Vampires are so hot right now. Well, they have been in recent years thanks to Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight et al. I’ve read the former with little joy - I didn’t enjoy Lives of the Mayfair Witches books nor the Interview with a Vampire movie. The Twilight saga has been such a sensation that it was very hard not to see one of the movies but again - no joy for me there.
Apart from these two later-day hitches, I have been a solid fan of the vampire. They are at the sexy, beautiful end of the monster spectrum. The traditional story of Dracula has been retold in film many times and is always a good yarn.
Interestingly, the vampires never win the war. Oh they can come out on top for the battles, but these unnatural blood suckers are usually turning to ash by the end of the movie. Unlike zombies, they’re a bit selective as to whose blood they drink, and who they decide gets to “live” on as a vampire.
For those of you who aren’t aware of some of the rules of vampirism:
- vampires are immortal
- they thirst for human blood, though they can survive on animal blood, they don’t like it
- they can bite your and drink your blood until you die, or
- let you drink their blood, and then you turn into a vampire yourself
- vampires burn in sunlight (which is why they have Familiars to pick up their dry cleaning)
- can be killed with a wooden stake through the heart
- beget similar to a pyramid scheme (kill the original vampire and all vampires he infected, and were infected in turn, will die)
- like in a pyramid scheme, those who got in early have the most accumulated wealth
- can transmogrify (into a bat, usually)
- have some levels of telepathy and/or kenetic abilities
If you’d like to sample some good vampire cinema, I present the following list:
- Bram Stokers’ Dracula
- The Lost Boys
- Let the Right One In
- What we do in the Shadows
- From Dusk til Dawn
- Blade
If you prefer bad vampire cinema, almost anything else will do.
Or, add to my list - let me know which vampire movies you’d recommend.