Movie Vampires, the Mundane and the Sacred

I happened to be watching a recently made vampire movie the other night. As usually happens during a vampire movie, the "ground rules" were explained. There comes a point in the movie when some novice notices that things aren't quite normal. When they ask for an explaination, the expert explains how to spot, ward off and kill vampires. What gave me pause the other night is how these ground rules have changed.
In the oldest vampire movies I can remember, the ones they played late on Friday night Creature Features, vampires were a new commodity, at least for movie-goers. The movie made no assumptions that the audience new anything about vampires, and so the basic ground rules were explained: vampires don't cast a reflection, you can repel them with crosses and garlic, hurt them with holy water, and kill them with the reliable stake through the heart. They can't come out during the day, and have to drink blood...well, you know the rules.
As vampire movies became more common, and the audience more vampire-savy, the movie often assumed that the audience already new the ground rules. Only subtle nuances were explained: what happens when a vampire doesn't get a timely drink of blood, can you kill it by cutting off it's head? How does the vampire clan work? Often these subtlies are what made the movie interesting.
I was watching "Blade: House of Cthlon", a Blade spinoff. A non-believer finally sees Blade fighting vampires, and there is no denying them. She joins forces, and he explains how to kill vampires-the "ground rules".
The interesting bit comes when she asks Blade, "Holy water and crosses?" She, like the audience, is wondering if these work in her world. Are they part of the ground rules for the movie? Oddly, the answer was "no, of course not."
Now, I haven't done a scientific study, but it seems to me that religious totems have been on the decline in vampire movies. Crosses have become less powerful. It used to be Dracula would cower and flee from a cross, but now even in movies where crosses do work, a powerful vampire can overcome one through sheer will power.
So the question I can't help but ask is "Why?" I can think of several answers. The vampire has come a long way in the movies, from a lone, tragic figure to a highly organized society. Perhaps movies needed a change in the ground rules to keep vampires fresh and interesting. I think there is something deeper going on.
I remember an episode of Night Stalker (I think it was), where the hero pulls a cross on a vampire, and it has no affect. The vampire hunter looks surprised, and the vampire explains, "You have to believe for it to work." I think this explains the trend in movies I've been talking about. The audience, as a whole, simply doesn't believe in the power of crosses and holy water. If they worked, the believablity of the vampire movie would be harmed. Sounds like a paradox, the idea of religion making vampire movies seem less real.
What a drastic change this represents. It used to be the vampire was seen as evil incarnate. The vampire's existence usually owed to some ancient curse or evil deed so autrocious that it somehow supernaturally caused the vampire to come into being. The vampire violates God's will, and his symbols can be used to fight the vampire in what becomes an epic struggle of good and evil.
Today's vampire is often the result of some kind of virus, or another branch on the evolutionary tree. Normal scientific processes are involved, without any need to invoke the supernatural. Syrums are developed to counteract the affects, and high tech gadgets like UV ray guns and essense of garlic are used to combat them. Of course, in this world, religious icons have no place.
This changes is not specific to vampire movies. Even ghosts have gone from spirits of the deceased to manifestations of paranormal forces. Could it be that the change in vampire movies is a reflection in the way society looks at the supernatural, the paranormal, the mythical? What a drastic change in less than a lifetime.
Primive man saw everything in the world as sacred, as participating in the divine. As man become ever more modern, more and more of the world was viewed as mundane. The sacred was reserved for small plots of land holding churches and graveyards, and for places beyond our own existence: the Blessed Isles, Valhalla and Heaven. Are we witnessing the final chapter in this process, where even our most horrible monsters, and our protection against them, has fallen into the world of the mundane?
Certainly this tendancy is not universal. There are many people who look for a meaning beyond science and the material world. This reaction is both intellectual and emotional, and finds expression in a wide range of beliefs and practices, from fundamental Christianity to Wicken. Many are not willing to give up their version of the sacred. Nonetheless, It seems to me that most people already have.