I am currently reading a well-written novel about vampires. I won't mention the name, because I never do reviews of novels. However, I was struck by one thing that bothers me about most depictions of vampires in novels written at the current time. The vampires are always depicted as being handsome, graceful, alluring, almost as pretty as Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in the movie Interview with the Vampire.
The truth is that vampires are no more pretty or ugly than mortals. After all, all vampires were once mortal human beings. In the earliest vampire movie, Nosferatu, the vampire is pictured as a hideous creature. Bela Lugosi wasn't particularly good-looking in Dracula. He was suave in a sort of antiquated European model. In the vampire novel, Unholy Embrace, Nessa, the vampiress, is beautiful because that's the way she looked on the day she was turned. In that novel, vampires are large, small, ugly, and in general all the varieties in which humanity exists. The recent creation of the vampire as a beautiful being stems from the psychological need to romanticize this creature. There is nothing romantic about being caught one night by a vampire and having the blood sucked out of you.http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1639917-Unholy-Embrace----First-Three-Chapters
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