Vampire lore

Authentic vampire lore is as varied as the different people who live on the earth. The illegitimate offspring of two illegitimate parents is sure to become a vampire (the western world at this moment is poised on the brink of destruction). Since a Vampire can make a newlywed couple infertile it is essential for the honeymooning couple to sprinkle poppy seeds on the floor ­ the vampire will need to count them and will thus be distracted. A male vampire corpse can sleep with his still living wife and make her pregnant with a child that has no bones.

One of the great features of Vampire movies is the way that each movie reconstructs the lore of the Vampire. In From Dusk Til Dawn Tarrintino has his characters sum up what they have learned about the vampires they face. They say that they may not know anything about Vampire lore, but these Vampires behave in a certain way, seem to be able to be killed in a certain way, and so it is. Of course Tarrintiono's vampire lore is based on what special effects are achievable and what he thinks is fun. Making up the lore as you go is par for the course in Vampire Movies.

I decided to use a minimal amount of lore to avoid slowing the storyline down with explaining how to kill a vampire. Much of the approach is based on Night of the Living Dead and Halloween, and both these movies choose not to say very much about their respective monsters attributes. Therefore there is only one way to kill the vampire in my film, cutting off his head. He can be frozen with the corpse arresting spell, and that's about it. No more explaining needed, there's plenty there to keep the story going and if the vampire spends some time watching and waiting when he could be attacking people, well, who can tell how vampires prefer to spend their time. He also seems to like chasing pretty girls, but I guess that's more a matter or character than lore.

Zombie lore and Night of the Living Dead

Properly speaking a zombie is a Haitian (or at least Carribbian) corpse that has been re-animated by Voodoo to work as a slave. However in the movies, with the notable exception of the Lewton / Tournier classic I Walked with a Zombie, the Zombie is any kind of re-animated corpse that wants to hurt the living. Usually they are fairly stupid beings, but they can't be killed since they are already dead. George A. Romero's trilogy Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead are perhaps the defining works in this sub-genre.

Night of the Living Dead, in particular, was an inspiration for Kung Fu Vampire Killers. The film rests on the simple premise that the planet has been subject to freak radiation that makes the newly buried dead return to life and seek to eat the living. Romero's film also uses a strong undercurrent of racism, and much of Night Of the Living Dead's power comes from the use of re-animating former friends as Zombie fiends.

The Evil Dead

The other main inspiration for Kung Fu Vampire Killers was Sam Rami's The Evil Dead. Also set in a single location, The Evil Dead resurrects dead friends who attack the living. When writing the script for my film I rented a copy of the film and timed all the main events. Then I set about getting my script to follow the tension arc that I had lifted. Every time something happened in The Evil Dead, something similar would happen in my film. This has been diluted somewhat with subsequent re-writes, but if you follow the five flatmate plot line, ignore the priests, and start from Lucy's near accident it should still be visible.

All materials © 2006 Phil Davison
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