compared to the things the Greeks talked about, vampires are tepid milk.

This is what I'm saying! With all the actual badassery going on in The Odyssey, why make up something that didn't happen?

I can only assume its because the writers know the audience already knows about vampires*...whereas in things like Supernatural, they literally have to spell out that the Fates are Greek gods.

that and society seems to be in a "vampires are cool - as heroes or villains" phase still.

* = at least Mr. Butcher was inventive when it came to his vampires (the inner tube skin, among other details). too many writers are lazy and just put "there are vampires."

So someone sat around and had the sudden inspiration of: "Odysseus...versus vampires! GENIUS!"

Oh, the Muses were in a funny mood. Or were a bit too drunk.

Well, technically speaking, I think they were harpies. But they 'feared the sign of the cross' (which was a sword, it wasn't a cross, it was a sword), could be killed by a stake through the heart and one of the guys who was attacked by them announced they were stealing his immortal soul, then begged for the other crew members to kill him so they did and at the end of the movie, he woke up with fangs and flew away in an attempted 'duh duh duh' moment. So, vampires.

They also seemed highly confused whether they were Greek or Christian and seemed to settle on 'we shall have them use Christian symbolism, but wherever we would say God, we will insert "gods" or the name of a Greek god regardless of whether that particular god is relevant to the situation'.

And they also seemed to think having Odysseus fall asleep and dream up Athena telling him what to do would justify it, when I was fairly sure the reason Athena liked Odysseus so much was that he was clever on his own. And Arnold Vosloo, as hard as he tried, could not convey have any sort of cleverness. I don't know why casting people seem to prefer brawny Odysseus' over brainy ones. Sean Bean is the only one I've seen who could pull off mischievous, clever and capable in battle.

But you know, in the end I did watch the whole thing, so maybe they knew what they were doing.

so, basically, one of those "turn off brain before viewing" movies?

>stealing his immortal soul
every time a "Greek" character in a historical show or film talks about his soul, I remember a line that said "Count no man as happy until he is dead>" and that was authentic Classical Greek.
(from the book 'happy' about the history of the emotion)