BloodViolet: Perfect Evolution (and the Buried Soul)What this year's four vampire-hybrid films have in common is an overcoming of our oldest fear.by Todd SeaveyMetaphilm
And that’s where genetic engineering comes in.
Pop quiz: Which 2006 film depicts a sexy vampire, skilled at swordplay, gunplay, and/or martial arts, stuck in the middle of a war over half-vampire hybrids?
Trick question—four films this year do: in order of their release, BloodRayne, Underworld: Evolution, UltraViolet, and, coming at the end of the year, Perfect Creature.
The vampire novels of Anne Rice and the comic-book-inspired Blade movies were no doubt big motivators for creating the current crop—but the particular emphasis all four of the movies place on hybrids—and the possibility of war over genetic purity—suggests that something more than old-fashioned vampirism makes these films resonate with early-twenty-first-century audiences—or rather with the producers who green-lit the projects.
In a culture increasingly defined by our ability to mix and match at will—blending pirated elements of old songs to create “mash-ups,” blending DNA from different plants and animals, blending elements of various subcultures, eras, and ethnic groups—vampires have clearly ceased to be villains and have become one more exciting style to adopt. Sure, dressing like a vampire is fun for the goths, and rooting for vampires (they kill people, but they have such lovely angst) is a blast for Rice fans—but a true mix-and-match era should hold out the promise of actually being a vampire.
And that’s where genetic engineering comes in.Each of these four films deals with the possibility of mixing vampire and human DNA, usually placing a partly-vampire heroine or hero at the center, with the result that the vampire villains in the films are engaged not so much in their traditional business of trying to kill lots of humans by sucking their blood but in the newer business of trying to maintain the genetic purity of the vampire race against intermingling with humans. Before our eyes, the default mission of vampires in popular lore is changing: instead of cannibals, they are now, in essence, white supremacists.
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น