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The 20 best vampire and werewolf movies of all time





THE 20 BEST VAMPIRE AND WEREWOLF MOVIES OF ALL TIME

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Dustin Whitlock  |  Special to the Clarion Ledger

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While ghosts and ghouls reign supreme in the scariest movies of all time, the
monsters of the old world have not gone out of style on Halloween night, and
this list of the 20 best vampires and werewolf movies has few modern takes on
the classic beasts. The list stretches from the nearly lost “Nosferatu” to the
king of Spanish werewolf movies, Paul Naschy. The list is dominated by vampires
because of the dearth of great werewolf movies, but the ones that are great are
strong enough to challenge the best vampire movies for the top spots, and a
couple of choices feature both tribes of the moon.



 


20. SUBSPECIES (1991)

This is the first film on the list to draw inspiration from the vampire in the
1922 "Nosferatu," with long fingers, monstrous facial features and the ability
to move in shadows. “Subspecies” is a film by Full Moon, a studio that produced
many low-budget exploitation monster movies (known for featuring stop-motion
animation) which went straight to video store shelves in the 1990s. This one is
a must-see for filming on location in Romania.



 




19. FRIGHT NIGHT (1985)

Charley’s new neighbor is a vampire. Desperate for help, he visits fictional
vampire movie icon Peter Vincent (a parody of actors Peter Cushing and Vincent
Price) to try to get him to help him dispatch his neighbor. Vincent isn’t
convinced, but later in the film, he sees that Charley’s neighbor gives no
reflection in a mirror. Horrified, Vincent flees to his apartment and the quest
is put in peril.



 




18. UNDERWORLD (2003)

“Underworld” mixes the martial arts-heavy vamp action of “Blade” with massive
werewolves and tells a story of a centuries-old war between the tribes. A lot of
silver bullets fly and we get an answer to the question of what happens when
you're bitten by both a werewolf and a vampire. The 2006 sequel delivers more
comic book action and the pinnacle of practical monster effects in the genre
with a winged vampire and an animatronic white werewolf.




 


17. HORROR OF DRACULA (1958)

It was Christopher Lee’s first outing as Dracula and the first time the novel
was adapted in color. This version diverges from the plot of the novel with
Jonathan Harker coming to Castle Dracula under the guise of serving as a
librarian but with the secret agenda to kill Dracula while he sleeps in his
crypt. Harker fails and is turned into a vampire, and Dr. Van Helsing, played by
Peter Cushing, must dispose of his friend and face Dracula alone.



 


16. DRACULA (1931)

The most iconic portrayal of Count Dracula will always be Bela Lugosi’s version
of the bat-man. His tightly swept back, jet black hair and long, gothic cape
have been emulated in numerous versions of the character over the years, from
the costume and hair design of Christopher Lee in the role in Hammer’s movies to
blaxploitation spoof “Blacula.” Lugosi’s accent is repeated by Gary Oldman in
his version of the character in Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of the book.
“Dracula” is the keystone of all versions of the Dracula story. Without it, like
Universal’s “Wolf Man,” you are missing a piece in your horror literacy.



 




15. THE COMPANY OF WOLVES (1984)

This anthology film is a collection of fairy tales about werewolves told within
a dream (so it’s a story within a story within a story). The dream is set in an
18th-century European forest and centers around a teen girl who is dressed in a
red cloak with a hood sewn by her grandmother. The story is an adaptation of
“Red Riding Hood,” expanded with the short stories about men whose eyebrows meet
and who are hairy on the inside. The story arrives at the well-known end of the
fairy tale, at grandmother’s house, with the girl discovering a werewolf waiting
for her inside.



 


14. BLACK SABBATH (1964)

Boris Karloff joins his peer Lugosi on the list with the anthology film “Black
Sabbath” whose final story tells of a traveler who lodges in the home of
strangers for the night when a vampire comes home. The patriarch of the house,
played by Karloff, is suspected to be dead, but returns late, disheveled and
with a distant, angry stare. He has been turned into a vampire. It’s a colorful
throwback to the golden age of horror and starring one of the era’s icons.




 


13. SALEM’S LOT (1979)

Based on the Stephen King novel of the same title, the television adaptation of
“Salem’s Lot” followed the theme of foreign invasion from “Dracula” with a
foreign vampire moving into a small, American town. The mundanely named, Mr.
Barlow, is the runaway champion for the scariest looking vampire in all of film,
with a bald head, yellow eyes, blue skin and fanged incisors. The design of the
adaptation draws inspiration from “Nosferatu” and updates the style for the
grindhouse generation of horror.



 




12. LOST BOYS (1987)

The movie is about a single mom and her two sons who move back to her coastal
California hometown which is infested with vampires. This is Corey Haim’s first
film on the list, and it was his first teaming with the actor he would become
inseparable from in his acting career, Corey Feldman.

The youngest son, played by Haim, befriends two teens, one of which is played by
Feldman, who are obsessed with horror movies and vampires that they claim live
in their town. Their suspicions are confirmed when the older brother of Haim’s
character is turned into a bloodsucker and leads them to where the vamps sleep.



 


11. CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (1961)

The lone Hammer werewolf film and the oldest wolf on the list, “Curse of the
Werewolf” is loosely based on Guy Endore’s 1933 novel “The Werewolf of Paris.”



The werewolf doesn’t transform until an hour into the film and we don’t see the
makeup until the final act, but it’s worth the wait. Oliver Reed’s intense eyes
and the unique makeup make this a wolfman that cannot be confused with any other
(though 1975’s “Legend of the Werewolf” tried to copy it). Reed gives a physical
performance that you don’t see in other werewolf movies, climbing up the faces
of buildings, running along the flashings and leaping from roofs to the ground
(nothing but ground). The more you know about stunts, the more suspenseful the
scene is to watch as you realize the actor (or stunt performer) could have died
at any point.



 




10. SILVER BULLET (1985)

A series of murders happen in the small town of Tarker Mill. Corey Haim plays a
wheelchair-bound kid named Marty who believes the murders were committed by a
werewolf. When Marty sneaks out at night to shoot fireworks in the woods, the
werewolf comes for him and Marty shoots a rocket into its eye. The next day,
Marty’s sister is collecting bottles to recycle when she sees the local priest
wearing a bandage over his eye. Convinced that he is a werewolf and with the
help of their uncle, they have a silver bullet forged.



 


9. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008)

This Swedish film is about a vampire who is stuck as a young girl and requires
someone to kill for her and take care of things she cannot in the body of a
child such as pay bills and rent an apartment. The title is a reference to the
natural law that prevents a vampire from entering a dwelling without permission.

When the vampire’s companion is caught, she visits him in the hospital and kills
him. The boy next door takes over as her familiar, protecting her in the day,
and they run away together. There is an American remake titled “Let Me In.”
Don’t bother with it though. Look up the Swedish original.




 


8. NOSFERATU (1922)

This is the earliest adaptation of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” but the silent film
changes the name of the title character to Count Orlok in an attempt to sidestep
being accused of producing an unlicensed adaptation of Stoker’s work. The name
change wasn’t enough to shake the legal challenge and all copies of the film
were ordered destroyed. The story goes that only one survived and was smuggled
to the United States (like a vampire on a ship) where it was safe from European
copyright laws. The unusual appearance of the actor portraying the vampire is
echoed in multiple films on this list. There is a 1979 remake titled “Nosferatu
the Vampyre” and a new remake that is currently in production. In 2000, the film
“Shadow of the Vampire” portrayed a fictional history of the production of the
silent era film based on the legend that the actor playing Orlok was a true
vampire (thus his grotesque features).



 




7. BLADE (1998)

“Blade” is based on a comic book by Marvel Comics and was the first among the
comic book company’s massive catalog of characters to achieve theatrical
release. The title character is a black American vampire-human hybrid who is
invulnerable to daylight and able to control his hunger for blood with a serum.
Wesley Snipes was born for this role and continues to be a fan-favorite to
reprise the role in a potential Disney-Marvel produced revamp of the franchise
(in a separate universe from the Marvel Cinematic Universe).



 


6. NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF (1981)

There are 12 Paul Naschy werewolf movies, but there can be only one on the list.
The honor goes to the remake of Naschy’s most famous wolfman movie and one of
the best of the best bad movies ever, 1971’s “The Werewolf vs the Vampire
Woman.”

Three friends go on vacation to Romania to explore a castle crypt, but one of
the girls plans to bring Elizabeth Bathory back from the dead. Exploitative,
filled with gratuitous nudity and a literal shower of blood; “Night of the
Werewolf” is a lost gem of 80s horror.



The vampires are not the only ones returned from the grave — the werewolf
Waldemar Daninsky has also been resurrected when the silver cross was pulled
from his heart. As the original, in your face title of the 1971 film tells you,
you’re in for a vampire on werewolf brawl at the end.



 


5. LET’S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH (1971)

Jessica suffers from a hallucinatory mental illness and has been in an
institution. The film opens with Jessica, her husband and his friend driving in
a hearse to a country house which they hope will help her stay stable. There is
a vagrant woman with red hair living at the house when they arrive and they
decide to let her stay.

It seems at first that the film is a ghost story and halfway through the movie
we learn about a bride that lived in their home and drowned in the cove behind
the house. But the redhead turns out to be a vampire (one unaffected by daylight
like Dracula). The ambiance of the wind, eerie piano score and natural lighting
make it one of the scariest vampire movies.



 

 


4. THE HOWLING (1981)

This monster flick is based on the book “The Howling” by Gary Brander
resurrected the werewolf genre in the 1980s and introduced a new kind of wolf
that has the head of a wolf but walks upright.



A female news anchor is attacked and her therapist recommends that she and her
husband attend a retreat in the woods that the doctor runs. The retreat is
actually a colony of werewolves. The news anchor escapes with the help of a
friend who comes to her rescue with a rifle and silver bullets, but during their
escape she is bitten. The film ends with her transforming live on television
during the evening news.



 


3. INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (1994)

Beginning almost a century before Stoker’s novel and set in the American South,
“Interview” is based on the Anne Rice novel of the same title. It explores the
mundane, practicalities of being a vampire, how to make money and get away with
weekly murder. It also looks at the idea of people trapped with each other’s
company for the foreseeable eternity ahead and explores sexual taboos. Tom
Cruise and Brad Pitt were cast for their hyperbolically handsome faces and
statuses as Hollywood sex symbols to play the fabulous, bisexual vampire lovers.
The subtext of their relationship, as well as a relationship between Pitt’s
character and Kirsten Dunst’s character who is permanently frozen in childhood
as a vampire, is less explicit in the film than the novel but still legible if
you look.



 


2. BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA (1994)

This may be ranked Francis Ford Coppola’s greatest film when historians look
back in a 100 years. The adaptation is the most faithful version of “Dracula,”
preserving the themes of feminism and xenophobia of Jewish immigrants in Britain
in the period, with Dracula portrayed as the film’s dark hero who comes from a
foreign land with a foreign tongue to overthrow British society and free women
from the patriarchy. Coppola references both the silent era “Nosferatu” and the
golden age films of Universal with expressionist sets, the wandering shadow of
the vampire, early film techniques and the casting of American actors in the
roles of the Brits, Mina and Jonathan Harker, as was done with old Hollywood
movies.



 

More: Have you ever seen a vampire deer?

More: 9 modern horror movies to watch in black and white


1. AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981)

“American Werewolf” is the scariest werewolf of all. It begins with a pair of
American 20-somethings back-packing in the England. They encounter an unseen
animal out in the moors in the night—the werewolf circles the adventurers and
audience through the surround sound speakers and then it strikes, killing one
and infecting the other before the locals shoot the werewolf dead. The injured
man awakens to find he is haunted by the ghoulish, decaying ghost of his dead
friend who informs him that he is a werewolf now.




 

Dustin Whitlock is a freelance writer for the Clarion Ledger and Scott County
Times. He can be reached at l.dustin.whitlock@gmail.com. 

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