Quintessential Vampire Movies from the 80's

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nThanks to the success of Tom Holland’s Fright Night (1985),nsuddenly vampires were hot again in Hollywood and so during the mid 80’s; we suddenlynhad a barrage of vampire movies in theaters. An interesting bunch of films camenout of that sudden burst of vampire cinema, some of these films have gone on tonbecome true cult classics, or better yet, real horror classics, period. An eclecticnbrew of vampire films was concocted, some were great, some not so great. Somenwere just downright offbeat like for example, Nicholas Cage’s Vampire’s Kissn(1989) which was sold as a comedy to the masses, but was really the furthestnthing from it. Vampire’s Kiss is actually a dark film, a story about a man whonthinks he’s a vampire…or maybe he really is one? It’s that kind of a movie thatnmanages an ambiguity with its character, kind of like what George Romero did innMartin (1976), another vampire film in which were not sure if the protagonistnis delusional, or if he really is a vampire. I’d recommend watching it if younenjoy Cage’s wacky side. 

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nSome vampire movies from the 80’s were weirder still!nWhen talking about Ken Russell films, weird is a relative term and so Russell’snLair of the White Worm (1988) is without a doubt one of the strangest vampire filmsnyou’ll ever see. On this one we meet a vampire vixen who worships a giant whitenworm who lives inside of a cave! Add to that premise Ken Russell’s trippynvisuals and you’ve got yourselves an acid trip of a vampire movie! 

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nThe 80’snalso brought us lesbian vampires in the form of Tony Scott’s The Hunger (1983),na film in which David Bowie plays a half vampire who doesn’t like the fact thatnhe’s starting to age and about to die. You see, up to this point his vampirenlife had been made up of going out to night clubs and feeding on the blood ofnGoth fans! But age is catching up with him, and so, since he is not a fullnvampire, he starts to decay. It’s a sultry tale that explores sexuality and thenminds reluctance to accept the vestiges of age. It asks the question: why mustnthe party end? Why must we get old and die? These three offbeat films are notnas renowned as the next couple of films I will be talking about. 

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nOut of the 80’s, four vampire films stand out as the creamnof the crop for me. You can’t talk about 80’s vampire films without mentioningnthese. They stand out as the best vampire films of the decade because not onlynwhere they the ones that made the most impact in terms of sheer entertainment,nthey were also made by great directors, Tobe Hooper, Tom Holland, JoelnSchumacher and Kathryn Bigelow. I mean, all great filmmakers, some have disappeared,nsome have gone on to win Oscars and some are still actively working in the worldnof horror, but no matter where their respective careers ended up, what mattersnis they all left these great vampire films behind! The films I speak of are FrightnNight (1985), Lifeforce (1985), The Lost Boys (1987) and Near Dark (1987), all great,nbut for very different reasons.

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nThe first of the bunch to be released was Tom Holland’snFright Night, a very successful film because it only cost 9.5 million dollarsnto make, yet went on to make more than 24 million, which is a lot for a smallnbudget horror film like this one. It was the most successful horror film ofn1985, with Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985) coming in a closensecond. From looking at Fright Night, you would never guess it cost only 9nmillion dollars! It just blows my mind how good this movie ended up looking fornso little. Tom Holland and his crew made a good job of making the film looknmore expensive then it is. But many things make Fright Night one of the bestnvampire films of the 80’s. First and foremost is the cast, which I think hadngreat chemistry on screen. William Ragsdale plays Charlie Brewster, thennerdiest teenager in class, the a-typical goody little two shoes, thenquintessential “ guy next door”. He’s also the boy who would cry wolf! I alwaysnliked the friendship that Charlie develops with Peter Vincent (Roddy MCDowall) “thengreat vampire killer”, a fading actor who’s always reminiscing about his youngerndays, when he used to star in horror films. Now he’s just a horror show host,nshowcasing movies on local television. This unlikely duo form an alliance, anfriendship that will transcend even towards the sequel, Fright Night II (1989),nwhich I might add is not a bad sequel at all, not as great as its predecessor,nbut also not a bad effort. To seal the deal, we get Chris Sarandon in one ofnthe most memorable vampires to ever grace the silver screen, Jerry Dandrige. Sarandonntruly delivers an outstanding performance; he steals the show so to speak. Butnthen again, the whole film is populated with good performances, who can forgetnStephen Geoffreys demonic ‘Evil Ed’? Or Amanda Bearse as the virginal and thennsuddenly extremely sensual Amy? I don’t think the film would have been the samenwithout this fine group of actors. And yet another great asset to this film arenthe incredible make up effects, they just don’t make them like this anymore,nthe make-up effects on Fright Night were partially concocted by the great StevenJohnson, and I gotta tell ya, they still look great by today’s standards; innfact, the vampires on Fright Night look better than a lot of the crap thatnpasses for a vampire film these days.

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nThen we have Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce (1985), which in mynbook is a fantastic melding of science fiction and horror. This film tells thentale of a group of British astronauts who stumble upon an alien craft that is ridingnon the tail of Haley’s Comet. Soon, the craft starts hovering above earth! Uponncloser inspection they learn that the strange ship has a crew of three nakednpeople, two dudes and one smoking hot lady. The astronauts seem to have madenthe find of the century, so they take the bodies with them. What they don’tnknow is that these three seemingly comatose individuals they are bringing withnthem are really space vampires! It isn’t long before the vamps wake up andnstart wrecking havoc on earth. I love many things about Lifeforce, but one ofnthe things I love the most is how it mixes vampires with zombies! These space vampiresnsuck your life away and then leave you walking the earth as a zombie! I alsonlike how chaotic the film gets; the last half of the film is pure chaos, withnthe streets of London overrun by vampire zombies looking to suck your lifenaway! Re-watching Lifeforce last night I realized just how original it is, there’snliterally nothing like it anywhere! Maybe the closest thing to it might benMario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires (1965), but that’s stretching it a little.nThematically, Lifeforce is all about lust and love and the powers of sexualnattraction over our lives. It speaks of how sex can drive us to do all sorts ofncrazy things, like falling in love with an alien vampire from outer space! The reigningntheme on Lifeforce is the kind of sexual attraction that gets out of control andnwhat better representation of a females sensual powers than the beyond beautifulnbombshell Mathilda May? Gotta give her props, as an actress you gotta havenballs of steel to appear naked throughout the whole freaking movie! Not that I’mncomplaining! Sure there’s cheesy dialog and the plot can be a bit overtly convolutednat times, but we also get giant vampire bats, a sci-fi angle mixed in with thenhorror, tons of visual effects by John Dykstra and epic levels of zombie mayhem?!nWhat’s not to like on this one?

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nOn the other hand, Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys (1987)nisn’t cheesy at all, it concerns itself with simply being cool, in fact,neverything about The Lost Boys is pure genius. Here’s what I dig about The LostnBoys, every element on this film was chosen to create the perfect atmosphere,nthe perfect ambiance for a horror movie to unfold in. First up, filming innSanta Carla, in a community by the beach, next to a beach side carnival?nFreaking genius! This whole amusement park next to the beach thing was an awesomenchoice. I love the opening segments of the film where we get to really absorbnthe Santa Carla atmosphere and we get to see all these eccentric people walkingnabout to the tune of Echo and the Bunnymen’s cover of The Doors ‘People arenStrange’. It’s such a colorful way to open the film, and it really lets us sinkninto the world that these characters exist in. Then there’s the cast which isncomposed of a bunch of popular young actors from the 80’s. I mean, the listngoes on with this one: Jason Patrick, Kiefer Sutherland, Corey Haim, JaminGertz, Corey Feldman, hell even Alex Winters (also known as Bill from Bill andnTed’s Excellent Adventure) is here. Then you take all those cool actors and putnthem in a story about biker vampires who dress like heavy metal dudes from then80’s and you put them in the middle of this cool setting and it’s just purenmagic. The film is actually kind of subtle with its vampire element, the film leavesna lot to your imagination, which is something I appreciated. For a huge portionnof the film, the director doesn’t want you to see the vampires; he wants you tonimagine them and this works like magic. But make no mistake, when these bloodnsuckers vamp out, you will get a glimpse of true evil! It’s like Schumachernreally wanted to wait as long as possible before blowing your brains out withnawesomeness, the beasties do not disappoint! Top that off with an amazingnsoundtrack…and wowzers, you’ve got yourselves a bonafide horror classic thatnhas lasted through the years. I hear the songs ‘Cry Little Sister’ and ‘Lost innthe Shadows’ and I’m immediately transported to the world of The Lost Boys a world filled with sweaty body builders who play the saxophone with a vengeance and a grandpa who grows weed and dates old ladies! Im also magically transported to the 80’s. Pay no mind to the lesser straight to dvd sequels that have followed, this one is the real deal, this is the one to remember.  

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nNow if you want to take a more “poetic” detour into 80’snvampire films, then you can’t do better than Near Dark (1987), directed bynKathryn Bigelow. This one is a bit more romantic in nature, because it’s aboutnthis cowboy who stumbles upon a female hitchhiker who ends up being a vampire. Luckynfor him the vampire vixen gets the hots for him, so she ends up turning  him into a vampire instead of killing him. Thenrest of the film is him having to learn how to be a vampire, and accepting hisnnew fate. But does he have to accept it? Or can he change things? So again, wenhave a great cast on this one, Bill Paxton is the stand out for me, he plays thenwild one in the bunch, the dark side, the crazy one, he really has a fewnmoments to shine on this movie including this amazing sequence in which thenvampires invade this bar in the middle of nowhere and start messing around withnthe customers, kind of like playing with their food? Cool scene. These vampsndon’t have fangs, don’t run away from crosses or hate garlic, these are morenthe kind that will slit their victims’ wrists and suck their blood, but no bignfangs or anything like that, just like every other vampire movie, this one alsonplays with the rules a little. Director James Cameron, who was married to KathrynnBigelow when this film got made, suggested to Bigelow the use the cast from hisnfilm Aliens (1986) and so this is why we get Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton andnJenny Wright all of whom appeared on James Cameron’s Aliens, but hey, that wasna sweet deal if you ask me, it’s a great cast! Near Dark wasn’t as successfulnas the other films on this list, but it’s gone on to be discovered by many fansnand has become a true cult classic. 

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nNow those are what I like to call the “Fab Four” of 80’snvampire films; but there’s always another film that I like to talk about when talking about 80’s vampire movies and that’s Vamp (1986), which is a fun vampire film thatnhas a real 80’s feel to it. It stars Grace Jones as an ancient Egyptian vampirenqueen who’s decided to take residence in this real shithole of a strip club.nOnce the doors close, it’s feeding time! And she’s got a hunger for dumbncollege students! I’ve always said that Vamp was the film that Tarantino sawnwhen he decided to write From Dusk Till Dawn (1996). Both films play with extremelynsimilar premises, but Tarantino filled his film with far cooler characters andnof course, way better dialog. But all that aside, Vamp manages to muster up anvery unnerving atmosphere. Sure it can get silly, and sure it has these ultrandumb college students as its protagonists, but there’s no denying that the filmnconjures up a really strange, surreal vibe with its town full of albinonvampires and its streets bathed in neon colors, it’s no wonder one of the mainncharacters says “we’re not in Kansas anymore Toto” once they reach the spookyntown in which the strip club is located. This movie is worth it because of thatnsurreal vibe, but also because Grace Jones makes one hell of a vampire! Sonthere you have it my friends, the cream of the crop of 80’s vampire movies!nHope you find this post useful when the time comes to decide what to watch onnHalloween night! So cheers my dear readers and don’t forget to keep yourncrucifixes handy and your holy water stored in your water guns, because on ThenFilm Connoisseur Halloween 2013 means vampire movies all the time! So don’tnmiss it! 

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