The Science of Monsters

Another theory for the vampire myth is the condition called catalepsy. This disease of the central nervous system leads to a slowing of the heart and breathing rate, with sufferers often appearing to be dead. This condition is portrayed in popular fiction including Edgar Allan Poe’s The Premature Burial (1844) and The Fall of the House of Usher (1839). When a person is afflicted with catalepsy, they are unresponsive to stimuli, may have rigidness, and pale skin. The subject is paralyzed and has no vital signs, which, to most people, would seem like they were dead. This disorder usually lasts a few minutes or hours, but can last up to days in the most extreme cases.

Although Bram Stoker may have started the phenomenon of vampires in literature, the creatures live on in media today. From popular series True Blood (2008–2014) to Twilight (2008) people continue to be fascinated with the mysterious blood suckers well into the twenty-first century.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

NOSFERATU

Year of Release: 1922

Director: F. W. Murnau

Writer: Henrik Galeen

Starring: Max Schreck, Greta Schroeder

Budget: Unknown

Box Office: Unknown

While the 1931 version of Dracula was made with the blessing of Bram Stoker’s heirs, the 1922 silent German film Nosferatu was a blatant rip-off. So obvious, in fact, that Stoker’s family and estate sued Prana Film over the copyright infringement. They won, leading to the destruction of almost every copy of Nosferatu. The vital word is almost, as Nosferatu, like its inspiration Count Dracula, is seemingly immortal. Thankfully, the F. W. Murnau picture survived and has gone on to entertain audiences for nearly a century.

Count Orlok, with his pale eyes and spindly fingers, is yet another take on Dracula. The story of Nosferatu is strikingly similar to Stoker’s novel, complete with its own versions of Jonathan and Mina Harker. And while the film is an admitted copycat, it deviates from the novel in that Count Orlok kills his victims, giving them no chance at eternal life. Nosferatu is even credited with first depicting the notion of vampires succumbing to sunlight, which has been inculcated in our modern day understanding of vampires.

F. W. Murnau is, of course, not the first creative to take perhaps a little too much inspiration from another. It is true that Nosferatu mirrors itself after Stoker’s novel, yet vampires were not a new concept. Stoker stitched together Dracula with the before-mentioned Vlad the Impaler. Like all monsters, vampires have a touch of realism, a humanity that anchors them to the natural world. Nearly every movie monster has roots in reality. The consumption of blood has been dated back to ancient civilizations. From Asia, Africa, and beyond there are examples of blood rituals long before Stoker, or Romania, came to be. In Christianity there is even the symbolic drinking of Jesus Christ’s blood.

Perhaps inspired by Count Dracula, disturbed people, not unlike Nosferatu’s peculiar character Renfield, believe they must have blood to quench their unnatural compulsions. Richard Chase, nicknamed “the vampire of San Francisco” killed six victims in the late 1970s with the purpose of drinking his victim’s blood. Before his reign of terror, Chase was hospitalized in a mental asylum where the nurses called him “Dracula” because he had been found “injecting rabbit blood into his veins.”¹ Obviously Richard Chase held no supernatural powers, nor a biological reason to drink human blood. Yet, “vampire killers” have been documented all across the world from Japan (Tsutomu Miyazaki) to Germany (Fritz Haarmann), so if humans have found reason, however depraved, to drink each other’s blood, we wondered if these instances occur in nature. Are there animals with “bloodsucking” capabilities? And if vampires operate at night, what are the advantages of nocturnalism?

Nocturnal animals are characterized by being active during the night and sleeping during the day. There are numerous animals in nature that are naturally nocturnal including bats, raccoons, and other woodland creatures. Many nocturnal animals have developed or evolved improved eyesight, hearing, and sense of smell. Other benefits of being nocturnal include avoiding the heat of the day, avoiding predators, and avoiding competing for resources. Although the percentage of nocturnal animals is small, scientists have discovered that human disturbance is pushing more mammals to be active at night. According to Kate Jones of University College London, mammals only became active during the daytime after dinosaurs vanished so nocturnalism may be a more “natural” state to be in.²