D-D-Dracula!

While watching The Horrors of Dracula, something struck me as odd. It wasn’t the fact that Dr. Van Helsing never once smiled, or the fact that for some reason Count Dracula needed a librarian.


It was during the scene where Dr. Van Helsing drove away vampire Aunt Lucy with a Christian cross. Helsing pressed a cross up to her, and the metal figure burned a mark into her forehead. “How is that possible?” I scoffed in my mind. Later in the movie, Dr. Van Helsing holds back Count Dracula by grabing two metal candlesticks and holding them in the form of a cross. “Ridiculous!” I thought. Are vampires afraid of right angles? Do they not like metal objects? Surely the power of the cross had to do with something besides the fact that it is a religious symbol for good over evil.


I thought back to other known vampire myths. The classic protection against vampires has always been garlic, crosses, and sunlight. In the book I am Legend, garlic is explained as repulsing vampires due to a certain enzyme in contains, and sunlight burns their skin due to a severe form of albinism. Crosses as protection however, are left out. It seems that more recent vampire stories have started to get rid of the cross as a repellant. Let the Right One In, a newer movie on vampires from the Netherlands doesn’t use crosses. And although I haven’t seen it, I’ve heard Twilight vampires aren’t afraid of crosses either. Why is this though? Is it a sign of our times?


Back when the folklore of the vampire was thought up, people generally turned to religion in times of need. Pray to God and he would make a sickness go away. God rewarded the good, and punished the bad. Naturally, religion could also be used to drive away an evil vampire through the power of a cross. Nowadays though, more and more people are turning to science. If you get sick, you go to the doctor and get medication. I’m not saying one is better than the other (Well, maybe I am), I’m just saying that maybe peoples idea of what protection is, has changed. It seems people put more faith in the physical now than in the spiritual. It’s interesting to observe this possible shift through vampire lore.