I'm going to say this about Dracula (1931).

[LostInAnomie]

Although it is a highly regarded movie, it has one of the lamest endings of any movie I have ever watched. It's seriously like the director decided that he was tired of making the movie and just decided to end it in the shortest amount of time possible. Am I supposed to believe that even though he is being chased and is completely safe from the Sun, Dracula decided to jump in his coffin to sleep? And, why the hell did they kill him off screen? Talk about a lack of closure. What about Lucy the female vampire that's walking around London biting kids? Did she die too?

I guess the standards for good movies change over time.

[Broken_Hero]

1. The moment

the vamps in Blade put on sunscreen to go outside, a piece of me died...

I watched Twilight about a week ago, and a lot of me died....

I'm kind of a vampire snob I guess, but Twilight just killed me, literally...I'm a zombie now.

[LostInAnomie]

2. I've always been a big zombie guy...

... but when it comes to vampires, I'm a purist. Lugosi's Dracula is as romantic/seductive as I'm willing to go. Vampires are supposed to be the bad guys. They are supposed to be monsters. I'll accept a regal/superior nature that wold probably come with viewing everyone as food, but when it comes to the "tortured soul" or "sensitive and sympathetic" vampire I say "No, thanks."

Ann Rice and the Twilight series officially killed vampires for me. They took one of the better monsters of all time and turned them into a teenage girl's masturbatory fantasy.

[Broken_Hero]

3. I'm more of an Anne Rice/Vampire the Masquerade

type. I got hooked on vampires with the Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice, I thought he was such a character. On the flip side though, I loathed Armand, and Louie, Louie just killed me, literally. His whining and moaning about being this dark/killer just made me go :eyes:

I liked how Vamp the Masquerade had their different clans, with different abilities and what not. The novels from the Masquerade were pretty good too.

I'm a snob with:

Sun kills you, stake through heart only paralyzes you, garlic/cross don't work, and they can go on sacred/holy ground. Granted, Lestat did stay out in the sun for a few days(perhaps a week) but I liked the idea of the older you are the stronger you are, and he just drank from the number 1 vamp, so it was believable to me.

I like Vamps/Werewolves the best, and so far the Underworlds have been great...

[LostInAnomie]

4. I'm a pretty big stickler for the rules too.

Monsters have to have their limitations. Sun, crosses, garlic, wolfsbane, holy water, stakes to the heart, and decapitation all do harm to vampires (I'm kind of iffy about silver). They can't go into holy sites.

The same goes for zombies. Zombies are slow, stupid, physically uncoordinated, impervious to pain, and die when the brain is damaged. When you make them fast, coordinated, or smart you are taking a big fat dump on the genre as a whole.

[Broken_Hero]

5. Hmm,

most of the time in books/media the usual items usually hurt the Vampire to varying degree's, but the main staple for death was Sunlight/Stake through heart, which I'm good with. I was good with the stake through heart paralyzes you, because a monster like a Vamp, a heart should be meaningless to him/her.

Zombies, I don't mind them being stronger(at least as strong as they were when they were alive), and I don't mind them being faster, at least as fast as they were when they were living.

I didn't like Land of the Dead because of the "smart" factor. I wasn't much of a zombie fan of the slow/drooling kind that people could just walk by. What scared me the most about zombies was that they felt no pain, so you couldn't kill them unless you had a weapon to decapitate them, or damage their brain pan.

To me, Twilight killed vampires...they look all shiny and bright like diamonds if they are in the sun, they are a wholesome family, and vegan vampires...that part made me roll off my couch. I don't know why I finished it, but I did. The only parts I liked were the tree jumping part, and when he was running up the mountain side, otherwise it just killed me.

[Moondog]

15. So

what's wrong with teenaged girls having masturbatory fantasies? They've gotta get off too ....

:shrug:

[LostInAnomie]

16. Not at the expense of cool shit!

They can go find a copy of Tiger Beat or something! :rofl:

[Moondog]

17. But that's why they're, well, girls and

we're not. We gotta make allowances, dude ....

[Lethe]

6. yeah, at least it didn't claim to be "bram stoker's" dracula

like that piece of shit from the 90's.

bram stoker's dracula was a bad ass. He fucking laughed when people got devoured by wolves, he laughed when J. Harker went insane after witnessing d. and his "wives" eating a baby.

this guy was fucking evil personified. and he loved it.

[Deep13]

7. It was no Frankenstein. nt

[Tuesday Afternoon]

8. open-ended for a sequel

those questions must be answered!

[Bossy Monkey]

9. Hey, post a spoiler alert; this movie's only 78 years old

:P

[Forkboy]

10. My least favorite of the Universal monsters.

The movie never hit me at all, and that's damn rare. I tend to like any horror, but that one isn't one of them. Highly overrated, imo, and not nearly as good as The Wolfman, Frankenstein or Bride of Frankenstein were.

I think it's because of this that to this day I'm still not a big fan of vampire movies, with only a handful really hitting me (Shadow of the Vampire, Nosferatu, Near Dark, the Hammer films with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, and Nigthwatch/Daywatch). I am eagerly waiting to see Thirst by Chan-Wook park, who did Oldboy, though.

One trend I'm sick of is the angst ridden vampire who wants to be good. I'm sure teenagers eat it up (so to speak), but at 41 I'm not very angsty anymore.

[LostInAnomie]

11. The concept is a sound one.

Vampires are great monsters because they choose to become monsters. They give up mortality and humanity in return for immortality and a life of predation. I can understand a nihilistic or even existential tint to their thinking, but it needs to be rooted in darkness and a total disregard for humanity (except as a source of food).

I think giving them super powers, moral dilemmas, or sadness and sensitivity is ridiculous.

Shadow of the Vampire did a very good job of showing what a vampire should be like. A twisted and malformed being that can barely remember what it is like to be human. Only concerned with himself, killing indiscriminately, and completely immoral.

[NYCGirl]

12. The scariest character in the movie isn't Dracula, but Renfield

played by the wonderful Dwight Frye.

[LostInAnomie]

13. That was another one of my problems with the movie.

Admittedly, Frye did a fine job in the role. But, how the hell did that guy keep getting out of his cell? Seriously, for being a dangerous lunatic that guy was out and about more than any other character in the movie. And, why the hell would an obviously rich doctor have a house attached to an asylum?

[DerekG]

14. When is a classic not a classic?

There are a host of great '30s horror films: Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, Freaks, The Invisible Man, The Black Cat. Compared to any of these offerings, Dracula is mighty underwhelming.

[Giant Robot]

18. I remember reading that Bela Lugosi(sp?)

Always thought that Dracula was a bit of a joke or a comedy. Here's this guy living in a falling down castle in the middle of no where greeting people wearing this silly tuxedo?? That's absurd! Something like that anyway.

I can't remember where I saw that but I have to say it changed how I view that movie.

[Aristus]

19. Well, remember, the 1931 movie wasn't based on the novel.

It was based on a fairly tame, even lame, play by Hamilton Dean. There were (probably exaggerated) reports of women fainting from terror during the play, but the truth is, take out the supernatural element, and the play is little more than a parlor mystery. Made for a fairly boring and laughable film adaptation.

BTW, I still think the 1992 Coppola version has a lot to recommend it.