I'm looking to fund a short film that will take vampires back from the whole 'metrosexual sparkly purse-toting vampire' idea to the 'horrific scary monster' idea they're SUPPOSED to represent. I don't really expect anyone to help out with that, but here's hoping you will anyway. http://fnd.us/c/6Kk13
Hey, if I had a hundred grand kicking around....well, I'd make my OWN movie first... If I had Powerball level money, and could throw money like that away, THEN you'd get it. I'd buy everyone's everything. Books, CD's, movies, whatever you've got.
Well, you're a champ for that. But yeah, not really expecting anything -- just, y'know, doing it so I can say I did it. So I don't look back and facepalm and go, "Well, why the hell didn't I try it there, too?"
Oh. No, mine are worse. Way worse. Not just scary -- I mean legitimately your skin will crawl when you see these bastids -- but scary and tragic. Like, even as you're revolted by them, you'll be all choked up and about to cry for 'em, too. In the one I'm working on, being a vampire is the worst shit ever.
And what do you mean "supposed to be"? Gimme a sample from past writings. I guess not Dracula and not Nosferatu and not Lestat. Will they be evil scary vampires 24/7? Where will they live?
For the most part, they don't. They're "off the grid" -- that is, bums. Of course, some of them squat in nicer places than others. Picture the kind of vampires that would inhabit the ruins of Detroit.
Not so much Dracula. Not at all L'estat. But very, very much like Nosferatu. Imagine a creature that was once human -- that's still vulnerable to aging, disease and injury -- but that can never -- ever -- have the sweet release of death. Something that was once intelligent, thoughtful, soulful, but that has been reduced to a half-mad beast that wants, desperately -- more than anything -- to die. But can't. Hell on Earth, man. Hell on fuckin' Earth. Now imagine a guy who's been infected with that. Who knows where it came from and who did it to him, and just burns for revenge on the creatures that did it. That guy -- that motherfucker filled with righteous rage -- he's the hero of this story.
You got your work cut out for ya. But it doesn't seem like anything intelligent would come out of them. It appears that your story would introduce them at a point where they are insane. The vampire always tells his tale of woe. Your vampires sound like rabid wild animals.
Some of them are. Some of them aren't. And then there are a whole bunch that are at varying places along the path between the two. But that path, for my vampires, always ends up at "rabid animal." The tough part will be figuring out what happens to them if they can't feed -- remember, they can't die. So if they don't feed, they won't die -- but maybe something else. Maybe they have to feed, not to remain alive, but to remain animate and mobile. Maybe if they "starve", they lose the ability to move. They become paralyzed, and just rot -- but without ever dying, they rot alive. That's pretty fucking horrible, right? These are not glamorous creatures. There's nothing sexy about my brand of vampirism. It's like a cross between AIDS and heroin addiction. It's nasty; it's brutal. It is, in short, just as scary as Anne Rice's (and definitely Stephanie "Mary Sue" Meyers') vampires are not scary.
It seems that you don't know what Anne Rice was doing with her vampire stories. Vampires are often romantic villains until they kill. Your idea is cool but not as you say 'supposed to be'. It seems that your vampires lose their minds very quickly and none seem to savor the idea of a long life and its advantages. I'm sure you will work it out though. For me, I gave up vampire stories after reading ALL of Anne Rice's books. I loved most of them and don't feel anyone can top them. well maybe in some years to come. But until then...
Well, what you noted here is sort of the point -- taking the romance entirely out of the equation. Vampirism is supposed to be a curse, right? As far as I've ever read, and I'm talking Bram Stoker. Dracula was supposed to be hypnotic, with an edge of seductiveness -- but he wasn't supposed to be romantic. He was supposed to be the dark side of seduction -- the trap more than the bait. At least, that's how I read it. And that has gotten strayed from more and more with every reinvention of the vampire. I'm taking it back to the original idea and then some, even farther down the road of it being a curse -- being a punishment, a torture. And no, of course not all the vampires in my project will be insane -- there will be a couple -- maybe a few -- for the purpose of demonstrating that that's where they all end up. But they'd hardly prove worthy villains if they were all mentally incompetent, so of course the antagonists of the story will be wily, cunning, very intelligent. They'll be the prey that hunts the hunter, with the good guy, of course, being the hunter.
Beyond that very, very fundamental story dynamic, no. These vampires will be older than the hero -- and remember, they're not immortal. So a vampire that, for example, got half his head blown off will still have half his head blown off and, in consequence of that, will be pretty much incompetent. One that got his leg chopped off will have to use a peg leg or some other prosthetic. One that lost and eye will be blind on one side. In a sense, my vampires won't be recognizable as having anything in kinship with L'estat or Dracula. They'll be able to go out in the daylight without bursting into flames, for example, though they'll be basically blinded by the brightness and in pain from the heat of the UV exposure. But it won't kill them. Garlic won't kill them, they'll just react to it as if it stinks to high fuck. Crucifixes won't "ward them off", though they'd react with scorn and disgust. No, this film will be more like a cross between the original "Highlander" and the 2007 version of "The Punisher."
