Our Vampires Are Different/Film

• George A. Romero's movie Martin features a main character who so grossly avoids every major Vampire-related trope, that there is some debate whether he actually is a vampire, or just a very disturbed boy. Specifically: he occasionally drinks blood but he admits that it's not necessary in order to keep him alive, he can go outside during the day with no ill consequences, and he has has no apparent supernatural abilities (except that he claims to be several hundred years old).
• In Lifeforce, a.k.a. The Naked Space Vampire Movie, there is a naked vampire from outer space who sucks out people's lifeforce (duh). Humans killed in that way rise as lifeforce-sucking vampires themselves, but they're still not from outer space if they weren't before, and they're only naked underneath their clothes.
  • Plus they can be killed by a lead spike through the "energy centre" two inches below the heart.
• In Blade, the title character is the son of a woman who was bitten by a vampire and went into labour. He's inhumanly strong, fast, and tough; he can stand sunlight, silver, and garlic; and he craves blood (which he avoids by using a serum, though at least once per film he drank blood and got "supercharged"). The vampires fear him because he hunts them down; in the second film, they want him so they can figure out his immunities and create vampires with them.
  • The vampires themselves are the result of a biological retrovirus that alters the body of someone who has been infected. They are incapable of producing hemoglobin on their own and therefore drink blood to obtain it as well as fueling their enhanced strength and relfexes. They have certain weaknesses, and are resistant to injury from anything that doesn't involve their weaknesses (i.e. gunfire at best causes pain but doesn't cause serious injury). On the other hand, they are extremely vulnerable to their weaknesses.
  • To summarize their weaknesses: sunlight (UV light) burns them, silver burns them to the point that a nonlethal injury with silver can potentially kill them, garlic makes them go into anaphylactic shock, anticoagulant makes their blood explode, and being staked through the heart or beheaded will dust them. Blade himself is also strong enough that he can kill some of them with his bare hands.
  • Also for most vampires a simple bite will transform the victim into another vampire, however it is also just as common for them to kill the victim and then drink the blood. If the victim is not allowed to feed for some time after completing the transformation they will degenerate into a ghoulish and zombie-like creature. Vampires will, on occasion, drink the blood of other vampires, but since it doesn't provide them with the hemoglobin they need it's more of a sexual act.
  • In Blade II, a new breed of vampire referred to as the "Reaper" strain appears, which is resistant to silver, anti-coagulants and garlic, have a bone layer that prevents staking in the heart directly (a stake has to go through the armpit to reach the heart), and is only vulnerable to UV light. However, they have an insatiable desire for blood, both for regular vampires and mortals. At the climax of the movie, it is revealed the Reapers were created by the vampires in an effort to develop a new strain that had none of their traditional weaknesses, but got way out of hand.
  • In Blade III we get the progenitor Drake who has no bones which gives him shapeshifting abilities but appears to be inspired by Bulgarian myths which had vampires able to squeeze into places Eugene Tooms-like.
• The Little Vampire based on a children's story has vampires that drink the blood of cattle like vampire bats do in real life.
• 1983's The Hunger, another film that avoids the V-word, has Miriam (Catherine Deneuve), whose memories stretch back to ancient Egypt. She slashes her victims' throats with a blade hidden in an ankh pendant to feed once a week. A human turned by her via an exchange of blood -- in essence, an infection in which her blood strain overtakes theirs -- will become her immortal lover and feed the same way. No traditional weaknesses are brought into play, but the catch is that while she has eternal youth and beauty, her lovers are doomed to decay after about 300 years. As the film opens this fate is besetting her current lover John (David Bowie). In just a few hours he horribly ages, and with nothing left to be done for him, she places him in a coffin that she sets alongside those of her past lovers. They're all still alive...
• Dracula II: Ascension (sequel to Dracula 2000) not only features a rare on-screen portrayal of vampire OCD but a subversion. Specifically, the protagonist tries to slow down Dracula by bursting a bag of mustard seeds in his general direction. Unfortunately, this version of Dracula is a bullet-timer and counts them all in mid-air. Could be considered Nightmare Fuel too.
  • He also tries to use a series of knots to slow him down. Dracula unties them all in a single motion.
• In Thirst, vampire blood can heal your infirmities and illnesses, but only so long as you're full of it. Vampires don't grow fangs, but they can still suck blood from bite wounds. They're super-strong and almost totally immune to damage, but do have the typical weakness to sunlight. Sang-hyun also briefly flies.
• Near Dark featured Adrian Pasdar as one of a band of vampires who feed on blood, catch fire in direct sunlight, and can be cured with a blood transfusion.
• Vampires in The Lost Boys are vulnerable to holy water, and have variable amount of vulnerability to sunlight. Some of them venture into the daylight wearing sunglasses, but sunlight causes Kiefer Sutherland's hand to burst into flames. Humans turned into vampires by drinking the blood of another vampire don't become fully vampiric until after feeding on a human. The curse can be reversed before this happens if the head vampire is killed. Anything that can be used to destroy the heart of a vampire will kill it, and leave a mess. Vamps don't need an invitation to enter a home, but if you do invite one it, you'll be unable to exploit any of its weaknesses to expose its true nature. In addition to such superpowers as strength and flight, vampires can make people percieve Chinese food as being made of worms and maggots.
• Once Bitten has a female vampire that requires the blood of a virgin to look beautiful/stay young. This one bites her victims on the inner thigh, not the neck.
• The movie Fright Night also played with this trope.
  • As does the remake. Vampires can definately be killed by sunlight and a stake to the heart. Fire hurts like hell, and persumerly will kill them. Beheading might work, but unlike most vampires, cutting off their head is just as diffecult as it would a normal person (i.e. bone is hard to cut through). Vampires are hurt by holy water, but not silver. Crosses hurt, but appear to be overcome easily. They can't shapeshift, which is different from the original. Plus there is a special stake blessed by St. Michael that cures all the vampires created by a vampire killed by it.
• In Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, vampires can go out into the sunlight if they receive skin grafts from lesbians. No, really.
  • Not all lesbians, just ones who never had penetrative sex and are thus, still virgins.
• The movie Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter (1974) introduced the idea of there being a variety of breeds of vampire, with each one having unique weaknesses. So the first step to ridding an area of an infestation is to capture a vampire and experiment on it until you discover how it dies. (Which, if viewed by a passing local, might be misunderstood and get a pitchfork-and-torch-carrying mob to convene ...)
  • The vampires in question fed on youth instead of blood and were only killable by steel.
• In Nightlife, a made for television movie from 1989, vampires are allergic to UV light rather than sunlight per se, and feed on adrenaline rather than blood. The last is played up in the plot. The lead female vampire wants to leave the killing behind and takes up with a doctor so she can have access to donated blood, but blood isn't (normally) donated fearfully, so it lacked the adrenaline she needed, causing her to starve on a full stomach. Only when an older vampire starts to gleefully rant about hunting and how blood tastes better when it is "full of fear", does the doctor realize the missing ingredient. Vampires are created by drinking from a victim without killing him, which causes him to slowly transform into a vampire. Vampires in this world are explicitly not undead, just people suffering from a virus.
• In John Carpenters Vampires, vampires have most of the usual weaknesses, except for cross, however the original vampire, Jan Valek, is immune to silver bullets and garlic. In fact, the only thing that can harm him is the original cross from which he was crucified. His vampire minions can see through his eyes, and he's strong enough to decapitate a man with his bare hands.
  • Valek is still vulnerable to sunlight. Indeed, the plot of the movie revolves around him attempting to retrieve his cross in order to gain that immunity.
• In the Swedish film Let the Right One In, the vampire girl Eli appears 12 but is quite old. She is very light and waifish, but has incredible strength, speed, and agility. She is immune to extremely cold temperatures and can walk barefoot in the snow without discomfort. Victims she bites begin to turn into vampires within about a day unless she kills them. Cats are particularly hostile to her kind. Sunlight will burn her, and she must receive spoken permission to enter someone else's home or else she will begin to rapidly hemorrhage.
  • She also seems to suffer ill-effects from eating normal food, a trait also featured in Near Dark, IIRC...
• Shadow of the Vampire has an interesting take on the shadow-film-reflection triad. Vampires don't reflect, but they do cast shadows (as per the original Nosferatu) -- and, of course, they can be caught on camera. The title may (as well as being a quote from Nosferatu) constitute Lampshade Hanging.
• In the Underworld series, vampires are the result of one of the sons of the first immortal having been bitten by a bat, which somehow caused the immortality virus in him to mutate into a vampiric one. Vampires have great strength and speed, as well as hightened senses. They need blood to survive and will actually die if they ingest normal food. It is interesting to note that one of the vampire's leaders, the Elder Viktor, has passed a law that vampires are forbidden from drinking human blood (a rule which he himself routinely violated) to avoid antagonizing mortals. The vampires' only weakness is sunlight (specifically, UV rays), which have been weaponized by their enemies, the lycans (it is revealed in the second film that the UV rounds were designed by an exiled vampire historian in exchange for a comfortable life and protection). All immortals have an interesting trait that allows them to experience memories transferred by blood. A vampire's (or lycan's) bite transfers the virus into the victim's bloodstream. Best-case scenario is the human turning into a vampire. Worst-case (happens most of the time) is the human dies an agonizing death within minutes of being bitten (the virus did evolve from a deadly plague). Vampires are not considered to be undead, as they are able to have children, even with lycans (although this is expressly forbidden by vampire law, so just guess what happens...).
• Santi, the teenaged protagonist of the Spanish film Shiver, has elongated canine teeth, a severe allergic reaction to sunlight and a tendency to view himself as a monster, though he never actually claims to be a vampire. He has no supernatural powers, and his condition causes him no small amount of trouble when he moves to a small town in the countryside and people start turning up with their throats ripped out and their blood drained.
• In the movie version of 30 Days of Night, the vampires, though still snappy dressers, have pale skin, completely black eyes, sharp fingernails, and shark-like teeth. They tear their victims' throats out to drink blood, and they behead them so they don't turn (they don't want the competition for food). The vampires are also vulnerable to UV rays (a UV lamp does considerable damage to one), and beheading is also an effective way to kill them. Though they can speak, most just hiss and shriek. These vampires are very clever and vicious, and are essentially walking sharks.
• Vampires in the movie Daybreakers are pale, have yellow eyes and fangs, no reflections, and a tendency to burst into flame in direct sunlight. They're also the dominant race on earth, and have hunted down humans to the point that they're literally an endangered species. This is generally not a good thing, especially given that blood-deprived vampires gradually mutate into mindless bat-monsters, and vampire blood only serves to hasten the change. Unfortunately, the fact that anyone bitten and not killed will become a vampire no doubt made it hard to avoid before society's infrastructure was remodeled. Vampires can be restored to humanity by controlled exposure to sunlight--and by drinking the blood of a former vampire.
• Vampires in the Lucy Liu film Rise: Blood Hunter are almost indistinguishable from humans physically--they don't even have fangs, which makes feeding very messy. (They tend to slash throats with a blade if possible, but at one point Sadie has to chew through a victim's skin.) Their biological functions are less than clear--one minion of a vampire tries to suffocate Sadie with a plastic bag, and seems to be succeeding. (Also you'd think he'd know better if it didn't work.) However, getting shot has little effect except pain, and Sadie survives a fall from a bridge into traffic, though she's beaten up very badly. Vampires have a powerful sense of smell, and seem to be a little stronger and faster than humans, but not very much so; they can't break handcuffs, and it takes several blows to break a locked door. They die from crossbow bolts (presumably wooden) to the heart except Sadie, who survives one.
• Vampires in the movie From Dusk till Dawn are an interesting case. They are vulnerable against sunlight and wooden stakes. Religious symbols are also effective (any thing that even remotely looks like a cross will do); a bullet with a cross etched onto the point is lethal. They often explode in a mass of green goo when killed. Vampires can disguise themselves to look human, but they really are monstrous. Appearance-wise, there really isn't a set rule. Some look more human, some look more animal, some are demonic in appearance, and some look like grotesque caricatures of their human forms. They can also turn into bats. They're also explain as being more fragile however, one can literally punch a hole in their chests' and rip their hearts out or decapitate them.
  • Similarly, being turned shares more elements with zombie movies; the biker character slowly changes but tries to hide his condition, while the preacher pretty much tells everyone else he's already dead, but he will help them until he changes completely, at which point they should just kill him.
• In Modern Vampires, humans are turned into vampires via STD rather than biting.
  • Also done metaphorically in Habit.
• The all-sign language movie Deafula features a deaf version of Dracula. Seriously.
• In Jesus Franco's Les Avaleuses/Female Vampire, Countess Irina sucks her victims' lifeforce out through their sexual organs at the moment of ecstasy. No, it's not a porn film. Per se. And it really sucks to be her, because she has trouble maintaining a relationship.
• In Rockula, vampires are immune to crosses and garlic (much to the consternation of Stanley, who's trying to prove his romantic rival Ralph is one). If Ralph and his mom are typical appearance-wise, they're indistinguishable from humans aside from tell-tale fangs (which no one seems to notice). Daylight is a problem, but due to Rule of Funny it turns out it's easily circumvented with sun block. Not only does Ralph have a reflection, but it talks back to him, although it's unclear if that's supposed to be true of all vampires. Also, when he tries to turn into a bat he becomes a chubby, toddler-sized bat/human hybrid, but the implication seems to be that he's supposed to be able to fully turn into a bat and he's just not very good at it.
• Lair of the White Worm has vampires as Snake People. The usual weakness toward Christian crosses is also averted. Oh, and they function in daylight without having to sparkle. The book of which it is based might present the same ideas.
• The After Dark Original Prowl (Originally titled Strays) has vampires that are born, which kills the mother, or the child dies before it's born. They pass for human for the most part until a moment of great stress or danger makes their abilities awaken. Also, the special features indicate they are evolved from some type of nocturnal predatory bird.
• Wild World of Batwoman, in the dubiously tacked-on prologue ostensibly justifying the movie's alternate title of She Was a Hippy Vampire, gives the ridiculous explanation that the Bat Girls are "vampires, all right, but only in the synthetic sense."
• In the film version of Priest, vampires are a separate species from humanity, eyeless bat-like creatures that also have insect attributes (in that they have hives and queens). They also have Familiars, humans who have been infected with vampire blood and end up looking a bit like Orlock, and are still able to go out in the sunlight, but aren't otherwise any different than regular humans. That's the closest humans ever come to being vampires themselves until Black Hat is turned by the blood of the Vampire Queen herself. He remains immune to sunlight, but gains the vampires' immense strength.
• In Guillermo del Toro's Cronos, the lead character is turned into a vampire of sorts after being 'stung' by a mechanical scarab housing an immortal insect inside.
• In the Japanese film Goke Body Snatcher From Hell, people are turned into vampires by alien possession.
• The 1973 Blaxploitation/horror film Ganja & Hess involves an archaeologist (played by Duane Jones, of Night of the Living Dead fame) who develops vampirism after getting stabbed with an ancient sacrificial knife at a dig.
• The Breed had vampires that were essentially a genetic offshoot of humans. They had kept hidden from humans by inventing a synthetic blood substitute. They could go out in the sun but wore glasses because it hurt their eyes. They were affected by silver and fire, but not holy objects or garlic. And not every human in their world could be turned, a number were immune. They did have enhanced strength and senses.