We’re headed back to Atlantis this week to continue asking: if vampires are figments of the Gothic imagination, why do so many authors insist on examining them under a microscope? If our nightmares haunt us with fears of the unknown, what exactly do we gain from the paragraphs on paragraphs of exposition that tell us exactly how those monsters came to be? In other words, have sci-fi vampires been defanged (and are they just compensating with their big, nasty teeth)?
In this episode, Hannah and Rebecca dive deep into the history of the mad scientist as brought to us by Mary Shelley and Universal Pictures, unpack the link between 20th-century B-films and the atomic bomb, and consider whether vampire-as-plague works better as a metaphor than a plot device. Hannah is traumatized by weird-ass ant brain fungus, Rebecca is scarred by having to discuss I Am Legend yet again, and they both demand to know what the hell a “nano” actually is.
Come vamps, join us around the campfire.
Major Spoilers:
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, 18861
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, directed by Charles Barton, 1948
Ultraviolet, directed by Kurt Wimmer, 2006
Other media mentioned in this episode:
Fiction
Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley, 1818
The Family of the Vourdalak by Aleksey Tolstoy, 1839
Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, 1872
Dracula by Bram Stoker, 1897
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, 1954
Anno Dracula by Kim Newman, 1992
Argeneau by Lynsay Sands, 2003-2025 (series)
The Passage by Justin Cronin, 2010
V Wars: A Chronicle of the Vampire Wars edited by Jonathan Maberry, 2014
Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis by Anne Rice, 2016
Film
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, directed by F.W. Murnau, 1922
Dracula, directed by Tod Browning, 1931
Frankenstein, directed by James Whale, 1931
The Wolf Man, directed by George Waggner, 1941
House of Frankenstein, directed by Erle C. Kenton, 1944
House of Dracula, directed by Erle C. Kenton, 1945
The Vampire, directed by Paul Landres, 1957
Nosferatu the Vampire, directed by Werner Herzog, 1979
Nadja, directed by Michael Almereyda, 1994
From Dusk Till Dawn, directed by Robert Rodriguez, 1996
Blade, directed by Stephen Norrington, 1998
Shadow of the Vampire, directed by E. Eilas Merhige, 2000
Dracula 2000, directed by Patrick Lussier, 2000
Blade II, directed by Guillermo del Toro, 2002
I Am Legend, directed by Francis Lawrence, 2007
Daybreakers, directed by Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig, 2009
Morbius, directed Daniel Espinosa, 2022
Nosferatu, directed by Robert Eggers, 2024
Van Helsing, directed by Stephen Sommers, 2004
TV
The Vampire Diaries, 2009-2017
The Strain, 2014-2017
V Wars, 2019
Midnight Mass, 2021
Wednesday, 2022-2025
Additional Reading
Catherine Pugh, “The Deathbird of Disease: Count Orlok and the Monstrous Virus,” in Nosferatu in the 21st Century, 2022
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This episode was written, recorded, and produced by Rebecca Glazer & Hannah Spiegelman
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