Vampires have been a fixture of film since Bela Lugosi brought Bram Stoker's Dracula to life on the big screen in 1931. Over the decades the genre has been far from static, as vampire narratives changed and evolved with the appetites of their viewing public. First depicted as formally dressed villains, vampires would later be portrayed as supernatural beings with some human characteristics, and still later as sympathetic figures. Focusing on 19 representative films and television productions, this critical study tracks the evolutionary changes of the screen vampire. It explores the factors that cause a genre to change and examines the alternating cycles of audience expectation. The author identifies three distinct modes of depiction: the Malignant Cycle (1931-1948), comprised primarily of the Universal films; the Erotic Cycle (1957-1985), which encompasses Hammer films and popular television shows such as Dark Shadows; and the Sympathetic Cycle (1987-present) including recent offerings such as The Lost Boys, Interview with the Vampire and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Each film is evaluated in seven key areas including the act of the vampire biting the victim; process of the victim's infection; physical appearance and demeanor of the vampire and the vampire expert; and the eventual destruction of the vampire. Appendices include a complete filmography of the films examined. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Vampires have been a fixture of film since Bela Lugosi brought Bram Stoker's Dracula to life on the big screen in 1931. Over the decades the genre has been far from static, as vampire narratives changed and evolved with the appetites of their viewing public. First depicted as formally dressed villains, vampires would later be portrayed as supernatural beings with some human characteristics, and still later as sympathetic figures. Focusing on 19 representative films and television productions, this critical study tracks the evolutionary changes of the screen vampire. It explores the factors that cause a genre to change and examines the alternating cycles of audience expectation. The author identifies three distinct modes of depiction: the Malignant Cycle (1931-1948), comprised primarily of the Universal films; the Erotic Cycle (1957-1985), which encompasses Hammer films and popular television shows such as Dark Shadows; and the Sympathetic Cycle (1987-present) including recent offerings such as The Lost Boys, Interview with the Vampire and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Each film is evaluated in seven key areas including the act of the vampire biting the victim; process of the victim's infection; physical appearance and demeanor of the vampire and the vampire expert; and the eventual destruction of the vampire. Appendices include a complete filmography of the films examined. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

This comprehensive bibliography covers writings about vampires and related creatures from the 19th century to the present. More than 6,000 entries document the vampire's penetration of Western culture, from scholarly discourse, to popular culture, politics and cook books. Sections by topic list works covering various aspects, including general sources, folklore and history, vampires in literature, music and art, metaphorical vampires and the contemporary vampire community. Vampires from film and television--from Bela Lugosi's Dracula to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood and the Twilight Saga--are well represented.

Traces the history of vampires in movies and television.

Famous for being deathly serious, the vampire genre has a consistent yet often critically overlooked subgenre--the comedic spoof and satire. This is the first book dedicated entirely to documenting and analyzing the vampire comedy on film and television. Various types of comedy are discussed, outlining the important differences between spoofing, serious-spoofing, parody and satire. Seminal films such as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Love at First Bite, Vampire in Brooklyn, Dracula: Dead and Loving It and What We Do In the Shadows are featured. More importantly, this book demonstrates how comedy is central to both the common perception of the vampire and the genre's ever-evolving character, making it an essential read for those interested in the laughing undead and creatures that guffaw in the night.

From 18th Century poetry up to modern 3D cinema, the vampire has developed a genre in its own right. Leaving behind its roots in phantasmagoria and horror, taking in romance, action and adventure, as well as flights of science fiction fantasy and political allegory. The vampire is a part of all these fields of artistry and beyond them, a melting pot of imagination and invention that has captivated audiences around the world. In the first part of this volume, Andrew M. Boylan - author of the famous vampire blog Taliesin Meets the Vampires, looks at the genesis of the vampire genre from Ossenfelder's poem Der Vampir to Bram Stoker's seminal novel Dracula. The second part of the book spreads eclectically out from Dracula, just as the genre spread, taking in some famous kissing cousins of the genre as well as looking at the vampire's changing relationship with the divine and following the toothsome bloodsuckers out into space.

Since the 1990s, the screening of sex on American, British and Asian television screens has become increasingly prolific. Considering not only the specificities of selected sexualised images in relation to popular series, this study also concerns itself with the ramifications of TV sex as well as discussing the various techniques that are used by TV producers/programme makers to establish the cultural worth of their texts in series such as Shameless, The Tudors and True Blood. The contributions draw attention to shifting representations of sex on television away from the authoritarian state and patriarchal order, toward a more democratic form of representation. As a significant and under-represented aspect of contemporary television studies, this is the first full-length academic collection to consider the wide-ranging representations of sex in society on contemporary television.

Vampires are arguably the most popular and most paradoxical of gothic monsters: life draining yet passionate, feared yet fascinating, dead yet immortal. Vampire content produces exquisitely suspenseful stories that, combined with motion picture filmmaking, reveal much about the cultures that enable vampire film production and the audiences they attract. This collection of essays is generously illustrated and ranges across sixteen cultures on five continents, including the films Let the Right One In, What We Do in the Shadows, Cronos, and We Are the Night, among many others. Distinctly different kinds of European vampires have originated in Ireland, Germany, Sweden, and Serbia. North American vampires are represented by films from Mexico, Canada, and the USA. Middle Eastern locations include Tangier, Morocco, and a fictional city in Iran. South Asia has produced Bollywood vampire films, and east Asian vampires are represented by films from Korea, China, and Japan. Some of the most recent vampire movies have come from Australia and New Zealand. These essays also look at vampire films through lenses of gender, post-colonialism, camp, and otherness as well as the evolution of the vampiric character in cinema worldwide, together constituting a mosaic of the cinematic undead.

An exhaustive work covering the full range of topics relating to vampires, including literature, film and television, and folklore. Encyclopedia of the Vampire: The Living Dead in Myth, Legend, and Popular Culture is a comprehensive encyclopedia relating to all phases of vampirism—in literature, film, and television; in folklore; and in world culture. Although previous encyclopedias have attempted to chart this terrain, no prior work contains the depth of information, the breadth of scope, and the up-to-date coverage of this volume. With contributions from many leading critics of horror and supernatural literature and media, the encyclopedia offers entries on leading authors of vampire literature (Bram Stoker, Anne Rice, Stephenie Meyer), on important individual literary works (Dracula and Interview with the Vampire), on celebrated vampire films (the many different adaptations of Dracula, the Twilight series, Love at First Bite), and on television shows (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel). It also covers other significant topics pertaining to vampires, such as vampires in world folklore, humorous vampire films, and vampire lifestyle.

In this new monograph, author Debra Dudek defines a new era of vampire texts in which vampires have moved from their iconic dark, feared, often seductive figure lingering in alleys, to the beloved and morally sensitive vampire winning the affections of teen protagonists throughout pop culture. Dudek takes a close look at three hugely-popular vampire series for young adults, drawing parallels between the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Twilight Saga novels/films, and The Vampire Diaries TV series/book series. By defining a new era of vampire texts and situating these three series within this transition, The Beloved Does Not Bite signals their significance and lays the groundwork for future scholarship on the flourishing genre of paranormal romances for young adults.