Movies on My Bloody Vampire Watchlist

As I established in my last post, I'm a huge vampire fan. However, there are still plenty of vampire movies (as well as books, of course) that I haven't seen. That's to be expected from a genre that many people wrongly say is done to death (vampires can never be overdone, imo, because there's so many different ways to portray them). So today, I'm presenting my watchlist of vampire movies. For those of you who don't know, a watchlist is basically a TBR list, but for movies instead of books. I got this idea from IMDb, which has their own Watchlist feature that lets you keep track of what you want to watch.

When I was making up this list, I decided to split it into two categories: Dracula movies, and movies with original characters. There are over 200 Dracula movies because the character is in the public domain and as much as I love Dracula, I'd slowly lose my mind if I marathoned over 200 movies that feature the character. I need some variety in my life.

DRACULA MOVIES

This movie is pretty much exactly the same as the 1931 Dracula movie starring Béla Lugosi, but it's in Spanish, with a Spanish-speaking cast. The two movies were filmed on the same sets and the Spanish crew were able to watch the English crew shoot during the day. Because of this, they were able to improve on what the English crew did, or at least that's what Wikipedia says. The Spanish version is often said to be the better version of the two movies, and I really want to make that decision for myself because I'm stubborn and always need to have the final answer for myself.

The Universal Monsters series is understandably huge, but they do have several mini series of their own, including a small Dracula series. So far, I've only seen the 1931 Lugosi movie and there are six more that I have to watch, with one of them being an Abbot and Costello movie, and another being a remake of the first one. Hopefully I'll be able to find these to watch on DVD since I do have four UM movies on DVD already.

Hammer is a British company who made tons of horror movies from the 50s to the 70s, most of which my dad has watched. In their Dracula movies, Christopher Lee plays the title character, and these movies are said to be more Gothic in tone than the Universal movies, which sounds perfectly suited to my tastes. Christopher Lee is even regarded as one of the best screen Draculas, but I'll have to see how he fares compared to my beloved Gary Oldman.

Okay, so maybe this isn't a true Dracula movie, because the main character isn't Dracula, but is an African prince who is turned into a vampire by Dracula himself. I've been kind of fascinated by this movie since I saw the black interpretation of Dracula on The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. Because I'm me and I have to know what everything is a reference to, I came across this movie very easily. I don't know a lot about the blaxploitation because, to be blunt, I'm white, but I am very eager to learn and experience it for myself.

This movie is a remake of the 1922 movie Nosferatu, which is a plagiarised unofficial adaptation of Dracula. As much as people like to separate Dracula and Orlok (or just Nosferatu, as everyone tends to call him), they are the exact same character, just with different names for legal reasons. Anyways, the original Nosferatu is a pretty good movie if you're into silent German Expressionist movies. This remake however, is more of a stylistic remake because all of the character names have been reverted to their originals and follows the basic story. The remake comes from the way that the movie has been shot and how the characters look. You wouldn't think that the vampire in this movie is Count Dracula just by looking at him.

I haven't seen a single Leslie Nielsen movie (not even Airplane), but I have heard plenty of praise being thrown towards Mel Brooks, who has made a number of parody movies before the genre went completely stale and repetitive. Obviously, I've got pretty high hopes for this one, and I could always do with a laugh.

Gerard Butler as a younger, hotter Dracula? Um, please.

This movie is supposed to be terrible, but it's got Hugh Jackman in it, so it can't be that bad, right? Right?! Because I'm me and I have a wonderful case of bile fascination and I get incredibly intrigued by things that are supposed to be terrible, I'll probably watch it anyway.

I didn't see this movie when it came out because I was unsure of how they were going to make up a backstory for Dracula, and actually thought that it was a terrible idea. Since then, I've warmed up to the idea of re imagining the story of an already established character, and because Dracula himself is so mysterious in the original novel, I'm now curious to see what has been done with him.

I still haven't found a way to watch this movie yet T_T Two of my favourite things in the world are Batman and Dracula, so I obviously can't pass on being able to see them in the same movie. There's just one little problem: I still have yet to see a UK DVD of this movie and I have never seen it aired on TV. We got the short end of the straw when it came to this series in general because only the first season is available on DVD and then Warner Bros. just gave up on us. Not cool. (i have found two different uk dvds on amazon, but i'm incredibly suspicious of them...)

NON-DRACULA MOVIES

I'm not going to watch this movie until I've read the book, and I'm not sure when that will be. I've heard so many good things about both the book and the movie, so of course It'll be on my list of vampire movies that I want to watch. The only issue I have is that I'm not the biggest Tom Cruise fan, especially since he's just different versions of Mission Impossible Man in his current work, but since this is older, I'm hoping and assuming that it'll be different.

Hold on, what's this? A movie based on a Marvel character on my list? Me, who is a ride-or-die DC fan? In my defence, I had no idea that Blade is a Marvel character, because he's never touted around as one, like Spider-Man or Iron Man are. Also, vampires are vampires, so I'm allowed to dip my toes into the other side every now and then. Anyways. black guy with vampiric abilities who protects humans from vampires? Sign me the heck up.

As of now, there are three things I know about this movie: 1) Quentin Tarantino and George Clooney play the main characters 2) there are vampires 3) Salma Hayek dances with a snake. That's about it and according to my cousin, that's as much as I should know before going into it. I've had this movie sitting in the Netflix queue for quite some time, so I should really get around to watching it this month.

This is probably the scariest movie on this list, which is kind of surprising for me because I am the biggest baby in the world and can only handle horror when it's written down onto a page. However, this can't be anywhere near as gory as some zombie movies (which is the ultimate no-go area for me), and vampires should be scary after all. 

The lesbian vampire trope is one that I have mixed feelings on. One feeling is "yay lesbians!". The other is that there are so many more things to do with female vampires than for them be overly sexualised and only prey on other women. But anyway, this movie looks so deliciously tacky and ridiculous that I must watch it. Also, James Corden is in it and he's embarrassed by it and thinks it's awful, so obviously I need to watch it.

I haven't seen the original version of this movie, but I have seen the 2011 remake with Colin Farrell and Anton Yelchin (who i miss very much V_V). The remake was probably one of the first modern horror movies that I watched and I love it, but I figure that I really should watch the original too, to see if it's any better than the original.

Even though my opinion on Johnny Depp has changed a bit in recent times, I do still want to watch this movie. I do think it's important to separate art from artist, and that it what I shall do with this movie. I haven't always been a Tim Burton fan, but I do enjoy his movies a fair bit. I missed this one when it was first released because I didn't really know what it's about, but now I do want to watch it because vampires.

What vampire movies do you really want to watch?