Suck on this: there are a lot of vampire flicks. And most of them, well, suck. And most of the ones that don't suck are the old-fashioned Bela Lugosi type. Not that there's anything wrong with those, but if you're looking for a fresher take -- and you can't wait for 30 Days of Night, coming out October 19 (looks really scary, check out the trailer!) -- your options are even more limited. Here's a few that do the genre justice:

1) Shadow of the Vampire (2000)
Director: E. Elias Merhige
Starring: John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, Cary Elwes, Catherine McCormack, Eddie Izzard
Why a Fave? What if the dude who played Nosferatu in that great old 1922 silent German horror movie was actually really a vampire? This bone-dry satire sends up the pretensions of artists as well as the clichés of the genre, and it's one of the best -- and most underappreciated -- movies of the 2000s of any genre.

2) Near Dark (1987)
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Starring: Adrian Pasdar, Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, Jenette Goldstein
Why a Fave? Darkly amusing and eerily intense film, this is a surprisingly haunting, if never entirely sympathetic, portrait of the loneliness and torment of the eternally undead.

3) Love at First Bite (1979)
Director: Stan Dragoti
Starring: George Hamilton, Susan Saint James, Richard Benjamin
Why a Fave? 1970s sexual-revolution feminism meets Old World vampiric charm in one of the best horror comedies ever made.

4) Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter (2001)
Director: Lee Demarbre
Starring: Phil Caracas, Murielle Varhelyi, Ian Driscoll
Why a Fave? The No. 1 undead guy -- the J-man himself -- is back, and he's kicking some vampire ass in this outrageous, funny, and sneakily subversive cult flick.

5) Forever Knight (1989-1996)
Director: various
Starring: Geraint Wyn Davies, Catherine Disher
Why a Fave? Okay, it's not a movie, but it is available on DVD. Vampire cop in modern Toronto battles bad guys and his own personal demons; the shades-of-gray stories explore serious issues of life and love without ever once stepping over the line into ridiculousness or self-parody.

6) The Lost Boys (1987)
Director: Joel Schumacher
Starring: Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Patric, Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, Dianne Wiest
Why a Fave? Soul-sucking suburbia as a hotbed of teenage vampires? I knew it!

7) Interview With the Vampire (1994)
Director: Neil Jordan
Starring: Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Kirsten Dunst
Why a Fave? Baroque and bizarre and not entirely satisfying, but still a meaty bite of campy goodness.

8) The Little Vampire (2000)
Director: Uli Edel
Starring: Jonathan Lipnicki, Richard E. Grant
Why a Fave? This sweetly scary and silly movie is aimed directly at the grade-school crowd, but it's smart enough not to turn off adults, either.

9) Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor) (2006)
Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Starring: Konstantin Khabensky
Why a Fave? The overabundance of style becomes more a distraction than anything else, but there's no denying that this is the coolest depiction of 21st century urban vampires and their woes yet.

10) Blade (1998)
Director: Stephen Norrington
Starring: Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff, Kris Kristofferson
Why a Fave? Ultimately empty, this is stylish horror with some new twists on the vampire mythos that manages to be momentarily diverting.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
MaryAnn Johanson (email me)
reviews, reviews, reviews! at FlickFilosopher.com

Recommend (0)

|  Comments (0)

|  Email

|  Share

Share  Facebook Digg del.icio.us