Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Vampires just keep getting hotter. Perhaps not literally "hotter" – being undead and all, I would imagine their pre-meal body temperature is negligible to non-existent. But between the Twilight series of books and movies (the latter’s much-anticipated sequel is due Nov. 20), the cable hit True Blood and its network counterpart, Vampire Diaries, the nocturnal stalker of myth and legend has never been sexier or more desired.

So there is something to be said about dying young and leaving a good-looking (reanimated) corpse.

Mind you, the vampire has always been something of a romantic figure, going back the grandaddy of them all, Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula, who has himself just been literarily sequel-ized by Stoker’s own great grandnephew.

Through many movie adaptations, from Bela Lugosi on through Christopher Lee, Frank Langella on Broadway and then exponentially with the book and film versions of Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire (Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt? That’s just excessive), the concept of "necking" has taken on a frightening new connotation, as the afterlife of the average, red blood-drinking vampire becomes increasingly sexual, and thus more attractive to the living.

Particularly on True Blood, a two-year-old ratings hit – HBO does not disclose its audience numbers, but if they did, those numbers are estimated to be in the neighbourhood of 12 million in the U.S., taking into account "on-demand" and DVR recording.

HBO Canada, despite a similar no-tell policy, will happily acknowledge that True Blood has, in its first two seasons (a third had been ordered), become the highest-rated HBO original on the franchised channel, and also on The Movie Network’s on-demand service.

The series is based on the Charlaine Harris Southern Vampire Mysteries novels, adapted by showrunner Alan Ball as a follow-up to his earlier, similarly macabre HBO hit, the funereal Six Feet Under.

"After five years of peering into the abyss and contemplating life in the presence of mortality," he says, "I felt like, `Let’s do something else.’

"This was really my first foray into the world of vampires. I really wanted it to be a show about characters, and to really explore what it means to be 170 years old, and what it means to fall in love with somebody, and not be able to see that person, except at night ... (when) basically part of the relationship would involve, in a world that’s mutually satisfying, being fed upon ..."

(Try explaining that to your next cheeseburger.)

The freshman Vampire Diaries, originating on The CW and carried here on CTV, is, like Twilight and True Blood, based on a successful series of novels, in this case by bestselling young-adult fantasy author L.J. Smith.

In Canada, the show commands an impressive 900,000-plus weekly viewers. Its American audience has hovered around the 5 million mark, a record for The CW, above average for any other network (except perhaps the basement-dwelling NBC).

Diaries’ considerably more youth-skewed appeal owes much to veteran writer/producer Kevin Williamson, a man who has proved himself equally adept at high-school and horror as the creator of Dawson’s Creek and writer of three (soon four) Scream movies.

"We’re sort of cross-genre," he says of his Diaries. "There’s a lot going on here. We have the teen element, which I guess you can compare to Dawson’s Creek. But it’s not just a teen show. We’re trying to not make it a high school show.

"Once we you get past the premise of, you know, girl and vampire, we start to develop the story about a town. And that’s what we love so much about the books, the mythology of the town and what they created ... the vampires are (just) our way into that."

And possibly the way out? Has the sexy young vampire sub-genre finally reached saturation point? How long can this resurrection renaissance last?

"It’s not really a fad," insists series star Nina Dobrev, a Toronto-bred Degrassi grad. "It’s timeless. Vampires are ... they don’t die. They’re always around. They’re eternal.

"It just seems like right now, people are really responding."

"Everything is cyclical," Williamson shrugs. "Who knows? I mean, I still ... when I think of The Lost Boys, I get all excited. And Near Dark, I have great, fond memories of that.

"I hope maybe we’re building that for this generation."

MORE TV VAMPIRES THAN YOU CAN SHAKE A STAKE AT

1. Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel): Of all the eligible undead floating around Sunnydale and later Los Angeles in the two Joss Whedon series, James Marsters’ British bad-boy was the most sinister and sexiest, at least until he was figuratively de-fanged and turned into an unwilling good-guy.

2. Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel): Credit where it’s due. I mean, the guy did have his own show. And he (actor David Boreanaz) is back and even better in Bones.

3. Barnabas Collins (Dark Shadows): If you are old enough to even remember this hybrid horror soap of the `60s, you know what I’m talking about. Interesting to note, no one ever referred to Jonathan Frid’s toothy anti-hero as an actual "vampire" until well after the series’ 400th episode.

4. Grandpa (The Munsters): More mad scientist than monster, with son-in-law Herman the inevitable victim of his latest failed experiment. Sitcom veteran Al Lewis’ defining role.

5. Nick Knight (Forever Knight): The first fanged frostback on our list, portrayed by stage star Geraint Wynn Davies – the original TV-movie pilot for the Toronto-shot series also inspired last season’s short-lived Moonlight.

6. The Count (Hilarious House of Frightenstein): Yet another carnivorous Canadian, one of several memorably out-there characters portrayed by the late Billy Van on the cult-hit kiddie show.

7. Count Floyd (SCTV): Canadian by origin if not by birth, a bargain-basement midnight movie host created by Pittsburgh-born Joe Flaherty as the alter-ego of his SCTV News anchor, Floyd Robertson.

8. Vampira The original late-night movie hostess, later immortalized in the Edward D. Wood Jr. schlock classic Plan 9 from Outer Space. Portrayed by the late Finnish model Maila Nurmi, whose 36B-21-35 measurements made it appear as if at any moment she might just snap in half at the waist.

9. The Count (Sesame Street): Okay, so he could count to 10. But would you leave your kids alone with him?

10. Count Chocula What I’m wondering is, how did he manage to keep all those shiny teeth when all he ever ate was sugary crap?