Bela Lugosi’s Not Really Dead: A Vampire Movie Primer
Gregory Fichter
Bela Lugosi as the titular character in “Dracula” (1931).
Vampires are so commonplace in entertainment these days that I cannot fathom how anyone could find them mysterious, otherworldly, or especially frightening. In our narcissistic age, people romanticize vampires because the idea of staying young forever trumps any of the existential sadness of such a proposition. Furthermore, the horror aspect of the undead has been entirely co-opted and taken to extremes in a glut of zombie fiction, TV, and films.
Anne Rice popularized the modern romantic vampire mythos in her Vampire Chronicles novels by incorporating the character traits of preening rock stars and permanently redefining the eroticized bloodsucker as the go-to horror icon for female viewers/readers. This is a very recent phenomenon, just try to picture Edward Cullen in full rodent-like Nosferatu makeup romancing Bella if you want to see how far the vampire character’s mythology and cultural purpose has changed over the past 150 years.
In films, the perfect median between Max Schreck’s grotesque, corroding night stalker in F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu and Robert Pattinson’s bedroom poster icon Edward was Christopher Lee’s indelible re-invention of the Count in Hammer Studio’s Horror of Dracula. A case for the first truly modern horror picture, that film recognized the aristocratic polish key to Bela Lugosi’s iconic performance as Dracula on stage and screen, but also made room to show the bloodletting that the inhuman creature thrived upon. Simply put, Lee is the screen’s greatest incarnation of the character, only challenged by Gary Oldman’s quivery embodiment in Francis Ford Coppola’s underrated Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992).
Plenty of movies and books about vampires have risen since Lee hung up his cloak – Stephen King achieved early success with Salem’s Lot, Rice took the tortured undead from the sarcophagus to the analyst’s couch in her Vampire Chronicles, the unforgiving graphic novel series 30 Days of Night offered pulse-quickening thrills, and TheTwilight Saga serves as a toothless teen angst outlet in a magical guise. So many variations on the creature have clotted the market that it seems time we look back on some of the best to satisfy all appetites. Here, we at CinemaNerdz offer our undying appreciation of screen vampires ancient and reborn:
FIRST BITES Nosferatu (1922), London After Midnight (1927), Vampyr (1932)
Silent films were a perfect outlet for the nightmare logic of these early strides in establishing a common physical representation of the folkloric vampire creature. German visionary F.W. Murnau built on the visual dread of his The Haunted Castle (1921) to capture the vile decay of the vampire concept in the seminal Nosferatu. A few years later in America, Tod Browning (the most important innovator in American horror movies) preceded his somewhat overrated Dracula with the lamented lost film London After Midnight – of which we are left with only the indelible, terrifying still images of Lon Chaney with rows of sharp teeth. 1932’s Vampyr by austere Danish perfectionist Carl Theodore Dreyer is the most abstract dreamstate vampire picture until the work of French horror poet Jean Rollin in the 1960s and 1970s.
THE GOLDEN AGE Dracula (1931), Mark of the Vampire (1935), Dracula’s Daughter (1936)
Bela Lugosi’s stage-bound portrayal of Count Dracula is so ingrained in our definition of the vampire character that most people to this day will slip into a faux-Hungarian accent when imitating a generic “vampire.” Lugosi was a singular presence but he may have done more harm than good with his borderline-campy theatrical mannerisms that doomed him to a career of parading the character in comedies and b-films for the rest of his days. Instead of Browning’s Dracula, do yourself a favor and check out the director’s immensely enjoyable Mark of the Vampire with Lugosi sending up his famous creation in an early post-modern commentary on the horror genre. After that, check out the first lesbian vampire in Dracula’s Daughter – among the most atmospheric, psychological products of Universal Pictures’ horror heyday.
FIRST BLOOD Horror of Dracula (1958), Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968),Vampire Circus (1972)
England’s Hammer Studios’ contribution to what we now recognize as the modern vampire cannot be over-emphasized. The studio’s grip over the genre lasted twenty years; the movies became increasingly bloody and eroticized, and made legends of Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and Ingrid Pitt. Hammer movies highlight the pastoral and gothic trappings so essential to a traditional vampire tale. In the 1950s, fantastic genre cinema mostly consisted of sci-fi yarns and Atomic Age creature features. Hammer, along with Mario Bava in Italy, brought the “horror” back to horror movies. The early seventies saw the last gasp of quality Hammer films including highlights like Dracula Has Risen from the Grave and Vampire Circus.
SAPPHIC AND VAMPIRIC Blood and Roses (1960), The Vampire Lovers (1970), Vampyres (1975), The Hunger (1983)
Female vampires were all the rage in 1960s and 1970s European cinema featuring characters often based on the notorious sadist Countess Bathory or merely a free-love generation’s excuse to indulge in rapacious feminine sexuality (the Spanish Vampyres and the films of Jean Rollin are creepy and erotic in equal measure). The sub-genre reached its exploitation zenith in the clothing-optional works of euro cult favorite Jess Franco and his stunning muse Lina Romay (Female Vampire, 1973). Roger Vadim’s little seen Blood and Roses is one of the great forgotten films of the 1960s (it has yet to see a DVD release). Based on the 1872 short story “Carmilla” (written 25 years before Bram Stoker’s work), Vadim’s film is a lush and lusty classic. Chic lesbian vampires were given a shoulder-padded 1980’s update when Catherine Deneuve’s high society vamp seduced Susan Sarandon while David Bowie rotted away in Tony Scott’s plodding but stylish The Hunger.
VHS-ERA ICONS Fright Night (1985), The Lost Boys (1987), Near Dark (1987)
Like many post-Spielberg genre movies, vampire flicks moved to the suburbs in the 1980s when mall kids became a significant demographic for movie studios. The Lost Boys and Fright Night (along with the ridiculous Grace Jones vehicle Vamp and the early Jim Carrey flop Once Bitten) are precursors to today’s goth-lite paranormal romances. The best vampire movie of this fallow period is Katherine Bigelow’s lean, vicious, and quite funny Near Dark. Bigelow borrows from a few westerns and Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes for her story of a motley family of blood-fiends travelling the southwest U.S. in a mobile home. The scene when the deadly band takes out a bar full of yokels is one of the greatest in any horror movie.
POSTSCRIPT The Modern Era
While True Blood and The Twilight Saga remain the totems for popular vampire entertainment in the U.S., European art films have seen a creative surge in using the timeless character for fascinating studies like the Swedish modern classic Let the Right One In (2008), Clair Denis’ provocative, blood-drenched meditation Trouble Every Day (2001), and the oddball Belgian offering Vampires (2010). Next year will see the release of Tim Burton’s adaptation of the vampy 1970s soap opera Dark Shadows and the Burton-produced Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, neither of which sound like a return to the sinister beginnings of a creature born of folkloric dread and unexplained disease. Post-modernism may offer a font of clever ideas but irony pales in comparison to the feeling you get from a classic horror movie marathon.
Greg toiled for years in the hallowed bowels of the legendary Thomas Video and has studied cinema as part of the Concentration for Film Studies and Aesthetics at Oakland University. He has hosted the cult movie night "Celluloid Sundays" at The Belmont in Hamtramck, MI. and enjoys everything from High Trash to Low Art.
