Vampires In The Movies

This is an overview of the most offbeat and underrated vampire movies spanning nine decades and 23 countries. Strange Blood encompasses well-known hits as well as obscurities that differ from your standard fang fare by turning genre conventions on their head. Here, vampires come in the form of cars, pets, aliens, mechanical objects, gorillas, or floating heads. And when they do look like a demonic monster or an aristocratic Count or Countess, they break the mold in terms of imagery, style, or setting. Leading horror writers, filmmakers, actors, distributors, academics, and programmers present their favorite vampire films through in-depth essays, providing background information, analysis, and trivia regarding the various films. Some of these stories are hilarious, some are terrifying, some are touching, and some are just plain weird. Not all of these movies line up with the critical consensus, yet they have one thing in common: they are unlike anything you've ever seen in the world of vampires. Just when you thought that the children of the night had become a tired trope, it turns out they have quite a diverse inventory after all.

Vampire movies have a long and rich history, from what was probably the first one (in 1896), through the classics of the early-twentieth century (Nosferatu, Bela Lugosi's version of Dracula), and on to the present-day mania for Twilight and other modern takes. In between there have been hundreds of versions and variations, including American Sign Language vampires, comedies, space vampires, and much more. This book explores the lore of vampire films, why they remain perennially popular with audiences, and themes that run through the history of these cinematic bloodsuckers.

Vampires are arguably the most popular and most paradoxical of gothic monsters: life draining yet passionate, feared yet fascinating, dead yet immortal. Vampire content produces exquisitely suspenseful stories that, combined with motion picture filmmaking, reveal much about the cultures that enable vampire film production and the audiences they attract. This collection of essays is generously illustrated and ranges across sixteen cultures on five continents, including the films Let the Right One In, What We Do in the Shadows, Cronos, and We Are the Night, among many others. Distinctly different kinds of European vampires have originated in Ireland, Germany, Sweden, and Serbia. North American vampires are represented by films from Mexico, Canada, and the USA. Middle Eastern locations include Tangier, Morocco, and a fictional city in Iran. South Asia has produced Bollywood vampire films, and east Asian vampires are represented by films from Korea, China, and Japan. Some of the most recent vampire movies have come from Australia and New Zealand. These essays also look at vampire films through lenses of gender, post-colonialism, camp, and otherness as well as the evolution of the vampiric character in cinema worldwide, together constituting a mosaic of the cinematic undead.

Traces the history of vampires in movies and television.

This handy book traces the vampire film from the early 20th century to the present day, acknowledging on its way all the classics of vampire cinema from Nosferatu' right up to 'Blade.' From saucy French vampires to hopping Chinese ones, from Hammer horrors to Hollywood blockbusters. Whatever your favourite bloodsucker you'll find it here, delivered straight to the jugular. All the facts at your fingertips including video availability and web resources.'

This introductory volume offers an elegant analysis of the enduring appeal of the cinematic vampire. From Georges M li s' early cinematic experiments to Twilight and Let the Right One In, the history of vampires in cinema can be organized by a handful of governing principles that help make sense of this movie monster's remarkable fecundity. Among these principles are that the cinematic vampire is invariably about sex and the vexed human relationship with technology, and that the vampire is always an overdetermined body condensing what a culture considers other. This volume includes in-depth studies of films including Powell's A Fool There Was, Franco's Vampyros Lesbos, Cronenberg's Rabid, K mel's Daughters of Darkness, and Merhige's Shadow of the Vampire.

An illustrated history and examination of vampires in cinema.

"Spine-chilling creatures of the cinema" -- Dust jacket.