[Zsinj]

I don't mean to offend the fans of Twilight out there, but personally, I hate it with a passion. Stephanie Meyer has seemed to single-handedly ruin the vampiric horror subgenre with her Twilight series. Yes, I know that technically, there were forerunners such as Anne Rice and Laurell K. Hamilton, but to my knowledge they didn't shamelessly throw out gothic elements and turn vampires and werewolves into harmless teeny bopper morons. Besides a couple of books here and there like "The Strain" by Guillermo Del Toro, menacing literary vampires like those found in Dracula, Salem's Lot, and Necroscope seem to have all but dissapeared. Teeny bopper paranormal romance seems to abound and it seems that vampires have lost their bite. Is their any hope for the traditional vampire novel to make a comeback?

[Jon Sprunk]

Just because "traditional" dark-lord-of-the-night vampires aren't headlining in movie theaters this week doesn't mean they have gone away. Now that the pendulum has swung far into emo-vamp territory, the time is ripe for a good gothic series to rise from the grave, so to speak.

[erik martin]

It all goes in cycles. There will come a day for evil vamps again. Both my sister-in-law and mother-in-law are all a twitter about the new Twilight movie--it's not just for teenie boppers, I see more grown women into Edward (No one likes Jacob that I've met) than kids by far. Besides, I remember a pretty big following for Rice among disaffected middle and high school girls in the eighties. There wasn't the mainstream appeal though because the movies based on Rice mostly sucked. But it was similar.

[krm0915]

Blindsight by Peter Watts features a very bad-ass vampire as one of the main characters. Not exactly "traditional", but a great character. I know some people on here- such as Wert- have spoken very highly of The Passage by Justin Cronin, which I think was released earlier this month. I haven't read it yet, though.

There wasn't the mainstream appeal though because the movies based on Rice mostly sucked. But it was similar.
I sincerely hope you're not suggesting the Twilight movies are good. Because my sister dragged me to the first one. It was cheesy, vapid, and boring. In short, it mostly sucked.

[erik martin]

Not in the least, can't stand them (Though I admit I watched the first two on dvd) and absolutely detest the lead actress (her name escapes me, you know who I mean, the deadpan one.) but I do enjoy making fun of body glitter vamps. No, my point was that the Rice movies (Interview, Vampire Lestat, and Queen of the Damned) never became mainstream sensations the way the Twilight movies have. Now, Rice's books (the few I read, I did not read the whole vampire series) were decent, while I have heard that the Twilight books themselves are pretty poor. (Haven't read them.)

[cohelian]

There are tons of vamp books in every variation. I've read a lot of them and for my money noone does them better than Ann Rice.
Haven't seen the Twilight movie but did read the book and I have seen a couple cable episodes from the series. Not terrible, but way too focused on the love story.
I like the Underworld and Blade movies for the action, but the actual storylines are pathetic. Both are clearly written for the big screen action.
In my opinion the best vamp books and movies are Ann Rice based.
I liked Interview with a Vampire, though I wish they'd cast someone other than Tom Cruise. I Also liked Queen of the Damned.
My all time favorite vamp movie is Bram Stokers Dracula, but as far as books go, I'll take Rice any day.

[Hobbit]

Here's an interesting/related post from Danie Ware, of Forbidden Planet UK.

LINK. (http://danacea.blogspot.com/2010/06/anti-vamp-rant.html)

Despite the spelling error, I particularly like

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_HdqOoUklcaw/TCSBLjP4NKI/AAAAAAAABIs/_I-3nKIEN30/s1600/twilight.jpg


I don't write off the traditional vampire yet though.

Guillarmo del Toro's The Strain, Cronin's The Passage, Farnsworth's Blood Oath all show there's hope for scarier vampires yet.

Mark

[Sheets]

IMO Twilight is a symptom and not necessarily a cause. It's a natural, if unfortunate, progression from a society that is increasingly reluctant to age gracefully - you live forever, you look foxy forever, permanent night life, you get "superpowers"...drinking blood is kind of a downside but a lot of these new vampire stories specify that vampires can live comfortably on blood banks or small animals, so that's not so terrible. From that perspective, why wouldn't crap like Twilight start to proliferate? ;)

[Loerwyn]

I've always been a bit iffy about vampires and things (one reason I'm reluctant to get Salem's Lot, actually), but it's certainly not just the fault of Twilight. They're a sort of "overused" device, if that makes any sense.

[NickeeCoco]

. Teeny bopper paranormal romance seems to abound and it seems that vampires have lost their bite. Is their any hope for the traditional vampire novel to make a comeback?

Aren't you forgetting Buffy? Buffy the Vampire Slayer was around long before Twilight was and you can't get more teenage fluff than that. (Though, I will admit, I have seasons 1-3 on DVD.)