When one thinks of director
Joel Schumacher the disastrous
Batman & Robin movie leaps to mind but back in the eighties he made a very popular film called
St. Elmo’s Fire that gave us the Brat Pack and then a year later he gives a bit of that sensibility to a movie about vampires and thus
The Lost Boys
were born. Two brothers find themselves in the murder capital of
America and then get themselves mixed up with a dangerous group of teens
that turn out to of course be vampires.
Kiefer Sutherland is the stand-out performer in this film as the leader of “
Lost Boys” and him and his gang could easily put the hurt on any
sparkly vampires if they ever dared to visit Santa Carla. An excellent cast with an even better soundtrack makes this a worthy watch.
This is a film that works even better if you manage to see it without knowing it’s about vampires as
Robert Rodriguez starts off the film like a cool crime drama with two badass bank robbers the Gecko Brothers (
George Clooney and
Quentin Tarantino),
who are fleeing the law with a small family as hostages when the film
suddenly takes a complete left turn as the group find themselves at a
bar that is actually a home to a coven of vampires that have been using
this location for centuries as a trap for unwary travelers. Special
shout out to
Salma Hayek as the beautiful vampire dancer Santanico Pandemonium. Also you simply have to admire a film that has
Harvey Keitel wielding a shot-gun/cross and includes
Tom Savini as a crotch-gun toting killer named Sex Machine.
When you think vampires one doesn’t usually think of science fiction but author
Colin Wilson did when he wrote his book “
The Space Vampires”
where a group of astronauts on a mission to study Halley’s Comet come
across a huge derelict spacecraft. On board they find strange desiccated
remains of bat like creatures but also three humanoid figures, two
males and one beautiful female (
Mathilda May)
who are in some form of suspended animation. Unfortunately for them,
and eventually the people of Earth, they bring them aboard their ship
which makes it way home and eventually leads to a vampire plague that
turns much of London into a zombie apocalypse. This is a fun vampire
film by legendary horror director
Tobe Hooper and one that answers the age old question, “What would
Steve Railsback and
Patrick Stewart look like kissing?”
Let’s get one thing out here right off the bat *
snicker*
Ingrid Pitt
is sex personified and in this film she plays Carmilla a vampire who
seduces a young woman out from under her families noses. Now I’m not
saying lesbian vampires can make any film better but…oh hell who am I
kidding, lesbian vampires do make any film better. This is one of the
few Hammer vampire films that don’t deal with Dracula, but it does have
Peter Cushing
so it’s got that going for it. Though it has the standard gothic
setting it is a bit of tonal departure from the earlier Hammer films but
director
Roy Ward Baker still brings some nice creepy elements to the story.
Based on the first book in
Anne Rice’s ever popular series we get director
Neil Jordan and an all-star cast with a story that follows the undead life of vampire Louis de Pointe du Luc (
Brad Pitt) and all his trials and tribulations. Much ado was made when it was announced that
Tom Cruise
was going play the charismatic vampire Lestat, Anne Rice made it
publicly known that she wasn’t happy with the choice (when writing the
book she pictured
Rutger Hauer),
but after seeing the movie she wrote Cruise an apology. And rightly so
as his performance brings most of the film’s entertainment value as
Louis is a pretty wishy-washy character that without Cruise’s roguish
vamp the film would have been quite dull. Sad that the studio felt it
necessary to remove the homosexual relationship between Louis and Lestat
that is a major element of the book. Special shout-out to Kirsten
Dunst as the vampire girl trapped forever in a twelve year old body.
I can’t see anyone disagreeing with me when I say that the second installment of the
Blade Trilogy is easily the best. The first
Blade directed by
Stephen Norrington was a decent action flick and one of the rare comic to screen translations that worked while the
third film directed by hack
David S. Goyer would easily get a spot on a top “
Worst Vampire Movies” list, but
Guillermo del Toro Blade II is just balls to the wall awesome. Blade (
Wesley Snipes)
is forced to team-up with a group of vampires to fight an even deadlier
menace called “The Reapers” a vampire strain that preys on vampires as
well as humans. The action sequences are fantastic and any moment
between Blade and Blood Pack member Reinhardt (
Ron Perlman) is pure gold.
Writer/Director
Tom Holland
is clearly a fan of the Hammer vampire films though his film takes
place in the present and not some gothic manor house it does contain the
character of Peter Vincent Vampire Slayer (
Roddy McDowall) who is a clear homage to the
Peter Cushing and
Vincent Price.
William Ragsdale,
Amanda Bearse, and
Stephen Geoffreys
as Evil Ed are great as the three teens that must do battle with the
undead when they discover a vampire has moved in next door.
Chris Sarandon
as vampire Jerry Dandrige gives us the cool and collected master
vampire who just seems tickled pink that this small group of heroes
thinks they can take him on. We did get a
Fright Night
remake in 2011 and this is one of those rare cases where the remake
does not only not suck but brings some interesting ideas of its own to
the project and
Colin Farrell‘s Jerry is just as chilling as Sarandon’s.
Mid-Western vampires traveling around in a Winnebago seems like an odd premise but Writer/Director
Kathryn Bigelow manages to create a taught thrill ride of horror movie with a dash of love story to spice it up. Caleb (
Adrian Pasdar) meets Mae (
Jenny Wright)
only it’s not boy meets girl its boy meets vampire but instead of
drinking him dry Mae turns him and he is forced to join her “Family” or
die. Her family is made up of Jesse (
Lance Henriksen), Diamond Back (
Jenette Goldstein), Severen (
Bill Paxton)
Trivia Note: All three played Colonial Marines together in Aliens, and Homer (
Joshua John Miller)
who, like Kirsten in Interview with the Vampire, isn’t all that happy
about being an immortal stuck in a kid’s body. The film focuses on poor
Caleb’s inability to be a ruthless killer and his real family trying to
track him down. The conflict of the two worlds is a nice backdrop for a
kind of Romeo and Juliet vampire story, but also the film is loaded with
some very overwhelming carnage.
This Swedish vampire film directed by
Tomas Alfredson
earns the top spot simply for being one of the creepiest vampire love
stories I’ve ever seen. Based on the novel of the same name by author
John Ajvide Lindqvist, it’s about Oskar (
Kåre Hedebrant) a disturbed 12 year old boy who befriends Eli (
Lina Leandersson)
a young girl that has just recently moved into the apartment next door.
This story deals with the difficulties of being a vampire in the modern
world, especially if you are forever trapped in the body of a little
girl. A vampire needs blood and if killing and draining your victims is
what you need to do well eventually that kind of thing is going to get
noticed by the police and so Eli moves around a lot and leaves the
killing to her human guardian Håkan (
Henrik Dahl)
who poses as her father, but when one of his attempted blood harvesting
goes badly Eli is forced to feed on her own. This is not a good thing
for anyone involved. Eli is a monster but you can’t help feel for her
and her relationship with Oskar is touching and it is the sweet but
tragic ending with all its horrifying implications that make this my
favorite vampire film. An English version was made just two years later
starring
Chloë Grace Moretz as the vampire girl and
Kodi Smit-McPhee as the boy she befriends, and this remake entitled
Let Me In (2010) directed by
Matt Reeves
is just about good enough to share the top spot with the original.
There are several elements in the American remake that I like quite a
bit better than the Swedish original. So I kind of want to call this a
tie for first.
So there you have it my top 10 favorite vampire films that I highly
recommend you track down, that is if you haven’t already seen them of
course. You won’t be disappointed.
Honorable mention goes to
The Night Stalker (1972) a made for TV movie starring
Darren McGavin
as Karl Kolchak an abrasive newspaper reporter who while investigating a
series of murders in Las Vegas that involve women being drained of
blood. Can it be a vampire? Kolchak thinks so but nobody of course
believes him so it is up to him to stake the monster himself. Screenplay
was written by the legendary
Richard Matheson and which later made it to series as
Kolchak: The Night Stalker but sadly it only lasted one season.
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