Of vampires and zombies

[roguem]

Wow, my Supernatural review yesterday turned out so much longer than I had intended. Might seem like that episode will end up among my favourites.

Anyway, I kept referancing my 'Modern Vampire' class in that review, so I figured I'd dig out my notes form that class and write some of the stuff down for you.

I'm taking you back to my first session where we learned about the folk lore of Vampires. The reason I'm tying this in to zombie lore will hopefully become apparant after a little while. If anybody can actually remember when I was taking this class I wrote several times that there are obvious similarities between the original vampire and today's zombie. I will provide book titles if I can when I quote something.

"These vampires are supposed to be the bodies of deceased persons, animated by evil spirits, which come out of the graves, in the night time, suck the blood of many of the living and thereby destroy them."
Travels of 3 English Gentlemen (London, 1890)
So far pretty obvious vampire lore, but zombies aren't exactly friendly either, they rise from the dead, are not who they once were. And compared to what fictional vampires are today fit the whole 'animated by evil spirits' better than the vampires, who according to fiction today have control over what they're doing.

Back in the olden days they believed that vampires looked like corpses, that they would be bloated, dirty and still wearing their death shrouds. That is what I think reminds me more of the modern day zombie, than vampire. What first sparked my thoughts on the subject.

It was said that you could find o ut if someone had turned into a vampire by exhuming the corpse and checking for signs, these signs being:
   - The body would be bloated and red in the face.
   - It would be facing downwards.
   - Its mouth would be red with blood.
   - It would not show sign of decomposition.

As it is today, both the zombie and the vampire have left their grave and found other places to hide when they're not attacking people. Not that the zombie tends to hide though. However as we are shown zombies and vampires today, it's the zombie that tends to be a bit bloated and has blood around its mouth. While the vampire takes more care with it's appearance.

Now on the facts about how to kill  or at least confine the vampires of old to their coffin.
   - Placing crosses in the coffin.
   - Mouth filled with stones, incense and garlic.
   - Placing sand and poppy seeds in the coffin to prevent the vampire from leaving its coffin - it will be compelled to count every seed. This one might ring a bell with X-Files fans.
   - Place the body facing downward.
   - Tie it's hands behind its back.
   - Stake through the heart or navel.
   - Decapitate or dismember.
   - Burn the body and scatter the ashes.

It weird though that one of the signs of it being a vampire would be that the body would be facing down in the coffin and that would also be a way to stop it. Hmmm. 

Anyways, looks like most zombie movies are right about chopping off the heads, but for those of you who have been watching Supernatural, that was also the only way to kill the vampires in the show, while they managed to dispose of the zombie by 'nailing them back into their gravebeds', which I'm pretty sure was mentioned in my class, but I guess as for the things I have listed the staking would have the same effect as the stake would have to go all the way through the body and in effect attaching the body to the coffin.


Sadly that's all I can find in my old notes at the moment, but I know there were more things that linked old vampire lore to modern zombies. There are probably some books on the subject that we read, that I don't have anymore.

Comments

[trav28.livejournal.com]

Placing sand and poppy seeds in the coffin to prevent the vampire from leaving its coffin - it will be compelled to count every seed. This one might ring a bell with X-Files fans.

I think Mulder dealt with this stating that vampires are "obsessive compulsives" and would need to pick up the seed but folk lore states that vampires have a fear of anything with life, such as running water and seeds. A ring of salt is also meant to deter the undead.

[roguem.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was the episode I had in mind. 'The one with Luke Wilson' as I tend to call it. We watched that in our first session so I had to give 'em cred for doing their research.
Same people who are behind 'Supernatural' though, so can't really excpect anything less. :)

Salt? Is that for zombies or just all undead in general? They've used it in 'Supernatural' agains spirits and demons. Interesting.

[tygerx.livejournal.com]

I love that X-files ep.. hee hee! Especially Mulder's version of buck-toothed sheriff Luke. ;P

Thanks for the info.. very interesting.

[roguem.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I loked that one too.

You're welcome. :)

[starlit-woods.livejournal.com]

That was really interesting Eva. I remember reading a review for a zombie movie that was about soldiers coming back from the war but it turned out they were really dead, they were zombies, and the reviewer was saying how it was a nice metaphor for what soldiers really do go through in wars, and how when they come back they have Post Traumatic Shock. I thought that was very interesting :)

[roguem.livejournal.com]

Glad you enjoyed it.

That is a very good metaphor. Whoever came up with the idea must have had some kind of insight to how people who come back from a war deals with the aftermath.
Do you remember what the film was called?

[starlit-woods.livejournal.com]

It is a good metaphor isn't it? I don't even like horror movies and I thought it was quite a clever parallel for the director to make. Still, I'm too chicken to watch it ;D

I think the film might have been "Deathdream", the description of the opening scene here of the soldier returning home after the parents have been told he's dead sounds like what I read in the review...

http://www.horschamp.qc.ca/new_offscreen/deathdream.html

[roguem.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link, will do some research on it, see if I can dig it up. :D

[starlit-woods.livejournal.com]

If you do find it let me know if you like it. Not that I'll watch it, because I'm a coward! ;D

[roguem.livejournal.com]

Couldn't find it on play.com
Found it on IMDB though, got a good grade.
Scary movies from the 70s are rarely scary.

[starlit-woods.livejournal.com]

Yeah I think movies probably have gotten more graphic and realistic over the years so when we see older movies they're not as scary. Still, I'm too chicken to even watch the comedy-horror ones! ;D

[roguem.livejournal.com]

True, but also very little actually happens in the old horror movies, they rely very much on suspense, and sadly that doesn't work as well with today's audiences.
Still there are some scary ones.

Can't blame you for not wanting to watch these movies, it took me a long while before I warmed up to the genre and was able to sleep through an entire night after watching a scary movie. Heh.
Think the first scary movie that actually got me hooked on the genre was 'Scream', was scary when I was 15, but also good enough for me to enjoy the other aspects of it.

Sorry am rambling.

[starlit-woods.livejournal.com]

You're right not very much does happen in old movies, horror ones or regular ones :/

My brother and I saw an ad for "Carrie" on tv the other day and he said "They treated her so badly. I feel sorry for her...until the killing starts" ;)

[roguem.livejournal.com]

Ah, Carrie. Hehe, yeah, but it is the movie that gave hope to victims of bullying. Think that movie should be used in anti-bullying campaigns.

[lizamarie.livejournal.com]

Really interesting. Can I just say I'm a real sucker for vampire folklore?! That's one class I would not miss. The compulsive counting thing was also used in Dracula II: Ascension. He was a freakishly fast counter, though. Lol.

[roguem.livejournal.com]

I loved that too. It was one of my favourite classes in my entire time in London.
I might be posting my notes from the session we had on Buffy. My teacher was a Buffyologist. ;p

I've never seen that film, cool.

[lizamarie.livejournal.com]

I like your professor! :) Cool, that would be nice to read.

You need to see the third part to get the complete idea once you watch the second. The first one I haven't seen, though.

[roguem.livejournal.com]

She was awesome, I was just sad I didn't discover her until my final year.

Okay, will keep it in mind. Thanks. :D

[darkspectre.livejournal.com]

The spirits reanimated the bodies of decreased ones is strictly "Evil Dead," but the actual lore derives from Voodoo.

http://www.zombierama.com/brainwaves/zombology.html
There is a variant of Voodoo Zombie where the zombie is produced from a living person, usually through the forced consumption of mind-destroying drugs. These zombies are relatively useless in combat, since they are both slow-moving and can be killed like a normal living person. For menial household chores, though, they are quite useful.

I'm actually working on a SPN fic with that. Sam and Dean go to New Orleans and face Voodoo Zombies. :)

[roguem.livejournal.com]

These notes are from a class I had on Vampires last year, so I don't know much more than what we were told.

That's very interesting though, about zombies and Voodoo. I think I will do some digging on the subject.

Oh, that sounds like a good plot. :D