Militarizing the Vampire: Underworld and the Desire of the Military Entertainment Complex

Abstract

In the opening sequence of the film Underworld (2004), the beautiful vampire assassin Selene, clad in tight black rubber and leather, is perched beside gargoyles on top of a soaring Gothic tower. She scans a rainy, Victorian street, looking for possible targets in the perpetual war between vampires and Lycans. Using a modern SLR camera that clashes oddly with the overtly Gothic architecture, Selene’s vampire companion spots two bulky, aggressive-looking men. He nods to Selene who steps off the stony ledge and plunges into the night, falling through the rain only to land softly on the wet street below. At one with the grey shades that cover the old cityscape, she moves into the crowd without missing a stride, proceeds to a subway where she pulls out two Beretta 92FS automatic handguns and engages in a ritual of urban warfare. Selene’s passage from out of the dark and wet stones of the Gothic architecture into the street beneath her and on to the subway is not only an interesting visual, it also metaphorically describes the crossing of a border. Leaving the Gothic arches behind, Selene the vampire steps out of Gothic tradition and into the technological, warlike and public embrace of modernity.

‘Whatever happens, we have got The Maxim Gun, and they have not.’ (Hilaire Belloc, ‘The Modern Traveller’, 1898)

‘Everybody knows the war never ends.’ (Hannibal King in Blade Trinity, 2004)