Beautiful Blood Suckers

Vampire books are still one of the most popular types of fiction. I don't know how something that started out as such a gruesome character (the original Dracula was pretty gory and nasty) and turned into such a sexy immortal being. You rarely see vampires portrayed as ugly, twisted, ghoulish creatures now. Zombies and demons remain largely un-glamourized (well for the most part, I had a sexy 'sweet' demon in one of my novels). What was it that made a blood-sucking character like the vampire so 'beautiful' in our minds? I wonder about that a lot even though some of my favorite fictional characters past and present are vampire characters.