Analysis of iconography in vampire movies:

Dracula: in Bram Stokers Dracula, a lot of iconography is presented in the first couple of seconds
at the beginning of the movie. We see a cross at the top of a church, that cross is on the foreground shooting giving the idea of strong, however the background sky is red giving the idea of fear and darkness and blood; the cross then began to be covered by dark smoke, the usage of the smoke to cover the cross gives the impression of evil prevailing over good, also as the cross fall helplessly down the church and breaks on the floor again we are reinforced this idea of the good being overwhelmed by the evil. We are taken to a small shot of a map which focuses on Transylvania, the place that by myths is where vampires come from. Further onto the story we are given the information that the surname of the main character is Draculia which is quite similar from Dracula; He wears a red armour suit that looks like skinned flesh, once again the idea of blood and raw flesh comes up to us as we see this armour and believe that he may be the vampire in this story. As he follows to battle we see the outline of his figure which is now wearing a helmet that gives the feeling of a bat with pointy ears, as he carries on battling we see his cruelness and hard heart and believe even more in the idea the this character is truly Dracula. Further onto the story, we see he curses the heavens for have taken away his love and in desperation stabs the cross on the hall of his home, the cross starts to bleed and he drinks the blood coming from that cross and is finally turned into a vampire. In this movie the main weaknesses of the vampire character is the cross and prayers. On this film Dracula is able to walk in the sun as he walks towards the reincarnation of his beloved wife Elizabeth in central London. In this movie the vampire love to a human is shown and his intentions are to transform her into a vampire as well to live forever with him. The mode of transformation from human to vampire is by sucking its victims blood until they are almost empty and refilling them with vampire blood.

Interview with a vampire: in the film interview with the vampire, less iconography is used
compared to Draculas film, however in the first couple of minutes and increasing dramatic nondiegetic song is being played therefore building up tension on the viewer. As the camera follows up the building we see that there is a person looking out of the window, the shot follow to the back of this person, it is a man in a rather fine looking suit, his hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and from here the viewer might begin to wonder if this man is a vampire. This doubt is soon confirmed to be true as the interviewer guy asks the man what do you do? and he answers Im a vampire, also as he moves with quite a quite superfast speed to turn the light on so they can speak easily. His eyes are quite colourless and his face is very pale. Louis states that vampires love the light, this is rather a controversy of his situation as he or any other vampire can no longer walk under the sun, he tries to abstain himself from human blood quite a lot of times throughout the film and most of the time he refuses to kill for pleasure as Lestat does so often, this again contradicts with what he actually is, a vampire, by giving him a more human approach toward life itself. Some generic conventions were applied on this film, as Louis quotes coffins unfortunately are a necessity. As Claudia tries to kill Lestat but he comes back to life because she did not stab his heart, further as we see Louis and Lestat putting fire in the vampire theatre and all those vampires come to and end, further on we see that Claudia and the new made female vampire dies from being exposed to the sun.

True Blood (season 1): in true blood season 1 we see that lots of modern things were
adopted on the vampire theme giving a new twist to old traditional vampire movies. Thanks to Japanese scientists that have created synthetic blood vampires are now able to leave the shadows and reveal their existence to humans as they no longer depend on living off human blood .As vampires are allowed to live within society normally and are given similar rights unless they come to kill a human, vampire and human relationship supposedly was to be though quite normal, however many issues are exposed such as the struggle for equal rights, discrimination and violence against subgroups and homosexuals, drug addiction, the power and influence of faith and religion, the control/influence of the media, and the importance of family. The TV series does not carry many conventions with it but still had the fundamental ones that remind the viewer that those are vampires, such as day light restrictions, problems with silver, the traditional method of changing a human onto a vampire, by sucking them dry and replacing their blood with vampire blood. In True Blood, Bill the vampire acts and tries to fit into the small town to live in the house that belongs to him following the death of his last relative, he then fall in love with Suki a telepathic girl. The human vampire relationship is well enforce in this series as firstly Suki takes an interest over Bill and he then falls in love with her and wants to protect her from any type of evil that may befall her. Many other forms of supernatural is presented on this series as well as the vampire.