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40 Fang-tastic Facts about the History of Vampires

Tim Flight October 24, 2019 26 min

Wiertz Museum - The Premature Burial — The Premature Burial by Antoine Wiertz, 1854. Wikimedia Commons

4. Early cinema helped keep vampires popular

Bela Lugosi as Dracula in the 1931 movie is for many people the definitive image of the vampire. International Policy Digest

Almost as soon as the technology developed, vampires appeared on film. The first vampire film, Le Manoir Du Diable (‘The Devil’s Mansion’), came out in 1896. The most famous silent vampire film is F.W. Murnau’s chilling Nosferatu of 1922, an unofficial adaptation of Dracula. Vampires translated well to the big screen and, for many people, the definitive vampire movie is the 1931 Dracula. The Hungarian star, Bela Lugosi, is how most people visualize Count Dracula. Unable to speak English, he learned his lines phonetically, giving them an eerie, undead cadence. Vampire movies have been big-business throughout cinema history.

Written by

Tim Flight

I am a freelance historical and literary writer based in West Yorkshire, UK. I read for a funded PhD in English at the University of Oxford (Magdalen College) and graduated in 2016. I am a former lecturer in Medieval English Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London. My publications include peer-reviewed articles in academic publications, and pieces in mainstream magazines such as History Today and Fortean Times. For more information, please see www.drflight.co.uk