Why I've always been a sucker for vampires

AS FANS queue to see the latest film in the Twilight series, released tomorrow, Johanna Payton explains why a passion for fangs is in her blood.

Vampires Johanna with Robert Pattinson lookalike Adam Vampires: Johanna with Robert Pattinson lookalike Adam

I’M IN love with vampires. It’s something my long-suffering husband has come to accept. When we met 12 years ago my bed was overshadowed by a giant poster of Gary Oldman as the brooding lead in the Francis Ford Coppola film Dracula.

Nowadays whenever he catches a glimpse of my Robert Pattinson keyring he simply rolls his eyes.

Matthew thinks my obsession with the Twilight series of books and films means I’m a teenage girl trapped in a 36-year-old’s body. I see it as proof I’m a diehard romantic.

My obsession began when cult film The Lost Boys was released in 1987. “Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die.” No teenager could resist that tag line or peroxide blonde Kiefer Sutherland in a leather jacket. Rock ’n’ roll attitudes, cool clothes and teen romance meant I wore out our video player watching it on repeat.

With my vampire appetite whetted I moved on to Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles and quickly found the sexy Gothic horror and poetic romance addictive.

So imagine my delight when after exploring family history for a school project I found out one of my grandparents was born in the shadow of the Carpathian Mountains, home of Count Dracula’s castle. No wonder I loved vampires – I was a bona fide Transylvanian.

Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula took my love affair to dizzy new heights. Gary Oldman was rugged and dangerous and I was attracted to everything his character stood for: forbidden passion, star-crossed love and eternal, undying devotion.

Could any red-blooded woman resist being stalked by an ancient, immortal and devastatingly handsome prince? Add the temptation of eternal youth to the mix and I was begging to be bitten.

When I met Matthew my vampire obsession was already deeply rooted and I was keen to convert him.

However even after multiple viewings of Interview With The Vampire, he still didn’t appreciate the film’s finer moments.

Then the first time we watched Twilight he moaned about “poor special effects” and was snoring before the credits. He found it hilarious when I went to see the follow-up film New Moon with only my body weight in chocolate for company.

Eliott, my six-year-old son, thinks I’m a lunatic too. He can’t understand why I’d like something that wants to bite me.

However even if Eliott’s Transylvanian ancestry eventually stokes his curiosity, I think it is unlikely that, being a boy, he will ever develop my passion for vampires. Only girls can truly appreciate the compelling, eternally protective male hero in a paranormal love story.

These guys offer something very complicated and, let’s face it, very dangerous. They could kiss you or kill you. They lust after your blood.

However they are also fiercely loyal with superhuman strength, experienced (to the tune of a few hundred years) and, the icing on the cake, insanely sexy.

If you can live with the bloodsucking, vampires are perfect. They are dangerous to know and love you for ever. Now that I think about it, it’s little wonder that real men ridicule our love for the vamps. They simply can’t compete.

As my friend Claire, 38, puts it: “Men are being held up to a fictional character and shown to be very much lacking. It is rather like your husband buying you a pair of gold hotpants à la Kylie Minogue.”

Perhaps my mortal other half is right and my vampire obsession is linked to my lost youth. That’s when I fell for vampires, after all.

There is a pivotal moment in every vampire tale that takes me back to more carefree, hedonistic days. The first time I fell in love or the first time I broke the rules. We have all had those heart-stopping moments but in a vampire’s world they are much more intense.

The combination of perfection, eternal life, sexual tension and history will always be irresistible to me.

Maybe I am feeding my inner teenager (especially with the inappropriate crush on the aforementioned Mr Pattinson) and no doubt my boys will mercilessly tease me when I’m first in the queue for Twilight Eclipse.

Still, however old I am on the outside, the mix of fear, fantasy and true love is too potent for this eternal romance addict. My jugular is there for the taking.

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