Rant on horror tropes

Giving a character in a story a long time to develop, and then killing that character off. Inspires a few emotions in a reader.
A sense of loss and a sense of dread. Showing your reader that you aren't above killing your characters isn't just for the heck of it. If done right. An important characters death, even when meaningless, should always have meaning. A dead important character impresses on your ready how real your world is. Oh...just because he's in love with what's her name and prince of wheresitwhatsit makes you think he can never die? Well..that's too bad because he stepped on a rusty nail and it went up through his leather boot anddd now he's dead from some unknown illness. Having characters in your work who resemble and are just as fleshed out as prince what's his name who died from nail gives your story a heavy sense of impending doom. Like maybe, just maybe, this book might have an unhappy ending. And every reader can get behind that kind of suspense

Something every single horror writer should know is that giving a character traits to love or hate, means everything. It's almost less important than the monster, heck it is more important than the monster. Because if you don't care about sally who's about to be murdered. That's just it you don't care. At no point while reading your work should a reader thing. Oh my god I don't care. That's an utter failure on the writer to capture your imagination. If you show the reader what terrible people a duo of murderers are, but then give them a deep past together and a bright future. Your reader will be conflicted, and that;s exactly what you want. Neither for or against them dying, but totally hooked by the possibilities.

Usually, almost always, a horror story, has a horrifying ending. If your main character doesn't die, it's a surprise or a lame ending to the story left unfinished. So if you introduce characters who both have possibly done things worthy of being killed, war crimes, murder, shady dealings. But then give them reasons to live, family, bright future, happiness on the horizon. You'll have your readers stomping their foot at how unbearable it is when the end is nigh upon them. "Oh I don't really want this asshole to live! But his poor wife! And his kids! They were going to live happily ever after nooo!" But then you'll also have the side that roots for their death on-board with the impending doom. "Yes! Kill them! Screw these assholes get em monster!" This is how you retain all of your audience while also providing a thrill ride everyone can enjoy at the same time. I once listened to a creepypasta narration called "8-ball" Where a guy closes shop at his job only to find an 8-ball on his car, he shakes it and asks a question and it says it doesn't know at first, but he shakes it again and asks it "Am I in my car right now?" It says no. The guy laughs it off, takes it with him in his car and asks it again. "Am I in my car now?" And it says yes. He thinks its a coincidence. He asks it if he's in his house yet and it says no, but when he gets in there it says yes, then he starts to freak out and in his paranoia, he asks it. "Can you see me?" It says yes. "Where am I?" In your living room. So he flips the fuck out and the story suddenly falls a fucking part. It suddenly and without much reason or warning gives the guy a reason to go back to the shop where he works to get a "magic knife" and he kills a monster and the 8 ball crumbles....it felt so rushed, so forced. You cant have supernatural horrible monster 8-ball magic ended by, guy with magic knife saves the day. Doesn't it feel lighter? Less horror more twilight zone? That's what good horror writers avoid, the twilight zone ending. Where nothing makes sense and the punchline is "OH THE HUMANITY, NOTHING MAKES ANY FUCKING SENSE ALL A SUDDEN." Good horrific stories, have good realistic reasons they are scary.

Moving onto another topic I'm particularly addicted to. Vampires. I could rant about the portrayal of vampires in fiction and movies all day long. The overall presentation of the last ten years plus, is hot garbage. A vampire, a strigoi, a vampyre, Muroni. These are true feinds. Diabolical creatures whose one true motive is greed. The lust for human blood. General consumption, lust and wanting is their calling card. They are universal throughout folklore and almost every language has a word for the concept of them. Now, you go and take a monster, dress it up and take away what makes it horrible and scary, and you no longer have a monster. Take a monster and give it a beautiful face and voice like angels, but have it gutting people and slurping entrails. Then you still have a monster. See the difference? Just compare edward cullen, to Alucard from the Hellsing and Hellsing Ultimate Animated show and you'll see what I'm talking about. One sparkles in sunshine, the other wields twin magnums, has thousands of damned souls in his body, and kills and slaughters, mocking his victims and teasing them before utterly destroying them and drinking up what's left of them. Vampires are representatives in literature for the dark hunger of human beings. The selfish and the greedy. I think today's average American reader could really get behind the horror inherent in a monster that represents greed. American's including myself are real good at being greedy. This watered down cucky version of the vampire menace isn't good for a story. It......sucks~ -Jeopardy loser horn here.-
If a vampire kisses you, expect to be bitten shortly.
If a vampire looks at you for more than a second, it's thinking about killing you.
If a vampire is in a position of importance or a role of authority, it's to better control it's source of food, or to attain a source of food while perhaps in a state of vulnerability.
Need I remind everyone that a vampire, is immortal?
That fact, doesn't seem to be as striking to some people as it should.
As a writer, making a scenario where. "Average dude" runs into a vampire, can be tricky. Because a vampire can basically do whatever it wants to anyone who doesn't already understand it's nature. Ignorance is a vampires greatest weapon. If it's just you and a human shaped empty husk of a being perfectly suited to hunting you down and killing you without a chance of failure whatsoever, it's going to win. So I actually struggle finding good reasons my "Average human" Wouldn't just be consumed like a meal they try to fight back or talk or do anything other than die.
A vampire can die in many ways, but doing it takes pre meditation and careful, careful fucking preparation. According to folklore, every vampire has about the same weaknesses but they all differ heavily in certain areas, the key ones are; Sunlight, Nails (Driven through certain body parts), A wooden stake (The wood type can be incredibly important), religious symbols or artifacts of faith, and certain mumbo jumbo rules like threshold crossing and whether or not dirt is in the vampires coffin when he sleeps in it or not or if you put a rose on the coffin lid orrrr if he has recently shape shifted into an animal or not because some vampires, like Dracula, can only change at dawn or dusk. So many and I MEAN SO MANY factors go into whether or not you can even conceivably kill the vampire or if he cant escape or if something can go wrong. Attempting to kill a vampire on your own with no preparation is basically suicide. I think people have lost touch with how terrifying that is. That's the terror inherent in trying to stomp out a supernatural force, it's like trying to calm wind with your bare hands. You better be bringing your own mumbo jumbo if you want to stand a chance.

A vampires presence in the world means that the devil's forces are present and on the move. Your fate is uncertain and you can die at any time due to some ancient hunger you had nothing to do with. Theoretically a vampire could take an entire army at night and never need for help. They could group up on the monster and stab it all they like but it wouldn't do jack because it's a vampire. To properly introduce vampires into your story should take some serious balls. It should take a writer a long time to decide whether they really want to bring a nearly impossible to destroy monster into this. Even if you knew a vampire couldn't take you on in the day, are you going to go into it's lair and attack it? Without knowing if it's vulnerable or weak to what you've got prepared? Or even if it's alone in there or if it's got friends? What of it's powers to command wolves to do it's bidding? Sure you might be A-Okay to handle a vampire with your religious mumbo jumbo but can you ward off ten wolves?

Yayyy rannntttt...thanks for reading this far...I have no good ending for this XD Just spitballing ideas for something I've been working on.