Brantwijn, the floor is yours.
My
Top 10 Least Favorite Vampires
There are good vampires and there are
bad vampires. Those following my blog tour got to see my Top 10 Favorite
Vampires—today, I'm going to go over my absolute least favorites. These are the vampires that just make me cringe,
vamps I consider to give the genre a bad name.
Again, these vamps are chosen solely on
the basis of my personal opinion. I have my own reasons for disliking them
which I don't expect everyone to agree with. And I'd love to see comments letting
me know your thoughts,
and what vampires you think should (or shouldn't!) have made this list.
Let me start here and now by saying I'm
purposely not including any
characters from Twilight on this
list. The reason for this is not that I like them—I think they're horrible in
just about every
way. But there have been probably millions of blog posts written about how
terrible Twilight is, and I have no
intention of letting this post descend into that. So let's just start off by
saying as an author of vampire fiction, I loathe Twilight and don't consider it
even remotely close to real vampire fiction. With that out of the way,
here are my Top 10 Least Favorite (Actual) Vampires.
10. Angel, Buffy
the Vampire Slayer (not Angel)
When he was first
introduced in Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
Angel was a very
interesting vampire character. When he turned bad in Buffy, he was
probably at his best. After that,
though...he really got pathetic. Once he had his villain arc, every appearance
in Buffy was
pretty much a downhill decline into him being a watered-down, repetitive
brooder.
I'd
like to point out, though, that
I don't include his portrayal in the
spin-off series, Angel, in this
assessment. Besides a few really bonehead instances, Angel as a character
actually got much better once he was seeded in the darker, almost noir-ish
LA setting. The show wasn't terrific, and not as good as Buffy, but it had some good story arcs. Ironically, when he's a bad
guy in his own series, that's
when he's the weakest. In Buffy, though,
he definitely overstayed his welcome.
9. Selene, Underworld
In order to give credit
where credit is clearly due, let me say that Selene is nothing if not absolutely gorgeous. My issue is really with Underworld, and the hype surrounding it
(and therefore, her). I don't find the movie very interesting, don't think the
vampires are very compelling, and Selene comes off as somewhat a bad archetype
in an overdone plot. In my circles,
though, Underworld is fairly well-liked,
and lots of people put it at the top of their favorite vampire movie lists. So
I find the movie overhyped and under-deserving. Selene's the symbol of a style
of vampire I just
find lackluster, all flash and no substance, and that's the reason I put her on this list.
She definitely does look
great in leather, though...
8. Dracula, Van
Helsing
I just...er...um...what?
Most
people I know
didn't like Van Helsing, and I'm one
of them. This vastly disappointed me, because I was really hoping for an unforgettable
supernatural creature adventure, and it constantly rises to just almost about right...then
crashes. I wanted to like it, I really, really did, but alas, no. And I blame this man.
I
honestly feel this rendition of Dracula absolutely ruined the movie. Heck, I
even feel like he ruined parts of the movie he had nothing to do with.
Something about him just
made me cringe every single time he opened his mouth. There was nothing about
him that worked for me.
My lady-boner for bloodsuckers died a little the day I had to watch this
imbecile take on the mantle of the Vampire King.
7. Louis, The Vampire Chronicles
Louis. Beautiful but boring. That's my biggest
problem with him. He's utterly and completely boring. This is another vampire I
would have liked to like, but...he's
so wooden. So bland. So empty.
He's
tolerable in the film version of Interview
with a Vampire, but still, nothing terrific. I will give props to Brad Pitt
for capturing his hypnotic monotone. The most memorable thing about this
character, though, in books and movies,
is how he never does anything. He
spends a damn lot of time complaining about his lot in unlife but he never,
ever does anything to change it. The one scene where he takes any action is his
revenge strike after Claudia's death. It's the only time he becomes proactive. In the Vampire Chronicles, after Interview he is essentially a deadpan
background character, and meaningless. He's on this list because his whining,
passive character is just
so disappointing.
6. Vlad, League of Legends
Most people know by now I'm a
major League of Legends fan, and I
get really attached to my champs. It completely disappoints me that the 'vampire'
champion is so...ridiculous.
I
get the sense that
Vlad's designers set out to make him a joke. And maybe that's exactly what
he is: a tongue-in-cheek dig at vampires. I find his dialogue overly groan-worthy and sometimes
downright disgusting, and if his abilities are a reflection of vampire power,
they're a bad reflection. Although I do whole-heartedly accept that it's possible
I'm just bad at playing Vlad. I've seen a lot of
decent players in ranked games. I simply had extremely high hopes and found him
utterly unlikeable. I'm really hoping they come up with another vamp champ, one
who's a bit more serious a reflection.
5. Bill Compton, True Blood
There
is just something about
Bill Compton that
irritates the living hell out of me. There is nothing about his character I
like. I never have. Not since the first episode of True Blood, not from the first book in the Sookie Stackhouse books. Never like him, never found him
attractive, never liked him with Sookie...nothing. I've never been sure exactly
why, but I just loathe Bill Compton.
4. The Gorch Brothers, Buffy the Vampire Slayers
These two idiots should never have
come anywhere near a script of any sort. They are obnoxious, stupid, and
irredeemably just
dislikable. They should have both died in the opening credits of their first
episode. It's not enough that
one of the two brothers survives his first episode, he comes back later and survives nearly his whole second episode. UGH. No. Just...no.
3. The Vampires of Guilty Pleasures
I have a controversial confession
to make. There is a series I find
even less tolerable than Twilight, and
that's the Anita
Blake series. Even if I find a writer to be bad, I tend to complete at least a
good portion of their books before I give up on them entirely. Guilty Pleasures is the only book that so completely
turned me off, I couldn't stomach the idea of attempting any of the rest of the
series. It was
terrible. Some of the worst
storytelling I have ever read, and some of the worst writing. Just awful. I
actually took out a notebook and started writing down editorial comments as I
read; I have never done that with any other
book. Sorry...Guilty Pleasures is just an awful,
terrible book.
2. Whatever this thing
is, Blade II
This is not a vampire. This is a
bad predator knock-off.
Ew.
And
my #1 Least Favorite Vampire of all time is....
Any
Vampire Played by Rutger Hauer
Rutger Hauer isn't a bad actor. I love him in Lady Hawke and The 10th
Kingdom. He's a fine man of the screen and a dashing handsome one, too.
He should never play a vampire.
He's got one strike against him as the
Master in the 1992 movie, Buffy the
Vampire Slayer. Honestly...look at him. That hair...
that smile...the costume...the painful overacting. His other strike
comes from Salem's Lot, equally
overacted. Dude, did you swallow a kazoo? (or is that an homage to the 1979 Kurt Barlow?). I
don’t know what it is, but
Rutger Hauer just
shouldn't ever play vampires.
So there you have my Top 10 Least
Favorite Vampires. Leave a comment, let me know if you agree or disagree, or let me know some of your
least favorites and why!
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Book
cover and blurb
Rhiannon Donovan, daughter to the vampire Queen,
would rather die than be made a bride to a demon Lord. Aijyn, courtesan to the
undead Daimyo of Kansai, can think of nothing more horrifying than his promise
of eternal life. In the halls of the
Blood Lotus Temple, the two women struggle against the chains of their fate,
and find a solace in each other that could mean freedom for them both... or
might cost each of them their lives.
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Author
bio
When she isn't visiting the worlds of
immortals, demons, dragons and goblins, Brantwijn fills her time with artistic
endeavors: sketching, painting, customizing My Little Ponies and sewing
plushies for friends. She can't handle coffee unless there's enough cream and
sugar to make it a milkshake, but try and sweeten her tea and she will never
forgive you. She moonlights as a futon for four lazy cats, loves tabletop
role-play games, and can spend hours watching Futurama, Claymore or Buffy the Vampire Slayer while she
writes or draws.
In addition to her novels, Brantwijn has had several stories
published in anthologies by Breathless Press, including the 2013 Crimson
Anthology and 2014 Ravaged Anthology.
She's also had a short story published in the Cleiss Press Big Book of Orgasm and the anthology Coming Together Through The Storm. She
hopes to have several more tales to tell as time goes on. She has author pages on GoodReads and Amazon,
and loves to see reader comments on
her work. Her short stories occasionally pop up at Foreplay and Fangs, her blog at http://brantwijn.blogspot.com.
Thank you for hosting me today! I look forward to hearing what you and your readersthink on the subject.
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