# Best Vampire movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 28, 2004, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885 "2004-12-28T04:29:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![rainy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c2a13f/32.png) [@rainy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rainy)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885/21 "2004-12-28T22:43:57Z")
If '80s camp counts then you’ve got to include “Vamp” starring Grace Jones. I still can’t forgive “Near Dark” for the ending. All the non-traditional vampire stuff was really great, but that ending. Argh! -rainy ---
**Author:** ![flamingbananas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f4b2a3/32.png) [@flamingbananas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flamingbananas)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2004, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885/22 "2004-12-29T00:33:04Z")
I thought the 'salem’s Lot movies were pretty good. I liked the recent made for TV version, but I’m guessing I’m part of the minority. Some scenes are sorta creepy! ---
**Author:** ![Made\_in\_Macau](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@Made\_in\_Macau](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Made_in_Macau)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2004, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885/23 "2004-12-29T00:47:26Z")
Chris Sarandon was a great vamp in Fright Night but better was the chap in John Carpenters ‘Vampires’. Not the best movie but a good bad guy. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2004, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885/24 "2004-12-29T01:36:22Z")
> [@Cherry2000](#): > > _Dracula 2000_ – not because the movie is so good, but because the ending is. It really explains a lot about why the standard legends are what they are (Dracula’s aversion to crosses and silver, and who he really is). I’ll agree with that. The “twist” is nicely done, even though I saw it coming a little while before they actually revealed it. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2004, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885/25 "2004-12-29T02:22:59Z")
From Dusk till Dawn Salma Hayek :eek: 😃 🆒 Enough said. ---
**Author:** ![Khampelf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Khampelf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khampelf)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2004, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885/26 "2004-12-29T17:47:54Z")
OK, I’m a child of the 80’s. My favorite Vampire Movie remains “The Hunger”. Sure, It’s a two hour perfume commercial, with blood, but it’s got Bowie, DeNeuve (sp?) and Sarandon, plus music by Bauhaus, my favorite Goth band. It’s also one of the Rarities where the movie is better than the book. Whitley Striber couldn’t write his way out of a wet paper bag. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2004, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885/27 "2004-12-29T18:22:50Z")
> [@detop](#): > > The first is still the best. Nosferatu (1922) by F.W. Murnau. Accept no substitutes. Agreed. I don’t think anything since has managed to live up to the standard set by **Nosferatu**. > [@The Sonoran Lizard King](#): > > OK, I’m a child of the 80’s. My favorite Vampire Movie remains “The Hunger”. > > Sure, It’s a two hour perfume commercial, with blood, but it’s got Bowie, DeNeuve (sp?) and Sarandon, plus music by Bauhaus, my favorite Goth band. > > It’s also one of the Rarities where the movie is better than the book. Whitley Striber couldn’t write his way out of a wet paper bag. Dude, it’s like you read my mind. I swear I’ve made almost exactly this same post in both vamp movie threads and “movies that are better than the book” threads! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Asbestos_Mango)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2004, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885/28 "2004-12-29T18:31:29Z")
I’ll second _The Hunger_, and add Cronenberg’s _Rabid_. ---
**Author:** ![knarf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@knarf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/knarf)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2004, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885/29 "2004-12-29T18:45:43Z")
Near Dark is probably my favorite. Another I like that hasn’t been mentioned is Martin. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2004, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885/30 "2004-12-29T18:54:09Z")
> [@knarf](#): > > Another I like that hasn’t been mentioned is Martin. If we’re having a “freak Daniel’s shit out” contest, _Martin_ wins, hands down. I’m not sure whether I liked it, but that was one amazingly horrifying movie. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Mississippienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2004, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885/31 "2004-12-29T20:59:08Z")
_Lost Boys_ is, in my opinion, probably the best vampire movie ever. It just drips with this California '80s cool, with the pack of sexy punk vampires, Jami Gertz as the gypsyish Star, and Jason Patric channeling a young Jim Morrison. Genuinely moody atmosphere, a great twist ending (David was a victim too!), and comic relief that’s actually, you know, funny. I’m amused by just how much Buffy the TV Show ripped off this movie. Kiefer Sutherland’s business-up-top, party-at-the-bottom mullet? Sexy sexy. The award for most unintentionally hilarious moment in a vampire flick, however, goes to the concert scene in _Queen of the Damned_. Little twiggy Stuart Townsend takes the stage, weighing maybe 85 pounds sopping wet, this pale glittery stick figure. Then he opens his mouth and the powerful booming Jonathan Davis voice comes out. Fuckin’ A, man. That’s comedy. I bet Davis is still counting the money from that movie, though. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885/32 "2004-12-30T02:40:54Z")
_“Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It’s fun to be a vampire.”_ Lost Boys rocks. Also, Near Dark. Funny that they both came out around the same time (as I recall, and I’m too lazy to actually look it up). I’ve seen Fright Night too many times. Always a great movie. “You have to have _faith_”. “Brewster, you’re SO COOL!” Love it. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885/33 "2004-12-30T05:35:10Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > Many good choices so far; the one that I’ll add is _Cronos_, a Mexican vampire flick that’s really more of a love story about an old man and his granddaughter. Funny, weird, and moving. > > Daniel I was going to mention Cronos. Without spoiling anything, this is not a chock full of vampires film. It is not a film about fighting vampires. It is a film about what we live for and how much would you give up to live forever? It’s isnt talky or preachy and it very much works as a horror/science fiction film. But it’s about exploring the heart, not driving a stake through it. Re The Addiction I sat through that once. Talking. More talking. Followed by more talking. Christopher Walken pops up to ask the eternal question “I defecate. Do you do that?” More talking. Character pulls own molar to prove some kind of point. “We are not evil because we sin. We sin because we are evil.” Still more talking. Then the movie ended. And I was very glad. Nosferatu I’ve never got around to seeing either version. But those images of Shreck remain IMHO some of the creepiest things ever put on film. I cannot think of any film which can even begin to unsettle me the way a few frames of Orlock stepping out of the doorway do. Fright Night I love that the old film clip shows him charging a vampire with the stake held backwards. ---
**Author:** ![BMax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bmax/32/4267_2.png) [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885/34 "2004-12-30T18:38:02Z")
_Martin_ was really good, in a good-story-low-budget kind of way, which is a shit load better than the big-budget-no-story shit we get out of hollywood. I liked the ‘realism’ of him taking the blood with syringes, then wiping down the train compartment in the opening scene. The old cousin and the radio call-in show were great too. I especially liked the depressed atmosphere of the industrial city in the late 70s, when the economy was changing and there werre no jobs. _The Hunger_ was excellent, especially for conveying the early-80s atmosphere. I’m going to break with the pack and say that Coppola’s _Dracula_ was great with the exception of Keanu Reeves. If they had cast someone else, someone capable of generating some kind of chemistry with Winona Ryder (I’d like to give it a try) or even, um, you know, acting? it would have been a perfect vampire movie. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885/35 "2004-12-30T22:03:55Z")
Carl Dreyer’s 1932 [Vampyr](http://www.reelcriticism.com/ziggyrealm/reviews/vampyr.html). I’m shocked that I’m the first to mention it…where are all the other precious art-house dweebs? I’ve also always thought that Tod Browning’s 1935 _Mark of the Vampire_ was pretty cool. S’posed to be a remake of his _London After Midnight_, and stars Bela Lugosi, Jean Hersholt, and the Lionels Barrymore and Atwill. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885/36 "2004-12-30T22:33:21Z")
> [@Ukulele Ike](#): > > Carl Dreyer’s 1932 [Vampyr](http://www.reelcriticism.com/ziggyrealm/reviews/vampyr.html). I’m shocked that I’m the first to mention it…where are all the other precious art-house dweebs? I thought the thread title was “Best Vampire movies”, not “Dullest Vampire movies”. Not to knock Dreyer’s technical skills, artistic achievement, or ability to create tension and build suspense, because they’re all first rate. But well before the end of **Vampyr** I began to understand the true horror of being undead, trapped in a tedious eternity… ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885/37 "2004-12-31T02:24:46Z")
> [@Ukulele Ike](#): > > I’ve also always thought that Tod Browning’s 1935 _Mark of the Vampire_ was pretty cool. S’posed to be a remake of his _London After Midnight_, and stars Bela Lugosi, Jean Hersholt, and the Lionels Barrymore and Atwill. Unfortunately, there is no real vampire in this movie ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885/38 "2004-12-31T02:33:59Z")
**Detop** Well, if it’s a remake of London After Midnight doesn’t that follow? ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885/39 "2004-12-31T02:42:34Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > I thought the thread title was “Best Vampire movies”, not “Dullest Vampire movies” Eh. Some movies, you have to prepare yourself for. Some movies have no flying glass and babes in bikinis and car chases. I like a lot of those sorts of movies. Opium helps. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885/40 "2004-12-31T03:07:55Z")
> [@Ukulele Ike](#): > > Eh. Some movies, you have to prepare yourself for. Some movies have no flying glass and babes in bikinis and car chases. Ah. Thank you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-vampire-movies/281885.md?page=3)