The cult of the vampire, with its undertones of violent sexuality, has been an endless source of inspiration for film-makers from the earliest days of the silent cinema. Throughout screen history, the fair-skinned victims of Count Dracula have swooned with near-delight at his red-eyed approach. The black-clad figures of Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee, the most famous of all movie vampires, loom large in the success story of the popular horror cinema.

David Pirie, film critic of the London weekly Time Out and a committed admirer of the Gothic strain in film and literature, examines the archetypes of the screen's most potent monster, including Bram Stoker's own Dracula and the legend of Countess Bathory, the very original Countess Dracula. Here, then, is the account of the way these bloodthirsty heroes and heroines made their way onto the screen, from the great classics of Nosferatu and Vampyr, the Universal vampire films of the thirties and forties, including Tod Browning's Dracula, and the technicolor fantasies of Hammer, to the Baroque extravaganzas of the Latin cinema and the polished Surrealism of the French sex-vampire movies of the seventies.

Illustrated with almost 200 unusual stills from all the major and many of the minor vampire films, many rare posters in colour, lobby cards and campaign sheets, this book is a unique and fascinating account of the most exciting and chilling moments from the fantasy cinema.