31 Days of Vampires

As usual, we’re devoting the spooky month of October to horror movies, with a theme for reviews over its 31 days. Previously, we’ve done horror generally, countries, and classic horror. This year, at Chris’s suggestion, we decided to focus in particular on vampires. After considerable thought, the ground-rules were laid out for films to select. No more than one per year; they had to be films not covered in depth on the site; and I wanted to cover as many countries as possible. Part of the problem was that we had written about so many of the “obvious” candidates before. All the Hammer films, for example, were crossed off the board immediately, and so were the Blade trilogy, as well as the Mr Vampire movies.

Still, there turned out to be no shortage of alternatives. There was a lot of shuffling around of candidates before we finally settled on 31 films, from 31 different years, going all the way back to the daddy, Nosferatu. I didn’t quite manage to get them from 31 different countries, but the United States of America is the only country where I ended up with multiple entries. The process of watching them took place on Friday nights over the past year, and… that was interesting. Some of them were good. Some were… not. Some lived up to expectations. Others were disappointing – or better than expected. I think, to be honest, Chris regretted her suggestion on a couple of occasions, though I tended to look kindly on most of them.

I did have a fairly loose definition of “vampire”. It was at least approximately human-shaped and drank blood from other humans in order to survive, that was good enough to qualify. This means there are some entries which you could certainly argue are not vampire films. I would listen politely, and then ignore you, because this is my site, and these are my rules. Thanks for your contribution. But most are, at least in some elements, there or thereabouts. Overall, I think what impressed me most was the huge variety of approaches: in the next 31 days, you’ll see everything from outright comedies through doomed romance and a couple with musical numbers (you will not be surprised to hear Bollywood made one of them), to those that concentrate more on traditional fields like horror and action.

She lives beyond the grace of God, a wanderer in the outer darkness. She is “vampyr”, “nosferatu”. These creatures do not die like the bee after the first sting, but instead grow strong and become immortal once infected by another nosferatu. So, my friends we fight not one beast but legions that go on age after age after age, feeding on the blood of the living.
— Abraham Van Helsing, Bram Stoker’s Dracula