Welcome to the Countdown to Halloween!!! As most of you know Halloween is my favorite Holiday Ever!!! I love nothing more than being able to decorate my house the way I wish I could on a daily basis. Dress the way I want to without being stared at and watch fun creepy movies with my kids. So this year I’m doing a 7 day countdown! So come back every day for some Halloween Fun!

So for the first day of the countdown, let’s do one of my favorite paranormal creatures. Vampires!

How many have there been now? A million? Possibly. But there are a few awesome ones worth mentioning.

First, there is the Blade trilogy. I really liked this one, and not necessarily because I like Wesley Snipes. But I like a lot of the other actors and characters. Kris Kristofferson did a kick a$$ job as Whistler! He was a ton of crotchety fun! Stephen Dorff, yeah okay, I’ll go with it, he was pretty good. But I am finding one of my most favoritest actors in Blade was Donal Logue. He plays such a great bad guy. In Blade II, though I pretty much hated the plot, I loved Ron Pearlman, Norman Reedus, and Luke Goss. In Blade III: Trinity, I found Ryan Reynolds and Parker Posey hilarious! And Jessica Biel as Whistler’s daughter, was awesome. I loved the opening scene with her in the subway and the fake baby. I also really liked their weapons! With each movie they went a bit farther and made them even cooler.

I thought Interview with a Vampire was a great movie, despite Tom Cruise being in it. Brad Pitt is sexy and who didn’t want to just take Kirsten Dunst home and give her a hug? Antonio Banderas was also totally sexy and let’s be honest, Ann Rice can just plain write a great story! I found the movie to be a great portrayal of vampires living through the ages and what it would be like to live in their shoes day in and day out.

The next one I liked, is Dracula 2000. Okay, don’t look at me like that, and don’t roll your eyes either! Was the script good? Not really. Was the acting great? No. Was Gerard Butler as Dracula, totally sexy? Minimally. I liked Johnny Lee Miller, waaaaaaay better! But, what I did like about this movie, was the mythos behind it. Where Dracula came from, how he came to be. That, in my humble opinion, was truly ingenious! And that was the reason I liked the movie. And no other reason. End of story, moving on now.

Dracula Untold was another vampire movie I found myself liking a lot more than I thought I would. Luke Evans made one hot Dracula! The story even stood up well surprisingly. I find most Dracula type movies to be trash, but this one was well done. I loved Charles Dance as the Master Vampire. He is so incredibly creepy. He made the perfect master. I found myself sad when the movie was over and wishing that they would make a sequel. I only had one problem with the movie, but we won’t go into that. As a new retelling of Dracula, I loved it.

So what is left? Well, I’ll tell ya! What is left, are IMO the three BEST vampire movies of all time! These I cannot put a favorite on because they all tie. I can’t decide which is the best. So here they are:

 

Lost Boys! Yup! The 1980 vampire movie with hot teens, blood and a scary Dad vampire! Seriously, that dude creeps me out! But who can not love Keifer Southerland and Jason Patric? Those guys were tough! And they did NOT sparkle. (Okay yes I did read those books and I did like them, but the movies sucked, no pun intended!) Keifer was a blood sucking, mind altering, psycho and he was hot. Corey Haim and Corey Feldman were a great fun addition and I will always dream to own a dog as awesome as Nanook. Lost Boys is and will always be the best pop culture vampire movie of all time. I was excited to hear they are now making a graphic novel series to go with it. I sure hope they do a good job!

 

Underworld. This movie is gritty, sexy, and ushered in a new era of paranormal movies that crossed both the werewolf and the vampire borders. Now, I will not say that the third more or the prequel were awesome. The third movie was awful and the prequel was just okay. But movie one and then movie two were both great, though the first will always be my favorite. There is no better, scarier or tougher female vampire than Selene. Kate Beckinsale owns that movie. And Michael Sheen is the best werewolf out there, hands down. Lucian rocks. I loved the gritty cinematography. I loved the CGI. I loved everything about this movie, except for Craven, he sucked. My favorite part of the movie though was Bill Nighy. He is one of my favorite actors and he will always be the quintessential Vampire Lord for me. This was an awesome, graphic, gritty, well done vampire/werewolf hybrid movie. Watch it.

Lastly, is the one story that started it all. Bram Stokers Dracula. Let me just say, when I saw that movie, I wanted Gary Oldman to bite me right there! I was ready to stomp Keanu Reeves to the ground to get at Gary Oldman! There was no comparison. Wolf form, mist form, old form, sexy steampunk form, it didn’t matter to me! Okay, the old Dracula form is a stretch, but sexy steampunk form for sure! That was a great movie done in an amazing way, and Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing-Genius! I’ve mentioned I’m a fan of his. I’m also very fond of Francis Ford Coppola. I’ve read Dracula, and the movie is pretty darn close. If I had one wish for the movie, it would have been that Dracula didn’t die. I mean, come on, who really wants him to die at the end? No one!!

So in wrap up, there are scores of vampire movies, but in all of the onslaught, the best ones are the older ones. I would love for a new amazing one to come out, alas, I haven’t seen a great one in the past ten years, besides Dracula Untold. So I think the oldies but goodies prevail here. But man! We need some new ones too!

Rebekah R. Ganiere – Books with a Bite

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