Six vampire movies exist in cinema history that nobody wants touched again. Collider‘s list of six vampire movies nobody wants a remake of ranks them by how impossible they’d be to improve. The list argues each title is so tied to its moment, its maker, or its cast that a redo would just feel wrong. Here’s why the paper thinks these six films are best left alone.
Black Sunday: Bava’s Shadow World
Mario Bava’s 1960 Italian Gothic horror, Black Sunday, is the first entry on the list. The film tells the story of a witch and princess named Asa Vajda (Barbara Steele) who places a blood curse on her brother’s family after being condemned for witchcraft. Two hundred years later, she rises from her crypt when blood is spilled on it, attempting to take over the body of her descendant, Katia Vajda, also played by Steele.
Bava shot the film in black and white, designing the sets and lighting himself. The result, according to the list, was a “dreamlike, eerie shadow-world that a color story could never achieve.” The gothic crypts and skeletal trees create a haunting texture that a remake would lose. Bava’s film launched Steele into stardom and helped establish modern horror and the giallo genre. The list argues a remake would diminish those points.
Blacula: Marshall’s Tragic Figure
Blacula (1972) is a blaxploitation horror film directed by William Crain. It follows 18th-century African prince Mamuwalde (William Marshall), who visits Count Dracula (Charles Macaulay) and asks for help stopping the slave trade. Dracula refuses, bites Mamuwalde, and names him “Blacula,” sealing him in a hidden coffin until he awakens in 1970s Los Angeles.
Marshall, according to the list, brought a “booming baritone” and “unparalleled dignity” to the role. He fought to change the original comedic script into a serious, resonant horror film. The list argues a remake would likely be seen as too kitschy today, losing the emotional core of the original. Blacula influenced a wave of other Black-inspired horror films and Black protagonists in horror.
Near Dark: Bigelow’s Solo Debut
Kathryn Bigelow’s 1987 dark neo-Western Near Dark follows young Oklahoma farm boy Caleb Colton (Adrian Pasdar), who is bitten by a drifter named Mae (Jenny Wright) and abducted into a brutal, nomadic family of vampires led by Jesse Hooker (Lance Henriksen). The film never mentions the word vampire, blending the dusty, sun-bleached aesthetic of an American Western with modern horror.
Bigelow’s directorial debut used a specific hypnotic, electronic soundtrack from Tangerine Dream and gritty practical gore effects. The list says a remake would likely be replaced by generic digital noise and CGI. Any new version, the list insists, must pay homage to the original.
Shadow of the Vampire: The Behind-The-Scenes Story
Shadow of the Vampire (2000) is a fictionalized horror comedy about the making of Nosferatu. Director E. Elias Merhige and screenwriter Steven Katz follow W. Murnau (John Malkovich) as he tries to make the ultimate vampire movie. Denied the rights to Dracula, Murnau adapts the story anyway under a different name.
He hires a mysterious, intense actor named Max Schreck (Willem Dafoe), who goes full method acting. The truth, per the film, is that Murnau has made a Faustian bargain with Schreck, promising fresh blood in exchange for completing the masterpiece, as Schreck is an actual vampire. The list ranks this film fourth on its list of six vampire movies nobody wants a remake of.
The Films That Prove the Point
The list makes its case with four specific reasons why each film resists a redo:
- Black Sunday‘s black-and-white photography and Bava-designed sets can’t be replicated in color.
- Blacula‘s tragic dignity in Marshall’s performance is unrepeatable.
- Near Dark‘s practical effects and Tangerine Dream soundtrack can’t be matched by CGI.
- Shadow of the Vampire‘s meta-fictional approach to Nosferatu is a one-time stunt.
“A remake would diminish these integral points.”
That line, from the list’s argument for Black Sunday, sums up the whole approach. Each film is defended on its own terms rather than compared to anything else.
The list doesn’t rank the films against each other so much as it explains why each one is a dead end. Black Sunday is defended as a period piece that can’t be remade without losing its intent. Blacula is defended as a cultural touchstone that wouldn’t work as a joke today. Near Dark is defended as a stylistic triumph that no modern filmmaker could copy. And Shadow of the Vampire is defended as a clever idea that only works once.
What the List Gets Right
The list is consistent in its logic. It picks films whose value comes from their specificity — their look, their cast, their moment in history. A remake of any of these would have to choose between copying them closely and failing to be new, or changing them so much that they lose what made them worth preserving.
The list’s central claim is that these six films are better left alone. That’s a reasonable position to hold, and the list makes its case with concrete examples rather than vague hand-waving. It’s a small, focused argument that doesn’t waste time.
The paper’s view is that the list succeeds because it’s specific about what it’s defending. It doesn’t say “vampire movies are sacred” — it says these six films are tied to their creators, their casts, and their historical moments in ways that a remake couldn’t fix. That’s a fair reading of the evidence.
Source material: “6 Vampire Movies Nobody Wants a Remake Of,” Collider.
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