1. Fright Night (1985)
The story of a teenage boy called Charley (played by William Ragsdale) who discovers that his next door neighbour Jerry Dandridge (Chris Sarandon) is a vampire! His girlfriend Amy and best friend "Evil" Ed don't believe him and they ask former horror actor turned Fright Night show host Peter Vincent ("The Great Vampire Killer") to help them prove to Charley that Jerry is human. Things don't go quite according to plan when Peter (played by Roddy McDowall) finds out that Charley is telling the truth. Also Jerry has taken a fancy to Amy who looks very much like a woman he used to know. Can Charley convince Peter to help him defeat Jerry before it's too late?
Update 21/4/19: Video removed again so replaced this with a YouTube Movies preview. You can also watch a trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGQ1yMnKjUY
This is one of my all time faves. It's a horror comedy and it's a bit cheesy and dated now, but still funny. I love the theme music. They've made a remake of this and I'm interested to see it, but I don't know how they could possibly top it! Colin Farrell seems an odd choice for Jerry but we'll see! lol.
2. Fright Night Part 2 (1988)
The sequel to Fright Night. Charley is now at college and has a new girlfriend called Alex. He has convinced himself that Jerry Dandridge was just a human serial killer who was part of a cult and not a vampire. Now he no longer believes vampires exist...Until he visits his old friend Peter Vincent and discovers that Peter has some new neighbours in his apartment block, one of whom is Jerry's sister Regine (Julie Carmen)- and she's out for revenge on her brother's killers!
Scenes from the film
I love this one even more than the first one! One of my favourite parts is the dance scene with Charley and Regine. I also like the secondary characters (Regine's sidekicks). My favourite is Louie, the werewolf (played by Jon Gries). "Geez Cheryl, why don't you pull down the shade - someone could be out there, you know!" (Yes, they are!) I like the music in this too, especially the end song, Come To Me by Deborah Holland.
Update 14/12/14: Thought I'd post a link to the dance scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OhLLRS67D0
3. Bram's Stoker's Dracula (1992)
Francis Ford Coppola's film version of the classic story by Bram Stoker. Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) is a lawyer who's sent to Transylvania to meet Count Dracula (Gary Oldman) who wants to buy a house in Whitby, England. During the visit, Dracula sees a picture of Jonathan's fiancee Mina Murray (Winona Ryder), who looks remarkably like Dracula's long dead wife Elisabeta. So when Dracula travels to England, he leaves Jonathan trapped in the castle so he can pursue Mina.
In this film you get to see a different side to a vampire, Dracula isn't just evil, he's lonely and sad too and tortured because he misses Elisabeta. Because he falls in love with Mina too, he's reluctant to condemn her to life as a vampire. Anthony Hopkins makes a good (and somewhat mad!) Van Helsing, the doctor that is called in when Mina's best friend Lucy is attacked by Dracula.
4. The Lost Boys (1987)
This is another 80s cult classic about two brothers who move with their mother to a small Californian town to stay with their grandad. Children have gone missing and there have been strange deaths. It turns out that the local biker gang, led by David (Kiefer Sutherland) are vampires and they are responsible for the killings and disappearances.
The older brother Michael (Jason Patric) gets pulled into the gang and starts to turn into a vampire. When his younger brother Sam (Corey Haim) finds out what's happened to him, he teams up with two teenage "vampire hunters" brothers Edgar and Alan Frog (Corey Feldman and a less well known actor called Jamison Newlander) to stop the vampires.
I used to find this film quite scary, David looks creepy, lol. It's not straightforward horror but a comedy as well. I always wonder if the grandad was a vampire himself because he kept his "special drink" in the fridge and thought there were "too many damn vampires" in the town!
5. Blade (1998)
This film is based on the comic book series. Blade (Wesley Snipes) is a "half vampire" since his mother was bitten while pregnant with him and he was born with a mixture of vampire and human traits. I would think a half vampire would be someone who has one vampire parent and one human one aka a "Dhampir",but in the film the blood of the vampire who attacked Blade's mum has mixed with his, making him half vampire.
He rescues Dr. Karen Jenson (N'Bushe Wright), who has been attacked by a vampire called Quinn (Donal Logue) at the hospital she works at, and takes her back to his hideout/base. He lives there with Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) a human who found him as a boy and helped him get his vampire side under control. Blade and Whistler fight vampires together (Whistler's family was killed by vampires). Blade takes a serum to suppress his vampire urges and they treat Karen with it to delay her transformation into a vampire. She teams up with them to defeat their biggest enemy, Deacon Frost (played by Stephen Dorff).
The opening scene
This is my favourite of the Blade films. I don't like the others as much; don't really know why. It's an interesting idea and different to other films.
6. John Carpenter's Vampires (1998)
This film is about team of vampire hunters (backed by the Catholic church) who travel around America tracking down the undead. They're led by a man called Jack Crow (played by James Woods). After one of their missions, they stop at a motel and hook up with some prostitutes. While they're having a good time, a vampire bursts in and attacks everyone. Jack and his partner Tony Montoya (Daniel Baldwin) escape, along with one of the prostitutes (Katrina), who has been bitten.
The vampire they encountered turns out to be a master one called Valek, who may be the father of all vampires. He's seeking a Black Cross which will enable him to walk in the sunlight. Jack and Tony visit their boss Cardinal Alba, who sends a priest with them to help hunt down Valek. They also use Katrina to track Valek, as she is turning into a vampire.
This is quite a violent film, with not very likable characters but you still want to find out what happens. There is a sequel to this, Vampires: Los Muertos but I never really liked that one much. According to Wikipedia there's another sequel called Vampires: The Turning but it's got a completely different vampire origin story. I've never heard of it before but it might be worth checking out sometime. It's set in Thailand and the Asian vampires are some of the weirdest!
7. Vamp (1986)
Yet another 80s vampire movie! Best friends Keith (Chris Makepeace) and AJ (Robert Rusler) are looking for a stripper for their college initiation party, so they (along with rich boy Duncan, who is their transport) go on a road trip to find one. They plan to visit the After Dark Club. The journey takes a strange turn after they swerve to avoid another vehicle and find themselves in a deserted part of town.
While waiting until it turns dark so they can visit the nightclub, they run into trouble with a psychotic biker gang. When they finally head to their destination, it turns out to be no ordinary club but one run by vampires! Vampire queen and star stripper Katrina (Grace Jones) bites AJ and turns him into a vampire. Left on his own, Keith teams up with Amaretto (Deedee Pfeiffer), a waitress who claims she knows both him and AJ, to try to survive the night.
Katrina's dance!
I must get this on DVD! I used to have it on video but never got to see the very end because the tape ran out, lol. (It was taped by accident on the end of another film). So I finally rented it from the video shop and saw it all. It is truly bizarre, especially Katrina's dance.
Update 27/3/13- I now have this on DVD. After trying for ages to get it on eBay, it then showed up in HMV!
8. Vampire in Brooklyn (1995)
Vampire prince Maximilian (played by Eddie Murphy), the only survivor of his race, leaves his Caribbean island homeland and travels to Brooklyn, New York in search of a mate. He is aware of the existence of a half vampire, half human female (or a Dhampir!) and hopes to find her.
Meanwhile police detective Rita (Angela Bassett) has been having some problems since her mother died. Her mum was mentally ill and Rita worries she is becoming like her since she's been having strange visions and dreams. She is unaware that the reason for her mother's illness was her involvement with Rita's vampire father, who came from the same island as Max.
Strange things start to happen as Max pursues Rita, her roommate is killed and she meets some weird people (all Max in disguise). He also attempts to cause trouble between Rita and her partner and friend Detective Justice (Allen Payne), who is in love with her. After Max finally bites Rita and she begins to transform into a vampire, it's up to Justice to save her.
Another entertaining horror/comedy. My favourite line is Max's "This is my heart...this is my stomach" when Justice stakes him in the wrong place. Some other funny moments are provided by Julius Jones (Kadeem Hardison), a man who seems to attract trouble and ends up being turned into a ghoul by Max, in order to become his helper. His condition gets increasingly worse throughout the film as he loses body parts!
9. From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
Criminal brothers Seth (George Clooney) and Richie (Quentin Tarantino) Gecko are on the run from the law after a bank robbery during which people died. They are attempting to escape to Mexico, where they have arranged to meet an associate who will help them.
When they meet former pastor Jacob (Harvey Keitel), his daughter Kate (Juliette Lewis) and son Scott (Ernest Liu), who are staying at a motel, they take them hostage and force Jacob to drive them over the border in his RV. The place where the brothers are meeting their contact is called the Titty Twister, a truckers' bar in the middle of nowhere. Seth promises the family that if they just stick with him until the next morning when the meeting will take place, he will let them go. They all resolve to enjoy themselves by drinking and watching the bar's resident strippers, but things go horribly wrong when they discover the Titty Twister is in actual fact a vampire bar!
Santanico Pandemonium's dance scene
The first half of this is like an action movie/thriller and then after they get to the bar and head/queen vampire Santanico Pandemonium (Salma Hayek) does her dance and catches sight of Richie's hand (which is bleeding from an earlier shooting), all hell breaks loose and it becomes a horror film. It's strange, lol.
The storyline of the vampire bar and the idea of the queen vampire performing are both similar to Vamp but otherwise they're quite different. Seth and Richie are two of the most unlikable characters in all of the films I've mentioned, although Seth does improve a bit. He is better than Richie who is a perverted psycho!
10. Twilight (2008)
And now to end on something completely different! I expect almost everyone knows the story but I'll go over it here, lol. Teenager Bella Swann (Kristen Stewart) moves to the town of Forks, Washington to stay with her dad, sheriff Charlie. When she starts at the local high school, she meets the Cullen family, four mysterious teens who are beautiful and otherworldly looking. Their names are Edward, Rosalie, Jasper and Alice and they keep to themselves. Bella is intrigued by Edward (Robert Pattinson). She finds herself sitting next to him in biology class but is puzzled when he behaves strangely towards her, sometimes going out of his way to avoid her and other times seemingly attempting to be friendly.
When Edward saves her from being hit by a car by moving faster than any human and physically stopping the vehicle with his hand, Bella begins to suspect that he isn't what he appears to be. After hearing a Native American legend about vampires, she puts two and two together and realises that he and his family are the "Cold Ones" the stories talk about. When she tells Edward her conclusion, he confirms her suspicion and also reveals that her blood is the most desirable he has ever smelt, meaning he is constantly tempted to drink it.
Despite this, Bella has fallen in love with Edward and he feels the same about her. They decide to be together and deal with any obstacles they might face. However, when another group of vampires visit Forks, Bella finds herself in grave danger.
Scene where the Cullens play baseball, then meet the other vampires
Update 21/4/19: Had to replace the video and I think this clip is shorter.
Twilight is very different to the others, being a supernatural romance based on a teenage book and not a horror. I wasn't sure whether to put it on the list but since this is a list of my fave vampire films and I like it, I decided to include it! I have all the books and although I think the book is better, the film is still enjoyable.
A lot of people object to the fact that the vampires have no fangs and that they sparkle in the sunlight but it's just a different take on it. I think I have come across vampires without fangs in a book or film before (can't remember where exactly right now) but never any that sparkle!
Hope you like the list! Let me know what you think of the films or if there's any you would have included. I may do a follow up post with more films later. :)
Edit 6/5/11: The vampires in Near Dark don't appear to have any fangs. I also don't think Eli the vampire in Let The Right One In has any either. I haven't mentioned those films here but I'll write about them later.
28/8/18: You can find those two movies here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-vampire-films.html
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