vlad, Vladimir, or Volodymyr.

Vlad's country of Walachia is now part of Romania, which speaks a language closer to Italian.