Vampire film
The most popular cinematic adaptation of vampire fiction has been from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, with over 170 versions to date.
As folklore, vampires are defined by their need to feed on blood and on their manipulative nature; this theme has been held in common throughout the many adaptations.
This poem was written as kind of commentary on a painting of a female vampire by Philip Burne-Jones exhibited in the same year.
An authentic supernatural vampire features in the landmark Nosferatu (1922 Germany, directed by F. W. Murnau) starring Max Schreck as the hideous Count Orlok.
This was an unlicensed version of Bram Stoker's Dracula, based so closely on the novel that the estate sued and won, with all copies ordered to be destroyed.
Dracula was reincarnated for a new generation in the Hammer Films series starring Christopher Lee as the Count.
The first of these, The Vampire Lovers (1970), starring Ingrid Pitt and Madeline Smith, was a relatively straightforward re-telling of LeFanu's novella, but with more overt violence and sexuality.
Other comedic treatments, of variable quality, include Vampira (1974) featuring David Niven as a lovelorn Dracula, Love at First Bite (1979) featuring George Hamilton, My Best Friend Is a Vampire (1988), Innocent Blood (1992), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995), directed by Mel Brooks with Leslie Nielsen, and, more recently, Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement's mockumentary take on the subject, What We Do in the Shadows (2014).
Though always a representation of passion and desire, since the time of Béla Lugosi's Dracula (1931) the vampire, male or female, has usually been portrayed as an alluring sex symbol.
Christopher Lee, Delphine Seyrig, Frank Langella, Lauren Hutton, Catherine Deneuve and Aaliyah are just a few examples of actors who brought great sex appeal into their portrayal of the vampire.
There is, however, a very small subgenre, pioneered in Murnau's seminal Nosferatu (1922) in which the portrayal of the vampire is similar to the hideous creature of European folklore.
Max Schreck's portrayal of this role in Murnau's film was copied by Klaus Kinski in Werner Herzog's remake Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979).
Stephen King's Salem's Lot (1979) notably depicts vampires as terrifying, simple-minded creatures, without eroticism, and with the only desire to feed on the blood of others.
The main vampire in the Subspecies films, Radu, also exhibits similar aesthetic influences, such as long fingers and nails and generally grotesque facial features.
Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowell) in Fright Night (1985) and the Frog brothers in The Lost Boys (1987) were all vampire hunters.
[citation needed] In his documentary "Vampire Princess" (2007) the investigative Austrian author and director Klaus T. Steindl discovered in 2007 the historical inspiration for Bram Stoker's legendary Dracula character (see also Literature - Bram Stoker: Dracula's Guest[6]): "Many experts believe, the deleted opening was actually based on a woman.
Archaeologists, historians, and forensic scientists revisit the days of vampire hysteria in the eighteenth-century Czech Republic and re-open the unholy grave of dark princess Eleonore von Schwarzenberg.
The Munsters was followed in 1966 by the Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, in which the reluctant vampire Barnabas Collins became a main character.
True Blood (2008) centers on the adventures of the telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse, who falls in love with a vampire.
