Faculty member Sue Weaver Schopf takes a look at the vampire story from nineteenth-century novels to its modern retellings in popular fiction, movies, and TV shows. In the class The Vampire in Literature and Film, she plunges into the heart of what makes this horror monster so startlingly attractive.

“The vampire story has been used by authors and filmmakers alike as an encoded way of talking about a lot of things besides vampirism,” says Schopf. “It’s been a useful metaphor for a whole variety of anxieties that are inherent in the age.”

In the video below Schopf explains why it’s the perfect time to shed some light on this nighttime creature.