Byzantium (2012)
June 6, 2026
Neil Jordan returns to vampires with a feminist story of a mother and daughter surviving two centuries. The film's mythology is explicitly gendered.
Tag: Period Piece
Period pieces resurrect an era in costume, speech, and detail, and live or die on the accuracy of the resurrection. This tag collects reviews of period films and what their world-rebuilding teaches historical writers.
1960sThe Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)
June 6, 2026
Roman Polanski's affectionate Hammer parody is more gorgeous gothic fairy tale than laugh-out-loud comedy. The Fearless Vampire Killers earns its 6.5 as a beautiful, uneven oddity, a horror comedy that is more interested in atmosphere than in jokes and lands…
1950sDracula (1958)
June 6, 2026
Hammer's 1958 Dracula made the vampire physical, sexual, and bloody. Christopher Lee plays Dracula, and the performance redefined the role.
1970sThe Vampire Lovers (1970)
June 6, 2026
Ingrid Pitt raises Hammer's adaptation of Carmilla into a melancholy gothic. There is real sorrow in the performance.
1960sThe Brides of Dracula (1960)
June 6, 2026
Hammer built a gorgeous sequel without Christopher Lee, and it may be better than the original. Christopher Lee, in a contract dispute, sat this one out, and Hammer built a sequel around a different vampire entirely, a charming young aristocrat…
1960sDracula: Prince of Darkness (1966)
June 6, 2026
Christopher Lee returns as Dracula without a single line of dialogue, and the resurrection scene is among Hammer's best. Dracula: Prince of Darkness earns its 7 by bringing Christopher Lee back to the role that made him famous and surrounding…
2020sThe Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)
June 6, 2026
The Last Voyage of the Demeter earns its 6.5 by taking a few haunting pages from Dracula and building an entire film from them, with mixed but genuinely entertaining results. The film's great strength is its vision of Dracula as…
2020sNosferatu (2024)
June 6, 2026
Robert Eggers brings obsessive period craft to the third great Nosferatu, with a ferocious Lily-Rose Depp at its center. Nosferatu earns its 8 as the most beautiful and uncompromising vampire film in years, Robert Eggers bringing his obsessive period craft…
2020sSinners (2025)
June 6, 2026
Ryan Coogler's Jim Crow-era vampire film uses the genre to explore Black art and cultural memory. It establishes the stakes of everything that follows.
2020sThe Invitation (2022)
June 6, 2026
A promising gothic premise about a sinister aristocratic family hiding a Dracula secret, sanded smooth for mass appeal. The film's fatal flaw is its caution.
1940sMeet Me in St. Louis (1944)
May 19, 2026
An American family in 1903 St. Louis faces upheaval when the father announces a move to New York, with Christmas as the season of crisis. Meet Me in St. Louis is Vincente Minnelli's 1944 American musical depicting the upper-middle-class Smith…
1980sA Christmas Story (1983)
May 19, 2026
Peter Billingsley plays Ralphie. The film operates as memory instead of plot.