Vampire Films — The Complete Cinema Guide

The Silent and Classic Era

Vampire cinema begins with Murnau's Nosferatu (1922) — an unauthorised adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula so closely adapted that Stoker's estate sued for the destruction of all prints (some survived). Max Schreck's Count Orlok remains the most genuinely eerie screen vampire ever created: rat-like, plague-associated, and utterly alien in a way that the later charismatic Counts are not. Tod Browning's official Dracula (1931) with Bela Lugosi established the romantic, aristocratic Count template; Lugosi's Hungarian accent, his formal black cape, and his hypnotic stillness created a version of the character that defined the archetype for decades.

Hammer and the Modern Vampire

Christopher Lee's Dracula for Hammer Films (1958-1974) is, cumulatively, the definitive screen vampire. Physically imposing, sexually threatening, and genuinely frightening in his intensity, Lee's Count brought a visceral quality to the role that Lugosi's theatricality had elided. The Hammer vampire films also restored the blood and sexuality that Universal's more restrained productions had suppressed — for better and worse, they established the visual vocabulary of the vampire film that persists in contemporary horror.

Contemporary Vampire Cinema

The past thirty years have produced some of the finest vampire films: Near Dark (Bigelow, 1987) — vampire as outlaw western; Interview with the Vampire (Jordan, 1994); Blade (Norrington, 1998); Let the Right One In (Alfredson, 2008) — the finest contemporary vampire film; Only Lovers Left Alive (Jarmusch, 2013) — vampires as rock musicians in decaying Detroit; and What We Do in the Shadows (Waititi/Clement, 2014) — the definitive horror comedy treatment of the vampire mythology.

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