Top 5 Vampire Kills – Memorable vampire deaths in film

Top 5 Vampire Kills in film

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I think it’s safe to do a vampire post without attracting the attention of a bunch of fan girls swooning over team Edward. It’s quite possible that we can even see some vampire stories showing up in books and film again. No?

The subject for today’s post…Vampire Deaths

No bursting into digital flames and flaking glowing embers, here.  You kill a creature that sucks the blood from its victims and there’s no blood when it dies? Give me a break! Those sparkly glowing embers are just a cop out – a way to PG everything. This powerful demon of the night, that has perhaps lived for eons, gets cornered and all of a sudden ‘poof’ it’s gone. Sorry, but that seems lame to me. Ever since those CGI flame-outs became easy to master on film, there are barely any bloody vampire deaths anymore. A good vampire death has to include blood, guts, and gore; and take longer than a split- second. We are looking for gruesome vampire deaths here. If you have some in mind that I may have missed, please add them to the comments and I’ll find some photos to add to Honorable mentions.

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First, let’s take a look at the tools of the trade: If you’re going to kill a vampire, it would be best to have an easy-to-carry kit with the best weapons against the night creatures.

 

Items should include: a Mirror (for detection), Holy water, Garlic, a Crucifix, a large knife for decapitation, and a Wooden Stake and Mallet to drive through the vampire’s heart.

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1) Fright Night 1985 – Jerry Dandridge vs Peter Vincent

The battle between vampire, Jerry Dandridge and Vampire Hunter, Peter Vincent is one of the iconic monster vs human battles in film. It lasts about 25 minutes starting with Vincent’s initial attack where he draws his crucifix upon the steps in the Dandridge home and hits Dandridge with sunlight through the stained glass window. During the battle Dandridge turns into a large vampire bat, calls on his underlings to do battle, is staked inefficiently in the heart and finally goes up in flames (real fire) in the final death as sunlight is flooded into the room.

 

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2) Interview With a Vampire

Louis with a scythe dices and slices his way through his fellow vampires. Blood splatters everywhere!

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3) Bram Stoker’s Dracula – Lucy’s un-Death

A brutal stake through the heart and decapitation at the hands of Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins). This was one violent and bloody vampire death made all the more pronounced because Lucy was wearing white.

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4) Dracula Has Risen From the Grave

Christopher Lee – Impaled by a giant golden cross, it takes him several minutes to die as he struggles to dislodge the massive weapon.

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5) Dracula – Andy Warhol’s Dracula

Hack attack – the young farm hand having discovered Dracula’s identity hacks off his limbs, one by one, as Dracula runs for shelter. Arms flying, blood gushing, legs severed…it’s a scene man! (very comical)

 

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Honorable mentions:

a) The Lost Boys

The garlic and Holy water bath – glub, glub…

b) From Dusk ‘til Dawn

the table-leg foursome stake. Can’t find a traditional stake? Just turn over a wooden table. A body slam, a blood splash, a little wiggling, and behold, the vampire dies. Repeat 3 more times.

c) Dracula 1972 AD – Christopher Lee

Impaled with a broken stage coach wheel at the very beginning of the film. Hammer sure knew how to grab your attention in gory fashion.

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Gallery of gruesome vampire deaths!

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Did I miss something? Give me your top choice(s) and I’ll add them to the list and include a link to your blog…

Parlor of Horror’s “best of…” and Top 10 lists

World War Z (2013) – movie review

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World War Z (2013)

Let me just state for the record, I am not a movie critic, I am a movie fan. As long as I don’t feel like I’m being duped, I will usually like something about most of the movies I watch. I can watch high-level, upper-echelon and Academy Award nominated horror films like, The Sixth Sense and enjoy it. I can watch a low B-horror flick like, C.H.U.D. and enjoy it. It doesn’t take much; if a director makes a good honest effort, offers some concepts and ideas I have not seen, has some decent character development and natural feeling dialogue, I will go for the ride and accept it. Now on to the review of World War Z.
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This is not a traditional zombie film. It deals with the much bigger picture of a world-wide outbreak and how the actions of one man can bring about a survival mechanism. It does not have the gore that accompanies most walking dead films. That would often bother me as a horror fan, but for this film it does not. What new effects gag could they even apply that we haven’t seen already?

The film jumps right into the action and is fast-paced, but we also get excellent character development within the context of that action.

Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) is ex-military personnel and United Nations Specialist who resigned for the sake of his wife and young children. They get stuck in Philadelphia cross-town traffic but it soon becomes clear that this is no ordinary traffic jam. They are instantly on the run as the city falls into chaos and the dead rise to kill. Gerry makes contact with an associate, the acting US Secretary of State, hoping to be rescued from the melee. The family makes their way to Newark, looking for a place that hasn’t been overrun and to collect some basic necessities, just as the citizens begin to turn. There are some tense moments in the apartment building as they find their way to the roof for the helicopter pick up.

The Secretary of State convinces Gerry to go on a mission with a young scientist and a military team, in order to hunt down the origin of the outbreak, and to identify and develop a vaccine. From there, it’s an action-filled, thriller-style; jump from city to city, as the world crumbles around the team. Clues are picked up along the way and the final answer lies in a lab of the World Health Organization. However the lab is overrun with zombies, to make for some creepy, close-quarters suspense in the final scenes of the film.

In the right hands, CGI is not an eyesore but enhances big scenes that could not have been shown otherwise. When the zombies climb upon each other to the top of the wall, we know it is CG, but it looked real enough to me, not like cheap CG layered on top of a film image. Gerry Lane does not become the unstoppable Zombie-slayer as would be predictable in a film like this. He is a different kind of hero, one that relies on his intelligence and intellect over the mindless hordes attacking the human race. This aspect is not going to be agreeable to everyone that has come to expect certain things from a zombie film.

Bottom line is, I went into this film expecting a big summer blockbuster style movie and that is exactly what I got. It was exciting, fast-paced, filled with action, well-written and well-acted. I was not expecting a big screen version of ‘The Walking Dead’ or a full-on gory, ‘Dawn of the Dead’ style zombie flick. Summer blockbusters are meant to be visual roller-coaster rides of excitement and that is exactly what I got. It will never be on my list for favorite zombie movies, but it was well worth my $12!

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I just wanted to add, having a Zombie subject film as a huge summer blockbuster may be the tipping point in the recent zombie culture popularity. Has the iconic Zombie reached its pinnacle?

Guy on the right – must have for zombie apocalypse – lots of Budweiser!

related article: The History of Zombies in Film
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