clearly one of the most prominent fantasy/SF creatures around in the last decades and if anything they get ever more popular. for the purpose of this thread I'd like to stick to visual media. paintings, drawings, tv shows, movies. then again who am I to keep you from voting for a literature vampire?

now I am a big Joss Whedon fanboi so my vote goes to Harmony (from Buffy TVS) of all people for showing that vampires can be klutzes, ditzes and deliciously evil at the same time. her fight versus Xander Harris was truly epic.

runner up vote is split between Sophia Miles first, Kate Beckinsale second and Rhona Mitra third in the Underworld series. what? I like my vamps either funny or hot. apparently I am a teenage girl....

any contesters?

Gary Oldman as Dracula? I like that actor :)

definitely the best thing about that movie and on my short-list :D

Kiefer Sutherland as David in The Lost Boys. He was excellent in that role. Good movie too.

I know vampires can vary quite a bit in their portrayal.

I think we all agree Twilight Vampires are either nanite-powered creatures(the nanites reflect the Sun causing the glow; they drink blood because of the iron content needed by the nanites; and the nanites can infest another person and turn them into a vampire as well) or fairies(pacifists, sparkly, and living in forests). We also will probably all agree they are the most fail vampires and that the werewolves in Twilight own by a larger margin.

I liked Dracula in Van Helsing. They went creative with the myth, but did not completely mutilate the vampire legend like Stephenie Meyer(the only thing she kept was the fact they're blood drinkers). They also played on the mystique of Dracula by explaining only a Werewolf bite could kill him, explaining why he has been able to live so long and become so powerful.

I've never seen much vampire media outside that, unfortunately. I've always preferred incubi and werewolves.

I did hear Daybreakers is another innovative touch on the vampire myth, however, and should give that a try.

Oh yes. There was also the "Perfect Creature" or whatever it was. Another interesting twist on the vampire myth, with vampires basically becoming the Catholic Church and existing in peace to protect mankind; this "protection", however, takes the form of a police state. I thought it was certainly interesting.

As the various movies, novels, etc. tell us, the vampire myth is always twisted a bit for each other, sometimes for better, and sometimes for worse. But then again, the traditional vampire doesn't really sound that strong, and they are also monsters traditionally; modern media likes to portray them as being some variation of human, with the race being neither good nor evil as a whole.

The vampires from Lesbian Vampire Killers. :groucho:

I will nominate "Fevre Dream" as a good vampire book.
Just a matter of time until it makes it to the screen anyway. :goodjob:

The greatest screen vampire is still Max Schreck as Count Orlok in Nosferatu. He is not the sexy kind of vampire. He is the kind who resembles an animated corpse and who brings rats, plague, and creeping unavoidable death. He is not brooding and misunderstood. He lives opposite you, and you glance at his window and see him standing there staring at you, motionless and open-mouthed, for hours at a time, every night. That is still probably the nastiest scene I've seen in a film for a long time, all the more striking because nothing is happening in it.

You can watch it here (http://www.archive.org/details/nosferatu). I think the music is a bit rubbish in this version, so I would turn it off completely and perhaps put some alternative creepy music on, or just watch it in silence (ideally in the dark, late at night). Also note that this version uses the character names from Dracula rather than those of the original release (on the reasoning that the story was nicked from Dracula in the first place). But they misspell "Jonathan", which annoys me.

I enjoyed Van Helsing for the non try-and-fit-a-love-story-into-an-action-movie parts.

I enjoyed Van Helsing for the non try-and-fit-a-love-story-into-an-action-movie parts.

At least he ended up killing her. "Vut a tveest!"

:lol:

It's almost as if they were making fun of romance inserted into action... promptly by having the hero kill the woman he was showing feelings for.

I think more movies should do this. I am not a woman; I do not want sappy love stories. I want violence, blood and gore as far as the eye can see.

The best vampire is definitely Bela Lugosi, for basically creating and establishing the archetypal vampire for the next 80 years. Similar to Boris Karloff, with Frankenstein, Bram Stoker may have written the book, but Bela basically created the vampire.

Funnily enough, I'm actually doing a vampire week for my movie blog this week, I'm reviewing Nosferatu, Dracula, and the Dracula remake with Gary Oldman (who was also VERY good)

Funnily enough, I'm actually doing a vampire week for my movie blog this week, I'm reviewing Nosferatu, Dracula, and the Dracula remake with Gary Oldman (who was also VERY good)

Wut. No Twailight? How cud u? Edward Cullen's so hawt! :mad:

...I think I got more retarded typing that. :lol:

I do congratulate you on saying true to the vampire myth and not dwelling into the series made by a leech who exploits the vampire name for revenue purposes. Also, never mind she's just odd if that's what her dreams come out to be.

To make this a little more on-topic:

I myself want to write little stories, if only as a hobby, and I intend for one of the main villains to be a vampire... vampires are, however, going to be as close as possible to the original myth(except with a little spin on Dracula's origins), and so they're fairly weak considering all the other creature races they have to compete with(Weres, Dragons, 'Cubi, Angels, Demons, etc.). Don't worry though, said villain would get offed in the first installment.

If anything will make people :drool:, it would be the Cubi characters, for obvious reasons.

I saw a book titled 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter' in a shop today :lol: . Found a trailer for it on youtube. According to wiki, Tim Burton is working on a film adaptation of it. Contains violence.
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Pop vampires post-Buffy have degenerated into something pathetic :(

I do congratulate you on saying true to the vampire myth and not dwelling into the series made by a leech who exploits the vampire name for revenue purposes. Also, never mind she's just odd if that's what her dreams come out to be.
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well that certainly is one way of looking at it and I most certainly respect it. the creepy ones were what made the vamp niche what it is (though it most certainly isn't a niche anymore).

but, in defense of my picks, there is also the hawtness factor that actually is part of the original "canon" for lack of a better word but it is transferred to the vamps and not the victims. and in the case of Harmony it is merely the comedy factor. turn a Californian ditz into a vamp and this is what happens. while I certainly respect the classics I do enjoy an original take on it.

I started watching Nosferatu. Good movie but all of the film defects makes it a bit hard to watch. It would be nice if they resored it as fully as Metropolis. I feel Metropolis was a better movie as it was a bit more deep. Plus the effects are still impressive enough.

For a Vampire book, I'm actualy reading The Historian right now. ITs a Dracula novel but it connects dracula to the actual historical person and all the work the main character goes through to find him and such. Its a really good book.

As for my favorite vampires, it has to be the Terry Pratchett Discworld Vampires. Because with Vampires, it is not who they know, but whom. The whoms are always more trouble than whos.

Relevant drool material picture:

http://pix.motivatedphotos.com/2009/11/28/633950224279725990-BUFFY.jpg

I saw a book titled 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter' in a shop today :lol: . Found a trailer for it on youtube. According to wiki, Tim Burton is working on a film adaptation of it. Contains violence.
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I saw that last week. Haven't read it though. It's from the same author who wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibilities and Sea Monsters. From all accounts, she(?) is quite good.

I like Nosferatu, but I've always been more interested in "talkies" than silent films. Though that likely has something to do with the poor quality of most silent films after such a long period of time.

Relevant drool material picture:

http://pix.motivatedphotos.com/2009/11/28/633950224279725990-BUFFY.jpg

You know she doesnt look like that anymore (and this pic is nother best, anyway). Shame, really :)

I started watching Nosferatu. Good movie but all of the film defects makes it a bit hard to watch...

You could try Herzog's remake of Nosferatu, with Klaus Kinski in the title role.

In my mind Christopher Lee is the definitive count.

Vampires.What gives ?
I was recently in a book store and theirSF/Fantasy section had five shelves with vampires. Bloody suckers are becoming their own genre. What the hell ?

haven't they always been their own genre? sci-fi, steampunk, general fantasy, fantasy where you go "holy crud!" (george r r martin), fantasy where you go yawn (wheel of yawning time), fantasy when for you were born in the 70s (Dragonlance) , apocalypse fiction, zombies, vampires, vampires for beginners, etc etc. go to a decent comic book store and vamps will have their own shelf. had their own shelf for at least 15 years which is when last I checked.

I guess it depends upon the size, location and specialization of your bookstore what they will cram together but they surely are their own genre by now, sorry.

Vampires.What gives ?
I was recently in a book store and theirSF/Fantasy section had five shelves with vampires. Bloody suckers are becoming their own genre. What the hell ?
It's because of this stupid Twilight hysteria. I recall the same thing happening with wizards when Harry Potter first became popular. I m yet to understand why either are popular - they're both supreme examples of crappy literature - but what the hell? :dunno:

a theme or setting now influences the quality of the literature? fascinating news, I learn something everyday.

a theme or setting now influences the quality of the literature? fascinating news, I learn something everyday.
The fact that they were about wizards and vampires had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they were crappy literature. Harry Potter - at least the first book, I've never been able to stomach even the idea of continuing after that - and twilight would have sucked royally had they been bout flying monkeys that shot lasers. Since flying laser monkeys are without a shadow of doubt the greatest idea anyone has ever had, that should illustrate exactly how bad those books were.

misinterpreted you then, appologies :)

My favourite vampire:

http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/dc02c7badb2b6a72_large

Vampires that are commanding, threatening, and quaintly relatively antiquated are always good in my book.

I like playing as the Calabim.