How have vampire films developed over time

1. HOW HAVE VAMPIRE
FILMS DEVELOPED OVER
TIME

2. OUR FASCINATION WITH VAMPIRES
• Dracula is apposing to are human normalitys.
• Vampires also embody perfection as they hold the desires of humans (immortality,
intellect)
• Dracula himself is based on Vlad the Impaler (Vlad Drăculea) who was thought to
drink the blood of his defeated enemy's.
• Vampires were feared as we humans are scared of what we can not understand (fear
of the unknown) and vampires are exactly that.

3. NOSFERATU (1922)
• A German, vampire, silent film made just after the first world war. German
expressionism was big at the time, this can be seen through the shadow and other
artistic work in the film
• Count Orlok (the vampire) was shown to have sharp nails and teeth with a
menacing glare making him look animalistic
• The film had an eerie suspenseful soundtrack in the background further adding to
the fright of the audience at the time.

4. HORROR OF DRACULA (1958)
• In this film Dracula (although still a killer of humans) is shown in a more human
way, he is gentleman like and considered attractive.
• Nevertheless there is still the presence of fright in this film, as the character is still
associated with blood sucking and shadows.
• The music when Dracula is hunting his prey is menacing and unnerving.
• The film was also in colour adding more fright to audience.

5. BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA (1992)
• This film differed from previous Dracula films as it brought the audience on the
journey of Dracula's life making them sympathies with him.
• The music is still alarming but the intention of the film is to show that Dracula no
longer wants to cause harm he want to in fact move on.
• Dracula is still shown to have long fingernails and have a some what frightening
exterior.

6. TWILIGHT (2008-12)
• This was the film most thought to truly change our viewpoint on vampires.
• Although there are some characters in the story who stick slightly to old concepts of
vampires (the ‘Volturi’), the main vampire family (the ‘Cullens’) are show to be
mostly friendly, ‘beautiful’, ‘vegetarians’ (they drink animal blood only)
• The idea of romance also changes out perception of vampires as before this vampires
were no shown in a romantic way (romance as the central storyline not used before
in this way).

7. CONCLUSION
• These movies all carry different looks into vampires, but it is evident that over time
vampires have become less scary and more ‘lovable’.
• Horror is always going around in cycles, who is to say if vampires will make a comeback
and return to their former horror glory, there are already some forms of media trying to
bring vampires back to the forefront of horror including ‘American Horror Story’ (season
5 ‘Hotel’).
• The genre of horror is here to scare and conjure fear, the all important question
audiences and creators must answer now is if they find vampires scary any more? The
easy answer would be no, but just like the genre of paranormal activity was once
chucked out for a new sub-genre then made a comeback in recent years, vampires can
also do so…they just need to shack off the whole sparkly lovable look given to them from
twilight.