Vampires - Romantic Heroes or Bloodsucking Monsters?

Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence (generally in the form of blood) of living creatures regardless of them being undead or a living person. Créméné, Mythologie du Vampire, p. 89.Bunson, Vampire Encyclopedia, p. 219. ??????? ????????, ????????? ?.?., ????????? ?.?., ????????? ?.?. ?? ??., 1997.[http://web.archive.org/web/20070927212332/http://www.ber.te.ua/cgi-bin/dic/dic.php?nom=359] online article.

In folkloric tales, vampires often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods they inhabited when they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance. This is markedly different from modern fictional portrayals of gaunt, pale vampires beginning in the early 19th century. Although vampiric entities have been recorded in many cultures and according to speculation by literary historian Brian Frost that the "belief in vampires and bloodsucking demons is as old as man himself," and may go back to "prehistoric times,"Frost, Brian J. The Monster with a Thousand Faces: Guises of the Vampire in Myth and Literature, Univ. of Wisconsin Press (1989) p. 3., the term vampire was not popularized until the early 18th century, after an influx of vampire superstition into Western Europe from areas where vampire legends were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern Europe,Silver & Ursini, The Vampire Film, pp. 22?23. although local variants were also known by different names, such as vampir (??????) in Serbia and Bulgaria, vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania. This increased level of vampire superstition in Europe led to mass hysteria and in some cases resulted in corpses actually being staked and people being accused of vampirism.

The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of The Vampyre by John Polidori. The story was highly successful and arguably the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century. However, it is Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula that is remembered as the quintessential vampire novel and which provided the basis of modern vampire fiction. Dracula drew on earlier mythologies of werewolves and similar imaginary demons and "was to voice the anxieties of an age," and the "fears of late Victorian patriarchy."Sellers, Susan. Myth and Fairy Tale in Contemporary Womens Fiction'', Palgrave Macmillan (2001) p. 85.

The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire genre, still popular in the 21st century, with books, films, video games, and television shows. The vampire is a dominant figure in the horror genre that literary historian Susan Sellers places the current vampire myth in the "comparative safety of nightmare fantasy."

Twilight is a series of four vampire-based fantasy romance novels by American author Stephenie Meyer. It charts a period in the life of Isabella "Bella" Swan, a teenage girl who moves to Forks, Washington, and falls in love with a 104-year-old vampire named Edward Cullen. The series is told primarily from Bella's point of view, with the epilogue of Eclipse and Part II of Breaking Dawn being told from the viewpoint of character Jacob Black, a werewolf. The unpublished Midnight Sun is a retelling of the first book, Twilight, from Edward Cullen's point of view.

Ever since the release of the first novel, Twilight, in 2005, the books have gained immense popularity and commercial success around the world. The series is most popular among young adults; the four books have won multiple awards, most notably the 2008 British Book Award for "Children's Book of the Year" for Breaking Dawn, while the series as a whole won the 2009 Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Book.

As of November 2009, the series has sold over 85 million copies worldwide with translations into at least 38 different languages around the globe. The four Twilight books have consecutively set records as the biggest selling novels of 2008 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list and have spent over 235 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list for Children's Series Books.

Thus far, the first three books are being made into a series of motion pictures by Summit Entertainment; the film adaptation of Twilight was released in 2008 and the second, Category: The Twilight Saga: New Moon - , was released on November 20, 2009. The third film, Category: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse - , is set to be released June 30, 2010.

Twilight is a romantic-fantasy film. It is the first film in The Twilight Saga film series, directed by Catherine Hardwicke and based on the novel of the same name by Stephenie Meyer. It focuses on the development of a personal relationship between human teenager Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), and the subsequent efforts of Cullen and his family to keep Swan safe from a separate group of hostile vampires.

The project was in development for approximately three years at Paramount Pictures, during which time a screen adaptation which differed significantly from the novel was written. Summit Entertainment acquired the rights to the novel after three years of the project's stagnant development. Melissa Rosenberg wrote a new adaptation of the novel shortly before the 2007?2008 Writers Guild of America strike and sought to be faithful to the novel's storyline. Principal photography took 44 days, and completed on May 2, 2008. The film was primarily shot in Washington and Oregon in early 2008.

Twilight was released in theaters on November 21, 2008, and grossed US$35.7 million on its opening day. The film has grossed US$384,997,808 in worldwide box office and, as of December 2009, $175,255,138 in North American DVD sales. The soundtrack was released on November 4, 2008. New Moon and Eclipse, the next two books in the series, were produced as films the following year.

Edward Cullen (Category: wikt - :né|né Edward Anthony Masen) is a fictional character from Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. He features in the books Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, as well as the Twilight film, and the as yet unfinished novel Midnight Sun - a re-telling of the events of Twilight from Edward's perspective. Edward is a vampire who, over the course of the Twilight series, falls in love with, marries, and has a child with Bella Swan, a human teenager who later chooses to become a vampire also. In the 2008 Twilight film, Edward is played by actor Robert Pattinson.