The vampire subgenre ofHorrorbecame famous thanks to a pair of world-famous creatures of the night —Dracula and Nosferatu.From the time they arrived in movies, it set the template for what vampire pictures were supposed to look like, withvampire tropes including coffins,wooden stakes, garlic, aversion to sunlight, and a clear connection with bats and fog.
However, over the years,horror filmmakers attempted different things with the vampire genre, and often, when defying conventions, they create something much more iconic and memorablethan another blood-sucking fiend preying on the innocent. In many cases,these must-watch vampire movieschanged the genre.
Tony Scott brought his high-concept ’80s filmmaking style into an unconventional vampire movie when he releasedThe Hungerin 1983. This film is an erotic horrorabouta doctor (played by Susan Sarandon) who enters into a love triangle with a vampire couple.
Catherine Deneuve is a vampire from as far back as Ancient Egypt named Miriam, and David Bowie is her current lover, John, whom she met in 18th-century France. The film then takes place in the modern day, when John begins to age again and realizes Miriam might be hiding something from him. He hopes the doctor, Sarah, can help him.
The Hungeris an exploration of control, and Miriam is a frightening creature who will do anything to maintain her youth,often through sexual manipulation and desire. It received terrible reviews upon release, but has since become a cult classic and is popular within goth culture, thanks to its expressionistic design and dark themes.
For years,Nicolas Cage was well-known for his short video clips of overactingin various movie roles. One film that has popped up in almost every montage ofCage’s overacting is the 1988 dark comedyVampire’s Kiss.In this film, Cage plays Peter Loew, an ’80s yuppie who enjoys one-night stands. However, he slowly starts to lose his grip on reality.
After a bat startles him during a one-night stand, his next sexual encounter involves a woman who bites him with vampire fangs.Peter then believes he is turning into a vampire, but when he doesn’t get teeth, he buys some fake onesand tries to attack and feed on other people.
The entire purpose of this story is to question whether Peter is becoming a vampire or if his weak mental state is causing him to have these delusions. The film uses several popular vampire tropes, but the entire idea that a regular guy believes he is a vampire makes this a deranged cult classic worth seeking out.
AfterGeorge A. Romero changed everything fans knew about zombieswithNight of the Living Dead,he then set his eyes on the vampire genre. In 1977, he released his vampire movieMartin.For anyone who loved Nicolas Cage’s film about a man who thinks he is a vampire, this movie did the same thing12 years earlier.
John Amplas stars as Martin Mathias, a serial killer who drains his victims' blood and drinks it as they die. He claims to be older than he is and believes himself to be a vampire. The movie employs several tropes, such as the use of garlic, but it never works against Martin, casting doubt on his claims of vampirism.
UnlikeVampire’s Kiss,which is a dark comedy,Martinis an extremely brutal and violent moviewith scenes of intense torture and sexual assault. It was even removed from distribution in the U.K. during the video nasty era. However, critics loved it, awarding it a 90% Rotten Tomatoes score.
In 1987, two vampire movies hit theaters. The most popular and the biggest box office success was the colorful Joel Schumacher film,The Lost Boys,which is a more traditional vampire story. However,the better of the two movies is the one that never uses the word “vampire"once during its entire running time.
Near Darkis by far a better vampire movie thanThe Lost Boys. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow,Near Darkfollows a family of vampires as they travel across the Southwest in an RV. When one of them, a young woman named Mae, turns a human named Caleb, he has to prove himself to the pack.
The movie is quite different from the colorfulThe Lost Boysand is a much darker horror tale, featuring intense gore and scares, particularly from Bill Paxton as Severen.ButNear Darkhas an 83% Rotten Tomatoes score and is a great Western vampire movie that largely ignores genre conventions,except for vampires' aversion to sunlight.
David Cronenberg is the master of body horror, so when he decided to make a vampire movie, it was sure to be different from anything that came before. In 1977, Cronenberg releasedRabid, an independent body horror movie that shares many traits with vampire movies, but in a subversive manner.
Cronenberg took the fear of sexually transmitted diseases at the time and used it as an allegory for the vampire curse. In this film, Marilyn Chambers plays a woman involved in a motorcycle accident who undergoes a new skin graft procedure that makes her start to crave the taste of human blood.
However, when she uses a phallic syringe that forms under her armpit to extract blood from her victims, it has the effect of turning the victims into rabid killers, similar to the George A. Romero movieThe Crazies.It is not technically a vampire movie, but it shares so much with the subgenre that it surely owes its existence to vampire mythology.
Years before the world really discovered theimmense talent of Guillermo del Toro,he directed asmall Mexican horror drama calledCronos.The film follows a mechanism created in 1536 that offers eternal life to the person who holds it. In 1996, a man who wants to find the mechanism will go to any lengths to obtain it.
Ron Perlman is a recognizable face to American movie fans, as he plays Angel de la Guardia, the ne’er-do-well nephew of the man who seeks the mechanism to restore his youth. With the premise of a mechanism that provides eternal youth (as long as the person possesses it), this is no ordinary vampire movie.
However, the ancient scarab does give the person an extreme thirst for blood.Cronoshelped revitalize the genre by offering something very different from simply repeating the Count Dracula formula every time.
Directed by Park Chan-wook (Oldboy),Thirstis another vampire movie that explores the concept of becoming a vampire as an allegory for the spread of disease.In this case, Song Kang-ho stars as Catholic priest Sang-hyun, who becomes a vampire after a failed medical experiment.
He then falls in love with the wife of his childhood friend, but finds that he is not only losing his humanity as the disease grows inside of him, but his morality as well. The film won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and remains one of the most unique vampire tales, partially due to its reliance on Catholicism.
Shadow of the Vampirealso did something completely different when it comes to the vampire genre. The movie is a fictional retelling of the making of the German Expressionist classicNosferatu(1921), so it is not a biopic. Instead,it asks what would happen if actor Max Schreck (who played Orlock) were a vampire in real life.
John Malkovich plays real-life filmmaker F.W. Murnau, the director of the original Nosferatu, while Willem Dafoe is Max Schreck, the actor who played the vampire Count Schreck. However,in this movie, Murnau chooses to cast a real vampire to add realism to his film,while offering the neck of the leading lady as payment.
Director E. Elias Merhige used many techniques from German film directors of that era when shooting scenes for this movie, and it feels as much a part of the bygone era as anything.Shadow of the Vampirealso worked well in deconstructing vampire films, while also receiving high praise,including an Oscar nomination for Willem Dafoe.
I Am Legendstands out among vampire stories for a couple of reasons. For one, the Richard Matheson novel on which it was based is about vampires, but the first couple of movie adaptations seemed to veer more towards other creatures. However,in Will Smith’s version, it is decidedly vampires.
However, the other reason is the source materials' ideas, which are not always presented accurately in the movie. The vampires are not villains. One of Dr. Neville’s former neighbors tormented him, but the vampires are not mindless killers. They were just different, and Neville was slaughtering them as they slept.
I Am Legendhints at a “cure,“but that isn’t the primary point of the story, as the vampires don’t require a cure. They are a natural evolution, and the human race is fighting to hold onto its control. The movie blurs the message, but the ideas are a giant leap in the concept of what it means to be a vampire.
The concept of a vampire’s familiar has been a staple of vampire movies since their inception, with Renfield serving as the familiar to Count Dracula. However,this entire idea was turned on its head whena child vampire appeared in a small Swedish town,seeking a new familiarto help protect her and provide her with food.
Let the Right One In is a quiet horror movie. While the girl,Eli, has a familiar who has been with her for years, he becomes carelessand ends up giving his own life to protect Eli. This is when Eli looks to a child who lives next door to become her new friend, and grooms him to become her next protector.
The film, based on the John Ajvide Lindqvist novel, was a massive critical success, winning several awards and holding an almost perfect 98% Rotten Tomatoes score. It is an interesting film, with the classichorrorof a vampire movie.However, the audience watches from the vampire’s point of view, considering the monster as the hero.
