theres an awesome korean one called thirst, by the guy who directed oldboy. also, let the right one in, the remake let me in, is pretty good, but the change in language causes a bit of a tonal shift, i prefer the first. nosferatu and dracula classics, naturally. i thought coppola's dracula was awesome even though keanu reeeve's british accent is abysmal " ay knooo where the barstard sleeps, carfax abbayyy". the films manages to bring all the sexual subtext of the book to the forefront in a really engaging way. also at a time post-jurassic park when all blockbusteres had to have computer generated effects, it was a great move of coppola to exclusively use models and physical effects, ive never liked cg in horror. i also really like martin by george A. Romero, realy interestin' flick. leaves you guessing the whole way through whether the protagonist really is a vampire or just a socially akward delusional teenager. great movie.
It's not just the change in language; the culture is just so different. They did a good job of keeping themselves in check, and keeping it somewhat understated, but they completely missed the importance of the subplots; left out some of the best scenes because of it, and took away some of the more important subtext in trying to make Oskar (or whatever his name was in the American one) more sympathetic.
that's certainly true, there's a strong tendency in american cinema to make the protagonist likeable, as if thats the only way an audience can identify with them, even at the expense of realism. its particularly noticeable in gangster films, compare pre-90's american gangster films to Italian ones, Italian gangster films were completely unafraid to show gangsters as unapologetically awful figures where american ones always portrayed them as romantic, tragic heroes. its particularly irritating in historical dramas, where the protagonist, in order to be identifiable to a modern audience, has to embody progressive modern values (see: kingdom of heaven, in which orlando bloom preaches religious tolerance WHILE ON A BLOODY CRUSADE.) I really loved black death because there's a scene in it which completely subverts that trend. sean bean and his group find a woman about to be put to death on the stake for being a witch, he asks why she's being put to death and takes her off the stake and begins to walk off with her- the audience assumes he's saving her from these superstitious fools like the modern, enlightened gentleman he isn't. the, he slits her throat. because its MEDIEVAL ENGLAND AND HE THINKS SHE'S A WITCH. bravo, that film. anyway, that was slightly off topic, back to vampires: i just saw stake land and it was bloody fantastic, watched it in a double bill with priest (because they're both set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland with vampires in and both feature religious figures kickin arse) priest was terrible, but stake land absolutely blew me away with how well shot, written, acted and just generally intelligent it was, given the cliche'd nature of the premise. i'd also like to add cronos by guillermo del toro, its one of his earlier films, and really cool also, just to big up the hammer brand: dracula: prince of darkness, taste the blood of dracula and the scars of dracula christopher lee kicks arse, although i think he shoulda been given a lot more to say in all his hammer films, his brief bit of dialogue in the '58 film is really chilling in a polite, clipped way.
i really liked herzog's remake of nosferatu, one of the first horror films i ever remember seeing and one of the ones that scared me the most, herzog's prettymuch the only person who could possibly have remade a murnau classic, he did a great job IMO
Interview with a vampire def my fav. wasnt scary but the acting, directing, and storyline is just so badass!!
I wish I could remember the name of the vampire movie I saw when I was a kid. I was sick and the family was going out either late or over night. Anyway my mom said I could stay home and had to go to bed at a reasonable time. Ya I will, haha. I surfed the tv and found the one movie I still see in my head today. It made me fear the darkness and being alone a long time.
Thirst by Park Chan Wook of Old Boy fame was an awesome vamp movie. It followed a Catholics Priests slow transformation into a vampire after a botched medical experiment. I'm also really feeling this poster, Park always has great promo art for his films and this is no exception. I'm probably gonna add it to a custom calendar I'm making here of my fav asian horror movies.