Originally entitled "What About Their Outfits?", but a subject I feel better explored here is the idea of vampiric death, what it entails for the corpse, and the possibility of a "sleeping death" employed as a defense mechanism to escape vampire hunters. Let me preface by clarifying the reason behind the latter half of that statement. If you know nothing about me, know this: I am not at all convinced that Von Sackville-Bagg is dead. I will go in depth into my reasoning behind this belief under the section on "sleeping death", but no matter what this movie tells me, even if they give the guy only two lines and try not to make me care about him, or how convincingly they have the vampire hunters stake him, I'm not buying it.
Let's begin.
Vampiric Death
This event will also be termed "second death" as vampires are explicitly stated to be undead throughout The Little Vampire by multiple characters. Rookery even once calls them "the living dead", the way one would describe a zombie in today's world. The only true confirmed example of vampiric death in this movie is Elizabeth McAshton, who was staked three hundred years prior to the events of the plot and is in perfect condition once she is found again, wooden stake and all. It seems rather unlikely that this is the result of the coffin being sterile, as aside from being wrapped in chains, the coffin was fairly easy to open (for two vampire kids and a little mortal hanger-on). In fact, the chains imply that the body will not decay, but will instead rise again to seek revenge on the vampire hunters who put him in that position in the first place.
"Sleeping Death"
"Like you said, we want to know if she's walkin' around. If I was a McAshton, I wouldn't want her looking for me." --Rookery
The above statement and the chained coffin imply the same thing: there is a fear, at least among vampire hunters and a few others, that vampires, even after being staked, can get back up and go about their business again. Therefore, countermeasures are employed to keep that from happening, hence the chains. Now think for a moment: why would a person have a fear like this if there wasn't a precedent for it, such as a legend? All legends have a grain of truth, and people love to talk about anything spectacular which happens around them. Thus, there's a chance that somewhere along the line in the history of the world The Little Vampire takes place in, a vampire who has been staked rose from the grave and sought revenge on the hunters that tried to kill him. This could be Dracula, another similarly powerful vampire, or this could be a random vampire that a hunter caught out one night. The point is, the vampire has been staked and was thought to be dead, only a short time later, the hunter and/or others he cares about start vanishing one by one, only for their bodies to be found with puncture wounds in the neck and completely drained of blood.
"Sleeping death" is for vampires what a coma is for humans, but for vampires it's employed as a defense mechanism to allow them to escape such extreme situations as being skewered. The idea behind this is that the hunter will think the vampire finally dead, walk away, and the vampire will wake up after a while, most likely extremely thirsty. The time it takes for this to occur varies from vampire to vampire, just as it does in humans, but in theory, any vampire who enters "sleeping death" can wake up.
It is my firm personal belief that Von Sackville-Bagg exhibits sleeping death. In the scene where Tony, Rudolph, and Anna open the tomb where he and Elizabeth McAshton have been chained for the past three hundred years, the lack of a stake in his chest is almost conspicuous. Earlier, when Lord McAshton is explaining to Rookery that his family went to stake Elizabeth, he added Von as an afterthought. There is a lack of any evidence of a wound in the corpse, that we see, not so much as a bloodstain mars Von's clothing or form in any way. Therefore, I cannot reasonably let myself be led to believe that Von is dead. Thus, though Von was staked three hundred years before by vampire hunters in hot pursuit of him, his wife, and the Stone of Attamon, the stake was removed, and the wound healed over time as he was moved to the unmarked grave to lie beside his wife. The hunters apparently realized their error, as they chained the coffin up and abandoned it in a chamber somewhere under McAshtonland.
Excellent Condition
One of the key reasons vampiric death and sleeping death can be so easily confused is the fact that the venom keeps a dead vampire perfectly preserved, just as it kept an undead person perfectly preserved in unlife while the vampire went about its business of killing people, sucking them dry, and running from vampire hunters. In essence, then, venom is a magical embalming fluid, and the only damage a vampiric corpse sustains is gathering dust for however long a hunter decides to leave it wherever he buried it, which is apparently a very long time unless something important has come up. In sleeping death and similar comatose states, the only difference is that the vampire will lay there and gather dust until it manages to wake up (in which case the condition might not be so excellent). These two states being similar serves the above stated purpose of sleeping death: to escape worse torments from the vampire hunters. Sleeping death needs to mimic actual death to be of any use, and a vampire who is good at mimicking second death survives. After a fashion, evolution occurs. (NOTE: I say "after a fashion" because it's debateable whether and how vampires pass on what they know about how to properly enter sleeping death, as the subject is never explored in canon.)
For more on the effects of venom, please refer to Part 4.
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