The Science of Monsters

There are a variety of animals in nature whose food source is blood. Vampire bats use their sharp teeth to make an incision on their prey, then lick the flowing blood from the wound. Although they usually feed on livestock and other animals, there have been cases of vampire bats attacking humans. In 2005, bites from rabid vampire bats were blamed for twenty-three deaths in Northern Brazil.³ Another flying creature, the oxpecker, is an African bird that feeds on the blood left by the bites of insects on a host’s hide.

Insects that drink blood are prevalent throughout the world. With over two thousand species worldwide, fleas are the most prevalent parasite found on fur-bearing animals. They actually helped spread the bubonic plague in the 1300s that caused the deaths of an estimated seventy-five to two hundred million people. Ticks are another bloodsucker responsible for spreading chronic wasting disease and other afflictions. Mosquitos, which are all too familiar to us here in Minnesota, can transmit a number of serious diseases, including yellow fever, malaria, and dengue. This is why they are considered one of the world’s deadliest animals. Bedbugs bite with an anesthetizing agent, and while they don’t spread disease, they can be difficult to get rid of.

Mites and ticks are nature’s blood suckers.

Even some plants consume blood. Carnivorous plants, as shown in Nosferatu, are plants that derive at least some of their nutrients from animals or insects. There are at least 583 types of plants that attract, trap, and kill their prey. How can plants attract and trap animals? Some do it with sticky mucus or bacteria pools. Others can pull prey in with quick leaf movements or vacuum-like bladders. Gross! The Venus flytrap is probably the most recognizable carnivorous plant and consumes its prey over a one-to two-week period. The plant in Little Shop of Horrors (1960), named Audrey II, is similar and has a taste for blood. Can carnivorous plants become large enough to consume humans? Although there are legends of man-eating plants, no claims have been substantiated. In 1874 an account was published in New York World of a woman being sacrificed to a tree in Madagascar. The writer’s account claimed “... the tendrils one after another, like great green serpents, with brutal energy and infernal rapidity, rose, retracted themselves, and wrapped her about in fold after fold, ever tightening with cruel swiftness and savage tenacity of anacondas fastening upon their prey.”⁴ In 1891 a story was published in Review of Reviews that told of the “vampire vine” in Nicaragua whose desire is “to drain the blood of any living thing which comes within its death-dealing touch.” This story, too, was proven to be fabricated.

We concluded that there are indeed many animals with a taste for blood, but always for sustenance. Science and fiction deviate in the vampire’s desire for blood. This is where the true horror lies.

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CHAPTER NINE

JENNIFER’S BODY

Year of Release: 2009

Director: Karyn Kusama

Writer: Diablo Cody

Starring: Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried

Budget: $16 million

Box Office: $31.6 million

It is inevitable that fangs and blood will appear when one sees a vampire in their mind’s eye. Thanks to Bram Stoker and the thousands of iterations of Count Dracula that have popped up in film, TV, and even on breakfast cereal, nearly everyone in the world shares a similar concept of a classic vampire. But vampirism is not all cloaks, bats, and strained accents. The act of consuming flesh, blood, or even another’s spirit or essence in order to thrive has traveled from ancient folklore to the big screen. One such parasitic monster is the succubus. We think of nightmares as disturbing dreams, but the etymology of the word can help us understand phenomena like sleep paralysis and even succubi. “Mare” stems from mara, the Anglo-Saxon word for “crusher,” a reference to the sensation of someone or something on the sleeper’s chest. The maras of folklore were small imps or goblins, much like the creature squatting in Henry Fuseli’s iconic 1781 painting “The Nightmare.” Some night visitors may take the form of a male incubus, “that which lies upon” or a female succubus, “that which lies beneath.” Each of these demons engage sexually with their victim and have had a presence in Christian demonology throughout history.¹