The Rights and Wrongs of the Cinematic Vampire

  Over the years the once and powerful creature of mythology known as the vampire has slowly been turned to horror movie icon for better or worse. Dozens of movies have came and gone trying to perfect the vampire but what is this monster and how has it become so famous.

  The creature was first dreamt up by an Irish author named Bram Stoker who took the historical Vlad Tepes also known as Vlad the Impaler and Dracula which translates to ‘Son of the Dragon’ and then combined it with the legend of Countess Bathory who was claimed to have killed 80 virgins and bathed in their blood. It was these two elements that created the now infamous lord of darkness and his story of how he travelled from his castle in Transylvania to England and causing death and chaos in his wake but in actual fact he was searching for the reincarnation of his beloved wife that he lost in the war with the Turks, her death forcing him to renounce god and becoming immortal by drinking human blood. There have been countless (mind the pun) Dracula movies over the century but only a certain few actually managed to nail the character.

Max Schrek, Nosferatu (1922)

  Nosferatu was the first real vampire movie; it was a silent black and white movie production starring Max Schrek as Count Orlok not Dracula because they couldn’t use the names from the novel due to Stoker’s relatives but that didn’t stop them from making a piece cinematic history, the amount of classic scenes like the Count walking up the stairs which gave pure sense of impending doom due to it expert low angle and brilliant silhouetting technique. It’s a movie that people today are still scared of.

 Bela Lugosi, Dracula (1931)

  He was hailed by many to be the greatest actor ever to play Dracula, Bela Lugosi took the role of the ominous king of the vampires and made it his own he was even buried in his cape by his own orders (damn method actors). Lugosi starred in the second Dracula movie this time though there was no controversy over names and characters, the movie followed the novel closely and was able to create a dark and eerie atmosphere that really immerses you as you watch the film and all that is created by the great cast and Lugosi’s performance.

 Christopher Lee, Dracula (1958)

  Most likely the second most revered actor to play Dracula, Christopher Lee made his career by playing Dracula for Hammer Horror. Hammer Horror was known for its gore and themes of sex but this movie was a different case due to the theme, and Christopher Lee is known for his extensive knowledge of Bram Stoker and his novels including Dracula. This was the first Dracula movie in colour and had modern special effects that were used to show Lee’s face melting off when he’s staked in the heart.

Garry Oldman, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

  Revered as a classic of the early nineties produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starred Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins and Gary Oldman playing Vlad Tepes and personally I think it was his best on screen performance and really captured the essence of Dracula and showed gave more of sympathetic view of Dracula, by seeing his origins you understand why he became the monster. The movie did have its negatives as well as its positives like Keanu Reeves’ horrible British accent which gained him a lot of critical reviews and many believed his acting was blown away by Garry Oldman’s performance.

Hellsing

  Now I can’t talk about vampires without mentioning stepping into the world of anime and manga. In the 90’s a Japanese comic called Hellsing was made, a story of a secret British organisation that works for the queen of England and their ultimate weapon is the first of vampires, Alucard. This series literally made Dracula an anti-hero, using a monster to fight monsters was the theme and also bringing in new aspects of vampires and other supernatural monsters. It’s a story that makes the vampire a straight up badass yet still retains the monstrous fear that only Alucard can create.

  For over century the vampire’s appearance has been changed over and over again in different films from romantic aristocrats to pale skinned teens. It’s changed so much but not for the better. A true vampire is a dark monster that craves blood, but in the decade of 2000 the vampire has taken a drastic change due to the ‘Twilight saga’ a series of books that were adapted into films, these film transformed the devil’s favourite demon into a 100 year old teenager that sparkles in sunlight instead of burning. In all fairness the series did make a lot of money and give props to the writer Stephanie Meyer for trying to reinvent a mythological creature but there are certain things you can’t change, a vampire is a monster not a symbol of teen romance. Movies like The Lost Boys worked because they still kept the main characteristics of the vampire including burning in sunlight and didn’t stray too far from the original story. Twilight strangely depicts vampire as being the perfect life partner which personally I find shocking because vampire are the very definition of a sexual predator.

  At this point in time I lost all faith in the vampire movie genre, but then came along certain movie that completely rejuvenated that said faith. In 2007 a film was released called 30 Days of Night, a movie in which a small town in Alaska where once a year they don’t see sun for one month, at this point a group of vampires led by Vicente take the opportunity to feed on a plentiful bounty. The film consists of a group of survivors led by the towns sheriff Eben played by Josh Hartnett, they survive for so long but in the end are whittled down to a few forcing Eben to turn himself into a vampire to face off and kill Vincente and order his tribe of vampire to leave.

  Adapted from a graphic novel with the same name written by Steve Niles, then produced by Sam Raimi and Directed by David Slade this movie really reboots the vampire by taking the original elements and then adds a animalistic feature the vampire threat, showing them attacking in packs instead of it just being one solitary vampire. The key points are the vampires are intelligent, speak their own language and burn in sunlight (not sparkle), they can be killed but not by crosses and holy water but by good old fashion decapitations. This movie also looks into how the human body can cope when turning into a vampire, especially the finale with Hartnett turning on purpose to ram his fist into Vicente’s face literally. The ending of the movie is truly saddening when Eben sits with his beloved wife Stella as the sun rises and the hero slowly burns away showing turning into a real vampire has a severe consequence.

   So looking over so many films about vampires you can look at all of common patterns used, and those that weren’t. It’s these conventions that can make or break a vampire movie. But why 30 Days of Night stands out the most is that they didn’t change the vampire in anyway they simply just added to it and made the vampire more believable and realistic which makes them even scarier.