There are a lot of dracula or vampire movies out there…so far my favorite would have to be INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE. Then again, i am not well versed in these types of movies either. What’s your favorite ‘drac’ movie and what made it your favorite?
Was it gory (a big plus)?
I never saw “INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE”, but I didn’t think Dracula was in it.
Was he?
Mmm… tough call.
Francis Ford Coppola’s version a few years back was a lovely, lush adaptation… but with the BAAAAAAD mistake of making Dracula a “romantic hero”.
For some damn reason, these days, vampires are romantic heroes. It’s all Anne Rice’s fault.
Bram Stoker’s vampire was not a romantic character. Seductive? Sure. So’s Satan. Dracula was NOT a human being. He could be charming, he could be sexy, he could be anything he had to be, but ultimately, he was devoted entirely to his own needs and dark desires. Period. This was NOT a nice guy, and “romantic” does not describe him well.
That… and some of the actors just weren’t there. I’m sorry, but hiring Keanu Reeves to play Jonathan Harker was not a smart move. No doubt it got some butts into the theatre seats, but he wasn’t the best guy for the role.
My favorite movie Dracula is probably Christopher Lee… he was probably the only actor I’ve ever seen who could match Bela Lugosi in all aspects of the character, everything from the charming, seductive fellow to the snarling, bestial bloodsucker. That, and he did it in color, and with a little blood in it.
Unfortunately, none of the Hammer movies were very close adaptations of the book…
I like Werner Herzog’s “Nosferatu”
Klaus Kinski plays Count Dracula.
I met Herzog once and told him that the movie looked very much like the paintings of Caspar David Fredrich. I asked him if it was intentional, but he said he didn’t do it on purpose.
I know this won’t matter to anyone, but the movie features the coolest clock ever. It was a mechanical marvel, like a cuckoo clock. At the stroke of midnight a little man pops out of a skull and hammers a bell twelve times. Then a reaper emerges from a door on one side of the clock, travels across the face of the clock, swings his scythe, and enters the clock through another door. A very creepy moment that gave Jonathon Harker a real bad feeling. (he had just met the count, and was his guest)
My favorite vampire movies are Fright Night and Fright Night II. I wouldn’t say that they’re classics of modern cinema, but they’re pretty fun and goofy. And they did a pretty good job of keeping up with all the vampire mythology and transporting it to the eighties. I remember the sequel as being gorier, and also generally goofier.
Note that the Count doesn’t make an appearance in either one, so if that was one of the requirements just ignore me.
It’s funny, I was just thinking about starting a thread on vampire movies. Of course, what spawned this was the fact I can’t really think of any good ones.
Okay, not entirely true, but you have to admit, the majority of vampire movies (of which there are HUNDREDS) suck. I still love the original Dracula starring Bella Legosi, and the silent Nosferatu. The remake tried to capture the essence of the silent movie, but I just found it nerve racking and slow. The scene where the count moves on Johnnathan in his bedroom though, was indeed one of the most terrifying moments in Vampire cinema though.
As far as recent movies, I’d have to say I really like Near Dark. It’s a nice look at how vampires aren’t always the sexy, charming, rich and powerful beings other movies make them out to be. Plus, it had Bill Paxton in it. What’s not to love?
Also, as a guilty pleasure, I really liked John Carpenter’s Vampires. It was a pretty shitty movie, yes, but again, an interesting idea and a fun movie to watch.
There was one film from the 70s that I’ve seen about five times and rather enjoyed, but can’t remember the name of it. It ended with Dracula on a boat being caught in the ropes of the main sail and being hoisted up in the sunlight. Anyone remember that one?
[Hijack] (but not really) More like an add on, but what’s the WORST vampire movie, in your opinion, as well. Non of these “Soft Cell” production porns, but legitimate movies. I gotta go with Modern Vampires staring Casper Van Deen. Holy shit, that thing was just horribly acted, terrible special effects, and one of the worst racially inappropriate movies I’ve ever seen.[/hijack]
“Lost Boys,” a peculiar manifestation of the mid-80’s (although produced before the whole Anne Rice thing really got rolling) is a nicely atmospheric, occasionally funny film in the trailer-park vampire vein. It may, in fact, not be as good as I remember it. But it does feature the dynamic duo, Coreys Haim and Feldman, so how bad could it be, really?
“Innocent Blood” was a snappy little film directed by John Landis, along the lines of “American Werewolf in London,” though not quite as funny. If you ever wanted to see Don Rickles explode, though, this is the film for you!
I hope all fans of the original “Nosferatu” took the time to at least glance at “Shadow of the Vampire,” which should win some kind of award for Neatest Movie Premise: what if Max Schreck was really a vampire?
Worst vampire films? Phew… One of the most recent has got to be “Blade 2,” just on the basis of internal continuity violations alone. It’s one thing to pick and choose from the pre-existing vampire mythology, but it’s another thing to ignore rules from your own damn movie! Put it this way: halfway through the film, we learn that vampires can be destroyed with flashlights. FLASHLIGHTS! Okay, bad enough, but guess which common household item, powered by batteries, is never used again in the film.
Oh, and “Roman Polanski’s Vampire Killers?” You’ll love it, a classic.
I liked the Frank Langella Dracula, mostly for the sound track, and the production just looked so good.
They sure had a hard time with his hair though, didn’t they?
It looked different in just about every scene – sometimes even in the same scene.
Shouldn’t a vampire have the same hair pretty much forever?
Near Dark’s my second favorite, for the reasons Elvis mentioned, only for me it’s Lance Henriksen.
“Oy vey! Hef you got da wrong vempire!”
Lost Boys was something like the first horror movie I ever watched when I was home alone at night. I think I was 12 or something. All I know is that I didn’t sleep in the dark for about two weeks…and I can’t watch Edward Hermann on Gilmore Girls without imagining him leaning over and biting Kelly Bishop’s neck.
Terrifel, I think the thing in Blade II was that they were using special flashlights that put out strong UV light–like light from the sun. So that’s building on pre-existing vampire continuity. Plus, they did the same thing in the first Blade. I agree, though, that Blade II sucked.
For worst vampire movie EVER, I nominate The Forsaken. If you missed it, lucky you. It came out a couple of years ago. Jonathan Schaeck (sp?) was the leader of a vampire pack that goes after these three friends who are on a road trip. It was a truly awful movie. The thing that stunned us (me and my friend) the most was that there were no vampire effects! None! No special make-up! Not even fangs! A few shots of blood running down their mouths, but that’s it. It’s hard to even call it a vampire movie.
Only slightly better was the sequel to John Carpenter’s Vampires, starring Jon Bon Jovi. I kid you not.
Sounds like the Frank Langella version of Dracula that someone mentioned above. It WAS pretty good, but the last scene wasn’t the best. The scene where Van Helsing is in an underground pit chasing a newly-made vampire (who, for some odd reason, was Mina Murray and not Lucy Westerina) and meets up with her after a bat knocks his crucifix into the water was my favorite, and every time I watch it, I sleep with the lights on that night.
But that’s offset by having Kiefer Sutherland, yumm.
Well, yes. My problem wasn’t so much that it worked, but that it worked so damned well. One mere candlepower of flashlight energy was enough to vaporize a whole slew of vampires. So why, given this established premise, do the vampire hunters feel the need to use anything else other than flashlights? Why, halfway through the movie, do the flashlights suddenly disappear and they switch over to huge, not-effective-at-all assault weapons so that they can be respectively slaughtered? And here I am, sitting on the edge of my theater seat yelling, “What happened to the FLASHLIGHTS?!”
named Mina Murray- the character confusion was worse…
she was Mina VAN HELSING- the Doctor’s daughter!
Tho that scene was indeed a kick-ass one!
My favorite has to be the Coppola one if only because- it made a decent link between Prince Vlad & Count Dracula, it had all the characters- tho Holmwood & Morris were very poorly written, it came closest to getting Renfield right & got Van Helsing right on the money, it followed the essential plot more than any other version. Still, making the Count a tragic romantic anti-hero was a bad move. I actually tho did not mind Keanu as Harker.
Guilty pleasure of recent vampire films- DRACULA 2000- wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected & we see Vitamin C’s boobies!
Favorite HAMMER Dracula film- WITH Chris- gotta be HORROR OF DRACULA (to us American Heathen, just DRACULA in the UK), but without Chris-
BRIDES OF DRACULA- Peter Cushing rocked them both! We forget how much an action hero his Van Helsing was.
I have a real admiration for the Louis Jourdan BBC COUNT DRACULA that had a truly sympathetic & close-to-the-book but youngish Renfield.
The Lugosi DRACULA Transylvania segment & all Dwight Frye’s later scenes are the best parts of the classic film.
Btw, I see in FANGORIA that a new film is being produced THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER…Hmmmm!
Agreed.
Has anyone else seen Martin, 1978 George Romero flick?
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0077914
I liked. I think it was the beginning of the tragic/sympathetic vampire, not the monster.
Just one more little thing about Blade II’s sucking so bad. In the first movie, if a vampire’s wounded with silver, the wound doesn’t heal, but unless it’s a fatal blow, they’ll live. In two, minor wounds with silver bullets leave the vampire a burning pile of ash. He even kills one vampire by stabing him in the nuts with a silver knife. Admitadly, I’d wish I were dead if I were stabbed in the nuts, but I doubt anyone’s ever died from that.
Oh, and as for Dracula 2000…it was bad. Real bad. I did like the little twist as to who Dracula truly was, that was an inventive little bit…but the “final death” at the hands of a neon Jesus…ugh. I was expecting it to be bad, but fun, seeing as how Craven’s most recent movies were very comical, but this movie had nothing. And having lived in New Orleans, I’m just sick of seeing Mardi Gras parades everywhere for no fucking reason in movies. Oh, and not only is there no big screen on the side of the Virgin Mega Store, but there are a lot of people in there that are NOT 17-20 year old hotties. When will the movies stop lying!!!
What?! You mean to say that every day in New Orleans isn’t Mardi Gras? Get out of town, you great deceiver. Next you’ll be trying to tell us that every day in Chinatown isn’t Chinese New Year, and we all know that’s not true.
Hmmn… My favourites would be Dracula’s Daughter, Nosferatu, Innocent Blood, and Fright Night.
Let’s see…favorites include Dracula’s Daughter, Near Dark, Fright Night and whichever Hammer it was that featured Van Helsing trapping Dracula between a cross made of two candlesticks and a beam of sunlight. I love that scene.
Guilty pleasure: To Sleep with the Vampire, and the apparently simultaneous remake with almost exactly the same script but all different actors.
Worst: Fright Night II and Interview with the Vampire. Oh, and I was one of the eleven people who actually saw Dracula: Dead and Loving It in the theatre. I fell asleep.
I got all the Dracula adaptations I could together one Halloween and watched them all, back to back. For my oney, Bela Lugosi is still the best overall Dracula. Nobody else convinced me that they were really an ancient Tranylvanian count. And Lugosi is wonderfully creepy in the part. That said, the script isn’t the best, Browning’s direction is lackluster and below par, and the use of armadillos (!!) in the film is downright weird.
Apparently th PBDS version starring Louis Jodan is the most faithful to the book. But I find it downright boring. There are long dull solarized “dream” sequences in it. If there’s one hing Dracu;la should never be, it’s boring.
I was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled across Jesse Franco’s 1970 Count Dracula on TV. The opening part is great! It’s is incredibly faithful to the book. (Star Christopher Lee noted that it was the only version in which the Count has a moustache, as in the book). It flags near the end, but it’s well worth watching, and far better than the critics give it credit for.
Critics have ransacked it, David Skal has declared it an abomination. I admit it’s too long, and Anthony Hopkins undoubtedly hams it up as Van Helsing. But I kinda liked Coppolas version of [BBam Stoker’s Dracula**. It’s the only version with the guts to put that Texan into it, for one thing, along with other neglected bits (like Dracula walking through London in daylight).