The Celluloid Vampire
The earliest cinematic vampires in such films as 1913’s, The Vampire, were in reality 'vamps' or femme fatales deriving inspiration from a poem by Rudyard Kipling called The Vampire, composed in 1897. This poem was written as kind of commentary on a painting of a female vampire by Philip Burne-Jones exhibited in the same year. A Fool There Was starred Theda Bara as the 'vamp' in question and the poem was used in the publicity for the film.
A genuine supernatural vampire features in the landmark Nosferatu in 1922, Murnau's seminal film was an unlicensed version of Dracula, based so closely on the novel that the estate sued and won, with all copies ordered to be destroyed. The film starred Max Schrek as the revolting Count Orlok in Nosferatu and was restored in 1994 by a team of European scholars from the five surviving prints that had escaped destruction. Nosferatu spawned a sub-genre in which the portrayal of the vampire is similar to the hideous creature of Serbian folklore.
Max Schrek’s disturbing portrayal of this role in Nosferatu was copied by Klaus Kinski in Werner Herzog's 1979 remake Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht. In the 2000 cult hit, In Shadow of the Vampire Willem Dafoe plays Max Schrek, himself, though portrayed in the film as an actual vampire. Dafoe's character is the ugly, disgusting creature of the original Nosferatu. Stephen King's Salem's Lot notably depicts vampires as terrifying, simple-minded creatures, without eroticism and with the only desire to feed on the blood of others.
Another development in some vampire films has been a change from supernatural horror to science fictional explanations of vampirism. The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price and The Omega Man, both based on Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend, which also became a hit film for Will Smith. This type of vampire was also featured in 30 Days of Night. Vampirism was explained as a kind of virus in David Cronenberg's Rabid and Red-Blooded American Girl. The vampiric plague was translated to virulent zombie virus and was also used to great effect in the British zombie hit, 28 Days Later. Race has also been another theme, as exemplified by the blaxploitation picture Blacula and its several sequels as well as Wesley Snipes’s Blade series and comedian Eddie Murphy’s turn in Vampire in Brooklyn.
Five years after Dracula, Universal released Dracula's Daughter, with Gloria Holden in the title role. Dracula’s Daughter is a direct sequel to Dracula and begins after the end of the first film after the death of the infamous count. Another sequel, Son of Dracula, starring Lon Chaney, Jr., followed in 1943. In spite of his apparent death in the 1931 film, the Count returned in three more Universal releases in the mid-1940s. House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula cast John Carradine as the count and Dracula even appeared in the 1948 horror comedy, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. While Lugosi had played a vampire in two other movies during the 1930s and 40's, it was only in this final film that he portrayed Count Dracula onscreen for the second and last time.
One of the films that lifted the vampire genre from the “B movie” category was Dracula in 1979. This film starred a sauve, debonaire Frank Langella ,who like Bela Lugosi, had protrayed the count on the New York stage. A more faithful adaptation of Stoker's novel appeared as the 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula directed by Francis Ford Coppola. This was the work that first identified Count Dracula with the notorious medieval Balkan ruler, Vlad the Impaler.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula was followed two years later with Interview with a Vampire, a visual stunner based on Anne Rice’s hit novel. The film deftly skirted the homo-erotic overtones of the book, became a cult favorite and co-starred two of the world’s biggest actors, Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. Interview with a Vampire was followed many years later by the less successful Queen of the Damned.
Beginning with the absurd Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein the vampire film has also been the subject of comedy. The Fearless Vampire Killers by Academy Award winner Roman Polanski was a parody of the genre and other comedic vampire films included Old Dracula featuring David Niven as a lovelorn Dracula, Love at First Bite featuring a suave George Hamilton and Dracula: Dead and Loving It with Leslie Nielsen gave vampire cinema a comic twist. The cult hit, Fright Night, starring Chris Sarandon and Roddy McDowall, co-mingled horror and comedy and became an instant hit. From Dusk Till Dawn was another film that combined action, horror with comedic elements. From Dusk Till Dawn was a cult hit that starred George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino and Harvey Keitel along with Salma Hayek as a gorgeous blood sucker.
Since the time of Bela Lugosi's Dracula (1931) the vampire, male or female, has usually been portrayed as an alluring erotic creature. Christopher Lee, Delphine Seyrig, Frank Langella and George Hamilton are just a few of the actors who brought great sex-appeal into their portrayal of the vampire. French actor Louis Jourdan was a terrifying but extremely suave Dracula on the small screen and Jonathan Frid achieved matinee idol status with his Barnabas Collins in the vampire soap opera, Dark Shadows.
The vampire hunter is another element in vampire lore and Bram Stoker's Abraham Van Helsing is a prototype. The character of Van Helsing was first portrayed on-screen by Edward Van Sloan and has been refashioned in a number of guises including female vampire slayers. While Van Helsing relied on a stake through the heart, in Vampires directed by John Carpenter, the protagonist, Jack Crow, fights vampires with a heavily-armed squad of vampire hunters. The Forsaken presents the vampire hunter as a young drifter who hunts predators who troll for victims along deserted highways. Van Helsing was the title character in an overblown, special effects laden flop with Hugh Jackman in the title role and Richard Roxburgh as the count.
Vampires raised eyebrows with its overt and dated sexism but with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, writer/director Joss Whedon created a New-Age feminist heroine, The Slayer. Buffy Summers (Kristy Swanson in the film, Sarah Michelle Gellar in the TV series) is allied to a network of Watchers and mystically endowed with superhuman powers. Vampire hunting has also become a major thread of the very successful Underworld franchise which pits sexy vampires in black leather against werewolves and uses the talents of actors of the caliber of Bill Nighy, Michael Sheen and Kate Beckinsale.
The newest incarnation of the vampire is on the small screen and is based on Charlaine Harris’s series of Southern Gothic novels. Alan Ball’s True Blood, became an HBO hit and stars Anna Paquin as Sookie Stackhouse, a Louisiana barmaid with psychic powers and an affinity for vampires. In addition to delving into the super-nature, this series examines prejudice, race and sexual identify. The powerhouse supporting cast includes Stephen Moyer, Sam Trammell, Ryan Kwanten, Nelson Ellis and Alexander Skarsgard. Twilight, a film based on a series of very successful young adult novels by Stephanie Meyer, was a global sensation and the Swedish film, Let the Right One In, was an unexpected winner at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2008.
Despite its un-dead roots, vampire cinema is alive and thriving and will continue to be part of the movie going experience for years to come.
This article was adapted from Wikipedia and has been edited and updated by Francesca Miller.
