The Stupidity of Vampires

Let’s face it. When it comes to monsters vampires are hardly the most intelligent creatures in the world. They are easy to kill, they have little or no dress sense, in most films it seems as though they trying to get turned into a pile of ash. Let’s look at the evidence.

You would think that any creature that is allergic to sunlight would live underground or at least in a deep valley where there is little light. But no, the vampire lives in a castle, on top of a mountain, which, on a good day, gets 18 hours of light in the summer.

Then, when you get inside the castle you see that it is full of mirrors, which prove that your host has no reflection, candlesticks and other objects which are easy to make into religious symbols, all the better to blind him with, and velvet drapes which fall apart as soon as you look at the, revealing a lovely view of the surrounding country and burning the vampire to a crisp.

On top of this there is almost always a ready supply of wooden stakes, garlic and a small chapel with a supply of holy water. Where did this water come from, when there has only been Count von Dingle and Igor (the servant is always called Igor, it’s just one of those things) in the castle for the last hundred years?

After this there is the vampire’s behaviour. Once the guests have fallen asleep he goes to the balcony, turns himself into a bat and flies to the spare room’s own balcony, all because he still hasn’t got round to having an extra key for the room, even though he’s been doing this for a hundred years.

Once on the balcony the vampire turns back into a person because bats can’t open doors. Once inside the room he spots the girl, who is wearing a very flimsy night-dress despite the fact that it is the middle of the winter.

As he heads towards her the girl wakes up. She has about 30 seconds before she falls under his hypnotic powers. Does she try to get away? Does she scream for help? No, she emits a small “Eeep” just before her eyes glaze over.

The vampire now has an opportune moment; he is alone in a locked room with a gorgeous girl who is completely under his spell. He could do anything he wants. What does he decide to do? He bites he neck.

Just as he is about to do this the hero appears, knocking on the door, because he’s ‘worried’ about Catherine or Sarah or whatever her name is. When she doesn’t answer the door he barges in, hits the vampire over the head, grabs the girl in a most un-gentlemanly way, and legs it.

What follows is about half an hour of running and screaming, mostly done by the heroes, during which time they will finally work out that the guy with fangs and no reflection is a vampire. After this they will successfully attack and kill him using a stake/ holy water/ sunlight/ garlic.

Once the vampire has died he will turn into a very small, and surprisingly neat, pile of ash. Once this has happened the girl will kiss the hero and visa versa, the door key will have been found beneath the flowerpot and the heroes will walk of into the sunset (or sunrise, as the case may be), forgetting their baggage and the fact that at least one of their numbers is lying dead on the library floor.

After they have gone Igor, who everybody will have forgotten about by now, will reappear from wherever he has been hiding. He proceeds to take the ashes of his master down to the cellar and begins to perform whatever bizarre rituals are necessary to resurrect him, right in time for the next batch of people who visit the castle.