Please God, No More Lovelorn Vampires!!!

I really thought we'd learned our lesson after the sparkly Edward and his pathetic ways in the "Twilight" series. It was as though the women of this country were under a national spell that turned them all into morons. I saw them reading Twilight books in doctor's offices, hair salons, and on subways. These weren't the teens the books were written for, these were forty and fifty year olds who actually thought the idea of a guy sitting in a girl's bedroom all night watching her sleep was romantic! Can you say "stalker?" In turn, these women allowed their daughters to read the books and gave them a female character who had absolutely nothing going for her. She was just a blank slate for a mopey vampire to turn into his bride. Talk about a great role model for girl power, mom!

Fast forward to "The Invitation," the movie I unfortunately talked my husband into seeing at the cinema the other night, because it was the only horror movie playing that I hadn't seen. I really wish I'd saved it for one of my solo matinees. Notice I didn't say I really wish I hadn't seen it, because I think we've established that I am obsessed with seeing horror movies whether they're any good or not! That's my curse!

This movie was terrible. This numbskull girl accepts an all-expenses-paid trip to the UK from a total stranger in this day and age? Just because she's in need of a family? I don't think so. She seemed to have it all pretty much going on. I mean, her mother did pass away, which was sad, but somehow I don't think mama would have wanted her to go off on some crazed trip with a weirdo to an old mansion in the UK to hang out with a bunch of freaky folks where the guy at the center of it all clearly has something wrong with him. And she certainly wouldn't have wanted her to fall into bed with that guy, who was supposed to be a handsome stud but really was not that good looking at all and lacked charisma.

You want charisma and a sexy vampire? Give me Chris Sarandon in "Fright Night" any day of the week. He was sexy AND terrifying and not in the least bit pathetic. Yes, Amy reminded him of some lost love whose portrait hangs in his house, but he didn't whine and get all morose over it in the movie. He simply went out and seduced her in the disco with all that sexy, manly-man charisma. Right before our very eyes he turned her into a woman on the dance floor and he didn't have to get all mushy to do it because he was a monster and that's what a vampire is.

So, anyway, in "The Invitation" we once again have a lonely, lovelorn vamp who just wants to share his eternal life and all his riches with someone special and just can't understand why she won't accept his magnanimous gift blah blah blah snore. Don't waste your money.

Was Dracula a lovelorn vampire? I read the novel so long ago that I honestly don't recall, but I don't think so. I know he wasn't in the Bela Lugosi movie. He just wanted to drink blood and that was it. When did we decide that vampires had to be all sad and pathetic and longing for their lost loves?

I blame Dan Curtis. He created Barnabas Collins of "Dark Shadows," played by the Canadian actor Jonathan Frid, an actor so terrible that he forgot his lines on live television more than once and often called characters by the wrong names. He wasn't good looking in the least but millions of women fell under one of those national spells and pined for him, and I think it was because they all wanted to be his Josette and end his eternal suffering since that damned Maggie Evans wouldn't fulfill that role for him. In addition to not being good looking, he was old, and not in a good way, but somehow he ended up on the cover of teen magazines! What????

Even at the tender age of ten I knew he was pathetic.

I didn't want my vampire to be pathetic...I wanted him to be scary, like Christopher Lee!

Now THERE was a vampire! He was sexy and scary and not the least bit lovelorn, pathetic or mushy. I was introduced to my first pre-pubescent flutterings by the Hammer Dracula films, when he would sort of hover over the wenches' breasts, which were always popping out of their barmaid corsets. He'd start just at the edge of fabric that barely kept the tender pink nipples covered, and he'd breathe on their skin, making them moan as they stretched out their incredibly long giraffe necks, and he'd come "this close" to touching their skin with his red lips and the sharp teeth you knew were hidden behind them, working his way up until he reached the g-spot on those aforementioned giraffe necks and plunged those vampire fangs into their throbbing veins, making their eyes rollover white and....oh, sorry, I went into JAWS territory there for a sec.

The bottom line is, vampires should be terrifying, charismatic, and evil to the core. Think Kiefer Sutherland in "The Lost Boys." He was perfect. Well, maybe not as perfect as Chris Sarandon, but really, who is? ;)

How do you like your vampires? Tell me in the comments below!