WATCHknownAbigail
2024 · USA
A kidnapping that goes wrong in the most enjoyable way. Very wet, very fast, very funny.
1922 onward · 24 films
Vampire
The most adaptable monster in the genre, and the only one that gets invited in.
The vampire survives because it can carry almost any subtext without breaking. Disease, class, addiction, sex, immigration, grief: put it on the vampire and the vampire still works as a monster.
Murnau steals it
Nosferatu (1922) is an unlicensed Dracula. Stoker's widow sued, won, and had the negatives ordered destroyed. Prints survived, which is the only reason the most influential vampire film ever made still exists. Max Schreck's Orlok is rat-like rather than aristocratic, and the film invented the idea that sunlight kills, which is not in the novel.
The lyrical strand
Dreyer's Vampyr (1932) barely has a plot and is one of the most unnerving films of the era, largely because of a soft-focus process Dreyer achieved by shooting through gauze. Later the same instinct produces Daughters of Darkness (1971) and Jean Rollin's entire career: films where atmosphere has completely replaced incident.
The demystifiers
The best modern vampire films strip the romance out. Romero's Martin (1977) is about a boy who may simply be a disturbed teenager with razor blades. Near Dark (1987) makes them a violent family in a camper van. Let the Right One In (2008) makes the horror the grooming of a lonely child by something very old.
The problem
Vampires are also the genre's softest option, and the 1990s onward proved it. Once the monster is handsome and conflicted it stops being a monster. The films worth watching either keep it ugly or keep it hungry.
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The whole shelf
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WATCHknownA Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
2014 · USA · 101m
An Iranian vampire western shot in California, in Farsi, in black and white. Nothing else looks like it.
WATCHknownCronos
1993 · Mexico · 94m
Del Toro's first film, and the vampire is a grandfather trying to stay with his granddaughter.
WATCHcultDaughters of Darkness
1971 · France/Germany · 100m
Elizabeth Báthory in an empty Ostend hotel out of season, and it is the most elegant vampire film ever made.
WATCHcanonDracula
1931 · USA · 75m
Stagey, slow, and it has no score at all. Lugosi's face is the entire reason it survives.
WATCHcanonFright Night
1985 · USA · 103m
A teenager works out his new neighbour is a vampire and no adult will believe him, so he hires a washed-up TV host.
WATCHcultGoke, Body Snatcher from Hell
1968 · Japan · 84m
A plane crash, an alien blob, and the single most striking red sky in Japanese genre film. Tarantino borrowed it.
WATCHcanonHorror of Dracula
1958 · UK · 85m
Christopher Lee plays Dracula as a physical threat rather than a foreign gentleman, and it is over in 82 minutes.
WATCHcultLet's Scare Jessica to Death
1971 · USA · 89m
A woman fresh out of a psychiatric hospital moves to a Connecticut farmhouse, and the film never confirms what is real.
WATCHknownLifeforce
1985 · UK/Australia · 116m
Tobe Hooper's space-vampire epic, adapted from Colin Wilson, and it is completely insane in the best way.
WATCHknownMr. Vampire
1985 · HK · 96m
Hopping Chinese vampires, a Taoist priest, and sticky rice as a medical treatment. It invented a whole genre.
WATCHcanonNosferatu
2024 · USA · 143m
Eggers going back to Murnau rather than to Stoker. Filthy, plague-ridden, and Orlok has a moustache.
WATCHcanonRenfield
2023 · USA · 93m
Nicolas Cage plays Dracula as a toxic boss, and his familiar wants to leave the relationship. A horror comedy about codependency.
WATCHcanonSinners
2025 · USA · 137m
Coogler in 1932 Mississippi with twin Michael B. Jordans and a juke joint. Shot on 65mm and it shows.
WATCHcanonThe Lost Boys
1987 · USA · 97m
Joel Schumacher's MTV vampires in a California beach town, and it made the genre cool for a decade.
WATCHknownThirst
2009 · South Korea · 133m
A priest volunteers for a vaccine trial, dies, and comes back needing blood. Park Chan-wook adapting Zola.
WATCHknownTwins of Evil
1971 · UK · 87m
Peter Cushing as a witch-hunter who is worse than the vampires, and the Collinson twins were Playboy's first.
WATCHknownVampire Circus
1972 · UK · 87m
A plague-quarantined village visited by a travelling circus, and it is the strangest film Hammer made.
WATCHknownWhat We Do in the Shadows
2014 · New Zealand · 86m
The funniest vampire film ever made, and the flatmate politics are observed perfectly.