Lure of the Vampire: A Pop Culture Reference Book of Lists, Websites and “Very Telling Personal Essays”, written by Bertena Varney was released this summer.  The book is the culmination of years of personal study, including as the subject of many undergraduate and graduate school papers and projects.  A teacher born in Pikeville, Varney now lives and teaches in Bowling Green.  She is currently attending a variety of speaking and signing engagements in support of her book, but recently took the time to answer a few questions from the Amplifier.

Amp: Most of us associate the beginning of Vampires as being when Bram Stoker borrowed the name of Vlad Drakul for his book Dracula. Can you tell us where the earliest mentions of vampire legends come from and at what point they became entertainment subjects?

Bertena: In my book I discuss the Hebrew legends of Adam’s first folklore wife – Lilith, stories of Cain, and Judas as well as Henry Fitzroy’s illegitimate son have all been used in movies or television as vampiric icons.

For example, Judas was the original vampire in both Dracula 2000 and The Librarian’s Curse of the Judas Chalice. Also, Henry Fitzroy, played by Kyle Scmid in Lifetime’s Blood Ties was the heartthrob vampire who later revealed himself as the illegitimate son of King Henry VIII. Vampires have been used throughout countless mythological stories and have all found a place in modern time. We also can’t forget the Indian goddess Khali and the Romanian royal Elizabeth Bathory.

Whether the vampire came from history or mythology, writers have loved the legends and have created at this time a vampire for everyone’s taste.

Amp: It has been fascinating to see the vampire evolve as human culture changes. We’ve seen vampires portrayed as seductors, vicious beasts, addicts, troubled teens and lost children as well as from various ethnic groups. Can you comment on how societal changes have altered the vampire and what might be in store for their future?

Bertena: Stoker used Dracula to explain or even take a quite “attack” on society as using Dracula as a voice for feminists, xenophobes, STD’s and more.

 Writers use vampires as both a mirror to their souls as well as a mirror to the society that we live in. The vampire is simply an extension of what we need or desire. For example, teens love bad boys and The Lost Boys filled that need in the 80’s. Teen girls still love the angsty Romeo and Juliet story and Edward and Bella fit that need.

Vampires have represented teen awkwardness and My Best Friend is a Vampire was a perfect comedic release for this.

Erotic vampire writers write their “adult” stories using vampires to release their inner taboos and desires as well as their fantasy of the eternal bad boy.

 And let’s not forget immortality, power, strength, eternal youth, and of course a world saving hero complex that so many now a days have.

In my book I discuss the Lure of the Dead Boyfriend and how vampires represent the soul mate, the erotic lover and the empowering friends.

Also, mentioned is the slow rise of ethnic vampires – the Japanese culture are using vampires in both their manga and anime series such as Blood Plus and more. There is a rise of African American vampires lately – Laurent in Twilight, Akaska in Queen of the Damned, Blacula, Blade, and who could forget the sexy Eddie Murphy in Vampire in Brooklyn.) Here is an article that I have written on the subject – http://www.examiner.com/vampire-in-lexington/black-vampires-film

 Vampires are becoming more accepted and portrayed in more ethnic groups. It’s funny how modern vampires are described as pale skinned but one of the first mentioning of vampires were from the Mesopotamian area. Vampires have always been known as seductive creatures of the night. They have pale skin, glowing eyes, and very sharp sexy phallic teeth.

Vampires evolve as time goes and they provide us with a voice for what we fear, desire, or strive to be so what does the future have in store for the vampire? Well what do we desire the vampire to be used for?  That would be the question.

Amp:   Each new generation of movies tries to out do those that came before with techniques to kill a vampire. Though a stake through the heart and exposure to the sun are tried and true, we’ve also seen everything from running water to “light bullets”. What would be your weapon of choice? And, what in your opinion is the vampire’s most useful power to overcome his foes?

Bertena:  Wow, my question here is – if I met a vampire from literature or the movies would I want to kill it? If it was Eric from True Blood or even Spike from Buffy, I would invite them in and know that yes they are dangerous bad boys but a few minutes with a vampire, wow.

But, considering that my boyfriend makes vampire slaying kits that are made from old trunks, chests, boxes, etc I think I would choose one of his kits that holds a hand made vampire stake, mirror, holy water, rosary beads and a crucifix.

But, if we are talking vampire from 30 Days of Night I would think a flame thrower or Mr. Pointy (from Buffy).

The most powerful power that a vampire has in my opinion is to compel people. What would be a more powerful strength than to use your brain to control someone compared to just ripping your victims head off.

Amp: Your book also covers vampires in real life. We’ve all read about vampire cult killers as well as role playing societies. What do you feel draws people to empathize so much with the myth of the vampire? Can you share an anecdote from a real life vampire you interviewed?

Bertena: First of all the cult killer that you are referring to is Rod Ferrell and he is from around Paducah. Yes, he used role playing games to control his followers but he is NOT the typical role player. Rod used Vampire The Masquerade Game to manipulate his friends into doing the vicious crimes that were committed.

White Wolf is the creator of the game Vampire Masquerade and they have a fan club called the Camarilla. The members of these role playing groups range from lawyers, doctors, college students and me. We enjoy the story of the political vampire in Requiem and love weaving stories around very intricate and creative details and rules. We are not running around in costumes “wanting” to be vampires. But, we use our creativity to create worlds like Vampire, Changeling (Faeries) ghosts, and more. These role players are not “lifestylers” that I interviewed in my book. They are people who love writing and creating fantasy worlds and make believe.

The lifestylers that I interviewed live the lifestyle of a vampire. They don’t buy into the vampire in pop culture. They live their life as vampire whether pranic, sanguanarian, fetish, or more. Some may feel that they need energy from people to survive or feel at their best. Some have a sexual fetish with biting and others may feel that they need blood to survive. But, it is not someone who goes around biting people or even killing people. I interviewed several members of the New England Council of Vampires and we discussed the misconception of the vampire in real life. First off, they don’t think they are the vampires that fly in the night, or turn into bats. Second, they don’t go around biting people or killing anyone. Vlad, Dimitiri, Leah, and Audrey explained in my book how people have a misconception about who they are and what they believe. The interviews are very telling and revealing about this and I could not do justice for them here. But, they are overseen by a council that ensure protection for them from hate groups as well as ensure that people are living by the rules – ie harm no one. They volunteered for the interviews and have been very trusting in that they themselves will not be attacked for their beliefs or lifestyles like so many people do.

As a sociologist I teach my students that as a sociologist you cannot be ethnocentric and judge people by what you believe, understand, or don’t understand. We study social groups as they are to understand how they interact with each other and with others. And both the group in New England as well as in California have trusted that their interviews will be used in that way.

Amp: One of my favorite vampire movies, George Romero’s Martin, seems to get little notice, though I’ve heard Romero himself name it as his favorite of his own movies. Can you suggest some other hidden gems for our Halloween viewing lists?

Bertena: I would suggest The Addiction by Russell Sims, Bitten with Jason Mewes, Cronos by Guillermo Del Toro, Near Dark, and of course the original vampire films, Dracula with Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee.

Amp: Your book has a section on children’s vampires, which I assume refers to characters like The Count from Sesame Street. But, the idea of a preteen frozen eternally as a child has made for some of the most disturbing vampires in movies ie Claudia in Interview with the Vampire, Homer in Near Dark and Eli in the Swedish film Let the Right One In. As marketing goes to a younger and younger audience do you expect to see more of these characters?

Bertena: I don’t feel like these characters are marketed towards kids. I see them marketed towards adults that have issues within themselves of immortality or a kind of Peter Pan syndrome.

My chapter in children and vampires revolves around the fact that so many parents like vampires but either feel as if they can’t share this love with their children or allow them to watch adult movies. As a certified middle and high school teacher I don’t believe in censorship but I do believe in age appropriate material thus I provided in my book a list of vampire books, television shows and movies that are acceptable for the young children. Books like Dick and Jane and Vampire, Bunnicula and yes Count von Count from Sesame Street are all included. I have also included an essay that discussed how my generation (1970’s) saw vampires as cuter etc thus the creation and evolving of the cute vampires and not the traditional vampires. You should really check out that essay – it’s pretty interesting!

Amp: Vampires have always been the most sexually charged of movie monsters. Modern trends have exploited this to such a degree that they have largely been diminished to indiscriminate bisexual lust mongers, soap opera characters, boy toys and love sick teens. Why is it this horror genre, with few exceptions, has been untouched by the women’s movement and more than any other devoid of strong, independent female characters while at the same time appealing mostly to women?

Bertena: I totally disagree with your opinion above. I have a section in my book discussing the Lure of the Dead Boyfriend. The fact that earlier books like Varney the Vampire had an almost rape like scene has changed since women began writing the vampire stories. Yes there are a few angsty teen books out there but The Royal Blood Chronicles by Elizabeth Loraine is one of hundreds of teen vampire books where the females are the STRONG empowering vampire and they don’t need the boys help.

Also C. J. Ellisson’s is an erotic writer and in her stories the females are the strong dominate characters that don’t need a man to help them but walk with a man as an equal.

 There are many books that show women in a positive light. For example, Lynda Hilburn is a real life psychotherapist and she writes vampire books. She states that she found in her clients that the past harlequin romance books where the women heave and pass out are replaced by books where yes the vampire may have a thousand years of sexual pleasure to bestow upon the one woman that they need – the main character, but instead of protecting the character the female character is a partner in the story not one waiting to be rescued.

But there are books where the vampires are lustful toys and really that’s a release for so many of the feminist today. We work all day, we maintain a family, we are in charge ALL the time and many times we are not in a relationship or one that is gratifying. So what is wrong if the woman wants to read a book about her being treated with lots of sexual care and love? What is wrong with being lured by a dead boyfriend?

Trust me there are enough strong female characters out there that don’t get noticed. And sociological studies show that these are the ones that true vampire fans like.

Women can handle reading erotica books and many choose to put vampires in as their characters but you cannot label these readers as vampire fans. They just like the idea of the erotica story.

Some great writers with strong characters are Molly Harper from Paducah and the author of the Jane Jameson series, Joanne Sowell’s The Bookhaven Vampires and more.

I just find that so many people assume that one movie is the type of movie that all women like in regards to vampires rather than looking at all the books. In the literature section there is a section of books for each genre that are a great read.

Amp: Until recently, vampires have been the most successful of horror icons to be frightfully funny in movies like Love at First Bite, Fright Night, Vampire’s Kiss and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. What is your favorite funny vampire moment?

Bertena: My favorite funny vampire movie is My Best Friend is a Vampire. I watch it over and over.

Amp: Bowling Green’s John Carpenter bent the mythology in his film, Vampires, to allow an experimental Aids drug to enable a vampire to tolerate the sun. But Twighlight’s sparkly vampires need nothing to accomplish this feat. Is there a point that the mythology is stretched too far? What is the defining characteristic of a vampire?

Bertena: Many people want to attribute the first vampire to walk in the sun to Twilight. Dracula could walk in the sun, he couldn’t shape shift and his powers were diminished but he could walk in the sun.

Vampires are simply a revenant being that needs your life force to survive – whether that life force is blood, energy, or love it needs to survive by feeding off of something.

People always want to attack Twilight. Twilight is simply a Romeo and Juliet story where preteens and teens are introduced to a character called a vampire. They are criticized for not drinking human blood. Well, Louis in Anne Rice’s story didn’t want to drink human blood, nor did Damon in Vampire Diaries nor did many vampires in original stories.

They also criticize them because they sparkle. There are vampires in Eastern Asian culture that sparkled with the sun, grant it Hollywood with a no budget film didn’t plant the terrible cgi in our mind as Melissa Rosenburg did in the Twilight films, but none the less the Cullens were not the first to sparkle.

Twilight is simply a Romeo and Juliet story that introduces preteens and teens to the idea of a vampire. They then take that idea and search out more literature. From there the teens take one of two roads. The first is the paranormal romance road and discover books such as Blue Bloods by Melissa dela Cruz and as they grow older they will either lose the fascination of what they think is a vampire or continue into the erotica world of books. The second choice are the ones that identify more with the fact that they are more goth in nature or they simply like the “traditional ” Vampire. These teens will find books such as Vampire Kisses by Ellen Schreiber and eventually the Anne Rice books.

 There is nothing wrong with either path. This sense of people attacking one group or another group because of the type of vampire they like drives the sociologist in me crazy. First there are enough types of vampires to go around for everyone and second, why can’t someone be in a mood for an all out horror movie like 30 Days of Night, then be in a mood for a comedy show and like My Best Friends a Vampire and then want a little romance and go after a paranormal romantic vampire? There are vampires for everyone, every mood, and every season. That is why they are so GREAT! They can assimilate to what society needs at that time

Amp:  What was one of the most surprising or fascinating thing you learned about the history of vampires in your research?

Bertena: The fact that in every culture there is a creature believed to be or behave like a vampire. It makes you really think about where all the original stories came from and if they all originated from one source.

It also amazes me that people think if you study vampires or like them then you must think that you are one and that you are dark.

People can not grasp the idea that yes, I may like horror movies, that I may have dark hair and that I read a lot of vampire books but that I am not evil and that I do not think I am a vampire. I am just shocked at so many of the closed minded comments that I have gotten.

People think that these vampires are new in history but really the idea of vampires has been around since the beginning.

Amp:  Your many webpages linked from www.bertenavarney.com and searchforthelure.webs.com/ refer to the potential of vampire classes at the college level. Can you comment on how the study of pop culture can enrich one’s education and understanding of the world or themselves?

Bertena: There are LOTS of vampire courses at the college level. There is a section in my book that discusses the classes and academic studies of vampires all around the world.

Being a sociologist and criminologist by study, I find that looking at people and what makes them happy, what really holds their interest and they love to do helps us understand society as a whole. In pop culture you not only study folklore but also what people like now. There are studies on sports, video games, religion, and family… why not study why people love the vampire? Is it a mirror to the darkest regions of our soul? Is it a reflection of our desire to be eternally young or aristocratically rich and powerful? What is the Lure of the Vampire? Thus that is how my book came about, in the search for the Lure of the Vampire. Why do we need this monster so much in our society?

Amp: What’s next in your career?

Bertena: I plan on continuing to study the vampire. I am also doing library and college lectures and book signings. I am still writing for Examiner.com and the True Blood Examiner and Lexington Vampire Examiner and I am hoping to start a new non fiction book next year.

If you want to follow me please find me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter @tenavarney

I am continuing to teach at BG Tech and I love it there. I am also looking for a doctoral program in pop culture that is close to home or online and just continue what I started.

I am scheduled as a guest speaker at Dance on the Darkside in Louisville, ScareFest in Lexington and have a few more conventions that I visit on a regular basis. I am also looking to do workshops on vampires if anyone is interested.