Vampires
Dracula (1931)
Dracula aka
Horror of Dracula (1958)
"The first entry in Hammer Films' Dracula series is a real classic, carefully balancing gruesome horror, sensuality, and action - all displayed in sumptuous Technicolor photography. It bears very little resemblance to Stoker's novel, and clearly from the first moments is setting out to do its own thing (for starters, it was the first vampire film to feature elongated fangs!).
Horror of Dracula moves at a solid pace, still delivering plenty of thrills and chills even today, some fifty years after it was made." -
Crabapple
Nosferatu aka
Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)
"The vampires of
Underworld and the novels of Anne Rice are a far cry from the vampire of traditional folklore. These were creatures who ripped apart livestock, who tortured their families and who spread famine and decay wherever they went, and they were the embodiments of disease, pestilence and social anxieties.
When Stoker created Dracula, he created a vampire who embodied sexual confusion, ethical dilemmas, fear of foreign invasion and political paranoia concerning an aristocracy that gives without taking. Murnau's vampire bridges the gap between Stoker's vampire and the sheep-slaughtering, crop-withering slavic fiends of Eastern Europe. There is nothing seductive about the face of evil when presented by Murnau, whether it be Emil Jannings' filthy Mephistopheles or the rat-like Max Shreck.
Does
Nosferatu embrace the xenophobia of the time? Yes.
Can it be taken as an isolationist diatribe? Yes.
These two points of contention in addition to its dreamlike logic can be interpreted as weaknesses in the film, or they can be looked upon as embodiments of Murnau's times. In the strange nightworld of
Nosferatu, Murnau captures those fears and shows them without fear and with very little equivocation.
Nosferatu is a harrowing portrait of disease seeping into cultures, entering our very bedrooms and the depths of our imaginations. The ugliness and the evil in society will come and we must challenge them, perhaps even by sacrificing our innocence in the process. Fears old and new intersect in a raw, beautiful way, which makes
Nosferatu as eternal a story as the novel that spawned it and the strange folktales that spread through the medieval imagination." -
Doc Faustus
Salem's Lot (1979)
"
Salem's Lot was originally a 1979 TV miniseries, later merged into a movie experience. It starred David Soul, James Mason, Lamce Kerwin, Bonnie Bedalia and Reggie Nalder. It was based on the novel written by Stephen King.
The plot basically concerned the arrival of a vampire (a Mr. Barlow) to a New England town called Salem's Lot. The vampire's front man, a mysterious Mr. Straker, led the way by opening an antique shop and buying the old Marston house. At the same time, writer Ben Mears returns to Salem's Lot due to a fascination with the old Marston place. After the vampire arrives, the town folks begin turning into vampires. It is now up to writer Marston and his assistant Mark Petrie to rid the town of this evil.
This film shows vampires as monstrous and repulsive, and focuses on visual scares, atmosphere and tension. The makeup of the lead vampire (Mr. Barlow) was based on the motion picture
Nosferatu. This was a downright scary and tension building film." -
Marya Zaleska
The Lost Boys (1987)
Honorable Mentions:
Let The Right One In (aka)
Låt den rätte komma in (2008)
"This is not a horror movie. It is not a vampire movie. At least, neither of those are the defining words I'd use to describe the essence of the film. It's about the mess of adolescence. It's an against-the-odds love story. It's about surviving in this world, doing what must be done. All classic, timeless templates, only in this instance supporting a extraordinary scenario. See, then maybe it's a vampire film, or a horror film.
It is slow, sad, dark, and cold, punctuated by both harshness and happiness. It is blurry and distant, until Eli and Oskar, the two main characters, come together. Their interactions are close and intimate; from Eli and Oskar's prospective, together they create one universe, trying to trim the excess, not caring to question each other beyond traditional childish things as they work to figure each other out.
For a film that is so violent and cold, it can be quite warm." -
Fortunato
Vampyr aka
Vampyr - Der Traum des Allan Grey (1932)
"Master filmmaker Carl Th. Dreyer turns his great, roving eye and incredible cinematic sensibilities to the horror genre in this, his only genre piece. And how lucky we are for it!
Based (very loosely) on Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu's novella Carmilla, on paper Vampyr reads like an ordinary vampire story. But Dreyer has beaten and reworked the source material like iron; not merely changing its form, but making it stronger. The finished product is beyond narrative; it is a fluid fever-dream of sickness and death and rebirth, tacit, told through gorgeous, soft, clever composition. All its parts combine to suggest perhaps something spiritual, something that will linger in your head like ghostly shadows dancing and flickering on the wall." -
Fortunato