The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
The vampire is one of the most iconic figures in horror film. The vampire is a human being who has returned from the dead and is immortal unless killed. The vampire preys on human blood. It has vulnerabilities to the crucifix, daylight, holy water and can only be dispatched by being staked through the heart. Its appearance is with fangs and very pale skin, sometimes red eyes. It can be handsome or voluptuous, or rat-like and cadaverous. It can wield great hypnotic abilities on its victims and transform into bats and other animals.
The vampire appears in many world mythologies. The vampire of fiction was not created by Bram Stoker but he did popularise it in Dracula (1897) in which he laid down many key aspects of the mythology – its aversion to crucifixes and sunlight, the need to kill it with a stake through the heart, its coming from Transylvania and the need to live in a coffin of its native Earth. These remain the key aspects of the mythology. Some films change various aspects or strip out the supernatural elements and offer medical/scientific explanations.
The first vampire film was the Turkish Drakula (1921), the first major one the German Nosferatu (1922). The iconic image of the vampire in dinner suit, cape and thick East European accent was created with Bela Lugosi in Universal’s Dracula (1931) and has since been much copied and parodied,.
The vampire appeared in various Universal sequels of the 1940s and then underwent a major revival with Hammer’s Dracula/The Horror of Dracula (1958) starring Christopher Lee. Hammer put Lee through a string of Dracula sequels and created other vampire films. These inspired a number of imitators throughout Europe and Latin America, even from Japan. One of the subgenres among these was the lesbian vampire film created by Hammer’s adaptation of Carmilla (1872) with The Vampire Lovers (1970), which led to sequels and a number of imitators.
The 1960s also brought the first in a number of vampire comedies and parodies. Beginning in the late 1950s and more concertedly in the 1970s, efforts were made to move the vampire out of the Victorian surroundings and bring it into the present-day and by the 1980s the vampire was well at home in suburbia and major metropolitan areas. The 1970s also saw the move to reconstruct the vampire less as an evil predator and more as a darkly brooding romantic figure, as well as in a number of works of erotica.
The 1980s onwards brought the gritty vampire action film and the 1990s a series of films focusing on the vampire hunter as hero. Others place a focus on slick Gothic poses or tell of vampire clans operating in the shadows of society, often at war with Werewolves. On the opposite side, there are a number of kitchen sink portrayals showing the vampire dealing with everyday life. There have also been a number of films that depict vampirisim in medical/scientific terms.
In more recent years, the vampire film was dealt a considerable blow by the Young Adult romance Twilight (2008) and sequels, which made the vampire an adolescent romantic figure, preaching chastity and a doting father who also sparkled. In the aftermath, there have still been a number of vampire films but the genre seems to be looking for new directions, no longer holding the strength it once did.
For adaptations of Bram Stoker and works in which Dracula appears as a character see Dracula Films.
The vampire film is looking rather anemic in the post-Twilight era. This is one decent effort about a father trying to save his son who has received a blood transfusion from a vampire
The most well remembered of Abbott and Costello’s films. Universal had shuffled their Famous Monsters through several team-ups and here decided to play them for outright laughs. Undeniably likeable
Unique anthology that offers 26 episodes from different directors, each ending with a death. The episodes vary wildly in quality but a sufficient number ignore all good taste and/or travel waaaay across taboo lines
From the duo behind the Scream reboot films, a thriller about the kidnap of a young girl in the vein of From Dusk Till Dawn that abruptly pivots to become a vampire film
Seth Grahame-Smith’s original book was a witty historical joke that retold the events of Lincoln’s life as a secret history involving vampires. The film somehow misses the joke and turns everything into a ridiculously over-the-top action film
Adaptation of a Joe Hill story where Van Helsing has relocated to California and is trying to teach his sons about the art of vampire hunting as his wife becomes infected by a vampire bite
Strong and intelligent low-budget vampire film from Kevin J. Lindenmuth that plays with a fascinating ambiguity in the story of a man obsessed with a mystery woman who is making him kill
This was the second in Kevin J. Lindenmuth’s trilogy of modern vampire films, which comes with much subtle effect and a strong character-driven story, a kitchen sink tale about a newborn vampire
Abel Ferrara takes on the vampire film and delivers a work loaded with weighty, nihilistic philosophical meditations and creates startling reinventions of vampire imagery
Found Footage film that cleverly borrows more than a few leaves from An American Werewolf in London with two tourists in Europe where one is bitten and transformed by a vampire
Another film masquerading with some relevance to The Amityville Horror, although this extends no further than the title. This is an almost interesting effort where a film crew interview a possible vampire
A film about the internecine in-fighting among werewolf clans and a werewolf P.I. in a near-future European Union. With Lindsay Lohan as the EU President’s wife!
Companion piece to Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, a duo of horror films sold with Andy Warhol’s name for some reason. Dracula is revamped with a good deal of sex and gore but not uninterestingly so.
Not very well made Danish vampire film that almost redeems itself by trying to conduct everything as a John Woo-styled action film
This is a weird little film about an alien vampire that is slowly rejuvenating. This has an interesting swim of strange ideas but in reality isn’t very good
Another of the films from cult exploitation director Jess Franco. This is a vampire film made with a mix of arty erotica with Lina Romay as Countess Irina Karlstein who drains men and women’s lifeforce during sex
A film spinoff from the animated The Batman tv series, this offers a great title match but proves a disappointment. Moreover, it has to twist comic-book canon to make the plot work
This has a reputation as a bad movie classic. The attention grabbing novelty mash-up transforms the Western outlaw into a hero to combat Dracula (a hammy John Carradine)
One of the post-Twilight vampire films that have transplanted the basics into different locales – in this, a rundown inner-city New Orleans ghetto neighbourhood
The great Mario Bava directs a horror anthology of three tales, delivering each with considerable spooky atmosphere. The standout among these is The Wurdulak with Boris Karloff as a vampire preying on his family.
Classic work that defined the Italian Gothic cycle of the 1960s and turned Barbara Steele into a cult actress. Mario Bava shoots vivid, incredibly atmospheric scenes in black-and-white in ways that no other director does
A Found Footage vampire film. This only follows where The Blair Witch Project went before, while the long build-up to the revelation of its creature proves a damp fizzle
A hit among the Blaxploitation fad of the 1970s, this has the novelty of casting a vampire film with African-American actor William Marshall. A whole series of Blaxploitation takes on horror themes followed.
Nobody knew it at the time but this was the beginning of the huge surge of Marvel Comics adaptations on screen in the 00s/10s. This distills the basics of the vampire hunter comic-book down into a smart, kinetic action film
Blade was a solid vampire/action film but the sequel is a quantum leap over that, a visually kinetic and immensely exciting comic-book of a movie thanks to the employment of Guillermo Del Toro in the director’s chair
Third of the Blade films with Wesley Snipes. As director, series screenwriter David S. Goyer emulates the same exhilarating, kinetic moves that Guillermo Del Toro infused the second film with, while the script zings with his wryly cynical dialogue
This borrows its set-up from Phone Booth with Ana da Armas barricaded into a laundromat from a taunting killer outside. You think that is where everything is going but then the film pulls a left field twist on us
One of the most impressive overhaulings of the vampire theme in recent years in which vampirism is treated as an addiction in which humans become hooked on the vampire’s blood
Brad Anderson, director of Session 9 and The Machinist, makes a great horror film with Michelle Monaghan as a mother trying to cope with her son’s sudden taste for blood
Peculiar Canadian-made indie film about the interactions of a vampire and various people at a Toronto donut shop. David Cronenberg is cast as a Mafia head
Roger Vadim conducts a very sofctore adaptation the classic vampire story Carmilla but this seems pallid and bloodless in contrast to the Hammer Films of the same period, not to mention their later adaptations of the same story
Possibly the most ridiculous film produced during the Anglo-horror cycle in which scientist Robert Flemyng turns daughter Wanda Ventham into a giant vampiric Deathshead moth
Producer Herman Cohen had great success with I Was a Teenage Werewolf and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein. Here he makes a teenage vampire film where a troubled teen is hypnotically regressed into becoming a vampire
One of the films from Z-budget director Al Adamson, who should be a rival for Edward D. Wood Jr in the bad movies stakes. This resurrects Count Dracula in the present-day, living in a castle in the California desert
An obscure effort from the early days of the Anglo-horror cycle. A medical vampire effort and a Hammer imitator with lavish production values and memorable characters that easily sits up alongside Hammer’s better work
Train to Busan had zombies unleashed on a train, this German film is the same but with vampires loose on a plane. This comes with entertainingly full-tilt ferocity
An appealingly eccentric indie comedy directed by and starring Noah Segan as a vampire who suddenly discovers he has fathered a kid
A Spanish-made adaptation of the classic lesbian vampire story Carmilla that modernises the story and inflates it with much eroticism and surrealistic imagery
Stunning Mamoru Oshii-prodcued anime short about a vampire girl who operates as an American agent eliminating vampires in post-War Japan
Live-action English-language remake of the anime short about a demon-hunting vampire girl. The original is reduced to no more than a series of slick by-the-numbers action poses
Australian film set during World War II as a group of shipwreck survivors board a deserted Nazi ship only to then discover that it is inhabited by vampires
Another Uwe Boll’s videogame adaptation, this feels slung together from vampire film and sword and sorcery cliches. Among the badly mismatched casting, the most eyebrow raising is Ben Kingsley as the vampire villain
The second in Uwe Boll’s trilogy adapted from the videogame, this plays out as a mix of Western and vampire hunter film and is marginally better than Boll’s usual standards
The third of Uwe Boll’s Bloodrayne trilogy and one of his better films. The action scenes are slickly choreographed and the film is largely made by Michael Paré and Clint Howard who play to the gallery with entertaining regard
The idea of a vampire set in the Prohibition era among the speakeasies and bootlegging rackets sounds intriguing. This is weakened by a low-budget and the simple fact that the vampire has become de-fanged post-Twilight
The second in a series of low-budget vampire films from Charles Band and Full Moon Productions. Nothing much to write home about.
Comedy that resembles something of tv’s The Office where Fran Kranz discovers that management is turning his co-workers into vampires as an efficiency measure
Uwe Boll sets out to offend everybody in a film founded on making constant insults about its’ plus-size heroine’s weight and bad jokes about the Holocaust, including the Boll playing a comic Hitler
This comes with the interestingly original idea of having the real-life outlaws Bonnie and Clyde come up against Count Dracula. The main thing against the film is a low budget
The Bowery Boys were a poor man’s Abbott and Costello; here in one of their most entertaining outings they try to compete with Abbott and Costello’s monster bashes
Entirely unrelated to the forgettable 1973 film, this is a children’s film for the Nickelodeon Channel. Merely adequate but no more. Brooke Shields seems to be having the time of her life vamping it up with Bela Lugosi accent
Spiritedly entertaining vampire film, this transplants the basics of the genre to rural Northern Ireland with wry and highly amusing results
Francis Ford Coppola remakes and reinvents Dracula, transforming the text of Bram Stoker’s book into a sensual, visually ravishing film with lush production values that make you gasp in excitement
Possibly the worst Dracula film ever made. Dracula is cast as what looks like a beefy bouncer for a Goth nightclub. Bram Stoker is written as the central character seemingly without anyone having read a single detail about his biography
An adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that comes with the oddity of featuring no Dracula. This is quite faithful to the book and the period setting looks not to bad on a low budget
The point where the Twilight series collapses under its pretensions and draws every detail of its wedding out for an excruciating hour. A series that has been all about preaching chastity then segues into Right to Life advocacy
Perhaps the best thing about this is that the Twilight saga is finally ended. This provides a moderately spectacular showdown but also wraps its plotlines up with absurd deus ex machina wimp outs and an infuriating twist ending
A parody of the Twilight series, which feeds the films through the vulgar and sophomoric gags of the Scary Movie type film parody
A vampire film with an original premise, a buddy cop film where a vampire and human partner are paired together in a world where vampires are revealing their presence to humans for the first time
The second of Hammer’s Dracula films has to work around the absence of Christopher Lee. Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing is brought to the forefront and Terence Fisher provides some standout directorial sequences
Obscure 1970s horror that generates a certain creepy effect with four girls gathered at a big old house for sinister purpose. before going sidewise during the second half amid a profusion of competing tropes
Vampire hunter film made by two Uwe Boll associates that plays out like a low-budget version of Blade II – it is passably well put together but the scope of action appears constricted to a single warehouse
An unfunny comedy about a cheerleader vampire slayer. This should have been quickly forgotten but instead it surprisingly became the basis for a much superior hit tv series several years later
A low-budget independent vampire film set around a group of vampire hunters trying to bring down the master vampire – the local Catholic priest
Neil Jordan makes a vampire film that stands at marked contrast to Twilight and Jordan’s earlier Interview with the Vampire. Jordan stamps the class of a mature filmmaker on what might have been a lesser work in another’s hands
Interesting Hammer film than never quite succeeded where director Brian Clemens, creator of tv’s The Avengers, tries to blend the staple of the Hammer vampire film with a swashbuckler
A new version of J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s classic, multiple filmed lesbian vampire story. This retells the story in dreamy Victorian surroundings
One of a series of cheap Canadian-made made Sherlock Holmes tv movies featuring a wildly overacting Matt Frewer who makes possibly the worst screen Holmes ever
One of a trio of films produced by Fangoria magazine, this concerns a town overrun by vampires but swings uncertainly between moments of effectiveness and a campy silliness
The vampire film has been looking for new directions in the post-Twilight world. This is an oddity about Chinese vampires that turn victims into fluent Mandarin speakers
Adaptation of a series of Young Adult books that should have emerged as Harry Potter made with the sensibilities of a Tim Burton. But the result fails to come to life in Paul Weitz’s hands
Set around a secret society of vampires, this is a strong contender for the worst vampire film ever made. It suffers badly from a directorial approach that is unsure if it is taking things seriously
Film about a tough guy detective settling into the destined role of a monster hunter. With lots of dark streetwise urgency and Corey Feldman proving unexpectedly entertaining in drag as the lead vampire
Christopher Lee was inveigled to play the title role in what was advertised as an adaptation of the book as Bram Stoker wrote it. While this was somewhat true, such ambitions befell the cheapness of exploitation director Jess Franco
The most faithful version of Dracula to date. A BBC mini-series that adapts the book as a no-nonsense costume drama and even shoots in the mentioned locations, giving the impression of the story taking place as Bram Stoker visualised it
A copy of the Hammer Dracula films starring Spanish horror legend Paul Naschy. Naschy makes an okay but mundane Dracula, while the film never seems much more than lots of running around an abandoned asylum and softcore tumblings
One of the better efforts among a spate of attempts to modernise the vampire that came out the 1970s. Robert Quarry gives a witty, urbane performance in the title role. A sequel followed.
Donald F. Glut is famous as a genre historian and novelist. Here he directs an erotic vampire film. Despite the title, Count Dracula doesn’t feature much but we get Paul Naschy in one of his few English language films
A horror movie set around a modern day Western recreation town that was quickly retitled on the tail of Cowboys vs Aliens. It’s debatable though whether it does actually feature any vampires
The very first film from Guillermo Del Toro, a unique take on the vampire film concerning an aging antique dealer who finds a clockwork device that rejuvenates but leaves him with a taste for blood
The world’s first vampire Western featuring a vampire gunslinger. Today it’d be called Cowboys vs Vampires but such casual genre cross-hatching didn’t exist back then and it astride two genres with not uninteresting results
A comic-book adaptation about vampire wars in a modern East European war zone. A slick Underworld-styled vampire action film that has some interesting ideas going on inside it
Tim Burton’s slide into mediocrity continues with this comedic update of the cult Gothic soap opera tv series, which is now played at a level of cartoonish unseriousness that resembles the Addams Family
A no-budget vampire film from ingenue Kansas-based filmmakers. What the film suffers in the amateurism of its cast and lack of plot, it makes up for with its enthusiastically over-the-top gore effects and bucketloads of gore
Prolific exploitation director Jess Franco makes an entry in the early 1970s fad for lesbian vampire films. This has more softcore erotic content than other entries, although the Dracula part of the title is a misnomer
One of several Elizabeth Bathory films that came out at the same time, this has gained a cult reputation. Delphine Seyrig gives a marvellously arch performance, while director Harry Kumel films with a gorgeous and dreamy colour palette
An enjoyably entertaining film featuring Jamie Foxx and Dave Franco as vampire hunters. This plays out as a comic buddy film mixed with a series of wildly charged action scenes
Timur Bekmambetov’s sequel to Night Watch comes with a much better budget and the same wild visuals, although is slightly the lesser film
Australia’s The Spierig Brothers create a strong and original scenario for a vampire film set in a future where vampires have killed almost all the humans and the blood supply is now running out.
Punk/metal rocker Glenn Danzig directs his own film, a vampire Western. This comes filled an amazing line-up of genre cameos, while Danzig casts himself as a bad-ass vampire outlaw
A film from low-budget producer/director Charles Band about a trio of horror podcasters who come across a vampire that livestreams its kills on the internet, only for their attention to bring it after them
Robert Quarry gained a fame in the early 70s and was regarded as the American Christopher Lee on the basis of the Count Yorga films. This was one of the works he made where he plays the leader of hippie cult who is a vampire
Vampire film that takes place South of the Border. This is low-budget and has with the potential of doing something original in its hands but that never quite arrives
British-made vampire film that very much trying to copy the style of Hammer Films. This has colour and moments of undeniable style that stand out but lacks it in other crucial areas.
One of the numerous European erotic vampire films made during the early 70s. This came out not long after The Exorcist and so the vampire countess is accompanied by a coven of Devil worshippers
Mike Flanagan, one of the most exciting genre names in recent years, takes on Stephen King’s book sequel to The Shining, managing the daunting balancing act of both adapting the book and turning it into a sequel to the Stanley Kubrick film
The first of Amicus’s horror anthologies. The stories are rehashes of five popular horror tropes, all united by Peter Cushing as the title doctor telling the fortunes of five passengers on a train carriage
UK’s Amicus Films had a reasonable hit with their horror anthology Dr Terror’s House of Horrors. Director/producer David L. Hewitt jumped in with a copy with a soundalike title produced on a poverty row budget
The second of two video-released sequels to Dracula 2000, this takes place with more of an action emphasis and features vampire hunters tracking Dracula across rebel-torn future Europe
The classic adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel that made Bela Lugosi into a horror icon and created the image of the vampire in dinner-suit and with East European accent. For all its stature, it is a dull and talky film and Lugosi is overwrought