Face It. We’re Bitten.

Twilight. True Blood. Vampire Diaries. Night creatures have roamed among us in literature, on film and on television for years, and they seem to emerge as popular trends once every decade or so. One thing is evident: we love our vampires. What is the seemingly eternal appeal?

Is it their seductive demeanor….their unending blood lust…their dark eroticism…their immortality? Vampires were romanticized in the Victorian era because they were thought to embody dark desires and sensuality during a sexually oppressed period in time. They were both terrifying and alluring.

I think back in TV, film and literature at some of the vampires who scared me, shocked me, and turned me on. To a nine-year-old little girl, Barnabas Collins of the ABC-TV soap opera, Dark Shadows, was intriguing and crush-generating. My mother never understood the appeal of “that old man,” played by the Canadian actor Jonathan Frid. All these years later, I wonder if Mr. Frid truly is a vampire because he wasn’t so young when he starred on the show and the old guy is still alive and kicking in Ontario today – and appearing at Dark Shadows fan conventions. Hey, man, milk it for all it’s worth!

Ann Rice’s brooding Lestat de Lioncourt was sexy to me when I read Interview with a Vampire. I kept picturing the British actor Julian Sands from A Room with a View. I pictured no one in particular as Louis, but I was as skeptical as Ms. Rice when Hollywood cast the insufferably mainstream Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt as the main characters. Neither actor appeals to me. The only reason I could stomach the movie was because of my weakness for long hair. I prefer the book.

I’m nuts about The Lost Boys. Actors Jami Gertz and Billy Wirth (another long haired hottie at the time) made two of the sexiest vampires I’ve ever seen. And spanking hot is Salma Hayek’s vampire in From Dusk ‘til Dawn.

Who could forget the highly erotic scene between Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon in The Hunger, Tony Scott’s 1983 film that also starred David Bowie? Whoa. The film got eviscerating reviews, but it’s worth the rental fee for the dramatic atmosphere and for Deneuve’s performance as the bloodsucking temptress, Miriam Blaylock. Sarandon couldn’t resist, but then again, she also got it on with Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, so she’s not too choosy and she damn sure has fun.

Eternal bad boys and bad girls. I don’t write paranormal but I’ll read about a hot vampire any old day. Some of the vampires you’ll meet on the Naughty Little Vamp blog will undoubtedly captivate you and make you want to know them and the writers who created them even more. After all, it’s like the old saying goes: “Once bitten….”