To celebrate the release of cracking vampire flick 30 Days of Night, Blockbuster.co.uk's Marshall Julius examines the appeal of blood-sucking cinema and picks a selection of undead classics.
Myths, legends and superstitious ramblings regarding the blood-sucking undead go back as far as the dawn of man. "Every culture has its own vampire stories," states fright flick legend John Carpenter. "They're an all-purpose myth for humanity. An ancient tale that goes back as long as we've told stories to one another." Hardly surprising then, that once man invented cinema, he quickly got to work making vampire movies.
Inspired by the blood lust of Transylvanian folk hero Vlad "The Impaler" Tepes, a 15th Century monarch and sadist best known for his enthusiastic skewerings, Count Dracula rose to eternal life from the imagination of Victorian author Bram Stoker. The most famous of all fictional vampires, the Count remains a firm fixture of popular culture thanks largely to his iconic incarnation in Universal's earliest horror hit, Dracula (1931). Limited only by the special effects available at the time, Todd Browning's Dracula envisaged the Count as a sophisticated tyrant whose eerie smile hid several lifetimes of wrongdoing. Regardless of his wild overacting, Bela Lugosi's magnetic performance cast a mold from which most bloodsuckers since have sprung.
A vampiric superstar boasting more super powers than an entire legion of costumed comic book heroes, Count Dracula is an immortal predator who holds dominion over the creatures of the night, among them wolves and rats. One minute he's a bat, the next an eerie mist. Free from the ravages of conscience or emotion he's the unstoppable psycho within us all, yet his incredible powers come at a price, balanced as they are by a slew of Achilles' heels. Garlic he hates, holy water and crucifixes too. Sunlight kills him, though nine out of ten slayers favour a stake through the heart.
"The vampire is an all-purpose monster that fits any time, any place," continues Carpenter. Although at first on the big screen the undead were shown in a logically unflattering light, the foul, otherworldly creature from silent classic Nosferatu springing immediately to mind, they have over the years taken on more appealing attributes. "Vampires became more sensual as the culture changed," explains Carpenter. "The vampire myth as it's reflected in the movies reflects the culture around it.
"When you look at Nosferatu, that's the time in which it was made," continues the director. "Pretty stunning back then. But we look at it now and we say, 'Look at that gnomey guy with the long fingernails!' Then Bela Lugosi comes along, and he looks like Rudolph Valentino, his slicked-back hair, the come-hither look. At the time, that was some pretty steamy stuff. Then cut down the road to 1958, England, and Hammer Films. Christopher Lee, he had a different take on the sensuality in that film. It's because the culture has changed. It changed quite dramatically towards the '60s when the censorship rules lost their punch. People wanted to see more explicit sexuality. So now the women have low-cut bodices and they can't wait for him to come through that door at night and bite them. So we keep advancing, as the culture does."
What is it then about vampires that makes them so uniquely appealing? "Because we know people in real life who are sort of mental or emotional vampires," replies Carpenter. We sense that there's a truth to it, somebody using someone else, using their blood to refresh themselves. That kind of feels familiar to us as a people. It's an expansion on the truth. Monsters in movies are us, always us, one way or the other. They're us with hats on. The dangerous parts of us. The part that wants to destroy. The part of us with the reptile brain. The part of us that's vicious and cruel. We express these in our stories as these monsters out there in an attempt to understand and get a handle on them."
Vampire movies of note include unsettling silent German effort Nosferatu (1922), an unauthorised take on Stoker's Dracula, and companion piece Shadow of the Vampire (2000), a twisted account of the making of Nosferatu that suggests its leading man, the peculiar Max Schreck, really was a vampire. Then there's England's own Dracula (1958), a Hammer horror classic that remains the most faithful adaptation of Stoker's novel. Fright Night (1985) is a spirited audience-pleaser, jokily self-aware but still really scary. Based on the Marvel comic book and the best of the trilogy, all three of which I'd recommend, Blade II (2002) is particularly notable for recasting the vampire as the good guy.
Then there's Love at First Bite (1979), a ludicrously enjoyable Dracula spoof with an unusually pale George Hamilton in the cape and fangs. From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) is almost as crazy, a crime thriller that half-way through transforms into a violent, bloody and darkly funny vampire action movie. Better still is vampire mob adventure Innocent Blood (1992), an inspired blend of Mafia-themed comedy, romance, sex and violence. Near Dark (1987) follows a tightly-knit family of travelling vampires, most memorable for a bloody barroom slaughter, though I hated the idea of vampirism as an easily-curable disease. Finally there's 30 Days of Night (2007), an intense, atmospheric and giddily bloody horror thriller following the fate of a small Alaskan town plunged into darkness for a month and besieged by a gang of monstrous, black-eyed, cold-hearted vampires.
"There's no sexual tension between the humans and the vampires in my movie," says director David Slade. "They don't say a little Rimbaud poem and then take the arm. No, they just jump and rip off and eat and feed because that's what's scary. I didn't want to tell a supernatural tale. Though they feed on blood and have to avoid sunlight, these vampires are rooted far more deeply in reality than anything that's come before.
"I wanted to show the audience something they hadn't seen before. Ben Templesmith, who did the art for the original 30 Days of Night comicbooks, created a fantastic template for the vampires with their shark-like teeth and black dead eyes, and it was up to us to figure out how to do that and make it real and convincing."
The good news is they succeeded: 30 Days of Night is a modern vampire masterpiece. Add it to your list, and a selection of the others too, and you can Count on a terrifying night in.
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