Vampire's migration: vampire image from its formation in oral culture to its representation in contemporary cinema

The fact that the history of world cinema has recorded an incredible interest in vampire-related content in the first two decades of the 21st century has sparked an academic debate among researchers who point to substantial changes in the vampire sub-genre. Going back to the roots of the vampire myth within South Slavic beliefs and legends, this study aims to contribute to the discussion of these changes by comparing contemporary representations of vampire with those of pre-industrial societies. Guided by the symbolic-interpretive approach and the theoretical understanding of the concept of liminality, the study defines the vampire as a cultural symbol which contains multiple meanings that indicate the imagined and represented liminal discourses of social reality. The analysis of the rich ethnographic material that hitherto has been difficult to access for readers and researchers outside the South Slavic languages areas, demonstrates that the vampire's ontological liminality has shaped all representations connected with this liminal being. From this perspective, approaching some of the most representative examples of the contemporary vampire sub-genre that unites romance and horror, such as "A Girl Walks Home Alone" (2014), "Let the Right One In" (2008) and "Byzantium" (2012) the study demonstrates how the most essential aspects of liminality were prefigured, while through the comparison of the given representations, the thesis raise a discussion about the very experience and interpretation of liminal socio-cultural discourses in our contemporary life and points out the challenges that identities face in post-modern societies under oppressive global conditions.