Vampire Film Shelf

This page is liable to contain spoilers and mentions of (fictional) sexual predation. By proceeding, you bare your neck to any and all of them. This webpage, like the rest of my stuff, is intended for adult readers.

As a long-time vampire enthusiast and aspiring human decanter, I have seen a substantial amount of last century's vampire films. Note that this is not a review page, but a comparison of their various flavours. Through this list, you can get a condensed overview of the vampire genre and see what's best for your palate.

For the sake of curation and to adhere to my own personal expertise, the films featured here are exclusively from the 20th century. Several of these entries are not explicitly vampire films, but they prominently star vampires and are thus, eligible for inclusion. This also applies to vampire-themed segments in horror anthology films such as The House that Dripped Blood and The Vault of Horror. Animated films are also welcome if they contain vampires.

Dracula (1931)

•  Name: Dracula
•  Release: 1931
•  Studio: Universal Studios
•  Runtime: 74 minutes
•  Summary: Having bought a property with the assistance of Renfield, Dracula arrives in England to propagate it with the undead.
•  Vampire/Vampires: Count Dracula, played by Bela Lugosi. Lucy is turned, but disappears from the plot and thus, isn’t worth discussion.
  
  Lugosi’s stage-presence is immense. Under the squinting smiles, pressed suits and frosty serenity of his motions is a palpable hatred for the living. When that anger comes out, he seizes his victim and stares through them, eyes fixed from a wreath of carefully-cut shadow. This combination of traits makes him the perfect mesmerist, not so threatening he reveals his evils but not so beautiful he loses his presence. The film treats him with the gravity a count deserves and it is this Dracula that spawned the many impostors we see tonight.
•  Ambient: Tod Browning’s Dracula is nothing short of hypnotic, in its silver-toned hypnagogic stillness. Shadows carve out the sets in Leyendecker-esque fashion. Its actors shift like errant ghosts, lit in whites so sheer they almost seem to glow. The silence, normally tranquil in other “talkies”, perches atop one’s chest with a potent weightiness. The monotone, an element that gives other talkies their dryness, only enhances the atmosphere. Things that go against other films work here; atmospherically and contextually they feel welcome.
  
  Dwight Frye is my best example here. Renfield is most famous for the melodious hum-laughs that rattle through gritted teeth. Yet Dracula's slave, for his seemingly dangerous appearance is deeply tormented. He cries, pleas and strains to endure the psychic assaults being inflicted on him. This could easily be tonally dissonant for a film so silent yet he firmly demonstrates the slow, gruelling unravelling of any and all men that Dracula meets. It's the pure loss of self in a general sense, but the time-period of this film gives it an extra layer of tragedy. The unmaking of his learned Victorian rules, being contorted into the indignity of having to beg for help. What adds to this is how you see Renfield as a sane man before this fate befalls him. Renfield is not monstrous or dangerous, nor the stereotypical Fritz or Igor to Dracula’s Frankenstein; he is a man plunged headfirst into a grave, with no tools to stop himself from digging deeper. His "rats" speech gives me chills. He turns and gestures as a series of slow glides, sprawling like the fog that permeates his mind. “Thousands, millions of them!” he rasps, as his master stares hatefully from the balcony at a dead man walking.
•  Bloodiness: Low. The most graphic imagery iz a corpse strapped to the steering wheel of the Demeter. Dracula appears before his feeds but he draws no blood onscreen. At the climax, he chokes Renfield and throws him down a flight of stairs. The count’s death is completely offscreen, and Lucy’s absurdly graphic staking-scene is not even implied at all.
•  Pairing suggestions:
  Nosferatu is best for direct comparison. Their monochrome appearances will make them identical similar to an inattentive eye, but they have completely different executions.

Dracula (or Horror of Dracula)

•  Name: Dracula (or Horror of Dracula)
•  Release: 1958
•  Studio: Hammer Film Productions
•  Runtime: 82 minutes
•  Summary: After the disappearance of Jonathan Harker in Klausenburg Romania, Van Helsing pursues his killer; Count Dracula. Meanwhile, the Count seeks out his companions Lucy and Mina.
•  Vampire/Vampires: Count Dracula, played by Christopher Lee.
  
  This physically-imposing Dracula dominates every scene he’s in with a vice grip. Though where he differs from Legosi is in raw contrast. As with Legosi, much of this Dracula is due to the nature of his actor. Lee’s aristocratic heritage grants the count’s distinctly english accent an extra air of legitimacy. His tones are deeper than Legosi’s soft-spoken Hungarian notes, less of an eccentric foreign noble and more of an overtly frigid figure. He stands at a dizzying 6’5, closing into his prey physically as much as he does supernaturally. His features are carved, yet his eyes even in resting position shine with alert scrutiny. Then, before your very own, the gentlemanly facade unfurls, and something truly feral comes alive. His fangs are fully bared, his eyes, wide and almost pulsatingly red, fix on the living. His six feet, eccentric to some, become a wall of feverish adrenaline. He hisses in a display so frenzied it barely registers as a vampire’s fear. He lunges so readily it borders on foolhardy, as if he’s so thirsty to kill he’ll let anything happen to himself just to make it happen. His contrasts also demonstrate themselves in other ways. When he feeds here, it’s a famously sensual display. You don’t have to be personally attracted to Lee to understand why he became a sex symbol. He stands in windowsills and entrances his victims with his noble-blooded aloofness, then he draws closer, slower, lower…Then he either advances with his cape to conceal the deed, or as with Miss Mina Harker, brushes his carved features against hers. In a slow, catlike brush of his nose and cheeks, he serenades his prey, before brushing past her bared neck for a single, hungry, clench. This is why Christopher Lee is Count Dracula.
•  Ambient: The sound design makes it a very bombastic and flashy experience. It always feels like the orchestral soundtrack is booming in your ears, which god help you if you have the volume on too high without checking it first. Its aesthetics bear a central european rusticity, with a far more medieval overtone than the comparatively anachronistic Castle over 1931’s Borgo Pass. No more are the seductive, hypnotic silver tones. As the first vampire film in colour, Dracula consists of earthly tones, suddenly juxtaposed by intense contrasts. The white of a coffin in a slate grey crypt, the red of the blood that gushes from Lucy’s breast. The red of Dracula's eyes, or the red within his cape, against the contours of his tall black frame. In quieter, more domestic, scenes, its sets are verdant with detail but lit in gloom. The film carries a cold, dry air to it, only intensifying the flashes of colour, so normally associated with warmth. The motions of its characters, even in the throes of combat, carry a smoothness. This jauntiness gives Horror of Dracula, as with Hammer films in general, a theatrical, if not dreamlike atmosphere. It presents itself seriously and aspires for graphic realism, until you see these little things. It’s quintessentially gothic horror cinema if you’ve ever seen it; a very dramatic experience.
•  Bloodiness: High. After the bloodless staking of an undead Harker, we have see on-screen vampire deaths. Lucy appears as a vampiress and gets very graphically staked. Then we have Dracula, who disintegrates so gruesomely it had to be censored. Horror of Dracula understands how visceral it is to kill, and there’s a weightiness to these deaths.
•  Pairing suggestions: For proximity Brides of Dracula, but for the direct sequels, its fourth film Scars of Dracula is closest in tone. It can also be compared to Tod Browning’s Dracula as a character study, especially with the count himself.

Dracula: Prince of Darkness

•  Name: Dracula: Prince of Darkness
•  Release: 1966
•  Studio: Hammer Films
•  Runtime: 90 minutes
•  Summary: After the Count’s defeat, four English tourists venture to Dracula’s castle, unaware of his impending resurrection.
•  Vampire/Vampires: Count Dracula, played for a second time by Christopher Lee. The first thing this Dracula does is hiss and screech. He is not the calculated gentleman of the previous film, and unfortunately for those charmed by this duality, you will see that Christopher Lee's Dracula becomes a lot more simple as a vampire. He doesn't necessarily become feral, but Christopher Lee's hatred of the script means that we get a character who, in turn, feels a lot more like a force of nature. More like a man-eater that stalks the tents of East Kenya. An anomaly, but strangely enough, an inevitability at the same time. He feels more like an obstacle than someone who can choose to do these things. This is also underscored by the fact that he is continuously resurrected by an outside force, most frequently by human men hoping to obtain some kind of power from him. If you enjoy Christopher Lee's Dracula and his more violent scenes, you may find this quite fine. He realistically has no reason to keep up the civilised veneer. He is a known menace. But for those of you who may be wanting more of his horror of Dracula performance, you may find yourselves preferring to watch that movie.
•  Ambient: From this film onwards, there’s something about Hammer that turns any green thing, specifically the foliage, into this fluorescent; almost radium-coloured glow. It hits sharp and hard against the surrounding cool tones, a different kind of gloom from the prior film’s eternal night. That even in broad daylight, darkness lurks. Shadows harsher, contours sharper, faces half-lit in curious daytime chiaroscuro. Yet the inside scenes take on an entirely different tone. Flushed ruddy faces, warm Bavarian tavern interiors, even the black forest hunting trophies (easily identified by their ornately leafy plaques). As if the film flushes with the life onscreen, only to drain in the presence of the forest, cold and hungering and vampiric in that way. Starting out here, there’s a consistent black and red motif for the count, which is especially vivid when he first attacks the group. Every red in this film pops, far more than any of the others. Even the preceding film, with its emphasis on contrast, pales in comparison. It’s still gothic, but its use of colour makes it far more expressionist. Depending on your preference, see this film as a starting point for the studio’s various visual experiments.
•  Bloodiness: High. Violence-wise, Hammer films are uniquely intense for their time period. Prince of Darkness contains a scene where a man is hung upside down and has his throat stuck like a pig. This is done to resurrect Dracula, who does so in this really graphic, disgusting way. The blood is poured onto his ashes within a casket, and we see this slow fading kind of effect of his corpse forming and regaining its flesh. It looks absolutely disgusting. You have these white threads, like sinew, like tendons, like something. As the cartilage slowly grows to carve in the rest of the count’s features. The blood in this film is where it gets really stereotypically Hammer-esque. The last film is not very bloody. It has a lot of violence for a film of its time, but it's not very bloody. These films, however, is where it gets bloody. It gets very bloody very quickly. Dracula claims two women on screen but only one of these has blood, when he wordlessly cuts his bare chest and pulls her close to drink his blood. One of his vampiresses gets a quick scrape of hand-flesh but there’s no gore. There’s the same wrestling motions and improvised crosses. There is a bloodless backstab. There is another graphic staking scene, though she suffers several less hammer blows than Lucy. Finally, Dracula himself suffers a bloodless plunge into an icy moat; nice and ready for the next film.
•  Pairing suggestions:
  It’s most similar to Scars of Dracula for their similarly focused use of lighting, though it can easily be paired with the original.

Dracula Has Risen from the Grave

•  Name: Dracula Has Risen from the Grave
•  Release: 1968
•  Studio: Hammer Films
•  Runtime: 92 minutes
•  Summary: A clergyman, intending to purify the count’s castle, accidentally resurrects Dracula from his frozen grave.
•  Vampire/Vampires: Count Dracula, played for a fourth time by Christopher Lee. This film’s Dracula is more willing to talk, though he’s visibly displeased with his new underlings. He presents as less beastly, instead being indignant and quick to make demands. He feels urgent, and at times out of control, despite his vampiric powers. There’s also a new aspect to his character. For every woman he seeks out, another victim is presented to him. Almost like they’re being fed to him. In the way a virgin is tied to the rocks, doomed to await a spoiled beast. Here is when this film lets us see through Dracula’s eyes, when he claims a docile blonde at rest. So while Dracula is an outsider, he is somewhat of a voyeur’s figure as well.
•  Ambient: This film is much brighter than Prince of Darkness, with less shadows and more earthy tones. However, we get a new colour motif for the count, now lit in a pestilent green vignette. The shadows that appear, if not brown, present as blues and purples, contrasting the warmer tones. The Bavarian feel resumes but this film has the most focus on religion and its status as an antidote to Dracula’s evils. At this point in your marathon, this is the entry that will be closest to a typical vampire flick of its era.
•  Bloodiness: We have the typical hammer violence, a rather bruised neck and a Dracula that oozes and oozes. This is also where the famous “crying blood” shot happens. Gore-wise it’s nonexistent, but if you want to see Dracula throw rocks at people, this is the film for you.
•  Pairing suggestions:
  Taste the Blood of Dracula is arguably the closest. They share a fixation on mood lighting and religious thematics. Alternatively you can contrast this film’s religious fixation with the radically-different final entry, The Satanic Rites of Dracula.

Taste the Blood of Dracula

•  Name: Taste the Blood of Dracula
•  Release: 1970
•  Studio: Hammer Films
•  Runtime: 95 minutes
•  Summary: Three debauched men meet a mysterious occultist who promises them a night of amusement. After murdering their host, they realise all too late what evil they’ve unleashed.
•  Vampire/Vampires: Count Dracula, played for a fifth time by Christopher Lee. What I find interesting about Dracula is that he’e perfectly at ease here. He’s suave and measured with his feedings, much less abrupt than the likes of the previous entry. He’s strong-willed, and unafraid to involve himself directly. More surprising is his reason for revenge, being the killing of his servant by the four sinning men. Is it pathos, offence or were they going to die anyways? Given his attacks can veer on bouts of spite at times, it would not surprise me. Hammer’s Dracula, no matter how mute or beastly, has little regard for our pleadings.
•  Ambient: Taste the Blood is awash with visual flair, hot pinks and black satanic altars, stained glass windows and a healthy goblet-ful of blood. It continues its camera trickeries, more POV shots and also, a surprisingly seamless explanation for its plot, with interspersed shots of one of its current characters stumbling into the climax of the previous film. Only for him to do much evils, and go on to resell the Prince of Darkness for mortal currency. You're not really sure when or where it's taking place until you see this bit, so that's quite interesting. Even outside the brothels and altars, the feeling is smoky and sultry. It’s one of the most flagrantly sexual entries, both with the themes of debauchery and Dracula’s continued exploitations of human women. It revels and invites us to immerse ourselves in the careless joy of three hopeless sinners, and the blood feast that soon follows.
•  Bloodiness: In terms of pure blood it’s quite high with a big goblet of the stuff, complete with Dracula’s poor servant suffering a bout of acute necromantic poisoning. It’s legitimately quite gruesome, despite the typical Hammer-style group beating that ensues. For Dracula’s demise, it’s arguably the simplest one yet. The count suddenly remembers he’s set up camp in a church, sees the impromptu interior renovation, falls over and dies. This is followed by another on-screen disintegration. Nothing can top Horror of Dracula’s original, but I musn’t hide a thing.
•  Pairing suggestions:
  The Satanic Rites of Dracula is a total opposite in terms of setting, but the two share an overtone of warm lights and occult activity.

The Fearless Vampire Killers

•  Name: The Fearless Vampire Killers
•  Release: 1967
•  Studio: MGM
•  Runtime: 108 minutes
•  Summary: Two vampire hunters, after falling in love with a tavern maid, strain to save her from the clutches of a nearby count.
•  Vampire/Vampires: Count Von Krolock, (Ferdy Mayne). his son Herbert (Iain Quarrier), their court and the ex-inkeeper Shagal (Alfie Bass), who quietly slinks off from the narrative to be a vampire elsewhere.
  
  Ferdy Mayne carries a very similar air to Christopher Lee, only his vampire is far more amiable. Krolock is wry and hyper-masculine for his time-period, yet his elderly appearance and bouts of raspy screeching (“SNATCH ZE’ GIRL!”) betray any intimidation factor he has. He's a typical undead aristocrat; perfect for his closed ecosystem but a foreigner everywhere else. His appearances outside the castle are so out-of-place they border on comical, and thus he prefers to give orders than directly involve himself in situations.
  
  Krolock’s son Herbert is an effeminate queer who attempts to seduce Alfred. He is less competent than his father, thwarted by a book to the fangs and a comedic chase scene. Herbert’s soft-spoken mannerisms make him disarming at first, but this quickly turns sinister as his more vampiric intentions make themselves clear. He is more threatening than his father in this way, though besides this he’s hardly a threat.
  
  Similarly amusing is the yearly vampire court. It is suitably grotesque (and impressively diverse in terms of dress), but even in their numbers they’re too clumsy to offer a threat. In fact, all the vampires are quite clumsy, and to me, seem to be parodies of their shared aristocratic background. They’re almost swaddled together with each other, as if their poor, prissy senses would expire were they to leave the safety of their castle.
•  Ambient: Bizarre, from start to finish this film is bizarre. It has an oscillating ambient of slapstick comedy and sexual tension. There’s a definite libido to this film, especially with the presence of Sarah Tate, and our main character’s boundless lust for her. Our main characters themselves are hardly equipped to fight the undead. Alfred is mousy and somewhat gormless, while his mentor Abronsius is a glib but equally clueless old man. Their chemistry gives the film most of its comedy, and eventually comes to offset most of its initial libido. There’s a tonal transition, if you will. In terms of scenery it feels distinctly Central European. Its rolling alpine slopes (filmed in Italy’s Dolomite range) feel appropriately wild and intimidating. There’s only two buildings seen in the entire film, the tavern and Krolock’s castle. It helps to create a unique air of isolation, which in a film so farcical, is rich with wintry dread. It’s cold, this film feels cold. Though this takes a different turn when a hunchback bobsleds off the side of the mountain into the jaws of several awaiting wolves.
•  Bloodiness: Low, and contains more chase scenes than violent confrontations. Contains one mildly bloody feeding scene with Count Von Krolock, and a possible off-screen death by wolves for his hunchback slave Koukol.
•  Pairing suggestions: It’s a one-of-a-kind film for its absurdist tone, but if you want to amuse yourself with executive meddling, you can watch its American version. Released as “Dance of the Vampires”, it has several dubbed voices, twenty less minutes of runtime and a brief cartoon as its opening scene. If obvious foley footsteps and squat UPA-styled characters charm you, you might be able to forgive it.

Vampyres

•  Name: Vampyres
•  Release: 1974
•  Studio: Essay Films
•  Runtime: 87 minutes
•  Summary: A bisexual vampiress couple lure a man into their manor, where they proceed to rape and feed on him over several nights. Meanwhile, a young human couple camp outside the property, oblivious to the horrors inside.
•  Vampire/Vampires: The vampiress couple Fran (Marianne Morris) and Miriam (Anulka Dziubinska). After being murdered in their own home, they’ve risen to become seasoned predators of the still-breathing.
  
  They’re in total synchronicity, and the nature of their killing is a mere routine. They run together and scatter the autumn leaves in playful carnivorous abandon. They speak little, preferring to feel the sensory pleasures of their lifestyle.
  
  They’re rapaciously sexual, and are quick to make their desires of the interspecies variety. Not every prey item has this chance, but those who do find themselves in a state of prolonged sexual-torture; fluids and willpower drained by each greedy mouthful. Seldom do we see this. Vampiresses are most frequently associated with powerful males that “keep” them. Even when they’re man-eating monsters, women are rarely depicted as being capable of such violence.
•  Ambient: The days and nights blur together, the candlelit opulence of the manor becomes a disorienting vibration. When dawn arrives, its pale sickly light offers no true reprieve from the vertigo inside. Vampyres is no hypnotist, but you may find her reminiscent of a bad dream. This film demonstrates the power of a location, and how radically different it feels depending on what side of the walls you’re on. The darkness doesn’t give you anywhere to look, as with any other good bit of horror. You’re pressed up to the writhing forms, and at times you may feel like a spiritual co-conspirator. Their readiness and your closeness almost feels like they know you’re there, but they're content to let you watch.
•  Bloodiness: High. Most famously, the two vampiresses drink blood from knife-wounds. Two other humans have brushes with the duo, and are gruesomely ripped to bits.
•  Pairing suggestions:
  Any lesbian vampire film will do here, though they’re unlikely to be as graphic.