History Main / FeralVampires

[[caption-width-right:316:And no, he doesn't [[Literature/{{Twilight}} sparkle]]...]]

* This trope has been fairly cyclical within 'TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering''. Some sets and settings have made vampires as a whole more feral and less civilized, while others have played the 'vampires are aristocrats' trope to the hilt instead. Innisrad, in particular, contains examples of both, with 'traditional' vampires usually being associated with black while the feral ones are more commonly red. For example, the [[https://scryfall.com/card/tpr/118/skyshroud-vampire Skyshroud vampires]] are essentially gigantic, monstrous bats and little more than feral predators, sheltering within the thick Skyshroud Forest to avoid the light of the sun.

* Wiki/{{Taerel Setting}}: Zigzazed: Some kin'toni clans are feral monsters that are savages or are mindless killers, but many clans avert this as they are sapient beings that can reason and act in a human-like manner. The Ja Anarath Kin'toni Clan are a savage clan that cut out their own tounges and the Loremdra Kin'toni Clan. The Roh Kin'toni Clan is anotehr savage feral clan.

* ''Anime/BloodPlus'' stretches Our Vampires Are Different nearly to the limit by including several different types of vampires -- referred to under the general heading of "chiropterans", from the word for bat. One particular type, created using chemically-treated vampire queen's blood, become huge, batlike, mindless monsters who feed on the blood of other living things.

[[folder:Card Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'': The [[https://scryfall.com/card/tpr/118/skyshroud-vampire Skyshroud vampires]] are essentially gigantic, monstrous bats and little more than feral predator, and shelter within the thick Skyshroud Forest to avoid the light of the sun.
** This trope has been fairly cyclical within ''Magic: The Gathering''. Some sets and settings have made vampires as a whole more feral and less civilized while others has played the 'vampires are aristocrats' trope to the hilt instead. Innisrad, in particular, contained examples of both, with 'traditional' vampires usually being associated with black while the feral ones were more commonly red.
[[/folder]]

* ''Film/{{Blade}}'': Karen's ex-boyfriend Curtis Webb who after being bitten by Quinn, gets turned into a feral 'ghoul', a rare defective vampire who will attack and feed on anyone including other vampires, though he is able to talk and remembers Karen and his relationship with her.
* In ''Film/BloodRedSky'', people who get turned into vampires lose all sense of humanity and go into a mindless bloodlust. Nadja was only able to stop it with medication, [[spoiler:and when she loses access to that, she too loses her mind]].

* ''Literature/IAmLegend'': While not completely mindless, the vampires do seem to be quite a bit dumber than the typical depiction. They do [[ItCanThink show some signs of intelligence]]-they seem to retain the ability to speak and female vampires will sometimes flash their breasts at Neville in an attempt to get him to leave his house. [[spoiler:It's eventually revealed that the "feral" part is because the vampires were already dead when they were infected. Those were still alive when infected have managed to retain their sanity, and they see Neville as their equivalent of a vampire-a remorseless monster who kills dozens in their sleep.]]

* ''Come Twilight'', by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro: Cultured vampire (and series protagonist) Saint-Germain takes pity on a dying Csiminae, a village woman. The only way to save Csiminae is to convert her into a vampire, but to Saint-Germain's dismay, she becomes one of these, terrorizing locals and forming her own pack of feral vampires.

* ''Story of My Life'', the autobiography of Victorian writer Creator/AugustusHare, is probably best remembered for a sequence in which Hare recounts a vampire story told to him by a friend, a Cpt. Fisher. This story, "The Vampire of Croglin Grange" (or simply "The Croglin Vampire"), tells of a young female tenant of the captain's, who is repeatedly attacked in the night by a grotesque, {{mummy}}-like walking corpse. Eventually her brothers are able to track it to a local cemetery, where the townsfolk open a vault to find all the coffins but one have been gnawed to bones. In the remaining undisturbed coffin, they find the vampire, which they [[KillItWithFire burn]]. There's nothing romantic about this vampire, which comes across as an utterly inhuman, predatory ''thing''. The full story can be found [[https://www.nwf.org/~/media/PDFs/GABC/The%20Vampire.pdf here]] if you're curious.
** A retelling of this story appears as "The Window" in the celebrated anthology ''More Literature/ScaryStoriesToTellInTheDark''.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* ''Series/TheStrain'' has the Strigoi. The Strigoi, apart from the intelligent ones like the Master, the Ancients, Quinlan and Eichhorst, are all predatory wild beasts without speech which only exist to drink blood, never having a purpose without the Master's guidance. They usually sleep communally in large piles during daylight hours like cats or dogs. The Feelers stand out the most, as they crawl on all fours like animals and communicate with clicking.

* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' has you face a Vampire named "Feral Vampire", however this vampire isn't wild and was actively plotting to use the Volkihar castle hounds against themselves as an act of revenge for exiling him.
* ''VideoGame/ValkyrieProfile'': lesser vampires are one of the first enemies fought in the game and they're barely more than lumbering, zombie-like creatures that pose little threat.

Wiki/{{Taerel Setting}}: Zigzazed: Some kin'toni clans are feral monsters that are savages or are mindless killers, but many clans avert this as they are sapient beings that can reason and act in a human-like manner. The Ja Anarath Kin'toni Clan are a savage clan that cut out their own tounges and the Loremdra Kin'toni Clan. The Roh Kin'toni Clan is anotehr savage feral clan.

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* In the first episode of ''WebAnimation/HunterTheParenting'' the dysfunctional family of hunters fights a group of Sabbat vampires, including a Gangrel with clawed gorilla-sized arms, a Brujah biker, a barely-human looking Nosferatu, and a crazy-haired Tremere. Sabbat members are usually squarely feral and this lot is no exception, though at least one of them is later confirmed to act like a complete maniac as a coping mechanism to deal [[BeingEvilSucks with the awful side of being a vampire]].
[[/folder]]

* The vampires in ''Film/BoysFromCountyHell'' are effectively mindless, animalistic predators. Even the master vampire, Abharthach, displays an intelligence that could more be described as predatory cunning than any kind of charm or wisdom. He's not a man who is a monster, he's a monster that is more-or-less the same shape as a man.

** A retelling of this story appeared as "The Window" in the celebrated anthology ''More Literature/ScaryStoriesToTellInTheDark''.

* ''Film/NearDark'' is the modern TropeMaker, born of its director's attempts to create a Western in a market with no demand for one. The film concerns a family of filthy redneck vampires who live out in the Oklahoma backwoods and prey on travellers. Unlike most examples of this, the main vampirised character is sympathetic and grapples with his humanity and his hunger for blood.

Wiki/{{Taerel Settinbg}}: Zigzazed: Some kin'toni clans are feral monsters that are savages or are mindless killers, but many clans avert this as they are sapient beings that can reason and act in a human-like manner. The Ja Anarath Kin'toni Clan are a savage clan that cut out their own tounges and the Loremdra Kin'toni Clan. The Roh Kin'toni Clan is anotehr savage feral clan.

* In the first episode of ''WebAnimation/HunterTheParenting'' the dysfunctional family of hunters fights a group of Shabbat vampires, including a Gangrel with clawed gorilla-sized arms, a Brujah biker, a barely-human looking Nosferatu, and a crazy-haired Tremere.

* ''Story of My Life'', the autobiography of Victorian writer Creator/AugustusHare, is probably best remembered for a sequence in which Hare recounts a vampire story told to him by a friend, a Cpt. Fisher. This story, "The Vampire of Croglin Grange" (or simply "The Croglin Vampire"), tells of a young female tenant of the captain's, who is repeatedly attacked in the night by a grotesque, {{mummy}}-like walking corpse. Eventually her brothers are able to track it to a local cemetery, where the townsfolk open a vault to find all the coffins but one have been gnawed to bones. In the remaining undisturbed coffin, they find the vampire, which they [[KillItWithFire burn]]. There's nothing of the romantic about this vampire, which comes across as an utterly inhuman, predatory ''thing''. The full story can be found [[https://www.nwf.org/~/media/PDFs/GABC/The%20Vampire.pdf here]] if you're curious.

* ''VideoGame/{{Wargroove}}'' Vampires are winged, bat-like beings who live on the fringes of society and hunt for blood in packs. They commonly nest in trees. The exceptions to this are the much rarer High Vampires (of which HeroUnit Sigrid is one) which resemble classical vampires instead.

* ''Anime/BloodPlus'' stretches Our Vampires Are Different nearly to the limit by including several different types of vampires -- referred to under the general heading of "chiropterans", from the word for bat. One particular type, created using a chemically-treated form a vampire queen's blood, become huge, batlike, mindless monsters who feed on the blood of other living things.

Subtrope of OurVampiresAreDifferent and often of HillbillyHorrors. See also OurZombiesAreDifferent, as the two are often similar, especially in the original folklore. Contrast ClassicalMovieVampire and VampiresAreSexGods. In cases where the vampires are still intelligent beings but choose to behave like wild beasts, this overlaps with FeralVillain.

** [[LooksLikeOrlock Nosferatu]] are a kind of animalistic vampire completely consumed by their thirst for blood. They typically make their lair in filthy or inaccessible places such as ruins, sewers, and caves, far beyond caring about the comfort of their lair. The only time that a Nosferatu is able to think beyond their next meal is immediately after feeding, when they temporarily regain some lucidity.

* ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'', as one would expect from a game that tries to encompass all vampire archetypes, has two takes on this, the Brujah and Gangrel clans -- a clan of {{Bomb Throwing Anarchist|s}} {{Warrior Poet}}s and wilderness-dwelling {{Voluntary Shapeshift|ing}}ers, respectively. Any clan's vampire, though, can completely lose humanity and succumb to [[EnemyWithin the Beast]] irreversibly, becoming a wight governed only by instinct. Some still possess predatory animal cunning, but all are unable to care for TheMasquerade and other human concerns.

[[caption-width-right:316:And no, he doesn't sparkle...]]

* ''Literature/IAmLegend'': While not completely mindless, the vampires do seem to be quite a bit dumber than the typical depiction. They do show some signs of intelligence-they seem to retain the ability to speak and female vampires will sometimes flash their breasts at Neville in an attempt to get him to leave his house. [[spoiler:It's eventually revealed that the "feral" part is because the vampires were already dead when they were infected. Those were still alive when infected have managed to retain their sanity, and they see Neville as their equivalent of a vampire-a remorseless monster who kills dozens in their sleep.]]

Subtrope of OurVampiresAreDifferent and often of HillbillyHorrors. See also OurZombiesAreDifferent, as the two are often similar, especially in the original folklore. Contrast ClassicalMovieVampire and VampiresAreSexGods.

This is a CyclicTrope -- before vampires were stereotyped as [[VampiresAreRich rich]], [[WickedCultured suave]] and [[VampiresAreSexGods erotic]], they were seen as bestial shambling corpses who could barely pass for human. LooksLikeOrlok is also a throwback to this perception of vampires (though [[Film/{{Nosferatu}} Orlok himself]] was still a count). With the popularity of films like ''Film/NearDark'', ''Film/ThirtyDaysOfNight'' and ''Film/TheLostBoys'' and backlash against {{Friendly Neighbourhood| Vampire}} {{Vegetarian Vampire}}s, this trope is increasingly popular.

* ''Film/TheLostBoys'' is as important as ''Film/NearDark'' to the reemergence of this trope. The film is about the disappearance of two boys in a remote California town, and it quickly transpires that they have been transformed by a vampire biker gang.

* The vampires in ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' operate in packs and act bestial when they are overcome with bloodlust. Some vampires like Lenore and Benny try to avoid killing innocents by feeding on cattle or living on blood bags respectively. Most vampires though don't care enough to do this and will feed on human they get their hands on. It gets even worse if they get deprived of blood, being reduced to savage [[LooksLikeOrlock bat-like creatures]].

* ''Literature/IAmLegend'': While not completely mindless, the vampires do seem to be quite a bit dumber than the typical depiction. They do show some signs of intelligence-female vampires will sometimes flash their breasts at Neville in an attempt to get him to leave his house. After being captured by them, he discovers that some have actually managed to retain their humanity, and they see him as their equivalent of a vampire -- a remorseless monster who slaughters dozens in their sleep.

* In ''VideoGame/LegacyOfKainSoulReaver'', Kain has conquered the world of Nosgoth and created an unstoppable empire of vampires, but his neglect of setting's CosmicKeystone leaves Nosgoth unable to sustain natural life in the long term. By the time the game begins properly, centuries have passed and Nosgoth has deteriorated into a desolate wasteland. As a result of blood starvation, the remaining vampires have been reduced to animalistic scavengers haunting the ruins of their clan holdings.