Of vampires and zombies
Oct. 21st, 2006 11:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roguemWow, 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.
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.
"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.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-25 07:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-25 04:07 pm (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-31 07:48 am (UTC)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" ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-31 09:02 pm (UTC)