Shapeshifters: A History
By John B Kachuba
Reaktion Books, 200pp, £16/$22.50
The myth of the vampire is among the most popular in international folklore, inspiring nearly 400 films and television productions over the past century.
The most recent of these was Dracula, the joint BBC-Netflix mini-series broadcast from New Year’s Day and which, in the event, promised more than it delivered. Written by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, the minds behind the great Sherlock Holmes of Benedict Cumberbatch, Dracula seemed to owe more to Sebastian Love of Little Britain than to the shadowy monster of Bram Stoker. The Dracula of 2020 was truly a vamp for our times: a loquacious and woke anti-hero who wanted a man for his bride, who slaughtered an entire community of nuns with the zeal of a Spanish communist but who, in the end, was more boring than biting, with a quarter of viewers turning off before the final instalment.
