Vampires are immortal, god-like creatures who live for hundreds of years and feast upon humanity’s blood to make themselves nearly invulnerable. Hollywood’s go-to device for showing the ageless power of the vampire? The Flashback Wig. And sometimes the wigs are bad.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
When Buffy meets Angel, we’re not quite sure what to make of this slightly sarcastic, aloof character. Charismatic and wise, he becomes an important ally (if a dangerous one) for Buffy. But wait…let’s see his backstory of how he became history’s deadliest vampire!
…Uh…
…Uh…
O-KAY.
Vampire Flashback Wig Grade: D-
…so Vampire Flashback wigs aren’t for the faint of heart…Let’s look at what some other Vampire films and TV shows did for flashback wigs…
Interview with the Vampire
Most of the movie takes place in the past, and the production invested in good wigs for this movie.
One of these hair-dos is a wig, and one is not. Brad Pitt was in his “Legends of the Fall” phase, and this is his hair.
Vampire Flashback Wig Grade: B
True Blood
True Blood has plenty of flashbacks, but Vampire Flashback Wigs are mostly limited to everyone’s favorite viking, Eric Northman.
Eric is our resident 1,000 year old vampire, so his hops back in time go pretty far.
Vampire Flashback Wig Score: C
The Vampire Diaries
If this CW show has one thing it commits to, it’s flashbacks. That and a high body count of named characters. The Powers that Be obviously went into Vampire Diaries with a plan–keep their three main actors hair longer, so it can often be adapted to some styles over history without wigs. When they do wear wigs, they are pretty close to the actor’s real hair, as to not be jarring to the audience.
There is one actor that can handle a Vampire Flashback wig like no other:
Daniel Gillies plays Elijah from The Vampire Diaries and The Originals and he has a ridiculous number of flashback wigs. The following is a sample as it’s impossible to list them all:
Sometimes it’s not the wig, but how you wear it.
And this actor is in it to win it.
Vampire Flashback Wig Score, Vampire Diaries: B
Vampire Flashback Wig Score, Daniel Gillies: A
Keep Calm and Keep Your Wig On!