Renfield

Renfield – 2023 – United States

The novel Dracula has spawned countless adaptations, but Renfield might be one of the most notable. The movie follows Renfield, Dracula’s mortal lackey who finds victims for the vampire to drink from. Unlike the utterly deranged, bug-eating Renfield of the novel, the movie character is kind of a nice guy, and he only eats bugs to gets supernatural powers (this isn’t really explained).

Renfield takes place in modern-day New Orleans. After attending a group therapy session for people in abusive relationships, Renfield realizes Dracula is an abuser and a manipulator, and Renfield wants out of the relationship. Seeing the relationship between Renfield and Dracula framed in modern mental health terminology is amusing and eye-opening, and Dracula’s manipulations might feel very authentic to someone who has been in a similar relationship. Nicolas Cage as Dracula does a superb job of chewing the scenery, and Nicholas Houlte as Renfield is very relatable.

The Munsters

The Munsters – 2022 – United States/Hungary

Knowing that Rob Zombie wrote a song called “Dragula”, I’m not surprised to learn he is a Munsters fanatic. Apparently, creating The Munsters movie was a dream project for Rob Zombie. He had been trying to acquire the rights for as long as he had been making movies. I’m not sure if I actually like Rob Zombie’s movies, but I think I might, and I admire how extreme they are. I appreciate their commitment to their campy, psychedelic, horror aesthetic. I wish I enjoyed The Munsters more, but I’m not surprised that I didn’t. The TV show always seemed sort of annoying.

The Munsters is about a family of monsters including a vampire, werewolf, Frankenstein’s monster, and goth lady. This movie is a prequel to the original TV series. It shows how Herman and Lily met and why they left Transylvania for Los Angeles. It might be a romance, but it’s definitely a comedy even if it isn’t that funny.

Blade

Blade – 1998 – United States

This movie opens with a bunch of vampires at a rave. Sprinklers in the ceiling spray blood all over the crowd. Then Blade busts in and kills everyone. The rest of the movie never quite reaches this height again.

Who is Blade? He is a half-vampire on a vampire-killing crusade. He wears a trench coat and sunglasses, and he has a goofy anime-like haircut. He kills vampires with swords, boomerangs, guns, and martial arts. He has a cool muscle car and a motorcycle. He barely talks, and he is constantly battling his vampire instincts. Also, I should mention, he is played by Wesley Snipes. In other words, Blade is just about as cool as a movie hero could be in 1998.

Son of Dracula

Son of Dracula – 1943 – United States

Son of Dracula answers the question none of us have ever wondered: “What if Dracula was set in the American South?” A descendant of Dracula moves from Transylvania to America. Under the name Count Alucard (Dracula backwards, in case you didn’t get it), he seduces a wealthy heiress and moves into her big plantation manor on the edge of a swamp. But the heiress is well-versed in the occult (and possibly psychic), and she is actually using Alucard to gain immortality. For such an old movie, Son of Dracula still offers a few twists on the Dracula formula. In the tragic ending, a man kills the woman he loves instead of becoming a vampire with her.

Vampires

Vampires – 1998 – United States

Vampires (also known as John Carpenter’s Vampires) is about vampire-hunting mercenaries who work for the Roman Catholic Church. That’s a pretty badass premise, and everything else about this movie is pretty badass too. The protagonist is Jack Crow, a foul-mouthed hombre who hates vampires, smokes cigars, and wears sunglasses and a black leather jacket. He and his crew of hard-partying vampire hunters (including a priest) cruise around New Mexico in their armored jeep, killing vampires with outlandish weapons like harpoons with floodlights on them. One of these weapons is awesome that I can barely describe it. It’s a crossbow, but the arrow has a chain attached to it, and the chain is hooked to a winch on a truck. When the arrow sticks in a vampire, the winch activates and drags the vampire into the sunlight so they explode.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Bram Stoker’s Dracula – 1992 – United States

As improbable as it seems, this big-budget Dracula adaptation was a smash hit. It was directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and its star-studded cast includes Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, and Anthony Hopkins. A lot of money was spent on this movie, and it shows. Everything about it is obsessively detailed. The costumes, sets, lighting, and props are all fabulously ornate and stylized, and the resulting gothic ambiance is ridiculously and stylishly over-the-top. The movie’s spookiness, melodrama, and sexuality are so heavy-handed that the whole thing is actually kind of funny. The scenery-chewing dialogue and corny fake accents further contribute to the hilarity. Despite that, or maybe because of it, Bram Stoker’s Dracula is pretty awesome.

Indemnity

Indemnity – 2012 – United States

Indemnity (a.k.a. Indemnity: Rage of a Jealous Vampire) has a lot working against it. It’s made by amateurs. It’s about vampires (which are pretty boring by now). And its original title (Indemnity) is so generic that the distributor (rightfully) added “Rage of a Jealous Vampire” to it.

Some guy named William goes into a bar called Rinky Dinks Road House [sic]. I just looked it up, and I guess it’s a real place in Pennsylvania. In this movie, the bar plays country music and has a live hog, but maybe in real life, it’s not so bad. There are also a bunch of horror movie posters on the wall. The interiors were actually shot in a different bar.

Vampire Hunter D

Vampire Hunter D – 1985 – Japan

Vampire Hunter D checks all my boxes. It’s set in the distant future “when mutants and demons slither through a world of darkness”. It’s a post-apocalyptic horror Western with vampires, cowboys, psychics, dinosaurs, cyborg horses, and all sorts of freaky monsters. The protagonist is heart-meltingly sexy and has a parasite living in his hand that makes wisecracks and eats dirt. Everything about it is over-the-top and cool as hell. I love it!

Vampire Princess Miyu

Vampire Princess Miyu – 1988 – Japan

I’m wracking my brain to write about Vampire Princess Miyu. Sadly, there just isn’t much to say.

It’s a four-episode anime about Miyu, a vampire girl who uses magic to fight “god demons” called “shinma”. She kills evil spirits, but she is sort of evil herself and doesn’t really care about humans. She is aided by a masked Grim Reaper-like demon called Larva, and she often crosses paths with a spiritualist-for-hire named Himiko. This all sounds cool enough, but the story is so simple and generic, it’s hard to get excited about.

Moon Child

Moon Child – 2003 – Japan

Moon Child is hard to describe, but I’m going to do it. It’s a Japanese movie about gangsters, vampires, and friendship set in a futuristic version of China following a societal collapse. It stars Gackt and Hyde, two ultra beautiful, male pop stars. During its two-hour run time, it gradually transforms from a gangster action movie to a tear-jerking drama. Hold on. I’m already screwing this up. Let me start over.

China, the year 2027. It’s the future, but it doesn’t look futuristic. A vampire named Kei and a teenage orphan named Sho make money by delivering drugged pizzas to various gangs and then robbing their hideouts. There are some flashy gunfights (including kung fu and Matrix-like slow motion). One tragic day, a friend of Kei and Sho’s is killed in a gang retaliation, and Kei goes feral, revealing his identity as a vampire. The movie skips ahead several years. Sho is an established crook with a cool car and fancy clothes, Kei is in jail for some reason, and their lives are falling apart. Sho is in a bloody gang feud with one of his childhood friends, and his wife has a brain tumor. Kei escapes prison to help Sho sort himself out. Together, they shoot up a rival gang, including Sho’s childhood friend. Sho is fatally wounded, but his life is saved when Kei turns him into a vampire. The movie skips ahead several years again. Sho is living in hiding as a vampire while Kei raises Sho’s teenage daughter. In the final scene, Sho and Kei drive out to the ocean and commit an idyllic, romantic, happy suicide by watching the sun rise.