The Child Vampire

Let us now talk about the child vampire. This is an idea that has been playing around in my head for awhile, but I never knew just how to approach it, being there are in fact so few examples to go by, at least that I have come in contact with. But I think it is a topic that does deserve some attention.

There are no historic of folk-loric references, at least none that I have encountered regarding child vampires. But rather the idea of the child vampire is a modern invention, but even in this day an age it seems to be a concept that is not often played.

Historically the innocence of a child was something near to sacred, and in fact this idea of childhood innocence was protected as much as the idea of a woman’s purity, so much in the same way that women were not traditionally perceived as vampires, it would have been unthinkable to believe that a child could become the manifestation of such evil. The primarily object of the vampire of tradition and historical decades was to install fear, and with the old concepts of both women and children neither posed a very likely candidate for striking fear in the heart of man. But rather the traditional vampire played upon the fears people had of mankind, and just what he might be capable of. Nothing was more fearsome to men once, then themselves.

But with the coming of the modern age, perceptions are changed, new ideas emerge, and old rules of tradition are bent, twisted and broken. Just as the view of the woman has come to alter so much, so has the way children are viewed. In fact the “evil child” now plays a popular role in many horror films, and is usually a very effective tactic for rising fear. Children today, in the media can be just down right creepy.

Part of this comes from the fact that the once “innocence of children” concept has been examined and put to question, with philosophical theories, as well as psychological ideas, it is no longer a given that all children are born innocent, but the idea of the “bad seed” has surfaced.

So it is no longer taboo for children to be altered into charming little blood sucking killing machines. Though even with today’s conventions, the idea of the child vampire is still not a common occurrence.

Of course one reason for this, could be the fact that the concept of the vampire has changed so much. The vampire is no longer the icon of fear that it use to be, but has been transformed instead into an icon of sex. And even with a vampires immortality, even in this world making a child, fangs or no fangs, a sex symbol is not easily pulled off.

So even with the new power to cause terror and nightmares the children have now been given, as vampires, there is the fear that they may perhaps become boring, or stagnant.

I think one of the most infamous and well known and perhaps most chilling of these little hellings. Is Anne Rice’s Claudia. Though, it is interesting to note, that even with as much as she bends tradition and how much she has changed the face of the vampire, the child vampire simply could not be, at least not for long, and had to be killed off soon after her birth as it were.

But through Claudia we are presented with some challenges that the child vampire just may propose. For one thing, children do not understand boundaries. They are ruled by the “id” the “me” factor, the wanting what they want when the wanted without fully understanding their needs and desires and without being able to rationalize these things. So one of the affects we have of the child vampire, is excessive feeding. The other consideration to make, is what becomes of the state of the mind of the child vampire, though within the same body they will always be trapped, if their mind matures over the ages that could prevent some difficulties, to forever having to look like a child, not quite the same thing as being a dashing 20 or 30 all the rest of your years. And we saw these ideas emerge in Claudia as well with her sudden realization of the fact that she will never change, and her than constant desire to be able to do so.

There was one movie which I have mentioned here before, that deals with vamprirism in itself in a very interesting way, but included in this is the idea of the child vampire. The movie is called Meet the Hamiltons.  And the concept behind it, is the fact that vamprirsim is a disease, they live more or less normally, they have relationships and families, but in order to survive they must feed upon the blood of others.  In this portrayal of the vampire, the child vampire which is in fact conceived in the normal human fashion, must be kept locked up like an animal, until they grow old enough to control their urges or they risk becoming a danger, killing without restrain, and can even potentially kill their own parents.

There was a short story I read which had a similar idea, called The Wet-Nurse, in which there was an infant vampire, which did in fact require the nutrient’s of milk as any child, but had a uncontrollable and constant hunger, and would draw blood in with the milk, as well in the process of nursing grew strength by draining away the life force of its nurse.

The show Moonlite has played with the idea in a bit of a different way. There has not been a full fledged child vampire upon the show, but they have introduced adolescent/teen vampires and some of the issues that such might have to deal with. The frustration of ever being stuck in this stage of life, with never being able to grow to maturity, at least physically, and the feelings of rage, and lonliness that can be caused by being trapped in such a state.

And of course I should mention the sort of “monster” vampire childern, as seen in Van Helsing, in which vampire young are hatched from eggs as inhuman creatures.