The obsession with vampires

What is it about those blood suckers with pasty skin and super strength that get ones heart thumping and pulse pumping?

The description is a bit weird and not at all attractive but the faces of the vampires we see on television definitely are. Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen), Ashley Greene (Alice Cullen) and Peter Facinelli (Carlisle Cullen) from the Twilight series, Stephen Moyer (Bill Compton) and Kristen Bauer (Pam) from television series “True Blood” and Paul Wesley  (Stefan Salvatore) and Nina Dobrev (Elena Gilbert) of “The Vampire Diaries” all have a global fan following.

But has the vampire obsession caught on in Pakistan? Booksellers and CD store salesmen agree.

Book worm - Liberty Books’ branch manager

We are selling a lot of Twilight books and especially these days because The Twilight Saga: Eclipse has released abroad and people are interested in these books. Additionally Stephenie Meyer released The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner which is selling very well. Vampire books are very popular amongst teenagers and we have seen a definite increase in their popularity after Twilight became an international trend. Other popular vampire series include Night World and The Vampire Diaries.

Music lover - Muzika salesman

We have the soundtrack of Twilight and have experienced a normal number of sales, yes they are comparatively better than other movies or television shows about vampires but nothing too extreme. We also keep “True Blood” and “The Vampire Diaries” on dvd but I do not think the sales of these other movies and series have increased after the popularity of Twilight, and I would say that vampires aren’t more popular than before.

Sound track - Radio City salesman

We have Twilight and New Moon of The Twilight Saga and we have the soundtrack for the first film. Until now the response has been normal and nothing out of the ordinary, however, the third part which has not been released on dvd yet has a large demand and we are expecting these sales to be quite high. We do not have any other movies about vampires because we do not find that they are very popular, we used to have Van Helsing on dvd but not anymore.

Screening - DHA cinema representative

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse will release in Pakistan on July 9, 2010 and we are expecting the film to do very well. Already a number of people have come to ask us when we will be screening Eclipse and are very eager to watch the film. We played Twilight and New Moon in the cinema and they had a good run but we are expecting Eclipse to be even more popular than the previous two parts. We do not plan to screen any other movies about vampires and no one has really asked for them.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 5^th, 2010.