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Vampire lore has existed in most cultures for centuries. The common theme was the concept of the dead coming back and plaguing the living with tricks or death. The idea of the current vampire was popularized in the 19th century, owing debt to John Polidori’s Vampyre (1819) and of course, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). There, the vampire became closer to what we recognize today, masquerading as the living and wanting to love, but needing to feed on the blood of the living to stay alive, and having weaknesses including sunlight, stakes to the heart, and crosses. Over the next hundred years, the rules moved in slight variations here and there, but the vampire became one of the most popular recurring monsters, that the public instantly understood. Powerful, seductive, and needing to feed on the living are all key elements to the vampire mythos.

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Vampires are possibly at their most popular in the past few years. Anne Rice’s goth romance take on the material, and Joss Whedon’s kickass horror/action hybrid are arguably two of the most popular takes on vampires, informing the variations we have seen in recent years. What’s surprising is that while Buffy, the True Blood books/tv show, the Twilight books/films, and the current Swedish film Let the Right One In all offer variations on the theme for different target audiences, their similarities are surprisingly incestuous.

Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire got the jump on the rest of the current crop by being published in 1976, when the only other popular vampire stories in pop-culture were the Hammer horror films starring Christopher Lee. The book got a huge resurgence of popularity with its film adaptation in 1994 starring Brad Pitt, Kirsten Dunst, and Tom Cruise. Rice’s take played up the idea of vampires as decadent nobelmen and women. These vampires did not age, could not go out in the sunlight without burning up, and were killable only by decapitation or fire. They kept to themselves and remained hidden from the world, operating in secret and rarely making other vampires. They were content to amass their fortunes and seduce and kill at night, enjoying their own company. It’s also worth noting, that the stories are set primarily in author Anne Rice’s hometown of New Orleans.

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Buffy, the Vampire Slayer landed shortly after as a popular tv show in 1997. The show had previously debuted as a film in 1992, but bares only a surface relationship to the show and hardly made an impression at the time of its release. The tv show was focused on a vampire slayer, an empowered woman once in a generation with the strength, speed, and destiny to destroy vampires (and other demons). The show introduced the idea of a powerful woman as the main character in a world of vampires. The vampires on the show were mainly thugs, rarely very smart, with strength and speed as their main abilities, as well as quick healing and an inability to age. Their weaknesses included crosses, needing to be invited into homes, stakes to the heart dusted them instantly, and sunlight made them burst into flame immediately. They did not reflect in mirrors or show up on camera. The rare vampire who would retain his or her intelligence and personality tended to become more powerful. Vampires in this world can look like ordinary people but when they are angry, aroused, or ready to feed, their face twists into a demonic visage with fangs and furrowed brows. Angel and Spike were two vampires who, through the course of the show, lived many centuries, and eventually got “souls” which meant they could actually feel compassion, guilt, true love, and other human emotions. Without a soul, the show said, vampires felt no remorse for anything.

Buffy had a seven season run on tv. Currently, its creator and executive producer Joss Whedon is writing a monthly comic book version of Buffy which continues the story, acting as a “season 8.” The big villain she’s fighting in this season is named “Twilight” which seems like an intentional reference to the popular books. Vampires are not known to exist by the world at large, but the U.S. government is aware of them and seems to be working with Twilight to end all supernatural threats.

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Most every take on vampires that has followed has used one or both of the two recent versions above to inform its take on the world of vampires. Marvel Comics released three very successful Blade movies featuring a hunter of vampires who was half-vampire himself. Similar to Buffy, he had super strength and speed and dusted vampires by beheading or staking them. Interestingly, his early comic book version did not have these same abilities. He was just a tough human who helped battle Dracula. Also added to the film version was a mentor character, Whistler. In Buffy, she has a mentor, Giles. Vampires in Blade have fully fleshed out personalities and motivations. While almost all of them are evil, some are “born” as vampires instead of bitten and changed and these nobles prefer to stay hidden to the world and not kill. They instead drink from blood banks. Blade was turned into a tv series for one season, but failed to make the impact that the films made.

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True Blood takes the idea of vampires and says not only do they exist, but they have “come out” to the world and now everyone knows they are part of their world. True Blood is based on a series of novels that follow the main character, Sookie Stackhouse. True Blood, like Buffy, focuses on a female protagonist. She even has powers. Sookie Stackhouse has the ability to read minds, but can’t hear vampires’ thoughts. Sookie has instant chemistry with an old vampire, Bill Compton. Bill is unlike most of the other vampires in that he is working hard to integrate into society. Others that we encounter are open to society, and even run businesses, but seem to have little respect for humans. Vampires in this world can heal quickly and do not age. Their blood can also help heal humans or get them “high.” Vampires can put a “glamour” on humans, hypnotizing them. Older vampires are stronger and there is a clear hierarchy, with older vampires treated as nobles and authority figures. They’re incredibly fast, but not necessarily superhumanly strong. Vampires’ weaknesses include silver, which burns them, and sunlight, which burns them up, though not in an instant burst like on Buffy. Instead they roast and melt like someone in a fire. They also heal quickly. If they get staked, they essentially melt and liquify instantly into a pile of blood and goo. When they get excited, a pair of fangs pops down from the front of the rest of their teeth. Most of them prefer to keep to their own for company, and make “families” or clans, though Bill’s case prooves they can also love humans. Bill must constantly be careful because he does desire human blood and there is always a temptation to feed on Sookie or other humans he interacts with.

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In Twilight, vampires also like to live in “families” but remain hidden to the world. Similar to True Blood and Buffy, the story’s central character is a girl, Bella Swan. She possesses no special abilities, but the main vampire, Edward Cullen, falls for her because he can read other people’s thoughts but not Bella’s. It’s an inversion of the Sookie/Bill relationship from True Blood. The vampires in these books and film, however, follow very few of the popular myths. For instance, while they feel a deep need to drink human blood, the main vampires have refrained from doing so for at least 100 years with no ill effects. In a somewhat obvious/clumsy metaphor for abstinence from sex, the Cullens simply don’t drink human blood (just animals) though Edward supposedly wants to. Also, sunlight just makes them prettier (it makes them sparkle). Crosses are no problem, nor is silver. They don’t age, and actually seem plenty happy with that. Edward goes to school and remains a virgin for over 100 years, seemingly with no problem. Similar to other vampires, they have great strength and speed. No fangs, though. Just normal teeth. They’re incredibly pale and cold. There are vampires that feed on human blood but you only see them for a few minutes in the movie, and one of the three (the father) actually tells the Cullens about the other two wanting to eat Bella, so they’re not much of a threat. How they are killed is a bit vague. The film seems to just toss the bad guy on a fire, but it happens in the background.

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Another recent film dealing with the romantic relationship between a vampire and a human is the new Swedish film (once again, based on a novel) Let the Right One In. In this film, Oskar is a 12-year old boy who is bullied at school. Oskar gets new neighbors, a girl his age named Eli and her father, Hakan. Eventually, Eli and Oskar become friends, but it is learned that Eli is a vampire, and Hakan is just someone who helps get her victims. Eli and Oskar fall in love, a common element across all of these stories. The vampires in this film do drink blood to survive (and they don’t discriminate on how they choose their victims) but seem otherwise very human in their emotions and day-to-day life. The vampires do not age in this movie. We only see two vampires in this whole film and the second is created by being bitten but not being killed. Sunlight roasts these vamps. They ignite like they’re made out of gasoline. They’re pretty strong, too. One of the most unique rules for vampire lore is one I’ve only seen in this film – cats hate vampires. They don’t just hiss, they full-on attack vampires if they see them. Oh, and if vampires enter a home without being invited, they begin to bleed out of every pore and orifice.

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So what rules do they each follow or ignore?

1. Sunlight is deadly for the vampires in True Blood and Buffy and Let the Right One In (and the Blade and Anne Rice vampire movies, for what it’s worth), but not for Twilight.
2. All of the vampires need to drink blood to survive, but in Interview with the Vampire, True Blood, Buffy, and Twilight, they can all get by on artificial blood, animal blood, or blood from blood banks.
3. The vampires are fast and strong in all of the stories.
4. Vampires sleep in coffins or sealed areas or underground in all of the stories except for Twilight, where they live in regular houses.
5. Vampires in True Blood,  Interview with the Vampire, and Twilight both prefer to live in artificial families of vampires. In Let the Right One In, the vampire uses a familiar, like Dracula did with Renfield. On Buffy and in Blade, vampires often form “nests.”
6. Vampires fall in love with humans in all of the stories.

For all the variations on themes that each of these employ, I think they still share more similarities than differences once you closely examine them, even Twilight. It’s been theorized by many in the media, following the recent Presidential election, that culturally, zombies were the monster we responded to most over the last 8 years and that vampires will be the monster of choice moving forward. It seems like an interesting argument, one worth examining another time. But I think vampires have always been a fascinating metaphor for death and one that has been instead, slowly building a resurgence over the last decade or so, but has not yet peaked.