A few days ago, I got to talking with some friends about vampires; namely, about how they are portrayed in modern fiction. What really stood out--at least to how we were seeing it--was how the vampire went from pure monster to Romantic Sexual Hero as belief in it waned.
When writing supernatural fiction, I have always found it far more fascinating to focus on what people at one time actually believed, even when dealing with icons such as werewolves and vampires.