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I'm unsure which firm handles publicity for the world's vampires, but they're doing a heck of a job.

The hullabaloo surrounding the release of "New Moon" -- the latest installment in the "Twilight" franchise, a series of books that's kind of like "90210" with vampires and werewolves -- is further proof that the undead have been accepted into the mainstream with enthusiasm. Witness the turnout at Regal's Pinnacle Stadium 18 theater in Turkey Creek where thousands of kids flocked to see two of the movie's stars on Tuesday night.

You'd have thought someone turned back the clock to 1964, when the Beatles first arrived in America. I'm pretty sure that if you stood on the Blount County side of the river, you could have heard the squeals, so high-pitched that bats were probably flying face-first into trees.

I wasn't there, but there were plenty of other media representatives on hand -- up-to-the-second updates on Twitter, streaming web coverage, detailed reports and videos that night and the next morning.

All for a movie about creatures that, a few hundred years ago, inspired such terror that medieval villagers who suspected someone recently deceased of returning as one would dig up the corpse, cut off its head and burn the body. I imagine such a fate would make for a bad hair day for young Edward Cullen, the bloodsucking heartthrob of the "Twilight" series.

I realize I sound like Dana Carvey's "Grumpy Old Man" character from the archives of "Saturday Night Live" (who would pound the table and say something like, "Back in my day, we didn't have attractive vampires! They stank like the soured ground of the grave and had worms spilling from their eye sockets, and when they bit us, we liked it!") ... or maybe "Grandpa" from the original "Lost Boys" film ("One thing about living in Santa Carla I could never stomach -- all the damn vampires") ... and before you start thinking that I'm planning my own stake-pounding adventure to the nearest graveyard, I have to confess. I'm caught up in this fad as well.

"True Blood" on HBO -- another series about vampires, this one telling the story of how they "come out of the coffin" and live among us once a blood substitute is invented and they no longer depend on us for food -- is a favorite in the Wildsmith household. Sure, it requires a suspension of disbelief to enjoy, but for that matter, so does every show involving science fiction, of which there are a lot.

Last season was a little tough to follow -- I mean, vampires and shapeshifters are easy enough to get behind, but a creature from Greek mythology who can put an entire town under her spell? Hey, "True Blood" writers -- a little much, don't you think?

But I digress. The thing about "True Blood" and "Twilight" and all of these other stories about the undead seem to gloss over and glamorize the finer points of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula," which should, by all accounts, be considered the Bible of vampire literature. (Although John Polidori's "The Vampyre" is often overlooked.)

Nevermind the sexual connotations, homoerotic and otherwise, of the whole sucking-of-blood-by-biting-the-neck thing. The modern-day vampire, it seems, is fashionably pale, easy on the eyes and has a way with women. Girls want to be Sookie Stackhouse or Bella Swan, I think, because there's something intensely romantic about winning the heart of a supernatural creature -- especially since that heart in question doesn't beat.

That's all well and good; I mean, attractive vampires make for much more pleasant posters on the walls of teenagers than Wookiees or Sleestacks or whatever. But it's kind of disappointing that the sheer terror our ancestors felt a few centuries ago has been lost to us. We don't boil the bodies of our recently deceased loved ones or cut off their heads before placing them in the coffin or bury them upside down. We don't panic at the sight of injuries to livestock and round up all of the pitchforks and torches in town to storm the nearest cemetery.

In other words, we're so far removed from the mythology and superstitions of the past that what used to strike terror in our hearts now serves as fuel for fantasies and daydreams and entertainment. We're much more afraid of one another and our differences in race, sexual orientation or political affiliation than a creature of myth.

And sometimes, those divisions can be so much more dark and ugly that we turn to "Twilight" and "True Blood" for escape. It's ironic -- we'd rather keep company with Bill and Edward and their fangs and their penchant for blood than listen to five minutes of divisive, scorching rhetoric with which we're bombarded from TV and the Internet.

Because the more inflammatory their rants and ravings and prayers for presidential destruction become, the more likeable those vampires become.

Steve Wildsmith is the Weekend editor for The Daily Times. Contact him at steve.wildsmith@thedailytimes.com or at 981-1144.