Why Do Vampires Always Go Back to High School?

Posted by Robin Ruinsky (robin@filmschoolrejects.com) on November 19, 2009 Share

Just imagine. You’re immortal. You have forever lain out in front of you. The road of your life is endless. You can do anything you want. Go where you please. What do you choose to do? Go to high school. Yes, you read this correctly. You go to high school.

I’ll state this right out, right up front. I’m not a fan of Twilight. And I’m not talking about the time of day when the sun is setting and the vampires are itching to rise and find a good meal among the innocent citizens of London or Paris, Berlin or Boca Raton. In my view Vampires fit very nicely in London or Paris, particularly in the days of yore. We have much scarier creatures than vampires these days. I also believe many have likely retired to Florida to bask in the evening humidity. But I digress.

Where Vampires don’t fit is the place they’re showing up more than ever. High School.  So many have returned to the classroom I’m surprised not one incarnation of High School Musical has included a dancing vampire. Alright, I can’t be certain. I’ve never seen the HS Musical films.

It seems that over the years vampires have suppressed their predatory instincts and developed more than a thirst for blood. They have a new found thirst for knowledge, but not knowledge attained in an exciting way. No world tours for them. There are no visits to Versailles, no visits to NYC to take in some theater, heck not even Disney World’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

Nope, they enroll in high school. I have to say this again. They enroll in high school. Voluntarily. They subject themselves repeatedly to that brutal right of passage that humans look back upon with horror like victims of the Spanish Inquisition looked at the rack. Flashbacks can persist for years.

Our current crop of teen vampires is content to sit though period after period of high school math, science, history and English as if it’s all new again. The smell of a school lunch doesn’t even faze them. I realize they don’t have to eat it, but you’d think they’re so sensitive the smell of over cooked mystery foodwould drive them insane.

Why are these vampires still trying to get their diplomas? Why are they going to sex education and health class? Do they feel the need to learn the dangers of exchanging bodily fluids? Wouldn’t they get this after a hundred, two hundred years of experience?

The fangs down most popular high school vampire is that sparkly fellow from Twilight, Edward Cullen. As you might have noticed Cullen is not a chippy chappy happy fellow. I suspect that comes from centuries of enduring high school and a diet of squirrel blood. You see the Cullen clan can’t even get the hang of being bad. They live on animal blood because these days not only do vampires have to be depressed and dreamy with soulful eyes and sparkly white skin, they have to deny their very vampireness.

Has anyone wondered how these teen vampires get into school after school? Where did Edward get his transcripts? How old was the paper work and was it on parchment with illustrations by fourteenth century monks?  Was it from his gig at Prague High in 1877 or his years spent at the Paris Lycee in 1960? No one notices him in the back row of the graduating class of 1912 smiling happily because his class is booked on the Titanic for their senior trip. They just think he’s the pale, pasty mystery guy.

Doesn’t anyone notice him in all the class pictures in all the high schools in all the countries in the entire world in every decade since he was a mere vampire sprout? I know, I know. There are so many questions and so few answers.

But, hey, it’s a love story about a girl meeting a Romeo who has fangs. Except isn’t Edward two hundred years old? And yet he’s fooling around with a sixteen year old high school girl? Don’t they arrest people for that? Why does the vampire get a break? Because he looks all sparkly?

Edward really needs to skip the prom and drink Bella Swan’s blood, not make goo goo eyes at her. Drink her blood, have a real good take out meal, perhaps the entire cheerleading team. Follow it up with a vacation to Minsk.

This isn’t just about Edward and all those other dreamy teen vampires. It’s about the dignity of Vampires as a mythical creature who sees humans as prey. At the end of the day it’s all so unfair to this once noble race of killers. Vampires were meant to be scary creatures you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley, a graveyard or even a Home Depot. It’s so wrong to see their fangs reduced to nothing more than accessories. The monster that was the vampire, the scary creature who slurped the blood of the innocent so he may live forever has been turned into a lapdog, a pussy cat, a High School student.

What would Dracula and Nosferatu think? They’d roll over in their coffins and write an op-ed for the Transylvania Gazette lamenting the downfall of the younger generation.

Read more articles by Robin Ruinsky