VAMPIRE EVOLUTION: FROM DRACULA TO TWILIGHT
by Gabriel Chong | 30 June 2010

Two years ago, no one in Hollywood could have predicted how big the Twilight film series would have become. After all, MTV Films had the rights to the first book and were sitting on it for a couple of years before Summit Entertainment came along and optioned those rights for the Catherine Hardwicke first movie. That opened to the tune of US$69.6mil over a pre-Thanksgiving weekend and almost immediately marked the dawn of a new hit literary-based franchise.

But even the most optimistic couldn't have known that its sequel "New Moon" would open to US$142.8mil last Nov, shattering records for the highest opening day gross and charting the third highest-grossing opening weekend behind only "The Dark Knight" and "Spiderman 3". This summer, prognosticators are under no illusion how hefty "Eclipse's" bite out of the box office will be, with many predicting that it would almost certainly break its predecessor's own record.

Never has the vampire film genre seen such an immense interest- and mind you, it has been around for almost a century and seen over a hundred films. Of course, few vampires in the past can claim to be as romantic or "impossibly beautiful" as Edward Cullen, the pale, ice-cold protagonist of the Twilight series whose skin sparkles in the sunlight. As fans eagerly await the return of Edward and the rest of the Cullens, we take a look at the celluloid vampires over the past century to see how their screen incarnations have evolved.

The Traditional Vampire- Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Ironically, one of the first films that marked the birth of Dracula on film was the German expressionist horror film, Nosferatu (1922). Starring Max Schreck as the vampire Count Orlok, the film was in essence an unauthorised adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula because the filmmakers couldn’t obtain the rights to the novel. All copies of the film were ordered to be destroyed after the Stoker estate successfully sued the makers, but its notoriety did inspire subsequent portrayals of vampires.

The classic film treatment of Dracula was the Universal film in 1931, directed by Tod Browning and starring stage actor Bela Lugosi. Despite stodgy scenes and wooden acting, the film quickly became a huge box office sensation, fuelled by reports that audiences had fainted in shock at the horror onscreen. Lugosi portrayed Dracula as a walking, talking corpse who spoke slowly but deliberately, and the Hungarian actor’s mesmerising performance is widely regarded as the definitive Dracula. Although the success of Dracula spawned two sequels- Dracula’s Daughter (1936) and Son of Dracula (1943)- Lugosi did not participate in either.

Dracula was reincarnated for a new generation in the much-lauded Hammer Horror film starring Christopher Lee as the Count. Retitled “Horror of Dracula” (1958) to avoid confusion with the earlier 1931 Universal classic, it was the start of a lucrative franchise that spanned eight films in total, with Christopher Lee starring in all but two of the sequels. With his towering lanky frame and deep baritone, Lee’s portrayal of Dracula was equally iconic- though his version of the Count was less laconic than Lugosi’s.

Subsequent sequels were however accused of diluting the essence of the character- and it wasn’t until the John Badham remake in 1979 starring Frank Langella that Dracula regained his fangs. But the most successful film to feature the Count came in 1992 when Francis Ford Coppola returned to the roots of the Bram Stoker book and cast Gary Oldman as the titular character- Dracula (1992) was both a critical and commercial hit.

The Urban Vampire

The 1970s introduced audiences to the modern-day vampire- no longer exotic and aristocratic intruders from the land of Transylvania, they were now living and breathing creatures within our midst. Some of the earlier films of this mould was the Italian horror The Last Man on Earth (1964) starring Vincent Price and the British film The Omega Man (1971) starring Charlton Heston- both of which were based upon the Richard Matheson novel I Am Legend (which was most recently adapted in 2007 by director Francis Lawrence starring Will Smith).

Horror maestro George A. Romero took a crack at the urban vampire sub-genre with his cult favourite Martin (1977), successfully reinventing the conventions of traditional Dracula vampire movies for a modern setting. The popularity of this sub-genre was sealed with the television miniseries, Salem’s Lot (1979), Tobe Hooper’s adaptation of the popular Stephen King novel about a small American town that slowly becomes infested with vampires. Extremely popular when it aired, the series was an unexpected critical hit and has since gained cult status. Audiences continued to lap up similar horror offerings such as Fright Night (1985) and its sequel Fright Night 2 (1989).

"Vampire Evolution: From Dracula To Twilight" continues...

Twilight (2008)


Nosferatu (1922)


Horror Of Dracula (1958)


Dracula (1992)


I Am Legend (2007)


Fright Night (1985)


Salem's Lot (1979)