From terrifying, blood-sucking vampires to "Sesame Street's" Count Dracula, vampires in literature, TV and movies have entertained society for more than 200 years.
The "Twilight" book series portraying a vampire in love is the latest pop-culture phenomenon among teens and young adults.
More than 500 fans packed the showing of "Twilight" at 12:01 a.m. Friday at the Cinema Center theater in Hummels Wharf for the first movie based on Stephenie Meyer's four books -- "Twilight," "New Moon," "Eclipse" and "Breaking Dawn."
Sexuality and marginalization may have something to do with driving the fascination of literary vampires, says Ghislaine McDayter, an associate professor of English at Bucknell University who teaches Bram Stoker's horror novel "Dracula" in her classes.
The personalities of vampires have evolved since poet Lord Byron introduced the bloodsuckers in "The Giaour" in the early 1800s and Stoker wrote "Dracula" in 1897.
"Stoker's Dracula' and Byron's vampire figures, what's significant about those texts, they're incredibly sexualized," McDayter said. "They're really monsters who trigger sex in us. If you get vamped, you're transformed, essentially. You lose repression and you become very sexually active.
"What's really interesting about this one ("Twilight") is it's all about abstinence. Vampires surrender their roles in society and become figures all about restraint."
The vampire has become more human throughout the years, McDayter said. In today's literature or movies, it can be hard to spot the vampires because they blend in with humans.
Vampires of "Twilight" and the TV series "True Blood" are also fighting for equal rights because they're civilized, she said, and have become marginalized creatures. They've become civilized, and rather than biting people, they find alternate forms of sustenance while nurturing human characters.
"Why they're so fascinating to people is because they now signify anyone who considers themselves on the margin" in terms of sex, race, ethnicity and gender equality," McDayter said. "Anyone who feels marginalized or silenced or made invisible has found a figure they can connect to."
"Twilight" fan Jenny Knight, 18, of Port Trevorton, said she enjoys the series because of its love story between vampire Edward and human Bella. Edward is represented as a good vampire who eats animals rather than people, Knight said, while three other vampires in the books and movie continue to kill and eat people.
Knight attributes fascination to "Twilight's" good vampires to "the suspense and the fact that they can do such bad things but do everything in their power to try to be good."
Cinema Center employee Alaric Krause agreed.
"I think it has to deal with the fact vampires are generally put up as scary, but this one's presenting a vampire as a good person."
Krause said the movie sold out in three midnight showings at the theater and drew more hype than last week's opening of "Quantum of Solace," the latest James Bond flick.
"I did have low expectations of the movie," Knight said. "But I liked it. I liked the book better of course, but the movie was really good."
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Vampire movie draws sellout crowds to Valley theater
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