The various screen adaptations of Dracula (and other vampire films) culminating in The Buffy series constitute an independent fictional genre, the dark romance, with its own set of audience expectations centering on death and eroticism. Vampires, be it Dracula or Angel combine immortality and sexuality. The vampires of Buffy, such as Spike, become metaphors for the questions and fears that young and old alike have about sex and death in a time of AIDS.