Celluloid Vampires

George Méliès introduced the first vampire on film in 1896, in his short Le manoir du diable. Over the century since, the screen has become the main place most people meet the creature, often more than in novels such as Bram Stoker's Dracula. Stacey Abbott asks how this long run of film appearances has changed what we think vampires are, and how the figure has moved away from its roots in folklore and literature.

Abbott's central argument is that cinema has largely remade the vampire. Instead of a relic of superstition, the screen vampire now stands for modern life itself. Today's version lives in large cities, enjoys punk music, uses technology, and fits into whatever setting it finds itself in, and it is no longer always a man in a cape. The book reads the vampire as a mirror of the cultures that produce it, especially in periods of rapid social and cultural change.

The study follows the development of the American vampire film through close case studies of Nosferatu, Martin, Blade, and Habit. Abbott also considers how independent filmmaking, practical special effects makeup, and the polished computer-generated imagery of recent productions have each shaped the way the vampire appears on screen.