Greatest vampires? Not so much.

A couple of week ago (the Aug 7th issue), Entertainment Weekly had a whole spread on vampires and current vampire authors, culminating in one of the typically inane and ill-informed ‘greatest’ lists. As usual when EW tallies up the greatest in anything (movies stars, sci-fi shows, etc.), they mostly reveal that they have no institutional memory past that of a bunch of 30-somethings who never really watched or listened to much of anything older than they were.

As we’ll see, it’s not so much a matter of the entirely predictable yet still retarded tendency to weight the ‘greatest’ of anything to the last couple of decades, but also their horrible rankings.

For instance, the number one greatest vampire ever is…Lestat. OK, Anne Rice for good or ill (put me in the latter camp) redefined vampires, and Lestat is definitely a top fiver. But really, the greatest vampire ever? Notably, they call him “the template for all culturally relevant vampires since.” That shallow emphasis on the here and now as if it were actually important—which, to be fair, is the magazine’s entire reason for being—remains irksome.

Next we get the sops for the traditionalists. Number 2 is Christopher Lee’s Dracula, third is Bela Lugosi’s. I’d flip that, if only because perforce Lee’s Count was in reaction to the Lugosi’s iconic Dracula.

Number four is where we head into insanity, as Edward Cullen, the emo vamp from the Twilight series, gets the nod. Really, EW? The fourth greatest vampire ever?! For the love of Pete.

Things don’t get any better with the number five choice, Bill and Eric from True Blood on HBO. I haven’t seen the show, but again, EW’s tendency to think what they are watching at the moment to represent the ‘greatest’ in history (a word I’m not entirely sure they understand) is ridiculous. By the nature of the beast, the ‘greatests’ of anything are primarily going to come from formative years and then, if whatever particular field had one, a golden age. Things that are the greatest stand the test of time.

Another sop to (comparatively) old times is the number six choice, Asa Vajda, the Barbara Steele character from Black Sunday. OK, good choice.

Number seven is Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Meh, OK.

8 is Mr. Barlow (!) from the 1979 CBS mini-series for Salem’s Lot. So…an explicit knock-off of Max Schreck’s Nosferatu (the screen’s first vampire, as well as its first Dracula) comes in at number eight, while Shrek’s hasn’t appeared yet. Why? Because the people working at EW saw the mini-series when they were kids, and aren’t exactly the types interested in (yuckie!) old stuff, particularly black and white or *gasp* silent movies.

Number nine is Schuyler Van Alen, apparently a character from “Melissa De La Cruz’s Blue Bloods” books, apparently another young adult fiction series. Really? That’s the ninth greatest vampire ever?

Number ten is Gary Oldman’s Dracula. Hey, EW, eat me. Good grief, Langella’s Dracula was better. Or Jack Palance’s. Or Frederick Lederer’s. Or John Carradine’s. Or…. EW mentions the romanticism of the movie’s utterly cliché ‘reincarnated love’ trope, which was trite back in 1932’s The Mummy, and was first used in context of Dracula in Dan Curtis’ telemovie, starring Palance, back in 1973.

By the way, I should note that although there are three literature-based vamps in the top ten, and three screen incarnations of Dracula, that the original Count of Bram Stoker’s novel has yet to get a nod as one of the greatest vampires ever. In fact…he doesn’t ever make the list!!

Number 11 is Klaus Kinski’s Dracula, in the Herzog remake of Nosferatu. Again, and not to blow it, but Max Shrek’s original doesn’t make the list, but two obvious (and purposeful) knock-offs do. Why? Again, they are much newer.

Number 12 is “Zoey Redbird from P.C. and Kristin Cast’s House of Night [book] series.”

Number 13 (I swear to Jabootu!) is Jean-Claude, from Laurell K. Hamilton’s softcore (barely) vampire porn Anita Blake books.

Number 14 is David, the Keifer Sutherland vamp from The Lost Boys. Why? That was made in the ’80s, and again watched by the EW staff when they were teens. It’s not a horrible choice, but again given some glaring omissions from the list so far, it’s still kind of stupid.

Miriam Blaylock and Sarah Roberts from The Hunger come in at 15, because, of course, of their big lesbian scene. I guess the fact the movie is largely forgotten—indeed, pretty much entirely forgotten save again for that lesbian scene–isn’t being held against it.

Sixteen is Blade, from the movies. Meh. OK.

Seventeen is Eli, the vampire from the recent Let the Right One In. Because that’s the latest ‘hip’ vampire movie, and so Eli’s inclusion is a must by EW standards.

18 is Countess Bathory, from 1971’s Daughters of Darkness. Ingrid Pitt, anyone? How about Gloria Holden, the screen’s first starring female vampire, from 1936’s Dracula’s Daughter. Wait, did I say 1936? Sorry. Nothing that old could be ‘great’. (Indeed, the EW editors probably thought they were daring going all the way back to 1971.)

19 is Selene from the Underworld movies. You got me, EW! I nearly managed to make it through your entire list without saying “FUCK YOU!” You got me, though.

Caleb and Mae from Near Dark. Again, in the ’80s “back when I was a teen” wheelhouse. Its notable, though, that even here, EW ineptly picked the film’s tepid, callow leads as their choices, rather than (obviously) the far juicier characters played by Lance Henriksen or Bill Paxton or Jenette Goldstein. Morons.

So, let’s tally. The older ‘greatest vampire’ is from the ’30s. Then there’s one from the ’50s. One from the ’60s. Four from the ’70s. Three from the ’80s. Four from the ’90s. And (drum roll) SEVEN from the ‘aughts. Yep, over a third of the greatest vampires ever are from the last nine years, while over half are from 1990 on. Man, that’s some quality research there.

Meanwhile, the ‘honorable’ mentions sidebar goes to Grandpa Munster, the Count from Sesame Street (OK), Elvira (wait, she’s a vampire?!) and a puppet vampire (I guess) from the recent romcom Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Missing? As noted, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (!!!!); Max Shrek, the cinema’s first Dracula; Barnabas Collins (!), who introduced the tortured vampire a good decade before Anne Rice hit the scene; Count Yorga; Blacula, Chris Sarandon from Fright Night…etc.

EW, you (pardon the phrase) suck.

  • jzimbert

    They totally snubbed Leslie Nielsen in “Dracula: Dead and Loving It”! And didn’t Eddie Murphy do a vampire movie once? The injustice!

  • Chris Reynolds

    At the beginning of the list I thought they were limiting themselves to cinematic vamps, but then they start listing all sorts of emo vampires from the seemingly endless series of books from the new “supernatural romance” section of bookstores.
    What about Varney the Vampire from Victorian penny dreadfuls who pratically defined most of the traits of all the vampires to follow and was a major influence on Dracula, or Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla?
    Another lazy article from a journalist asked to fill up a few pages as quickly as possible and stick in some photos from the Twilight series.
    I remain amazed by the popularity of the Twilight films. I watched it a few weeks ago and thought it was boring and lacking in plot or plausibility. Supposedly it appeals to teenage girls, but I watched it with my little sister and she thought it was awful as well. I do enjoy the True Blood serial on HBO, which by contrast is actually well-written and plotted, but no way are the characters on it in the top 5 vampires of all time.

  • Ericb

    “Culturally relevant” huh? I think that’s just a euphamism for ” I couldn’t be bothered to do any research”.

  • Plissken79

    Stupid lists such as this (as well as a general left-wing bias) are why I dropped my subscription to EW long ago.

    I actually did not mind the Twilight film (my wife loves the series). But I cannot stand True Blood. The Stackhouse siblings have to be the stupidest characters in an HBO series and nearly everyone else is a Southern stereotype. And, like everything else Alan Ball has done, it is preachy, sanctimonious tripe.

    As for great vampires, how about Willem Dafoe’s in Shadow of the Vampire? How could they overlook that one?

  • David Fullam

    “EW, you (pardon the phrase) suck.”

    Truer words were never spoken. I once had a free subscription to this rag via my old Media Play card or what not. It was all I could do to tell the folks to quit sending me this thing. Free or not, no way did I want this garbage.

  • BT

    I was miffed at Janos Skorzeny being left out.

    Top whatever lists are tough, as that stuff is totally subjective, but that is part of the reason I have so much respect for my buddy who essentially makes the top 40 lists for pretty much every one of the VH1 Top 40 series. He’s almost 43 years old, but does a pretty good job of staying on top of the new stuff, and has an encyclopedic knowledge of older music, so I don’t think his top 40 lists look as bad as this EW one did.

  • KeithB

    And what about Selma Hayek if “from Dusk Til Dawn?”

  • “I was miffed at Janos Skorzeny being left out.”

    Me, too. I meant to mention him, but forgot. One of the first revisionist “vampire in modern times” characters.

  • Ericb

    Referring to an art work less than 10 or 15 years old as the “greatest of all time” is absurd. You need the hype of the moment to wear off a bit before you can really judge something’s historical worth.

  • What Entertainment Weekly knows about entertainment is what a pig knows about Sunday.

  • I’ve always had a problem with lists like this one. The ones that say “Greatest/Worst ______ Ever/Of All Time” Its like they are assuming no one at some future time will make something greater or worse than what they have listed. If they want to keep it flexible, it should read as “Greatest/Worst ______ As Of ‘Current Date'”.

  • fish eye no miko

    “Best of” lists are just a joke. EW is not alone in this, either; I have yet to hear of ANY “Best of” list done in the past 10 years or so that doesn’t follow this trend; mostly new stuff with a few old items thrown in so the list makers can pretend they actually know what they’re talking about. I agree that vampires like Max Shrek’s Nosferatu and the literary Dracula should be in the top five. I actually LIKE Lestat, and I still don’t think he belongs at number one (maybe in the top ten).

    Another thing about these lists is that, despite claiming to be “Best of”, they tend to focus on American (and sometimes European) items, completely ignoring Asia and Africa. I can think of a few vampires from anime that I think could fit quite easily on this list (c’mon, no Vampire Hunter D?). Not to mention types of vampire that are very different from what we Westerners are used to (look up the film Mystics in Bali on Dr. Freex’s Site. Wowza. O_O ).

    So, yeah.. EW might suck, but they’re hardly alone in their narrowly-focused, concerned more with current trends “Best of” crap.

  • Roger Ebert said it best in a very recent blog post:

    All lists of the “greatest” movies are propaganda. They have no deeper significance. It is useless to debate them.

  • BT

    “Me, too. I meant to mention him, but forgot. One of the first revisionist “vampire in modern times” characters.”

    For me, Skorzeny was the perfect vampire. He was menacing, he never spoke (it’s established he CAN speak, as the car dealer spoke to him), and never tried to romance a woman.

    For me at least, humanizing a vampire takes all of the chill away. I remember reading “They Thirst” by Robert McCammon, and I loved it, but I remember losing respect for the head vampire the more he acted like a spoiled human being. I like the vampire to be more of a vicious animal than a mysterious suave gentleman.

  • Aussiesmurf

    A few others :

    Faethor in the Necroscope series by Brian Lumley.
    Nicholas Knight in the Forever Knight television series.
    Complete agree with being baffled by the omission of Stoker’s Dracula and Shrek’s Nosferatu.
    I would also, although having limited cultural cachet in the USA include the vampires in the superb British 6-part series Ultraviolet.

  • Zandor Vorkov

    Any “Greatest Vampire” list that doesn’t include Max Schreck as Count Orlock is invalid.

    Count Yorga needs to make the list as well.

    If we want to go with ten years old or less, the head vampire from “30 Days of Night” should have made the list.

  • fish eye no miko

    Oh, I have a further comment…

    Sixteen is Blade, from the movies. Meh. OK.

    Blade was a comic book character first, actually. I imagine they show–and talk about–the movie version, though, right?

    Seventeen is Eli, the vampire from the recent Let the Right One In.

    In all fairness, I’ve heard a lot of good things about this film (the only reason I’ve not seen it yet is because of issues with the subtitles), plus this is (gasp) a foreign film, something not a lot of EW readers give a crap about. I guess what I’m saying is, I don’t think this choice is nearly as bad as some of the others (for one thing, I don’t think it’s fair to condemn it just because it’s new, which it kinda feels like you’re doing), and it is pretty far down on the list, after all.

  • The Rev. D.D.

    I don’t mind Jean-Claude being on the list. He was one of the more interesting characters in that series before it went hardcore (the last two I read were too graphic to get away with being called softcore, in my opinion). Maybe in the upper teens though.

    Also, isn’t Blade only half vampire? “Daywalker” and all that, due to his origin? Should he really count? Oh wait, EW is a totally useless rag. Never mind.

    Otherwise, I’m pretty much on board with the majority here. Some really glaring omissions, and putting Lestat on top and Edward at #4 is ridiculous no matter how you slice it.

  • fish eye no miko

    The Rev. D.D. said: Also, isn’t Blade only half vampire? “Daywalker” and all that.

    Yeah, he is. I wondered about that when I mentioned Vampire Hunter D, who’s also a dhampir.

    Ya know, these lists wouldn’t bother me nearly as much of they weren’t called “Best of” lists and instead were more accurately named, “Our Favorite” or something.

  • Reed

    Man, I love these things. Let’s face it people, we’re geeks. Creating our own lists is second only as a passtime to debating the lists of others. The only reason I haven’t thrown down on this discussion myself is that I’m not really all that well schooled in all things vampire. For the money, though, the main vamp from “Fright Night” is my favorite modern vamp. And I’ll take Dracula’s Daughter over Bela Lugosi’s Dracula any day!

    The Blade comic character has so little to do with the Blade movie character that they are really two totally distinct entities. Blade as he appeared in the 70’s Tomb of Dracula comics was not a half vampire and had only 1 extremely minor superhuman ability (although I can’t remember if he’s immune to their bite or immune to vampiric mesmerism).

  • The Rev. D.D.

    Seeing as how it’s EW, I had to assume they were talking the movie Blade only, and go with that particular version of his origin.

    I mean, comics from 30 years ago? They’re practically ancient! And everyone knows old things are icky!

  • Petoht

    What about Nicholas Cage in Vampire’s Kiss? Or Zoltan, the hound of Dracula?

    More seriously, as a fan of the books, I’m rather ticked that that pasty emo Cullen made the list, but Thomas from the Harry Dresden series didn’t.

  • Random Reader

    By the way, I should note that although there are three literature-based vamps in the top ten, and three screen incarnations of Dracula, that the original Count of Bram Stoker’s novel has yet to get a nod as one of the greatest vampires ever. In fact…he doesn’t ever make the list!!

    Well no, because that would mean the staff of EW would have to read a book written in *gasp* the 19th Century! And it’s not even Y.A. fiction!

  • P Stroud

    Actually, I kind of liked Anne Parillaud’s vampire in Innocent Blood, but I’m just weird.

    Feh. EW’s fans voting anything? Go to amazon and you’ll find 5 star customer reviews of “Bloodrayne” and Malik’s “The Thin Red Line”. I can’t decide if these reviews are fakes generated by production company employees to boost sales or if they are for real. I hope they are fakes or else Western Civilization is doomed.

  • What about Grandpa Yam from Mr. Vampire. IMO he is one of the top five greatest vampires of all time, not only for his portrayal (done straight, though the film as a whole was a come4dy), but it spawned something like 15 sequels. All my kids love Mr. Vampire unreservedly, and I’ve never shown it to anyone who did not react simiarly.

  • Toby Clark

    This list is a lot better than the one Australia’s TV Week just gave us (although they admit that they’re only judging them on sexinesss).

    1: Eric (Alexander Skarsgard), True Blood. (Believe it or not, this list is part of an article on True Blood. Yes, they’re that obvious).
    2: Angel (David Boreanaz)
    3: Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson)
    4: Mick St. John (Alex O’Loughlin), Moonlight
    5: Louis, (Brad Pitt), Interview with the Vampire
    6: Emmett Cullen (Kellan Lutz), Twilight
    7: Damon (Ian Somerhalder), The Vampire Diaries
    8: Bill (Stephen Moyer), True Blood
    9: Spike (James Masters), Buffy the Vampire Slayer
    10: David (Kiefer Sutherland) The Lost Boys