What is it about vampires, witches, warlocks and werewolves? I shouldn’t have to ask. Apart from lurking at the bottom end of the alphabet, they are dead proof of the emotional storytelling power of mystery. A recent dark proof point is the vam-wolf flick “The Twilight Saga: New Moon”, taking Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight books loved by girls into a new realm of Gen ZY mania. On its opening weekend in the North American market, the second Twilight film ‘New Moon’ was the third largest box office take on record…coasting past the Harry Potter films and beaten only by The Dark Knight and Spiderman 3 (yep, more dark guys). A love triangle between a human (Bella), a vampire (Edward) and a werewolf (Jacob) is asking for success, so no surprise they were breaking down the movie doors.
And don’t discount the zombies, another tribe of Lovemarks for some. From recent books like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Zombie Christmas Carols (It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Zombies) through to zombie walks around the world, this lot has a macabre irresistible pull. In October 2000 people donned the worms for an annual zombie walk at Monroeville Mall, near Pittsburgh. This is where George Romero shot the classic chiller, Dawn of the Dead in 1978.
An ironic connection here is that some of us live with vampires and work with zombies without realizing it (I’m talking power here, not people!). At home, one way to DOT – do one thing to make the world a better place – is to disconnect your vampire electronics, those stand-by plug-ins like microwaves and TVs that can suck energy even when devices are turned off. At work, get your IT guys to venture downstairs and check there are no zombie servers hidden. They are the computer servers that were once useful but now have nothing to do except just keep on running… and feeding.
