The Truth About On-Screen Monsters

It’s time for me to talk about something I am quite fond of: monsters. So, we’ll start with the ones that everyone is aware of already. Yes, there are plenty of monsters that have appeared on the big and small screen but can you tell what the difference between Hollywood fact and Hollywood fiction is? I’m taking the most well known movie and TV monsters and comparing what Hollywood says about them with what the actual lore and mythology say about them. In some cases, it may not be all too different but, in other cases, there’s a strong chance that Hollywood has strayed very far from the original.

So, let’s talk about the most common monsters on screens: vampires, werewolves and mermaids.

The Vampire

Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make” – Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

The characteristics of the vampires we know, first appeared in “The Vampyre” by John Polidori and Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” is remembered as the quintessential vampire novel, both of which appeared in the late 1800s, and as a major source of the vampire legend we now know. We know how the story goes: They burst into flames or turned to ash when exposed to sunlight and died when a stake was driven through the heart. Vampires also have pronounced fangs and are deathly pale, undead beings who spread their affliction to others through biting and not draining their victim of blood and they are really, really ridiculously good looking. Oh, and none of the above sparkled, thank you very much Twilight.

However, in early folklore, vampires were not these pale gaunt creatures but rather had ruddy, almost purple, features and were bloated and seeped blood from their nose and mouth. They supposedly wore shrouds and were undead beings that fed on the blood of the living. They also cast no shadow and did not have a reflection in mirrors (some believe that this was due to the fact that old mirrors were backed by polished silver which burned their reflections, others believed it was because they lacked a soul). In certain traditions, vampires were more active at night but were not thought to be weak to sunlight and it was believed that a vampire must be invited into a house in order to pass over the threshold and, once invited in, could come and go as they pleased. 

The Werewolf

“The term werewolf is a contraction of the Anglo-Saxon word ‘wer-’ which means man and ‘wulf’, werewolf- man wolf.” – Severus Snape, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 

Werewolves, as Hollywood would have us believe, is any person who can transform into a wolf (or wolf-like creature) at any time, day or night, and that the only way to kill a werewolf was with a silver bullet to the heart.

In folklore, a werewolf is generally any person who, due to being bitten or scratched by another werewolf or because of the hereditary condition of lycanthropy, under the influence of the full moon involuntarily takes on the form of a wolf at night. However, in some cases, some werewolves change shape at will. The first mention of werewolves or wolf men was in 60 AD and there are millennia of history surrounding werewolves. There is very little in the way of uniformity when it comes to werewolves in folklore and in Hollywood. However, one of the most disgusting traits of werewolves in folklore was the devouring of recently deceased corpses (bet Hollywood would never show that bit). One trait that is noted about werewolves is that they are nearly identical to a normal wolf, sometimes larger in size, but lack a tail and retain their human eyes and voice. In some regions of Europe, trials were held for people accused of being a werewolf and there were beliefs that wolfsbane could cure lycanthropy and various other (highly lethal) surgical methods.

The Mermaid

“She is a mermaid, but approach her with caution. Her mind swims at a depth most would drown in” – J Iron Word

Mermaids and sirens are generally lumped into one category in film and television. Ariel’s singing was more than likely a siren trait than a mermaid one but mermaids are indeed an aquatic creature with the upper body of a human and the lower half of a fish. They don’t speak with fish or crustaceans though.

Mermaids were generally seen as an unlucky omen in Britain and Ireland and, in some cases, not necessarily depicted as the most pleasant of creatures; attempting to lure men to their deaths. They tended towards using their beauty to lure men in and, in some stories, enticed men to fall in love with them so that the mermaid could gain an immortal soul. Western European mermaid folklore depicts a freshwater mermaid with two tails or the body of a serpent. In Eastern Europe, the Rusalkas would be the equivalent to a mermaid or siren; the nature of which varied hugely but it was agreed that they were, in fact, the spirits of the unclean dead and generally the spirits of women and girls. There is a huge variety of stories with similar attributes to mermaids like Nyi Roro Kidul from Java and Pania of the Reef from Maori mythology.