By now we’ve injected vampires into just about everything. Jane Eyre got the re-VAMP experience in Jane Slayre. We crammed vampirism into Emma (Emma and the Vampires). We’ve even mashed up Abraham Lincoln and vampires in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I guess being our greatest President wasn’t enough for some folks. “That's great and all, but what if he, like, also killed vampires!?”
We could all be upset about this trend, but I figure, why fight progress? This is the way of the world now, so why rail against it?
In fact, let’s get ahead of the curve, shove a vampire into some other as-of-yet un-vampire-ed books, movies, and TV shows.
What say we put a vampire in it?
Nicholas Sparks’ Next Book
I’ve always desperately hoped that Nicholas Sparks’ entire career is an elaborate prank. Like he’ll release his 50th book, it’s a romance between an old war veteran and the girl he left behind or something, and they’re on a park bench, and then BAM, halfway through the book, a horde of vampires descends on everyone.
Wouldn’t it be a more interesting world if that kinda shit happened? You’ve got the power, Mr. Sparks. You could single handedly make this an interesting world. Or you could sell a bajillion more books, which probably makes the world pretty interesting for you because cocaine is a thing.
'Dracula' by Bram Stoker
Yeah, I know this already has a vampire in it. What this needs is another vampire. A gorehound vampire. Couldn’t we sub in an undead monster tearing people in half for some of this nonsense about Arthur becoming a lord or whatever?
Besides, wouldn’t it do the least damage to add a vampire to a book that already has one? What’s the harm? What’re you, afraid the book will actually have some thrills now?
'To Kill A Mockingbird' by Harper Lee
Hey, the book already has a climax right around a Halloween pageant. It’s a natural!
Boo Radley is the obvious choice for vampirism here. Based on his name and his reclusiveness, there’s a strong candidate. But it’s not as much of a twist, and if R.L. Stine taught me anything in 3rd grade, it’s that the story needs a twist. So we’ll make the vampire...Dill. He sweeps in, drinks the blood of a bunch of mockingbirds, but it's not enough. Then he infects Bob Ewell, Ewell is slain by Boo Radley: Vampire Hunter, and Dill sneaks off with nobody suspecting a thing. That takes us straight into Go Set A Watchmen, which has a great horror novel title already.
'The Golden Girls'
I’m picturing two options here.
The first is a flashback Halloween episode. The girls play themselves, of course, mostly looking the same but with ridiculous wigs and getups. Now, in Golden Girls continuity, they didn’t all know each other until about a year before the series began, but that’s cool, we’ll make them guests at the same creepy vampire-run B&B who don’t remember each other because of a vampire’s spell.
The second option, since we ALL know Dorothy marries Leslie Nielsen at the end of the series, there’s an easy crossover with the beloved Dracula: Dead and Loving It universe. And what a rich, untapped universe of stories THAT is.
Either way, we’ll just ask Disney to let us borrow their Grand Moff Tarkin machine and make us a new episode with CG Golden Girls. We'll call the episode “F$*! The Uncanny Valley.”
'The Host' by Stephenie Meyer
Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight follow-up wasn’t as well-received, and I think I know what was missing: vampire action. Follow with me for a second. The Host is about aliens or something, right? And a pro wrestler who finds magic glasses that let him see the aliens? Or, wait, am I talking about They Live again? Damn it! I always confuse Stephenie Meyer’s novel The Host with John Carpenter’s They Live. Who can keep track of these young upstarts when their ideas are so similar?
'Stranger Things'
Well, we’d basically get Monster Squad, right? Something like Monster Squad but probably a bit more focused, with less werewolf nards?
My plan is to throw a vampire into Stranger Things season 2, replacing that episode where Eleven goes to the city and joins up with the Teen X-Men and they go to Warped Tour together (or whatever the hell that was). A vampire makes no sense in the show, but neither does the existence of that episode. What's a sillier waste of time? You be the judge.
'Alien 3'
There wasn’t a lot going on here anyway, so why not? We’ve had Jason and The Leprechaun in space, so maybe it’s a vampire’s turn. Wouldn’t it be a great moment, a vampire drinking an Alien’s blood and then the blood melts the vampire’s face off? Not exactly highbrow cinema, but at least Alien 3 would have that one shining moment.
Golf
This is an excuse to pitch my new character: Count Golfula.
Once a secret sequence of clubs is used on a cursed golf course, a gate to another realm is opened, releasing Count Golfula! Who is a vampire who’s pretty decent at golf. Also, he plays in a cape.
He should probably do something more exciting than just being good at golf, but c’mon, this is televised barely-sports. What do you expect?
'The Merchant of Venice' by Willam Shakespeare
All of a sudden, this bizarre fascination with receiving a pound of flesh would make sense. Plus, you could edit the whole thing so Jewish stereotypes are replaced with vampire stereotypes. PLUS, in this version, you could have a double-twist and Shylock can be victorious, taking flesh without spilling blood!
Portia: But in the cutting it if thou dost shed
One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods
Are by the laws of Venice confiscate
Unto the state of Venice.
Shylock: Don't worry, babe, my knife won't spill a morsel [puts on cool sunglasses, uses fangs to drain Antonio's blood before cutting him].
'Firefly'
I never got the whole Firefly thing. I’d like to throw in a vampire just to fuck with everyone.
And then I’d destroy any copies of the original, non-vampire series so that the show would only exist with vampires in it. And then my pointless revenge against a group of people who did nothing wrong other than liking something I didn’t would be complete.
Take that!
'The Mummy' (2017)
We had a couple mummies, we had Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Why not throw a vampire in there too? When one considers we’re never getting this whole Universal Dark Universe thing now, I feel like we should shoot some additional footage, go apeshit and throw in as much monster into The Mummy as possible. Have Tom Cruise bump into what’s clearly an invisible man, do a quick bar scene at a bar called Black Lagoon, and give me a vampire suggestively eating a jelly donut with red jelly dripping down his face. Is it going too far to splice in Brendan Frasier and Co. walking down a hallway opposite Tom Cruise, perhaps suggesting that there's ANOTHER mummy movie going on at the same time, and then perhaps we get a new post-credits sequence that suggests we, the viewers, were watching the incorrect mummy movie, and perhaps this whole Dark Universe thing can still happen?
'Saw'
Might as well. By the end this series was so convoluted nobody would bat an eye at the idea of a Saw movie where victims of Jigsaw’s crimes were mysteriously disappearing, and it turned out a vampire was to blame. By the end, those movies were immune to complaints about not making sense. Complaining about a lack of sense in a Saw movie is like complaining about a lack of graphic sex in Sesame Street in that it's you, viewer, who came in with the wrong expectations.
What existing property would you put a vampire in?
About the author
Peter Derk lives, writes, and works in Colorado. Buy him a drink and he'll talk books all day. Buy him two and he'll be happy to tell you about the horrors of being responsible for a public restroom.
