So if we’ve overlooked your favorite vampire-lesbian erotica, I apologize in advance.įinally-no, none of the Twilight or Underworld films are on this list. What’s more, though erotic horror is obviously a popular vampire subgenre, it’s one that I wasn’t able to fully dive into without feeling as though I needed to have my soul cleansed afterwards. As such, I’m sure there are several kooky low-budget vampire-themed adventures from Japan or Italy that I’m missing, but we were simply unable to secure a proper way of watching them for inclusion.
Again, this decision was made for the sake of diversity and highlighting several offbeat films worthy of further exploration.Īlso, though we attempted to seek out as many underseen films as possible, a good portion remain unavailable for easy viewing. Similarly, several entries arguably may not even technically be considered “vampire” movies, whether it be because the creatures are never properly designated as such or the film’s central conceit is more of a riff on the vampire mythos. Granted, filmmakers like Mario Bava and institutions like England’s Hammer Film Productions will be making multiple appearances, but we’ve worked to bring in variety whenever possibly. The Paste writers have also strived to curate a diverse selection of choices. In such cases, we have ensured that each installment has something of worth to offer viewers, whether it’s a great visual style, a clever story twist, a standout performance or production design so laughably strange and half-baked that it veers into “so bad, it’s good” territory. One, unlike Paste’s previous lists numbering film noirs) or cinematic robots, there are far fewer vampire movies that one could classify as being truly “Great.” This scarcity of quality means that some of the earlier entries might be more problematic than those in the latter segment. Today, Paste is counting down the 100 greatest vampire films that cinema has to offer. Popularized in folklore and books, the vampire were a natural fit for the silver screen.
Moreover, vampirism itself has stood in as a natural metaphor for a great number of motifs-drug or alcohol addiction, sex, racism, xenophobia, religion, economic disparity and mental illness, to name just a few. Oftentimes, these seemingly villainous predators can even serve as sympathetic protagonists or badass antiheroes. Though mostly confined to horror, vampires have also bleed their way into everything from slapstick comedy to award-winning dramas. Besides ghoulish monsters, they can be charmers, warriors, sex symbols, sources of comedy, nihilistic philosophers and aliens. Existing in some form or another for thousands of years, these blood-sucking creatures serve as one of horror’s most creatively flexible monsters.