Vampires are great storybook creatures. They have a list of powers and a list of weaknesses. Beyond that you can do whatever you want with them. The creatively inclined (a.k.a. Geeks) can spend hours figuring new ways to use the powers of vampires, new ways to fight vampires, and how a vampire would fare against other heroes or monsters.
Why are they afraid of crosses? Do other religious symbols work? What's the harmful element of sunlight? Etc.
Frequently writers will drop some of the more obscure rules and limitations to make the story work better. For example, most movies just require you to stake them in the heart instead of stake them through the heart and into the ground as traditional folklore says. They make vampires just retreat into the shadows when the sun comes up instead of collapsing back into a deathlike state.
As a kid I played with vampire ideas. Some got written up while others didn't. One idea had them retreat to the North Pole in the winter and South Pole during the summer so they could make use of the extra long nights that can last for months. So I was thrilled when I saw someone else used that idea as the basis for a graphic novel and the movie "30 Days of Night".
In a small Alaskan town along an oil pipeline the sun is about to vanish for the next month. 4/5 of the village leaves to wait out the sun further south. There's no roads connecting this village to the rest of the world. Only dog sleds and planes can get them in or out. The last plane has just left and someone killed all the dogs.
Soon the vampires come. But they're only vampires in the loosest definition. They seem to be speaking some slavic language. Transylvanian probably. But they also squeal a lot. Possibly inspired by echo-location in bats. Instead of just elongated incisors all their teeth are fangs. And their faces are permanently distorted. They are sensitive to sunlight. But where a proper vampire tries to be tidy and not spill any of the blood they use as food these vampires rip, tear, and make a big ol' mess. No holy water, crosses, mirrors, stakes, etc. These vampires are to Dracula what "28 Days Later" zombies are the old voodoo model.
The movie flows more like a zombie flick. A small group of people starts trapped in a hidden attic. There's some Anne Frank moments ruined by the constantly playing background music. They move on from building to building over the course of the month as storms come and go. They're a people under siege.
A lot of people are coming down hard on the movie. It's just not scary. It's not what you think of in a vampire flick. People were laughing at the screeching vampires. I rather liked it. It's a good siege story with good camera work in places. Maybe some Anne Rice vampires would have been more acceptable to the public, but if you can think of them as photo-sensitive monsters instead of vampires it'll go a lot better.
I probably won't get it on DVD. Still, compared to the other stuff out these days it's pretty damn good.
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