V Is For...

Poor Victor, run over by a train...Yeesh!

I want to extend a HUGE thanks to Elizabeth Mueller who has designed and given out this absolutely fantastic A to Z Participation Award. I have not finished, but I'm plugging along and hope you all will stick with me. We're almost there, kids.

V Is For...Vampires, Vampires, Vampires

I could not go through this challenge without talking about one of my favorite monsters, vampires. I'm talking the blood-sucking, cross hating, garlic intolerant, day-sleeping monsters, NOT Edward Cullen, the 100 year old, still wants to go to high school, sunlight-makes-me-sparkle-like-Tinkerbell, vampire. I've often wondered, shouldn't he be considered a pedophile? I mean he's older than 99.9% of the adult population and is clearly stalking underage girls.

I digress. From the scary to the seductive, vampires have been fueling the fire of my dark imagination since I first saw Bela Lugosi drift across the screen as Count Dracula. Since then I've read and seen the Good, the Bad and the WTF of vampire books and movies. Some incorporate the folklore and expand upon it in wild, differing ways, while others make up their own mythology all together. Here's a partial list of some faves of mine.

Books/Stories:

Let The Right One In John Ajvide Lindqvist

Dracula Bram Stoker

Carmilla Sheridan Le Fanu

I Am Legend Richard Matheson

Salem's Lot Stephen King

Guilty Pleasures Laurell K. Hamilton (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series)

Interview With The Vampire Anne Rice

The Strain Guillermo del Toro (The Strain trilogy)

Dead Until Dark Charlaine Harris (The Southern Vampire Mysteries)

Movies:

30 Days of Night (2007)

From Dusk Til Dawn (1996)

Let The Right One In (2008)

Let Me In (2010)

Underworld (2003)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

Dracula 2000 (2000)

Nosferatu (1922)

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

Vampires (1998)

Dracula (1931)

Here's a little taste of the scary and the seductive sides of these monsters...



And the scene that burned Salma Hayek into our minds