'Til Death Do Us (A)Part: Love (and Sex) In the Zombie Apocalypse

I know, I know; I missed posting on Friday. My fault. Won’t happen again.

Hopefully.

It’s almost Halloween, so let’s talk about vampires for a minute, shall we?

NBC’s Dracula premiered last night. I’ve been looking forward to this show for weeks, not least because Jonathan Rhys Meyers – who I first saw on The Tudors, where he was a startlingly hateful and yet compelling Henry VIII – plays the infamous vampire, and I could watch that man read the phone book, provided he was shirtless while he did it. But also, I love vampires. Loooooove them. Huge fan of The Vampire Chronicles; I’ve seen countless adaptations of the original Dracula story. My two favorites are probably Dracula 2000, which reimagines the centuries-old vampire as Judas Iscariot, forced to walk as the undead as punishment for his betrayal of Jesus Christ; and Shadow of the Vampire, which fictionalizes the filming of the classic Nosferatu (John Malkovich is super, super creepy and absolutely perfect as the unhinged director of the film-within-the-film). I like twists on a familiar story. Probably why I love Once Upon A Time so damn much.

NBC’s show has tweaks to the original, but I don’t yet know if they’re compelling enough to carry a series. Rather than enemies, Dracula and Van Helsing are, if not friends, at least partners, working together to take down the mysterious Order of the Dragon, who appear to be vampire hunters? Or stampers out of the occult in general? I’m not sure. The men are pinched and jerky, and the sole female member has boobs that tuck up under her chin. That’s all I got. Mina and Lucy and Harker are there, and I think Arthur Holmwood made an appearance, though they didn’t use his name. Dracula is masquerading as an American, and oh, Meyers’ American accent is terrible. I really couldn’t figure out if it was supposed to be terrible, or if he’s just not good at it. It was distracting, either way.

The Daily Beast described it as “Gothic horror by way of Harlequin romance”, and yeah, I see that. They complained that it wasn’t scary, which I also agree with. BUT. I think maybe it doesn’t have to be? I mean, sparkly vampires aren’t in the least bit terrifying, but the Twilight series made bank. It doesn’t have to be scary to be appealing.

People wonder, I know, why the vampire thing is such a big deal now, particularly in romance. What’s the appeal? Why do women like that? And I think it’s a silly question, really, when one considers the age-old truth: good girls like bad boys. Ask any woman who stayed with a shitty boyfriend for long after she should have, and she’ll tell you – he was a dick, but he had goodness in there. Somewhere. Buried down deep, maybe, but she’s sure it was there. Vampires are bad; they’re undead, murderers, grossly unappealing on their face. But a vampire who loves a woman? Who can be tamed by her affection, who can hurt others, yes, and be evil, yes, but never hurt her? Well. Swoon. And Rhys Meyers, whatever else he is, is swoon-worthy. For real.

I don’t know. I wasn’t super impressed with the premiere of this show, but I’ll watch it again next week, to see where it goes. If you watched, what did you think?

On a different note, can I just yell at The Walking Dead real quick? DON’T TAKE MY FLU, MOTHERFUCKERS. Now granted, the new flu, or whatever is killing people, isn’t the cause of the zombie apocalypse, but seriously. Coughing, hemorrhaging, coming back from the dead? Sigh.

Speaking of the flu, oh-ho-ho, it’s spreading my friends. Shit, as they say, is about to hit the fan. Come back tomorrow and see what I mean. It’ll be worth it! Promise.