Thursday, April 14, 2005

What are your favorite vampire, werewolf, and zombie movies?

My brother suggested this poll, so here are my picks:
Vampire: Both F.W. Murnau and Werner Herzog's versions of "Nosferatu"
honorable mentions, "Martin," "Rabid," "Vampire's Kiss" and "Near Dark"

Werewolf: "The Howling"
honorable mention, "An American Werewolf in London"

Zombie: "Dawn of the Dead" (George Romero's original, not the goddamn remake)
honorable mentions, "Night of the Living Dead," "Day of the Dead," "Return of the Living Dead"

My wife and I were discussing our love for vampire movies, and we got in a little debate about which movies are better, vampire or zombie. She said vampire, I said zombie. On further reflection, I'm going to have to change my answer to vampire. You win again, devil woman. However, my favorite horror movies of all time are Romero's zombie trilogy, "Night of the Living Dead," "Dawn of the Dead," and "Day of the Dead." Here's hoping his currently filming fourth installment, "Land of the Dead," keeps to the same high standard.

What are your picks?

9 comments:

Spacebeer said...

So, you pretty much named all my favorite vampire, werewolf, and zombie movies. The vampire one you forgot, that is awesome, was "Habit," Larry Fessenden's movie from the 80s which is one of my favorite vampire movies of all time. Plus "Trouble Every Day" by Claire Denis, which one could argue is not actually about vampires at all, but they do like to drink blood and eat chunks out of each other (also "Trouble Every Day" has Vincent Gallo in it, who I love).

Plus "Teen Wolf" and "Teen Wolf Too."

The reason I won our vampire/zombie debate is because there is so much more you can do with a vampire character than a zombie. Their inherent independence and sexiness, plus their awareness of everything makes them so much more interesting. Zombies don't know that they are different or monsterous, plus there are tons of them. Vampires are all isolated and obsessive and that makes for compelling storytelling. Plus with vampires, you can have movies like "Vampire's Kiss" and "Habit" where the main character thinks he is a vampire, but he may or may not actually be one.

Whew. That's enough for now. I will continue this debate with the next interested person who asks me about vampires.

Josh Krauter said...

Oh yes, I totally forgot about "Habit." Add that to my runners-up. It came out in the late nineties, though, not the eighties.

Anonymous said...

I'm going to be totally cheesy here and sign this anonymously so that no one follows me around and makes fun of me, but I really loved Blade (except perhaps for the very ending) - that's a slick film.

Plop Blop said...

I love "An American Werewolf in London". My favorite line is when the decomposing ghost of his friend says, "Have you ever talked to a corpse. It's boring!". I also love both versions of "Nosferatu". I'd like to see "The Addiction" again (I think Abel Ferrara directed it). I was also wondering if "Re-Animator" counts as a zombie movie.

Josh Krauter said...

Yeah, I'd count "Re-Animator" as a zombie movie. That movie is awesome.

Spacebeer said...

Just so I don't look like a total idiot, Larry Fessenden apparantly filmed an earlier version of "Habit" in 1982 that was not released theatrically. I saw that one first in my quick IMDB search, and that's why I put 80s instead of 1997 when the movie was actually released. And which I would have figured out if I had thought about it a bit and it hadn't been seven o'clock in the morning. Woo!

Spacebeer said...

Also, tjd, is that you who loves "Blade'? Cuz if it isn't, it totally seems like something you might love...

Traci Drummond said...

no, kks, it isn't me, but when i read that post, i totally thought about how much i enjoyed (note that "enjoyed" doesn't translate to "though of as high art") the queen of the damned movie with that damn sexy stuart townsend as lestat (much better, sexier, taller, and less scientologist than tom cruise). in fact, non-vampire townsend just isn't that attractive to me, but in that movie i just, you know, visually he's, well, so hot. vampilicious.

i actually haven't seen the blade movies. how unlike me.

just this week i tried to add trouble every day to my netflix list, but it's not available on dvd yet. i also share your love for all things vincent gallo.

tjd

Anonymous said...

favorite zombie movie: Aguirre: The Wrath of God

favorite werewolf movie: Harry and the Hendersons

favorite vampire movie: Harry and the Hendersons

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