Breaking and Entering: Psychic Violation, Metempsychosis and the Uninvited Female Vampire

Abstract

This chapter considers the figure of the invasive female vampire. It is a common belief that the vampire requires some form of invitation before being allowed to enter a human’s personal space, yet they are able to glamour or control the mind of a victim with no such offer being made. While traditionally it is not uncommon to hear of male vampires wantonly partaking in such acts of psychic violation, the most extreme form of the uninvited possession of another is, as this study shows, largely the remit of the female of the species. This chapter investigates the phenomenon of vampiric metempsychosis (transference of souls) by examining seven films revolving around a female vampire figure: Daughters of Darkness (Kümel 1971), The Devil’s Plaything (Sarno 1973), Thirst (Hardy 1979), The Hunger (Scott 1983), Nadja (Almeraida 1994), The Last Sect (Dueck 2006) and The Host . The films will be considered in chronological order to chart how the nature of this transference develops over time to become increasingly concerned with the integrity of the many identities involved, though never really disentangling itself from various forms of violence. Of particular interest in this study is the dialectic between whether such violent “home” invasions are the result of traumatic repetition/re-enacting of the violence of the vampress’s own conception or whether they are the only form of reproduction and/or agency available to the female vampire.