Powet Alphabet – V is for Vampire Hunters

Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

Vampires seem to be all the rage these days. The day of the glamorous blood-sucker has descended upon us and is full-force, despite the fact vampire-based media has been around since the days of Bram Stoker, though his vamps were more about subjugation and fright than sparkles and angst. Though the definitions of vampires and types of vampires have had as many interpretations, one thing remains as constant as they are – if there are vampires, there are vampire hunters.

Vampire hunters have existed as long as their prey. Nosferatu being the breed of monster that they are – usually the hunters themselves that terrorize, seduce, and slay in order to feed on fresh blood – the need for hunters has been as plentiful as the creatures themselves. Stoker’s novel made popular the epitomized vampire norm in Dracula, and also gave us his nemesis Abraham Van Helsing, who would play a few different roles as both a hunter and foil to the count, as well as mentor and teacher to the younger Jonathan Harker and Quincy Morris. Van Helsing set the mold for future hunters armed with wooden stakes and holy water, and was parodied almost as much as it was played straight.

Vampire movies made the most use of hunters. The little know Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter came about in 1976 and helped start the trend. The teen-flicks of the 80’s gave rise to the idea that even high-schoolers could be reluctant vampire hunters with films such as Fright Night and Lost Boys, the latter being a great example of the Van Helsing semi-parody with the bumbling yet serious Frogg Brothers. (god love you Corey Feldman, it’s the only role you’ll ever play) Going into the next decade, the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie was also a prime example of this sub-genre of vampire hunter movies, though it became more popular with its TV show a decade later. (including the Angel spin-off series)

Come the 1990’s, you had the likes of Blade coming about in comic book form, only to be followed up with a trilogy of films. (which helped make the comic’s existence known to fans of the films) From Dawn Til Dusk and John Carpenter’s Vampires built upon the previous “even ordinary people can kill vamps” theme with the popularization of vampire-killing methods now including garlic, silver bullet and crossbows with stake-arrows becoming known. Hell, even Hellsing built on Dracula lore and introduced us to anti-vampire canons as a way of dispatching the undead.

Balkan and Romanian folklore often said that prime vampire hunters came from the union between a suspected vampire and a human woman, which would be called a dhampir, and that they alone could see and deal with vampires. This idea was worked with in the novels and later anime titled “Vampire Hunter D“. Its success made popular the concept of half-vampire hunters, and was used more (especially with video games) with Castlevania‘s Alucard, Darkstalkers Donavan Baine, and Bloodrayne‘s titular heroine.

So really, so long as vampires are creatures preying upon the living, there will be hunters to oppose them and protect humanity. All we can hope for is the inevitable Twilight crossover with Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter.