Not all vampire fiction is born equal, but it’s safe to say that it has long captivated – and terrified – fans.
Our modern-day obsession with vampires began with the publication of John Polidori’s The Vampyre in 1819, centred on Lord Ruthven and notoriously influenced by a story told to him by Lord Byron.
Then there was Carmilla in 1872, before Bram Stoker’s Dracula became the most famous of them all after its 1897 publication.
But while the characters and plotlines vary, there’s a common thread that spans the history of vampire stories: how they resonate with largely LGBTQ+ audiences.
There’s a running joke that all the Team Edward fangirls are now either lesbians or bisexual; Carmilla is a famously lesbian vampire story; What We Do In The Shadows stars a gay familiar and a host of polyamorous, queer vampires; and audiences were forever changed when Willow, Buffy’s best friend, came out in season four of the show in 1999.
Are we sensing a theme here?
This year, the organisers of LGBT+ History Month have highlighted the importance of claiming our past, celebrating our present, and creating our future.
So in honour of this, Metro chatted to two LGBTQ+ vampire fans about their love for the genre, and how it shaped their own understandings of their identities during their most formative years.
‘I met my wife on a Buffy The Vampire Slayer fan site’
Now 46, Louie Stowell’s relationship with vampires and vampire fiction shaped her early experiences as an LGBTQ+ person growing up under Section 28.
The policy, introduced under Margaret Thatcher in 1988, barred local authorities (including schools and libraries) from ‘promoting homosexuality,’ and was in place until it was repealed by Tony Blair in 2003.
Louie came out as bisexual to her friends at the age of 13, but didn’t tell her parents until she got a girlfriend in her 20s.
And while she had a mostly ‘untroubled’ experience growing up LGBTQ+ in London – not even realising Section 28 was in in place until she left school – Louie found an accepting community in the horror fiction fandom.
Her obsession with vampires started early, notably with Ffangs the Vampire Bat and the Kiss of Truth, penned by Ted Hughes and Chris Riddell, as well as Truth and Vlad the Drac Vampire by Ann Jungman. Then, when she was in her mid-20s, Buffy The Vampire Slayer came out – and that changed absolutely everything.
‘Buffy was a beautifully queer fandom,’ Louie, the Hackney-based author behind The Dragon In The Library Series, Otherland and Be Less Loki, tells Metro. ‘It had teenagers coming out, trans elders, and the consensus that, yes, Spike was a beautiful lesbian.’
Her love for ‘beings who don’t fit into neat human boxes’ has bled into every part of her life since, from spending her formative years giving academic papers at Buffy conventions to her current career and relationship.
Not only did she meet her wife on a Buffy fan site, their dog is even named Buffy.
For Louie, the appeal in vampires has always been that, when you’re ‘othered,’ there’s an appeal in similarly ostracised things; a category vampires – often living in castles and shunned for their ‘unnatural’ being – undoubtedly fall into.
‘When you’re othered, the Other calls to you,’ she explains.
‘Also, all vampires are queer on a cellular level. The ultimate found family, which you can make larger each time you turn another vampire.’
‘I was living Halloween full-time as a teenage goth’
Growing up queer in Brighton, Beth Watson had more access to LGBTQ+ resources than many of their peers. Because of this, they were ‘lucky enough’ to be able to recognise they weren’t straight amid the era of Section 28, and felt ‘relatively safe’ to express themselves.
Beth can’t remember a time when they weren’t interested in vampires and ‘all things spooky’ – and as a child, they loved books like Vlad The Drac and The Worst Witch, as well as Goosebumps and Point Horror.
‘Halloween was always a big deal in my house, even before it became mass commercialised in the UK,’ Beth, who is in their 30s and hosts Queer Diary, a night where LGBTQ+ adults read their teenage diaries, poetry and fanfic live on stage, tells Metro.
‘My mom is from Canada so did her share of pumpkin-carving as a kid, and my dad was a high school drama teacher, so they always supported my enthusiasm for the season.’
They can even recall their first vampire costume, partly-raided from items their dad had in the cupboard: ‘A silver waistcoat, a binbag cape, a chin slathered in facepaint blood, and those terrible 90s plastic glow-in-the-dark fangs.’
By the time Beth reached their teenage years, they were ‘living Halloween full-time’ as a teenage goth, and had fully embraced what they call ‘camp vamp’ culture.
‘I devoured the then-recent classics like Interview With The Vampire and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, before sinking my teeth into the Hammer and Universal back-catalogue,’ Beth details.
Like Louie, Buffy The Vampire Slayer formed a huge part of their teenage relationship with vampire culture. The show aired from 1997, when Beth was in year seven, and culminated four years later while they were doing their GCSEs.
‘That show was a real inspiration for most of my group of misfit pals, who definitely made our best attempt to model ourselves on the Scooby Gang,’ Beth notes.
‘I was also on lots of internet forums at the time and naturally connected with other Buffy fans. Talking about episodes as they came out, with people I’d never even met before, was kind of mind-blowing at the time.’
While Beth doesn’t believe fandom culture in the early 00s was ‘quite at the level it is now,’ they found that sharing their love for particular TV shows – including Buffy – was formative to many of their longstanding friendships.
‘When there was finally a queer storyline in Buffy, it felt like a big bonding moment for a lot of us,’ says Beth. ‘Though I’m not sure we knew just how groundbreaking it was to see a queer relationship have such prominence on a mainstream American TV show, pre The L-Word.’
In their view, there’s something innate that connects many queer experiences with vampire stories.
‘The sense of subconsciously craving, then discovering, understanding, and even becoming part of a “hidden” underground world, and also, particularly in relation to being bi+ and gender non-conforming, a feeling of existing between or beyond multiple realms,’ they explain.
‘Horror, in general, can attract people who may have experiences of being excluded or bullied, or feeling different. It can offer a way of connecting with others like us and a lens through which to interpret our experiences.
‘Immersing oneself in another world, with its own lore, and different rules or conventions, is appealing – even if it’s a universe full of bloodsucking monsters.’
There’s further appeal in the fact that vampires are often portrayed as ‘sexy creatures of the night’ – who often attract, and are equally attracted, to humans of all genders.
And going deeper, Beth believes vampire fiction – and horror more widely – appeals from a mental health perspective, providing a ‘safe outlet’ to relieve some of their anxiety.
‘It feels healthier to channel my naturally high level of nerves into worrying when the next jump scare is coming,’ Beth concludes. ‘[It helps me] to release some adrenaline before bedtime rather than fixating on the real horrors on the news and never being able to sleep.’
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