Vampires

I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this, but I've never seen any of the Dracula movies from Hammer Films. I only recently learned they existed and I had no idea that Christopher Lee (Saruman and Count Dooku??) was originally famous for playing Dracula in multiple movies. And Peter Cushing (Grand Moff Tarkin??) was famous for playing Van Helsing in multiple of these movies alongside Christopher Lee.

So I'd like to remedy this mistake by watching whichever Christopher Lee Hammer Films are... I won't say "good", but at least the best of what's available? I have a general impression of what Hammer Films are like after watching Captain Kronos and Vampire Circus so I think I have my expectations set appropriately, but maybe the Dracula movies are legitimately good? I'm looking for some suggestions. I'd hate to randomly pick one of these movies only to discover it's the worst one.

If anyone needs a reminder, I believe these are all of the Christopher Lee/Peter Cushing Hammer movies:

• Horror of Dracula
• Brides of Dracula
• Dracula: Prince of Darkness
• Dracula has Risen from the Grave
• Taste the Blood of Dracula
• Scars of Dracula
• Dracula A.D. 1972
• The Satanic Rites of Dracula
• Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires

So I guess... rank these movies for me? Or at least tell me which one(s) to avoid?

Making a point that I'll also allow memes on this community.

The 1931 Dracula movie is the first Dracula adaptation with sound. It stars Bela Lugosi as Dracula and is the basis for a lot of the Dracula stereotypes that have persisted for decades. The movie still holds up today and it's fun watching the original that has been parodied and referenced in countless other places.

And yes, I'm trying to make posts about all the classic vampire movies first before we get into the weird and obscure vampire movies. I'm just trying to get things started.

In 1922, the German director F. W. Murnau wanted to make a Dracula adaptation. But he didn't (couldn't?) get the rights to the novel. So he changed the title "Dracula" to "Nosferatu", renamed "Count Dracula" to "Count Orlok" and... that was about it. The movie was so obviously a beat-for-beat remake of the plot to Dracula that Bram Stoker's widow successfully sued the studio and won. The court ruled to have every copy of the movie destroyed. Fortunately, a couple copies survived and it is now known as one of the best examples of a horror movie from the silent film era.

Since this movie is so old, it's also in the public domain. This means you can watch it anywhere. Since no one has to pay any licensing fees, it's on a bunch of streaming services (and youtube). Be warned though, I recommend watching the original in black and white. Don't bother watching any colorized versions of this movie, it's better to keep the movie in a creepy black and white.

The actor who played Count Orlok in the 1922 silent film Nosferatu was really creepy and weird looking. So this movie decided to play with the idea of: what if the actor himself was actually a vampire, hired to give a believable performance of a vampire in a movie?

The movie stars Wilem Dafoe as Max Schreck and John Malkovich as the movie's director, F. W. Murnau. Here's a trailer. I can never find it streaming on any of the subscription services, but you can usually pay money to rent it on services like Prime Video if you want. It's a fun movie.

When I thought about creating a vampire community on Lemmy, I started thinking about which books/movies I would start with to get the community started. Obviously, I need to get Bram Stoker's Dracula novel out of the way first since it's just expected/assumed. Bram Stoker didn't invent vampires or the vampire fiction genre, but this novel definitely codified many of the rules for vampires that are still used in vampire fiction today.

It was released in 1897, and this means it's old enough to be in the public domain. If you've never read it, you can read the entire thing for free in whatever format you want thanks to Project Gutenberg (a website for public domain ebooks). Also, if you like audiobooks, LibriVox is a website where volunteers read public domain books to create free audiobooks. Since Dracula is such a popular novel, there are multiple versions available (even some with a full cast). There's really no excuse to not have read this book if you're a fan of vampires.

James Wan is a horror director and co-creator of the Saw, Insidious, and Conjuring franchises. He was also executive producer on the Salem's Lot remake for (HBO) Max. In an attempt to hype up the release for Salem's Lot, he posted this watchlist of vampire movies. And honestly... it's really good. There are a lot of obvious classics but also some great obscure choices as well.