Vampires (27 page)

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, 1987. Starring Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright. Cleverly mixing vampires with elements of the Western and biker movie genres, this was one of a number of movies released in the eighties that picked up some of the more serious themes in vampire mythology. A cult classic.

Directed by Joel Schumacher, 1987. Starring Jason Patric, Corey Haim, Kiefer Sutherland. With a title referencing the ‘lost boys’ of J.M. Barrie’s
Peter Pan
, the film tells the story of two young men from Arizona who move to California and find themselves embroiled in conflict with a gang of teenage vampires.

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, 1992. Starring Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu Reeves. ‘Big names, a big budget, big sets, a big, thundering score and even big hair’ was how one critic described this film. He went on to pan it, but audiences loved it, and it was a box-office smash.

Directed by Neil Jordan, 1994. Starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Kirsten Dunst. Based on the Anne Rice Chronicles, the movie initially attracted controversy because of its violence, and the fact that Rice was not enthusiastic about the casting of Cruise in the role of Lestat. However, it ultimately went on to be a hit.

Directed by Robert Rodriguez, 1996. Starring Harvey Keitel, George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Juliet Lewis, Salma Hayek. A pulp B-movie extravaganza, full of trashy sex, violence, and gore, one critic commented: ‘I can think of worse things to sit through than an orgy of bullets, exploding corpses and stripper vampires’.

Directed by Stephen Norrington, 1998. Starring Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff. Snipes plays Blade, a character based on the fictional hero of Marvel Comics fame. Blade is half human, half vampire, and fights off a vampire invasion. The film was a massive box-office success, ushering a revival of the American superhero movie, and spawning two sequels.

Directed by Guy Maddin 2002. Starring Zhang Wei-Qiang, Tara Birtwhistle, David Moroni. This silent film, initially destined for limited release only, won many admirers for its originality. Based on the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s interpretation of Bram Stoker’s
Dracula
, it takes the familiar vampire story and transforms it into a dream-like sequence.

Directed by Len Wiseman, 2003. Starring Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman. The tale of a female vampire who hunts Lycans or werewolves, the film was negatively received in general, the consensus being that it was over-styled and overacted, without rising to the level of enjoyable shlock. However, it went on to spawn two sequels.

Directed by Tomas Alfredson, 2008. Starring Kare Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar. Set in the suburbs of Stockholm, this heartwarming story of a 12-year-old boy who befriends a vampire child was a surprise hit, garnering many awards. The screenplay was written by novelist John Ajvide Lindqvist, based on his book of the same name.

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, 2008. Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson. Some felt that the movie adaptation had lost some of the ‘bite’ of Stephenie Meyer’s novel, a love story between a human girl and a vampire boy. However, the film’s two young leads were generally praised, described as ‘sizzling like two sausages in a pan’.

Rock’n’roll has, from its earliest days, borrowed elements from the horror genre, and the vampire myth is no exception. Artists such as Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Alice Cooper, Marilyn Manson and Ozzy Osbourne are among those who have brought a strong gothic aesthetic of graveyard gore into the world of pop. In doing so, they have loyally upheld the crucial rock tradition of disgusting and horrifying the establishment, whether identified as government officials, social commentators, or parental figures.

On the whole, the antics of the ‘vampires of pop’ have been fairly harmless, designed to entertain rather than to incite violence. Their vaudevillian stage routines have had an element of humour to them, often being performed tongue-in-cheek, but that has not stopped the authorities and the media from constantly voicing their anxieties about their corrupting effect on the youth of today. In particular, politicians and social commentators focus on the violence of the stage shows, and the effect this may have on impressionable children and teenagers, often ignoring the fact that such antics have a strong element of parody about them, and that freak and horror shows of one type or another are nothing new. Indeed, they have been going on since medieval times, when travelling fairs would exhibit freaks of nature, whether human or animal, and from the Victorian period, when a morbid fascination for such curiosities was at its height.

Despite, or perhaps because of the perennial censure that they have encountered, the ‘vampires’ of pop have continued in their mission to bring the most sensational elements of the horror genre into the centre of contemporary music, whether it be heavy metal, garage, punk, or even hip hop; and, in the future, this fruitful partnership of horror and noise that so appeals to adolescents, young adults, and certain older sections of the listening public, looks set to continue.

The pairing of gothic horror with rock’n’roll has been a long, respected tradition since the fifties. Borrowing from the carnivals, vaudeville tents, medicine men, freak shows, and travelling fairs that were so much a part of entertainment for ordinary working people across America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, in the post-war period a number of black performers began to introduce these elements into rock’n’roll.

One of the first to do so was one Jalacy Hawkins, a musician, singer and actor with a wildly – some would say absurdly – theatrical show. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1929, Hawkins initially studied piano, and hoped to become a serious singer in the style of Paul Robeson. However, his dreams, like those of so many talented black musicians, were dashed, and during World War II, he ended up entertaining the troops as a blues singer. He also became Middleweight Boxing Champion for Alaska.

In 1956, changing his name to Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, he recorded his hit single,
I Put A Spell on You
. Originally intended to be a gentle, sweet ballad, it turned out rather differently. Legend has it that during the recording session, the entire band were blind drunk, Hawkins particularly so. What emerged was a raw slice of guttural rock’n’roll, and after somehow grunting and howling his way through the song, Hawkins passed out. Later, when it became a hit, he was forced to relearn it so that he could perform it on stage.

Much to general surprise, the song became an early rock’n’roll hit, and Hawkins was soon performing it to hordes of screaming teenagers. To entertain his young audience, Hawkins dressed in an outlandish gold and leopard-skin costume, often with a flowing cape. He also borrowed from voodoo, using props such as a skull on a stick and rubber snakes. It is thought that emerging from a coffin on stage was DJ and promoter Alan Freed’s idea, and that Hawkins was paid to do the stunt. Be that as it may, the sight of this bizarrely dressed man jumping out of a coffin on a smoke-filled stage had the desired effect, and Hawkins continued with this stage act for the rest of his career, long after the popularity of his records had ceased.

Hawkins’ ‘vampire and voodoo’ stage act was a big influence on several later rock acts, including Alice Cooper. Born Vincent Furnier in Detroit, Michigan, in 1948, he formed a band called The Earwigs while still in high school, but later, after several changes of line-up, altered the name to Alice Cooper. This name was said to have come to him in a session with an ouija board, in which he made contact with a seventeenth century witch called Alice Cooper. Later, Cooper admitted that this was a publicity stunt, and that he actually chose the name because it ‘sounded like a cute little girl with a hatchet behind her back’. However, the name proved to be an essential factor in Cooper’s success; initially, it was only used as a band name, but after fans started to refer to the band’s leader as ‘Alice’, Cooper decided to use the name himself, also dressing appropriately in an androgynous style, which further alienated his critics.

As the band’s career progressed, Cooper soon showed himself to be aware of the value of publicity, especially bad publicity, and began to use it to great effect. In 1969, while performing in Toronto, a chicken wandered on to the stage – the reasons for this are still unknown. Without hesitation, Cooper picked it up and tossed it into the auditorium, believing that chickens were able to fly. Instead, it dropped down into the crowd, who apparently tore it to pieces. The next day, it was reported in the press that Cooper had bitten the head off the chicken and had even gone so far as to drink its blood on stage. He immediately denied the report, but after a conversation with his producer, Frank Zappa, allowed it to circulate, realizing the potential that such publicity had to increase the shock value of his stage act. The notion that he was a vampire, who lived on the blood of animals, was one that he began to encourage, living up to his deathly reputation by wearing streaks of dark make-up around his eyes, and dressing in black.

It was not long before Cooper’s live show began to feature other elements derived from the horror genre, such as a real boa constrictor, which he often wrapped around his neck, an electric chair, and a gallows. In his shows, he would perform such antics as the chopping up of bloodied baby dolls, much to the consternation of his many horrified critics.

The band’s single ‘School’s Out’ reached the top ten in 1972, selling over a million copies. The following year their album
Billion Dollar Babies
reached the number one slot in both the US and the UK, and their reputation was sealed. Alice Cooper began to tour more intensively, and the shows became wilder, featuring all kinds of gruesome effects, from extracted dancing teeth to a guillotine, complete with executioner. Not surprisingly, the establishment were outraged, and political figures and social commentators clamoured to have them banned from performing. This, of course, only increased their popularity.

In the years that followed, the constant touring took its toll on Cooper, who became an alcoholic. He formed a drinking club with his friends known as The Hollywood Vampires, but after a run of accidents and mishaps, some of them on stage, decided to quit drinking and become a born-again Christian. Thankfully, however, he has refrained from lecturing his many fans on the evil of his former ways, restricting himself to the observation that his enjoyment of golf was a great help to him in his rehabilitation.