In October we’re going to be doing Vampire Month on Pop Culturally Deprived – five episodes all about vampire films that Mandi Kaye has never seen. In fact we’re so excited about this we’re doing 6 films across 5 episodes:

Bram Stoker’s Dracula
The Lost Boys
Blade
Fright Night (1985 and 2011)
What We Do In The Shadows

There’s a lot of range in these films, and I can say for certain that we’ll spend a lot of time talking vampires on that first episode. We’ve also covered vampire films before with the first two Twilight films (Twilight and New Moon).

In those conversations we’ll refer to a lot of other films. We’ll bring in some knowledge about vampires, the tropes and mythic elements, the styles and genres used, as well as what we’ve enjoyed elsewhere.

This list is a breakdown of the best or most interesting vampire films that we’re not doing as part of this month, so if you hear us reference Vamps, The Hunger, or Night Watch, you can get some information here.

There are others that I haven’t seen that might be recommended (Nadja, Stake Land, Habit, Vampire’s Kiss), but if you worked through the list above you’d have a terrific time watching many different takes on the vampire myth. Enjoy!

If you want to keep track of these and see further details, here’s a Letterboxd list with all the films, so you can check how many you’ve seen and read more about them.

Vampire protagonists…

I have a theory that a vampire film is made better by letting us be in the vampire’s point of view for a period so we understand their motivations and what they’re trying to achieve.

These films take that one step further, and make the vampire the central figure to the story that everything revolves around. They each do it in different ways – some stylised action, some comedy, and some traditional Gothic horror.

Thirst

Korean director Park Chan-Wook has done a number of films that have incredibly striking visuals and strong leads carrying them. Thirst is no exception, and it’s an incredibly interesting take on vampires. I’ve described this as being a vampire movie in the same way Die Hard is a Christmas movie – the vampirism doesn’t affect the film, but adds an aesthetic and story elements that solve a number of plot beats. The stories going on prior to and during the characters’ transformation just as interesting as the transformation, and some of the unique mythology really does stand alone in this list.

Underworld

Vampires and werewolves are mentioned in the second Matrix film, which caused mass hysteria on the internet at the time for suggesting such a thing but never delivering it. This film then took that idea and ran with it – vampires as kick-ass action hero types, werewolves as brutal opponents, with a shared history that uses science and tech in a modern world. Setting up a vampire royalty that we would see used in similar fashion in Twilight, this film is possibly as far from any traditional Dracula story as you can get.

Vamps

Amy Heckerling directs a true comedy about vampires, with the star of her film Clueless (Alicia Silverstone) alongside Jessica Jones herself, Krysten Ritter. Sometimes serving their sire, Sigourney Weaver, the film sets them up as two SoCal type vampires who are just trying to exist and deal with today’s society – night time jobs, learning about computers and phones, dealing with a government that wants them to do jury service. At times genuinely funny, the film never goes much further than its core idea, but is still fun and different to most other vampire movies, with a cast including Wallace Shawn, Malcolm McDowell, and Dan Stevens.

Only Lovers Left Alive

Vamps spends some of the film reflecting on the nature of vampires as old creatures who have been through many times, but ultimately has nothing to say about that fact. Only Lovers Left Alive is almost all about that reflection, and has a great many views on what one might do with all the time in the world, as well as how it would affect the view of humans. Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston are utterly perfect as the vampires Eve and Adam, and whilst the film does not offer any firm views on vampirism or eternal life, it spends time looking at them from every angle, each more beautiful than the last.

Byzantium

If female vampires can be unusual (and often included as part of the Smurfette trope), a mother and daughter story about vampires is perhaps even more unusual. Byzantium has Anne Rice and Bram Stoker styles being confronted with vampires from a post-Buffy world, where we consider them as modern creatures who can adapt to the age. It tells a very unique story that uses vampirism as a class concept rather than a horror one.

The Hunger

David Bowie as a vampire was a very interesting proposition. Coupled with Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon, and directed by Tony Scott, this film has a lot going for it. And it presents some interesting ideas. Like Vamps earlier on this list, it plays with the idea of the Sire and the aging of vampires in a unique way. The film values style over substance very heavily, without much story really involved, but this is clearly a big step on the path from vampires being monstrous to a more studied consideration of them in modern films.

Interview With The Vampire

The story that changed the way vampires were written and considered. Anne Rice’s story is adapted to a very strong movie that crosses centuries and a number of perspectives for the vampire protagonists, as well as the different societies they set up. It still stands up today, especially the performance and aspect of Kirsten Dunst’s Claudia, which is rarely looked at in other stories. There are others in the series but this core story is still the best.

Daybreakers

A rare science fiction entry in the vampire genre, Daybreakers is one of a number of modern films about vampires having multiplied and taken over as the dominant life form on Earth. Ethan Hawke gives a terrific performance as our central character, but it takes some of the vampirism ideas to interesting conclusions, and brings back a favourite vamp actor with Willem Defoe.

Vampires who stalk the night…

The original Dracula, and vampire, myths were about lonesome creatures who prey on people in the shadows. This tale has been told in standard fashion many times in cinema history, and in recent years has become fashionable again, now allowing other people to play the sinister figure in the dark. Often much slower, moodier, and dramatic, these films fit much more into the horror genre, with the vampire not always being the source of that horror.

Nosferatu

When the director could not get the rights to produce a film version of Dracula, he changed some names and details to make Nosferatu. Although they were ordered to destroy all copies, some survived, and over the years different versions have been released as more footage was found. It is a very standard Dracula myth, but the performance of Max Schreck as the titular creature is very powerful, with a look that endures to this day.

Shadow Of The Vampire

To be paired with the previous entry, this very meta film is about the making of Nosferatu but with Max Schreck being an actual aged vampire. Willem Defoe gives another great vampire performance as Schreck, plus Eddie Izzard, Cary Elwes, and John Malkovich clearing relishing the over the top roles they’re given. Not a long film, but with an interesting meditation on aging during it.

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night

The vampire in this hangs over the entire piece like a shadow, bringing a sinister threat along with something of a moral code. A really interesting take on feminist themes and the decay of suburbia, the black and white cinematography brings a huge amount of ambience to an already evocative film. Worth watching for the quiet portrayals of characters trying to be good in circumstances that won’t let them.

Dracula 1931

This is often referred to as the most classic and authentic adaptation of Dracula. Bela Lugosi’s performance as the famous Count is fairly mesmerising, and he keeps his calm for most of the film until suddenly everything happens in short order. The change to make Renfield the visitor to Dracula’s castle is something of a logical one, an area all Dracula films need to decide what to do with. The look and style of Dracula is also the most classic visual representation that is redone in everything from Leslie Nielson spoofs to Spelunky.

Let The Right One In

I would recommend pairing this with A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, since both have in common a meditation on aspects of loneliness and companionship, as well as the different aspects of the nature of humans. Vampire films often have a great aesthetic but few great images, there are moments in this that stand out in the genre. As with a number of other films on this list, the need to feed by drinking blood is a central concern, alongside a vampire who doesn’t necessarily want to harm people but still needs sustenance.

Vampire hunters…

If the film is not centred around the vampire themselves or their victims, the likeliest perspective is the hunter. Films that do this directly often treat vampires as nameless, faceless hordes that just need to be destroyed, which makes the death easier to watch. However getting more invested in the hunter and prey aspect often works too as the story can dwell on the nature of both.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer

At this point Buffy is probably the most famous fictional vampire hunter there has been. The original film ended up as something different than it was written, but there is still some good in this. Paul Reubens is having a blast as a vampire, Rutger Hauer is doing whatever he wants, and Donald Sutherland is cashing his cheque without reading the script. But it is Kirsty Swanson as Buffy who sells the fundamental idea of ‘what if the blonde who is killed in the introduction is the monster hunter’. Her bemusement at being chosen, her growing powers, and her chemistry with everyone in the cast make it a terrific role.

Night Watch

Although the film opens and centres on hunting vampires who are breaking the balance between night and day, light and dark, this is a very different fantasy to everything else listed here. I include it because there is more of the hunter having to channel the vampire’s life to be able to track them. Alongside the film’s take on good and evil it’s something different from the norm.

Dracula 2000

Not quite a modernising take on Dracula but more of a sequel. There are some interesting ways this is done to update the original story, but for me the most memorable aspect is the explanation for the origin of vampires. It’s a short moment, but very rarely do vampire stories consider how or where it started, so it’s refreshing to not only see that done but to see it done well.

Vampires as monsters…

Where most films have vampires as people with monstrous tendencies, there are some that go more towards showing the monster in control. This has the added benefit of bringing a whole number of established tropes – such as sunlight, crosses, stakes – that can be incorporated to the creature feature.

From Dusk Till Dawn

Whilst the film starts as a standard Tarantino-style crime caper, halfway through without warning it becomes a monster movie. Suddenly anyone with a speaking part is required to fight off many vampires. The vampires themselves are often not much more than monsters, but they do help bring moments of humour and quality action. With a final set-piece that pays homage to Kathryn Bigelow’s vampire film Near Dark, there are many follows up and versions of this that build on the world created in this film.

30 Days of Night

Slightly more than monsters, but less human than other films on this list, the vampires of 30 Days are planners who are just looking to feed. They lay traps and set up the torment of the town, however the film most often stays in the point of view of the townspeople, their victims. One step up from the creatures of I Am Legend, the film uses the month of darkness for this northern Alaskan town to keep the tension of vampire attacks on at all times.