Best Vampire Movies – Good Vampire Films

Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at 5:17 am
By Shane Rivers

Unless your last name is Van Helsing, there’s a strong chance that you’re a fan of good vampire movies. While many of the best vampire movies are made with a decent budget, you can also find a large number of low-budget vampire films on DVD. In fact, they’re right up there with zombie movies when it comes to profitable yet easy-to-make horror films.

In this article, we’ll be taking a look at some of the best vampire movies ever made. We’ll examine a number of “best of” lists, and we will also see which vampire movies rank highest on Netflix. Finally, I’ll be looking at the critical acclaim surround Let the Right One In, a Swedish vampire film which enjoyed great critical and commercial success in 2008.

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The Best Vampire Movies

The followings lists of the best vampire movies have been taken from various Internet sources. While you may not agree with all their selections on the top vampire films, these lists still provide a great opportunity to increase your overall knowledge of the genre.

Top 70 Vampire Films from Snarkerati

Best Vampire MoviesThe website known as Snarkerati prepared the following list of the 70 best vampire films of all-time. A few of your favorite vampire movies will undoubtedly be included.

  1. Nosferatu
  2. Dracula
  3. Nosferatu the Vampyre
  4. Black Sunday
  5. Martin
  6. Horror of Dracula
  7. Near Dark
  8. Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary
  9. Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust
  10. Cronos
  11. Bram Stoker’s Dracula
  12. The Night Stalker
  13. Fright Night
  14. Shadow of the Vampire
  15. Interview With the Vampire
  16. Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat
  17. Day Watch
  18. The Lost Boys
  19. From Dusk Till Dawn
  20. The Last Man on Earth
  21. The Fearless Vampire Killers
  22. Salem’s Lot
  23. The Monster Squad
  24. Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter
  25. House of Dracula
  26. Vampyres
  27. Dracula’s Daughter
  28. Brides of Dracula
  29. Vampire Hunter D
  30. Blade
  31. Blade II
  32. Night Watch
  33. John Badham’s Dracula
  34. The Addiction
  35. Vampire Effect
  36. Blood: The Last Vampire
  37. Blood and Donuts
  38. Nadja
  39. Love at First Bite
  40. Rabid
  41. Vampire’s Kiss
  42. BioHunter
  43. Frostbitten
  44. Son of Dracula
  45. The Return of the Vampire
  46. Blood for Dracula
  47. The Wisdom of Crocodiles
  48. The Hunger
  49. The Vampire Lovers
  50. Underworld
  51. Subspecies
  52. Ganja & Hess
  53. Innocent Blood
  54. Vampyros Lesbos
  55. John Carpenter’s Vampires
  56. The Night Flier
  57. Lifeforce
  58. Underworld: Evolution
  59. Blade: Trinity
  60. Vamp
  61. Fright Night Part 2
  62. Van Helsing
  63. Blacula
  64. The Satanic Rites of Dracula
  65. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  66. The Forsaken
  67. Queen of the Damned
  68. Dracula 2000
  69. Vampire in Brooklyn
  70. Bordello of Blood

While there are certainly some good vampire movies on the list, I have to take exception with Nosferatu being included at the top spot. I know it was the first significant vampire film, but is it really better than the other 69 on the list? I don’t think so.

Cronos is also too high, in my opinion. While this Spanish film was solid, it wasn’t good enough to crack the top 10. The same could be said for Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary (it’s a freakin’ ballet, after all).

Personally, I would’ve bumped up Fright Night into the top 10. Not only does it provide a solid vampire tale, but it also incorporates a number of light-hearted moments; a feat which is even more difficult to accomplish within this somewhat restrictive genre.

Best Vampire Movies from Movie Crunch

While not as ambitious as the last entry, Movie Crunch did compile a list of their 15 best vampire movies. You’ll quickly notice that this group tends to be made up of more mainstream titles.

  1. From Dusk Till Dawn
  2. Nosferatu
  3. Dracula
  4. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  5. Shadow of the Vampire
  6. Interview With the Vampire
  7. 30 Days of Night
  8. Bram Stoker’s Dracula
  9. John Carpenter’s Vampires
  10. Salem’s Lot
  11. The Lost Boys
  12. Blade I/Blade II
  13. Fright Night
  14. Near Dark
  15. Underworld

While Dracula and Nosferatu are once again ranked higher than they deserve, the makers of the list also decided to commit heresy by including Buffy the Vampire Slayer at #4. While I’ve seen worse, it really has no place on a list of the best vampire movies.

The first two Blade films should have also been split up. The sequel was okay, but it was nowhere near as original as the first entry into the Blade trilogy (despite the presence of the always-great Ron Perlman).

Top Horror Movies from the IMDB

The Internet Movie Database allows members to rate movies, and these ratings then determine their overall rankings in various categories. In the “Best Horror Film” category, the following vampire films ranked in the top 50.

6. Let the Right One In

12. Nosferatu

49. Vampire Hunter D

Most Popular Vampire Movies from Netflix

Netflix is the leading online DVD rental service, and visitors can search by genre and see the most popular films chosen by other members. Which are the 10 best vampire movies according to the Netflix community? Take a look.

  1. My Best Friend is a Vampire
  2. Subspecies 3: Bloodlust
  3. Dracula III: Legacy
  4. Brides of Dracula
  5. Taste the Blood of Dracula
  6. Dracula’s Daughter
  7. Kiss of the Vampire
  8. Dracula (2007)
  9. The Norliss Tapes
  10. Return of the Vampire

Boy, what a mess of a list. Do keep in mind, however, that these rankings are based on the number of votes. A good vampire movie that gets 200 votes is likely to have a few negative reviews, while a film with only seven votes may have nothing but positive comments. This would lead to the film with less reviews getting a higher overall rating, and it’s the only way I can explain a film like My Best Friend is a Vampire getting the top spot. Then again, it’s the only way I can explain the entire Top 10 vampire films on Netflix. Yuck.

Let the Right One In – Critical Acclaim

At the end of each year, film critics will always release their lists of the 10 best movies of the year. In 2008, the Swedish vampire flick known as Let the Right One In was included on many such lists. Here are a few of the critics who granted it Top 10 status, as well as the rankings they gave it.

I’d like to give kudos to David Ansen of Newsweek for having the guts to give Let the Right One In his #1 ranking. I noticed it made #2 on the lists of several critics, though I can’t help but wonder if the film’s “horror movie” status prevented it from getting to the top spot.

Whether deliberate or subconscious, it often seems that horror films are regarded as less of an art form when compared to other film genres: I couldn’t disagree more.

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