Jeremy Magnan: Allegories of vampire cinema

Jeremy Magnan

Department of English & Creative Writing

Allegories of Vampire Cinema is a theoretical film essay involving the

issue of spectator relations to vampire films before, during, and after

viewings. The piece closely examines which character the spectators are

truly meant to connect with. This is an interesting and important issue to

raise as it offers a new analysis that had not previously been explored,

aligning the spectators not with the protagonists of these stories, but with

the vampire itself. In my research, I gathered dozens of books, magazine

articles, and journal entries to delve deeply into the horror genre and

vampire subgenre. I also screened over three dozen vampire films, though

only a handful are cited directly. The essay was pieced together from the

beginning of January through March when, upon completion, I presented

my findings at the 2008 PCA/ACA National Conference in San Francisco.

Implications that are brought to light upon the revelation that the spectator

is being aligned with vampires include the notion that the vampire film

may not be an isolated case. With further study, theories and analyses may

bring about spectator relations and alignments with not only a myriad of

other antagonistic horror icons, but antagonists throughout the entire scope

of film.

Many authors have sought to lend insight into the metaphorical relationship between the

vampire, their victims, and even their spectators. On the spectators of horror films in

general, Joseph Biggs and Dennis Petrie offer that “...one goes to the horror film in order to

have a nightmare... a dream whose undercurrent of anxiety both presents and masks the

desire to fulfill and be punished for certain conventionally unacceptable impulses (Biggs &

Petrie, 2008, p. 484).” It is their position that the spectators of horror view these films due

to a subconscious desire to see their “unacceptable impulses” played out by the monster (in

our discussion, vampires) and to be punished for the surrogate actions that the monster

plays out in our stead. In regards to the vampire, Jorg Waltje sees our clear alignment with

the vampire as soon as we sit down in the theater. He explains:

“The vampire only comes out in the dark and spends the

rest of the time in his coffin. The spectators voluntarily sit

in a coffin (the darkened cinema), watching a screen on

which not only light but also (within and between every

frame) darkness is projected (Waltje, 2000, p. 29).”

While I agree that this is a startlingly clear example of our relationship to the vampire,

this vampire-spectator relationship can be further clarified through a common

iconographical object in most of these films in a way that has not as yet been established.

Lacan’s famous mirror stage is one of his pillars of seeking out the moment when the

identity of a child in relation to itself begins to develop. “The child... can already recognize

as such his own image in a mirror. This recognition is indicated in the illuminative mimicry

of the Aha- Erlebnis... This event can take place... from the age of six months... up to the

age of eighteen months (Lacan, 2004, p. 441-442).” Aha, you may say, but the vampire

casts no reflection, does it not? Stoker himself, Dracula’s keeper, has been the catalyst for

your exclamation: “This time there could be no error, for the man was close to me, and I

could see him over my shoulder. But there was no reflection of him in the mirror (Stoker,

2003, p. 30-31)!” So what would Dracula’s answer to Lacan’s mirror stage be in fact?

Fiona Peters states:

“Vampires have no need for an unconscious- nor can they

be seen in mirrors because they do not need to rely on the

process of identifications that Lacan describes; in other

words they have not become formed as human subjects,

and in the case of those who become vampires after being

human... they have evaded the symbolic order... (Peters,

2006, p. 180)”

In Peters’ argument, humans who become vampires have separated and transcended

themselves from the symbolism that is the vampire to become one of them. Interesting...

My question for Peters would be What if someone was a vampire and didn’t know it? Must

they still graduate from the fully-fledged human’s mirror stage? I believe they do. But who

ever heard of someone not knowing that they are in fact a vampire? Perhaps my line of

questions has no value... I believe Slavoj Žižek had it right when he said, “It is therefore

clear why vampires are invisible to the mirror: because they have read Lacan and,

consequently, know how to behave... (Žižek, 19992, p. 126)”

Christian Metz’s groundbreaking work in The Imaginary Signifier is the starting point

from which I will make clear the metaphorical truth behind the absence of the vampire

from the mirror. He theorizes that “...film is like a mirror... (Metz, 2000, p. 410).” He goes

on to explain that, “...although... everything comes to be projected, there is one thing, and

one thing only that is never reflected in it: the spectator’s own body (Metz, 2000).” If this is

true, then perhaps we have not developed our identification inside of this film-mirror

through Lacan’s mirror stage. Metz responds, “... what makes possible the spectator’s

absence- is the fact that the spectator has already known the experiences of the mirror...

(Metz, 2000, p. 411)” Later he adds that because of this, “The spectator has the opportunity

to identify with the character of the fiction (Metz, 2000, p. 411).” I’m not entirely

convinced though that it is a simple identification that we are meant to make.

It is through Žižek and Metz though that my claim is ready to be revealed: the mirrors

in which vampires cannot be seen are analogous to the film-mirror that we encounter when

we go to the cinema to view one of these films. As such, it is clear that not only are we

aligned with the vampire through the space we enter and the darkness we become

enveloped in as Waltje has claimed earlier, but we are the vampires that we see in front of

us. It is not a mythic, undead man with phallic teeth that we are being warned against; the

vampire is our subconsciously primal sexual and violent desires, and we are seeing our

mirrored selves in its eyes. We do not identify with the fictional character as supposed by

Metz though; it is the vampire who is identifying with us.

Our vampire cannot be seen inside of the mirror.

Metz also adds that there is not only some sort of relationship between spectators and

characters in the films but also with the equipment that films employ as well, “...the

spectator can do no other than identify with the camera, too, which has looked before him

at what he is now looking at... (Metz, 2000, p. 413-414)” This can be seen as an

explanation of our absence from the film-mirror as well. If it is true that we see what the

camera before us has seen, then the camera is, in fact, a surrogate for our sight in our

absence from the set. What is projected upon the screen then, is our vision returning to us.

This is only appropriate in regards to our absence because, supposing we were there to

witness the acts being displayed for us on the screen, we wouldn’t be able to see ourselves

then either. So, if the screen, or film-mirror, is actually casting our own reflection when we

see the vampire, then it is safe to assume that when the vampire looks into the mirror, s/he

must see us, and, when they do, they often react violently upon this reflection, frequently

shattering the glass. But why?

If the vampire is meant to be “the embodiment of human evil (Wright, 1974, p. 45),”

and/ or “the incarnation of unbridled sensuality (Wright, 1974, p. 45),” as Judith Hess

Wright claims, then perhaps the vampire destroys the mirror because it sees in that instant

that it is only one fragment of who we are and/ or who we can become and the idea that we

have a choice to leave the theatre and its darkness behind is more than the vampire in us

can bear. We have let the vampire in us escape into the screen for a few hours and when we

drag it kicking and screaming, pushing it back down into our subconscious realm, it reacts

in the same way a two year old reacts when hearing the word “no.”

Through this, Žižek’s joke about vampires having read and/ or at least having gone

through Lacan’s mirror stage holds more weight than he probably surmised when adding it

to the page because, in fact, we all have. Waltje’s earlier claim is unfinished. He goes on to

say, “Having turned themselves [the spectators] into vampires, they are waiting for the

film-vampire to come out and join them (Waltje, 2000, p. 29).” This is actually a half-truth.

We spectators are merely waiting for the vampire within us to have its fun and then rejoin

us once we see that side of us punished for its desires by the protagonists that we thrust it

against. Matthew Bunson explains the vampire’s aversion to mirrors in The Vampire

Encyclopedia:

“Folklore for this aversion stem from the concept that a

mirror also reflects a soul, and evil beings have no soul to

reflect. It has also been argued that the bloodsuckers

actually exist in two worlds, that of the living and that of

the dead. As it is in neither world completely, it will not be

seen in a mirror (Bunson, 1993, p. 176-177).”

Without us, the vampire wouldn’t have a soul to reflect, as it is nothing more than a

decimal without our complete presence. Also, as I have just outline, the vampire does

indeed live in two worlds. Apart from us, acting out its desires inside of the screen, it is

dead. It cannot actually live without its true host. Before we release it into the screen and

after we trap it once again after the film, it is a part of our whole and, as such, is alive with

us.

It is also interesting to note that this spectator-screen-vampire relationship has not gone

unnoticed and that films since Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula have actually taken this

dynamic a step further than only showing us the vampire’s absence from the mirror. Patrick

Lussier’s Dracula 2000 includes a scene in which a young, voluptuous reporter (Valerie

Sharpe) and her cameraman are attacked by Dracula. As the attack begins, the camera man

sees Valerie seize up, and her neck is suddenly sliced open though no cause can be seen

through the lens of the camera. Sharpe flees into the news van and watches in horror as

Dracula manhandles her colleague. As she watches on the video monitor receiving the feed

from the camera, Dracula is absent from the screen. He is absent from this film-mirror just

as we are absent from the film-mirror in front of us.

Valerie Sharpe is attacked.

The cameraman is being attacked by Dracula though he cannot

be seen on the screen.

In Shadow of the Vampire (E. Elias Merhige, 2000), Max Schreck is fictionalized as being

a real vampire during the filming of Murnau’s Nosferatu. In a pivotal moment of the film,

Schreck encounters a projector on his own, without the interference of Murnau and his

crew. Stacey Abbott describes the scene:

“Like a child amongst toys, he curiously begins to crank

the lever resulting in an image of a sunrise being projected

onto the wall. While he is transfixed by the sight of the

first sunrise he has seen in centuries, the sequence changes

meaning as soon as Schreck instinctively places his hand

before the lens in order to protect his shadow on the

screen. This equipment captures and projects a part of

himself (Abbott, 2004, p. 3).”

The vampire, in this scene, is seeing what it is to be the whole without us. His shadow, the

part of himself that Abbot is referring to, is representative of the vampire as part of us cast

upon the screen.

It is not a surprise that in spite of this essay’s claims, people will continue to flock to

the theatres to unleash their inner vampires every time a new vampire film is released. For

lovers of these films, it is a necessary evil, a period of time when they can allow these

subconscious desires to manifest themselves before their eyes, relieving the tension that

bottling these desires creates. Nina Auerbach shares that “...what vampires are in any given

generation is a part of what I am... (Auerbach, 1995, p. 1)” Do not be afraid of the vampires

that reveal themselves to you on the screen. Be afraid if you find yourself trapped in the

darkness of the theatre, unable to bottle them back inside once the credits have rolled.

References

Abbott, S. (2004). “Spectral Vampires: Nosferatu in the Light of Technology.” Horror film:

Creating and Marketing Fear. Ed. Steffen Hantke. Jackson: University Press of

Mississippi. 3-20.

Auerbach, N. (1995). Our Vampires, Ourselves. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

Biggs, J. M., and Petrie, D. W. (2008). The Art of Watching Films. 7th ed. New York:

McGraw Hill.

Bram Stoker's Dracula. Dir. Francis F. Coppola. Perf. Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder,

Anthony Hopkins, and Keanu Reeves. DVD. Columbia Pictures, 1992.

Bunson, M. (1993). The Vampire Encyclopedia. New York: Crown.

Dracula (2000). Dir. Patrick Lussier. Perf. Gerard Butler, Christopher Plummer, Jonny Lee

Miller, and Justine Waddell. DVD. Dimension Films.

Lacan, J. (2004). “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in

Psychoanalytic Experience.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and

Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell, 441-446.

Metz, C. (2000). “The Imaginary Signifier.” Film and Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Robert

Stam and Toby Miller. Malden: Blackwell. 408-436.

Peters, F. (2006). “Looking in the Mirror: Vampires, the Symbolic, and the Thing.”

Vampires: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil. New York: Rodopi Press. 177-

187.

Shadow of the Vampire. Dir. E. E. Merhige. Perf. John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, Udo

Kier, Cary Elwes. DVD. Lions Gate Films, 2000.

Stoker, B. (2003). Dracula. New York: Barnes and Noble Classics.

Waltje, J. (2000). “Filming Dracula: Vampires, Genre, and Cinematography.” Journal of

Dracula Studies. Official Publication of the Canadian Chapter, Transylvanian

Society of Dracula. 24-33.

Wright, J. H. (1974). “Genre Films and the Status Quo.” Jump Cut. Jump Cut. 42-50.

Žižek, S. (1992). Enjoy Your Symptom!: Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out. New York:

Routledge.

Further Reading

Bauer, R. N. (1999). “Hearing Dracula: Sound as Sign in Film.” Romance Languages

Annual. West Lafayette: Purdue Research Foundation 9, 138-143.

Bordwell, D. and Thompson, K. (2008). Film Art: An Introduction. 8th ed. New York:

McGraw Hill.

Braudy, L. and Cohen, M. (1999). Film Theory and Criticism. 5th ed. New York: Oxford

University Press, 610.

Clover, C. J. (1993). Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film.

Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Dyer, R. (2001). “Dracula and Desire.” Film/ Literature/ Heritage: A Sight and Sound

Reader. Ed. Ginette Vincendeau. Berkley: University of California Press, 91-97.

Heldreth, L. G. (1999). “Vampires in Film & Television.” Journal of Popular Film &

Television. Washington: Heldref Publications.

Henderson, C. J. (2001). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies: From 1897 to the

Present. New York: Checkmark Books.

Holte, J. C. (1999). “Not All Fangs are Phallic: Female Film Vampires.” Journal of the

Fantastic in the Arts. Armonk: Sharpe, Inc., 163-173.

Jenkins, H. (2000). “Reception Theory and Audience Research: The Mystery of the

Vampire’s Kiss.” Reinventing Film Studies. Ed. Christine Gledhill and Linda

Williams. London: Arnold, 165-182.

Kittler, F. (1997). Literature, Media, and Information Systems. New York: Routledge.

Konigsberg, I. (1998). “How Many Draculas Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb?” Play it

Again, Sam: Retakes on Remakes. Berkley, University of California Press, 250-275.

Senf, C. A. (1979). “Dracula: The Unseen Face in the Mirror.” The Journal of

NarrativeTechnique. Ypsilanti: Eastern Michigan University Press, 160-170.

Siegel, S. and Siegel, B. (2004). The Encyclopedia of Hollywood: An A-Z Guide to the

Stars, Stories, and Secrets of Hollywood. 2nd ed. New York: Checkmark Books.

Worland, R. (2007). The Horror Film: An Introduction. Malden: Blackwell.

Žižek, S. (1991). For They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political Factor.

New York: Verso