Vampire Dance

"It's just another night at the Vampire Club."

—Voltaire, "Vampire Club"

Vampires apparently love to dance (after all, The Dead Can Dance), which is why so many shows that feature the blood-sucking fiends also feature a big dance floor, often ones they own. Often, the dance floor is lined with mirrors, just so the vampire's innocent, unaware dance partner can twig to the fact that there's a reason the guy she's dancing with is so pale.

Sometimes Played for Laughs. Most of the time, though, its Paranoia Fuel. A Sub-Trope of The Dead Can Dance.

Examples of Vampire Dance include:

Film

• Roman Polanski's The Fearless Vampire Killers used the dance floor mirror gag.
  • As does Dance of the Vampires (Tanz der Vampire), the musical adaptation (done live with character doubles).
• Van Helsing features a fancy dress party. The dance hall is lined with mirrors, making it obvious to the female lead that she's basically the only one there with a pulse.
• Once Bitten features a dance off between the hero's girlfriend and the vampire. Winner gets the hero.
• In Fright Night, vampire Jerry Dandridge manages to hypnotize and make off with Amy Peterson while dancing with her at a nightclub, despite her being able to see (or rather not see) that Dandridge has no reflection.
• Love at First Bite has Count Dracula meeting his would-be bride at a disco.
• Blade opens with the vampires holding a rave in a meat-packing plant, complete with blood spraying from the fire sprinklers and victims lured in (presumably to be fed on).
• Dracula: Dead and Loving It has a really funny dance sequence with a tango, a waltz, a ceiling length mirror, the works! Of course, the dance was set up by the vampire hunters as a way to reveal Dracula's true nature.
• One of the first serious examples of the trope on film was 1983's The Hunger. The opening sequence is set at a rock club where the vampire couple Miriam and John Blaylock, disguised as merely chic clubgoers, observe the revelers on the dance floor and pick out a young couple from amongst them. They proceed to take them to a similarly stylish house to move in for the kill...and since these vampires are different and sexy, the victims have no clue of their true natures until it's far too late. (As these vampires must feed weekly, it's implied that this sequence of events is routine for them.)

Literature

• There was a formal vampire ball in one of The Dresden Files books. But in that case, it was already known the ball was being run by vampires.
• The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries also have a formal ball in which there is dancing.
• Jack Fleming of The Vampire Files doesn't dance, but he owns a dance club. His girlfriend Bobbi is a professional singer who dances in many of her acts, so will presumably become an example if and when she's turned.

Live-Action TV

• In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the vampires often hunted at the Bronze, despite the fact that they knew the Slayer liked to hang out at that night club.
  • Angel, however, cannot dance. At least, you do not want to watch.
• In The Vampire Diaries, Damon Salvatore loves to dance. No, not seductive cooler than thou dancing. 1800's formal dancing, goofy swing dancing, shirtless dancing around the house while drunk to drown his sorrows dancing... Stefan has even commented upon it. Boy just loves to dance. YMMV on whether it is being played for laughs or not.
  • The town's obsession with theme events also leads to a lot of dances, and at least a couple vampires generally attend. It's a rare Mystic Falls event that ends without a body count.
• In True Blood, Fangtasia is a vampire-run nightclub.
• Inverted in the British series Ultraviolet. The protagonist nearly shoots his unrequited Love Interest in a nightclub because he's convinced she's been turned into a vampire. It's only when she flees down a mirrored corridor that he realises he's made a mistake.
• Forever Knight. When LaCroix takes over vampire-hangout and gothic nightclub "The Raven" he decides to give it a more human look with a dose of Large Ham and blatant Fan Service.

LaCroix It's time to peel away the layers and reveal our inner selves. Yes, it's Amateur Night at the Raven, and tonight our amateurs will reveal their inner selves by GETTING NAKED!

Video Games

• One is featured in Sam and Max Freelance Police: Night Of The Raving Dead, though there's only one vampire there.
• This trope is probably the reason why vampires were included in The Sims 2 Nightlife Expansion Pack. The pre-made Downtown subhood includes a vampire-themed nightclub, of course.
  • The Sims 3 also introduced vampires in the Late Night expansion pack.
• You can dance at most of the clubs in Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines. Keeping it going long enough causes most of the other dancers to join in and prop up your Karma Meter.
• True Crime: New York City has a mission where Detective Marcus must enter a "vampyre" Club, complete with smoke machine and fetish attire. granted you barely get to see any dancing and they are not "real vampires" (goths, and wannabes mostly) but it looks like something out of the first Blade movie. Once Marcus upsets the girl he's there to resque, the ringleader of the club promis to show Marcus "How Vampyrer fight!"