The History channel is running some shows on "things that go bump" in the night & I recently watched the Vampire segment. The show covered everything from the origins of the creature (they go back thousands of years, The Chinese have Jiang Shi, India has Kali, & Lilith comes from the Old Testament...check them out on wikipedia) all the way to scientific research on them in the modern world (new age Vampires do not drink blood nor allow it in practice, the feed on psychic energy & they walk among us...especially in New Orleans & NYC). It also goes over how their image has changed throughout the centuries from undead scary monsters to charming, sexy, & seductive Euro's. The show didn't cover much of the new age Americanized teen-vamp(Twilight, Vampire Diaries etc) or the True Blood Southern Gothic take on Vampires simply being minorities...but there are more then enough articles & shows covering that now.
One of the more disturbing things that came out of the show was that...as usual, the worst monsters in Vampire history are not in Mythology or Fiction but were true stories of actual human atrocities . One of the worst monsters in human history was a Hungarian Royal who believed bathing in blood would keep her young. They estimate that she tortured & killed 600+ virgins over the years for their blood. She was not brought to justice until she went after the children of fellow royalty. Another monster was some head-case teenager who slaughtered his girlfriends parents to drink their blood. He was given life & doesn't really care since he believes he is immortal.
Do we create these monsters of fiction to make our own real monsters seen less horrible...? Do we dream them up because of our horror & revulsion at what our fellow men/women really do? I don't think Count Dracula had much on Vlad "the Impaler" Dracula much less Hitler, Stalin, Mao...well the list goes on, you get the point...
Otherwise, enjoy the show...I have the Wolfman episode set to record...I like Vampires...but due to my nature...I think it's safe to say I would be a Lycan...
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