 | Vampire fiction: Encyclopedia II - Vampire fiction - Films and television
Vampire fiction - Films and television
Vampires have been a film staple since the silent days. The Vampire (film) (1913, directed by Robert G. Vignola), also co-written by Vignola, is the earliest vampire film. The landmark Nosferatu (1922 Germany, directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau) was an unlicensed version of Dracula based so closely on Bram Stoker's Dracula, the estate sued and won, with all copies being destroyed. (It would be painstakingly restored in 1994 by a team of European scholars from the five surviving prints.) By 2005, Dracula had been the subject of more films than any other fictional character.
The treatment of vampires has been kaleidoscopic. It has been comedic, including Old Dracula (1974 UK, directed by Clive Donner) featuring David Niven as a lovelorn Drac and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995 USA, directed by Mel Brooks) with Canadian Leslie Nielsen giving it a comic twist, to absurd, with Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).
Vampirism has changed from embodied evil in Dracula to a kind of virus in David Cronenberg's Rabid (1976 Canada) and Red-Blooded American Girl (1990 Canada, directed by David Blyth). It got an SF spin in The Last Man on Earth (Italy 1964, directed by Ubaldo Ragona) and The Omega Man (1971 USA, directed by Boris Sagal), both based on Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend (writing as Logan Swanson), the product of a biological war. Race has not been excluded, either, as exemplified by the blaxploitation picture Blacula (1972 USA, directed by William Crain) and several sequels.
Killing vampires has changed, too. Where Abraham Van Helsing relied on a stake through the heart, in Vampire$ (1997 USA, directed by John Carpenter), Jack Crow (James Woods) has a heavily-armed squad of vampire hunters, and in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992 USA, directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui), writer Joss Whedon (who created TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and spinoff Angel) attached The Slayer, Buffy Summers (Kristy Swanson), to a network of Watchers and mystically endowed her with superhuman powers.
Murnau's Nosferatu (magnificently portrayed by Max Schrek) was ancient-looking and ugly, as he was expected to be at that time. The vampire was transformed from a creature of disgust and fear into an object of lust, in such films as Camilla (released as La Maldicion De Los Karnstein, 1963), Daughters of Darkness (released as Children Of The Night, 1971), Dracula (1979), and Once Bitten (1985), for just a few examples. Delphine Seyrig, Frank Langella, or Lauren Hutton could hardly be called ugly. Even X-rated films (such as 1978’s Dracula Sucks and 1999's Hot Vampire Nights) have used vampire themes.
Yet times are changing. In 2002, Shadow of the Vampire (2000 UK/USA/Luxembourg, directed by E. Elias Merhige) starred Willem Dafoe as leading man Max Schrek, playing an actual vampire, and John Malkovich as a harassed Murnau. It would be notable had it only been a movie about moviemaking, the making of a genre classic, yet in addition the performances are stellar. Dafoe's character is the ugly, disgusting creature of the original Nosferatu. The vampire genre has come full circle.
Vampire fiction - Dracula and his legacy
By far, the most well-known and popular vampire in the movies is Dracula. An amazing number of movies have been filmed over the years depicting the evil count, some of which are ranked among the greatest depictions of vampires on film. Dracula has over 160 film representations making him the most frequently portrayed character in horror films.
- Nosferatu (1922; starring Max Schreck, remade 1979 with Klaus Kinski) – unlicensed German adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel
- Dracula (1931) – the first Universal Studios Dracula film, starring Bela Lugosi
- Spanish Dracula (1931) – Spanish-language version starring Carlos Villar, made simultaneously with the Bela Lugosi film, using the same sets on a timeshare basis
- Dracula's Daughter (1936) – Follow up to the 1931 film, starring Gloria Holden
- Son of Dracula (1943) – further sequel to the 1931 film starring Lon Chaney Jr.
- House of Frankenstein (1944) – John Carradine plays Dracula as part of an ensemble cast in this Universal Studios film
- House of Dracula (1945) – The final serious Universal Studios Dracula film, starring Carradine
- Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) – Lugosi played Dracula on film for the second and final time in this comedy-horror hybrid that concluded the Universal Studios series.
- Dracula (1958; aka Horror of Dracula) – the first Hammer Horror Dracula film, starring Christopher Lee
- Countess Dracula (1970)
- Blacula (1972) – a blaxploitation cult film in which an African prince is turned into a vampire by Dracula
- Blood for Dracula (1974) - also released as Andy Warhol's Dracula (x-rated)
- Dracula Sucks (1978) - (x-rated)
- Dracula (1979) – a film in the gothic romantic tradition starring Frank Langella
- Love At First Bite (1979) – romantic comedy spoof starring George Hamilton
- Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) – attempt at filming the story quite close to Stoker's novel, but merging the medieval story of Vlad Tepeş; starring Gary Oldman as Dracula
- Monster Force (1994) – an animated television series featuring Dracula as the mastermind of Evil, the Prince of Darkness and the main antagonist of the series
- Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995) – a parody of Dracula films by Mel Brooks; Leslie Nielsen as Dracula
- League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) - loosely connected through Mina Harker being vampiric after an encounter with Dracula.
- Van Helsing (2004) – action movie only loosely connected to the original Dracula; Richard Roxburgh as Dracula
- Blade: Trinity (2004) - Drake the vampire is supposed to have had many forms throughout the centuries, Stoker's Dracula being one of them.
Vampire fiction - Other movies and television
- The Vampire (1913 - directed and co-written by Robert G. Vignola
- Les Vampires (1915)
- London After Midnight (1927)
- Vampyr (1932)
- Mark of the Vampire (1935)
- Return of the Vampire (1943)
- Not of This Earth (1957)
- Camilla (1964)
- The Last Man on Earth (1964) - based on the novel I Am Legend
- Kiss of the Vampire (1964)
- Dark Shadows TV series (1966 and 1991)
- The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)
- Le Rogue aux Levres (Daughters of Darkness) & (Children of the Night) (1971)
- The Omega Man (1971) - also based on the novel I Am Legend
- Twins of Evil (1971)
- The Night Stalker (1972)
- Vampire Circus (1973)
- The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974) - a kung fu vampire movie, a co-production between Hong Kong's Shaw Brothers and England's Hammer Studios, a cross between Hammer's popular Dracula series with classic Shaw style Kung Fu
- Rabid (1976)
- Salem's Lot (1979)
- The serials State of Decay (1980) and The Curse of Fenric (1989) from the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who.
- The Hunger (1983)
- Fright Night (1985)
- Once Bitten (1985)
- Vampire Hunter D (1985)
- Vamp (1986)
- The Lost Boys (1987)
- Near Dark (1987)
- Vampire's Kiss (1989)
- Red-Blooded American Girl (1990)
- Subspecies (1991)
- Bloodstone: Subspecies II (1993)
- Bloodlust: Subspecies III (1994)
- Vampire Journals (1997)
- Subspecies 4: Bloodstorm (1998)
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), the TV show of the same name and its television spinoff Angel
- Forever Knight TV Series (1992)
- Innocent Blood (1992)
- Cronos (1993)
- Interview with the Vampire (1994)
- Vampire in Brooklyn (1995)
- From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
- From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999)
- From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter (2000)
- Tales From the Crypt: Bordello of Blood (1996)
- Ultraviolet (1998)
- Blade (1998)
- Blade II (2002)
- Blade: Trinity (2004)
- Vampires (1998)
- Vampires: Los Muertos (2002)
- Vampires: The Turning (2005)
- Modern Vampires (1998)
- Hot Vampire Nights (1999) (x-rated)
- Shadow of the Vampire (2000)
- Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2001)
- Queen of the Damned (2002)
- Hellsing (2002)
- Underworld (2003)
- Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor) (2004) Russian Fantasy film partially involving vampires
- Underworld: Evolution (2006)
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 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Films and television", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
