I'm kind of surprised this thread didn't fill up
with 2-3 answers and then 70 debates over which one
of those is right...
but I'll throw my opinion out to this old question,
probably useless to the OP by now but hey, every vampire
movie msg brd has one of these threads.
My favorite is Dracula (1992), aka Bram Stoker's Dracula,
the Francis Ford Coppola version.
It is visually stunning, with a few good performances, and
a very interesting story embellished from the original.
Visually, this movie is art. The rich colours and dream like
images are fantastic.
Is it all good? Heck no. Keanu almost ruins the movie, his
accent is atrocious. I like Winona Ryder, but she was also
a bit of a miscast. This is thankfully offset by an excellent
cast otherwise.
It's definately not a typical vampire movie, yet in some ways
follows the original Dracula quite well. This is ironic since much
of our modern conception of vampires, and vampire films, comes from
that book.
Interview With the Vampire is also decent, especially if you like the
books by Anne Rice. Again, not a typical vampire movie...
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bill_graham
13 years ago
I agree with "Interview with the Vampire". Good acting, cinematography, direction, and the plot is intelligent as well as entertaining. We get a taste of the misconception of loveliness in a vampire that's downright horrific on closer examination.
Vampire movies without a good story behind them are mostly wasteful imo, so keeping that in mind I'd like to add the recent "Let The Right One In" and its American translation "Let Me In" to stories that are just too good to pass up.
A borderline movie, "Queen of the Damned", is watchable but not iconic stuff. Of course that's just my opinion. It has all the elements of a classic film save for a script that relies too heavily on sensuality, as do the Twilight movies which are a complete fail story-wise. Being a follower of the original vampire folklore, I prefer my vampires to be unanimously scary characters who might persuade me to let them enter my house but I'd be damned on doing so. "Near Dark" is one case in point. For downright killer scary there's "The Night Flier".
Anime must-watchables are "Blood: The Last Vampire" and the "Vampire Hunter D" offerings.
And then there are the enjoyable but ignore-the-stupid-story-films like the "Underworld" and "Blade" series, and "From Dusk Till Dawn" because they are just so creatively entertaining, are pretty to watch, and don't require any real thought.
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