Why do we love the films or movies or TV serials featuring vampires? These creatures are essentially pale, scary-looking and they dress in black and drain the life-force out of anyone who crosses their path. No, no, I am not talking about lawyers or tax inspectors; I am just talking about Vampires. From Nosferatu to Twilight we just love to see them. There are reasons for that: They can be sexy (Queen of the Damned, From Dusk Till Dawn), funny (Lost Boys, Fearless Vampire Killers), scary (Dracula, Near Dark) and, of course, plain ridiculous (that’ll be Twilight series). Vampire flicks have been made around for nine decades much before Vampire Diaries. However, since that time, only a select few have had such impactful story lines that they have become cult classics with horror fans around the world. The movies listed below are some of the great vampire movies made right from the inception of Hollywood. So, let’s erase the campy teenage fantasy “Twilight” from our minds and see these real vampire movies
You got to admit it that it is hard to make a vampire movie fighting against pop culture expectations and a century of vampire clichés. Coppola's approach to the Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” is unique. Like it or not, no one had ever seen a "Dracula" quite like this. Similar to the novel, the movie is a visual cornucopia, overstuffed with images of both beauty and grotesque horror. But, unlike the book, the film opens under the red skies of 15th-century Transylvania, where the noble Prince Vlad Dracul the Impaler (Gary Oldman) shoves spears into Turks on the battlefield, leaving their impaled bodies wriggling by the road in the name of Christ. Returning to his palace, Vlad finds his wife dead, a suicide: She had received a false word that he died in battle. What's more, because she took her own life, her soul is damned. "I renounce God!" shrieks Vlad as blood pour forth from a giant cross. Eager to join his beloved in hell, Vlad catches some blood in a chalice, gulps it down, and begins his reign as Dracula, Prince of Darkness. The rest of the story is same as the 1931 version. Oldman as the Dracula has stolen his own thunder, though he doesn’t surpass Bela Lugosi. Keanu Reeves stars as the lawyer and Winona Ryder manages to build a coherent role as his bride. There is also Academy Award manner Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing. Unlike Tod Browning’s 1931 version, Coppola’s version is not all about acting; rather the film shows evidence of brilliance on a technical level. Coppola has previously made grand mistakes, but his Woozy, flamboyant, and unforgettable “Dracula” is a grand success.If you are still not impressed with the dazzling images and thrills of this movie, then you can read Dracula story straight from the book. won three Academy Awards for Best Sound Effects, Make up and Costume design.
Tod Browning's “Dracula” suffers so many decades later for one simple reason: it is, sadly, dated in some aspects.But, what makes it dated for us doesn't really have a negative impact on enjoying the picture overall- when one sees the bat flying about- or, sorry, swiveling and nearly crashing and breaking against the scenery – considering that the movie was made before eight decades. This is the first authorized one based on Bram Stoker’s classic tale (it follows Murnau's unauthorized silent classic "Nosferatu" in 1922, and there must be at least 30 other modern-day versions). as the vampire is the benchmark. Whenever anyone of us thinks about Dracula, we think of Lugosi, and it has been that way for 70 years. Dozens of actors have played the part well since Lugosi, including Christoper Lee, Frank Langella, Louis Jordan, and Gary Oldman, but no one has come close to eclipsing his image.It is also a sad thing that the image of Dracula ruined Lugosi’s career. Like the “Frankenstein” Boris Karloff, he was instantly typecast and spent the next 25 years often playing misfits and monsters, and even the occasional vampire. The story might be familiar for most of us, for those who don’t know, it starts majestically in the darkened hills of Transylvania (cue the thunderclap), and a young lawyer travels through the night to deliver legal papers to Count Dracula, despite the warnings of the locals. Drugged, imprisoned and driven insane by the scheming Count, he later returns to England, bringing along his new vampire master, who then proceeds to wreak havoc on the pretty young women of London. “Dracula” is a motion picture for people who love motion pictures and vampires and it deserves its status as a classic.
How often do American remakes of foreign films come up short, both in courage and execution? Well, most often. But, Matt Reeves’ “Let Me In” is a rare exception, where the Hollywood doesn’t turn a classic into crass desecration.Alfredson’s poetic Swedish vampire picture “Let the Right One In” has been hauntingly well transplanted here to the high deserts of New Mexico. The unsettling and effective atmosphere really gets under your skin right from the start. The story is set in the winter of 1983. Owen, lives with his mom, who is a religious women with drinking problems. Owen looks small for his age, has no friends, and violently bullied at school. His only comfort is the deserted playground in the apartment complex. Soon, a girl and an old man move to the house next door. The girl, Abby, joins him in the cold playground.What we recognize long before Owen does is that Abby is a vampire whose "meals" are provided by the elderly gentleman who shares her apartment. Chloe Moretz is the only able child actress today who could have played Abby with ease and Kodi Smit-McPhee is credible as a boy trapped by feelings and realizations.What works so well in this vampire movie is the juxtaposition of youthful innocence and downright puppy love with monstrosity and murder. “Let Me In” is a vampire movie is for a mature audience and it actually gives you stuff to think about, not just showing off a bunch of sparkling teenagers with big hair. “Let Me In” is one of the very best Hollywood vampire movie, because it proves one point: “You don't need a gang of vampires or a whole council of them to make a scary Vampire movie. Just one 12 year old kid is all that it takes.”
The Zombie master, George Romero’s quasi-comic vampire movie “Martin” remains as his artiest effort, and in some respects his most accomplished work. The lead character, Martin is a screwed-up, sexually unsure young man who believes he’s a vampire. He goes to live with his elderly and hostile cousin in a small Pennsylvania town, where he redeems his appetite for blood. Apart from the usual amounts of gore, this is a surprisingly tender, ambiguous, and sexy film in which Romero's penchant for social satire is for once restricted to modest proportions. Even though Romero is apparently limited by low budgets, the use of sepia-toned flashbacks and direction of the victimization scenes resembles a work of an auteur.This movie may not be liked by many of the vampire enthusiasts, but if you are in the right mood to see a movie that makes you think and at the same time if you are able to digest a refreshing take on the Vampire legend then Martin is definitely the film for you.
Near Dark is a cross-bred movie between vampire legends, westerns and biker movies. The resulting combination is both outrageous and poetic; it has extravagant, bloody thrills plus something else -- something that comes close to genuine emotion. The plot is simple, like most of the vampire movies and it rises on the theme of never-ending love: A young man reluctantly joins a travelling "family" of evil vampires, when the girl he'd tried to seduce is part of that group. Director Kathryn Bigelow’s high-powered debut is filled with the artful handling of the magic and menace of the night. It remains as a subtle study in the seductiveness of evil and offers us a terrifying ride to the edge of darkness. Near Dark is takes a different approach from “The Lost Boys” and attains a striking strange balance between thrills and dark eroticism. The script you watch is mostly an amalgam of tropes and motives from familiar genres, but they are reconstructed in such a way that the finished product is an exhilarating new experience that is alternately horrifying, funny, and even touching, which is why it's one of the best vampire movie you're never seen.
Based upon Anne Rice’s novel, Neil Jordan’s “Interview with the Vampire” draws you in and enfolds you in a thick fog of menace. This movie makes few modifications to common vampire mythology. The insatiable bloodlust and fear of daylight are there, as are the presence of fangs, but the religious trappings doesn’t hold these creatures at bay, and a stake through the heart has lost its effectiveness. The movie opens in present-day San Francisco, as a young interviewer (Christian Slater) is questioning Louis (Brad Pitt), a strange man insisting he's a vampire. Louis’ long flashback tells us about his initiation into the Vampires' world, in New Orleans of the late eighteenth century. After losing his wife and child in a disaster, he meets an alluring Vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise), who offers Louis a simple option: to die or live like him, as a force of evil. Apart from Tom Cruise and Pitt, the arresting performance of a very young Kirsten Dunst deserves our appreciation. “Interview with the Vampire” will make you believe that it is a big, sprawling, visually ravishing movie, but it's also impersonal. There are also some pacing problems but the makeup and gothic settings are superlative. One thing is for sure: you will definitely be enamored at the vampire-world opened up to you; and by the end, you are left wondering what choice you would have made.
“From Dusk till Dawn” is nothing but self-indulgent schlock fest pet project of friends Rodriguez and Tarantino. Let me warn you that this is a B-movie, albeit a big budget B-movie, and with an undeniable B-movie spirit. In spite of its odd change of narrative gears,it’s fun the way something like EVIL DEAD is fun. We meet the Gecko brothers (George Clooney and Tarantino) in a dry, dirty, dusty Texas. They have pulled up a successful bank heist which got them enough money to live in Mexico for many years to come. But they have also kidnapped a motor-home driving ex-minister (Harvey Keitel) and his kids in order to sneak across the border. When they arrive at a rowdy strip bar called ‘The Titty Twister’ to meet their contact, things take an abrupt shift that feels out of place, even if you know it's coming - everyone around them starts turning into vampires. We experience an orgy of cheesy vampire effects, B-movie splatter, and lines that are so incredibly cheesy, but somehow the movie is just too much fun which makes it hard not to like. The witty and obscene dialogues purely belong to Tarantino, while the rigorously edited action sequences, wide angle shots of dusty highways, and off-the-road liquor stores and motels definitely belong to Rodriguez. I can really think of worse Vampire movies to sit through than “From Dusk till Dawn’s” orgy of bullets, exploding corpses, and stripper vampires.
Joel Schumacher’s “The Lost Boys” is a cultural touchstone and a relic of the 1980s American cinema, which combines a mild dose of sexuality, a medium dash of violence, and a major splash of humor to a basic horror tale. The film’s story takes place at a time when the influence of MTV was already infiltrating popular culture to the saturation point. You don't have to have grown up in the eighties to enjoy it. Is it campy? Absolutely, but it is also a mixture of well used horror tactics, iconic lines that you will never forget, and has a great well rounded cast, like Jason Patric, Kiefer Sutherland. A single mother along with her two teenage sons move in with their grandpa, in a small fictional town called Santa Carla. The older son gets involved with a beautiful young woman, who just happens to belong to a band of young vampires. Director Schumacher intelligently weaves in strands of humor that both relieve and tauten the tension. The movie as a whole is never going to send a chill up your spine, but it tends to build an amiable relationship with its audience that promotes repeated viewing.
Tom Holland’s minor classic of the vampire genre will make you laugh as well as scream. A man has just moved into the long-vacant house next door to Charley Brewster.Actually there are two men; they call themselves Jerry and Billy. Teenager Charley, one day, spies a quite attractive girl getting undressed in the upstairs window one night—and Jerry leaning over her shoulder with a mouth suddenly sprouting fangs.sees a corpse being dragged out of the house by Billy, but no one will take him seriously. He soon enlists a TV vampire killer, to fight the neighbor from hell. Chris Sarandon as the vampire looks quite affable and debonair until his fingernails start to grow and his eyes get that glow. “Fright Night” pays homage to many horror films of old. If you are fan of vampire movies, you'll understand the cool inside jokes. Sure it looks dated, but you should still give it a try, since this is the amusing redefinition of the vampire mythology.
Roman Polanski – the master of fear and paranoia – has directed this vampire themed spoof movie. He also stars as Alfred, a timid assistant of vampire hunter Professor Abronsius. The comic duo go after a family of Transylvanian vampires, and the film amiably runs through all the standbys associated with vampire movies, putting a personal and goofy spin on most of them. Shooting in the Italian Alps, the scenery looks absolutely gorgeous contributing intensely to that fairy-tale atmosphere. This isn't a classic horror/comedy, like Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein. Truth to be told, this work from a younger Polanski pretty much fails at creating an effective comedy so much as he succeeds at creating a light-hearted horror film. Some of the jokes fall as flat as the characters do. That said, the movie still manages to be quite amusing, with few laugh-out-loud hilarious sequences, such as when a Jewish vampire is confronted with a cross, and when Polanski is being chased by Count Krolock's feminine vampire son. It really isn't the best vampire genre movie around but its unique style of film-making still makes this a one of kind movie.
Vampires has always fascinated us human beings no matter which culture we belong to. To find fascination in mystery and death is probably human nature. So, when you get time, go on watch these movies, just make sure you have some brave company with you. And you can find more Facts and Trends about not just Hollywood movies but about just anything that relates to our world at www.top10reviews.in
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