First rule of 'bite' club: Vampires are people, too

[The Madame X]

First rule of 'bite' club: Vampires are people, too
By Norma Meyer
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

October 19, 2007

* Vampires put in some chilling overtime on 'Night' shift
* Vampires take a bite out of San Diego's culture

“Gabriel” is a 9-to-6 computer tech at a Sacramento utilities company who off-work wears typical guy clothes like a Raiders cap and jeans. But unlike the average Joe, he's lanced the skin of his obliging girlfriend, a wireless phone service employee, and sucked her blood.

Gabriel is a self-professed modern-day vampire. He and his kind say there are thousands worldwide, though most lie very low. When they're not going about everyday lives – no joke, one insider says nurses are big in the vampire community – they socialize with each other and chat over the Internet about such worries as how to raise little vamps (“Help! My Teenager Wants to Eat the Dog!” a parental post on one Web site read).


Columbia Pictures
Vampires, a staple of Hollywood horror, get their latest due in “30 Days of Night,” featuring Danny Huston as leader of the pack.
Forget neck-biter Dracula, though. Mostly, these are nonstalking vampires who may feel the compelling need to “feed” upon other people's energy more than blood, which they see not as a meal but as a sacred “courier of energy,” according to Gabriel. A vampire code of ethics encourages them to get consent from any “donor,” be it of hemoglobin or good vibes.

Don't look for any of these vampires-next-door in the new gory horror pic, “30 Days of Night.” The super-nasty, razor-toothed, human-looking vampires who terrorize the sheriff (Josh Hartnett) and townsfolk of Barrow, Alaska, have one purpose only: to eat everyone before the sun rises after a month of darkness. Although fashionably clad, they descend like wolves upon grandmas and girls alike, snapping necks as they ferociously feast. With faces smeared with prey's blood, they emit ear-piercing, animalistic screeches because only their leader, Marlow (Danny Huston), seems able to speak (in gibberish, which is translated in subtitles).

“It's always with the vampires in a negative light,” sighs 27-year-old Gabriel.

By the way, he likes garlic and figures he can't tolerate the sun because he's of Irish descent and light-skinned. He does, however, have long fingernails, which he says he's used as a “feeding technique” to pull down the skin of his “eclectic Wiccan” girlfriend instead of a knife or dagger to draw blood.

Skeptical Slade

The British director of “30 Days” snickers when told about the existence of self-proclaimed vamps. “If it's a psychosis, then that's very interesting,” says David Slade, basically dismissing them as head cases. “Not my cup of tea, really.”


Pendragon Photography
Michelle Belanger (right) is author of “The Psychic Vampire Codex,” “The Vampire Ritual Book” and “Psychic Dreamwalking.”
If only Slade would've known the real deals were lurking about. Before 4,000 liters of fake blood drenched the “30 Days” set in New Zealand, the director sent 20 actors to “vampire boot camp,” where he taught them to menacingly walk, scream and act like a frenzied pack. The movie is based on the graphic novel that features monsters quite different than the romanticized hypnotic vampires of other books and films.

“These are not your Anne Rice vampires. Everything revolves around eating and killing,” Slade says.

The non-Hollywood vamps claim they eat more burgers than bodily fluids.

“Merticus,” a 29-year-old Georgia antiques dealer and founding member of the Atlanta Vampire Alliance, helped conduct a recent online study of 900-plus self-described vampires from 24 countries. Those who were blood-drinkers reported taking only an ounce or less at a time, usually no more than once a week. Feeding was seen as a “quality-of-life necessity.”

“If they don't consume blood on a semi-regular basis, they feel lethargic or exhibit medical symptoms” such as asthma, anemia or unexplained pain, Merticus relates.


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He's a “psychic vampire” who feeds on the “vital energy” or “life force” of humans. If he's away from crowds for too long, he says he becomes weak, his muscles ache and his head throbs.

Blood types

Buffy, beware. There are basically four modern-day vampire types – the energy-devouring psychic or psi vamps, the sanguinarians who exclusively drink blood, and the hybrids. There are also Goth “lifestylers,” who aren't true vamps but adopt the dark archetype for art, fashion, music and the sense of empowerment, says Michelle Belanger, a psychic vampire and the author of numerous occult tomes, including “The Vampire Ritual Book.”

“There's actually a job description in the vampire subculture. It's called 'fangsmith,'” says the 34-year-old Belanger, who lives in suburban Ohio.

Mainly, it's the lifestylers who have dentists craft high-quality acrylic fangs to attach to their teeth, although Belanger has a pair she wears for effect while singing with her metal band.

When it comes to blood, Belanger says, there are strict protocols to ensure that “donors” – who may be significant others – are disease-free and that the methods of taking blood are sterile.

“Most of the sanguine vampires that I know are either nurses or phlebotomists, and they pursued that particular career choice so they would be more educated. Not so they could grab a snack at work, as people have suggested,” Belanger says.

Vampires may use diabetic lancets, needles or razor blades to make inch-long cuts in the donor's fleshy areas, such as the upper shoulder, above the breasts or inner thighs. “Sometimes there is a sexual element in these exchanges,” Belanger adds.

By fulfilling their own craving, psychic vamps can help balance people who have too much energy, according to Belanger. She cites her knack for giving back rubs that reduce stress. Sucking energy from someone without consent, however, is a no-no. “It's actually a type of psychic rape,” says Belanger, noting a victim can feel ill and woozy even from across a room.

The victims in “30 Days” don't have time to feel woozy. Within a sec, they're pretty much entrails. Slade shot his film over two months of nights, which he says “was really beneficial to the people who played vampires” since it helped them get into character. Before the camera rolled, the bloodsucker actors were airbrushed with a pasty luminescent skin tone and outfitted with black contact lenses, “because the idea is they're in the dark so much their irises take over,” Slade says.

Belanger and many fellow vamps – who she claims include doctors, lawyers and PTA moms – are nocturnal, but “nobody bursts into flames” in the sun. Anyway, she adds, she doesn't take Hollywood seriously when it comes to portraying her ilk on-screen.

Still, she just might go see “30 Days.”

“I'm curious,” says Belanger, whose publicity photos include one of her in black, gnashing her teeth over a limp young woman. “I like good horror flicks.”

[Hellkat]

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