Spooky Month Bonus: Vampire Movies with Bite

My Top 10 Favorite Vampire Movies

As a bonus addition to my previous posts with My Top 25 Favorite Horror Movies of All Time, here’s another ranked list for Spooky Month! I love a good vampire movie, so much that they deserve a special category of their own, which overlaps a few times with my previous all-time-fave list.

As lists tend to go, the ranking of this list may ebb and flow as new titles come to light, and I’m hoping that Robert Eggers’ Christmas 2024 release of Nosferatu makes its way into my Top 10 and shifts things around a bit. But until then, for the sake of declaring, as of this moment and just for fun at this time of year, these are the ones which thrill & chill me the most.

The runners-up to my Top 10 for honorable mention would include Jakob’s Wife, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, Abigail, Interview with the Vampire, Lifeforce (because space vampires!), Last Voyage of the Demeter, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), Dracula (1931), Nosferatu (1922), Le Vourdalak, and even the bonkers Nicolas Cage comedy Vampire’s Kiss.

I recommend these to you if you’re looking for a vampiric tale to watch this Halloween, but even more so I suggest you sink your teeth into these:

10. BYZANTIUM (2012) - Directed by Neil Jordan

When I found out there was a movie where Irish wonder Saoirse Ronan plays a vampire, I was like Whaaattt??? Why didn’t anyone tell me? It’s also by the same director as Interview with the Vampire and weird & spooky werewolf fantasy The Company of Wolves, which helps.

This romantic mystery is a beautiful story, chilling and visceral in its telling, with lush cinematography and bloody intrigue.

9. SALEM’S LOT (1979) - Directed by Tobe Hooper

What Psycho did for showers and Jaws did for the ocean, Salem’s Lot did for windows.

Also previously mentioned in my Top 25 Horror Films, be sure you only watch the full 3-hour original version, as seen on TV as a two-part miniseries in 1979. There’s also a shorter version made for theatres floating out there, but it lacks so much compared to the full cut. It’s one of the best adaptations of Stephen King’s work.

A slow burn in which its length and plodding pace help to give it this eerie impression that things are merely ‘happening’ in real time - and that sustains the suspense for truly effective nightmare fuel. As for the new re-make released this year? So much was at stake to finally release it, but all in vein. A few clever shots maybe, but no soul. No bite. Stick with the original.

8. HUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON (2023) - Directed by Ariane Louis-Seize

A truly pleasant surprise I discovered only this year, this French-Canadian gem combines elements of all my top favorite vampire films into a quirky horror-comedy I hope more people seek out to watch. Rising star Sara Montpetit (of another great ghost story called Falcon Lake) carries the film as the most adorable goth teen vamp to grace screens in years. Combine this with a most-excellent synth soundtrack and you’re in for a bloody good time.

7. THE LOST BOYS (1987) - Directed by Joel Schumacher

A top favorite for many years, I grew up with this one, so it holds a very special place in my heart for its iconic cast, atmosphere and soundtrack. It’s the perfect hip summer vampire movie of the ‘80s. Time has made it more tame and bubble gum-ish compared to darker, more thought-provoking films I’ve discovered since then, and sometimes now I wish it was edgier on the horror and leaned less on the silly comedic side. Nevertheless, it holds up for its visual style, music, and great characters. It’s still fun to be a vampire, and I will always love this classic movie for what it is.

6. NEAR DARK (1987) - Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

I have a theory that after Hudson and Vazquez die in 1986’s Aliens, they wake up in an alternate multiverse with the original human that Bishop was modelled after — and they’re all vampires. 

I heard about this film for decades, but was sadly late to the party in actually watching it. Often mentioned in the same breath as the same year’s Lost Boys, this totally ‘80s vampire romp is far grittier, bloodier, and takes the genre into some surprising and thought-provoking places.

If Lost Boys is the hip & fun MTV rock & roll beach city classic of the ‘80s, Near Dark is the grittier, deeper, & bloodier one from the streets and small towns of the west. There’s a tug-of-war in the hearts of these vampires, between their knowledge that the wild life they live is inevitably unsustainable, their desire to party & rule forever as rebellious teenagers, and the possibility of love & family they are leaving behind. The lack of fangs and other tropes bring the vampirism in this one closer to being a metaphor for drug addiction. The word “vampire” is never even mentioned at all, which opens up its poetic language to different interpretations and thought-provoking places. And it looks gorgeous.

“The night is so bright it will blind you.”

5. ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE (2013) - Directed by Jim Jarmusch

Poetry. Books. Guitars. Romance. Nightclubs. Money. Blood. The good stuff. It’s hip to be a vampire.

I was thrilled to find a movie like this filmed in my home town and former wilderness of Detroit. The dark vibes and moody soundtrack combined with the Jarmusch’s dry wit (“You drank Ian?”) make this film so much fun to watch. The icing on the cake for the comedic tone is that the final shot still scares the bejeezus outa me.

4. ALL THE MOONS (2020) - Directed by Igor Legarreta

Can a vampire film be beautiful? This one is, and I already devoted an entire post to it, as linked below.

3. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008) - Directed by Tomas Alfredson

Real vampires don’t sparkle. They are vicious, lonely, and Swedish. 

Overlapping with my Top Horror of All Time, this gem from Sweden is my favorite vampire movie which classifies as true dramatic horror. It explores the reality that vampires are trapped in a place where they long for human connections they cannot have, because it was stolen from them — trapped between a desire to love and necessity to kill. Despite what other films may tell you, it’s not really fun to be vampire. You may never die, but you must feed — and Let the Right One In reflects the bleakness of this truth through its cold Swedish landscape, all while being a beacon of hope & light for the marginalized at the same time. So many layers are under the ice of this cold and strangely beautiful masterpiece.

2. A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT (2014) - Directed by Ana Lily Amirpour

Slow, hypnotic, hip, dreamy, scary & gorgeous Iranian horror-mystery-western with an absolutely killer soundtrack. It moves at a glacial pace but its atmosphere and cinematography is so beautiful and haunting, it literally sucks you in (see what I did there?).

It’s like David Lynch and Jim Jarmusch decided it would be cool to get together and make a slow moody vampire film set in the drug culture of Iran in black & white but decided it would be even better if a woman directed it. A damn fine choice. It’s too hip for its own good and leaves plenty of mystery to fill in the blanks.

1. WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS (2014) - Directed by Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi

Not only do vampires not sparkle, they also don’t put down towels or do dishes.

My #1 favorite vampire movie is also one of my favorite comedies, and still the funniest movie I’ve seen in this century. The first time I saw this, I don’t think I had laughed so hard at a movie since the ‘90s, or maybe even the ‘80s. Every time I come back to this, I find another reason to laugh and another little moment I either forgot about or didn’t notice.

If you need a laugh along with your jump scares this Halloween, this is the right one to let in.

Sweet Dreams, kids!