Seven Best Vampire Flicks You Haven’t Seen #Vampires #Paranormal #ASMSG

Originally blogged here: http://www.vampires.com/seven-best-vampire-flicks-you-havent-seen/

Seven Best Vampire Flicks You Haven’t Seen

So many refer to vampire flicks in terms of Twilight or some such, or the most recent avatar of Dracula, maybe t.v. shows such as True Blood or The Vampire Diaries. Yet there’s far to the genre than one might think, looking at most articles or reviews. Consider these seven, several excellent and others at least interesting, and rarely mentioned. But at least some of them probably should be. How many have you seen? Or even heard of?

Isle of the Dead – In 1945, Boris Karloff appeared in one of twovampire films he ever made. This black and white classic, based onGreek folklore and growing fear in the face of death, is many ways more about fear of the undead than the vampires themselves. During one of the many horrible yet relatively small Balkans of the early XXth century, a Greek general and a collection of others find themselves trapped on an island due to plague. In an almost Agatha Christie-like setup, superstitions bubble to the surface and gothic tropes we all recognize become reality, at least in some people’s minds.

Strigoi – Somewhat curiously (or not) we rarely see vampire movies from Romania, the land where the real Vlad the Impaler lived.  Here is an exception, a clever dark comedy based not upon the image from Hollywood but actual folklore–where a vampire is a peasant, with neither priest nor scholar about the undead are anywhere to be seen, where the reaction to an actual strigoi is openly mediocre, even stupid.;

Lets Scare Jessica to Death – Again, a film that tosses away what we expect we know about vampires, and in fact gives us a tiny existential crisis to boot! Jessica, an artist moving to a farm in rural America to get away from the hustle of the city, has had a nervous breakdown. She’s been delusional, but does that mean the stranger she and her husband meet is not an undead girl haunting the lake where she drowned? We may never know. But we feel exactly what Jessica endures, putting us through an emotional wringer.

Suck – This Canadian comedy about a fourth-rate band achieving stardom once a member is bitten and transformed into a walking, talking, singing and bass-playing incarnation of dark glamor never got much distribution. But the performances are spot-on, and the humor sickly fun if not broad a la the Scary Movies franchise or anything at all with Adam Sandler.

Vampyr – Many consider Nosferatu the first great vampire movie. Less known alas is the flick widely regarded as the second, at least among film experts. Carl Dryer’s almost silent masterpiece is a surreal step into a world where shadows really do go commit mischief on their own, where dreams bleed into reality, and where the corrupt influence of a vampire lingers on the edge of conscious awareness–and even noticing the creature is perilous.

Bled – So many vampire films aim for being “high concept” (Dracula’s untold origin! An apocalyptic war between living and undead), here’s a flick deserving credit for focusing on an individual tale of temptation. Shot on a tiny budget with no stars, it succeeds in creating a very disturbing story about genuine horror, even to the point where sexual desire becomes grotesque and deadly ( a trope most vampire filmmakers dabble with at most, rather than dive into).

Lust for Dracula – The title, the stars, even the production company (Seduction Studios) leads one to expect nothing more than lesbian softcore with a vampire twist. Nor would anyone end up mistaken on that front. But the sheer surreal nature of the film shows the writer/director was aiming for something much more than titillation.  He wants to disturb as much as excite, to amuse as well as horrify. Truth to tell, in many ways he succeeds!

What are your candidates for little known vampire films more folks should see?

david

David MacDowell Blue blogs at Night Tinted Glasses.  He graduated from the National Shakespeare Conservatory and is the author of The Annotated Carmilla. and Your Vampire Story (And How to Write It) as well as a theatrical adaptation of Carmilla.

Let The Right One In scheduled for an A&E Series! #Vampire #Badassary #ASMSG

LTROI series for A&E

REBLOGGED FROM VAMPIRES.COM:

http://www.vampires.com/ltroi-series-for-ae/

First there was a best-selling novel, which became a wildly popular film in its native Sweden.  Then an English-language adaptation, a Swedish-language play, following by anEnglish-language play performing first in Edinburgh then London then New York.  Now Let The Right One In is slated to join the line-up of A&E.  Teen Wolf  writers Jeff Davis and Brandon Boyce are currently writing a script. The series will be produced by A+E Studios with Tomorrow Studios.

Plenty of S P O I L E R S follow, so be warned.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the series would again relocate the story to the United States, this time in Vermont.  Like the previous versions, a lonely and bullied boy befriends a mysterious girl who moves into town with her equally-mysterious guardian.  Strange murders follow which attract the attention of a Federal Marshal with some kind of secrets of his own.  This synopsis leaves a large number of questions un-answered.  For example:

What is the time period of the proposed series?  Both films retained the 1980s setting, using events of that decade as a kind of commentary of the plot.  Certainly doing a series in the present would be easier and cheaper.  More it would open up a possible plot change.  The new series might not be done so much a remake but a quasi-sequel.  In other words, the Oscar character from the original might be the Guardian of the new show.  Maybe.

How old are this boy and girl?  Matt Reeves, writer/director of Let Me In (the American film, made under the auspices of Hammer Studios) noted that when first approached about making an English version language, people said to him “Of course we have to make the boy and the vampire teenagers.”  He refused.  That doesn’t mean someone else might not love that idea.

Will there be any more vampires?  The book mentions at least five other vampires, including the nobleman who created Eli (Abby in the American film), another vampire Eli met years later who noted most undead commit suicide.  During the course of the story, Eli accidentally turned two of her victims into vampires she had to destroy–and when her Guardian offered her his blood after burning his face off with acid to protect her, the Guardian also rose and tried to rape her.  If Davis and Boyce want to turn the novel into an ongoing series, the real possibility exists of using the fact vampirism is so hideously easy to spread.

Many details are frankly left in the air, with barely a hint.  The Federal Marshal for example certainly seems brand spanking new, and the secrets could easily be more complex than the obvious thought that he (or she) Mulder-like now “believes.”  Neither of the leads  characters’ names have been released, nor much idea of the circumstances around each.  In the Swedish film, Oscar’s parents are separated because the father drinks.  In the American, Owen’s mother is the drunk and deeply religious to boot (this remains a major difference between the two settings–the Swedish town doesn’t even have a church, and one can barely imagine an American town without one).  American Abby’s Guardian was once pretty clearly a version of Owen, someone who grew up and apart from his beloved friend.  Swedish Eli’s Guardian is a pedophile in love, eager to prove his loyalty and the right to touch this child who is not a child.

No word yet on when such a series might be expected to air.  Jeff Davis, although best known for Teen Wolf, wrote the original script which became Criminal Minds.  Brandon Boyce penned the biopic Milk as well as Apt Pupil, based on a story by Stephen King.  Marty Adelstein will serve as Executive Producer, having been responsible for Tru Calling(with Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s Eliza Dushku) and Point Pleasant.  Becky Clements (Last Man Standing) and Hammer Studios President Simon Oakes will also Executive Produce.

david

David MacDowell Blue blogs at Night Tinted Glasses.  He graduated from the National Shakespeare Conservatory and is the author of The Annotated Carmilla. and Your Vampire Story (And How to Write It) as well as a theatrical adaptation of Carmilla.