John Carpenters Vampires. Looked so good from the Trailers. i had high hopes. Shame it sucked (no pun intended, honest )

Likewise Dracula 2002. Was fooled by the trailers into thinking it would be good (I really should have learnt my lesson)Only to sit through a film who's only redeaming features were:

a)Johnny Miller (I think thats his name. was married to Angelina Jolie)as pure eye candy and

b)a vampires head looping off his neck and into a dumpster(highly amusing)

Dracula = Judas, what a pile of monkey poop. And I payed good m...oh wait I didn't! It was while I had a UGC card so i only wasted two hours of my existence instead

Couldn't agree more on Vampires. The book - by John Steakley - is far more interesting, although hardly a literary classic. I recommend it as a library read, although not really to buy, if only for its bits on the psychology of vampires and vampire hunters.

Now, I went into Dracula 2001 (2000/2002, or whenever it was released where you are) with no expectations at all, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Which is not to say that it was a good film, but I had fun watching it.

And say what you like about the rest: "I do not drink...coffee" was a superb line

There are not many more _good_ vampire movies than werewolf, but oddly, the ones that are naff are often more fun than naff werewolf flicks.

As for Dracula as Judas, there is actually a goodly weight of mythology behind the idea of Judas Iscariot as the original vampire. Supposedly Judan vamps leave three 'X' shaped marks instead of tooth holes, representing the thirty pieces of silver in Latin numerals.

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by Sydney
John Carpenters Vampires. Looked so good from the Trailers. i had high hopes. Shame it sucked (no pun intended, honest )

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And shockingly there is a sequel to this as well, although I dont think it even stars any of the original cast.

Well I guess this isn't about my illustrious directorial career

But I actually almost sort of liked John Carpenter's Vampires, but I'm a sucker for his movies anyway

I also liked "From Dusk Till Dawn" and "The Lost Boys" as I think many of us grew up on that film, heck even Joss Whedon used the vamps from that film as the basis of the vamps in his shows!!!

Alien is primarily a horror movie, albeit one set in space and jeeeeeez did that frighten me as a child.

Other than that I've never really been into horror movies.

Good monster movies .... hmmmm, let me think.

Return of the Living Dead is a classic Zombie film (with one of the coolest endings ever), as are the first two of Romero's Living Dead trilogy (Day of the Dead I wasn't keen on, although I've not seen it for years so I'd like to give it another go). And of course there's Braindead and Bad Taste, Peter Jackson is God!

And if Demonic Dolls count as monsters, then Child's Play deserves a mention. I've not seen it since I was a kid, but that film is cool!

Most of the Stephen King adaptations fall into the naff-but-still-quite-cool category, which I like! Oh, except Pet Sematary which is just way cool!

I'll buy Alien as a decent horror movie, but Vampires? And John Carpenter, sad to say, just hasn't been the same since they started giving him budgets to work with. I bought Big Trouble in Little China on DVD the other day; that was such a great film. He hasn't made anything that classy in a decade.

I'll admit now that I have a problem with zombie movies, which is that zombies are fundamentally pretty boring monsters (shamble, shamble "brains", shamble). This means that whatever is controlling the zombies needs to be really interesting, and frequently this goes by the wayside in favour of yet another shot of a zombie's head exploding.

It remains to be seen if the Red Queen will do the business in this regard for Resident Evil.

I've seen a bit of one of the Living Dead movies (the one in the shopping mall), and didn't think much. On the other hand, so many of them have been remade that I can't be certain it was even the original version.

For my own tastes, most Stephen King stuff is...well, the phrase 'really dull' springs to mind. I quite enjoyed the cut down video release of Salem's Lot, but anything longer would have been too much. The Stand just went on and on.

Couldn't watch It; clown fear. Still, that's probably a 'yea' vote in that case.

As I understand it, the guy who'd moved to England in It lived in my old home town, as did King himself. Just a little pointless trivia added to the mix.

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by The Prophet
I'll buy Alien as a decent horror movie, but Vampires? And John Carpenter, sad to say, just hasn't been the same since they started giving him budgets to work with. I bought Big Trouble in Little China on DVD the other day; that was such a great film. He hasn't made anything that classy in a decade.

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Definately. Carpenter's early stuff is by far my favourite. Escape from LA wasn't a "patch" (excuse the pun) on Escape from New York.

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by MonSTeR
(quotes)

Definately. Carpenter's early stuff is by far my favourite. Escape from LA wasn't a "patch" (excuse the pun) on Escape from New York.

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And how. I mean what was up with that basketball game?

Oh dear; seem to have drifted off topic already. Any more good monster movies, anyone?

Not a monster movie, but an old horror movie. My all time fave that I searched for for years and was finally put out of my misery by the bestest guy in the world, Pimpf

The Changeling (which was, funnily enough on TV again just last week - first time in *years*)

It's all psychological and ghosty, no rubber monsters, and gives me the major heebie jeebies no matter how many times I watch it. If you like that kind of horror, it's worth giving a shot.

As for monsters, Giger was the man!

Oh and I thought 'Vampires' was a real blast

Seeing as we are on about John Carpenter and cant see this mentioned his classic scifi monster movie The Thing, that film is pure class begining to end

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by Sydney
John Carpenters Vampires. Looked so good from the Trailers. i had high hopes. Shame it sucked (no pun intended, honest )

Likewise Dracula 2002. Was fooled by the trailers into thinking it would be good (I really should have learnt my lesson)Only to sit through a film who's only redeaming features were:

a)Johnny Miller (I think thats his name. was married to Angelina Jolie)as pure eye candy and

b)a vampires head looping off his neck and into a dumpster(highly amusing)

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What about:

c) Jeri Ryan

Jeri Ryan is a Removed Swearing, not worthy of screen-time.

Reason: Please read the swearing policy

(Edited by Chambler 15/05/2002 18:37)

Bram Stoker's Dracula sucked major bottom. Worst performance ever by Anthony Hopkins. Even Gary Oldman couldn't save that sickly beast of a movie.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was better but not that good.

As for Werewolves, how come no one has mentioned the best of the lot? A Company of Wolves.

Can't beat Lost Boys on the Vampire front, although Nosferatu ain't too bad if you can cope with the format of that era. Interview with the vampire is passable, but not a patch on the book.

As for Dusk Till Dawn - one of the few films I have genuinely regretted watching. It could have been soooo cool, but was instead just really lame.

Haven't seen it in a while, but I remember Cat People as being fairly cool.

Dusk Till Dawn is one of the few films that would have been better WITHOUT vampires. I hear that the sequels are even worse.
John Carpenter's Vampires has to be one of the worse films I've ever seen (beaten only by I've Been Watching You and its sequel).
Lost Boys is great, I can watch it over and over again and since it seems to be on the SciFi channel so much lately (pretty much every week) I'll just watch bits of it during adverts and stuff (when I'd normally flick to the music channels). I don't think I could watch too much of that film.
Interview with the Vampire is just really pretty and I'm a sucker for pretty films (pretty films with vampires are even better!).
No one's mentioned Buffy! That film's great. It's stupid, badly made and just really silly, but that's what's so great about it! I couldn't watch it too often though, it's kinda weird having a different Buffy.
When I was little my even yonger brother insisted that my parents video a made for TV (I think) version of Dracula. It had that girl from the Railway children in it and stuff. I haven't watched it for years, but I remember quite liking it.

The only werewolf films I can remember seeing were An American Werewolf in London/Paris. Both are enjoyable for different reasons. London is probably better, but I prefer Paris (probably because I saw it first so the original was different to me - same with Terminator). Was a bit strange in An American Werewolf in London when the ENGLISH doctor went into the pub and asked for a soda and then a small guiness.

Scariest monster film I've ever seen was It. I was 11 at the time and the thought of it still freaks me out. *shudders*

Am I really the first person here to mention Blade?

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by Jayjay
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was better but not that good.

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Personally I rate that as one of the worst films I have ever watched. But then, I'm a big fan of the book and felt that Branagh missed his way completely.

Can't think of a lot of others - I'm with everyone else on The Lost Boys

Does Young Frankenstein count?

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by White Hart
Am I really the first person here to mention Blade?

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Well I would have classed that as a comic book adaptation rather than a "monster-movie" either way though it was a fantastic film

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by Jayjay
As for Werewolves, how come no one has mentioned the best of the lot? A Company of Wolves.

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Oh yeah! Forgot about that one. Very cool film, not seen it for ages though.

And The Howling is another fairly cool film that I've not seen for a while.

The Lost Boys and From Dusk till Dawn I absolutely adore. And Blade's cool too.

werewolves are jsut boring compared to vampires. vampires have much more to them, they seduce their victims and its all sorta sexy and cool. werewoves jsut rip people to shreads, boring plus dogs scare the hell outta me

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by SPIKE
werewolves are jsut boring compared to vampires. vampires have much more to them, they seduce their victims and its all sorta sexy and cool. werewoves jsut rip people to shreads, boring plus dogs scare the hell outta me

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Which - when you think about it - really is the point of horror. And vampires who are sexy and cool are...well, pretty boring in and of themselves these days.

Horror monsters - including both vampires and werewolves - are originally the fiendish adversary of good men and women who destroy and defile in a senseless animalistic fashion; not suave pimp mothers who swan into the local like they own the place and cop off with your bird.

Either is most at home therefore as the shape in the woods; the shadow on the blinds. A barely glimpsed figure of menace.

The problem of modern vampires is that there's no horror to the vampire if becoming one - or even being bitten and killed by one - is a pretty neat experience. Where werewolf films like American Werewolf in London score above the vampires is in making the protagonist's transformation a point of horror: here was the power he could not control, and it destroys him.

Same thing in the Mexican vampire movie, Cronos.

I'd agree with most of the films people have brought up - except for Dusk 'til Dawn and Blade, which are fundamentally cheese, and Blade at least goes in the big file labelled: 'bad vampire movies often more fun than bad werewolf movies'. Dusk 'til Dawn I kind of enjoyed - or at least from about half way through I did - but I don't have much desire to ever see it again.

However, I want to take issue with any claim in support of American Werewolf in Paris. It was tripe. It made no sense.

What happened to the girl's ghost? It just vanished.

How did the girl stop being a werewolf? She didn't eat anyone's heart.

And why do the werewolves look nothing like wolves, but an awful lot like the big, combined version of Station from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure?