I know I’m so late to the party, but I recently got the vampire itch after reading Dracula for the first time. I was surprised by just how many of the typical “vampire” characteristics were formed in that book. The coffin-dwelling, blood-sucking, mind-controlling monsters in that book were so much more horrifying when framed in a Victorian narrative as the characters grappled with how to take them down. I think, looking at vampires with modern eyes, it can feel like they’re not scary at all.
