What's with the Vampire obsession nowadays?

[Laemkral]

It just disappoints me that I've not heard of any new types of monsters people have imagined up that takes on any of the simplicity or subtext of the old legends. Surely all the ideas can't be gone.

At least we still have illithids and Cthulhu.

[McDuffies]

It just disappoints me that I've not heard of any new types of monsters people have imagined up that takes on any of the simplicity or subtext of the old legends. Surely all the ideas can't be gone.

What about Godzilla and King Kong?

[Dr Legostar]

It just disappoints me that I've not heard of any new types of monsters people have imagined up that takes on any of the simplicity or subtext of the old legends. Surely all the ideas can't be gone.

there's always that cloverfield thing.

[RobertBlake]

The only good vampires were Bela Lugosi and Max Schreck. All the others suck.

[McDuffies]

And the only good werewolf is Michael J Fox!

[Aerones]

It just disappoints me that I've not heard of any new types of monsters people have imagined up that takes on any of the simplicity or subtext of the old legends. Surely all the ideas can't be gone.

What about Godzilla and King Kong?

And Catgirls. Those things are terrifying.

[RobertBlake]

And the only good werewolf is Michael J Fox!

Aye. Not many werewolves can slam dunk a basketball.

[Ahaugen]

And the only good werewolf is Michael J Fox!

Aye. Not many werewolves can slam dunk a basketball.

and Michael J. Fox didn't look like a Chippendales dancer in the movie

[Maker]

I have an idea what's with the popularity of vampires, zombies, Todd McFarlane's Spawn, Chtulhu and all things morbid and putrid. England went through the exact same thing some 100 years ago, when the empire collapsed. What we're seeing is the spiritual death of our culture, which for some reason manifests consciously as a fascination with death and decay. There's no cause for alarm however, we'll figure out new things to define ourselves around. This end of the world is just another world beginning. . .

I don't know how Twilight fits into that though, those vampires aren't even undead I think.

[Turnsky]

I don't know how Twilight fits into that though, those vampires aren't even undead I think.

from what i can gather, the undead would be more lively than the actors of those movies.

[Brockway]

You know what you call a vampire that's immortal, can walk around during the day, eats tofu, and lives in the forest? An elf. A freaking elf.

* Edit - Wow, that was a pretty interesting discussion back there.

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

You know what you call a vampire that's immortal, can walk around during the day, eats tofu, and lives in the forest? An elf. A freaking elf.

HAHAHAHAHAHA Robert Pattinson: Worst Elf Ever!

[McDuffies]

I have an idea what's with the popularity of vampires, zombies, Todd McFarlane's Spawn, Chtulhu and all things morbid and putrid. England went through the exact same thing some 100 years ago, when the empire collapsed. What we're seeing is the spiritual death of our culture, which for some reason manifests consciously as a fascination with death and decay. There's no cause for alarm however, we'll figure out new things to define ourselves around. This end of the world is just another world beginning. . .

I don't know how Twilight fits into that though, those vampires aren't even undead I think.

However, one of purposes of fiction is to talk about our fears, thus disarming them. Before horror, there were fairy tales in which little children were grinded in mills or eaten by wolves. Some suggest that in horror, people don't actually enjoy being stared, but actually a cathartic feeling after horror has passed. The "I'm still alive" moment. But, as anthropologists suggest, death has been abstracted in modern society: we don't see it in real life nearly as often anymore, instead we see it on screen. This has made us actually more vunerable, unprepared, because nowadays we tend to think of death as something that happens to someone else, dar away, or else on tv screen.

[Brockway]

I always liked the Blade Runner approach to stories. The robots kept going nuts and turning on us because they had no context for what was happening. Fake memories (stories) allowed them to put things in perspective (until they find out they're fake, then they go nuts again.) For events happening to people without any context or precedence, its tough to predict what the heck someone will do. A while back I had the random idea (probably stolen from Blade Runner) that stories were originally invented by people as a means to controlling them. Societies tend to be based around stories (Dreamtime for Aboriginies, Christianity for middle age Europe, Egyptian mytholody, and pretty much everything springing from the fertile crescent) that set the entire structure for people in place.

Sort of on topic, what does that say about us that our "monsters" are glitter vampires that have no weaknesses other than blood addiction withdrawal? Seems to me more likely that its the signs of our civilization trying to find an "out." Instead of exploring what death means to us as a people like 19th century fiction, its us just looking for a pretty alternative. Is a society rejecting the idea of death a sickness just like one totally embracing it?

[McDuffies]

It's certain that some myths were made up in order to control people. King Arthur and knights of the round table is, I think, one of the most obvious, a tale constructed much later than is usually assumed, for political purposes. But that's those big national myths which are always easy to spot. Most of folk tales, on the other hand, have cautionary character. You could call it control, I guess, if "Hansel and Grethel" was used by ye olde parents to stop children from playing in deep woods by telling such story (which back then was much more believable) I guess you can call that a kind of control. Much of it comes from fear of unknown, so myth is, on one hand, an attempt to explain the unknown, on the other kind a warning to stay away from that unknown.
Preservance of myths such as vampires and werewolfs may mean that these stories still strike something remaining of that medieval men in us, although these myths have been largely modernized and changed in character. In order to analyze today's man, I think that you'd have to turn to urban myths instead, they're much more a reflection of modern man's fears and obsessions, and have the same cautionary character as fairy tales had back then, albeit with updated topics.

[Brockway]

Heh, pop rocks and coke and jato rocket cars vs. sour grapes and flying too high. I always liked Norse Mythology, but found it funny since it was past tense and the cool gods were already dead since Ragnarok's already happened from our point of view.

[McDuffies]

Any mythology that is turned into Marvel superheroes is probably overused a bit too much.