A Fistful of Vampires that Don’t Sparkle! (Matt’s Picks)

If this is attractive, blindness may be the only sanity.

    OK, so, in spite of being a technologically advanced civilization, with our fingers starting to stretch out into the cosmos, and in spite of women having the right to vote and having made great strides in terms of equality, and in spite of the idea that good taste should still count for something, the new abomination in the series of Biblical plagues called the Twilight Saga has arrived, with all its made-for-TV (UPN from the looks of it) glory.  I make no secret that I’m not much for vampires.  I think they’re WAAAAAAAY past played out as a concept and the idea of vampires as romantic figures is laughably stupid (They’re dead!  Think about what that means in terms of romance and physical affection.  Seriously, think about it for like two minutes and it should cure you of finding them romantic).  But, in spite of that, there has been the occasional cool vampire or vampire movie.  Recently, I was happy to see vampires portrayed as they should be, as monsters, in Priest, Stake Land, and 30 Days of Night, for example.  Sure, neither is a particularly good film, but…  Anyway.  Here’s my list of some of my favorite vampires.  And these beasts don’t sparkle, because that’s f’ing stupid.  What, is the author like a twelve year old girl or something?  Holy crap.  I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. 

5.  The M-113 Creature (Star Trek):  As a kid, the image of this thing shown during the end credits of Star Trek episodes always freaked me out.  A shape shifting monster that needs our salts.  Is it the last member of a collapsed civilization, or perhaps the reason for the collapse?

4.  Jerry Dandrige (Fright Night):  He’s suave, sophisticated, and just wants to have the occasional nubile young lady over for some good old wholesome…well, bloody murder.  So stop looking in his windows and being such a nosey neighbor.

3.  Nosferatu (Nosferatu):  So, they couldn’t get the rights to make an official adaptation of Dracula.  But, you know what?  They made one seriously terrifying and iconic creature anyway.  Max Schreck’s Graf Orlok is simply horrifying.  And as he lurks about, he embodies the dangerous stranger we’ve all learned to fear.

Oh, I've got your romance right here, lady.

2.  Prince Mamuwalde (Blacula):  Though the movie itself is pretty disappointing, William Marshall’s  performance in Blacula is typically classy.  Mamuwalde is a fairly sympathetic character, more possessed by evil than evil.  And Marshall is up to the challenge of making that work.  Though, the writers were not.

1.  The Space Girl (Lifeforce):  Oh, come on.  Of course I had to choose her.  It would be like a ‘best werewolf’ list that didn’t feature An American Werewolf in London.  She’s beautiful, deadly (but not dead!), and she’s been inside Patrick Stewart.  If it wasn’t for the whole ‘destroyer of worlds’ thing, she might just be the perfect woman.  Well, her true form is a giant bat looking thing, and she spends a lot of time sleeping in a crystal case floating in a phallic spaceship following a comet.  But come one.  Like you haven’t dated worse.

-Matt