No, I’m not talking about Twilight. Competing studios have been drooling over Summit’s annual box office haul from the Stephanie Meyer adaptations and are continuing to capitalize on the trend. There are a few more blood sucker projects lined up, and one involves Russell Crowe. Hit the jump for more.

Vulture reports that Crowe is in talks to join Harker, a potential franchise movie centered around a Scotland Yard detective who follows Dracula’s path of murders across England. Jaume Collet-Serra (Unknown) will direct before he turns his attention back to that pesky live-action adaptation of Akira that WB seems so determined to make.

The other revived project is Dracula: Year Zero, once a Sam Worthington vehicle with Alex Proyas attached to direct. Proyas went to take on Paradise Lost, and we all know how that turned out. Gary Shore is now in the director’s chair, and Worthington is no longer connected, but the movie is still supposed to be an origin story about Vlad the Impaler, who provided the basis for the Dracula myth. Seems like Universal got jealous when they heard about WB’s vampire-related news today, so they released some of their own to stay in the game. This is Hollywood after all, and it’s all about perception.

What about you? Sick of the vamp trend, or can’t wait to sink your teeth into these movies? Sound off in the comments.

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Vampires seem to be all the rage today, theaters, TV and just about every book store out there. You just can’t get away anymore and while they’ve been here for a very long time, it’s only recently that blood-suckers become so popular with mainstream audiences.

Today we’ll take a look at the top 10 most successful vampire movies at the box office in North America. Now we all know what will be found at the top, but I always say the journey is more important than the destination so if you’re not a Twilight fan just enjoy this up to the #5 spot.

10. Underworld: Evolution (2006) $62.3 million – There’s a very good reason why I chose North American box office instead of worldwide and it involves Underworld: Evolution. This top 10 would look about the same with a very important difference, Blade: Trinity would be 10th and I wanted an Underworld film here (since we already have two other Blade flicks). The original 2003 Underworld was a well made genre flick that managed to blend vampires and werewolves in a modern Romeo and Juliet story. If there ever was a Twilight equivalent for guys, this would probably be it. Underworld: Evolution was a worthy sequel that took the series in a somewhat different direction (leaving Romeo and Juliet behind). Underworld: Awakening, the 4th film, is set to open in just 2 months.

9. Blade (1998) $70 million – A few months back I wrote a series of posts about superheroes and there I gave Blade credit for being the movie that made Hollywood studios have faith in superheroes again. Without the original Blade, Marvel Studios would not be the same today. The fact that he’s a kick-ass half-vampire, half-human, vampire hunter is just a bonus and for me personally, a damn good enough reason to watch Blade again.

8. Blade 2 (2002) $82 million – A bit more visually impressive thanks to director Guillermo del Toro, Blade 2 is a great sequel followed by a not so great 3rd part (Blade: Trinity) that managed to kill the series.

7. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) $82.5 million – If you have even the slightest interest in vampires and you haven’t seen this movie yet, do yourself a favor and check it out. Unless you’re a 13 year old girl, when you think vampires, Dracula comes to mind and for good reason. According to Wikipedia, as of 2009, around 217 films featured Dracula in a major role. The version we’re talking about here was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starred Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins and Keanu Reeves among others.

6. Interview with the Vampire (1994) $105.2 million – Based on the novel written by Anne Rice and published in 1976, this is among the best vampire movies out there. Starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, a very young Kirsten Dunst, and Antonio Banderas, this is one flick you don’t want to miss. Adjusted for inflation, Interview with the Vampire would have over $200 million today.

5. Van Helsing (2004) $120.1 million – This is not a good movie, not much else you need to know here. If you were lucky enough to skip this back when it came out then I envy you and know that you haven’t missed anything.

4. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011) $139.5 million (so far) – If you absolutely hate Twilight there’s not much else for you here (just skip to the end), everyone else, keep reading. As you probably know this movie just came out so the number shown above is an opening weekend estimate. Later today the actual numbers will come out and then I’ll write a full report, explaining in more detail what $139.5 million (or more) actually means for this series and box office in general.

3. Twilight (2008) $192.7 million – One might say that the vampires featured in this series are a joke to real blood-suckers. Fortunately there are no real vampires out there so at the end of the day credit must be given to the movie that turned a niche genre into a mainstream phenomenon.

2. The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009) $296.6 million – No matter how much one hates this series, there are things that just can’t be argued. You don’t grow $100 million in just a year unless your movie really has something going. It might not be aimed at everyone but it definitely hits the right chords with its target audience.

1. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010) $300.5 million – It takes a lot of strength for a movie to reach a ceiling like this series did and manage to remain up there. Like it or not, when it comes to box office this is as close as a studio has ever got to a Harry Potter-like hit.

Before I close, there are a few vampire movies out there that maybe came out a very long time ago when tickets were a lot cheaper or just never managed to catch a big enough audience, so I feel that I have to at least mention them here. An obvious choice is the 1931 Dracula starring the late Bela Lugosi, simply a must see for every vampire fan out there. The original 1985 Fright Night as well as the 2011 remake should also be seen, in that order if possible. Then there’s the Swedish masterpiece Let the Right One In (2008) and trust me, you need to see this. Finally, while not a particularly great film, it was definitely a big hit back in 1979. Adjusted for inflation, Love at First Bite would have $139.1 million today.

I probably missed more than a few great ones so feel free to comment below and name your favorite vampire movie.

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With Halloween quickly approaching, it’s no doubt that many film buffs will be indulging in copious amounts of something other than candy; horror films! It’s just one of those automatic rituals that most people take extremely seriously, often preparing an extensive and specific group of films to watch with their fellow friends in a movie marathon within the safety of their own home.

Today, the horror film is so common that some can say it’s even done to, dare I say it, death, which is understandable with the lack of thought that goes into most mainstream horror movies. That’s because there are those sinister filmmakers/studios out there that only focus on making money and not the quality of the films they put out. That’s what makes the horror genre seem like the laughing stock of the movie universe, with insulting results. While this may be true with most, there are some that give us not only the chills we are looking for but just the overall excitement of a film taking notice of the fans’ intelligence.

That’s why I’m taking the liberty of coming up with an analysis in the form of a top 10 list of the subgenres of horror and basically how they are executed, from the characters, plot, and overall atmosphere the films in the specific category provide. I’ll also take a look on the type of thought filmmakers put into each specific category, because, believe it or not, they are all strikingly different. Now, please take the following list with a grain of salt as I am in no way ridiculing certain categories but rather simply taking note of things I have noticed.

While I will make specific notions to films, it will be more of a focus on only the majority of mainstream films in each category and in no way a look at straight-to-DVD or generic films. You may not agree with what I have to say but remember this is for entertainment purposes only, and is in no way a formal critique that will tear apart a well-loved genre(only playfully make fun of, I promise). The list will be in no particular order, except for the obvious distinction of a “not so top 5″ and a “top 5,”because each category does have its flaws, it’s just a little more abundant in others. Now that we got the disclaimers out of the way, without further ado, I bring you the list!

10. Remakes

Let’s start right away by getting rid of the elephant in the room first; the dreaded remake. These have become the parasitic virus of Hollywood with one purpose: to leach onto an otherwise original film that may or may not have been commercially successful and watch the money role in from the unsuspecting suckers. This culprit can no doubt be found in any genre, but the horror genre, more specifically, is a reoccurring victim. We normally see remakes occur from popular and even sometimes unpopular (read: campy) films, but in recent history, can spawn from creepy Japanese films as well.

For right now, let’s focus on those pesky 80s remakes (but beware American-Japanese remakes: your next!). What tend to be the more inclined to be remakes are the iconic ones, including such classics as the Amityville Horror, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Nightmare on Elm Street among others. The reason? Their popularity of course! Anyone from the 80s will remember the originals well because they defined the generation. So in return, a common strategy among film studios is to “recreate” the films for the current generation.

Problem is they tend to insult the said generation’s intelligence, just throwing together an uninspired and hastily made disaster. You can’t just visually update a horror film, neglecting the chance to create a faithful yet completely different rendition, and expect it to be good. They manipulate Freddy Krueger’s, Jason’s, Leatherface’s, and all other baddies’ images, like they’re just a big commercial, and I mean the character not the actor, because the remakes (not the sequels) often have a completely different actor taking on the role!

As far as American remakes of Japanese horror films go, one has to just simply mention The Grudge and the groans from horror purists will magically pour in. Japanese horror films are targets mainly because they’re not afraid to go into disturbing territory, with terrifyingly creepy results. I won’t bother delving deeper into the Japanese remakes, solely because everyone universally knows these tend to be laughably bad, so no point in beating a dead horse (although, The Ring has many devoted fans). So again, remakes take that image and mangle it completely, but this time, making it look like a silly over the top B-movie. But, alas, this will be one mistake that will plague movie theaters for all eternity, so let’s move on.

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I’m a sucker for vampire films (pun recognized, but not intended) and spend an unusual amount of time thinking about the origins of the mythological trope and the rules of the monsters that have resurged into the spotlight, only being outpaced by superheros in today’s pop culture landscape.

I’m willing to accept that this might give me a pre-bias for Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook’s newest thriller, Thirst, because it does vampire well. Thirst presents a vampire story where the monster isn’t the basis of the entire plot and when romance enters the fray, it’s not the central point of the story.

Twilight is a Mormon romance between an idiot little girl and a vampire who happened to be turned when he looked like Robert Pattinson. True Blood hinges on the premise that vampires have “come out of the coffin” and sets its action in backwoods Louisiana, which is visually fantastical in the first place, to lull you into the premise before going crazy with inter-vampire politics and an obsession with drawing out the rules of vampires (It’s season 2 and I’m still not sure what powers a vampire’s Maker has over his/her Ward). Twilight’s vampire love says “look but don’t touch” while True Blood’s all about the sucking & f*cking. Thirst plays like a fever dream in comparison.

Song Kang-ho plays the man-of-the-cloth, Sang-hyun, who genuinely wants to help save lives by exposing himself to a deadly tropical virus so he can be a guinea pig for a new, ineffective, vaccine. Of 500 godly subjects infected, he is the only one who survives the horrible last stage of the virus: violently puking blood. As he’s dying in the quarantined hospital, he’s given a transfusion of infected blood that brings him back to life.

Suddenly, he’s a man of Christ again; a healer of the sick. His boils and pustules from the virus begin to disappear and he’s reunited with a family from his past, the drunken Madame Ra (Kim Hae-sook) and her near-mentally handicapped son Kang-woo (Shin Ha-kyun). When Sang-hyun was an orphan being raised by monks, Madame Ra used to let young Sang-hyun play with her son. Also present in the household is Tae-ju (the talented Kim Ok-vin, who effortlessly swings from hurt and sexy to creepy and dangerous), an orphaned girl semi-adopted by Madame Ra.

Tae-ju is a lot like Cinderella from the first moments we see her; quiet, subservient and treated more like a pet or a nurse than a daughter. She has thick calluses on her feet from running aimlessly through the city at night, running from how trapped she feels. Madame Ra refers to her as a puppy and Tae-ju herself says she’s been the family’s dog for years.

To his horror, Sang-hyun discovers he needs blood to keep the deadly virus at bay, the healing factor of a vampire is the only thing keeping him undead. At first, he quietly feeds on a coma patient by sucking blood through an IV like a straw. One of his mentors, a blind and wheelchair bound monk lets him feed off his wrists occasionally. Sang-hyun also finds himself lusting after Tae-ju, an attraction she seems to return.

And that’s the summary of the first act, the titular Thirst takes over from there and takes the audience on a wild, twisted ride through the negative consequences of unbridled desire. Sang-hyun has dual thirsts, one for blood and one for sex with Tae-ju. His priesthood is quick to go as Tae-ju flirts with him. She thirsts for freedom from her suffocating life, but knows she can’t attain it while she’s in a forced marriage to Madame Ra’s retard child.

Throughout the beginning of the film, the plot lurches forward while Park and cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon create an atmosphere of foreboding. Park’s script, adapted from Émile Zola’s novel “Thérèse Raquin,” has a lot of humor, but the laughter gets more uncomfortable as the film turns into a noir flick about a seemingly-innocent and abused wife using sex to goad a priest into murdering her husband.

As soon as Sang-hyun breaks his no-killing rule, the film snaps and Park, the same director that brought us Oldboy in all its disturbing glory, jumps from sequence to sequence taking apart his main character in brutal fashion.

The film has a little misogynistic slant to it, when we learn that Tae-ju uses her sex to manipulate and will go to excessive, emotionally devastating and self-mutilating lengths to get what she wants. When the love story sours and Tae-ju decides she thirsts for a new type of freedom – the freedom to kill – the message seems to be that when a girl discovers the power of her sex it is both empowering and terrifying. Kim Ok-vin plays her part as half-mad/half-succubus and 100% predator.

Thirst’s plot isn’t as coherent as some will hope. But the movie is a mosaic of imagery, violence and genuine questions about desire and ethics, love and bloodlust.

It just happens to be about vampires.

The reason that Thirst is such a shining example of a vampire movie in the times of vampire-saturation is because it’s not a monster story or a love story. The vampire, culturally, has always transformed itself to become what we fear. Very early on, a vampire was just a curse that would kill family members or infants in the Dark Ages. Bram Stoker made vampires about sex, Ann Rice made them about loneliness and tormented feelings about your identity, Stephanie Meyer made them sparkle.

But vampires are none of these things. They were meant to be romantic because evil is always tempting and seductive, not because a strong, eternally young stud is what every teenage girl dreams of. Vampires work best when they are used as they were intended to be: as a metaphor for the evil we fear; what’s lurking in the dark, what looks like such a gift even when you know its hell masquerading as heaven.

Thirst shows us a man becoming a monster by showing us what happens when you give into desires you know are wrong. That monster just happens to be a vampire priest.

If you can stand subtitles, seek this one out.

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