Brief survey of vampires in film

Vampires are probably one of the more obvious vehicles for art about blood. As elements of superstition and folklore, vampires are difficult to define 100% clearly, but in general they are considered human undead who survive by feeding on the blood of living humans. Sometimes they wear capes, sometimes they fly, sometimes they are deterred by garlic... and so forth.

Anyway, vampires are highly attractive for filmmakers -- they're mysterious, sexy, and evil, all in one.


Nosferatu (1922)

Quite eerie - unfortunately to me, the title cards take away from the real spook factor.


the "same" scene from
Dracula (1931)

Delightful! That hungry look!


El Vampiro (1957)

High cheese factor, it's got everything: the fangs, the cape, the automatic coffin opener...


Blacula (1972)

And it just gets campier. Here we see a unique angle on the very Eurocentric vampire film genre.


Blood For Dracula/Andy Warhol's Dracula (1974)

This Dracula requires blood of virgins, not any old horror film hussy. This looks to be an excellent camp film and I intend on indulging in it sometime soon.


Rabid (1976)

Not really about the classic vampire, but about blood-suckingas a transmitted virus. Much like Cronenberg's other films it has elements of disease, transformation of the flesh, mutated genitalia...


Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (1979)

A philosophical vampire. Here, Nosferatu is back to his hideous self -- he's not charmingly suave, and is somehow more animalistic than other iterations of the Dracula story, while having a more clear-cut "emotional" meaning... Here, his bloodlust is palpably painful as he quivers near the end of this clip.


Cronos (1993)

Cronos is in the same camp as Cronenberg's "Rabid" -- rather than one "master" vampire, we have a device which contains a vampire parasite in the end goal of immortality. Again, this is interesting. In many other movies, immortality is just an effect of becoming a vampire, and not truly a goal. We see, also, vampiristic bloodlust being satisfied by dead flesh, which significantly detracts from any "sensual" mood other movies have.


John Carpenter's Vampires (1998)

Here, rather than the simply "seductive" bite on the neck, Carpenter's vision of a vampire is outright erotic. The thing most illuminating here is trying to determine where horror and pain ends and pleasure begins (or vice versa).


Frostbiten (2006)

This video shows a collection of visual effects in the first (!) Swedish vampire movie. Very illuminating on just how much visual effects work is done in a movie like this. The content here is an interesting combination of the classic "master vampire" blood-sucking and the Cronenberg-esqe "disease" view if vampirism, as this mass of infections start after teenagers accidentally consume infected blood capsules.




There are countless other vampire films, television shows, and various portrayals of vampires. The folklore of vampires have been interpreted in many ways: the sensual and romantic view of the connection between a vampire and his/her "prey", the eroticism of bloodsucking [I didn't even delve here into the massive amount of porn films about vampires], the concept of bloodlust as a virus, the aspect of immortality... Through all this, blood represents a powerful substance of vitality that no other symbol has.


More information on vampires in modern culture can be seen in "Blood Read: The Vampire as a Metaphor in Contemporary Culture", which speaks often about their role in film today.