I still love the 1985 Fright Night. Roddy McDowall as a washed-up actor now presenting the friday night TV horror film double bill. Kid comes to him because he thinks his new neighbour is a vampire.
Also Chan-Wook Park’s (Oldboy, Landy Vengeance) Thirst. Priest who has lost his faith volunteers for a dangerous medical experiment and becomes a vampire. Then a young woman in an abusive arranged marriage falls for him. Hilarious and sweet. Warning - contains slurping noises.
Well, I’ll be the first to jump on the anime bandwagon: both Vampire Hunter D movies are fantastic, but Bloodlust gets my vote for the detail in the animation.
Let the Right One In. It’s very reminicent My Life as a Dog in places–alienated boy, confused pre-adolescent sexuality, lots of silence and spaces within (what I find) confusing social mores. More relevant to the topic, it also does a good job of taking familiar motifs–the master/Renfield relationship, the vampire’s great treasure, the problem of eternal youth, the vampire’s love of puzzles and need for an invitation–and turns them on their ear. It’s a thorough deconstruction of everything familiar about vampire film and literature, set in a film mileux familiar to fans of foreign cinema.
I saw this at the local art theater when it came out. I walked out with my fists in the air, my heart filled with joy at having finally found the film that dared raise everything I loved about the genre to a plateau of high art. This, I thought, was a triumph, the greatest vampire film since Murnau. At last, a vampire film that I could champion with all my strength and breath.
Then I looked around me at my fellow patrons exiting the building. Everyone else was staring straight ahead, thoroughly freaked out.
While most(if not all) of these were far better produced, I still gotta say my Favorite is 'Salem’s Lot, the original made-for-TV movie from 1979.
This was my first scary movie that the baby-sitter let me stay up and watch with her when it first aired and set the course for my movie preferences the rest of my thus-far life. The images of the Glick brothers with their glowing eyes, and all the vampires crawling out of the darkness at the end still hold up, IMHO.
I would love, love, love someone to make a decent version of the Bram Stoker Dracula. The Coppola one was ruined by several liberties with the story and Keanu Reeves’s atrocious acting/accent.
I’m sitting here trying to think of a better vampire movie, and I can’t. Yeah, it stars goofy-ass David Soul, and yeah, the production values are crap, but that was still the scariest damned vampire ever invented. (Yeah, yeah, I know it’s based on Nosferatu. It’s better.)
Really, thinking about the OP’s question, it’s disappointing that there aren’t more truly scary vampire movies.
Other decent vampire movies:
Let the Right One In
Fright Night
Interview with the Vampire
Near Dark
Still, it seems that the perfect vampire movie is yet to be made. I agree with jjimm that a well-made version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula could be great.
Wow, it’s rare I get to add something new to a thread like this!
My favorite is Let the Right One In, and two of my least favorites are Interview and John Carpenter’s.
But my second favorite hasn’t been mentioned so far: Guillermo del Toro’s Cronos. It’s the best vampire-grandfather-with-a-loving-granddaughter story ever told, and it’s full of vintage del Toro tastiness.
Probably Shadow of the Vampire, but as a college student I watched Nicholas Cage ham it up in Vampire’s Kiss while on psychedelics and I’ve never forgotten the experience.
The BBC version with Louis Jordan (who is surprisingly effective) might be up your alley. It’s pretty well devoid of cinematic flourish–it’s shot on tape, mostly on stock sets–but the acting and execution of the script are outstanding.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula would be my pick. With an honorable mention to John Carpenter’s Vampires. I like the matter-of-fact brutality of the vampire-killing crew. And that master vampire is a scary dude.
But the various opinions are reminding me just how many vampire movies I have.
BTW, there’s one I cannot recall the name of, all I recollect is a group of young guys in a car that spins out in the middle of an intersection and they end up in the dark-side of town somehow… a vampire getting (ineffectively) stabbed with formica is also floating around in the morass I call a memory… anyone care to name it?
