“The Invitation,” directed by Jessica M. Thompson was released in theaters on August 26, 2022. The movie has been met with scathing reviews from critics with a 23% on Rotten Tomatoes and 5.4 on IMDB. Complaints of the movie’s predictability along with a lack of commitment to the horror or romance genre seems to have hit a nerve with critics. As Peter Canavese writes, “Comes on like an old Hammer horror picture, but then becomes full of old-hat psychological horror theatrics lacking a single original or interesting idea or performance.” ( The Invitation – Movie Reviews (rottentomatoes.com) )
Now if you were scrolling through #TheInvitation on TikTok or Tumblr, the response from viewers would be shockingly different. As Tumblr user wwaymond writes, “The invitation is a very smart movie that is also fun and dreamy and horrifying in ways that are more than surface-level, drawing on centuries of western storytelling & mythic tradition and giving it new life on the modern silver screen. It is also very clearly about race and female experience, particularly a black WOC’s experience, and class and wealth, and what it means to be American v. European.” This review as well as many posts commenting on the attractiveness of the male lead and the chemistry between him and our female protagonist paints a very different story about this movie.
A vampire movie that people either love or hate, where have we heard of this before? Stephanie Meyers’ “Twilight” novels turned movies are about the most famous pieces of vampire media except for possibly Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” The series’ resurgence in the past two years follows a trend continued by “The Invitation.” Vampires are back and they’re everywhere. Across all genres and demographics, these creatures of the night have found their place in literature, comics, movies, tv and other unexpected sources once again.
Yet, as you are reading about this year’s influx of vampire content, it’s important to know that none of these are the first of the genre’s kind. “Blade” was slaying vampires in superhero comics back in 1973 and on the big screen in 1998. “Hotel Transylvania” added a familial comedic twist to the character of Dracula in 2012 and now there is a surplus of 2010’s vampire amines. Even the use of POC and queer stories and characters, while still far too few, isn’t new to the genre. “Queen of the Damned” stars Aaliyah as a royal immortal, the first black vampire on film goes back over 50 years ago with “Blacula,” and as mentioned earlier, Blade is both a vampire hunter and one himself. Queer vampire stories go back even further than Dracula with “Carmilla” by Sheridan Le Fanu in 1872. “Carmilla” follows a young girl as she is preyed upon by a female vampire named Carmilla. The story has sparked many inspired movies and media even as recently as 2019.
So, through looking at this year’s influx of vampire media and the context surrounding these stories, we can see that vampires were never really gone. There are a million other pieces of media you probably thought of while reading this and many that are upcoming. Vampire lovers rejoice and as for their haters, well much like the creatures themselves, the genre seems to not want to stay dead.