Top Ten Vampires Who Do It Different
A brooding stranger with razor sharp teeth. A man who turns into a bat and feeds on the blood of the living. The vampire is one of the most captivating myths in our culture, and we’ve seen it done according to form 100s of times, but here are 10 vampires that do it differently:
1. Quentin Tarantino as ‘Richard Gecko’ in From Dusk till Dawn.
Quentin Tarantino as a vampire is pretty cool. Throw in the fact that Gecko is a sick and twisted man before he is turned and you have the makings of a truly demented vampire. But what really sets Tarantino apart is the guy’s inescapable geeky-ness. Character or no character, this is nerd-meets-nosferatu at its best. Not since “Evil” Ed Thompson (in the underrated, all-but-forgotten Fright Night) have we seen a poindexter with such pointy teeth.
2. Lina Leandersson as ‘Eli’ in Let the Right One In.
Although a child vampire is nothing new (see Kirsten Dunst in Interview With the Vampire), Eli lets others do the hunting for her. She is thereby distanced from the killings and audience is allowed to view her as something other than a “monster.” All good things must come to an end, however, and when Eli’s adult protector is caught and later kills himself, the young vampire is forced to take matters into her own hands.
3. Karl Hunter as ‘Malcolm’ in Sucker.
In the tradition of Dracula, Hunter has smoldering intense looks, charm, and gothic chic which he uses to charm women. However, Hunter’s “vampire” is anything but undead… Malcolm is an ordinary man who passes himself off as an immortal in order to seduce and later kill the groupies yearning to join him in life-after-death. A particularly interesting and twisted contribution to the genre.
4. Willem Dafoe as ‘Max Schreck’ in Shadow of the Vampire.
A film about film with a truly tantalizing twist. Actor Max Schreck was so convincing in the silent classic Nosferatu because he believed he was in fact a real vampire. Shadow of the vampire is therefore about a vampire playing an actor playing a vampire… or something like that.
5. John Amplas as ‘Martin Madahas’ in Martin.
George Romero explores vampire mythology from a completely different angle: Martin is not really a vampire, he just believes he is. Couple an insatiable thirst for blood with a lack of social skills and you have Martin.
6. Jonathan Frid as ‘Barnabas Collins’ in Dark Shadows.
Barnabas Collins is not so unusual as vampires go; the real twist is that he was a character introduced into a failing soap opera to boost ratings, and surprisingly it worked. Dark Shadows, which aired weekdays on ABC from June 27, 1966 to April 2, 1971, was originally planned to be a soap opera with gothic tone and themes but without any overt supernatural element. Beginning with the introduction of ghosts about halfway through the first year, Dark Shadows eventually added werewolves, zombies, witches, and of course vampires to its supernatural roster.
7. Wesley Snipes as ‘Blade’ in Blade.
A vampire that hunts other vampires in the tradition of ‘set a thief to catch a thief’. Another way he separates himself from his kindred is that he does not drink blood, relying instead on a serum to feed.
8. Juliet Landau as ‘Drusilla’ in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Vampires are often known for their sophistication and intelligence garnered over centuries, but Drusilla is on the other end of the spectrum completely — she is totally insane! Trapped in her own mental world, Drusilla’s nonsensical musings give us a horror comedy glimpse of a vampire mind broken at best.
9. Christopher Lee as ‘Dracula’ in the Hammer series of Dracula films.
The ‘comeback king’ of vampires, no other bloodsucker has died and returned from the dead so many times. No matter how decisive and absolute his demise, the overwhelming power of the sequel would always bring him back in no less than six movies. Despite all ping ponging between this world and the one beyond, Christopher Lee has retained something that so many other vampires have lost over the years… he is actually scary!
10. Bela Lugosi and Carlos Villarías as ‘Dracula’ in Dracula
Bela Lugosi created the archetype of what others in numerous vampire movies would adhere to… including the one shooting on the same set later in the evening, the Spanish-language version of Dracula. Carlos Villarías may have just been parroting Lugosi for the Spanish-language audience, but the result was a technically superior, more artistically interesting film.
Incidentally, the Hungarian born Lugosi, playing the Romanian hero Vlad Teppes (Dracula), ended up ruffling feathers in Transylvania since Hungary and Romania were historical rivals. It could only have been worse had he been Turkish, since Vlad’s fearsome reputation was earned by preventing the Ottoman Empire from gaining a foothold into Eastern Europe.
Related posts:
- Let the Right One In
- Inglourious Basterds
- Trapped Between Monsters and Military in Cloverfield
- Dead Snow
- Inglourious Basterds
This is a good list, although I think you should also consider the original Nosferatu, which set the standard for the relentlessly ugly and monstrous vampire — and which strangely enough is exactly the opposite of what passes for a vampire today!
Although I love Christopher Lee, I’m not sure he really “does it different”, but as you point out, he does it again and again and again and is quite scary in the process. Apparently Christopher Lee is 6-3 or 6-4 and he really uses his size to his advantage. So maybe he breaks the mold in that regard.
I wasn’t aware of Barnabas Collins and the Dark Shadows series… will definitely have to check that out.