PopSyndicate.com

By now, you probably know that Rotten Tomatoes just released a “Best” vampire list—and if you read it, you’ll recognize several of its films below. So then why would I go ahead and reproduce one of my own? Well, for a few reasons: 1) I had originally prepared an all-time best Horror movies list, but realized that it would seem repetitive given the 36 Best Serial Killers of Cinema feature I did in August; 2) because of the aggregative format of Rotten Tomatoes, not all of the essentials of the vampire genre got their due (and some that didn’t deserve mention—Twilight—got it); 3) I figured that, at least for this Halloween, no better theme could have been, largely because of the dramatic increase of vampires’ popularity in contemporary culture since last year; and, of course, 4) because New Moon’s theatrical debut is just beyond the horizon—and I’d never pass up an attempt to weaken its success (I know I’m out of my league on this one, but it doesn’t matter). And so it is my great, hot pleasure to rebrand America with memories of the quality genus exercises that have unfortunately been overcome by the rabid, brainless kind of late. Here are Pop Syndicate’s 25 Best Vampire Movies of All Time:

25. House of Dracula (1945)

An interesting blend of two of classic horror mythology’s more famous characters, Dracula and the Wolf Man (Frankenstein and the Hunchback also make appearances), Erle Kenton’s House of Dracula makes for an interesting story as well: both characters are searching for cures for their respective curses together. Though it’s dated as seen through today’s eyes, it’s an enjoyable film to watch over and again and it features several lauded actors of their time and genre (including Lon Chaney, Jr., Martha O’Driscoll, and John Carradine).

24. Salem’s Lot (1979)

Director Tobe Hooper took several liberties in his TV mini-series translation of Stephen King’s ’75 novel. The most prominent change made to the book for the film version was done to the movie’s focal antagonists: its vampires. In King’s work, the vampires were less aggressive and more inconspicuous; in Hooper’s special, they’re all hideous and grotesque, especially the lead antagonist, Kurt Barlow. Hooper’s Lot isn’t too deep—its best features are displayed on the surface—but it should provide enough scares and modest storytelling to keep a family entertained on Halloween.

22. Night Watch (2004)/Day Watch (2006)

Russian filmmaker and master entertainer Timur Bekmambetov wowed American audiences with his creative visual audacity in 2007’s Wanted (and perhaps this year’s animated thriller 9, depending on the age of whom you ask). But before Wanted, before global recognition, he became Russia’s most exhilarating film artist with Night Watch and Day Watch, the first two installments in a planned trilogy (Twilight Watch would be the third) whose franchise netted nearly $70 million in theaters alone (Night Watch is the highest-grossing film in its country’s history). If you haven’t seen them, you should—because no other film has the spunk and imagination that these two do.

21. The Night Stalker (1972)

Ahhh! TV movies abound in the top 25! (Well, not really. But they certainly stamp their respective places with might.) Based on an unpublished novel about a Los Angeles reporter who suspects vampirism as the culprit of city-wide serial murders, John Moxey’s The Night Stalker gives viewers everything they could ask for in a TV-appropriate B-movie about killings and a vampire. Star Darren McGavin then gives them what the may or may not have wanted to see in a B-movie—a moderate performance—making the film a good—and brisk (74 min.)—selection as one’s primary spook-night feature.

20. Blade II (2002)

Blade II is unequivocally the best of the dark Marvel trilogy for one central reason: visionary Guillermo Del Toro made it. The franchise’s “new film, new director” assurance made possible its second installment’s impressively detailed visual effects, more astute dialogue, and more gorgeous set designs, though it disallowed the following piece of the series (Blade: Trinity) from living up to its precursor’s standards (David S. Goyer got the director’s chair).

19. From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

The two best things about Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn both have to do with Quentin Tarantino’s foremost contributions to it: his screenplay, as witty and gross and hilarious as any of his others; and his performance, which is one of my all-time favorite ones to come from the supporting category.

18. Thirst (2009)

Korean auteur Chan-wook Park (the Vengeance Trilogy: Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance) is no slouch when it comes to integrating shock into tense dramatic plots. Thirst is no exception. In fact, if anything, it’s raised the bar in such a sense for his future projects. Twisting the legend of Mephistopheles and Faust to today’s social and cultural themes and anxieties—and imprinting his final product with his signature vulgarities—Park has made Thirst a genre prodigy whose teeth are pressing into classic territory.

17. Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)

Anne Rice is among the most renowned gothic authors of the 20th century, and one of her many great literary contributions to the genre featured one of her favorite mythological species: vampires. In 1976, her novel Interview with the Vampire was published. 18 years later, Academy Award-winning Irish filmmaker Neil Jordan made a movie based on it starring several of Hollywood’s biggest actors. The result: a film with the oratorical beauty of Rice’s craft and the panache imagery of Jordan’s film-weilding talent.

16. Fright Night (1985)

Regarded as one of the most well-made guilty pleasures of all time (so much so, in fact, that most would deny it’s a guilty pleasure at all), the vampire-laden Fright Night, a picture whose common plot and fairly silly effects are overcome by overwhelming all-age entertainment power, is a cult classic by any standard, a memorable teenage maturation narrative, and a riotous event for any movie lover.

15. The Lost Boys (1987)

Another coming-of-age vampire flick that reached immediate cult status and cemented the fame of all of its stars, Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys embellished the classical look of vampires on every possible level (eye color, bone protrusions, gigantic teeth, etc.), much as Fright Night, #16, did, conforming to the demand of mid-to-late-’80s movie-going fanatics and further revolutionizing the way they’d be portrayed in most subsequent movies (From Dusk Till Dawn, #19) and television programs (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel).

14. Black Sunday (1960)

Mario Bava is one of Italian Horror’s most influential profiles because of his willingness to drop to any level of low-brow yet make any such level appear as high art. Black Sunday, originally titled The Mask of Satan (how’s that for low-brow irony?), re-dug the figurative depths of “low”, though is also one of the most starkly beautiful films in horror history. And it’s got vampires! (And much, much more.)

13. Near Dark (1987)

A slow-building, tension-focused action-western epic with vampires and—my favorite thing in any horror film—a throat cut, Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark was a pioneering film in the movement of horror’s crossover to other genres in contemporary Hollywood. It’s also another cult favorite. Yet, unlike other questionable films with such a following, it is deserving of each individual accolade on its every level—and without any question.

12. Martin (1977)

Who knew George A. Romero was as talented in the vampire genre as he is and has always been in the zombie one? Well, he did. And now everyone should know. Martin is a pristine example of beauty and substance over budget, and more proof (though none is needed) of Romero’s genius.

11. Cronos (1993)

Guillermo Del Toro means ingenuity in all essence of film—visual style, storytelling ability, timelessness as a work. Cronos, one of the most inspired, ornate offerings in the vampire film pantheon, was his directorial debut—and verification that he was a true wonder even prior to finding worldwide acclaim as such.

10. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

It’s much more often that a vampire film of noticeable value is either lavish in its aesthetic and contextual sense or modest in such a way that its actors hover its production than it is both. Francis Ford Coppola’s sumptuous, stimulating, deeply mournful Dracula has three Oscar wins (Best Costume Design, Best Sound Editing, Best Makeup) and another nomination (for Best Art Direction) as affirmation of its brilliant in- and behind-scene fabrication, yet also includes one of the great individual performances in vampire film history: Gary Oldman’s turn as the Count.

9. Horror of Dracula (1958)

Terence Fisher’s 1958 British film, Dracula, renamed Horror of Dracula for its own distinction among other films of its kind, was colored beautifully—both in a literal sense by production designer Bernard Robinson and in a figurative one by the performances of lead actors Christopher Lee (as Dracula) and Peter Cushing (as Dr. Van Helsing)—and made to withstand the aging generations to come. And it has.

8. Dracula (1931)

It’s hard to imagine a better trio in the early ‘30s than director Tod Browning (1932’s Freaks), star actor Béla Lugosi, and Universal Studios’ active chairman from 1928-1936, Carl “Junior” Laemmle, Jr. It’s particularly hard to imagine a better collaboration while or after watching Browning’s Dracula, based on Bram Stoker’s tale and more deliberate than perhaps any of its other renditions.

7. Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary (2003)

A silent black & white film version of a ballet released post-millennium? It may sound like the most boring film ever made, but it isn’t. In fact, it’s one of the decade’s most poignant and spellbinding.

6. Vampyr (1932)

Director Carl Theodor Dreyer will likely forever be known as the austere, brutally powerful helmer of the 1928 masterpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc—and anything else would probably be unjust. However, beneath the colossal, eternal reputation of Joan of Arc lies the triumphant, sobering, macabre jewel Vampyr, Dreyer’s first work presented in sound, which was based upon J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s erotically thematic gothic novella Carmilla.

5. Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

“…Let’s film a fictionalized account of the making of F.W. Murnau’s enduring creation Nosferatu and let’s cast John Malkovich as Murnau and Willem Dafoe as Max Schreck!” (That was a completely fictionalized account of what Shadow of the Vampire director E. Elias Merhinge said to eventual co-producer Nicholas Cage prior to the film’s physical conception.)

“Yeah! But we have to make it really good!” (That was a fictionalized account of Nic Cage’s response.)

Suffice to say that regardless of Cage’s understanding of what “good” in film means (I once thought it was as clear as air, but I’ve since contemplated whether I was right to think that), everyone behind 2000’s Shadow of the Vampire made well on his fictionalized enthusiasm. The film is achingly gorgeous and equally contemplative—one of the most accomplished and simultaneously unrecognized films ever crafted.

4. Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)

One of cinematic history’s most elegant and respectful remakes, German film mastermind Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu, a virtual renewal of Murnau’s 1922 silent picture, used the relative advances in technology to the time of its release; extensive makeup and costume artistry; and a sensational, spine-tingling performance from Klaus Kinski to bring Graf Orlok/Dracula and the sobering world around him to vivid, colorful boldness. I am going to speak for everyone when I say that we are forever thankful. (Right?) (Yes, yes we are.)

3. Let the Right One In (2008)

Empire magazine’s Kim Newman compared this film to Victor Erice’s 1973 majestic opus The Spirit of the Beehive. I can’t think of a better parallel: Each film is as graceful and authoritatively affecting; and just as Beehive faintly honors the grandeur of the story and heartbreak of Frankenstein, so does Let the Right One In tribute the entire lore of vampires and the corresponding stories of its written and spoken history through gentle underscores in its own narrative. As you’ve heard—and as you will always hear from anyone who’s seen it—Let the Right One In is only a vampire horror picture on the outside. Beneath its surface is an intricate, deeply intimate, and ironically life-avowing story of love (not only of the romantic bond between one individual and another, but of a deep passion for the nature of people and things as they relate to the development of the universe).

2. Faust (1926)

Featuring one of vampire mythology’s more definite stories (the same one that inspired Thirst, #18), the 1926 adaptation of Faust, a delicate yet unrestricted rendering of Goethe’s literary transposition, is a masterwork beyond the boundaries of any one cinematic category—and one crafted so atypically and with such precision only an artist as exacting as F.W. Murnau could have pulled it off. But because it is a film about vampirism, it’s easily the second-best of such; and because it’s as marvelous as it is, everyone should consider what an absence of greatness would have been had Murnau not persuaded Universal Film AG to allow him directorial rights over fellow German Ludwig Berger. Rejoice!

1. Nosferatu (1922)

Nearly 87 years old, F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu is the only real vampire movie: it’s eternally alive, and even improves with its boundless age.

 

Hope you enjoyed this feature! You’ve certainly waited patiently (or perhaps apathetically) for it. Enjoy Halloween…by eating chocolate and watching malevolent horror films until vomiting occurs. (Trust me, folks, it’s the only way to celebrate such an odd evening.)

Let me know if I left off any of your favorites of the genre—write it right on the comment board below. (There’s a different location for complaints about Twilight‘s omission; send those here.)