The Vampire Epidemic - a prelude to the release of "Eclipse"

You'd have to have been living under a rock for the past few years to not notice that there's been a surge of vampire stories in various media: books, movies, tv shows, comics, the list goes on. I believe the surge happened just at the tail end of my second semester in college, or at least that's when I started to really notice it myself.

That semester I took a course called "Living with the Undead" and it was taught by the amazing Robert Price at Sheridan College. He taught us about the origin of the vampire myth, beginning with the eerie tale of Vlad the Impaler, touching on Elizabeth Bathory (shudder), and exploring a lot of fiction. We read Carmilla by Le Fanu, Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, and of course Bram Stoker's Dracula. We only briefly touched on the more recent film-flop-turned-successful-tv-series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

Since then of course I noticed the Twilight craze going on around me. I was at least five years older than the majority of my classmates so I chalked their fanaticism up to the same teenage excitement I had over "Buffy" and resisted. As I tried my best to ignore the ever-present Twi-hards, I got sucked into the world of Alan Ball's "True Blood" on HBO, based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris (which I've now started to read).

Instantly I was drawn to the character of Bill, the tortured vampire struggling to mainstream in a world that just realized his kind existed. He was romantic, albeit from a completely different century and therefore had a thing or two to learn about a 21st century woman. But it was the old-fashioned, Southern Gentleman romanticism and charm that tugged at my heartstrings: holding open the door, guiding her with his hand at her back, defending her honour - sigh, I was a puddle of goo. So I think it has nothing to do with the fact that they're vampires - the vampire state is just a vehicle to make the story reach a wider audience than just hopeless romantics.

At this point, I will admit that I began reading the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer, just to know what the fuss was all about (and to see if I might be too old to understand my younger counterparts). I was hooked. I read all four books in a matter of a week. I read them so fast that I bought the first one and was able to exchange it for the second and so on, not expecting to want to own them. By the time my birthday rolled around, I owned the box set and the first film on DVD. Edward is every woman's fantasy of a vampire or even a man. He is innocent and tortured at the same time. A little bit like Louis from Interview or Angel from "Buffy." Or even Stefan from the sleeper drama tv series "The Vampire Diaries" based on the books of the same name.

I put Louis, Angel, Edward, Stefan and Bill on the same plateau - the good guy you'd want to bring home to mom, if you could get Louis' diet under control. But then there's that whole other kind of vampire that can tug on your heartstrings and your libido at the same time - the bad boy. Lestat. Spike. Stefan's vampire brother, Damon. Eric. The vampire that makes you want to be the one that makes him want to be a better man, who makes you want to be Buffy, Bella, Elena or Sookie. (Or who makes you want to learn more about Vikings and the Scandinavidan culture).

It's a passing fantasy, but a really fun one. What makes you come back down to Earth is the realization that, save for Spike, these characters were written by a female. Spike was created by a man, but his lines were inspired by the female audience. It's definitive proof that they are a woman's fantasy man, because what man knows how to write like that, or shape a character like that? If anyone knows of a heterosexual man who writes this way, let me know. Maybe, if we're so drawn to these characters, it is evidence of a deeper need in women globally: a need for passion and desire and to be cherished and loved and completely ruined for any other man.

With that said, the Twilight series' third film "Eclipse" is coming out a week today, on June 30. I know I'll be there with some girlfriends despite my firm dislike for the second film as a piece of drivel, not exactly bringing the story to life in the way that I'd hoped. Apparently I'm very much alone in that opinion, save for the poor saps who were dragged to go see it by their girlfriends or wives - sorry Sean. So here's hoping that "Eclipse" is everything I want it to be, including the proposal and tent scenes - you know what I'm talking about.