Vampires!

 With it being the Halloween season and everything that is happening this month is all about horror movies and stories, I thought it be cool to talk about one of my personal favorite themes in gothic storytelling is the creatures of the night, Vampires.

Vampires has always been an interesting concept to me when it comes to goth literature for most of my life. There have been so many different variations as to how the term of vampires came to be. Heck! There were plenty of different stories and tales about vampires that were before what I originally thought to be honest with you guys.

I thought the lore of the vampire was started back during Medieval times in Europe. But during my research, I've discovered that stories of such creatures were told in days long before that and also were considered to be used as another name for demons. For an example, Lilith has been named a demon that drinks blood and even in religions like Hinduism and Greek-Roman.

In fact, there have been legends of similar stories of vampires in other countries as well.

Many people back in the old days have used vampires as a term for multiple reasons. For one, premature burial as in history due to the lack of medical knowledge. Some cases people discovered that there was strange breathing inside the casket. They were later dug up and it was discovered that there were nail marks from inside the coffin as the victim was trying to escape.

A lot of uses of vampires was to help explain people's issues with numerous diseases that people were facing from back in the day. Such diseases like rabies, tuberculosis and even hypersexuality just to next a few.

Like I had written earlier, vampires have been used in a lot of different forms of literature with my personal favorite being Dracula by the late, great Bram Stroker which was written back in 1897. This story has been made into some many different movies it is not even funny. But nonetheless, it is still very entertaining. However, I will say Bela Lugosi in my humble opinion is still the standard for people when it comes to playing Count Dracula. Plus also one of my favorite characters is Abraham Van Helsing.

I also enjoy a lot of different anime that involves vampires as with one being the Hellsing Ultimate series that feature such awesome characters Alucard and Fr. Alexander Anderson.

There are plenty of video games I love playing that Castlevania, Bloodrayne, Code Vein, Darkwatch and Vampyr. Board games and other role playing games have featured vampires with one of the biggest ones being Vampire the Masquerade. Sadly, I never got a chance to play it mainly because you need friends to play it and I don't really know people who do. But hopefully someday I will get to play it.

Can anyone even image what it be like if we were vampires? I mean, it is an interesting concept when it comes to being turned into a vampire. You get bitten and slowly turn into a creature of the night. 

Personally, I don't how I would feel about it to be honest with you all. On the one hand, I can totally understand why some people would be interested in becoming one because we all fear death and wanting to avoid it. The downside to though, you must drink blood in order to stay alive and that isn't always appreciated by people who just lost their loved ones.

So the next time you go out into the cold, dark night, be sure to bring some garlic, some holy water and more importantly, your rosary and your crucifix. Because you never know what is watching you in the dead of night.

God Bless and Be Safe!