Vampires are frequently represented in popular culture across various forms of media, including appearances in ballet, films, literature, music, opera, radio, theatre, paintings, and video games.
Though there are diverse and creative interpretations and depictions of vampires, the common defining trait is their consumption of blood for sustenance. They are represented using different mediums, including comic books, films, games. Examples of notable vampire-themed works, span from classic films like Nosferatu, to modern franchises like Twilight and Underworld. The role of vampires in role-playing games, particularly Dungeons & Dragons and Vampire: The Masquerade, is noteworthy. Vampires appear in vampire-themed manga and TV shows.
Comic books and graphic novels
Comic books and graphic novels such as Vampirella (1969), Tomb of Dracula (1972), Blade (1973), 30 Days of Night (2002) Anita Blake Guilty Pleasures, and Dracula vs. King Arthur (2005). In addition, many major superheroes have faced vampire supervillains at some point. Many comic books featuring Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin off Angel have been released. Marceline and the Scream Queens is a mini-series of comic books focusing on Marceline the Vampire Queen from the Cartoon Network show Adventure Time. The spin-off comic was produced by BOOM! Studios and published between July and December 2012.
Films
The Vampire (1913, directed by Robert G. Vignola), also co-written by Vignola, is the earliest vampire film.
These were derived from the writer Rudyard Kipling who was inspired by a vampiress painted by Philip Burne-Jones, an image typical of the era in 1897, to write his poem 'The Vampire'. Like much of Kipling's verse it was incredibly popular, and its refrain: A fool there was . . . , describing a seduced man, became the title of the popular film A Fool There Was that made Theda Bara a star, the poem being used in its publicity. On this account, in early American slang the femme fatale was called a vamp, short for vampiress.Per the Oxford English Dictionary, vamp is originally English, used first by G. K. Chesterton, but popularized in the American silent film The Vamp, starring Enid Bennett
A vampire features in the landmark Nosferatu (1922 Germany, directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau), an unlicensed version of Bram Stoker's Dracula. The Stoker estate sued the production and won, leading to the destruction of most copies of the film. It would be painstakingly restored in 1994 by a team of European scholars from the five surviving prints that had escaped destruction. Nosferatu is the first film to feature a Vampire's death by sunlight, which formerly only weakened vampires.
The next classic treatment of the vampire legend was in Universal's Dracula starring Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula. Five years after the release of the film, Universal released Dracula's Daughter, a direct sequel that starts immediately after the end of the first film. A second sequel, Son of Dracula, starring Lon Chaney Jr. followed in 1943. Despite his apparent death in the 1931 film, the Count returned to life in three more Universal films of the mid-1940s: 1944's House of Frankenstein, 1945's House of Dracula and 1948's Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. While Lugosi had played a vampire in two other movies during the 1930s and 1940s, it was only in this final film that he played Count Dracula onscreen for the second (and last) time.
Dracula was reincarnated for a new generation in the celebrated Hammer Horror series of films, starring Christopher Lee as the Count. The first of these films Dracula (1958) was followed by seven sequels. Lee returned as Dracula in all but two of these.
A distinct subgenre of vampire films, ultimately inspired by Le Fanu's Carmilla explored the topic of the lesbian vampire. The first of these was Blood and Roses (1960) by Roger Vadim. More explicit lesbian content was provided in Hammer Studios Karnstein trilogy. The first of these, The Vampire Lovers, (1970), starring Ingrid Pitt and Peter Cushing, was a relatively straightforward re-telling of LeFanu's novella, but with more overt violence and sexuality. Later films in this subgenre such as Vampyres (1974) became even more explicit in their depiction of sex, nudity and violence.
Beginning with the absurd Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) the vampire film has often been the subject of comedy. The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) by Academy Award winner Roman Polanski was a notable parody of the genre. Other comedic treatments, of variable quality, include Old Dracula (1974) featuring David Niven as a lovelorn Dracula, Love at First Bite (1979 United States) featuring George Hamilton and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995 United States, directed by Mel Brooks) with Canadian Leslie Nielsen giving it a comic twist.
Another development in some vampire films has been a change from supernatural horror to science fictional explanations of vampirism. The Last Man on Earth (Italy 1964, directed by Ubaldo Ragona) and The Omega Man (1971 USA, directed by Boris Sagal), both based on Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend, are two examples. Vampirism is explained as a kind of virus in David Cronenberg's Rabid (1976 Canada), Red-Blooded American Girl (1990 Canada, directed by David Blyth) and Michael and Peter Spierig's Daybreakers (2009 United States).
Race has been another theme, as exemplified by the blaxploitation picture Blacula (1972) and several sequels.
Since the time of Bela Lugosi's Dracula (1931) the vampire, male or female, has usually been portrayed as an alluring sex symbol. There is, however, a very small subgenre, pioneered in Murnau's seminal Nosferatu (1922) in which the vampire is depicted in the hideous lineaments of the creature of European folklore. Max Schrek's disturbing portrayal of this role in Murnau's film was copied by Klaus Kinski in Werner Herzog's remake Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (1979). In Shadow of the Vampire (2000, directed by E. Elias Merhige), Willem Dafoe plays Max Schrek, himself, though portrayed here as an actual vampire. Dafoe's character is the ugly, disgusting creature of the original Nosferatu. The main tradition has, however, been to portray the vampire in terms of a predatory sexuality. Christopher Lee, Delphine Seyrig, Frank Langella, and Lauren Hutton are just a few examples of actors who brought great sex-appeal into their portrayal of the vampire.
A major character in most vampire films is the vampire slayer, of which Stoker's Abraham Van Helsing is a prototype. However, killing vampires has changed. Where Van Helsing relied on a stake through the heart, in Vampires 1998 USA, directed by John Carpenter, Jack Crow (James Woods) has a heavily armed squad of vampire hunters, and in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992 USA, directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui), writer Joss Whedon (who created TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and spinoff Angel) attached The Slayer, Buffy Summers (Kristy Swanson in the film, Sarah Michelle Gellar in the TV series), to a network of Watchers and mystically endowed her with superhuman powers.
The 1973 Serbian horror film Leptirica ("The She-Butterfly") was inspired by the story of Sava Savanović.
Other notable Vampire movies also include the following, but not limited to:
Dracula (1931) starred Bela Lugosi as well he starred in "Vampire Over London" (1952) both of which are B/W films. The Horror of Dracula (1958) starring Peter Cushing (playing Dr. Van Helsing) and co-stars with Christopher Lee. Christopher Lee's saga of vampire films also includes the following as he personified Dracula in Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), Dracula Had Risen From the Grave (1968), Count Dracula plus Taste the Blood of Dracula and Scars of Dracula, all in (1970). Followed up with Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972) -co-starring again with Peter Cushing, as Van Helsing- then The Satanic Rites Of Dracula with Peter Cushing (1973), and Dracula and Son (1976). While Peter Cushing was also in Vampire Lovers (1970), The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires and Tender Dracula (1974). Atom Age Vampire (1960) B/W film aka "Seddok, l'erede di Satana" starring Alberto Lupo, Susanne Loret, and Sergio Fantoni. Directed by Anton Giulo Majano with both an Italian and English version of this film released. A girl Jeanette Moreneau (Susanne Loret) who gets her face mangled in a car accident. Only the mysterious Dr. Levin (Alberto Lupo) can save her face...but at what cost? (A 70-minute cartoon animated version of this film reflecting its story line was released in 2009). Queen Of Blood (1966) starred John Saxon as well as Basil Rathbone and shared two elements in common (that being a derelict spaceship that harbors a female vampiric alien played by Florence Marly as the Alien Queen) as is the case too in the much later 1985 Sci-Fi thriller called "Lifeforce." Requiem for a Vampire (1971) while a mainstream film not widely shown due to its dubious odd-ball content, the film containing full frontal nudity regarding a bizarre tale that includes bats engaged in coitus with women. This film starred Marie-Pierre Castel, Mireille Dargent, and Piilippe Gaste. Horror Express (1972) is not a vampire movie in the eyes of some, and then again it is a vampire film in the eyes of others. Like the movie "Lifeforce" that breaks the mold of one's lifeforce or i.e. blood being drawn from a person by biting them, mysteriously drawn from their mouths, or as in this film a person's soul or spirit if you will is removed from them leaving them dead with their essence all that they were being drawn out through their eyes... This film has a sinister character, call him vampiric or prehistoric man, or demon or devil if you will! The idea is not rightly spelled out with this sinister character attacking passengers aboard a rail road passenger train (an idea that appears likewise to be shared to some degree in Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan's "The Strain" with its original vampire character -in this horror TV series- bearing the marks of the devil too, if you will). "Horror Express" stars Peter Cushing, Telly Savalas, and Christopher Lee. Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter (1974) featuring Caroline Munro (in the starring role as Carla) in this UK film which also starred (Captain Kronos) Horst Janson, (Dr. Marcus) John Carson, (Grost) John Cater; as well as Shane Briant as (Paul Durwood), and others. Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) "Werner Herzog's Nosferatue, the Vampyre portrayed by Klaus Kinski as Count Dracula a well meaning replica of Max Schreck's vampire in F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu. As well Shadow of the Vampire (2000) picked up the gauntlet and went further being inspired by the classic too in its attempt to pay homage to F.W. Murnau's silent horror classic Nosferatu, while including comic elements to the classic. All of which is also outlined above. A TV film called Salem's Lot (1979) was made starring David Soul, who was more popularly known from his TV series Starsky and Hutch (1975-1979). This movie was then again remade in 2004, starring Rob Lowe. Lifeforce (1985) contained a lot of nudity throughout the film as a female vampire seduces and kisses men to drain out their life force and leaves them dried out like some mummified corpses. This film has different bases for vampire folklore and has them seeded here from another planet coming here on a spaceship. Starred Steven Railsback and Mathilda May. One of the first popular vampire films of its decade there came out at the theaters a movie called "Lost Boys" in (1987) which quickly became a teen hearttrob film of girls at the time. It starred Corey Haim, Kiefer Sutherland, and Jason Patric.