Before Stephanie Meyer temporarily ruined the vampire genre by turning it into insipid teen melodrama involving beautiful undead emo heartthrobs (who despite not technically being alive can somehow procreate), there used to be quite a few excellent films devoted to the subject.
Being a vampire really isn't any fun when you think about it. I explored this topic a little in my Awesomely Shitty Movies piece about The Lost Boys:
"It is possible to create complex, thought-provoking films about vampires, exploring at what cost such powers come: isolation, loneliness, unending bloodlust, tedium, having to live with murdering people, having to evade capture and prosecution for murdering people, etc."
The vampire, no matter how romantic a character you try to make him, is still at heart a repulsive, predatory creature who must kill human beings in order to survive. Think of how awful his breath must be after drinking all that blood. Imagine how filthy his clothes would be after sleeping in dirt every day. Really, are the fringe benefits of being eternally young and having superhuman strength and speed worth all the other headaches?
Anywho, here's my ten picks, plus a couple honorable mentions....
HM: Horror of Dracula (1958)
HM: The Lost Boys (1987)
As I mentioned, I've covered this film in depth for my Awesomely Shitty Movies series, but damn if it ain't a whole lot of fun. It takes the vampire genre and turns it into essentially a summer action flick, light on scares but with plenty of humor and a healthy respect for the mythos. The story takes place in the fictional town of Santa Carla, CA (shot in Santa Cruz), where loads of mysterious murders have been taking place, and a pair of teenage boys and their friends uncover a secret family of vampires. Kiefer Sutherland shines as the film's chief antagonist David, while Jason Patric makes a vulnerable, conflicted hero and Coreys Haim and Feldman provide most of the film's laughs. The Lost Boys has a ton of nostalgia value even though it's quite silly.
10. Near Dark (1987)
Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow's second film was an unusual mashup of the vampire movie and the Western. Starring Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, and Jenette Goldstein of Aliens fame, Near Dark tells the story of a gang of vampires who live in a sun-proofed van and drift from place to place, going where the food is. One of their group, Mae, inadvertently turns a young man named Caleb into a vampire and because of her romantic attachment to him, persuades the others to accept him into their gang. Caleb spends much of the movie struggling with his transformation and trying to appease the others so they don't kill him. Near Dark is a very unusual and modern take on the genre, portraying the vamps as scavenging marauders not unlike the post-apocalyptic villains in the Mad Max films. They are evil but charismatic, and Bill Paxton especially shines as the brutal loose cannon Severen. With this film Bigelow showed her adeptness at eschewing the conventions of genre films and gave us an exciting new take on the vampire mythos.
9. Dracula (1931)
The most famous of all vampire movies, and the one we most closely associate with the genre, Universal's 1931 adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel (via the Balderston-Deane play) launched the career of Bela Lugosi as Hollywood's premier horror star. The film seems quite stilted and tame by today's standards, but upon its release it was considered a very effective and frightening film. Lugosi gave an iconic performance, learning his lines phonetically and thus delivering them in a slightly awkward, otherworldly fashion, which only added to the strangeness of the Count. Dracula also made Dwight Frye (Renfield) famous as one of the all-time great creepy character actors; Renfield's demented laugh is still an enduring hallmark of the character. Director Tod Browning filled his cinematic palette with dark shadows, foreboding cobwebs, and beautifully lavish gothic sets. While the film's limited budget restricted much of the story to a rather tedious parlor mystery, there's no arguing that 1931's Dracula has influenced nearly every subsequent vampire film. Also check out the simultaneously-filmed Spanish version, which from a technical standpoint is actually superior to this one.
8. Dracula (1979)
In the late 70s the well-renowned John Balderston-Hamilton Deane theater production of Dracula was revived in London and on Broadway, and its success prompted Universal Studios to remake the 1931 Bela Lugosi film for modern audiences. The result was this stylish, romantic Frank Langella version. Directed by John Badham and featuring an excellent score by John Williams, this update of Dracula depicts the Count as a suave, handsome seducer, to whom women willingly give their last drop. Langella is excellent as this debonair demon, imbuing the character with both smoothness and a fearsome underlying rage. The rest of the cast is also first-rate - the legendary Laurence Olivier plays Dracula's nemesis Van Helsing, Kate Nelligan is an unusually strong and independent Lucy Seward (in this version Lucy and Mina's names are oddly swapped), and Tony Haygarth is a rather degenerate incarnation of the Renfield character. This film is a triumph of production design and atmosphere, and a gritty, original take on the Lugosi version.
