The ancient Underworld Blood Wars between vampires and werewolves aren’t really that old after all.

Vampires are elegant, classy, and almost never drink… wine.

You would think they always looked down on the beastly werewolves.

Although, according toUnderworldmythology, we havent heard about it precisely because it is asecretwar.

But no, for the most part they got along.

When was the last time you heard Grandpa even scold Eddie onThe Munsters?

Vampires and werewolves both did the Monster Mash, though not to the original song, inMad Monster Party.

Bela Lugosis Count Dracula loved the music those children of the night made.

There were probably even vampire dinosaurs and lycanthauruses.

She also got down with fallen angels.

Neither old nor new testaments testify about bad blood between the beasts and those that threw the bloody feasts.

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Roman and Greek mythologies featured blood-drinking goddesses.

Hindus Kali, among other deities, has a taste for the red vino on tap.

Werewolves were also perennials of Balkan folklore.

Americas Colonial settlers hunted vampires as well as witches in New England.

Vampires complained that they would sometimes dig for days before realizing they were buried upside down.

Dracula could transform into a wolf by virtue of his mood, not the moon.

Modern vampires started with John William Polidoris 1819 British novellaThe Vampyre.

In none of the stories did werewolves and vampires do battle.

But in our world it only goes back to 1948sAbbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, directed by Charles Barton.

Larry Talbot isnt really all that clear on what he has against the dapper bloodsucker.

Talbot isnt one to howl.

But he also invented Keith Moon.

Universal Pictures Meets the Monsters

Universal Pictures owned Dracula and the Wolf Man.

If any motion picture studio had any sense of the tides of theUnderworldwar, they would have warned us.

Werewolves and vampires got along just fine inHouse of Frankensteinfrom 1944.

It was the first all-star monster movie from the studio.

It brought together their entire stable and it was where Glenn Strange played Frankensteins monster the first time.

Zombie favorite George Zucco plays traveling showman Professor Lampini.

The werewolf doesnt kill the vampire.

The count is disposed of by Dr. Niemann, who kills him by hiding his coffin.

Talbot wants to see what spores and mold can do about his lycanthropic propensities.

The studio shot publicity stills for it and did some pre-production promotion, but it never got made.

In spite of the title, the two classic horror characters never do battle in the screenplay.

They dont even appear onscreen together.

This means it started from basic human desire.

We wanted to see the vampires fighting the werewolves.

We wanted tobethe vampires fighting the werewolves.

To fit this into a historical setting White Wolfs Storyteller System spun several games into period pieces.

White Wolf characters included the Garou, which were half-flesh, half-spirit, and all fang.

Theyd been fighting the Shadow Lord tribes Kindred for as long as they can remember.

And they can remember as far back as the mid-90s.

The werewolves were known Fera and there was also the Bastet line for the more devilish players.

The animosity between the two species is never clearer than when they comingle.

When a shapeshifter in the White Wolf world turns into vampire they are labeled Abominations.

Abominations usually go crazy and are a constant embarrassment to the Masquerade and the Veil.

They turn wolf to protect humans from vampires.

The Volturi are an Italian coven of Royal Family vampires.

They have enemies besides the feral woolies, including other vampires like Victoria and Laurent.

The werewolf pack is led by Sam Uley, played by Chaske Spencer in theTwilightmovies.

The vampire coven is headed by Aro, played by Michael Sheen.

At their hearts, the vampire/werewolf competition is a dating game.

The forbidden lovers at the heart of the stories are the roving Romeo and Juliet of the underground.

Their clans divide the Jets from the Sharks in a danse-macabre-off.

True Bloods Bad Blood

Charlaine Harris threw some romance novel heat into the lycosanguine trail mix.

Facebook would categorize all of Sookie Stackhouses relationships as complicated.

Her fairy blood makes her a tasty delicacy to vampires far and wide.

Her scent also captures the attention of furrier courters.

Alcide is a werewolf packmaster living in Shreveport.

Vampire Bill was kidnapped by his maker Lorena and the usually-shirtless-but-still-warm shapeshifter goes in to sniff him out.

When he meets Sookie, Alcide is dating the werelynx Debbie Pelt.

Sookie finalizes the split by killing Debbie in self-defense.

Alcide gets a whiff of this at the end of the book.

Alcide dies in Fire in the Hole in the TV series seventh, and final season.

But in the book, he marries a werelynx named Callie Brown, who bears him five children.

Alcides sons go to work at the construction firm and one of his daughters wins Miss Louisiana.

A Penny for your thoughts

Larry Talbot and Dracula danced their square off again inPenny Dreadful.

Dracula rises in the guise of anthropologist Dr. Alexander Sweet, played by Christian Camargo.

The mystically in-tuned need their angel food cake as much as they need the dark surge of seditious liquids.

Both fill a need.

Feral and beastly, classy and understanding, vampires and werewolves have it all.