Pranzo Oltranzista
Registered User
- Oct 18, 2017
- 4,010
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After my notorious threads on the giallo, the Panic films, and the Hellraiser films, I thought I'd capitalize on the release of Nosferatu and launch a new glorious discussion on the vampire subgenre.
(I am perfectly aware there's a horror films thread, of course, I just like things to be ordered)
If others join, I'll try to keep up with everybody's ratings and post some kind of HF ranking of our favorite films. And if not, well, enjoy the long post anyway. I thought I'd start with a few of my own - please add to it, and don't feel like you have to post long comments with your ratings of the films.
------------------------------
Nosferatu (Eggers, 2024) – Now don't get me wrong, I liked the film. Visually, it's almost everything I was hoping for from Eggers – the first half especially puts the gothic back in gothic horror, and with this intimidating Orlock as an undead Vlad the Impaler, it's a pretty good horror film. It's a beautiful remake, an aesthetic feast, but it didn't feel as much more than that. Everything seems masterfully crafted and calculated, making for a great take on an already impressive original work, but weakened on meaning. The two first iterations of Nosferatu were German films that were of uttermost signifiance. Herzog insisted his remake should take place in Germany, and insisted that the German version of his film (he was forced to make an English version too) was the authentic one. Because his film was, for the most part, about Germany. Eggers' Wisborg has no metaphorical value. I guess the fact that his film comes out four years after a pandemic is something to ponder (the original film was also released four years after a pandemic), but the plague didn't feel of much importance in the film, and second fiddle to Ellen's relation to the vampire. And there lies the major difference between Eggers' take and the other adaptations of Dracula: Ellen is responsible for inviting the demon, not to her own demise, but to everyone's - something I'm sure Herzog wished he could have thought of himself, in relation to his film's political stance on evil (well, surely the men would have been the ones inviting the vampire). Made in the 80s or 90s, Eggers' change to the story would have been swept under the AIDS paranoia umbrella in which the vampire film floundered for a while (the sexual longings of a young Ellen being ultimately responsible for the disease) – Coppola's film probably being the ultimate example of this reading. Made today, I fear that this change to the story is only symptomatic of a void in resonance. Making Nosferatu about one character's tragedy is making it a lesser work. It's not a political film (Eggers maintaining the film in Germany hints at it being only about making a remake), and it's not a philosophical film anymore either (I'm not discussing it in my comment on Herzog's take, but his film could be used as kindling for philosophy professors). I guess the question about evil being from within or from beyond (quoted from memory) could have been a starting point to dig into Eggers' film, I just couldn't feed on anything much, other than the representation of woman sexuality and I couldn't get out of it more than some retrograde ideas (stuff you'd usually find in the lesser vampire films). I'm sure I'll get back to it at some point and find more juice. 6.5/10
Nosferatu the Vampyre (Nosferatu - Phantom der Nacht, Herzog, 1979) – I used to, when I was younger, enjoy Herzog's take on this material a lot. Watching it today, I'm not so sure. It's kitsch, and it's camp, to a point where it's not much fun anymore. The sets are cheap, and the cast feels like a problem too. Bruno Ganz is way too old to play Jonathan (and people keep telling him “young man”), Kinski's play has always been more weird than efficient, here you feel like it should be enough, but not really (his pathetic Dracula is in tone, but some scenes are just bad), and Adjani is surely the prettiest Mina ever, but the artistic choices of having her play an homage to the silent era movies is often laughable as she is alone doing it (note that this version of Mina, or Ellen in Murnau's film, is named Lucy... for some reason, Herzog insists on linking his film to Murnau's Nosferaru, and insists that it should be a German story, but decides to go back to the English names from the novel, and then switches the female characters, something that could be an allusion to the 1927 revision of the stage version of the novel or to the first Christopher Lee Hammer film, but I couldn't think of any significant gain). Still, there's some very intriguing ideas in Herzog's diversion of Stoker's tale (including the change to Van Helsing's character, now a skeptical man of science). The classic Dracula, like a bunch of its iterations, comes with two major tropes: first, it's a racist tale about a foreigner (probably Jew) who brings pest to our lands ; second, it proposes a threat to the male order, with said foreigner coming to rape and kill our women, usually restored by some male agency with phallic weapons (I'll probably come back to that in the following comments, as I think Stoker is very much responsible for the first of these tropes, but his novel's use of the second is a lot more subtle and smart than most of the films that came out of it). Herzog's take does none of that, it is chaotic and cynic, it does not look to protect the bourgeoisie from outside threats, it shows no love for a society that will anyway turn to evil (Jonathan becomes a vampire), and will defend its worst agents (they quickly arrest Van Helsing after he kills Dracula – a doubly absurd decision as they have no more structure, police nor jail, to do so). And if in Murnau's film the death of the foreigner is enough to stop the plague, it's clearly not the case for Herzog, as the film ends with Jonathan showing his teeth. The second trope is put aside in all of the Nosferatu films, as the creature doesn't fall to a manly stake through the heart, but following its own weakness towards a woman - it's especially true of Herzog's film, where all the males characters are absolutely useless. Herzog's cynicism is such that you'll wonder how far away from the original gothic horror you've wandered, watching a sequence straight out of a surrealist or Panic film, with the bourgeois enjoying a meal together surrounded by rats. Overall, it's a very uneven film, that sometimes borders on greatness, but its shortcomings often make it feel almost ridiculous. 6/10
Regarding the remakes, I'd say Herzog had a handful of great ideas, but mostly poor execution, as Eggers had amazing execution (even though the story could have been tighter), but very few ideas. I'm sure I'll rewatch his film in a few years and find something more to it, there is room to grow by at least a point.
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, Murnau, 1922) – I don't think I have much to add to the dense literature around this one. It truly is an aesthetic masterpiece, and a great example of how horror narratives can be used to translate social fears and angst, especially considering that most of it goes beyond and above the filmmakers' intentions, or emanates from the original source novel (I don't think Murnau was necessarily a racist, but his film definitely conveys racist tropes). The film appears in a period of great distress that's perfect for horror, it echoes the devastation that WW1 was for Germany, the sanitary crisis of the Spanish flu, but most of all, the rise of antisemitism and the spread of the “stab in the back myth”. 9/10
Dracula (Browning, 1931) – I didn't want to go back to this one, but felt I had to. It was a defining film for horror movies, of course, but it is still hard to enjoy as an adaptation of Stoker's novel. The sexual repression and the association of sexuality and death, important themes in the source material that could be linked to the spread of syphilis in Victorian England, are present here, but whereas Jonathan's desires and weakness were the first of many problems in the novel, here only the female sexuality is problematic. The three brides are there, but Renfield – who replaces Jonathan as the Count's visitor in this version – doesn't even have the time to see them, never experiencing the “languorous ecstacy” and “burning desire that they would kiss” him of the original Jonathan. And when bitten-Mina later goes down on Jonathan, he's having none of that. Men here are pure and heroic. The basic formula of the great male vampire hunter plunging his big stake in the bodies of lustful women in order to save their souls finds its timid origin here (I say timid because the longing of women for the vampire's bite is of course very prude, they are mostly guilty of letting him approach them in their beds – especially Lucy who lets her window open for Dracula's bat form to enter). Jonathan's desire is also absent from Horror of Dracula and Count Dracula discussed below: in Franco's film, Jonathan is already unconscious when the brides show up, and in the Fisher one, Jonathan only meets a single bride, and not once glances at her plunging neckline! (Argento's Jonathan does fall for the naked bride, but his film is a complete mess anyway). The choice to keep Bela Lugosi, who had played Dracula in the 1927 stage version, as the titular character also had an unfortunate impact on most of the following iterations of the“monster”. The original Dracula had nothing to do with this mundane seducer. In fact, Eggers' Nosferatu is probably the creature closest to what Stoker had in mind. All in all, yes, probably an important film for the horror genre, but that kind of ruined the character for the longest time – a very sad following to Murnau's brilliant effort. I am aware my rating will offend the purists, but I'm really not a fan. 3.5/10
Horror of Dracula (Fisher, 1958) – I hadn't seen a Hammer film in the longest time, but I had to include at least one here. Of the Christopher Lee films, this is the closest to the source novel, and it opens just like it, with Jonathan Harker's journal retelling his arrival to Count Dracula's castle, where he is welcomed as Dracula's new, euhm, librarian – but his true intention is to get close to the count in order to kill him (!). So yeah, not that close to the novel. It's a variation on Stoker's fiction, recycling mostly some characters, and the “lore” of the vampire. It's a great example of the male anxiety a lot of these films try to exploit, with Cushing as the great vampire hunter who comes and help us take back control over our women's lust and desires (they just can't help themselves – and hysterical creatures too, one even needs a good slap to calm down). There's some blood work, but the ideas of contamination, of the disease spreading and of the plague, are again out of the picture. It's a pretty bad film, but kind of fun. 4/10
Count Dracula (Nachts, wenn Dracula erwacht, Franco, 1970) – I watched this one because a few sources pointed to it as the “most accurate” adaptation of the Stoker novel, something that seems to have convinced Christopher Lee to sign up for the project. I think the lineup was meant to be impressive. Whatever you think of Christopher Lee's Dracula, he gives the film some credibility. The rest of the cast doesn't help much, but you have Pink Panther's Commissioner Dreyfus as Van Helsing, and Kinski (this time as Renfield, so at least he's supposed to be crazy). Of course, you also have an insistent Jesus Franco himself as some valet (and as usual, he is absolutely terrible), and a handful of his regulars (not that Lee and Kinski were complete strangers to his filmography), including Paul Muller, Jack Taylor, Fred Williams, Maria Rohm, and (thank you Jesus) Soledad Miranda – making it, despite the absence of gore and nudity, a true Franco film. That's probably a bad thing for most, but I like a few of his films. He was (he had to be, as he worked with no money) an inventive director, with very poor results. Here he's kept in check by a more serious and grounded approach with no place for extravaganza. Renfield's failed escape from the mental institution might be the exception, but the editing almost works, which is more than enough for Franco. It is a somewhat faithful adaptation, Christopher Lee seemed very please to at last play the Count as he was meant to be, but it goes astray in many occasions, mainly to save on runtime (also, the whole Renfield character is rewritten, and you'll wonder why he was kept in). On an intertextual level, the film is interesting as a bridge between the Hammer films and their source material. It has a few nice moments, considering the very limited means, and if you are aware of what you are getting into, it's not a complete waste. 3.5/10
Dracula 3D (Argento, 2012) – I watched this one thinking it was an adaptation from the novel, but it's not at all. It's inspired by the Hammer Draculas, which didn't care much for the source novel. Diversions like the whole story taking place in Transylvania, or Jonathan Harker being hired as Dracula's librarian, come from the Christopher Lee films. Strangely, the idea that Mina could be the count's reincarnated wife might be coming from the Coppola film, one Argento doesn't seem to care much for. Anyway, whatever inspired this, the result is the same, which is a pure load of crap, a strong contender for Argento's worst offering. Some of the visual effects must be seen to be believed, they feel like they were taken out of some sublevel 1996 video games. Dracula getting into a fist fight with old timer Rutger Hauer's Van Helsing doesn't help his lack of charisma and grace. The gore is cheap, the nudity is weird, I think most people should avoid this one. 1.5/10
Fright Night (Holland, 1985) - Not a Dracula adaptation, and certainly a minor film considering the whole subgenre, Fright Night is normally bundled together with films like TheLost Boys or Near Dark as teen-oriented soft horror, with younger heroes trying to protect their already fragile families (relying on struggling single parents – in this case, a mother who has to work night shifts). I would argue that, if Near Dark is certainly the better horror film of the three, Fright Night is the one that's the most iconic of its times. Not great, made in good fun (and it is quite fun), it's a postmodern take on the vampire film, mostly alluding to the Hammer films (and not in the most subtle ways, its vampire hunter is named Peter Vincent). It offers a little of everything from the scale of concrete intertextual relations: allusions, parody, quotes and it uses them to different effects, from comedy to distanciation. Of course, the reflexive value is pretty thin and you won't find much more than a little jab towards the rise and predominance of slasher and gore films – still, the actor-as-actor reprising his role (from the films in the film) in the film you are now watching is a mise-en-abyme effective enough to invite its (young) spectator to consider the film in relation to the exterior works it is linked to. A thin level of complexity that was lacking from the previous few entries in this post! As a vampire flick, it's really not that bad either. It does better than quite a few more serious vampire movies on some of their tropes (notably in having Ed be tempted by the vampire and giving in to the invitation of a comforting embrace under its coat), and diverts others in dumb fun ways. It uses, not without irony, the sex and death relation of the common vampire dramas to increase the tension of teenagers' sexual awakening, making it a light coming-of-age tale with a twist. 5/10
I know I am missing a lot of important films, maybe most notably Coppola's take on Dracula, which I like a lot. I'll get back to it, I felt it was enough to get the ball rolling.
(I am perfectly aware there's a horror films thread, of course, I just like things to be ordered)
If others join, I'll try to keep up with everybody's ratings and post some kind of HF ranking of our favorite films. And if not, well, enjoy the long post anyway. I thought I'd start with a few of my own - please add to it, and don't feel like you have to post long comments with your ratings of the films.
------------------------------
Nosferatu (Eggers, 2024) – Now don't get me wrong, I liked the film. Visually, it's almost everything I was hoping for from Eggers – the first half especially puts the gothic back in gothic horror, and with this intimidating Orlock as an undead Vlad the Impaler, it's a pretty good horror film. It's a beautiful remake, an aesthetic feast, but it didn't feel as much more than that. Everything seems masterfully crafted and calculated, making for a great take on an already impressive original work, but weakened on meaning. The two first iterations of Nosferatu were German films that were of uttermost signifiance. Herzog insisted his remake should take place in Germany, and insisted that the German version of his film (he was forced to make an English version too) was the authentic one. Because his film was, for the most part, about Germany. Eggers' Wisborg has no metaphorical value. I guess the fact that his film comes out four years after a pandemic is something to ponder (the original film was also released four years after a pandemic), but the plague didn't feel of much importance in the film, and second fiddle to Ellen's relation to the vampire. And there lies the major difference between Eggers' take and the other adaptations of Dracula: Ellen is responsible for inviting the demon, not to her own demise, but to everyone's - something I'm sure Herzog wished he could have thought of himself, in relation to his film's political stance on evil (well, surely the men would have been the ones inviting the vampire). Made in the 80s or 90s, Eggers' change to the story would have been swept under the AIDS paranoia umbrella in which the vampire film floundered for a while (the sexual longings of a young Ellen being ultimately responsible for the disease) – Coppola's film probably being the ultimate example of this reading. Made today, I fear that this change to the story is only symptomatic of a void in resonance. Making Nosferatu about one character's tragedy is making it a lesser work. It's not a political film (Eggers maintaining the film in Germany hints at it being only about making a remake), and it's not a philosophical film anymore either (I'm not discussing it in my comment on Herzog's take, but his film could be used as kindling for philosophy professors). I guess the question about evil being from within or from beyond (quoted from memory) could have been a starting point to dig into Eggers' film, I just couldn't feed on anything much, other than the representation of woman sexuality and I couldn't get out of it more than some retrograde ideas (stuff you'd usually find in the lesser vampire films). I'm sure I'll get back to it at some point and find more juice. 6.5/10
Nosferatu the Vampyre (Nosferatu - Phantom der Nacht, Herzog, 1979) – I used to, when I was younger, enjoy Herzog's take on this material a lot. Watching it today, I'm not so sure. It's kitsch, and it's camp, to a point where it's not much fun anymore. The sets are cheap, and the cast feels like a problem too. Bruno Ganz is way too old to play Jonathan (and people keep telling him “young man”), Kinski's play has always been more weird than efficient, here you feel like it should be enough, but not really (his pathetic Dracula is in tone, but some scenes are just bad), and Adjani is surely the prettiest Mina ever, but the artistic choices of having her play an homage to the silent era movies is often laughable as she is alone doing it (note that this version of Mina, or Ellen in Murnau's film, is named Lucy... for some reason, Herzog insists on linking his film to Murnau's Nosferaru, and insists that it should be a German story, but decides to go back to the English names from the novel, and then switches the female characters, something that could be an allusion to the 1927 revision of the stage version of the novel or to the first Christopher Lee Hammer film, but I couldn't think of any significant gain). Still, there's some very intriguing ideas in Herzog's diversion of Stoker's tale (including the change to Van Helsing's character, now a skeptical man of science). The classic Dracula, like a bunch of its iterations, comes with two major tropes: first, it's a racist tale about a foreigner (probably Jew) who brings pest to our lands ; second, it proposes a threat to the male order, with said foreigner coming to rape and kill our women, usually restored by some male agency with phallic weapons (I'll probably come back to that in the following comments, as I think Stoker is very much responsible for the first of these tropes, but his novel's use of the second is a lot more subtle and smart than most of the films that came out of it). Herzog's take does none of that, it is chaotic and cynic, it does not look to protect the bourgeoisie from outside threats, it shows no love for a society that will anyway turn to evil (Jonathan becomes a vampire), and will defend its worst agents (they quickly arrest Van Helsing after he kills Dracula – a doubly absurd decision as they have no more structure, police nor jail, to do so). And if in Murnau's film the death of the foreigner is enough to stop the plague, it's clearly not the case for Herzog, as the film ends with Jonathan showing his teeth. The second trope is put aside in all of the Nosferatu films, as the creature doesn't fall to a manly stake through the heart, but following its own weakness towards a woman - it's especially true of Herzog's film, where all the males characters are absolutely useless. Herzog's cynicism is such that you'll wonder how far away from the original gothic horror you've wandered, watching a sequence straight out of a surrealist or Panic film, with the bourgeois enjoying a meal together surrounded by rats. Overall, it's a very uneven film, that sometimes borders on greatness, but its shortcomings often make it feel almost ridiculous. 6/10
Regarding the remakes, I'd say Herzog had a handful of great ideas, but mostly poor execution, as Eggers had amazing execution (even though the story could have been tighter), but very few ideas. I'm sure I'll rewatch his film in a few years and find something more to it, there is room to grow by at least a point.
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, Murnau, 1922) – I don't think I have much to add to the dense literature around this one. It truly is an aesthetic masterpiece, and a great example of how horror narratives can be used to translate social fears and angst, especially considering that most of it goes beyond and above the filmmakers' intentions, or emanates from the original source novel (I don't think Murnau was necessarily a racist, but his film definitely conveys racist tropes). The film appears in a period of great distress that's perfect for horror, it echoes the devastation that WW1 was for Germany, the sanitary crisis of the Spanish flu, but most of all, the rise of antisemitism and the spread of the “stab in the back myth”. 9/10
Dracula (Browning, 1931) – I didn't want to go back to this one, but felt I had to. It was a defining film for horror movies, of course, but it is still hard to enjoy as an adaptation of Stoker's novel. The sexual repression and the association of sexuality and death, important themes in the source material that could be linked to the spread of syphilis in Victorian England, are present here, but whereas Jonathan's desires and weakness were the first of many problems in the novel, here only the female sexuality is problematic. The three brides are there, but Renfield – who replaces Jonathan as the Count's visitor in this version – doesn't even have the time to see them, never experiencing the “languorous ecstacy” and “burning desire that they would kiss” him of the original Jonathan. And when bitten-Mina later goes down on Jonathan, he's having none of that. Men here are pure and heroic. The basic formula of the great male vampire hunter plunging his big stake in the bodies of lustful women in order to save their souls finds its timid origin here (I say timid because the longing of women for the vampire's bite is of course very prude, they are mostly guilty of letting him approach them in their beds – especially Lucy who lets her window open for Dracula's bat form to enter). Jonathan's desire is also absent from Horror of Dracula and Count Dracula discussed below: in Franco's film, Jonathan is already unconscious when the brides show up, and in the Fisher one, Jonathan only meets a single bride, and not once glances at her plunging neckline! (Argento's Jonathan does fall for the naked bride, but his film is a complete mess anyway). The choice to keep Bela Lugosi, who had played Dracula in the 1927 stage version, as the titular character also had an unfortunate impact on most of the following iterations of the“monster”. The original Dracula had nothing to do with this mundane seducer. In fact, Eggers' Nosferatu is probably the creature closest to what Stoker had in mind. All in all, yes, probably an important film for the horror genre, but that kind of ruined the character for the longest time – a very sad following to Murnau's brilliant effort. I am aware my rating will offend the purists, but I'm really not a fan. 3.5/10
Horror of Dracula (Fisher, 1958) – I hadn't seen a Hammer film in the longest time, but I had to include at least one here. Of the Christopher Lee films, this is the closest to the source novel, and it opens just like it, with Jonathan Harker's journal retelling his arrival to Count Dracula's castle, where he is welcomed as Dracula's new, euhm, librarian – but his true intention is to get close to the count in order to kill him (!). So yeah, not that close to the novel. It's a variation on Stoker's fiction, recycling mostly some characters, and the “lore” of the vampire. It's a great example of the male anxiety a lot of these films try to exploit, with Cushing as the great vampire hunter who comes and help us take back control over our women's lust and desires (they just can't help themselves – and hysterical creatures too, one even needs a good slap to calm down). There's some blood work, but the ideas of contamination, of the disease spreading and of the plague, are again out of the picture. It's a pretty bad film, but kind of fun. 4/10
Count Dracula (Nachts, wenn Dracula erwacht, Franco, 1970) – I watched this one because a few sources pointed to it as the “most accurate” adaptation of the Stoker novel, something that seems to have convinced Christopher Lee to sign up for the project. I think the lineup was meant to be impressive. Whatever you think of Christopher Lee's Dracula, he gives the film some credibility. The rest of the cast doesn't help much, but you have Pink Panther's Commissioner Dreyfus as Van Helsing, and Kinski (this time as Renfield, so at least he's supposed to be crazy). Of course, you also have an insistent Jesus Franco himself as some valet (and as usual, he is absolutely terrible), and a handful of his regulars (not that Lee and Kinski were complete strangers to his filmography), including Paul Muller, Jack Taylor, Fred Williams, Maria Rohm, and (thank you Jesus) Soledad Miranda – making it, despite the absence of gore and nudity, a true Franco film. That's probably a bad thing for most, but I like a few of his films. He was (he had to be, as he worked with no money) an inventive director, with very poor results. Here he's kept in check by a more serious and grounded approach with no place for extravaganza. Renfield's failed escape from the mental institution might be the exception, but the editing almost works, which is more than enough for Franco. It is a somewhat faithful adaptation, Christopher Lee seemed very please to at last play the Count as he was meant to be, but it goes astray in many occasions, mainly to save on runtime (also, the whole Renfield character is rewritten, and you'll wonder why he was kept in). On an intertextual level, the film is interesting as a bridge between the Hammer films and their source material. It has a few nice moments, considering the very limited means, and if you are aware of what you are getting into, it's not a complete waste. 3.5/10
Dracula 3D (Argento, 2012) – I watched this one thinking it was an adaptation from the novel, but it's not at all. It's inspired by the Hammer Draculas, which didn't care much for the source novel. Diversions like the whole story taking place in Transylvania, or Jonathan Harker being hired as Dracula's librarian, come from the Christopher Lee films. Strangely, the idea that Mina could be the count's reincarnated wife might be coming from the Coppola film, one Argento doesn't seem to care much for. Anyway, whatever inspired this, the result is the same, which is a pure load of crap, a strong contender for Argento's worst offering. Some of the visual effects must be seen to be believed, they feel like they were taken out of some sublevel 1996 video games. Dracula getting into a fist fight with old timer Rutger Hauer's Van Helsing doesn't help his lack of charisma and grace. The gore is cheap, the nudity is weird, I think most people should avoid this one. 1.5/10
Fright Night (Holland, 1985) - Not a Dracula adaptation, and certainly a minor film considering the whole subgenre, Fright Night is normally bundled together with films like TheLost Boys or Near Dark as teen-oriented soft horror, with younger heroes trying to protect their already fragile families (relying on struggling single parents – in this case, a mother who has to work night shifts). I would argue that, if Near Dark is certainly the better horror film of the three, Fright Night is the one that's the most iconic of its times. Not great, made in good fun (and it is quite fun), it's a postmodern take on the vampire film, mostly alluding to the Hammer films (and not in the most subtle ways, its vampire hunter is named Peter Vincent). It offers a little of everything from the scale of concrete intertextual relations: allusions, parody, quotes and it uses them to different effects, from comedy to distanciation. Of course, the reflexive value is pretty thin and you won't find much more than a little jab towards the rise and predominance of slasher and gore films – still, the actor-as-actor reprising his role (from the films in the film) in the film you are now watching is a mise-en-abyme effective enough to invite its (young) spectator to consider the film in relation to the exterior works it is linked to. A thin level of complexity that was lacking from the previous few entries in this post! As a vampire flick, it's really not that bad either. It does better than quite a few more serious vampire movies on some of their tropes (notably in having Ed be tempted by the vampire and giving in to the invitation of a comforting embrace under its coat), and diverts others in dumb fun ways. It uses, not without irony, the sex and death relation of the common vampire dramas to increase the tension of teenagers' sexual awakening, making it a light coming-of-age tale with a twist. 5/10
I know I am missing a lot of important films, maybe most notably Coppola's take on Dracula, which I like a lot. I'll get back to it, I felt it was enough to get the ball rolling.
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