What's Your Favorite Vampire Movie? - Page 2

Add to that list John Carradine. Dude gets no love. I feel that Langella was good but his damn disco hair ruins everything.

Frankly, Edward Van Sloan and Dwight Frye trump Lugosi for me. Lugosi is perfect for the role, but those guys are just more interesting to watch in my opinion.

me too.

Yeah, Renfield is tops.

Of those on the list, Let the Right One In easy. But really, I have so much pure love for From Dusk Till Dawn it's retarded.

I forgot to mention VAMPIRE'S KISS.

If you haven't seen Murnau's Nosferatu with a live accompaniment and a crowd, you're missing a treat. That's how I voted.

I might have gone with Brides of Dracula as my alternative. Peter Cushing kicks all sorts of ass in that movie.

It is the better film but I'll always take the American version simply because of Lugosi. He actually elevates it over the Spanish version. It also doesn't help that the Spanish guy playing Dracula is kind of terrible. Now if the Spanish version starred Lugosi, we might have a film on par with Frankenstein.

Fine, I'll be that guy:

Coppola's Dracula.

I know it's (ahem) flawed, to say the least, but I love its hallucinatory, operatic, fever-dream quality. The prologue, ship, and train sequences just give me the holyshitawesomes every time. And it's got the best score of any vampire film I've seen. I can even forgive Reeves and Ryder because Oldman and Hopkins are having so much fun.

The rest:
2. Shadow of the Vampire
3. Near Dark
4. Cronos
5. Fright Night

It's been ages since I've seen any of the classic versions, I've never seen the Hammer/Lee films, and I've yet to see Let The Right One In. Factor that info into your evaluation of my opinion as you will.

I really like Bram Stoker's Dracula, but I didn't love it until I watched it on Blu-Ray. The score is epic and Oldman goes all Oldman in it, what's not to love? Even British Keanu has grown on me.

I saw Nosferatu with the group Inversion Effect at the Alamo Drafthouse w/ not a huge crowd, but it was fun, though I must say that many a time, Inversion Effect went all Blade w/ their score and it often detracted from the experience.

Agreed on Cushing, the very best Van Helsing.

Amc is running Lugosi's Dracula with the Philip Glass score right now. Actually goes a long way toward making my earlier point. Sucks.

I first heard Glass' score when I bought Dracula Legacy collection, you're right, it's fucking horrible.

This might be one of those things that becomes its own thread, but what's the consensus on Interview With The Vampire these days? I haven't seen it in a fair number of years, despite owning the Blu Ray. Might even change that tonight finally.

Personally, I really like it. I think the performances are good all-around, and the period-epicness of it is probably my favorite aspect. The only reason I haven't picked it up on Blu-Ray is because I've seen it so many times, but I saw it was under $10 on Amazon so I might finally grab it.

It's okay. It looks great, Neil Jordan's direction is very assured, the production design is gorgeous, and it all serves to make Anne Rice's material appealing, something her books never did for me. I do think that Tom Cruise's performance is a little inconsistent (there are whole takes and line readings that I'd excise from the film), and while he's certainly not slacking off, I think the character of Lestat really needed to be essayed by a less guarded actor (though Cruise does push it every once in awhile). Kirsten Dunst is good, not much to say about her, but Jesus Christ, Brad Pitt is so goddamn boring, and his perfomance in this film stands as one of his least interesting to date.

Love the hell out of it, but I agree with JacknifeJohnny that Pitt is super boring. A very flat performance. I enjoy every other aspect, even the silly Guns N Roses Stones cover.

I read once that Lugosi's Dracula was supposed to more of a production, but Universal had to cut back on the budget due to The Depression. Hence just filming the play.

I don't have a problem with Reeves in Bram Stroker's Dracula. I've read the book, and Harker is a boring character. He was well cast.

Yeah, just gave this a spin. Still a solid, worthwhile movie. Cruise is perfect here. Dunst is a little whinier than I remember, but I'm sorta spoiled by Chloe Moretz these days. But yeah, Pitt is absolutely (pun unintended, I swear on a bucket of bibles) lifeless here. And he's only a year removed from his work in Se7en and 12 Monkeys. When did his switch get flipped?

In Pitt's defense, Louis is a whiny, boring character anyway.

I really enjoyed Lost Boys (even that one song was annoying throughout the movie) 2nd was meh and have not seen the 3rd (probably crappy).
don't worry jacknife i agree with ya.

I also enjoyed Innocent Blood. It was a different vamp movie but I enjoyed the acting and well the vamps where all not scary and kinda corny but it was good as a flick.

Blade 1 and 2 were good (nice techno score and some acting was par), the third well it's a crap on a stick.

the orginal Salem's Lot freaked me out as a kid and think it was really good. the remake nope.

I voted Let The Right One In from that list...but Blade I and II were both awesome. And of course the Twilight movies! Hahhaha

I almost feel dirty picking a recent film out of that company, but I went with Let the Right One In.

Martin would've been a contender, though.

Don't sweat it. I unapologetically love that flick. It just works for me. It's miscast in a few spots, but for pure cinema? Sights and sounds? It drips with atmosphere.

Martin, you asshole.

I've only seen about half of the films in the poll, so I don't feel like any vote I make would be fully-informed. But the fact that a lot of vampire movies that I have seen aren't on there makes making any decision tough.

RE: Brad Pitt in Interview With A Vampire. Personally, I think he was just miscast. I think that his energy, when he first broke out, was very much a modern feel. (Same could be true for Tom Cruise but in this case, I think his experience served him well so that his Lestat wasn't as anachronous.) It's taken him a long time to get to the point where we can accept him in period fare like Jesse James or Inglourious Basterds but back then I'm not sure Pitt could fully play an 19th Century aristocrat.

Nosferatu is the only one that's come close (but then overshot the mark) to the xenophobic, racist, "White Is Right", thing going on in the book. Dracula's a swarthy, slimy Eastern European feeding on pale maidens and tainting their blood whilst buying the property next door and seriously fucking up the neighborhood.

It would be kind of funny, if all the people that voted 'asshole' did it because of the lack of Martin on the list.

Phil, I see where you're coming from, but the novel is really more about the triumph of science and logic over superstition. In the Victorian era, it's only natural that this manifests itself as Britain uber alles. The racism aspect is more a byproduct than anything else.

I don't think it's the ONLY subtext, but I don't think it's some kind of coincidence either. It's manifested in the text pretty thoroughly.

I agree that it's not subtext. What I am arguing is that the racism--in this context--is more of an inherent component to Stoker's main thrust: the triumph of science over superstition. That the English considered themselves to be at the forefront of rationality and logic plays out, in no small measure, as their superiority to the swarthy, irrational eastern Europeans.

I've got a soft spot for Def by Temptation, while handily beats out A Vampire in Brooklyn as the best vampire flick starring Kadeem Hardison.

Word, word...but you've got him coming and stealing their womens and making them "go down on their knees" as well.

But I guess I don't really know exactly how science beat superstition in the novel. It's been a while, but didn't they kill him according to superstition, while science sits there and watches Lucy die?

Ha. Good point.

But...

Count Dracula ruled over his native land with absolute authority. His mastery over the villagers and peasants of Transylvania is complete. It is only when he travels to modern, enlightened London that his control decays. And who does it? Dr. Van Helsing, a well-educated physician and philosopher; Dr. Seward, a psychologist employing the latest psychiatry theories and equipment; Quincy Morris, an American cowboy; and Lord Holmwood, Jonathan Harker and Mina Harker, who are portrayed as modern, progressive Londoners.

While our heroes don't destroy Dracula using any scientific methodology, it's made evident that their very modernity allows them to confront and pursue the Count in ways that would be impossible for the easily cowed and superstitious peasants of Dracula's homeland.