Wherein I delve more deeply into the dark side of being a vampire (and I do mean the dark side).
Rudolph describes eternal darkness thusly: "No blue skies, Tony. No birds singing. No flowers in the sunlight." There are two sentiments at play here. The first is that light, even bright artificial light or a sudden explosion such as a flare, is painful to vampires, so painful in fact that prolonged exposure will eventually cause combustion. The second is that even though vampires get to fly and terrorize people who've been mean to them in mortal life and do "the most awesome stuff [they've] ever done in [their lives]", it truly is the little things that you start to miss, small details like songbirds and fluffy white clouds you can pretend are whales or blocks of cheese or faces. Eternity with awesome powers and the ability to inflict terrible pain on mere mortals gets old after a while, a few decades at most. So is it really worth it?
According to Rudolph and his family, No, but the rules of the movie's universe allow for immortality as a vampire to be rectified (to unspecified results, discussed in a blog post titled "Like Some Daywalker"). However, Gregory wants to make the most of his time as a vampire, shown in this exchange:
Frederick: What would you have us do?
Gregory: Fight back! Make these mortals' blood run cold!
Apparently, being chased around by a crazy vampire hunter gets old, as well, and as long as Gregory is a vampire, not only does he want badly to taste human blood, he wants to stop being chased and start giving chase. However, he knows when it's time to stop being a vampire and start being a human, shown by his taking the initiative and taking the amulet from his very weak father to make the Call himself. So there is an odd give and take at play between the reality of being a vampire, the ideal of being a vampire, and the ultimate goal of regaining humanity.
Being a vampire by nature means that you are forced to flee the sun, as the venom so increases your skin's sensitivity to light that literally it burns to be in contact with it. It possibly stings the eyes, with their increased sensitivity to very low light. Therefore, vampires must take shelter in dark, enclosed places, sleep during the day, and only leave their hidey holes at night to hunt for food, the amulet, or simply kill time.
So it's a trade-off. Is being a vampire worth it? Is it worth it to have powers beyond your human imagining even if it means you must scorn light altogether in order to survive? I'm afraid that's a question I can't answer, not even in general terms.
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