However, few creatures inspire the kind of devotion you find in followers of the vampire. Few people are as fascinated with the mummy or Frankenstein's monster as they are with the creatures of the night. From a folkloric standpoint, the vampire may have served as mythic explanation for a process that few cultures understood historically. Death has always been a mystery, but never more so than prior to the developments of science and medicine that have evolved in this century. Historically, however, something that cannot be understood or explained is relegated to the breeding ground from which springs myth and superstition.
Death still frightens people more than anything else.
We're still not sure as a culture what happens after death - which is why we have everything from cryogenic corpse preservation to elaborate Roman Catholic funerals. The vampire, to some, is still a representation of a frightening truth in our lives - every living thing must die. The vampire fascinates us because his very nature is the antithesis of that truth. He died in order to have existence, and his existence is fed by the death of others. To others, the vampire of today represents the ability we all wish we had - the ability to cheat death, to overcome it and continue to exist.