Vlad The Impaler

The early Hammer Horror films with Christopher Lee really started the whole vampire craze. Then of course in the 80's there was a whole spate of films, including Near Dark, The Lost Boys, and John Carpenter's Vampires. All good films. The 90's weren't such a good era for vampires, but they still managed to produce From Dusk Til Dawn and Vampire In Brooklyn (two of my favourite vampire movies). There have been a few poor attempts at vampire films since (including the Blade trilogy, which didn't really do much for me, I'm afraid), and Van Helsing (which, despite featuring the lovely Hugh Jackman, couldn't quite decide what it was, and sadly failed as both a horror and as a comedy).

But in the last few years we seem to have been bombarded with the undead, both in film and on TV...first Underworld, then Twilight, True Blood (brilliant), Being Human (even more brilliant), Daybreakers (fantastic vampire gore-fest), and now The Vampire Diaries. And soon we have The Wolfman (which I am actually quite excited about - the trailer is damn impressive).

Combining vampires and werewolves seems to be the real creature-feature obsession at the moment. Underworld was the first real attempt to combine them in one film, and I have to say it was very successful. The underlying mythos was well constructed and had some depth to it, providing a good story that made the film more than a simple vampires vs. werewolves brawl, which it could easily have become. And instead of the werewolves being painted merely as vicious animals, they were given a history and a motive, and, most importantly of all, a charismatic and intelligent leader. It could be argued that the third film, Rise of the Lycans, was unnecessary since the first film provided the highlights of the Lucian/Sonja story, but I think they carried it off well, again adding depth to the mythology that they had created. And they had such a superb actor in Michael Sheen that he gave the film, and the character, some real credibility.

Twilight also combines the two species. But the whole premise is just far too twee, teen angsty and romanticised to actually be a good horror film. Or even to count as horror at all. It is, let's face it, a teen romance. And a fairly dull, two-dimensional one at that. I really don't understand the hysteria surrounding the series, or the actors. I just don't get Robert Pattinson. The guy who plays Jacob is quite sweet but very, very young, which made the shirtless scenes a little uncomfortable. Is it right for women in their 30's to be lusting over a 17-year-old?! I haven't read the books, and having sat through the first two films (grudgingly), I can't say I feel any strong desire to try. The Vampire Diaries is another new vamp-based TV series imported from America. I saw a trailer for it the other day, and I'm afraid it just looks like Twilight all over again, with the same sickeningly romantic tweeness to it. But we'll see. I'll probably have to at least watch the first couple of episodes. Can't condemn something as crap if you haven't seen it!

There is also now a growing foreign contingent in the horror movie industry, especially from the Spanish, Russian, and Korean fronts, that must get a mention. Some of these countries have produced some very fine vampire films. Night Watch and Day Watch are Russian, and are adaptations of the first two of a series of four books (supposedly. Having just read the blurb for the second book, I suspect the film deviates heavily from the text!). Night Watch is poorly subtitled, which makes the story a little hard to follow in places, but it is a very good story, and another original take on the vampire genre. It sets up events nicely for the second film, which leaps quickly into the action and hurtles along to a very satisfying ending. And has much better subtitling! I'm intrigued enough to actually try reading the books now. Let The Right One In (Swedish) has also been a huge critical success, but I'm afraid I haven't gotten around to seeing it yet. It's at the top of my 'to watch' list, because it does look very good. And a foreign film has to be good to encourage lazy British crowds to actually pay attention and read the subtitles! Such hard work!