Joey Magidson
The Sunday Scaries are upon us once again! Yes, as the weekend concludes, most of us feel an oncoming sense of anticipatory dread about the week ahead. Anxiety about work manifests itself into a feeling that’s known as the Sunday Scaries. However, we at Awards Radar are here to combat that, by taking back the name. Now, we want you think about a horror-centric piece on the site when you hear the term. So, let us continue on with another installment of the Awards Radar Sunday Scaries! Today, a new release has us again pondering why we don’t get good vampire movies anymore? Read on for more…
The Last Voyage of the Demeter was supposed to be a nasty piece of vampire business that was a cut above. Well, that wasn’t to be, as the movie kind of, well…sucked. The failures of the flick got me thinking about my previous bewilderment that vampires don’t get better horror treatment. I wasn’t even thinking of The Last Voyage of the Demeter at the time, but it’s yet another failure. If I was a vampire, at this point I’d be kind of offended.
My review of the film here includes this bit:
Dracula has seen some real highs and some real lows on the big screen. So, while there was definite potential in adapting just one chapter of the classic Bram Stoker novel Dracula into a film, it also was no sure thing. Alas, The Last Voyage of the Demeter belongs towards the bottom of the pile, offering up nothing interesting at all. There was always a chance that this movie would be bad, but hope sprung eternal that it would at least be fun bad, if so. That’s not the case, however, as it feels like the epitome of an August afterthought release. Frankly, this flick is escaping, more than it’s being released.
Dracula, and vampires on the whole, should be a slam dunk for horror. That another title has bungled it is just very frustrating. What I’m going to share below is my prior Sunday Scaries piece on the topic, which still remains very true to my thoughts.
This is what I wrote about a year ago:
Once upon a time, vampire films were among the mainstays of the horror genre. Classics like Dracula were not only well-regarded, but popular. Slowly but surely, however, that’s been whittled away. The iconic Universal monster and his blood sucking brethren are hardly what they used to be. As someone who has long been fascinated by vampires and find them to be some of the most compelling monsters out there, this has been a bummer for me.
Morbius being so…not good, is just another reminder of how much the idea of a vampire has been wasted of late, especially cinematically. Is this really what we’re meant to expect and accept? Or, can there be something better? One hopes for the latter, whether it’s the upcoming Marvel Studios take on Blade, or more likely, something a bit more creative and edgy.
What are some of the good ones we’ve had recently? Well, super recently, there hasn’t been much. That being said, look at that image above from this very piece and you’ll see some various options from the past twenty years or so. Just to name a few from the picture, there’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Interview with the Vampire, Let the Right One In, Thirst, and What We Do in the Shadows. Throw in other options like Let Me In, Only Lovers Left Alive, and Shadow of the Vampire, for example, and you see what’s possible. It just shouldn’t be quite as rare as it now is.
If Robert Eggers ever makes his version of Nosferatu, that might be our best chance at a great vampire movie. Interestingly, even when we get a good vampire project, it’s rarely scary. To me, that’s mind-boggling. Who knows what Eggers has up his sleeve, but the fact that filmmakers aren’t seeing the horror in them is puzzling.
Now, it’s clear that few seem interested in doing a straight remake, or another basic version of Dracula, but there doesn’t seem to be much of an appetite for vampire fare in general. Did things like True Blood and Twilight just drain us (no pun intended) of the desire? I hope not, but who knows, maybe that’s actually the cast?
Essentially, I just think we’ve been wasting the potential for some truly frightening vampire flicks. I’m curious to know what you all think. Am I on to something here? Could I be missing some good ones? Maybe I’m out of my mind. No matter what you have to say, I’m eager to find out…
Stay tuned for another Sunday Scaries installment next week!
You would think this era of grotesque income inequality overseen by the second-oldest Senate and third-oldest House in American history prioritizing their own short-term pleasures over the health of future generations would be, like, a golden age of vampire movies.
It’s a missed opportunity, no doubt.