Vampires first entered the pop culture arena with Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, Dracula. Today, vampires are everywhere. From Buffy the Vampire Slayer to the Twilight Saga to HBO's True Blood series, pop culture can't get enough of the vampire phenomenon. Bringing her literary expertise to this timely subject, Susannah Clements reveals the roots of the vampire myth and shows how it was originally immersed in Christian values and symbolism. Over time, however, vampires have been "defanged" as their spiritual significance has waned, and what was once the embodiment of evil has turned into a teen idol and the ultimate romantic hero. Clements offers a close reading of selected vampire texts, explaining how this transformation occurred and helping readers discern between the variety of vampire stories presented in movies, TV shows, and novels. Her probing engagement of the vampire metaphor enables readers to make Christian sense of this popular obsession.

A literary expert reveals the Christian roots of the vampire myth and helps make Christian sense of today's popular obsession with vampires.

The Twilight saga has become one of the most successful fiction series ever written, with more than one hundred million copies in print and several blockbuster films. Despite the tremendous commercial success Twilight has generated, few readers have analyzed its theological teachings or the messages Stephenie Meyer might be sending to women and teenage girls. This book offers both a feminist critique of Twilight and a theological review of the stories' ideas about salvation, heaven and hell, power, reconciliation, resurrection, and organized religion. Elaine Heath writes in an accessible voice, calling attention to both the "good news" of Twilight's theology and the "bad news" of its gender stereotypes and depictions of violence against women. The book includes questions for youth and adult groups or for classroom discussions.

Evil, death, demons, reanimation, and resurrection. While such topics are often reserved for the darker mindscapes of the vampire subgenre within popular culture, they are equally integral elements of religious history and belief. Despite the cultural shift of presenting vampires in a secular light, the traditional figure of the vampire within cinema and literature has a rich legacy of serving as a theological marker. Whether as a symbol of the allure of sin, as an apologetic for assorted religious icons, or as a gateway into a discussion of liberationist theology, the vampire has served as a spiritual touchstone from Bram Stoker's Dracula, to Stephen King's Salem's Lot, to the HBO television series True Blood. In Such a Dark Thing, Jess Peacock examines how the figure of the vampire is able to traverse and interconnect theology and academia within the larger popular culture in a compelling and engaging manner. The vampire straddles the ineffable chasm between life and death and speaks to the transcendent in all of us, tapping into our fundamental curiosity of what, if anything, exists beyond the mortal coil, giving us a glimpse into the interminable while maintaining a cultural currency that is never dead and buried.

Drakul. Nosferatu. Upyr. Vampyre. There have been many names for what we know today as the vampire. For over a century, literature, television, cinema and many other areas in our daily lives cannot be imagined without the appearance of this fictional character. Almost everyone is familiar with the image of the walking undead that creeps out of its coffin at night and sucks the blood out of humans. The undead has always been appealing to its audience. It is the ‘otherness’ of such monsters, their frightful darkness and exoticism that makes them so interesting. This book deals with the figure of the vampire regarded as the ‘unknown other’ and how it is fictionally represented in the American TV series True Blood (2008 - ). Considering both psychoanalytical concepts as well identity theory, the author depicts the literary and cinematographic development of the fictional figure of the vampire since the late nineteenth century, and analyzes different representations of the vampire and its “otherness” as well as their appeal to the audience in the True Blood.

Vampires have been a popular subject for writers since their inception in 19th century Gothic literature and, later, became popular with filmmakers. Now the classical vampire is extinct, and in its place are new vampires who embrace the hi-tech worlds of science fiction. This book is the first to examine the history of vampires in science fiction. The first part considers the role of science and pseudo-science, from late Victorian to modern times, in the creation of the vampire, as well as the "sensation fiction" of J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Bram Stoker, Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells. The second part focuses on the history of the science fiction vampire in the cinema, from the silent era to the present. More than sixty films are discussed, including films from such acclaimed directors as Roger Corman, David Cronenberg, Guillermo del Toro and Steven Spielberg, among others.