The Evolution of Vampires In Film

Vampire films have been around for close to a hundred years. During this time one of horror’s greatest monsters has undergone many changes, although some may be small changes, these fierce creatures of modern day film are not your grandma’s dashing, tall, pale and handsome beings from the past.

Stories of vampires have been in the conscious of man for thousands of years. Everything from goddesses like Lillith of Mesopotamian mythology, to southern European bloated shape shifting entities have terrorized the people with thoughts of a creature that could suck you dry of blood.

These beings have even managed to manifest there way into reality with historical titans such as Vlad the impaler, who although is a hero in his own country, is well know to us as the man who impaled his enemies on pointed poles outside his castle for the world to see.

Also the lesser know psycho Elizabeth Bathory who thought eating young peasant girls was a delicacy.

But where the art of capturing these nightmares on film actually begins is when director F.W Muranu sunk his teeth into the novel “Dracula”, by Bram Stoker.

He illegally made the silent masterpiece Nosferatu in 1922 before being shut down by Stoker's widow for copyright infringement.

The major importance of Muranu’s vampire was a mixture of high contrast lighting making even his shadows terrifying, and a truly ghoulish appearance being hairless, pale skinned, with pitch black holes for eyes, and thin bony fingers with extremely long nails.

Muranu’s film was also the first time an audience got to see this undead being raised from a coffin.

We jump ahead in time to 1931, when Universal Studios let director Todd Browning put his spin on the classic vampire in Dracula. He clearly ripped out a page in Muranu’s book with a story line quite similar to the 1922 film but unlike the ghoulish figure Nosferatu portrayed a vampire to be, Browning took a different route, casting Bela Lugosi to play this incredibly suave yet dangerous man. With only a cape and two long fangs in his mouth he managed to convince audiences everywhere that all vampires have a Romanian accent

For the next forty years Browning’s version of the vampire spawned what seems like a hundred spin offs like “Curse of the Vampire”, comedies like “Abbot and Costello Meets “Frankenstein”(which Bela Lugosi appeared in), and even a vampires of other ethnicities such as “Blacula”.

There were films that even seem to, at least in the makeup department pay tribute to Muran’s vampire; movies like the “Nosferatu” remake, and Steven Kings “Salem’s Lot”.

And of course with the invention of the TV even the small screen could not escape the vampire’s curse with the great long running series “Dark Shadows”.

The very first episode aired on June 22, 1966 on ABC with a couple of grave thieves finding a hidden opening behind the wall in the wealthy Collins family grave yard, and accidentally awakening vampire Barnabas Collins (played by David Selby) from a long sleep.

Anyone that still remembers his coffin door very slowly creaking open should still have chills running down their spine.

By the time the film industry rolled into the 1980’s the quality of special effects makeup had increased ten fold. With movies like “The Lost Boys” we get to truly see the evolution of the vampire. Kiefer Sutherland played David with appearance of a punk rock star in a long coat, and his 80’s hair band-looking crew right off the bat gave vampires a whole new look. Their transformation is even cruder with larger razor sharp canines, monstrous foreheads, and freaky contact lenses. Hell, they even hang from their toes like bats in a huge cave that is, as Corey Feldman put it “One giant coffin”.

As we move through the 80’s and 90’s we see a lot of romantic vampires as if to go back to a Dracula format but more sexually charged with movies like “Lifeforce”, “Vamp”, “The Hunger” and “Bram Stokers Dracula”.

Throw a little dramedy into the horror mix and you get films like “Fright Night” and “Once Bitten”.

At first placing drama, sex, and even love to the vampire characteristics was intriguing but let’s face it, after a while it kind of got on your nerves.

The 1990’s slowly left with their romantic vampires while 2000 came rushing in with movies like “Blade 1-3” (played by Wesley Snipes) bringing action, and violence back into genre while adding a few more little vampire details:

-You can kill a vampire with a silver sword and he’ll turn into ash.

-Also beware of vampires trying to lore you into parties with sex and drugs.

And then there was “30 Days Of Night” where vampires with shark like teeth and faces slightly twisted by computer editing with black eyes made a bit smaller and spaced further apart, that screech at the top of their lungs before taking you out. And get this, they don’t even kill to eat, they kill just for the hell of it.

Vampires have gone through rollercoaster like changes; they started out ghoulish, and then became romantic and suave, then back to being ghoulish and vicious all over again. But some things stayed the same. You can still kill them with sunlight, and all of mankind admires their immortality.