Les Vampires (Louis Feuillade, 1915)
Louis Feuillade’s ten part silent film serial is one of the first popular appearances of the vampire. Designed to compete with American multi-part serials, Feuillade utilized dark, almost Expressionist cinematography to tell the story of journalist Philippe Guerande (Edouarde Mathe) as he investigates a criminal organization known as the Vampires. The series is perhaps best known for launching the career of Musidora, who played Irma Vep (an anagram of “vampire”), the leader of the Vampires. Musidora slinks around the stage in a form-fitting black outfit and performs all of her acrobatic stunts herself. It would inspire Olivier Assayas’s Irma Vep (1996), with Maggie Cheung playing the new version of Musidora’s character.
Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922)
Originally, Nosferatu was meant to be a direct adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but the filmmakers’ inability to get the rights caused all the names to be changed. But other than that, it’s essentially the same story. While the plot may be unoriginal, Murnau’s dark and shadowy mise-en-scene makes the film absolutely iconic – that, and lead actor Max Schreck’s completely affected acting style which is the subject of numerous parodies in my class. Noseferatu is a landmark of the German Expressionism movement and its influence can be directly seen in Batman Returns (Tim Burton, 1992). The equally original and enjoyable Shadow of the Vampire (E. Elias Merhige, 2000) takes a revisionist behind-the-scenes look at the making of Nosferatu by suggesting that Schreck was an actual vampire.
Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931)
This is the granddaddy of all American vampire films. The film features Bela Lugosi’s seminal performance of the titular role and it still permeates in popular culture today. The character, in fact, would follow Lugosi to the grave as he is buried in one of his Dracula costumes.
Dracula (Terence Fisher, 1958)
The Hammer Horror version of the Dracula tale with Christopher Lee starring in the title role. The film is best known for reimagining the character of vampire hunter Van Helsing from an aged professor into a younger and physically active person. Fisher makes full use of this change with more action scenes including the fantastic climactic fight. The trailer, embedded above, showcases the almost-exploitational feel of the piece.
Blacula (William Crain, 1972)
Dracula goes Blaxploitation! It’s pure fun and camp and fans of exploitation films will love it. It also marks the first racially distinct vampire and is a major breath of fresh air from the aristocratic vampires of Lugosi and Lee.
The Lost Boys (Joel Schumacher, 1987)
Far more than just a film with “The Two Coreys,” The Lost Boys made being a vampire cool. Schumacher injects healthy doses of humor, attractive teens, and rock-and-roll music into the genre and ultimately re-energizes it for the MTV generation. Twilight fans have to thank this film for bringing the vampire story to a younger and hipper audience. A great companion piece to this is the more intelligent but less popular Near Dark (Katheryn Bigelow) that similarly revises the genre in the same year.
Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan, 1994)
Unlike the previous “cold-blooded killer” versions of vampires, Interview with the Vampire brought a sense of melancholic brooding to the genre. Brad Pitt’s Louis tells reporter Daniel Molloy (Christian Slater) the story of his life as a vampire and it’s not a pleasant journey. All of the negative parts of being a vampire – namely killing people and drinking their blood – are turned into existential problems that one has to deal with for eternity. Interview’s neo-Gothic and darkly romantic flourishes match the sorrowful tone of the piece. Maybe being a vampire isn’t as cool as The Lost Boys made it seem…
“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (1997-2003)
…Or maybe it is. The “Buffy” TV series returns vampires to the high school setting. The series subverts Carol Clover’s idea of the “Final Girl” by turning her into the hero. It also features the female-human and male-vampire romance between Buffy and Angel that later appears in Twilight. It would be impossible to fully summarize the cultural impact of “Buffy” in such a short space as philosophical, sociological, postmodern, and feminist readings of the series have all been made by academics in the field of Buffy Studies.
The question now is whether Twilight will join this pantheon of great vampire stories or if it will be tossed aside as pop culture fluff.
3 comments:
Good list, but I would say ABC's Gothic soap spera (1966-71) 'Dark Shadows' belongs on it too - possibly as a central influence to today's vampire characters. Jonathan Frid's Barnadas Collins was an iconic, layered, and complex character with a major fanbase - till this day. Johnny Depp is going to play him in a film adaptation soon.
I don't think I could stand seeing 'Twilight.' It seems really horrible. But, then again, I'm not a 14 year old girl. Pretty boy teen vampires ... ugh ...
Interesting list, but unless my memory is playing tricks, Feuillade's magnificent Les Vampires has nothing to do with 'actual' vampires! Nor has Assayas' Irma Vep for that matter (in the same way that, say, Clarke or Van Sant's Elephant has nothing to do with elephants. Although might have been interesting).
First-time commenter (and fellow scholar) - apologies for being pernickety...
Welcome to the board, Matthew. You are correct on both points. Les Vampires is about a gang of criminals that calls themselves "Vampires," but they aren't actually the creatures of the night that we all know. However, the serial does establish a lot of the vampire iconography that we see in later films (dark suit, expressionism, etc.). Assayas's brilliant Irma Vep is definitely not a vampire film, which is why I didn't put it on my list, but I may not have made that clear enough in my original post.
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