Editing Vampire (section)

===in Television & Film===
====Nosferatu====
The classic 1922 silent film is essentially a bootleg version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula with a more copyright-friendly name. That doesn’t stop it though from coming up with a few original ideas; it’s notable for inventing the entire idea vampires burn in sunlight, something which has stuck with them ever since. The filmmakers' attempt to dodge copyright was notably unsuccessful; the Stoker family sued them and won, leading to most copies of the film being destroyed. We can still see it today thanks to bootlegs that escaped the litigation. However, the character of Count Orlok is a classic example of vampires being terrifying monsters which prey upon the living. Not much backstory is ever really given about him or vampires in this setting, but to defeat a vampire here, a pure maiden must sacrifice herself in order to vanquish him by exposing Orlok to sunlight. Orlok also has a noticeable rat motif going on, bringing rats with him when he moves to a new town, rats which spread the plague. His powers include telekinesis, levitation, some kind of mind control and turning into his own damn shadow. However, what everyone remembers is his appearance, which is now so iconic it's a go-to for making an especially creepy vampire.

'''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'''

Probably the most famous depiction of vampires in television. Born from the mind of Joss Whedon, specifically a TV adaptation of a 1992 movie he wrote that he was dissatisfied with the execution of, so if you're familiar with Marvel movies, you probably know what you're getting into where dialogue and characterization are concerned. Its vampires leaned towards the classic image of such in terms of the "rules" (e.g. killed by a stake through the heart or decapitation, hate sunlight and holy objects, drink blood, always pure evil due to their lack of souls), though stylistically, they ran the gamut from classical gentlemen and ladies to contemporary punks to handsome and brooding pretty boys. What separated them from the rest was the setting, as they were dropped into a '90s California suburb to raise hell and do battle with a supernaturally-empowered valley girl vampire hunter and her buddies. It probably wound up having more of an impact on how vampire ''hunters'' are depicted, especially in urban fantasy, than vampires themselves, taking them from the Abraham van Helsing image of the wise old professorial type (who the show nevertheless represents in the form of Buffy's trainer/mentor/surrogate father figure Giles) to modern, wisecracking action heroes, and also just as likely to be beautiful young women as they are older gentlemen. Since it was a teen drama on The WB, it naturally also had a hand in updating vampires' sex appeal as well, including having Buffy strike up romantic relationships with some of them, though unlike certain later vampire stories, the writing at least tried to square this with its portrayal of vampires as nigh-universally villainous (e.g. having a particularly evil vampire cursed to regain his soul and become a brooding loner wracked by guilt at what he'd done, or putting a V-chip in another vampire's brain to stop him from attacking anyone).