Non-Dracula vampire movies are eerily similar to Dracula movies, except without the Dracula.
Dracula is the touchstone of vampire movies.
So it didnt have the most auspicious of beginnings.
But Dracula has risen from the grave again and again.
He is a Halloween staple.
Vampires are much older than any myth associated with the terror of Transylvania.
It is a primordial fear that probably goes back to the dawn of man.
Why not the other people in the cave?
Every culture has its vampire.
Corpses saw to that.
Hair and fingernails still grow after death, the teeth look elongated because the gums decay.
One is the vampire icon Barnabas Collins from Dark Shadows.
Played by Jonathan Frid, this was a menacing vampire.
The danger of Barnabas Collins didnt come through his incisors, it came from Frids unpredictability.
At any moment he might call Julia by the name Cassandra or even by the name Barnabus.
He might step on the hem of Angeliques dress as shes supposed to rise to hit a mark.
Collingswood lived in fear of Barnabas Collins.
American children rushed home from middle school to catch the ultimate old-school sanguinarian.
Barnabus was no count.
He had no Romanian or Eastern European heritage.
No Collins ever beheaded a Turk.
They were too civilized and New English for that.
Montgomery Burns has been alive forever.
And he didnt pay royalties on the very first song.
He dines with the undead, deals with the devil and discos with Stu.
Burns always gets his way.
Burns is only kept barely alive through a Rube Goldbergian online grid of mysterious anatomical replacements and doodads.
He feeds on the despair of others.
If he cant keep people in their place, why bother being their boss?
He has Vlad Tepes heart, but it doesnt pump the blood of Dracula.
Jerusalems Lot is in Maine, Stephen Kings Maine, but it could have been anywhere.
Salems Lot has fun with its vampire powers.
Kids fly, their eyes glow in the dark.
Its got a Nosferatu homage.
Salems Lot is never repeated on TV that I noticed and its tough to root out.
And in the end you got to take it on the road because the vampires win the town.
Vampires dont win that often in the movies, so cheers to Stephen King TV.
Very simple, it rips through the story like a bat in the night.
The dusk of the desert lights most of the film.
These guys could have tasted Billy the Kid, but horses just dont like them.
Here they are as a kind of mini gang of desperadoes having a good old time.
Katherine Bigelow directed this and co-wrote it with Eric Reed.
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
These aint no Mafia mosquitoes.
From Dusk Till Dawn is as ridiculous as George Clooneys tattoo and as fun as Cheech Marins porn-carney barking.
Geographically, that is.
Ancient Aztec rituals include bloodletting by the barrelful.
Like the vampires in Near Dark, these are desert bloodsuckers who party rough.
Mircalla, played by German actress Katya Wyeth, is only in it for a quickie.
Just long enough to turn Count Karnstein into a vampire.
It takes place about a hundred years before The Vampire Lovers.
This was the last of Hammers Karnstein Trilogy, which were basically really soft lesbian vampire horror porn.
But good vampires never truly die, there is a vampire named Karnstein in the 1974 film Captain Kronos.
Lost Boys (1987)
Vampires on the beach.
Vampires in the mall.
Lost Boys is fun.
I never really liked the facial transformations of vampires that became vogue in the eighties.
Vampires are scarier when they look just like regular, breathing people.
(But dont get me started on vampires and cigarettes.
All movie vampires smoke.
They dont draw breath.
How could they smoke?)
Theres just something about evil children that evokes a primal fight or flight response.
Let Me In was filmed very dark and almost completely in shadow.
Hes probably the safest 12-year-old in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Everyone else is a potential happy meal.
Bogarts vampire is more scientific than that.
He needs blood to survive.
Dr. Flegg mixes up the first True Blood, but its unstable and Bogies gotta get something warmer.
Warner Bros didnt make that many horror movies.
When you see it, you know why Bogart wanted it buried.
Its all very wooden and theyre not making stakes.
But it does have Huntz Hall from the Dead End Kids.
That closeness carried itself past the film.
Carole Borland very often confused Lugosi with her real life father.
She may or may not have been at Lugosis funeral, but she wrote about it with great detail.
What were left with is a murder mystery.
But the buildup is wonderful.
Luna and Bela bring a great presence to weigh against the Lionels, Barrymore and Atwell.
And what a great soundtrack.
It opens with Bauhaus Bela Lugosis Dead.
What could go wrong?
This was the vampire scene before the vampire scene.
Science is at play here as Bowies classically trained musician is taking his final bow.
Its a long tortuous ride to nowhere.
The scary thing is that they dont die, they just wither away forever.
The Hunger is the first film to really explore and explain the possibility of an immortals death.
The deal-breaker in even the most satanic contracts, never take immortal life without a guarantee of immortal youth.
This time Hammer slips the sexy succubus into a sorority school.
Mircalla mentally mesmerizes the matriculating women and when she gets down with men strange music plays.
Carmilla Karnstein wears her blood fashionably in this movie.
Sometimes its the only thing shes wearing.
But oh how she wears it.
Stensgaard has a commanding presence that soon has everyone under her spell or wanting to be.
To be denied her presence is torture.
Lust for a Vampire, as its title suggests, is very sexy fare.
I personally have the hots for this movie.
Black Sunday ( 1960)
Black Sunday was a masterpiece.
If you cant find it, look up The Mask of Satan.
The lady in the mask who spits a curse on an entire village is the magnificent Barbara Steele.
Shes a witch burned at the stake by her own brother and she plays it all earth and fire.
Steele plays Asa Vajda as an earth goddess.
Bava evokes atmosphere from the black and white shadows, like the best expressionistic horror.
But what he does in Black Sunday is give the first real taste of cinematic gore.
Films werent this bloody in 1960.
He transcended what you could do with violence and sex and the film was banned in England.
Let me say that again, they nail a mask to her face.
But Bava knew how to set a good meal, even if it was on ice for 200 years.
Vajda completes her mission of revenge before bowing out.
Carmilla is usually the first book vampire fans pick up after discovering Stoker.
I would include it in this list, but it was called Countess Dracula and that disqualifies it.
As a vampiress, Pitt has a standing reservation at The House That Dripped Blood (1971).
She may be the greatest female vampire on film.
Subtle and sexy, delicious and deadly, Ingrid Pitt is otherworldly, but not ethereal.
Vampire Lovers is the first and best film of Hammer Studios Karnstein Trilogy.
The last time I saw it was at one of Fangorias Chiller Fests.
Its got lions and tigers and other fanged creatures, like werepanther gymnasts and nude dancers in tiger stripes.
Aerialists turn into owls and fly away.
It also has Adrienne Corri from Clockwork Orange as a gypsy.
Everyone loves the circus.
And a Vampire Circus has something for everyone else.
The kids love The Circus of Night so much, they dont want to come home.
This is pretty much where parents wanted their kids in the middle of the 1800s.
The vampires in Vampire Circus can come out during the day and are immune to fire.
They glide through the air with the greatest of ease.
The Addiction meanders and plays with its food, but it is a good city meal.
There arent enough urban vampires.
Vampires are always stuck in the Carpathian Mountains or Dickens London.
Lily Taylor is at her beast when she is upsetting the elements.
She knows how to throw down at a party.
Okay, shes got a problem.
Theres a monkey on her back and she just needs a taste.
Christopher Walkens walked down that road.
Now how perfect is that.
And its got half the cast of The Sopranos in it.
Anabella Sciora, Edie Falco, Michael Imperioli and Aida Torturro all donated to the cause.
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