Vampires

Day Shift is a fun, dumb action movie about vampire hunters. It's fully enjoyable. It stars Jamie Foxx as the main character vampire hunter who inadvertently gets Dave Franco as an apprentice. I think Dave Franco is an odd casting choice since his character is supposed to be a cowardly wimp, but he pulls it off pretty well.

However, my main gripe with the movie is that the biggest badass, most famous vampire hunter around is played by Snoop Dogg... dressed as a cowboy. And that just pushes my suspension of disbelief to the breaking point:

Seriously, keep the character the exact same but cast Idris Elba in the role and I'm all in:

But Snoop Dogg? He's just so lanky and scrawny I can't take him seriously as a badass vampire hunter. I've got no complaints with the story, writing, or the vampire special effects. It's a fun movie with a good budget. My only complaints are with the odd casting.

Anyway, here's a trailer. It's a Netflix original so it's always streaming there.

I don't know anything about this game other than it's a vampire game that released today so I figured I'd share.

Blood Bar Tycoon is a vampire bar management game. Build bars and blood factories, lure humans to harvest their blood, process it, and serve your customers: other vampires. Research quirky machines and deal with hunters! Expand through Crimson City to become a mighty Elder!

30 Days of Night has a brilliant premise. It takes place in an Alaskan town north of the Arctic Circle where, during winter, it goes 30 days without the sun ever rising. So a perfect place for vampires to move in and not have to worry about daylight for a while.

While I love the idea of the movie, I don't think they executed it very well. The movie is a little less than 2 hours long and the way they edited it, this could have easily taken place in a single night. That is, I don't feel like a month is passing for these characters when watching the movie. I don't know if they needed more montages or scenes where nothing happened, but things move along at a quick enough pace that it doesn't feel like these characters are spending 30 straight days in fear of their lives.

The vampires themselves are fantastic, both in the way they look and the way they act. So I don't think the movie really does anything wrong. It's just that I think this would've worked better as a TV series. Or who knows, I should probably just give in and read the original graphic novel. I'm guessing the graphic novel does a better job of portraying the progression of time.

Here's a trailer. I believe it's currently streaming on Peacock.

They made a sequel, called 30 Days of Night: Dark Days in 2010. I've never seen it but every review I've seen says it's terrible. Since I wasn't entirely enthralled by the original, I'm not too interested in seeing a worse version of the movie. Definitely let me know if it's worth watching though.

30 books for $13, and they seem to be available as ordinary PDFs that opened just fine in Firefox under Linux. It appears these are the short novels, though, not the manga.

One of the reasons I wanted to create a vampire community on Lemmy was so I could go on long rambling rants about vampire movies that no one I personally know would have any interest in hearing. This is one of those times. I expect most people won't read this to the end.

I love the entire Underworld series. Well, except for the prequel, Rise of the Lycans. To me, the Underworld series is about Kate Beckinsale in tight black leather fighting werewolves. I don't care to see Rhona Mitra in medieval times. Also, I think the story was better told as flashbacks in the first movie; so I was already soured on the idea of making an entire movie for a story we already saw. I don't have anything against the movie itself (it's fine if you like it) but I prefer Kate Beckinsale's story. Anyway, on with my rant.

The first Underworld movie is amazing. It has everything I wanted. Plus, it did a great job of dropping little lore nuggets that weren't relevant to the story but helped flesh out the world. And some of those nuggets come back in later movies ("There is a descendant of Corvinus lying there, not 3 feet from you!"). My one complaint about this movie is that by creating the abomination vampire/lycan hybrid in the first movie, it meant their hand was forced in later movies. They couldn't pretend this character didn't exist yet they had to somehow raise the stakes each time. I think in hindsight it makes this abomination less of a problem than it's made out to be in the first movie. But of course, they didn't know if they'd ever get a sequel so they had to go big on the first movie.

When I first saw Underworld: Evolution, I didn't like it very much. It felt like there was a major plothole they were ignoring for the whole movie. They state explicitly that killing the first vampire would end all vampires and killing the first lycan would end all lycans. There was an implication that killing your creator would kill you (or at least end your vampire/lycan curse). Yet Selene killed Viktor in the first movie and nothing happened. And Papa Corvinus dies in this movie and nothing happens. And they kill the first lycan and nothing happens. I thought it was stupid that they'd make this big storyline about killing "the first" yet we as the audience see plenty of evidence of this not having any effect. On a recent re-watch though, I realized something. Characters lie in this series. Or at least, characters are told lies and believe them with absolute certainty.

In the first movie, one of the characters mentions the tale of the Corvinus clan. Corvinus, the first immortal, has three children. One is bitten by bat (creating the first vampire), one is bitten by wolf (creating the first lycan), and one is cursed to live a boring mortal life so we can have the "clean bloodline" storyline. Viktor laughs this off as a fairy tale and points out Marcus Corvinus is just one of the elders, not some origin of the species. We find out here in Evolution that Viktor knew this to be a lie. Viktor knew Marcus was the original vampire. He knows this because Marcus was the one who turned him. And he personally knows Marcus' brother, William, the first lycan. I believe there are implications in both the first and second movie that Selene believes Viktor was the first vampire. She believes the Corvinus story is a fairy tale, as she's been told. I believe Viktor had spent a lot of time downplaying Marcus' role and propped himself up as the most important vampire. Even though he knew this to be a lie.

Now, in Evolution, we find that Marcus is the one who told Viktor that killing him would end the vampire curse (and thus either kill Viktor or turn him back to a mortal... who was already dying). He lied to cover his own ass. Viktor didn't actually need him; Marcus just didn't want to die. And when Viktor wanted to kill Marcus' brother William (the first lycan) because he was too feral, Marcus told the same lie to protect his brother. Viktor needed his lycan slave class, so he couldn't kill William. Viktor had no reason to question this claim and spent his entire vampire life explaining this limitation to other vampires. At no point does the movie say "Marcus lied! He made it all up!" so I didn't actually notice this until many years later. And now I think the story is actually very consistent; it's just that most characters don't have the full picture and we never hear any other characters contradict them.

Moving on. When I first watched Underworld: Awakening I actually really liked it. I liked how it moved the world forward. This wasn't just Selene fighting one battle after another, one movie after another. Instead, the world itself could change. However, on a re-watch, I realize this is the weakest movie. All of the exciting parts happen off-screen. In this movie, the world learns of the existence of vampires and lycans. The lycans somehow take over and vampires are on the verge of extinction. Selene and her abomination boy-toy Michael are captured. And none of that is seen in the movie; it's all just the setup. Selene just wakes up in this world. And since vampires are on the verge of extinction, there isn't any aristocratic politicking in this one. The vampires are living more like the lycans used to, underground and in packs. Also, the actor who played the abomination Michael (the central character in the overarching story) decided not to come back. So all we see is re-used footage of him from previous movies and the back of his stunt double's head. While the movies always follow Selene, Michael's character is actually the one driving the plot. So this movie was forced to remove its primary plot device. It seems the smart thing to do would've been to just kill off the character. Also, this movie introduces a genetically engineered child of Selene and Michael who becomes the new abomination MacGuffin; they don't even need Michael anymore. Re-using footage and only showing him from behind was a bad choice.

When I first watched Underworld: Blood Wars, I didn't like it. But when I recently re-watched the entire series, I found myself changing my opinion a lot. Now I think this movie is very good. It's a nice "return to form" after Awakening. The aristocratic vampire politicking is back, for one. And I'm a fan of that. Honestly, my biggest problem had been too much "magic" in this movie, which was never really present before. I mean, you could argue vampires and lycans are already magic, but there was never any "spirit realm" stuff until this movie. But now I just see it as expanding the universe/lore and I'm not mad about it. Plus, we've had so many movies of upping the stakes and power levels (over 9,000!) that we're basically at DBZ levels of needing to power-up the character. Selene needed an upgrade. It also gives Selene a reason to still be relevant to the story since up until this point she was always with (or tracking down) Michael. This movie ends with an attempted "passing the torch" to a new character so Kate Beckinsale doesn't have to wear black leather outfits in her 50s. I don't know if the series will ever continue with this daughter character though. It'd probably feel too forced.

If you've read this far into my ramblings, you've probably thought more about the Underworld series than you have in years. Good for you! While these movies are mostly derided, I think they all follow a cohesive, coherent storyline and I really enjoyed re-watching them all back-to-back recently. Highly recommended for vampire action movies.

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/lost-in-cult/legacy-of-kain-ttrpg-and-official-encyclopaedia

I just saw this game posted recently, and I figured this place would enjoy talking about Legacy of Kain. Such drama and lore. It set a voice acting bar that still holds it own compared with modern games.

All of the games were amazing. I started with Soul Reaver and then played the Legacy of Kain series. Everything was so gothic, and felt rich.

I don’t know if I would be able to revisit it in terms of the gameplay holding up, or if I should just watch a YouTube play of someone else.

I've been trying to post vampire memes on here just to break up the constant stream of posts about movies. But you'd be surprised at how many vampire-related memes just boil down to "haha, Twilight sucks" so I've been avoiding all of those. And that means I don't have many vampire memes left. So here's another tired old repost that you've all seen before. I'm sorry.

The movie’s still great, but the book was really that amazing.

Empire of the Vampire is an amazing book and I highly recommend it. It has a standard dark fantasy medieval setting; castles, swords, horses, that sort of thing. But the world-building is phenomenal. And the author does a great job of making the vampires absolute monsters while still being sensual/sexual. So lots of violence and lots of sex here.

The story is about the last vampire hunter. He's been captured by the Vampire Empress and is forced to tell his life story to a vampire historian as a way of documenting how vampire hunters thought, behaved, and were trained... before they go extinct. So this novel uses the literary device of someone in their later years telling the story of their life and interjecting little commentary along the way about how dumb/naive they were. So I guess similar to Name of the Wind or the Suneater series, if you've read those.

And let me get this non-spoiler out of the way. I'm calling it a non-spoiler because it's something that doesn't happen in this book. While the whole novel is about a captured vampire hunter telling his life story from a vampire prison, he does not escape in this book. It's possible he'll escape in a later book, but it doesn't happen here. You'll be happier reading this book if you aren't constantly looking at how many pages are left and wondering when he'll finally break free.

Anyway, in this world, vampires have always existed in the shadows. Some event occurs (it's not explained how) which causes the sun to be blacked out. They refer to this event as Daysdeath. After Daysdeath, the vampires are free to roam the earth during day or night. And they take over. When the novel starts, there are 4 main vampire houses. They've each taken over a portion of the continent and are now at the point where they're attacking each other to obtain more land. All vampires have the same basic abilities but each house has a specialty. For example, one house might be able to control animals while another house has even more excessive strength than your average super-strong vampire. So the vampire hunters have to plan accordingly depending on which house they're attacking. In this world, the last vampire hunter is trying to find how Daysdeath occurred and how to reverse it and bring back the sun.

There's a second book in the series called Empire of the Damned and a third book is currently being written. I'm pretty sure this third book will be the final one in the trilogy:

Personally, I enjoyed book 2 more than book 1 simply because book 2 is more chronological. In the first book, the main character would tell a story about when he was a badass in battle, then go back to talking about his childhood. Then there will be another story about him being a badass, then go back to describing his training. The childhood and training parts are pretty slow, so I understand the need to insert little battles to keep people interested. And the childhood and training parts are important to the story so I'm glad they were included. But I liked how by book 2 we've got all the backstory we need and can just plow forward with the life story. The story continues to be great and I'm eagerly awaiting the next book.

I guess I should add a link, Empire of the Vampire.

In 2002, if you had asked me who my favorite bands were I would've said Linkin Park, Static-X, Orgy, Korn, and Disturbed. So finding out there was a movie soundtrack where Jonathan Davis of Korn wrote a bunch of songs about vampires and got the lead singers of Linkin Park, Static-X, Orgy, and Disturbed to sing those songs? I was ecstatic. I loved everything about it. And Marilyn Manson was there too... that's fine.

Apparently the original plan was for Jonathan Davis to sing all of the songs on the soundtrack but his contract with Sony prevented him from providing vocals on another label's release. Since the movie was distributed by Warner Bros, the soundtrack was released on Warner Music. So while Jonathan Davis' vocals are in the movie, they aren't on the soundtrack. And I've listened to the soundtrack so many times that hearing Jonathan Davis' voice in the movie is just... weird. It sounds wrong.

Oh yeah, there's a movie associated with this soundtrack. It's fine. I don't hate it like some people, but it's definitely just a story attached to some vampire songs to me.

The movie is from Anne Rice's series of novels and stars the vampire Lestat, so I can understand why people might be annoyed at how loosely it plays with the source material. But I was ignorant to all of that 20 years ago and just wanted to see a vampire rockstar. On that front, the movie delivers. It's still a dumb movie, but I'm not comparing it to anything so I just think it's dumb fun.

Here's a trailer for the movie. But more importantly, here's the soundtrack. I love how the songs aren't about vampires, they're introspections as if written by a vampire. I'm only talking about the songs written for the movie of course; I don't care about the other songs on the soundtrack.

I'm trying to kickstart this community by posting various vampire movies; some obscure, some classics. This is definitely a classic. To the point that I don't know what else to say about it. It's great, go watch it. It makes being a vampire fun and exciting (not just old aristocrats in castles!) while also having kids going on an adventure (Corey Feldman and Corey Haim at their peak). The effects are perfectly 80s, the dialogue is perfectly 80s, the action is perfectly 80s. I don't know what else to say if you haven't seen it. Here's a trailer.

One of my fav fantasy series, and where vampires first get introduced into the story. Just passed this point in a read, thought I'd share.

As far as vampire related content, I recently read what is technically a Twilight fanfiction, but in reality, I think it's so different that it's really its own thing.

I highly recommend checking this up. The first few chapters are a little bit of a slog, but it really gets into its groove after that.

The author does an incredible job of highlighting the inhuman creepiness of vampires.

I've watched a lot of random old/bad horror movies on Prime Video, to the point that Prime now recommends even more old/bad horror movies to me. I guess the algorithm is working. Anyway, Prime suggested Subspecies to me and the cover looked like a perfectly bad horror movie so I gave it a try. And it was a fun vampire movie; I really enjoyed it. Not a "good" movie of course, but a "fun" movie. So then Prime suggested I watch Subspecies 2. So I did. And then Subspecies 3. And then I was hooked. I finally looked online for this series that I had never heard about in any discussion of vampire movies and found there were 6 movies, with the most recent being from 2023!

The series even has a surprisingly cohesive storyline and each movie directly leads into the next. It's primarily about a vampire named Radu who falls in love with a woman and spends 4 movies desperately trying to convince her to join him as a vampire. He doesn't want to kill her; he wants her to join him. He's tired of being alone and wants to share eternity with her. Throughout the entire series Radu is played by the same actor. The woman he falls in love with was recast after the first movie but then is the same actress for the rest of the series. And the same person wrote and directed all 6 movies. So it's surprisingly easy to binge watch. Also, most of the movies end with at least one other character surviving but then I guess those actors didn't want to return so the next movie just starts with "oh them? they died" and we never mention those characters again. For example, there's one movie that ends with some people escaping in a car and the next movie starts with that car flipped over and everyone is dead except the main actress. It's fantastic.

Now, with a title like Subspecies, you may be thinking "is Radu a Subspecies"? Nope! The subspecies are supposedly these little stop-motion guys:

I say "supposedly" because these creatures are never actually called "subspecies" at any point. I don't even think the word "subspecies" is said aloud in any of the 6 movies.

So if the series is called Subspecies, do these little creatures play a prominent role? Nope! If they even show up, it's typically for less than a minute. And most movies don't have them show up.

So if these subspecies aren't prominent in the series or even named, what are they? Well, in the first movie, Radu briefly gets captured. He pulls off some of his irritatingly long fingers, and they magically turn into those creatures.

So even though Radu has these irritatingly long fingers throughout the entire series, he only ever pulls them off to create these little guys early into the first movie... and never again. It's best to just ignore the name of this series and pretend the whole thing is called The Vampire Radu.

Now, if you noticed, I said Radu was trying to turn this woman for 4 movies yet there are 6 movies in the series. Well, one of these movies is just called Vampire Journals and is basically a spin-off. It has some recurring characters from previous movies but is focused more on a single vampire coven. It's pretty fun. And the final movie (Subspecies 5) is a prequel that is about Radu's creation. The actors who've played Radu and the woman he loves are still in the movie but now they play those characters' parents/ancestors. It's crazy to me that these people spent 30 years making these movies and I'd never even heard of them. That's some crazy dedication.

I personally think this series is best consumed in order, but James Wan's Vampire Watchlist only has Subspecies 2 on it. So I guess that's the best movie in the series? I don't know. Also, RiffTrax made a riff of Subspecies 4 if you're into that sort of thing.

Anyway, here's a trailer for Subspecies 1. I could go track down the trailers for the entire series but I don't want to. You're capable of doing that yourself.

If you're interested, Prime Video still has Subspecies 1, Subspecies 2, Subspecies 3, and Subspecies 4. The same movies are also on Roku if you have that. Unfortunately, Subspecies 5 and Vampire Journals aren't currently streaming anywhere so you'll need to find another way to watch them if you've stuck with the series that long.

I've never read any Anne Rice novels and don't really have any nostolgia for the Interview With The Vampire movie. I'll absolutely admit it's a good movie, it's just not the type of vampire story I typically enjoy. I guess I'm too low-brow and prefer vampire action/horror over the more introspective stuff. And I guess that's why I probably won't be posting anything here about Only Lovers Left Alive or Let The Right One In. I understand these are good (great?) movies, but they're not for me.

Anyway, I've heard good things about the new Interview With The Vampire TV show. I'm curious if any of you have seen it and how you'd compare it to the movie. Is it any good? What'd they do differently from the movie? Does it follow the books more closely? If you haven't seen it, here's a trailer. You can currently watch it on Netflix or, if you have a US library card, on Hoopla. Or I guess on AMC+ if anyone has that.

First of all, let's get this out of the way. There's a lot of 70s nudity in this movie. It's also billed as an "Adult Vampire Sex Comedy" so they really lean into it. Also, it's a low-budget movie from the 70s so expectations are a bit different. I can't quantify this as a "good" or "bad" movie, it's just an oddity in my opinion.

The movie is about an American actress who inherits a castle in Transylvania (pretty standard so far). She moves into the castle and learns she looks just like her ancestor, who was supposedly a vampire. The caretaker shows the actress the tomb where her ancestor was buried. She opens the tomb and finds her ancestor still looks exactly like her (hasn't decomposed) and runs away, leaving the tomb open. The vampire ancestor (played by the same person, of course) wakes up and climbs out of her tomb. Then we have a lot of wacky misdirection where the human actress and vampire ancestor constantly swap places to seduce/bite men in the village.

Anyway, the part of the movie that's really weird to me is in the later half of the movie where the vampire is invited to a party at the neighboring castle. The party is just.... so very very 70s.

Everyone at this party is a vampire and every actor/extra they hired are all just so goofy. And I wonder if this is just how people partied in the 70s. No one is trying to be cool or suave, they're all just silly. And I don't think they were leaning into the comedy aspect of the movie for this scene; I get the impression this is actually how people in the 70s had a good time. It's one of those things where at the time it was being filmed they wouldn't think anything of it; but me watching it so many decades removed is just fascinated by their actions. And it makes me think about these vampires being centuries old, living through various changes in fashion and behaviors, and living to see this as how people partied.

Anyway, the party is in honor of Dracula, who keeps making the devil horns gesture as if that's something he's famous for doing.

So yeah, this is just an odd movie in my opinion and I wanted to share. Come for the 70s nudity, stay for the odd window into how people partied in the 70s.

Here's a (nsfw) trailer on amazon. You can watch it on Prime, Roku, and Plex if you're curious.

Fright Night (1985) and Fright Night (2011) have the same basic plot and are both products of their time. Fright Night (1985) is just a fun 80s vampire movie that wants to tell a fun story. It's got that over-the-top acting and line delivery that makes 80s movies so fun and quotable. They weren't trying to setup a franchise or a sequel, they just did whatever they wanted. Meanwhile, Fright Night (2011) looked at Fright Night (1985) and said "how can we modernize/update every single aspect of this movie and make a quick buck?" I don't think Fright Night (2011) is a bad movie, but I wouldn't argue with anyone who said it was. It definitely doesn't have the same charm or "fun" as the original, but that's true of every movie that has tried remaking an 80s classic.

Both movies involve a teenager who thinks his new next-door neighbor is a vampire. Honestly, for both movies, I was expecting there to be a lot more doubt/suspicion/paranoia involved. But both movies answer the question pretty definitively early on that yes, he's a vampire. So then the teenager has to decide what to do about it. Obviously no one in their school or the police will believe them.

For Fright Night (1985), the teen stays up late watching too many horror movie marathons (which is how he noticed the neighbor acting suspiciously in the first place). These horror movie marathons are hosted by a local washed-up actor who used to play a vampire hunter. So he decides to track down that actor to get some help. A totally logical decision for a teenager in 1985. Plus, the washed-up actor is named Peter Vincent, a combination of Peter Cushing and Vincent Price (two famous actors from old horror movies).

Meanwhile, in Fright Night (2011), the teen decides to get the help of a Criss Angel lookalike played by David Tennant. The character's name is still Peter Vincent, except now that name doesn't mean anything (other than nostalgia reasons). There's not much reason why the teenager would go to this celebrity magician as a first choice. Also this magician seems to be at the peak of his career yet some random teenager is able to talk to him backstage pretty easily. By random coincidence, the celebrity magician happens to have an obsession with the occult and vampires and has an entire collection. So that's helpful.

Since Fright Night (2011) is following the same formula as Fright Night (1985), the plot points are mostly the same. The major differences are in hiring many more (relatively) big-name actors for the 2011 version, even if their casting doesn't really make sense. In Fright Night (1985), the main character has a punk friend named Ed, who they call "Evil Ed". The guy is a bit of an ass so it makes sense. In Fright Night (2011), this role is played by... McLovin. Calling him "Evil Ed" doesn't really work.

I know I seem to be complaining a lot about the 2011 version, but it's really just inferior to the 1985 version. As a standalone movie, I don't think it's bad. It has some odd casting choices, but it's still a fun vampire movie. I think both movies are worth watching, but the 2011 version is a very 2011 movie and there's something about that 80s charm that just makes the original more enjoyable.

Here's a trailer for the 1985 version and the 2011 version.

I'll be honest, I had never heard of Near Dark prior to seeing James Wan's Vampire Watchlist. But then I looked up other lists of classic vampire movies and Near Dark always seemed to be there. So clearly I must've missed out.

The movie was directed by Kathryn Bigelow, who also directed the forgotten cyberpunk classic Strange Days. So even when her movies aren't popular, they still seem to find their audience. For Near Dark specifically, its popularity was hurt by being released a couple months after The Lost Boys. The Lost Boys was a more "fun" movie that made vampires at least a little appealing (in an escapist fantasy sort of way), whereas Near Dark shows how being a vampire... kinda sucks. I guess I'd say it's a more realistic take on vampires, rather than being romanticized like in The Lost Boys. I personally wouldn't call it a Neo-Western like Wikipedia does though. I think it just takes place in a rural town, and that doesn't make it a Western to me.

While trying to figure out how I missed this movie, I learned that Kathryn wanted actors for the main vampire group who could act like they were family around each other, since the script had these vampires living together for centuries. So she asked her friend (and later, husband) James Cameron for some ideas. He had just finished filming Aliens so he suggested some of the cast from his movie. And that's how we end up with a crew of vampires with Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, and Jenette Goldstein. So that's neat.

Overall, I think it's a fun 80s vampire movie but I'm not sure what makes it a classic. That is, I'm not sure what it did so differently and uniquely that it deserved a spot on classic movie lists. It definitely isn't bad (and there are a lot of bad vampire movies out there) but being so many decades removed, I can't tell what it did so uniquely well. Maybe someone here can educate me. Also, I will say that I didn't like the ending. I've discovered that I don't like vampire movies which end with

Anyway, here's a trailer. I wonder if there's some weird rights dispute with this movie because it never seems to be on any streaming services. Even for rent or purchase, it's just not there. I ended up watching it on the internet archive.