Vampire Movies: The Immortal, the good, the suck

[Sky Breaker]

Love it or hate it, ever since Twilight, vampires are back and trendy, although zombies seem to be on par with interest in bloodsuckers waning for whatever new gimmicky tween story will be thrown our way. After going back into the coffin when Buffy The Vampire Slayer ended, the undead have risen again to stake their claim on pop culture in a big way.

For all its 'new lore' and changes to existing vampire mythos, it has reawakened our thirst for vampire media. so this thread is all about vampire movies. Old and new, good and bad, your personal favorites and why. Lets talk Nosferatu, you little blood bags.

The Immortal
Fright Night, 1985
The Lost Boys, 1987
Bram Stoker's Dracula, 1992
Interview With The Vampire, 1994
From Dusk Til Dawn, 1996
Vampires, 1998 (John Carpentar)
Blade, 1998
Underworld Series 2003-2012 (yes all 4 movies were great)
Let The Right One In, 2008 (Swedish original)
We Are The Night, 2010
Vampires Suck, 2010



The Good
Lifeforce, 1985
Near Dark, 1987
Buffy The Vampire Slayer, 1992
The Night Flier, 1997
Fright Night 2, 1988
Dracula: 2000, 2000
Blade 2, 2002
Twilight Saga, 2008-2012 (they get better after the first one, but barely enough to make it past suck)
Let The Right One In, 2011 (remake)
Priest, 2011
Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, 2012


The Suck
From Dusk Til Dawn 2, 1999
From Dusk Til Dawn 3, 1999
Queen of The Damned, 2002
Blade Trinity, 2004
30 Days of Night, 2007
Daybreakers, 2009
Lost Boys, The Tribe, 2009
Fright Night 2010, (remake)
Midnight Son, 2011

It was very difficult to place Twilight Saga under 'good'. While the movies did offer up a different take on vampires, and stayed true to some of their established traits (drinking blood, superhuman strength, bizarre psychic/elemental abilities, immortality), I eventually grew to accept the sparkling skin within the story. Still the movies were plagued with drawn out (blah blah blah if you know anyone about Twilight) yawn educing romantic nonsense.

However, the action sequences were its saving grace. every movie did feature vampire battles that improved with each film. The newest installment features some great fight sequences to please any vampire fan. Perhaps after watching all of them (though falling asleep through 1 and 5), I was invested enough not to completely hate them. Despite the screen time dedicated to Edward/Bella and their white bread vampire family, most of the other vampire characters were very interesting. I don't suspect that there are many Twi-hards floating around these boards.

The Underworld franchise however, while not perfect, was a fantastic vampire series that got better as time went on and never disappointed, well, okay, so maybe the last one wasn't so great, but it was still good enough to be immortalized with the rest of the films. Though I was never a fan of the overall look of the 'simple vampires' make up (blue eyes and fangs just didn't cut it), its well written story, lore, special effects, costumes and fantastic action (and lack of painfully trite lovey dovey hogwash) made it a solid vampire movie franchise.