If Bram Stoker gave birth to the vampire in literature, then Nosferatu gave birth to the vampire in cinema. Nosferatu is the first vampire who protagonized cinema in 1922 during the silent era, the very beginning of cinema. F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922) distinguishes itself from Bram Stoker’s classic by asserting love and eroticism, rather than violence, defeats the vampire and its evil.
The vampire feature is a de rigeur of the vampire literary genre. Below are ten vampire movies that I consider to be revolutionary.
BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA (1992)
Love it or hate it… Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula remains the most faithful and well made adaptation of Bram Stoker’s original novel Dracula ever.
DRACULA 1972 A.D. (1972)
Hammer’s Dracula A.D. 1972 was responsible for bringing the Dracula / vampire character to modernity, setting it in 1972 hipsters’ London.
FRIGHT NIGHT (1985)
Tom Holland’s Fright Night brings the vampire and his assistant to the suburbs, coining the vampire-next-door. The film modernizes vampires as your suburban neighbors.
THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS (1967)
Roman Polanski is the first filmmaker that satirized Dracula creating possibly the first modern horror comedy feature in history in 1967.
THE HUNGER (1982)
Tony Scott’s The Hunger is the first movie that makes vampires hip with the iconic cast of Susan Sarandon, Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie.
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (1994)
Neil Jordan’s adaptation of Ann Rice’s eternal classic Interview with the Vampire is arguably the most revolutionary vampire movie / franchise that has moved vampires out of the good and evil framework established by Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008)
Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In protagonizes the female child vampire right out of Ann Rice’s Interview with a Vampire and makes her an anti-bully icon.
NEAR DARK (1987)
Katherine Bigelow’s first feature Near Dark is a fun and dark vampire feature that not only lifts vampires into modernity but also makes them hip characters for the MTV generation.
NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE (1979)
Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre remake remains the most beautiful and haunting remake of F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu silent classic which was ironically a rip-off of Dracula that got sued by Bram Stoker’s heirs who got a court ruling ordering all copies of the original film to be destroyed. Yet, like vampires do, several prints of Nosferatu have remained till today!
WE ARE THE NIGHT (2010)
We Are the Night is a super fun German vampire movie centering on female vampires in post-millennial Berlin with a feminist slant.
#revolutionary #supervampiremovies
