Top Ten List of Unconventional Vampires...because being sick sucks

I’m fighting a nasty cold over here so I figured I’d make a list of my favorite unconventional vampires. When someone mentions the word “vampire” you think of a fanged creature who sucks blood, burns in daylight, sleeps in a coffin and dons a fabulous cape. But that’s where you’d be wrong. This bunch of bloodsuckers challenges the vampiric stereotypes to include energy vamps, vamps without fangs and even dancing undead!

 Rise: Blood Hunter

Starring Lucy Liu after her fall from Charlie’s Angels fame, Blood Hunter is about an out of control bunch of vamps who turn Lucy’s character into a creature of the night. Sans fangs, these bloodsuckers prefer small daggers to get the job done. The movie was horrible, but some consider it worth seeing Liu scantily clad in a bra and covered in blood.

 Martin

This barely pubescent bloodsucker uses sedatives to knock out his victims, and then slits their wrists to drink their blood. Persecuted by his overly religious family, Martin believes he is one of the undead and stalks train stations and alleyways for unsuspecting young women and hobos.

 Cronos

From the mind of Guillermo del Toro comes a tale of vampirism by insect. An elderly antique dealer is bitten by a bug that restores his lost youth, but it also leaves him with a hankering for the red stuff.

 Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary

Care to dance? This silent black and white number will get your toes tapping as it presents a ballet interpretation of Dracula with a Chinese actor in the title role.

 The Hunger

Aren’t vampires supposed to burn in sunlight? Not if you’re David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve. This film re-imagines the vampire as a hip club goer that can party all day and suck all night.

Lifeforce

Tobe Hooper brings energy vampires to the silver screen when astronauts unwittingly bring life sucking alien vampires back to earth on a return trip from space.

 Rabid

A woman infected with a rabies-like virus spreads her affliction across Montreal, turning her victims into blood hungry maniacs.

 Vampire’s Kiss

Nick Cage plays a New York yuppie who believes he’s been transformed into a vampire after being bitten by a bat. The question becomes, is he really a vampire or just out of his mind? Either way Cage indulges his inner vamp by snacking on unsuspecting New Yorkers.

 Near Dark

Instead of the elite aristocrat, this film portray vamps as roving southerners moving from town to town in a van with blacked out windows. So much for the good life.

 Shadow of the Vampire

A far cry of the sexy vampires of the 20th century, this film stars Willem Defoe as the real Count Orlok, transforming Murnau’s Nosferatu into a snuff film.

You’ll note that I did not include the vampires of Twilight because…well…no sparkling allowed.