Vampire: The masquerade

Oh I did mix up the details thank you. John Carpenter's vampires were from a 14th century priest who was burned at the stake and then became a vampire, compared to the Judas story pushing that origin another 14 centuries back.

There is such a richness of lore describing various origins of vampires. Like in Blade (I haven't watched the more recent ones) and Underworld and Midnight Mass it seemed to have an entirely physical/biological/genetic origin, while the likes of John Carpenter's and Dracula 2000 etc. sounded at least superficially to me to be more purely a spiritual one (it being a "curse“), and then there's so very many that cross both of those lines.

Like the Netflix (& previously Syfy, and before that Zenescope Entertainment's graphic novel series) Van Helsing series where it starts off as the former but begins to cross into the realm of the latter, or Buddy the Vampire where the body component is physical (if not quite purely genetic) but the soul is an entity from another realm, thus leading to e.g. Angel (and later Spike) who could have human souls inhabiting a vampiric body.

Perhaps my favorite though is the Netflix Castlevania series, not only bc it's a fucking work of art, but it's a fascinating concept of basically science looked down upon by cretins - e.g. as irl Dr. Fauci received death threats after efforts expended towards saving the planet. And then that one later dipped into the spiritual as well, with Dracula sent to hell and they had to open a portal to try to get him back:-).

I have to stop myself from going on an on about that, bc I do find it so fascinating, e.g. the Castlevania series mixing in elements and thereby help explaining what I feel might even be the true origin story of vampires in general (or at least the, or perhaps "a" main thrust), where they basically are landlords who live many "lifetimes" (worth of years) in comfort and luxury, off the backs of the poors who live short(er) lives without medicine or the direct knowledge that vampires recall from having lived through or learned from books or magic. And every once in a while instead of eating them a rich can convert a poor to become like them, to live a supremely long life, though like their sires at the cost of the blood (work) of the poors, and with the most knowledge and magic only belonging to the oldest of the landowners. It is fascinating to me how all the origin stories begin to converge when looked at from that POV.:-)