In the horror and horror-farce genres, vampirism is widely considered much cooler than cannibalism.
Cannibals are messy and dismember their prey.
Vampires simply exchange bodily fluids, in the process converting their prey into new members of the vampire species. Yet in real life, vampirism is at best a matter of legend and historical conjecture. Cannibalism, on the other limb, is a well-documented practice of historic and indigenous societies around the world. Let's examine some of the film formulae that have incorporated cannibalism. He's given a wife and lives as one of the villagers until the next ritual feast, when he's scheduled to be communally devoured.