((When I was 11, I wrote a terrible short fanfic from the POV of a vampire dog which Lestat had turned as an experiment. I don’t remember anything about it except that the dog was pretty happy as a vampire dog… it’s lost to time and space forever. Just thought that might amuse you!))
IDK about vampire animals in other media, I’m sure someone has done it, but IIRC, they’re not in VC canon at all. I don’t know if AR has considered it, with all the implications that follow. Could the world survive packs of vampire dogs and cats? Herds of vampire horses?
Vampire
Lions?
Vampire
Tigers?
Vampire
Bears? Oh my…. Could a vampire chimpanzee (or rat!) turn a human into a vampire? Would it matter if the animal was a herbivore or would it have to be an omnivore, like humans are? If the vampire lab in PL is still running, maybe they’re experimenting on animals. #FIC REQUEST.
In some religions, animals are considered not to have souls at all, or that they lack the same type of soul that humans have. in VC, the soul seems to be a crucial element in anchoring the vampiric spirit to its host body during Dark Gift transfer.
Also, just physiologically, not all infectious diseases are transmittable between animals and humans. For example, humans cannot get Feline AIDS and feline leukemia virus (FeLV) from cats [animalplanet.com].
Zoonotic diseases: diseases transmitted from animals to humans through media such as air (like influenza) or through bites and saliva (like rabies).
Recycling this from a previous answer; It’s funny you mention vampire animals bc the question was raised, when old age finally started to rear its ugly head for Mojo…
Lestat: What if we could heal him with-
Louis: NO Lestat. No.
Lestat: Just an experiment to-
Louis: We’re not making a vampire dog that’s a crime against nature we have to draw the line somewhere.
Lestat: *pouts*
Louis: *glares*
Lestat: *pouts harder*
Louis: *glares harder*
Lestat: Ok confession time: I already tried to give him a few drops of blood and he was not at all interested. Repulsed really.
Louis: *ragged sigh*
Lestat: It was worth a try!
Louis: Then why were you even asking me?
Lestat: I thought he might prefer yours–
Louis: *slaps Lestat hard across the face and storms out*
I remember hearing about (but not reading) Bunnicula, “a children’s book series written by James Howe, featuring a vampire rabbit that sucks the juice out of vegetables,” but I know that’s not quiiiiite what you were looking for, lol.
^Lookit the widdle fangs! Bunnicula even has the classic “widow’s peak” hairline in their fur like Dracula *u* and a “cape” in the fur?? I think it’s been adapted to an animated series, too.
Other quotes I found about animal-human disease transmission:
“While most feline infectious diseases affect only cats, and most human infectious diseases affect only humans, it is important to be aware that some of these diseases—called zoonotic diseases—can be transmitted between cats and people.” [X]
“The general rule is that viruses have a narrow range of suitable living conditions (ie body temperature, metabolism etc) and are not easily passed between species. There are some exceptions to this, but the common cold is not one of them and you will not pass it on to your cats, it cannot live in their higher body temperature.” [X]
Also relevant is zombie animals. In The Walking Dead, there are no zombie animals, and I found a forum where ppl were discussing it (walkingdeadforums.com), whether it’s true that the original comic artist set the canon for that bc he “does not enjoy drawing animals so much,” or whether there might be a scientific reason for it…. Zombie animals are as equally debatable as vampire animals!
god i can never stop thinking about certain sculptures used in modern art and how they can be used to elicit the beautiful and terrible feeling of true and genuine horror in ways that a lot of horror movies can never do
like when you ask people “what is horror?” they’ll tend to give examples of monsters, of killers, of dark places, of sharp teeth and too many legs and lots and lots of blood. which is true, that can be used as horror! but i’d like to call that “the horror of being eaten/hurt/killed” or more succinctly “the horror of vulnerability”. it’s a horror that something, whether it’s a killer or a monster or some phenomenon, has the ability to cause us harm. we see large amounts of teeth and we think “that thing is going to tear us to pieces with those teeth” or we see spilled blood and we think “someone has been hurt, there’s a chance we can be hurt too by whatever spilled this blood”.
but what certain modern sculptures can do is elicit a very physical visceral reaction of a completely different kind of horror.
it’s “the horror that something is a thing that SHOULD not exist, and you are absolutely powerless to understand what it is, but it is existing in your space, right now, it is real and you cannot make it unreal no matter what you do”
or perhaps, in a shorter fashion, it’s “the horror of wrongness”
like one of the sculptures that made me feel this way is this sculpture here, named “Monekana” located in the American Art Museum in Washington D.C:
“okay,” you say, with a shrug. “it’s a horse made of wood? what’s so scary about that?”. but this is the lie of the photograph! a photograph of a sculpture rarely grasps the experience of standing next to a sculpture. you have to picture yourself walking into this room, practically devoid of people, and coming face to face with this sculpture that is very large and very real.
and your brain screams that “THIS IS WRONG. MAKE IT GO AWAY. THIS IS WRONG”, like at any moment you expect it to move, to twist its head, to follow you with eyes that aren’t simply there. it looks like a horse but it is no horse. you could almost argue that maybe it isn’t even an art piece at all, but it wandered in from god knows what kind of world and it’s blending in with everything else. maybe it’s fooling you. maybe it isn’t.
anyways, i’m not trying to say that this sculpture in particular is SUPPOSED to be scary, it may make other people feel nothing at all (or even positive feelings!), but what i’m trying to say is that feeling i had that day, when i saw this thing, when i felt this fearful instinct to stay away and not stare, it’s THAT feeling that i feel so many writers and makers of horror don’t completely understand. you don’t need teeth. you don’t need blood. you don’t need to make Spooky Scary Skeletons or chainsaw-wielding villains. all you need is to create something wrong in its existence, something to make parts of us fear the fact that we can’t entirely rationalize what we’re seeing.
The experience of sculpture absolutely gets lost in images. I’ve walked into museums and been like WOW THE FUCK even when I knew it was coming.
I love this subject, though. I love “implication horror.” You see something, and the realization of what it means, which often comes a few moments later, is where the real horror lies—not in how splattery or gratuitously shocking it is. The wrongness of a thing in fiction, when done well, is the best. I was watching Melancholia the other day, and what a terrifying example of wrongness horror.
Anyway this is such a great post thanks for putting the whole idea into words so well. ❤
I-want-my-IWTV 
