Published in The Film and Media Reader 2, Phillip Drummond (ed). London: The London Symposium (November 2013).
Presented at FILM AND MEDIA 2012, London, UK, July 22-24, 2012 (Presenter: Joanna Ioannidou)
As the advancements of technology brought us to an age where just about everything can be viewed with a few clicks of the mouse, there is increasing concern about the corruption of childhood innocence. This paper will discuss how this growing anxiety is represented in vampire narratives through the characters of monstrous children.
The power of children to inspire both terror (because of their uncontrollability) and pity (because of their vulnerability) is perfectly manifested in the characters of Eli in Let the Right One In (2008) and Claudia in Interview with the Vampire (1994). Through a comparative analysis of these two characters the paper reflects on the uncanniness of vampire children as small innocent creatures, who are not in fact what they seem. Furthermore, focusing on the similarities between the two characters, the paper aims to provide meaningful insights into some of the complex anxieties surrounding childhood that trouble the societies that the films sprung from. At the same time, through an analysis of the differences between the two vampire children, the paper seeks to raise questions about the (possible) changes in views on (monstrous) children in the last fifteen years.
