You and vampires

[Chosen Enemy]

Do you find yourself taking more interest in vampires in general because of Buffy? Or have you always liked vampires, even before Buffy? Do you watch vampire shows and movies because of Buffy?

(by the way, I didn't know if the thread belongs to the Bronze or not, because Buffy is mentioned here)

 

[Username]

I have absolutely no interest in vampires outside of Buffy... 30 Days of Night is kinda awesome, but other than that I don't like watching movies or shows about vampires, and I don't want to read about them.

 

[spikecakes]

I've always loved Bram Stoker. Especially Francis Ford Coppola's film version of Dracula. Gary Oldman as Dracula = bloody brilliant.

I love the 1922 Nosferatu too.

To me, BTVS is the best modern representation of the modern vamp. Twilight is truly dismal.

I sound so dull, but bloody Edward Cullen you complete moron.

 

[Kean]

Nope. I have never liked vampires, I didn't watch Buffy because it was "about" vampires and I certainly don't find myself gravitating towards vampire shows/films. In fact, I don't think I have ever seen/stuck with anything else vamp related.

 

[PrincessBuffy16]

I like vampires because of Buffy. I started watching Buffy very young, and as a kid, I took a lot of interest in vampires. I never worshiped them or something like that, I just have a tendency to fall in love what people find unreal.. vamps, fairies, sirens etc.

 

[nightshade]

It depends on the story for me, I won't automatically watch something because its got vampires in it, but I do love supernatural stories so I'm likely to find out more about it.

 

[sisterofmercy]

No, I think it's kind of overdone really as a genre. I like Buffy because it doesn't treat them the same way other films/TV shows do. I haven't seen things like True Blood though so I can't really judge, but I do hate films about vampires. They seem rather cheesy.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I quite like Twilight, I don't take it all that seriously but its entertaining 🙂
I love True Blood though! mmmm Eric!

 

[BuffyElevated]

Nope. I have never liked vampires, I didn't watch Buffy because it was "about" vampires and I certainly don't find myself gravitating towards vampire shows/films. In fact, I don't think I have ever seen/stuck with anything else vamp related.

I like supernatural stuff as a whole, but I'm not overly drawn to things about vampires, and definitely not because of Buffy. My interest in Buffy began because of the story dynamic between the characters, and their relationships with each other, not because of the supernatural elements within the show. If characters aren't interesting, I won't watch something; it doesn't matter to me whether or not their human, vampire, whatever.

 

[white avenger]

Actually, except for Fred Saberhagen's interpretation of Dracula (which begins in "An Old Friend Of The Family," VERY highly recommended) I've always been more of a werewolf person, due to my exposure to Chaney's Lawrence Talbot character at a very young age. Vamps just didn't seem very menacing to me. They could pop out two little fangs. Big deal. A werewolf could pop out a whole mouth full of sharp teeth, plus claws ad fur, and they had a real blood chilling howl to go along with the change. Until Buffy came on TV, vampires were just guys in tuxes with false teeth. All of they changed with "Welcome To The Hellmouth." Whedon is the first one to turn vampires into REAL monsters, so I guess that I can give a partial "yes" answer to your question. As for watching any of the current "new breed" vampires, except for "Moonlight," none of them have ever interested me.

 

[Kean]

I like supernatural stuff as a whole, but I'm not overly drawn to things about vampires, and definitely not because of Buffy. My interest in Buffy began because of the story dynamic between the characters, and their relationships with each other, not because of the supernatural elements within the show. If characters aren't interesting, I won't watch something; it doesn't matter to me whether or not their human, vampire, whatever.

Agreed. I watch Supernatural but quite frankly I watch because of Dean...and the Impala.(sw) I'm invested in his story. I would quite honestly love if the whole demon part of it was downsized A LOT! It detracts from what I want to see which is Dean dealing with life in general.

 

[zobothehobo]

Here's my deal with vampires: I hate them. I really didn't want to watch Buffy at first because I do not like vampires at all. I find the whole concept of vampires to be really awful and annoying. I LOVE Buffy. I thought maybe I'd misjudged vampires. I heard True Blood was really good, so I tried to watch it. I watched the first episode and was like "um... No." Vampires in general do not interest me at all.

The only vampires I like are the Buffyverse vampires, the Dracula of A Taste for Love (the Dracula musical from Forgetting Sarah Marshall), and Dr. Acula from Scrubs.

 

[VisionGirl]

LOL, I love Zoe's post! ^^

Anyway, I do like supernatural stories (and alien stories! X-Files, Fringe, Torchwood etc), but I've never been all that excited about vampire stories, I mean I never was into the Anne Rice novels or movies (that was more my generation). I couldn't stand the small amount of Twilight I watched one day while I was sick. I do like True Blood- well, I should say that I like the Sookie Stackhouse novels, and True Blood is an OK rendition of them. Not my favorite show on TV, but I watch it. And I really feel that Buffy is about a lot more than that- I totally agree with WA that I find the Buffy vampires more monsterish (although less so than other movies, say Blade or 30 Days of Night for example). On True Blood the vamps have flip-out teeth, I simply cannot take that seriously. And the action scenes are kinda lame- the vamps kinda fly toward each other. Makes me realize how much work was put into Buffy/ATS fight scenes. And really, on True Blood they make vamps scarier by making them move faster. Really, that's scary?

See, I have no desire to watch Vampire Diaries but I do need to watch Supernatural.

 

[Konoe]

Well I honestly never cared about Vumpires and still don't even though I watched Buffy the Vumpire Slayer.

Buffy wasn't the first thing I've see/read about Vumpires but instead it was Ann Rice's books that somewhat got me interested in them because in reality I liked how she played them out in her books.

The only reason I watched Buffy was because it was about supernatural things IE, Inka Mummy Girl and so forth, but it was based solely around the Vumpires.

After reading Ann Rice's books I though Vumpires were more materialistic since they were dead and amenities seemed the only thing to have bound them to a somewhat reality.

And as for the last question I would say no. To me Buffy isn't such a big deal and thought it was a pretty good show but not a "OMG THIS IS THE BEST SHOW EVER!"

 

[wickedtiger86]

Well hmm . . . Buffy may have contributed in my eventual interest in vampires.

I love folklore and mythology. If I could have majored in it in college without having to move to England I totally would have.

Vampires are a very fascinating bit of folklore. The evolution of the idea of vampires is kind of amazing. Be prepared for me to geek out and go a little off topic here.

The first famous vampire story is of course about Dracula. The man he was based upon, Vlad, was perceived as a complete evil. So evil, in fact, that most people couldn't reconcile his actions with the way a human should behave. So it was assumed that he had some evil bloodthirsty need in him, that he was a vampire.

Over the years vampires came to represent more than just evil. The major points are that they live forever and have more power than the average human. Those are two things that humans in general find very attractive. Immortality and Power. So Vampires in turn, started to become something attractive.

Anne Rice played a large part in vampires becoming more attractive and several shows and stories since then have expanded on that. It's really a fascinating show of human evolution.

At the beginning, in the time of Vlad, humans were ruled by fear and that was reflected in the stories that they told. Now people are generally ruled by passion and their desires. Vampires have evolved into stories we want to hear now.

I was watching Buffy before I got into folklore but my main interest in Vampires is from that folkloric perspective. I watch a lot of things about them to see how they continue to evolve.

Yeah, I'm a dork.

And this isn't anywhere near as coherent as I would have liked, but I've got a pack of sisters running around. 🙂 It's very distracting.

 

[OhWow]

Somewhat.

I was into Supernatural, which is not completely about vampires (And I hate how they interpret them...sunlight hurts their skin? Come on.) before I rediscovered Buffy. So that doesn't count. And may I add that the first time my sister showed me Supernatural on TNT I was like, "This is stupid!" LOL

I think Buffy led me towards Being Human US. I pressed "info" saw that a vampire and werewolf we going to chill together I gave it a chance considering my interest in Buffy.

I was thinking about The Walking Dead because it's a horror. But no, that's just from my obsession with zombies! 😀

I hate Twilight (No offense). I saw the first one and it was worse than watching paint dry. It just seemed cheesy and extremely predictable which made it dull. I also love the classic rules. No sparkling vampires please. That just ruins the lore.

I believe that's it. Vampires are cool, but it depends. Anyone know how the vampire myth even came about?! It's really cool. I watched a special on the History Channel about it.

 

[Hale Caesar]

I started watching Buffy during the end of 2010. So the Vampire craze was in full swing, and I hated them. Then I watched Buffy and realized "Holy crap, if done well Vampires can be awesome!"

 

[Marisa]

I have watched them but not to this level. I like Buffy but it is not my favorite vampire show although it is interesting. I like the vampires in more recent shows more.

My favorite vampire show would probably be The Vampire Diaries or Angel (hard to compare very different) and my favorite vampire besides Angel and Spike is Eric from True Blood or Damon from TVD although lately I really love Eric.

I love the show Angel that fascinates me and I like to see the differences but I usually watch shows if they look interesting and they have characters I like.

I watch Twilight's but don't take them very seriously not like I do some of my other shows. They are just more entertainment only for me.

I like vampires most supernatural wise. I like werewolves but not as much as vamps. I find vamps to be interesting if the actor that is portraying them is interesting otherwise I don't care. I think vamps have a sexuality about them that draws you in where some normal characters don't.

Overall Buffy may have helped a bit Angel did more but Buffy is not my favorite vamp show so it doesn't really impact my decisions vampire wise. I would go as far to say that Buffy isn't really a vampire show because yes she slays the average vamps but besides for Spike there wasn't really enough development on that series and then at times it was more about relationships. Buffy did explore the vampire nature but not as much as other shows.

 

[PassionBecoming]

I read Bram Stoker's Dracula in grade school, and from there started reading Ann Rice. Falling into BtVS was a bonus! I'm not really into any other vamp shows or movies these days, though. I stick to my Buffy-lore!

Also, for you readers out there, "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova is EXCELLENT.

 

[Gum Gnome33]

Buffy got me interested in vampires, and vampire mythology. But I don't enjoy anyone's take, other than Joss's. It's probably because I fell in love with Buffy at age 14; it sparked an interest and nothing else could compare to the world Joss set up. I gave True Blood and Twilight a try and--pfft--no thanks. Seriously, watching those only makes me want to watch Buffy more. But again, I think I'm rather biased. 🙂

ETA: I should say that between those two, True Blood is way better than Twilight because at least it's sexy and fun, from what I've seen. Twilight is just nonsense to me. All angst and whining and horrible acting. Never read the books.