From Bram Stoker’s Dracula to the Twilight franchise, vampires and romance have long been an irresistible equation in film. Read on to discover three lesser-known vampire love stories to warm your heart and make your blood run cold in one.
1. Let The Right One In (2008)
This beautifully filmed Swedish horror movie follows a bullied 12-year-old boy who makes an unlikely friend in a vampire child. The depth of their bond soon draws blood, as the misfits take a stand together against an icy world with the rage of the wronged and a shared disdain for morality. A quietly disquieting film, this slow-burn horror movie has its fair share of both tender moments and terrifying violence.
2. A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014)
This stunning debut from Iranian-American director Ana Lily Amirpour made history as the first Iranian vampire Western. It’s one hell of a premise: a lonely young man goes to a costume party at a night club dressed up as Dracula, only to meet a real-life vampire in eye-liner and a chador. Enter The Girl, a vampiric vigilante who prowls the city at night making prey of predatory men. As she stalks the streets on her skateboard, she runs repeatedly into her admirer, and the two loners fall into a strange romance tethered by rock music and DIY ear piercings. It’s a sweetly dark story of dangerous youth and the recklessness of the very human need for love.
3. Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)
Part comedy-drama, part artsy horror movie, this cult classic from Jim Jarmusch stars Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston as a pair of ageless vampire lovers navigating the modern age. Hiddleston is endlessly watchable as a depressed musician horror-struck by the state of the 21st century, while Swinton offers a gently formidable presence as his loving wife. Keep an eye out for scene-stealing turns from Mia Wasikowska and Anton Yelchin in this melancholy, retro-attired little gem of a horror movie.
