Wampyrs? Oh, COME ON!!

I don't watch South Park very often any more, but last week was hilarious. I love the Goth Kids---I suppose I relate to them, and they seem to be the only people in South Park who are in any way connected with reality...Now come the "vampire" kids. Not REAL vampires, as they point out when they feel threatened, but kids in black clothing from Hot Topic and PLASTIC TEETH, who neither smoke nor drink coffee... The Goth Kids' solution to the vampire invasion is hilarious---try to catch the re-run if you missed it the first time.

The heir apparent to pre-adolescent creepy angst, "Twilight" features a super innocent but intelligent young girl paired up with a pretty, pale vampire "boy" who is actually 90 years old. Well, something had to take up the Harry Potter slack now that that series is winding down...So this guy crawls in the window for cuddles with the girl. He's 90, remember? but of course they don't have sex, because that would relieve the tension that is so necessary for the entire chemistry of the thing, don't you know...insidious crap.

I have some problems with the whole vampire myth, anyway, at least as presented by Stoker, an apostate Catholic who tries with mixed success to pit some snazzy Catholic prayers and sacraments against Count Dracula, but misses the point about the grace BEHIND the sacraments, and I freely admit that I don't have enough interest to bone up on all the rules and regs for vampirism, but I tend to agree with author William Biersach regarding these gruesome undead. It is ridiculous to imagine that a human could be bitten and converted to another species or life form which would live forever unless "freed" by a stake through the heart---at which point the soul would NATURALLY fly straight to heaven because "MY god would never send anyone to hell!". If vampires exist, they are merely the bodies of the damned, animated by demons. Human souls go either to Heaven, Purgatory (and thence to Heaven), or to Hell when they die. They don't hang out and drink blood. A vampire, really a devil, would not be "relieved" and "freed" by the stake, but franticly protesting its return to hell. Not even demons want to be in hell.

At any rate, they are of hell, and not at all romantic, and children should not be encouraged to pretend to be vampires. Or even ALLOWED--upon pain of grounding.

Unfortunately, "Twilight" will be a gigantic success, because most people are utterly stupid.

My own pick for "best" Vampire movie would be "Shadow of the Vampire" starring John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe. Heck, that's creepy right there...put those two guys together with Christopher Walken and Steve Buschemi and you've just cast the four horsemen of the Apocolypse...