Julia Slaughter

At work I heard a statement that I found completely and utterly fascinating. Theresa, one of my coworkers standing by the microwave announced “I don’t like Vampires, they are all ugly.”

I considered that for a moment, “All of them?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Even though, like people, they are all different?”

Theresa nodded again, and this was right before she confessed that she had seen and liked Twilight, the first movie in the Twilight saga. I desperately longed to ask more questions, but I wasn’t sure where to start or if the lunchroom was even the appropriate place for my questions.

If all you know of vampires is the Hollywood portrayals, really what’s not to like? Way before Twilight and Rob Pattinson, Hollywood stars and constellations alike have played vampires – Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Robert Sean Leonard, Bill Nighy, Kate Beckinsale, Gary Oldman,and of course how can we forget Keifer Sutherland and that’s just the tip of the iceberg! Vampire movies go back almost to the beginning of films and they long ago abandoned the white (not pale but white) skinned vampires with black circles painted around their eyes clad in a black cape.

As my mind wandered down those lines I thought if her issue isn’t with the Hollywood kind of vampires, which I don’t see how it could be, does she know real life vampires? I don’t think that I do. The closest I’ve ever seen in Don Henrie from Mad Mad House on SciFi (back before it was SyFy) and while I don’t know that he really is a vampire, (Googling him reveals that there seems to be conflicting reports as to if he could possibly be a vampire or not) I know that he is of Asian American descent and a fairly handsome man. (I did not post a picture because I couldn’t bring myself to bother him by asking for permission for a personal blog.) In fact if you look at his MySpace currently – http://www.myspace.com/donhenrie, the picture there is pretty mundane. (He looks more like a model than anything else.)

I guess I assume that like every other life form on this planet, there are attractive and less attractive examples out there. I still can’t stop kicking it around in my head, Theresa knows ugly vampires, who knew?