Niamh’s Reads: Oh Bite Me Please

Deputy Editor Niamh McGonnell-Hall investigates the hot vampire niche 

and how it exposes our darkest desires.

Trigger warning: this piece contains sexual references and references to Gothic sexual fear.

In the beginning…

We all know the bloodsucking, mountain-dwelling, dismemberment-crazed vampire. It is what most would consider a niche within the Gothic horror genre of literature and film, with many variations, adaptations and allusions to this shadowy figure appearing throughout the centuries. You either vaguely remember being taught Bram Stoker’s Dracula in high school, went through a Vampire Diaries phase in your early teens or have become point-blank obsessed with the macabre, ghastly and ghoulish world of the vampirian. 

Wherever you land on this spectrum within the Dracula niche, you would have found it hard to escape the Dracula fest that has enveloped popular culture in recent years, most notably the 2024 Film Nosferatu and the 2025 film Dracula: A Love Tale. 

But here comes the juicy part. We can go further into this specific Gothic figure and arrive at the hot vampire niche. We have become obsessed with these blood-sucking (unusually attractive) monsters. Here is a non-exhaustive list of my particular selections of yummy haemoglobin drinkers, complete with pictures (you’re welcome).

• Caleb Landry Jones - Dracula: A Love Tale (2025) 

• Bill Skarsgård - Nosferatu (2024) (HEAR ME OUT GODDAMMIT)

• Luke Evans - Dracula: Untold (2014) 

• Ian Somerhalder - The Vampire Diaries (2009)

• Paul Wesley - The Vampire Diaries (2009)

• Gary Oldman - Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

With my personal favourite being the most recent Dracula, Caleb Landry Jones, you can’t deny that each of these actors has brought something different to the role, from the powerful Luke Evans to the suave Gary Oldman. Yet, each of these portrayals of Dracula has garnered equal following and fandom, with a large number of viewers gushing over how hot they are, along with copious amounts of TikTok edits.   

I don’t care…bite me!

Now I said ‘unusually attractive’ earlier due to the recurring trope in a majority of these films of “if they’re attractive, kidnapping, assault, and murder are all green flags,” which is an idea that is also quite prominent in dark romance books, but is in fact much, much older. 

Lo and behold: sexual fear in Gothic Horror. And the OG Dracula tale, written by Bram Stoker, was some freaky shit. And this freaky shit has transferred across all its adaptations, some more explicit, such as Nosferatu, and others more subtle, such as Dracula: Untold.

Nosferatu is a perfect example of sexual fear (I told you to hear me out!). Whilst the original 1922 film was copyright infringed by Florence Stoker, Bram Stoker’s widow, the Nosferatu figure is synonymous with Dracula. This film is dark. The colour grading, the use of light and shadows, and also its dark sexual content. Nosferatu is bald (not in a nice way), is in desperate need of a manicure, a moustache trim and some dental work. Without a doubt, the whole “the pure maiden must take the beast into her bed” thing is straight up YIKES, yet it purposefully plays into a deeper textual conversation. The way the film situates him in a position of higher sexual power shows another side to the Dracula story. The fact that I have personally seen thirst edits of Nosferatu—yes, some are joking, others are NOT—demonstrates that there is an underlying tone to these films that has certain members in the audience getting a little hot and bothered. 

Sexual horror in the Gothic is a tricky subject. Like in Nosferatu, it brings in elements of misogyny, violence, assault and a generally uneasy power play, usually between a dominant male and a less dominant female. I want to make this clear: I am not approving of unconsensual sexual violence or intimidation. 

What I am trying to make clear is that Dracula is meant to be a freaky hoe! And of course, present a very intellectual argument that sometimes sexual fear in the Gothic is less about the feminine being oppressed and more about them being freed (whilst vigorously maintaining that Dracula is in fact a slut). I use ‘unusually attractive’ because Nosferatu and other Dracula figures that are far from traditionally attractive have an unknown allure that we can’t quite put our finger on, which ultimately turns out to be the allure of sexual freedom provided by these beings that operate outside societal expectations.     

Now, this thought process of wait…ew…no, absolutely not, to hmmm…why he kinda…oh wait…oh…oh…bite me please! In terms of attractiveness doesn’t quite apply to our lovely Salvatore brothers because, quite frankly, who wouldn’t? It still holds very true when analysing the morality behind these Dracula figures. I’m talking about the fact that you may even feel ashamed to admit that you have a pull to these blood-covered men, simply on the basis of ethics and them not being purposefully crafted for a mid-teens audience in the 2010s cough Damon Salvatore cough to fall in love with.   

The main point of this is that watching Dracula movies and digesting Dracula media can sometimes spring a lightbulb in some people's heads that goes: “I shouldn’t like this, but I do.” It is not just a scary movie with jumpscares and gore. It is a subliminal power play between watchers and this Dracula figure that has been quite literally stalking and exposing people’s kinks for years. He frees us because he doesn’t abide by any rules.   

As Dracula has evolved and as Gothic horror is no longer a ‘contemporary genre’ as such, for modern audiences, Dracula has become more of a ‘can’t control his bloodlust’ rather than ‘can’t control horniness.’ But if you look closely, or perhaps you are already in this hot vampire niche that I speak of, you will see that (he is meant to do this blah blah)

I must also make an honourable mention of The Castle of Otranto. Even though it didn’t contain a Dracula figure per se, it is widely regarded as the first work of Gothic horror, and guess what it contains: incestuous lust. You bunch of Gothic freaks.

The way to a girl's heart is through her veins

On a more tender note, it's also the YEARNING that every Dracula has perfected. Waiting hundreds of years for his love to return, his vagrant disrespect for the laws of nature and physics. This all adds to his allure as a sexual figure by tugging on our heartstrings instead of our bra straps. It’s the exhilarating forbidden that the person finds themselves in—at first scared, then excited, then just plain wanton.   

The hot vampire niche is, on its surface, a 2009 poster of The Vampire Diaries, but deeper, it's a niche of repressed sexuality, dark eroticism, sexual power play, the want of the forbidden, and uncontrollable urges. 

If you think about it, Dracula is not ‘unusually attractive’ at all. He has been engineered since his creation to get us all hot and bothered. It's not the sexual domination (which can be quite frankly misogynistic) that some may think is the reason that we find Dracula so attractive, but the fact that we like a bit of the forbidden, especially when it comes to freedom of sexuality, and Dracula is anything but restrained. 

One final footnote from me, your gracious Dracula-obsessed author:

BoOoUuNce On It CrAaaAaaAzZZYyyY StyYyLeEe.