Eternal life has been mortals' quest since, well, for eternity really. The concept of living to see every advancement of human society has splintered into literature and folklore in many different ways. Perhaps the most beloved lore that’s been spun out of eternal life has been the vampire. The vampire is probably most appealing because the vampire isn’t hugely enviable, so it’s not a wish-fulfillment fantasy. To maintain eternal life they must pierce the neck and suck the blood of a living human. They can’t go out during the daytime. They can’t even go into someone’s home without being invited. It’s a lonely existence that also keeps the thrill of the hunt and the thrill of keeping a secret.
Because vampires exist in the folklore of almost every society on Earth, it’s only natural that it’d be a story expressed in nearly every language and thus, films around the world. There have been some absolutely great vampire movies. There have also been a lot of duds. Each century of filmmaking has experienced more than one peak vampire moment, where the lore needed to be recycled into something fresh and new, before totally sucking. It’s appropriate. Just like many of the vampires on this list have to adapt to the times, so do the films themselves.
Here are the 28 best vampire movies that are not a Dracula story. Yes,Bram Stoker’s classic novel and themanyadaptations it has spawned are nothing short of iconic. But they have been discussed and praised at length. So, we wanted to take this list as an opportunity to shout out some movies that may have been bumped off had we included all of theDraculaadaptations. This comes at the perfect time as the TV adaptations ofVampire AcademyandInterview WIth the Vampireare just around the corner.
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Carmilla (2019)
Despite being one of the most influential vampire stories ever written, and directly inspiring dozens of movies over the decades, it took until 2019 forCarmillato get an adaptation that acknowledged its roots. This movie takes the classical vampire setting of 19th-century English mansions and forests and puts a more modernly-oriented spin on the narrative of Sheridan Le Fanu’s book. A sheltered young woman’s life is changed forever when the mysterious Carmilla is brought to her house to recover from an accident. Although nowhere near as grizzly or as sexy as the many lesbian vampire movies of the ‘60s and ‘70s that Le Fanu’s work inspired, it is an interesting take on the material with dialed-up focus on personal growth and development. -Luna Guthrie
The Lost Boys (1987)
This absolute classic courtesy ofJoel Schumacherand his trademark pizzazz is a must for any vampire fan. Brothers Sam (Corey Haim) and Michael (Jason Patric) move to a beach town with unusually high murder rates, where Michael gets absorbed into a gang of youths who Sam comes to realize are vampires. He recruits the help of some local kids to bring the nightmare to an end in outrageous, gore-splattered fashion. The crème de la crème of the ‘80s acting world are accounted for, includingKiefer Sutherland, the Two Coreys, and the always delightfulDianne Wiest, and combined with a brilliant soundtrack, fabulous costumes, and a really fun script,The Lost Boysis always a rip-roaring watch.
Fright Night (1985)
Fright Nightis a gleeful connector between the cinema of voyeurism thatBrian De Palmahad perfected at the beginning of the 80s—with films likeBody Double, Blow OutandDressed to Kill—and the teen comedy that consistently pitted the less popular boys and girls against their accomplished counterparts. Oh and it features a delightfully hammy performance fromRoddy McDowallas an actor who kills vampires on TV and is sought by our teens (William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse, Stephen Geoffreys) to vanquish the suave vampire (Chris Sarandon) who lives next door, taunting them by having a new female (victim) over every night.Tom Holland’s film was better as a 2011 remake, but the original is a nice time capsule that used horror as the connection to adolescence and peeping.— Brian Formo
Vampires (1998)
The second best ofJohn Carpenter’s interesting but largely dramatically lacking 1990s output,Vampiresexpresses a kind of hard-nosed brand of bad-assery that other directors have attempted to pull off but few have ever even brushed up against.James Woodsis Jack Crow, the leader of a gang of vampire slayers who are all but wiped out completely when they come up against Jan Valek (The Karate Kid Part 3’sThomas Ian Griffith), a powerful bloodsucker looking for a talisman that will allow him to walk freely in sunlight. There’s no attempt to make Crow into a role model. There’s not even a minute trace of sentimentality in the production on the whole really, and it’s that simplistic, skeptical perspective that givesVampiresits undeniable edge. The film is shot well, strewn with good use of gore and impactful action sequences, and sports a solid cast that also includesMark Boone Jr.,Sheryl Lee, andMaximilian Schell. All that’s great, but it’s near-textural feeling of Carpenter’s mind at work in every frame that makesVampiresunique in a sub-genre that so often feels plain.– Chris Cabin
Byzantium (2012)
Neil Jordanhas double-dipped in the vampire genre, and although hisInterview With the Vampire(more on that later) is his most well-known work, we want to give his other vampire movie,Byzantium, some well-deserved recognition. Handsome asInterviewis, and important for showing the eternal sadness of vampirism,Byzantiumbares more of its soul. It’s one of the few films that show vampires not as upper-class blood drainers, but as members of a scrappy lower class.
Told from the viewpoint of a forever young vampire (Saoirse Ronan)—who only preys on those already at death’s door—she writes about her vampire mother (Gemma Arterton) as half tragic, half inspiring because she’s a woman who’s never been able to evolve beyond the world’s oldest profession (selling her body), but who also chose to become a vampiric being when that was reserved solely for men. Jordan’s film is eerie, feminist, and a bit meandering. What Jordan excels at withByzantiumis elaborately displaying blood—from decapitations, waterfalls, and bandages—with a can’t-look-away voyeurism POV. Blood has never looked so enticing—nor has the vampire’s desire to feast and bathe in it—than in this film.— Brian Formo
Thirst (2009)
Fans ofPark Chan-wookmay have been blindsided byThirst. I certainly was. After creating two of the best South Korean movies ever made in the aughts withOldboyandSympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Chan-wook unleashedLady Vengeance, in which the violence continued to be pummeling yet critical and the turns of the plot remained unpredictable. What changed was the humor, which was far more buoyant, bordering on animated, inLady Vengeance.
This new tactic has become part of his stylistic habits as a writer and director, andThirstwas the first time where it felt like he was pushing his style into an entirely new realm of thought and perspective. This tale of a sinful priest who turns bloodsucker and begins a rapturous, intensely physical relationship with the woman he feasts on is tonally audacious as well as formally rigorous. Chan-wook’s unpredictable editing has rarely been so subversive in its discombobulating effect on the linear narrative but he’s more patient than one might realize. When the woman becomes more confident in her state than the man, Thirst becomes genuinely unsettling and frightening in its mapping of their sexual relationship. The result of all of this is at once a cracking satire of gender roles and sexism as well as a ravishing, blood-soaked vampire story for the ages.– Chris Cabin
What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
Finally, someone breathes new life into the vampire genre!What We Do in the Shadowsis a mockumentary about four vampire flatmates and it takes an absolutely delightful approach to explorrng creature clichés in a deadpan, reality show-like manner. Viago (Taika Waititi), Vlad (Jemaine Clement), Deacon (Jonathan Brugh) and Petyr (Ben Fransham) all turned during different time periods, which leads to some brilliant spins on familiar issues like doing the dishes, getting into nightclubs, adapting to new technology and so much more. The only unfortunate thing aboutWhat We Do in the Shadowsis that it clocks in at a mere 86 minutes. Between the winning jokes and the wildly charming friendships between the characters, it’s no wonder that it spawned a TV adaptation.— Perri Nemiroff
Fright Night (2011)
It’s (really not all that) Controversial Opinion Time! Though there’s plenty of charm and humor to the originalFright Night, the movie, on the whole, is not the most enthralling vampire flick. It looks like a sitcom, the acting is strictly competent, and if there are scary scenes, I’ve missed them three times now, after a variety of people insisted I give it a second shot. You can’t win them all. It’s all the more reason to sing the praises ofCraig Gillespie’s remake of the film, starring the lateAnton Yelchin(it’s still not easy to type that) as the young man who begins suspecting that his neighbor is a vampire.
Chris Sarandon’s vampire was the best part of the original film andColin Farrell’s aggressive, playful performance as the vampire who wants a taste of Yelchin’s character’s mom (Toni Collette) nearly steals this entire movie away as well, but Gillespie is too restless an artist to let that happen. He evinces a dark sheen that never tips over to grimness, working with a lot of magic-hour lighting and night scenes, in which aesthetic beauty mixes with elusive acts of horror. The filmmaker is also smart to give the movie some comedic relief viaDavid Tennant’s magic man, and Farrell rightly makes his vampire’s seduction skills the most prominent power in his arsenal. In this version ofFright Night, he’s the rupturing vision of what the planned community where the film is set tries to cover up, namely a good, healthy thrill that could take your life under the right circumstances or, more accurately, if he skips a feeding one day.– Chris Cabin
Ganja & Hess (1973)
Nothing on this list is even half as formally audacious and politically furious asBill Gunn’s racially woke vampire tale, set in the world of affluent black Americans in the 1970s. The movie, which takes place largely in the palace-like abode of Ganja (Marlene Clark), a wealthy widow, has the feeling of falling under a spell, and that’s how the film conveys the allure and feeling of transformation that vampires go through. Her relationship with Hess (Night of the Living Dead’sDuane Jones), a vampiric anthropologist who has a remarkable hold on his powers, is short-lived but mesmerizing in its distinct view of race and history. Here, Hess is turned by a Myrthian dagger, by Ganja’s husband (Gunn himself), which came from an ancient tribe of African bloodsuckers. The suggestion is that, for all his intellectual knowledge of the history of his people, he hasn’t fully felt the anger of what’s happened to Africans over the years, until the dagger hits him.
Gunn explores the transformation and way of being in ways that touch on painful, complex history and societal issues that are hard to move off the table. It might take a while for the full effect of the film’s thoughtful thematic underbelly and attentiveness to behavior to register, but they inarguably add to the seductive, unyielding pull of the film. Decades later, there’s no movie that looks even remotely like this and the number of oddities at its artistic caliber is minuscule.– Chris Cabin
Bonus Mention:Da Sweet Blood of Jesus,Spike Lee’s remake ofGanja & Hessis also definitely worth a watch; Lee’s remake reflects his feelings as a wealthy older Black American but also goes as far as to tie his own obsession with style and his own artistry with his monstrous emotional side. The movie is dry to be sure, but it’s a fascinatingly skeletal melodrama, powered by an anxious fury, a rueful genius, and palpable self-excoriation.
