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“To Prevent So Spreading an Evil”: Stakes and Vampires

Scholars pretty much agree that the practice of driving a wooden stake through a suspected vampire’s heart finds its origins in Eastern Europe many hundreds of years ago. But nailing down a date when this belief first emerged is difficult. For millennia, people worldwide have believed in the power of wood to rid themselves of evil. The Chinese have tao, or peach wood, to ward off evil spirits. Native Americans used cedar wood to thwart theirs. And in many parts of Europe, it was believed that white thorn or ash was the best wood to combat evil. But the act of taking a piece of wood, sharpening it to a point, and driving it through (un)dead bodies? To the English-speaking world, word of such horrors came to Britain’s shores by way of a travel log: “The Travels of Three English Gentlemen, from Venice to Hamburgh, being the grand Tour of Germany, in the Year 1734” — published in 1745 in The Harleain Miscellany.*

Having heard tales of vampires from the men’s German landlord — who in turn was paraphrasing Baron Valvasor (the first to perhaps ever document a case of a vampirism (one Jure Grando from Istria) in 1689 — the author of the travel log writes of bodies being exhumed from their graves:

A Vampire Impaled
Illustration by Albert Decaris from Le Vampire. Extrait des mémoires du chevalier de Villevert, illustré de burins originaux par Albert Decaris. 1944.

Their Countenances are fresh and ruddy; and their Nails, as well as Hair, very much grown. And, though they have been much longer dead than many other Bodies, which are perfectly putrified, not the least Mark of Corruption is visible upon them. Those who are destroyed by them, after their Death, become Vampyres, so that, to prevent so spreading an Evil, it is found requisite to drive a Stake through the dead Body, from whence, on this Occasion, the Blood flows as if the Person was alive.

There were several reason why staking was effective. It pinned the vampire to the earth so that it could not rise. It released the excess of blood from the bloated creature, and, if made of wood (sometimes the stake was made of iron), the organic material carries the aforementioned protections against evil.**

THE CASE OF ARNOLD PAOLE

The next significant and detailed account of a real person accused of vampirism was the case of Arnold Paole, a Serbian solider who died in 1725 (some sources say 1726) and soon was suspected of four attacks on villagers in the town of Meduegna in which he was buried. Upon their deaths, bodies were exhumed and found to be vampires. Villagers recalled Paole saying he had been plagued by a vampire in Gossowa (possibly modern-day Kosovo), and that he had killed the creature. But apparently not before being cursed by the vampire himself.

calmet-dissertaion-apparitions
A 1749 copy of Calmet’s influential Dissertations sur les apparitions des anges, des démons et des esprits (photo credit: abebooks.co.uk)

While not mentioned directly in 1728’s De masticatione mortuorum in tumulis by Michael Ranft about vampires in Germany, the Paole story is traceable to the 1732’s Dissertationem De Hominibus Post Mortem Sanguisugis, Vulgo Sic Dictis Vampyren. It is pretty much certain, however, that it’s popularity in spreading across Western Europe is attributable to Dom Augustin Calmet, a Benedictine monk who recounted the tale in his influential Dissertations sur les apparitions des anges, des démons et des esprits, first published in 1746. There, Arnold Paole is Arnold Paul, but the story is pretty much the same. And it ends with Paole being staked.

The book went through multiple editions, and was readily available (in French) in England soon after The Harleain Miscellany travel log was published. All different publications. But all pretty much conclude that the vampire of Eastern Europe migrated to Austria and Germany in the mid eighteenth century and became a big hit among a public fascinated with the tales. No wonder then that in 1748, a German by the name of Heinrich Ossenfelder gave Western civilization its first poem to mention a vampire, the appropriately titled “Der Vampir.” Seems the vampire had crossed over from Eastern Europe, not only to Austria, but also Western literature.

THE VOURDALAK, VARNEY, AND CARMILLA

The intersection of history and literature is where discussions of vampires seemed to dwell for the next twenty to thirty years. Notable thinkers like Rousseau, in a letter to Christophe de Beaumont in 1762, asserted that he wholeheartedly believed in vampires. Others, like Voltaire, did not — even mocking such belief. But any scientific discussion that would quell superstitions from the continent was no match for the writers of the Romantic period who gave new life to the vampire.

Coleridge’s Bride of Corinth. Polidori’s Ruthven. Neither of these early English Romantic vampires are staked. But in 1839, Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, in the Gothic novella  Family of the Vourdalak, is among the first (if not THE first) to work the folklore directly into a literary work.

Family of the Vourdalak introduces old man Gorcha, and his warning to his family that if he does not come back from fighting the Turks after ten days, he is dead. If he comes after that ten days, he’s one of the undead, and they must destroy him. He tells his family “if this happens, I command you to forget that I was your father, no matter what I say or do, and to impale my heart with an aspen stake, because I will be a cursed Vourdalak returning to suck your blood.”

And what are these creatures? Gorcha explains:

“… vourdalaks, as the Slavic peoples call vampires, are believed in those countries to be dead bodies that come out of their graves to suck the blood of the living… Father Augustin Calmet, in his curious book on ghosts and apparitions, cites many frightening examples. Several times, the Emperors of Germany have appointed commissions to investigate outbreaks of vampirism. The commissioners tell of exhuming bodies engorged with blood, which they stake in the heart and then burn in the village squares. The magistrates who were present at these executions attest — with oaths and signed statements — that they heard the dead howl at the moment that the stake was plunged into their hearts.” (translated from the original French)

While Tolstoy’s vampire may be the first in western literature to be said to die by impaling it, English writers would soon take up the stake a few years after in James Malcolm Rhymer’s and Thomas Peckett Prest’s penny dreadful, Varney The Vampire.

Varney: The Desecrated Corpse
Vampires can definitely be destroyed by stakes in the penny dreadful that is VARNEY THE VAMPIRE (1845-47)

Published in serialized format from 1845 to 1847, Varney The Vampire is the first vampire tale in English literature to makes clear that stakes kill the undead (see especially the 48th chapter). It is also the first work to introduce the trope of a vampire having fangs. And it was all but forgotten as an essential piece of the puzzle that is vampires in literature. Looked down upon as it was the people’s fiction of the penny dreadfuls. Not artful like the vampire to come thirty years later from the penn of a talented Irish writer.

Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, first widely made available in 1872 (included in the author’s In a Glass Darkly) is considered among the first truly great vampire stories in English literature. Predating Bram Stoker’s Dracula by 25 years, Carmilla is not only a cornerstone of vampire literature, but also an early example of  lesbianism in the genre.

It is a tale of the close relationship between Laura, the female protagonist, and Carmilla, a mysterious girl invited to live under the same roof with Laura, prone to mood swings and melancholy. When it is revealed that Carmilla is, in fact, a 17th century Countess named Mircalla Karnstein — and a vampire — it is only a matter of time before the men in Laura’s life track down the vampire, stake it, cut off its head, burn the body, and scatter the ashes in a river.

STAKES AND STOKER

Stoker would pick up the practice in Dracula (1897) when Lucy Westenra is staked by her fiancé, Arthur Holmwood. As for Dracula himself? Dispatched with a kukri knife to the throat and a Bowie knife to the chest. Arguably, the more horrendous and gory a death is Lucy’s, and not the vampire who made her.

From Dr. Seward’s Diary (Chapter XVI) comes the account of Lucy’s end:

“The Thing in the coffin writhed; and a hideous, blood-curdling screech came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions; the sharp white teeth champed together till the lips were cut, and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam. But Arthur never faltered. He looked like a figure of Thor as his untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the mercy-bearing stake, whilst the blood from the pierced heart welled and spurted up around it.”

By the dawn of the twentieth century, the public at large was becoming well aware of this pointy wooden means of destroying the undead. Though Stoker’s novel sold only moderately well upon release, sales of it skyrocketed when Dracula was adapted for Broadway in the 1920s. From there, it is only a short jump to 1931’s DRACULA, Universal studios’ adaptation. There, the Count is staked off-screen with an unceremonious whack of a hammer and moan from Lugosi.

MAKE NO MISTAKE
Actor Michael Gough stakes vampire woman Valerie Gaunt in Hammer’s DRACULA (a.k.a. HORROR OF DRACULA) from 1958.

In the late 1950s, Hammer Studios would not only bring out the stake to destroy the “vampire woman” in HORROR OF DRACULA (1958), but also, in the process, introduce a gush of bright red blood that other filmmakers would go on to repeat again and again. The rise of the hammer. The thrust of the stake. It was all very sexual. Penetration. Release, But let’s leave that for the literary scholars and psychoanalysts to discuss.

Suffice to say that by the 1960s, stakes and vampires went together like flyswatters and flies. It’s the first thing vampire hunters reach for — next to, maybe, the holy water or crucifix. No wonder it ended up in many a vampire hunting kit (which started “turning up” (read as: were made)) in the twentieth century. But the authenticity of these kits is always questioned. Still cool as hell.

montague-summers-kit-at-vampa-2400px
A 20th century vampire hunting kit that belonged to Montague Summers, author of The Vampire: His Kith and Kin. From the Vampa Museum collection.

Make no mistake, however: people like the influential and eccentric Montague Summers (1880-1948) — whose own vampire hunting kit is pictured here in this post — truly believed in vampires. And as much as enlightened twentieth and twenty-first century men and women relegate vampires solely to the world of fiction, there are still those who turn to the stake to destroy suspected vampires. As recently as March of 2024, an Oregon man staked his mother, believing her to be a bloodsucker.

It’s bloody business to impale a person. Just ask Mel Brooks. A brilliant parody of Francis Ford Coppolla’s DRACULA (1992), Mel Brooks’ DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT (1995) has perhaps the bloodiest — and definitely the funniest — destruction of a vampire ever seen on screen. Brooks, along with writers Rudy De Luca and Steve Haberman,*** take staking to a whole new level when Jonathan Harker takes a literal bloodbath dispatching the undead Lucy. It’s a scene embedded below.

Once you watch it — and now, perhaps, having read this blog post — you will never think of staking a vampire in quite the same way again.

*Click here to read a more detailed excerpt from The Travels of Three English Gentlemen.

**Paul Barber’s Vampires, Burial and Death is an excellent resource for those who wish to dig further into the nature of corpses and why many who were disinterred were thought to be vampires.

***In addition screenwriting, Steve Haberman is a film historian. Check out his many great Blu-ray and DVD feature commentaries on many horror films, including 1931’s DRACULA and its recent 4K re-release.

Finally, the photo that server as header for this post is from 1968’s DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE. Not one of best of Hammer’s Dracula films, but still a solid enough entry (with interesting color filters) — except for the silly part where Dracula actually removes a stake from his heart. Because the right prayer wasn’t said. Yeesh, so many rules. Give me a good beheading any day.

books, film

Filming Frankenstein

Boris Karloff played the monster with such pathos that he (and Jack Pierce’s makeup) influenced all versions of Frankenstein that followed.

Filming Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus has always proven formidable. The original 1818 edition has 258 pages. These are divided into 23 chapters which were originally published in three volumes. Given its complex themes of hubris, free will, science, nature, loneliness, abandonment — and more — it is no wonder that adaptations to film have, for the most part, fallen short of the expectations of audiences. How do you have a typical ninety-minute to two-hour movie accurately capture all that Shelley packed into her Gothic novel? Much of the disappointment for purists wanting the novel adapted to screen has to do with the accuracy of depicting an intelligent creature philosophizing about its nature. But does that make for compelling drama?

THE PROMISE OF DEL TORO

Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming Netflix adaptation of the novel once showed great promise as a faithful adaptation, but now fans aren’t quite so sure.

Due to finish up principal photography this month and set for a 2025 release, del Toro’s film was at first expected to be heavily influenced by Frank Darabont’s original script* for Kenneth Branagh’s MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN (1994). It’s a script Branagh pretty much abandoned as he wildly deviated from the novel in many places, resulting in a severely flawed, but ambitious work. But it was a literate script.

For his adaptation, del Toro told JoBlo.com back in 2007 that he wanted to make a “Miltonian tragedy” — appropriate as Paradise Lost heavily influenced Shelley (she even has the Creature read it as one of the four prized books in his possession). If true, then del Toro would be on the right track to get at the heart of the tragic tale where one man’s drive to become God drives his creation to identify with both the innocence of Adam and Eve, and Satan’s destructive drive to be free. As much as he is a monster, Frankenstein’s creation is an anti-hero (more than mere antagonist), and that’s where most adaptations fail.

But — to many a purist’s concern — there are indications that, in addition to the traditional tale of man creating man, del Toro will introduce the character of Dr. Pretorius (well, re-introduce in a sense, as a version of him was first introduced in Universal’s BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN [1932]) who will be seeking out the creature in order to continue Victor’s experiments. Certainly, this is NOT in the novel, and Pretorius, in his previous incarnation, was something of an oddball and somewhat sinister antagonist.

MINDLESS MONSTERS

Pushing aside Edison Studios’ 14 minute silent film from 1910. (with a hideous freak of a monster without much of a mind) it is Universal Studio’s FRANKENSTEIN (1931) against which most adaptations are measured. Karloff plays the creature with great pathos in the seminal offering from Universal, but here, and in the sequel, BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935), director James Whale makes his monster (for the most part) mute and a child (or at least childlike), thus depriving it of having a fully fleshed out character. Reduced to a lumbering boogeyman in Universal’s many sequels, there is little character to the character beyond the audience’s sympathies and later, with films like ABBOT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948), its laughter.

Christoper Lee’s monster in Hammer’s adaptation was a mindless killer with few moments that elicited any pity. But Peter Cushing’s Frankenstein was worse!

Hammer Studios takes the monstrous monster motif much further in their CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957) where Christoper Lee, in grotesque makeup, is, for the most part, a mindless killer. It does, however, have one of the finest Victor Frankensteins in all of cinema, Peter Cushing. But its franchise, too, suffers from eventually reducing the creature to one-note killing machine. What Hammer does extremely well is make clear that their Victor Frankenstein is even more the monster than his creation. But that takes these adaptations even further away from the source material, with the motif of a doppelganger — in a philosophical and psychological entanglement with its creator — at its center.

SERVING MANY MASTERS

By the nineteen seventies — and for decades following — Frankenstein adaptations ran the gamut from the sadly melodramatic (FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY [1973]) to the brilliantly comedic (YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN [1974]) to the story behind the story, and everything in between.

1973’s FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY, a teleplay in two parts, may be the first adaptation to make some claim on getting close to the source material. But in much the same way Dracula has been adapted, character names and elements of plot are mixed up; there’s even a bit of The Picture of Dorian Gray with the creature starting life as quite attractive and getting uglier as the story progresses. And while it stands on its own as an interesting story, much as it tries to pass itself off as Shelley’s story, it isn’t. It is, however, many a fan’s favorite, and the closest in spirit to the novel up until that time.

1974’s YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN boldly makes no such claim, as it is an homage to all that was Universal horror, plus a subversion of audience expectation, and just downright hilarious. And while there is a cultural significance to a comedic Frankenstein, it gets us further away from Shelley.

Some filmmakers of the nineteen eighties could be said to have returned to the source. But that didn’t translate into filmic versions of the novel. Those behind GOTHIC (1986), and HAUNTED SUMMER (1988), for example, would eschew the book and instead find turn to tales of Mary, Percy, and Lord Byron (with others in tow) on their trip to Geneva. A game of telling ghost stories sparks the idea for the novel, but little else is of note in those two terrible films. More interesting is 1988’s ROWING WITH THE WIND where the creature actually materializes as a manifestation of May Shelley’s darkest thoughts, but the creature here becomes little more than a conjured demon of the mind.

In 1992, Frankenstein returned to television. Starring Randy Quaid as the monster, it, more than any previous version explored the psychic bond between the doctor and his highly intelligent creation. But there’s a reason it holds just a 17% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It is a snooze fest, and suggesting some sort of telepathic link between creator and creation can only be pushed so far before it becomes silly. The doctor and the monster are father and son, God and his creation, not separated twins.

Robert De Niro’s Creature was horribly disfigured, and was a threatening presence in MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN (1994).

A return to the source material as potential for real drama (and big screen horror, or so it was sold) was evident in the aforementioned MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN (1994).  But rather than stick to that source, director Kenneth Branagh instead approaches caricature with his adaptation. His scenery-chewing portrayal of Victor is a spectacle to behold, and even Robert De Niro as a unique monster that is equal parts an innocent and a force for revenge can’t save the film from becoming an overwrought mess. It’s histrionic filmmaking in the service of its director. And while it is the most ambitious of any Frankenstein adaptation to date, Branagh’s efforts to have his production be the biggest production of the novel ever attempted is all over the place. The pieces ultimately don’t come together very well. But it worth the watch, if only because its reach exceeds its grasp.

Ten years later, 2004’s FRANKENSTEIN, a Hallmark teleplay (of all of things!), faithfully sticks to the plot of the novel and carries real emotional weight. Here, the creature is very much the philosopher, and the producers get extra credit for depicting a monster that is accurately androgynous with long dark hair and yellowish skin. Unfortunately, it is even more boring than the 1992 television production, and comes off as one would expect a Hallmark movie would. Turns out a creature too hung up on the human condition makes for little on-screen action.

A decade later, VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN (2014) with James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe took an entirely different approach, telling the tale from the assistant Igor’s perspective. But since Victor never had an assistant in the novel, we’re even further from the source material. That same year, I, FRANKENSTEIN took the story in the silliest of directions where the monster fights demons.

BOTH MAN AND MONSTER
Showtime’s PENNY DREADFUL has a surprisingly accurate Creature that captures much of the spirit of Mary Shelley’s novel.

Oddly enough, the most faithful adaptation of Frankenstein may not be an attempt to film the novel at all. Showtime network’s PENNY DREADFUL series (2014-2016), starring Eva Green, captures the spirit of Shelley’s work. Victor is arrogant, and viciously cold towards his creation, but he is not a madman hell bent on being God. The creature (not only physically accurate as he is in the novel) can think and reason, feel abandonment and longing, but also be quite ruthless and vengeful,  His determination not to be alone leads the audience to feel not only pathos, but also dread at the lengths to which he will go to have his creator make him a bride. He is both man and monster, as is his creator.

Perhaps the novel then is too unwieldy and cerebral to capture on film. Maybe it is the spirit of the characters that most needs to be depicted, and not in some cut up, abbreviated version of the novel where some but not all characters are intact. An altogether new approach like PENNY DREADFUL may ironically be most faithful to Shelley’s vision as it is not inhibited by it.

Which gives del Toro’s adaptation a chance to prove itself among the best of Frankenstein adaptations. Not just a retelling assembled from pieces of what came before, but a new creation that none will feel the need to abandon soon after its release.

 

*See Movieweb.com’s “Shawshank Redemption Director Describes This as ‘The Best Script I Ever Wrote & the Worst Movie I’ve Ever Seen'” for more about Darabont and the movie that could have been.