Sink Your Teeth into Vampirism Quiz

Answer: John Polidori

Considered one of the earliest instances of vampire literature, "The Vampyre" was conceived by John Polidori while he spent the summer of 1816 with Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley at a Lake Geneva mansion. The group of them created a contest in which they were tasked with writing ghost stories, and while some of these never materialized as fuller tales, the event resulted in this short novel and, interestingly, Mary Shelley's "The Modern Prometheus", or "Frankenstein" (considered a classic in its own right).

"The Vampyre" follows the tale of Aubrey, a man who finds himself preternaturally attracted to the mysterious Lord Ruthven, whose actions during their travels align quite closely with the tendencies and habits of the vampire of lore. It's a story which hits many of the broadest strokes of vampire fiction, some of which still recur in vampire media to this day.

Answer: Transylvania

Perhaps the best-known vampire story, "Dracula" was released by Bram Stoker at the end of the Victorian Era at a time when fantastical, Gothic literature was starting to shift out of the mainstream (and literature was moving into the Modernist style). The tale follows Jonathan Harker as he travels to the Carpathian Mountains on request of the eccentric Count Dracula, aiming to help him move to London, and it continues as the pair travel to England, spreading the evils and dangers that follow in the Count's wake.

"Dracula" would become the basis for films like "Nosferatu" as cinema took off in the 1920s and it would be a tale re-adapted again and again over more than a century of cinema. Undeniably, the choices Stoker used-- from the Count's ability to transform into a bat to the blood-sucking tendency to the trope of living in a darkened Eastern European castle-- were amongst the most influential in the genre.

Answer: Kurt Barlow

As found in Stephen King's second novel, "'Salem's Lot", Kurt Barlow seems to be the big problem in the ill-fated Maine town noted in the name (also known as Jerusalem's Lot), and as the town diminishes in disturbing ways due to his influence, it comes down to Ben Mears, Mark Petrie, and a handful of others to fight back against the evil hiding in the basement of the Marsten House, protected by the Jonathan Harker substitute, Richard Straker.

Considered one of the most important vampire novels of the twentieth century, "'Salem's Lot" has been adapted multiple times, often as TV mini-series, and is seen as one of the more influential works in King's long bibliography, especially amongst other horror writers. King claims that he wrote the novel on the basis of placing Dracula in the modern era.

Answer: Spike

First airing in 1997, the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" TV show (based on the 1992 film) featured Sarah Michelle Gellar in the lead role as Buffy who, heading through high school and college, had to act as a protector for the town of Sunnydale, California in the face of evil threats of all sorts-- mostly vampires, but sometimes other monsters of the week.

In the midst of this new responsibility, Buffy had a handful of boyfriends. The first of these, Angel, was played by David Boreanaz; Riley was played by Marc Blucas; Spike was played by series regular James Marsters. Angel and Spike, both vampires, came into the show in its first season while Riley, appearing at the start of the fourth, was a government agent posing as a teaching assistant.

Answer: Complications from childbirth

As Bella and Edward's relationship deepened across the handful of "Twilight" books, the pair eventually got married in 'Breaking Dawn" and conceived their eventual daughter, Renesmee, during their honeymoon in Brazil. Much of the first half of the book follows the short pregnancy, hastened by unnatural vampire hormones, and the high chance that Bella has of dying trying to give birth to the half-vampire child. The solution, as it turns out, is simply to let Bella have a natural birth and transform her into a vampire.

With this, the Cullen/Swan family heads into the final battle against the Volturi as vampires. Renesmee eventually ends up with Jacob, who 'imprints' on her after her birth. It's a weird consolation prize.

Answer: Tru Blood

One of the key plot points of both Charlaine Harris' "Southern Vampire Mysteries" novel series and the HBO adaptation, "True Blood", the synthetic 'Tru Blood' is a concoction made to slake the cravings of the vampires of Bon Temps-- a New Orleans-adjacent locale containing vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural beings that go in and out of Sookie Stackhouse's charmed life.

The show lasted seven seasons as Anna Paquin's Sookie navigated relationships with Bill (a vampire), Eric (also a vampire), and Sam (her werewolf boss) amongst others.

Answer: From Dusk Till Dawn

In this grindhouse-style action-horror, two fugitives, Seth and Richie Gecko, (played by George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino), are on the run in Texas only to take a family hostage and take refuge in an out-of-the-way strip club and bar in the middle of the desert. The catch, as they quickly discover, is that the strip club is a haven for vampires who feed on its hapless patrons.

Following the modest success of this what-would-be cult classic, Rodriguez helped bring a sequel and a prequel film to life and, eventually, remade the story as a three-season TV show on the short-lived El Rey cable network.

Answer: An angel

After creating "The Haunting of Hill House" and "The Haunting of Bly Manor" for Netflix, Mike Flanagan turned to a more personal, original story with 2021's seven-episode "Midnight Mass", a story about the religiously-inclined island town of Crockett Island and their encounter with a seemingly new priest, whose presence leads to a much more sinister happening involving a mysterious 'Angel'.

Highly-praised, "Midnight Mass" was regarded by many critics as "one of the best Stephen King stories King never wrote". It featured a cast of Flanagan regulars against the dismal backdrop of a hapless (and helpless) fishing village, seemingly misled into tragedy.

Answer: Castlevania

First created by Konami back in the 1980s, "Castlevania" takes the core of its narrative from the old "Dracula" story, but instead of Jonathan Harker heading to Dracula's castle, it's Simon Belmont, who uses all manner of weapons to take on not only the main vampire, but all of the horror foes along the way (including Frankenstein's monster and the mummy at times).

An immensely popular gaming series for a niche fanbase, "Castlevania" has grown over the decades to have a much more dramatic storyline than the early NES versions. Since then, the four-season animated "Castlevania" Netflix series received stellar reviews. It featured Trevor Belmont, one of Simon's descendants, who appears in several later games in the series.

Answer: Olivia Rodrigo

The first single to come off of Rodrigo's second studio album, "Guts", "Vampire" proved to be a massive pop hit for the singer, topping the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S. and the UK Singles Chart. The track, which leveraged pianos and strings to lead Rodrigo's lyric-heavy verses into swelling crescendos, was seen by several outlets as one of the best songs of 2023, and its success would lead it to receive three Grammy nominations.

The music video for "Vampire" was directed by Petra Collins, who'd previously done two music videos for Rodrigo's first album, "Sour". It would receive six nominations at the MTV Video Music Awards, winning one.