Count Dracula's Top Five Vampire Movies by Count Vlad III Dracula (Translated by Henry Atticus Wilcox)

Looks can be deceiving.

Many assume that I – Count Dracula – am nothing more than an undead, blood-sucking monster who lurks in the shadows. I find this presumption absurd and, frankly, hurtful.

And look, I get it: I drain the life from peasants, babies, and virgins on an almost daily basis. But I have another side. One much more malignant; a far bigger red flag.

I have a Letterboxd.

It is the foulest of ‘personality traits’ to be like me: a full-fledged mother-fucking film bro. I

watch everything in 35mm, because digital is for those who are dead inside, not the undead. I have strong opinions on aspect ratio. I explain the deeper meaning of Eyes Wide Shut to women; foreplay before I suck them dry.  Just as blood feeds my body, movies feed my soul. Or they would, if I hadn’t sacrificed it to Satan to become the world’s first self-made vampire.

You may ask how viewing is even possible – I spend most of my time atop a mountain in rural Transylvania. It is true that for many years it was difficult, nay impossible, to view film. It wasn’t till 1917 that I first saw a sliver of that celluloid light.

A French company was presenting a film roadshow throughout Eastern Europe. I heard that they were playing a print of Louis Feuillade’s Les Vampires. For reasons that should be obvious, it piqued my interest.  I invited them into my castle to devote myself to a greater understanding of the modern world. They set up a small screen, and for seven straight hours I was transported into a realm never before accessible to me. I saw gangs fight and terrorize the streets. I saw friends talking in restaurants. I saw Paris. I cried.

After that, movies became my religion. I must admit I became an addict. Eventually I discovered the best way to secure my supply was to convert certain filmmakers to the EVILING WAY. Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and of course, Luc Besson were some of my strongest disciples. Through them, I have maintained a near-constant flow of images. My perverse addiction is satiated at twenty-four frames per second.

Thus, we arrive at the point of this article. The kindly, wickedly-talented, full-blooded editors of this ‘Cold Worm Column’ have asked me to compile a list of my top five vampire movies. I shall now oblige willingly for the opportunity to write one’s own narrative is a privilege, not a pleasure. Let us begin.

5. HOUSE (Hausu, 1977, dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi)

Some might argue that this is not a vampire movie. I disagree.

If you live in a big house on top of a hill only to invite the youth over to steal their vitality. You are a vampire. This is coming from all the way from the top: ME.

HOUSE is high camp. A fever dream for all the senses. You never quite know where you are with this film. Not because it is trying to wrong-foot you, but because it refuses to obey any filmmaking rule you recognize. Instead, it is a movie bound by the laws of child’s play. Kung-fu is a character who fights the titular ‘House’ using kung-fu. Melody is good at piano. Gorgeous is very pretty.

This simple but imaginative approach is reflected in its shots and sounds. Painted skies swim above; the whole picture has a softness and heightened color, and a man turns into a pile of bananas. I love this film because it reminds me of my childhood and the joy I used to get out of impaling peasants.

It also has one of the all-time great posters. Sometimes I hang it around Renfield’s neck, so it follows me wherever I go.

4. Vampyr (Vampyr - Der Traum des Allan Grey, 1932, dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer)

This is one of the first movies where I could feel a world beyond the screen.

The plot moves at the pace of a corpse. Dreyer is not interested in thrilling you or shocking you. You won’t find cheap jump-scares here. What he teases out is something more cinematic: a vibe. The film is practically all dread. There is barely any dialogue; it’s just music and images and my god, what images they are!

In 1932, when this came out, I realized what film was capable of: not just beauty and thrills, but truth! Every frame is filled with the sense that it is capturing something beyond that which is occurring in front of the camera – as if the lens is peering into the psyches of the people that made it.

Shadows wander off from their owners. A man watches his own funeral from inside his coffin. A doctor dies by being drowned in flour. Each of these incidents hit fundamental fears pulled from our collective unconscious, made real by the screen. Every time I see it, I remember how terrified I used to be of death.

While the vampiric element of the story is underplayed (even that other German film about the double-crossing, long-fingered freak Nosferatu has a better display of vampirism), Vampyr stands out in the canon for being genuinely unsettling.

3. VIY (Вий, 1967, dir. Georgi Kropachyov, Konstantin Ershov)

A Witch. A Seminary. Peasants! This film has it all.

The plot of this movie is simple: a seminary student accidentally kills an old woman while traveling. He is unwillingly called to read her wake over her now dead body, now transformed into a beautiful young woman.  Over the course of the three nights, terrors greater than the last emerge from the shadows, causing the young philosopher to doubt his faith in god.

 Every time I try to touch a cross, it seems to leave a lasting mark, so I appreciate the religious skepticism baked into this film. It really rocks. There are shots in here which, even 60 years on, just take my cold, cold breath away.

If you are into Russian cinema, or even if you are not – VIY is sure to get your blood-flowing. 

2. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992, dir. Francis Ford Coppola)

I was quite offended when Bram Stoker published that book about me. What poppy-cock! I may have telepathically seduced a few women in my time. But I would never, I mean never, go to London. I have too much self-respect. 

I was thrilled to learn that Coppola was planning an adaptation. Finally, I thought, here is someone who will vindicate my actions; here is a real emotional artist. And goodness me, did that winemaker deliver.

For the first time, someone noticed I wasn't just a monster. I was a love-obsessed romantic with an unfortunate penchant for blood. He shot it like a dream – Vampyr is clearly a huge inspiration here: it is the only other film with comparable use of shadow. Gary Oldman brought a humanity to me that I don’t think I ever had.

My only note is on the hair. No one, not even me, has ever, will ever, wear their hair like that. Nor do I have an English accent–that would have been a fate worse than death.

1. Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (Vampire humaniste cherche suicidaire consentant, 2023, dir. Ariane Louis-Seize)

This movie made me want to do better. To become a better vampire; not just drain the heart, but fill it with love.

For those unfamiliar (or turned off by the title), it’s a Québécois film about a vampire (Sasha) who feels constitutionally unable to kill and instead seeks out a suicidal teenager so she can feed without moral compromise, but ends up falling in love with him. It’s basically a romance-vampire comedy-horror film. Or, as you might say, in that horrible modern parlance: a genre mashup.

This movie is maybe the gentlest, most heartfelt, and earnest movie ever made about my people. No capes, no bats, no castles; it’s not even very scary. Sasha even asks for permission to kill.

Permission! In five centuries, it had never even occurred to me once to ask. That I could become a moral vampire. It really changed my outlook.

Have I stopped eating peasants? No. Nor will I ever.

But now, before I suckle out the life-juice, I make sure to check they aren’t virgins (or a baby)–that they have lived a fulfilling life. And that, I think, is progress.