Friday, May 23, 2008

Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

Throughout most of their folkloric and literary history, Vampires were depicted as hideous reanimated corpses preying on the living. There was nothing sensual, glamorous, or romantic about these supernatural parasites. Vampires were nightmarish monsters that lurked in the shadows. That is of course, up until the Victorian Era when Bram Stocker published “Dracula” and the romantic vampire, charged with charm and sexuality, was born. When I wrote Reverie, I did it based on the idea of an extra-physical killer. A movie released around that time forced me to change my original idea, and through research, I found out about psychic vampires. Hence Reverie became a vampire story.

In the beginning I wasn’t thrilled about writing yet another vampire story, but the fact that I’ve never seen a story about a psychic vampire, and the idea that I could bring the fiend back to its roots, started to become appealing. The psychological implications of an amorphous entity entering a sleeping victim’s home, to feed on their helpless bodies as they watch in terror, brings the vampire back to the realm of nightmares from whence it was originally spawned. Elements associated with the vampire such as flying, invulnerability, shape-shifting, and night prowling are still present and perhaps even more plausible by the assailant’s lack of physicality. I’ll see you in the page.

Oddman Out