Unholy Communion: Vampires and the Church

From glowing crosses to squirt guns full of holy water, it’s hard to find a piece of modern vampire media that doesn’t at least pay homage to the “common knowledge” that vampires are anathema to all that is holy. But this may be a more recent trope than it seems, and in this episode, Rebecca and Hannah take a metaphorical walk through the churchyard to trace the early vampire literature that established our most taken-for-granted religious tropes.

They uncover the historical connection between the Catholic Church and vampirism, Hannah gets very confused thinking about Communion, and Rebecca creates a mini trivia game to test Hannah’s vampire media knowledge. Plus: the possible 19th-century inspiration for Dracula 2000, a miniseries that casts vampirism as a miracle worthy of Christ, and a YA romance written by a real-life nun.

Come vamps, join us around the campfire.

Major Spoilers:

* Dracula by Bram Stoker, 1897

* Midnight Mass, created by Mike Flanagan, 2021

* The Curse He Chose by Sr. Allison Regina Gliot, 2025

Other media mentioned in this episode:

Non-fiction

* Dissertation Regarding the Vampires by Giuseppe Davanzati, 1739

* Dissertations upon the Apparitions of Angels, Dæmons, and Ghosts, and Concerning the Vampires of Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia by Dom Augustin Calmet, 1746

Fiction

* “The Vampyre” by John William Polidori, 1819

* The Viy by Nikolai Gogol, 1835

* “The Curse of the Vourdalak” by Alexis Tolstoy, 1839

* Varney the Vampire: or, the Feast of Blood by James Malcolm Ryder and Thomas Pickett Prest, 1845-1847

* “The Mysterious Stranger” by Karl von Wachsmann, 1844

* Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, 1872

* “A Kiss of Judas” by Julian Osgood Field, 1893

* ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King, 1975

* Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice, 1976

* The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice, 1985

* Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton, 1993

* Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice, 1995

* “For the Blood is the Life” by Francis Marion Crawford, 1996

* Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, 2005

* New Moon by Stephenie Meyer, 2006

* Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz, 2006

* Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith, 2010

Film

* Nosferatu, directed by F. W. Murnau 1922

* Dracula, directed by Terence Fisher, 1958

* Ganja & Hess, directed by Bill Gunn, 1973

* ‘Salem’s Lot, directed by Tobe Hooper, 1979

* The Lost Boys, directed by Joel Schumacher, 1987

* Bram Stoker’s Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, 1992

* Dracula 2000, directed by Patrick Lussier, 2000

* Van Helsing, directed by Stephen Sommers, 2004

* Vampires vs. the Bronx, directed by Oz Rodriguez, 2020

* Morbius, directed by Daniel Espinosa, 2022

* Sinners, directed by Ryan Coogler, 2025

TV

* Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 1997-2003

* What We Do in the Shadows, 2019-2024

* Interview with the Vampire, 2022-

Additional Reading

* The Vampire: A New History by Nick Groom, 2018

* Stephen Purcell, “Not Wholly Communion,” Christianity and Literature, vol 67, no. 2 (2018)

* ldiko Limpar, “Vampirism as Apocalyptic Hypocrisy in Midnight Mass,” Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies, vol 31, no. 1 (2025)

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This episode was written, recorded, and produced by Rebecca Glazer & Hannah Spiegelman

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