FrightFest Guide:

Since 2017, the FrightFest Guide book series has become an essential guide for horror and film fans alike.

Published by FAB Press and part of the UK’s largest horror and genre movie film festival FrightFest, is the latest book of the FrightFest Guide series FrightFest Guide: Vampire Movies. This extensive 200 vampire film guide with numerous honorable mentions, is a bloody good time. It gives readers an amazing diversity of vampire films from the essentials to classics, to international, and the offbeat treasures that are a must-see.

Author Nathaniel Thompson made a name for himself as a cult and horror cinema authority, as the founder of one of the earliest online genre film review sites Mondo Digital. Among his other credentials include being a contributing writer for TCM, the voice of numerous audio commentaries for a wide range of physical media, and the author of the four-book FAB Press series DVD Delirium. Most recently, Thompson was a producer and on-screen interviewee for the wildly popular Shudder original documentary series 101 Scariest Horror Movie Moments of All Time.

Thompson shares with us his initial interest in cult cinema, why vampire films have remained so popular for so long, and what he predicts will be the future of vampire films.

Bonilla: How did you become interested in cult cinema?

Thompson: I’ve loved film for as long as I can remember. As a little kid, every time I would turn the TV on, if there was any kind of oddball movie, like horror or anything off the beaten path, I’d be transfixed. I came of age right when HBO, Cinemax, and other channels like that really kicked off, showing crazy stuff in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, like Barbarella and A Boy and His Dog. Other kids were watching The Cabbage Patch Kids and stuff like that.

My dad was a big fan of movies like Alien and Jaws. He took me to the theater where we saw films like The Thing and Blade Runner. My parents were understanding. It’s always been something I’ve been drawn to it, like a little magnet. It’s always been there.

Did horror movies ever scare you as a kid?

It’s just something that I always really enjoyed. I’ve never watched them to be scared. I don’t really scare that much watching movies.

It was more of the fact that they were movies that operated on this heightened level. Everything is just pitched so dramatically. It’s just so beautiful. The cinematography, music, everything. I really responded to the way horror film plays on you and the way they manipulate you. I just love it.

When did your interest in vampire movies start?

As a little kid, I liked the Hammer films with Christopher Lee. I was exposed to them at a young age. I also read monster magazines. I knew Bela Lugosi from the time I could speak. When I saw the vampire movies, I felt joy. I love all kinds of horror movies.

What are your favorite vampire films?

That’s hard to answer. The ones that I always refer to people are the ones that I love. Near Dark is a great one. I love El Vampiro. There are so many great Mexican ones. Let the Right One In is a good gateway film for people. Daughters of Darkness is also an amazing one. One of my sentimental favorites is Kiss of the Vampire. That’s one of the first vampire films I ever saw. It’s such a beautiful film and so many people have copied it. It doesn’t get the recognition deserves. That’s a really fantastic film.

I really love the Paul Naschy film Count Dracula’s Great Love from Spain. I think it’s a really fun film. It’s that right mixture of kind of pulp and weird artiness. There’s another one called Good Evening, Mr. Monster. It’s this Menudo-type group, where they get stuck in like a mansion with a vampire and other monsters. I really love that one. I don’t think it’s ever come out as English-speaking-friendly. I don’t know why.

How did you become the author of this book?

Vampires were the topic when FAB Press approached me about it. They’ve been putting out other books. I was offered zombies, slashers, or whatever else I wanted. I noticed that they haven’t done vampire films. There’s such a wide variety. That appealed to me because I always liked seeing how every country has its own take on vampires. If you look at Mexico versus Canada versus the US, it’s so different. I love that.

Did you discover any new vampire films when writing this book?

In a way. The book had a strange process. It was originally supposed to come out in the summer with FrightFest when COVID hit. It hit as soon as I turned in the manuscript. Now, I had an extra year and a half to do a little more work on it. More vampire films came out. So I had to dig a little bit deeper. There were films that I hadn’t really thought of as traditional vampire films that I changed my mind on.

For example, I was on the fence about White Reindeer. So, I went back and watched it again. It turned me around. Then, I reassessed what I thought about how to classify other films that didn’t really quite think fit the bill, some borderline, like Hercules in the Haunted World.

With Nosferatu celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, why have vampire films had such a lasting appeal?

It’s a kind of wish fulfillment that people have. You get to live forever, be young, be sexy, get to do whatever you want, and prowl around all night long. It’s such a fun idea. I think it’s the same reason why people love watching heist movies. Yes, stealing is wrong, but it’s a vicarious thrill that lets you do something kind of forbidden. You get to break all the rules and get to not be human anymore. There’s something appealing to that. It works no matter what decade or country you’re from. There’s just something so primal and satisfying about it.

What do you hope readers will gain from this book?

I hope it makes them more adventurous and are willing to dip their toes in pools they normally wouldn’t. I wanted the book to be very international and spotlight a lot of films that people might not normally try to seek out.

Over half of the book is the 200 vampire films that I think people need to see. It was harder cutting it down, because there were, for example, some sequels I had to cut out. I talked about The Return of Count Yorga and Scream Dracula Scream with the original film. I would have loved to have them as standalone entries, but I wanted to make the book very broad.

There were some terrible films in there that I was just fascinated by, such as Die Hard Dracula. That might be the worst vampire film ever made. It’s fascinating but completely insane. You have to acknowledge films like that. I think getting people to step outside their comfort zone, just a little bit, to see the wide range of vampire movies that are out there is important. It’s not just Twilight and Hammer films. There’s so much more than that.

What do you see as the future of vampire films?

International cinema is so much bigger now, because of streaming. Netflix picks up movies from everywhere, from every country. We’re all seeing what each other is doing. I think it’s gonna be interesting to see what happens. I think we’re going to see more of an international kind of flavor to horror movies. The rules are going to start to bend a lot more. There are going to be pollinating each other. I think that’s going to become more and more obvious as we go on.

For example, with Midnight Mass on Netflix, you don’t even know it’s a vampire story until you get in four episodes. It’s a very Catholic take on it. But they totally changed all the rules. It worked really well. I hope there’s more like that. We’ll always have the fun sort of mainstream things like Day Shift. However, I’m curious about what people will come up with.

Is there an interest for you to write another horror-themed book in the future?

I’d love to. I hope so. There are certain angles of European horror that haven’t really been explored in books yet.

With your involvement in 101 Scariest Horror Movie Moments of all Time, is there the possibility of you being involved in future horror documentaries, or making your own?

That was really fun to do. And having the book coming out at the same time as this show wasn’t planned, but it worked out. It was a pretty busy Halloween. It’s possible. I was also involved with season three of Eli Roth’s History of Horror.

101 Scariest is from some of the same people from History of Horror. I had a much bigger role in 101 Scariest because I have this sort of breadth of film knowledge. If they needed to pull clips or something, I could name any movie they could throw out. I could figure out what to pull where, where it would go, and how it would slot together. That was really fun to work on.

I would love to work on a documentary again. It depends if Shudder wants to do something else like that down the road. I love what they’re putting out. They’re a really big voice in horror right now. So if they want to have me aboard, I’d love to. Maybe I’ll do my own documentary at some point, or maybe co-direct with somebody. That’d be great.

Do you have any upcoming projects?

My website Mondo Digital is going into its 25th year soon, which is insane. I was a baby when I started it. I do a lot of audio commentaries. I’m doing almost one a week, or two weeks, it seems like at this point. I crank those out a lot. I have a lot of those in the fire right now. But mostly taking a break for the holidays.

www.Mondo-Digital.com