When people ask what I do for a living, as a film critic my response is always: “I sit in the dark.” Which sometimes begs the reply: “Oh, like a vampire?” Well, not exactly. But I do feel a real affinity for the undead. I hate the sunlight. Crosses make me nervous. And garlic gives me gas. But movies about vampires have kept me shuddering since I was a child and thrilled to the red-eyed glare of Christopher Lee in Horror Of Dracula, I have always been most impressed at directors who can bring new fangs to their blood drinkers. Here are my favorite 21 offbeat vampire films:
Deathdream (1972). Director Bob Clark’s (Porky’s) riff on The Monkey’s Paw about a Vietnam War soldier thought to have died, who then mysteriously shows up at his parent’s front door alive but “changed”: besides being pale, distant, and odd, he also has a secret and desperate need for human blood. This film is mordant and strange and creepy as hell.
Let’s Scare Jessica To Death (1971). Zohra Lampert gives a sublime performance as the fragile, just-released-from-a-mental-hospital Jessica, who returns to her Connecticut farmhouse and starts to fear a strange young female drifter (Gretchen Corbett), befriended by the family. The woman is actually a vampire but everyone just thinks Jessica is nuts. An eerie, atmospheric, film nicely directed by John Hancock.
Martin (1977). George Romero (Night Of The Living Dead) crafted a memorably unique interpretation of the vampire tale with this tale of a confused teenager, Martin (John Amplas), who is convinced he’s a Nosferatu and attacks women, drugging them and then using a razor blade to extract their blood.
Lemora: A Child’s Tale Of The Supernatural (1974). Set in 1920s rural Georgia, this story is about Lila (Cheryl Smith), a 13-year-old, choir-singing girl duped into visiting a house in the forest where a female blood-drinker called Lemora (Leslie Gilb) tries to seduce the innocent girl. The Catholic Film Board condemned this no-budget rarity written and directed by Richard Blackburn, which was finally released on DVD in pristine condition.
Ganja & Hess (1973). In this marvelously strange film, Duane Jones (the black hero in Night Of The Living Dead) stars as an anthropologist stabbed by an ancient cursed dagger that transforms him into a vampire. Marlene Clark becomes his bride in a movie also known as Double Possession and Blood Couple. Director Bill Gunn’s film was re-cut into a confusing mess when first released, but subsequent DVD reconstructions have made this fascinating film (shot in New York) finally available for cult fans.
The Addiction (1995). Abel Ferrara (Bad Lieutenant) offers up his typical lapsed-Catholic-druggie take in this lyrical black-and-white film starring Lily Taylor as an NYU philosophy student whose study of evil gets her bitten and infected by a vampire (Annabella Sciorra). It’s arty and insane and kind of beautiful.
Let The Right One In (2008) Morbidly moving Swedish vampire story about a bullied boy who befriends the weird, androgynous new girl who moves in next door. Turns out she drinks blood to stay alive. Director Tomas Alfredson’s film is more of a coming-of-age story, or an offbeat romance, than a horror movie, but it still has sequences that chill the blood.
Vampire’s Kiss (1988). I always think this movie got an unfairly bad rap from critics. Nicolas Cage stars as a New York literary agent who, after a one-night-stand (with a mysterious Jennifer Beals) is convinced he has become one of the undead. For once, Cage’s over-the-top antics on screen (even eating a live cockroach) are appropriately on target.
Blood For Dracula (1974). From the first shot of the Count (Udo Keir) painting his white hair black in front of a mirror that doesn’t show his reflection, this Paul Morrissey take on the vampire movie is dark comic perfection. Keir is ideal as the sickly age-old bloodsucker that searches to sink his fangs into virgins, or, as he says: “wurgins,” only to be left puking up gallons of blood after the “wurgins” he bites turn out to be anything but pure. Studly Joe Dallesandro is the sexy Communist handyman, and Roman Polanski shows up as a villager in this hilariously warped comedy.
Near Dark (1987) A remarkable Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) film about handsome farm-boy Caleb (Adrian Pasdar), who is infected by the bite of a pretty drifter (played by the wonderful Jenny Wright– who should have been in more films). Sick and confused, he ends up joining the girl and her pack of bloodthirsty undead, who roam the highways of the American West in a RV, with the windows blacked out by tinfoil. Bill Paxton is glorious as the psychotic vampire Severen, and there is a great scene where the pack invades a redneck bar and viciously attack the patrons that is frightening and fabulous.
Rabid (1977). Leave it to David Cronenberg to subversively cast porn queen Marilyn Chambers as a young woman in a motorcycle accident who receives an experimental procedure to save her life at a plastic surgery clinic with disastrous results. A weird projectile grows under her armpit which she uses to inject her victims in order to quench her thirst for blood, infecting the recipient with rabies. Before long there’s pandemonium in the streets in this excellent early Cronenberg meditation on the body politic.
Cronos (1993) Stunning debut of director Guillermo del Toro, this bizarre and daringly original Mexican horror film is about a kindly, elderly antique dealer (Federico Luppi) who discovers a gold Art Nouveau egg hidden in the base of a statue. When he turns a mechanical device on the egg- little golden pincers extend and dig into his hand, and in no time, he’s looking younger, but also following people with nosebleeds into men’s rooms and licking their spilled blood off the floor.
Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) Director Jim Jarmusch’s ultimate hipster vampire film: crazily romantic, darkly funny and musically adventurous. Married undead couple Adam (a lean and brooding Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (an unearthly beautiful Tilda Swinton) love each other madly but can’t seem to live together. When Eve travels from Tangier to visit Adam, who lives in Detroit, playing music and collecting guitars, Eve’s vampire sister Ava (Mia Wasikowska) unceremoniously drops in to start trouble. There’s a funky, ‘70s rock star vibe to their lifestyle that is intoxicating.
What We Do In The Shadows (2014) New Zealand mockumentary which chronicles a documentary film crew following around four vampire roommates in Wellington. Directors Taika Waititi & Jemaine Clement’s (Flight Of the Conchords) witty, incredibly amusing film documents the roommates squabbling about household chores and stalking their prey, all the while the film crew nervously clutch the crucifixes they wear for protection.
Deafula (1975) The first film in sign language (in “Signscope”) stars the director Peter Wechsberg as the shape-shifter (with cape, fake fangs and a big nose), signing and biting his victims. After tracking down his dad (Dracula) and staking him, he does an impassioned hand-wringing soliloquy to God before collapsing in this crackpot classic that took me years to track down. I even had to trade a softcore EuroTrash film called Spermula to someone at a famous museum for it.
The Living Corpse (1967) The only film to be rated “X” in Pakistan, it takes Horror Of Dracula and refigures the story to that of a mad scientist searching for the elixir of eternal life who dies and comes back as one of the undead. But there are several outlandish musical interludes- one seductive dance by a buxom female vampire in a slip is beyond hilarious. Banned after its initial release and thought to have been lost. Mondo Macabro released this on DVD. Boggles the mind.
Gayracula (1983) Yes, a gay porn version starring handsome Tim Kramer as Gaylord Young, an attorney in 1783 whose visit to the castle of the Marquis de Suede (Steve Collins) transforms him into a vampire. For two hundred years he searches for the Marquis to get revenge and finds he is now the impresario of a tacky gay club. The love of a virgin boy waiter frees Young from his cursed life. “What are you going to do now?” “Think I’ll work on my tan line,” Gaylord replies. I can’t think of another film where the vampire bites the ass of his victim.
Mr. Vampire (1985) The Hong Kong comic/horror film that introduced the hopping vampire. A Taoist Priest and his two bumbling assistants try to protect a family from their blood-drinking Grandfather (who died angry, his last breath stuck in his body). The vampires are really animated corpses who hop around biting the living. One of the bewitched assistants is forced to walk barefoot over uncooked rice in this goofy, entertaining film.
Stake Land (2010) A superior post-apocalyptic vampire saga by director Jim Mickle set in a bleak burned-out America. There vampire hunter Mister (Nick Damici) takes an orphaned boy (Connor Paolo) under his wing and hits the road searching for any safe haven. Along the way they fight berserkers (aggressive fanged creatures) as well as a crazed, religious zealot (played superbly and sinisterly by Michael Cerveris). This bittersweet bloodsucker epic is first rate from beginning to end.
Lifeforce (1985) Tobe Hooper’s criminally underrated sci-fi chiller based on Colin Wilson’s Space Vampires. Steve Railsback stars as an astronaut on a British/American space mission who discovers a 150-mile-long spaceship hidden in the head of Halley’s comet. Inside are the desiccated bodies of giant bat-like creatures. Also, three naked humanoid bodies preserved in suspended animation which they unwisely transport back to London. The female alien (Mathilda May) awakes and sucks out the life force of a guard and heads out into the city wreaking apocalyptic havoc, turning people into walking zombies. Co-starring the fabulous Michael Gothard (The Devils).
Bloodlust (1977) Genuinely weird German film by Marijan Vajda about a creepy deaf-mute (Werner Pochath), who rides around town on a motor scooter. He’s ridiculed at his office by co-workers and at home by his neighbors, where he lives in a flat filled with dolls. Brutalized by his father when he was a child, he has a mania for spilled ketchup and ink, but it escalates until he craves real blood. He reads the obituary notices and breaks into funeral homes defiling the corpses- cutting out the eyes, stabbing or decapitating the bodies or just drinking blood through a glass straw. Then he leaves his tag “Mosquito” on the wall. The newspapers refer to the crimes as committed by a vampire. There is very little dialogue, and a discordant organ score- like Philip Glass if someone was sitting on his hands. Supposedly this is based on a true crime, but who cares? It’s so morbid and poetically perverse it’s utterly fascinating.
And if you disagree with my list, well, bite me…