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VAMPYR would easily top my MOST INFLUENTIAL list, since individual shots from it turn up in so many different films, not just horror/vampiralia either. Very much a masterpiece, but not quite exactly what we're looking for here.

LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH is an interesting & impressive choice; the vampiralia takes kind of a supporting role though and we are trying to find pure examples of the form, with fangs, crosses, wooden stakes, coffins, sex etc. I need to watch this one again -- been so long, and it is one of my alltime favorite domestic/US horror films ever & great proof that you can scare the bejesus out of someone with a PG rating just fine.

HORROR OF DRACULA is another MOST INFLUENTIAL lister; a very important film but one that falls short of what we are trying to get at for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the restrained sexual subtext. Vampire movies are sex movies, when stripped of their narrative verneer, and Hammer's staid respectability in making this lurid story into a handsome, critically acclaimed shocker was the important consideration with this release. They were solidifying their reputation rather than delivering thrills & chills & bellyaches, though again it would be amongst the 5 most influential fangers without much contest.

BRIDES OF DRACULA is tough; I cannot bank on that only because the villain is portrayed as about as menacing of a character as the lead singer from The Pet Shop Boys: a good vampire movie needs a good vampire, though I will readily agree that BRIDES may be Peter Cushing's finest Hammer performance as the tireless & perpetually upbeat Van Helsing. I also like how they bury their dead under about two inches of home depot issued potting soil; wouldn't the stench of a decaying corpse sort of make the idea unwise though? The production design is nothing short of ingeneous, however, and I love the line about how the finishing school enjoys such a low rent from the Baron. But this movie also misses the mark because of having such a weak villain: KISS OF THE VAMPIRE's rather Fascist Count is a much more satisfying villain because his evil intentions are easy to buy into. Just what the Baron in BRIDES OF DRACULA hopes to accomplish with his little harem of fanged hotties -- and exactly what happens to them after his demise -- is never made clear, and as such he is a weak villain. Best production design this side of a Rankin/Bass Xmas special though.

Mr. Coppola's BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA is problematic for a number of reasons, and while I will admit here publicly for the first time to preferring it to the alternative lifestyle political aggendized ruined INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, the only real contemporary worth comparing it to, the film has some baggage with it that sort of spoils the fun for me. It is a Francis Ford Coppola production before all other considerations, meaning for one that there was no budgetary constrains upon the effort. Francis could stage whatever he liked and not have to worry about what it might cost. The result was that Francis was able to indulge himself in any whim that he and his scriptwriters fancied, and the film becomes IMHO a series of set-pieces derived from their source rather than a succinct narrative, which is what Jess Franco found himself limited to producing with EL CONDE DRACULA, which I find to be a much more satisfying take on Stoker's novel than Coppola's film.

Coppola did give us three images that are amongst the most ingeneously staged vampire movie sequences ever: Jonathan Harker's gravity defying foursome with the vampire brides [which I made an MPEG of to replay anytime I feel the need to get turned on by evil satanic vampire sex, if that is any indication of how effective it is], the In-Shadow manifestations of Gary Oldman's Count during the Castle Dracula segments, and the fabulous shot of Dracula transforming into a pillar of rats that go scurrying everywhere. Special mention should also be made of Tom Waits' Renfeild & his snack tray of dead flies -- "Hor'dourves? Canopies?" -- but in the end, this movie gives me a headache: Too much swirling, frenetic camerawork and gabbering background noise on the soundtrack, resulting in what is sometimes confusion as to just what is going on onscreen, a problem that is shared with Oliver Stones' NATURAL BORN KILLERS and is what happens when there is nobody with power over the director to say "NO".

Good suggestions though! And I am delighted that nobody has opined THE LOST BOYS yet. Kind of been waiting for that.

Bigger than the bat in INVASION OF THE VAMPIRES?
:--D--~

Welcome to my humble thread, Tim! I feel like the lucky grad student who suckered a Whitney Biennial exhibitor to come give a Visiting Artist talk in a symposium class I used to moderate.

Firstly, I think I may have started this discussion unfairly by not clearly outlining the CRITERIA with which I am making this judgement, and have an agenda behind even posing the question of WHAT IS THE BEST VAMPIRE MOVIE EVER MADE? that I may not have made clear either, which is that y'all are helping to strengthen my thesis statement as to why my choice is the winner, and you did not have the criteria by which I was evaluating the myriad of worthy choices, which was unfair. No common evaluatory process.

You can also trust me when I say that I agonized for months over making a selection, and even if I should at that: It's like, who's you're favorite Beatle, or what's your favorite classic Star Trek episode? [Answ: GEORGE and THE ONE WITH THE YANGS & THE KHOMS] Questions like that are meaningless except on a personal level, and personal choices like that are always -- ALWAYS -- dictated by taste, regardless of what form of expression one is evaluating. Taste is also effected by personal history: Maybe I happen to have a personal grudge against THE BRIDES OF DRACULA that has nothing to do with the movie [guilty!!], though I still lobby that it has a weak villain but a strong hero, upsetting the balance & guaranteeing a happy ending.

I'm not looking for the most influential, biggest grossing, most popular or most overlooked vampire movie ever made, but the one that fulfills my needs as a viewer more fully than any other choice, COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE included!!

Also, I am VERY open to the notion that THE DEVIL'S WEDDING NIGHT may *not* in fact be the Best Vampire Movie Ever Made. Carl Sagan taught me that science has to be distinguished by being able to have core, fundamental ideas ripped to shreds by new discoveries and not have ideological, aggendized thinking suppress the facts no matter how they may scandalize our deepest held beliefs. I am approaching the idea of naming The Best Vampire Movie in a scientific manner, based on criteria I established myself before even engaging the question. We'll score THE DEVIL'S WEDDING NIGHT on a point by point basis as we go and you can see perhaps more clearly what I was thinking about.

To qualify, the contestant title MUST:

1] Be honest about the relationship between vampirism and sexuality [CHECK]
2] Not have to teach us anything new about vampires, or introduce some new element that would have to be remembered by the audience to have the story be complete [CHECK]
3] Be "entertaining" and not become weighed down in obstrusive arty sh1t, I.E. Coppola's DRACULA [CHECK]
4] Re-define the nature of the vampire film for it's target era [CHECK PLUS]
5] Touch on AS MANY cliche buttons as possible when considering the vampire movie as a specific historical form [CHECK]
6] Have an undeniably evil villain who can make use of fabled vampire parlor tricks and use them to further the story rather than just be part of a set-piece/showoff segment [CHECK]
7] Memorable musical score that plays a role in the storytelling [CHECK PLUS!]
8] Demonstrate a sense of self awareness about what it really is & have a sense of humor about it [CHECK]
9] Give us a definable objective for the villain [CHECK]
10 ] Believable hero who is changed at the end; movies should be about people and things that happen to them, including vampire movies [CHECK, WITH RESERVATIONS]'


Now with said list in hand, any one of the choices posed to me by our worthy discussion members is as good as my final choice, and most of them had been considered -- though I do admit LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH slipped my mind, and is going to be re-evaluated once I find time to watch it again.

I also must admit a fixation on what Tim is referring to as "post-modernist" vampire films, and that was indeed one of the qualities that drew me to THE DEVIL'S WEDDING NIGHT, specifically how it re-defined itself for the post Haight Ashburian psychedelians, and is very much a holdover of the "trip" movies from the 1960's in wanting to take the viewer on a "ride", if you will, with the narrative serving merely as reference points for people to use when navigating through the film. It is a movie with about four layers of meaning to it, only one of which is a story about two brothers who go looking for the lost ring of Snuffaluppagus or whatever it's called,

I'm going to sift through my different essays on THE DEVIL'S WEDDING NIGHT and post one in the Modern Italian Horror wing to give us a place to discuss that movie in particular and will paste a link to it below; I'll also whack together my ten or fifteen top finalists and a why for each and work that into this thread as well.

Perhaps this is kind of a pointless question, but has it ever been asked of before to such a qualified body of experts? :--D Even if there is no universal final answer, it's kind of fun to think about it & consider one's pet choices.