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.
A mockbuster from The Asylum released to ride on the coattails of Mad Max: Fury Road. Slightly more watchable than most of their offerings, although still cheaply made, this is the oddity of a Mad Max film with the addition of vampires
Troma film less terrible than most about a modern who gets involved with a vampire from the 1950s
Painfully unfunny vampire comedy from Cannon Films about a vampire teenager who becomes a rock star. This has one of the least credible premises I’ve ever seen in a film. Mostly it seems to have been conceived around placing various musicians of the day in acting roles with bizarre results
Not that the title gives you any reason to expect it but this is actually a vampire film, one of the rare entries in a genre that is looking very anemic these days. An original and quite interesting smalltown take that resembles George Romero’s Martin and Let the Right One In
One of the best Stephen King adaptations made as a tv mini-series concerning a town overrun by vampires. Director Tobe Hooper excels himself, staging the book in terms a series of captivating set-pieces
TV mini-series remake of the Stephen King novel, this fails to hold a candle to the earlier 1979 version
The Stephen King novel about a small town that is invaded by a vampire and is population taken gets its third screen adaptation in this film treatment. The 1979 mini-series is still the best version
One of the better films from Santo the Mexican wrestling superhero, quite an atmospheric work where Santo and his friend Blue Demon faces Dracula and his werewolf acolyte
Another of the films from the Mexican wrestling superhero Santo where he and his friend Blue Demon encounter assorted Famous Monsters raised by a mad scientist
This is the most famous of the Santo films, one that evinces an often crudely effective poetry out of its assemblage of B movie elements as he goes up against a vampire priestess and her minions
A multi-director horror anthology where all the directors are Latin American
The eight of Hammer’s Dracula, the second-to-last they would make and the last featuring Christopher Lee. This follows on from the previous film Dracula A.D. 1972 in featuring Dracula in the present day and at least does more with the idea than that film did
Friday the 13th so changed the horror genre that within two years it produced two four parodies of its title. From Roger Corman, this is more of an occasionally amusing parody of classic monster movies than the slasher film
The sixth of the Hammer Dracula films and generally regarded as the low point of the series. It feels as though nobody involved seemed to be making an effort anymore.
This comes with the clever and uniquely original premise that asks what would happen if during the making of the 1922 Nosferatu actor Max Schreck turned out to be a real vampire
A low-budget vampire film that at least tries to be original. Has a worthwhile leading lady and a chase plot that keeps it going past some of its amateurishness, but in the end it never quite goes far enough
Z-budget filmmaker Mark Polonia makes another of his entries into the gonzo killer shark film. This is a companion piece to his Sharkenstein – yes, a work about a vampire shark!
Sequel to the modest He Never Died with Henry Rollins as an immortal. Women get equal time here in a ferocious performance from Olunike Adeliyi that quite takes you aback
Ryan Coogler of Black Panther fame makes a smart and intelligent vampire film set in the American South during the 1930s. This was a considerable awards, audience and critical hit.
Amateur-made grunge vampire film that has some interesting ambitions but ultimately does not make enough about its story clear
A group of social media influencers fall prey to a vampire and are required to call on the help of grizzled vampire hunter Thomas Jane
To Die For was a forgettable effort, most notably as one of the first films to feature the darkly romantic vampire. This sequel recasts the part with the impossibly handsome Michael Praed and is a far more successful assemblage of the elements
The third of Universal’s Dracula films in which Dracula travels to Louisiana in search of a wife. A flabby Lon Chaney Jr makes a poor replacement for Bela Lugosi, while the script seems improbably stitched together – despite the title, the film features Dracula, not his son
Bizarre musical monster bash with singer Harry Nilsson as Dracula’s son and Ringo Starr as Merlin. A film that seems to have no real clue what it is doing beyond friends having a good time. Nilsson makes surely the screen’s least threatening Dracula, while this is the worst film from the usually great Freddie Francis
Strong and highly original film that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by vampires. This has more the feel of a zombie film or an existential Western but does some highly original things with its ideas
Stake Land, set in a beautifully wintry post-holocaust world where vampires had taken over, one of the best films from Glass Eye Pix. This is a sequel that reunites most of the same elements from the original but fails to ignite them as memorably as the first film did
This film’s pitch line – Casanova meets Dracula – had me in the door in an instant, yet the film is a maddeningly dull one – slow, plotless with talky scenes that drag on for minutes at a time. The film has no interest in depicting Casanova the famous lover, while he and Dracula never even talk together
Eli Roth produced film made in Chile, this concerns a mysterious stranger to town who turns out to be a vampire that is soon sought and hunted by everybody. A promising premise given a not terribly interesting handling
The first vampire film actually made in Romania, although this. more a film about petty corruption and decades old disputes with vampirism coming to represent corrupt land ownership than anything to do with classic movie vampires
Probably the next logical move after Zombie Strippers! Alas, where we should have had a fast, funny and sarcastic genre entry, the humour in this British entry becomes painfully belaboured in its constant unfunny efforts to get laughs
Comedy about a shipwrecked crew that are rescued by a German U-boat that is carrying a vampire on board
The first in a series of vampire films from Charles Band and Full Moon Productions. Several sequels followed.
This has been construed as a modern-day vampire western with tongue planted in cheek. From Anthony Hickox who made a series of OTT horror films during this period
Occasionally amusing comedy where a group of fans set out to rescue the heroine’s unrequited crush from a house of vampires
Spike Lee makes a vampire film (even though the title gives the impression is he has detoured off into gospel). The even bigger surprise is he conducts a remake of the Blaxploitation classic Ganja & Hess
Part of the 1990s fad for dark romantic vampire films with vampire Julian Sands lurking around a library and fixating on Suzanna Hamilton
The second of the films spun off from tv’s Tales from the Crypt. While the first film Demon Knight took itself seriously, this does not and is killed by a campy tone and a miscast Dennis Miller keeping up a running barrage of excruciating one-liners
Tales from the Hood was the novelty of an African-American made horror anthology. 23 years later the principal talents (including producer Spike Lee) reunite for a sequel
Albert Pyun makes a long promised sequel to his first film The Sword and the Sorcerer but delivers an impoverished mess that is all over the place plotwise
The fifth of Hammer’s Dracula films and by general consensus the last worthwhile entry. New director Peter Sasdy brings something fresh and this has an interesting plot that digs beneath Victorian hypocrisy
An all-girl lesbian vampire film that sets out to reclaim the genre that had previously existed as a focus of male titillation and tell it as a story of women’s empowerment
This is almost a female version of Vampire’s Kiss. Caroline Williams lets all stop go is an aging rock dj at a radio station who receives a bite from a vampire bat
An obscure Canadian film that ambitiously attempts to adapt Bram Stoker’s Dracula on a low-budget. This introduces some elements of the story that other versions ignore and is not uninteresting
One of the Hammer Films wannabes of the 1960s that even employs Christopher Lee in a horror film set around the historical Grand Guignol Theatre
A modestly effective indie film with two people fleeing through the desert backroads pursued by a vampire
Strong and well written independent film about a vampire family trying to survive in the modern world
Modest Australian film where Chantal Contouri is introduced to a secret vampire society that keeps human beings as cattle
Park Chan-wook film in which he rewrites the French literary classic Therese Raquin with the addition of a vampire priest with most effective results
Solid vampire film produced by Sam Raimi about a small Alaskan town that suddenly finds itself besieged by vampires who have come because of the month of night
Sequel to the modestly effective Alaskan-set vampire film 30 Days of Night, this holds up surprisingly well for something that gives all indication of being a throwaway video sequel
The Hamiltons was an unusual film about a strange family who were eventually revealed to be vampires. By the time of this sequel, all the interesting elements of the original have been eliminated and all that we have is a film of tired poses that fails to add anything to the overworked vampire genre
Very obscure horror anthology re-edited from episodes of a Canadian tv series featuring names like John Hurt, Charles Gray and Keir Dullea.
One of the first of the modern wave of darkly romantic vampire films that became the in-thing in the 1990s. This is occasionally effective but was eclipsed by later entries
Aaaaaaaargh the director I love to hate, Joel Schumacher, turns out a halfway reasonable film. An original menace where Schumacher displays a good grasp of the modern horror film
The vampire film is looking a little anemic in the post-Twilight era. Here is what is easily one of the best vampire films of the 2010s, a combination of Martin and the relationship in Let the Right One In (sort of), all transplanted into a harsh inner city environment
A excruciatingly unfunny film that feels like one of Abbott and Costello’s monster bashes played as a crass frat comedy
Painfully unfunny comedy from Mel Brooks writer Rudy De Luca with journalists Jeff Goldblum and Ed Begley Jr encountering monsters while on assignment in Transylvania
A Roger Corman produced horror parody that conducts send ups of most of the horror icons of the 1980s – Freddy Krueger, Pinhead, Michael Meyers etc – without being particularly funny
Before the teen idol phenomenon took over, the original in the massively popular Young Adult series works as an earnest romance where all involved are clearly making an effort to play with a conviction
The third and best of Hammer’s Karnstein trilogy, which features twin sisters Madeline and Mary Collinson as vampires. This works due to a strong hand from director John Hough and Peter Cushing on fine form as a witchfinder
For a time Kevin J. Lindemuth had a reasonable place making direct-to-video films and anthologies. This is a solidly effective video-released anthology of horror tales
Francis Ford Coppola makes what may be a ghost story or a vampire film but things are so confused you are never sure what. Less like the mature work of one of the great American filmmakers than an ingenue effort from director straight out of film school with a head full of muddled pretensions
A British mini-series that offers an ingenious modernised reconeptualisation of the vampire genre, depicting the activities of a secret agency of vampire hunters
Milla Jovovich is a part of a vampire rebel underground in a dystopian future. A film filled with incredible design schemes and action scenes that are as spectacular as they are ridiculously improbable
Sequel to Graveyard Shift with a vampire appearing on a vampire film set and taking over the role in the film
This stirs a bunch of elements from the late 90s vampire film and dark poses from the graphic novel to create a slick vampire action film. Several sequels followed.
Yet another entry that nobody asked for in a conceptually threadbare series that nobody seems to like … passably better than the last two sequels due to some ok action moves but still empty-headed in terms of ideas
I am at a loss to understand who the audience for the Underworld films is – they are films devoid of minimal requirements like plotting and seem to only exist as a series of forgettable action sequences and interchangeable Gothic poses by characters in black leather – and yet we keep getting more of them
The second of the Underworld films where Len Wiseman gets a bigger budget and amplifies the CGI and action sequences,. On the other hand, the characters and story are so stripped to a minimum you lose track of why things are happening
Third of the Underworld films, a prequel to the previous entries. In truth, it is just the same as the others – lots of kinetic action moves and Gothic poses with little in the way of plot
An interesting adaptation of the classic lesbian vampire story Carmilla. This modernises and relocates it to Middle America and plays the vampirism with a psychological ambiguity
Little-seen Czech film that sits on the blurred edge of a dream in its hazily surreal view of the world through the eyes of a young girl where the figures around her seem to become vampires that constantly loom with darkly allegorical sexual threat
Very 80s film that feels like Martin Scorsese’s After Hours rewritten with vampires set around vampire nightclub. The comedy is uneven but there is is a striking performance from Grace Jones as the vampire
The entirely unappealing notion of a vampire frat rat comedy, The film is agonisingly unfunny on almost every level, while Adam Johnson’s professor may count as possibly the wimpiest and most non-threatening vampire in the history of cinema
Dismissed at the time as a copy of Young Frankenstein even though it had been made earlier, this is a none too funny vampire comedy featuring David Niven as Dracula
One of the first films about a medically rationalised vampire concerning a doctor who discovers pills that turn him into a vampire monster
A vampire movie from the creators of Hill Street Blues, the greatest tv cop show ever made??? The mind boggles as to the possibilities and wonder what amazing creative possibilities they could put on it – alas, the show only ends up staying with the tried and true
Technically not a vampire film at all, rather about a kind and caring serial killer with a blood-drinking fetish who frequents suicide support boards looking for victims. A remarkable film, shot in a plain, unaffected manner and managing to discover an extraordinary intimacy between the characters
One has zero enthusiasm for this, which has been sold as Twilight meets Harry Potter. Defying expectation, it is written with a sarcastic amusement puncturing its own seriousness and has a great performance from its leading lady, if in the end it is too weighted down by story exposition needed to set up its sequels to ever open up dramatically
This is essentially intended as a gay version of Twilight and features a near-identical plot in which a vampire fixates on a youth and decides he is his true love.
Rather drab and cheap Japanese horror film about a disfigured actress who returns to life as a hairy vampire creature to exact vengeance. Not without its schlocky appeals, the hairy vampire bride looks more funny than threatening
Fascinating vampire film from the latter days of Hammer Films, this tries to do something different to the usual
Revival of the Hong Kong hopping vampire film phenomenon of the late 80s as personified by the Mr Vampire films. This lacks the slapstick silliness of the originals but settles in with a goofy nuttiness, getting some winning charms out of the romance between mortal and hopping vampire girl
Not to be confused with tv’s i>The Vampire Diaries, this is a British film that sets out to reconstruct the lesbian vampire film within the frame of modern LGBT relationships. It is also Found Footage, an early and rather amateurish variant, but not without some effect
This may quite possibly be the worst vampire film ever made – a children’s film about a boy and a cute vampire dog. Being a children’s film, the vampire dog is not allowed to drink blood so has to have a ravenous hunger for red jelly! The slapstick is excruciating and the film painful on every level
Completely insane Japanese film that wades in gore while playing everything up at a level of demented cartoonish absurdity. Possibly the most delirious movie-watching fun it is possible to have
Freddie Francis was one of the finest stylists of the Anglo-horror cycle. Here he makes a comedy spoofing the vampire film that comes out feeling like Benny Hill routines running around a big castle
Filipino exploitation film that has a reputation as something more trashy than it is. A dull and aimless effort where an aging John Carradine delivers a largely incoherent performance as the head vampire
Cult anime about a monosyllabic vampire hunter moving across a hallucinatory post-apocalyptic dispatching mutants and vampires
Yoshiaki Kawajiri, director of Ninja Scroll and Wicked City, steps in to make a sequel(?)/reboot(?) to the cult 1985 anime with visually enthralling regard
Tsui Hark scripted/produced Wu Xia effort that shuffles the familiar tropes about without seeming too enervated
An odd mismatch of talent where Wes Craven directs Eddie Murphy as a vampire who arrives in present-day New York. Craven and Murphy seem to drown either;s distinctive voices out
The first in Hammer’s trilogy of lesbian vampire films, an adaptation of the classic story Carmilla. Unfortunately in Hammer’’s hands, the story’s subtlety is killed by an emphasis on softcore titillation
Low-budget video release about a group of people holed up in a house preyed on by a vampire. Passable but never amounts to much
Disappointingly tatty rendering of the famous comic-book strip as a low-budget Roger Corman production. Vampirella is missing her distinctive costume and Talisa Soto comes nowhere near the comic-book character’s statuesque voluptuousness
John Carpenter revitalises the vampire film with a sharp action edge as James Woods heads a team of vampire hunters. Woods gives a ferociously determined performance way above and beyond the call of duty
Bizarre comedy where Nicolas Cage is a literary agent who believes he is a vampire. Cage gives the most absurdly over-the-top performance ever put on film
Sequel to John Carpenter’s Vampires given over to his regular associate Tommy Lee Wallace, this looks tatty in trying to replicate the action sequences on a B-budget and with the script holes showing through
Quite possibly the most boring 1970s Euro horror film ever made. Innocent travellers stray into a village of vampires but hardly anything happens in this soporific Spanish effort least of all the title orgy
The movie parodies of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer witlessly run a series of crude, unfunny gags over films and celebrities of the previous twelve months vintage. Here they take on the Twilight series