"The public's thirst for vampires seems as endless as vampires' thirst for blood."

   It's the Middle Ages and you're in Europe, and you you're walking down the street when you look up to see a family wrapped in their cloaks, standing in front of their sizzling, black house that was burned to the ground the night before. Their melancholy faces hang to stare at their freshly packed luggage. It's apparent they have just lost their home, but you have no idea how the fire started. Your immediate thought is that a small fire went awry, feeling sorry for the young family, yet not wanting to get involved you continue on your way to the village. When you get there however, the talk of the town is incidentally about the fire, and not about how a their supper got too overcooked. You learn the real reason they had a fire was because (dun dun dun) they were vampires! Bad things don't just happen to good people, therefore they must be cursed. You decide you will stay away from them forever.
     Okay, so maybe this wasn't the exact thought process of Europe during that time, but it was close. The theory of vampires was brought to life in order to blame bad things happening to good people. If there was a sudden unexplainable death in one's family, it was because one of them had supernatural powers. (Do the Salem Witches ring a bell?) Naturally people terrorized it more and more and it became this huge phenomenon mixed with garlic, burning skin at the touch of sun, sucking blood, and coffins. Regardless of their lack of logic, you have to give them props on their imaginations.