Ever since Bram Stoker went on the most successful writers retreat of all time and penned Dracula, the vampire story has molded and helped evolve not only the horror genre as we know it today but, really, film as a whole. Watching Max Schreck walk out of the shadows in 1922’s Nosferatu is still kinda unsettling and is surely an image we’ve seen as much as we have Bogart smoking, Eastwood with a smoking gun or Brando looking smoking cool. The count has been remade a countless number of times and to date there are nearly 200 feature film versions of Stoker’s fanged one alone.

So with the help of this years staggering, pitch perfect Let The Right One In, HBO’s new series True Blood doing all kinds of things all over the world, Chan Wook Park’s hopefully masterful Thirst on the horizon and some small time franchise thing called The “Twilight” Saga reaching Harry Potter style fever pitch in all the right demographics, the end of the naughties is looking to rekindle our love for blood sucking with a vengeance.

Vampire’s Kiss, one of the strangest comedy/horror films ever (and a personal guilty favorite of mine) uses Nic Cage’s obsession with a fanged lady of the night and a feverish belief that he has been bitten to cover up the fact that in all actuality, he’s probably just going a bit insane. So, is this new chapter in the vampire’s cinematic life going to hold anything new for its mythology in film culture? Are we really still in love/lust with the sexiness and mysticism of the vamp or is the hype machine, ran now by a billion teenage twitterers, just gone a little bit mad?

Stephanie Meyers’ series of Twilight novels have enjoyed massive success all over the globe and have all been in the hot hot hands of nearly every commuter in my fair city (though truthfully, not yet in my own) and the first film of the series proved to be just as popular with fans of the novel but seems to have failed in wining the hearts of the uninitiated masses (myself included). Though beautiful looking, Catherine Hardwicke’s introduction to a new young group of vamps, literally and cinematically borrowed from existing popular fang-lore and the more obscure in equal measure and, for me, fell completely flat. The Lost Boys and Buffy come shining through sadly without the tongue in the cheek, along of course, with the forbidden love of Romeo and Juliet and the cool rivalry of The Outsiders. Is it truly something new or just a revamp (ha!) and a retelling of some safe cultish favorites?

If there was a classic turn in the vampire genre left surely it was taken by Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In, a sumptuous version of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s adaptation of his own great novel. Bringing vampire lore down to an almost Terrence Malick level of beauty in a coldly composed world where adults barley exist, the film works wonders in creating an intense feeling of what it was like to be a kid again and it pushes the romantic immortal aspect of neck bitters  for once into the realm of kids too young to drink or drive.

That’s all well and good then, right? But what of us of the more adult persuasion? What of us who don’t find Robert Patterson or Kristen Stewart to be hotter than the surface of the sun? Is there any place left where (I can’t believe I’m going to say it but…) adults get to be vampires? I thought that Gregor Jordan’s adaptation of Brett Easton Ellis’ short story novel The Informers may have been the answer until I sat down to watch it and discovered that the brilliant vampire story and super-natural aspects of the text had been left on the cutting room floor. Has the vampire genre been blandly branded “teen” forever?

Not so fast.

Chan Wook Park’s acclaimed Vengeance Trilogy are three films that have blown me away numerous times after numerous re-watches and it’s with baited breath that I wait for what I believe will be the “other” vampire event of the year, his Cannes Grand Jury Prize winning Thirst. The story of a priest who volunteers himself for a blood transfusion only to wake with a serious blood thirst issue. Not being reliant on guys with cool hair, young ladies with come hither eyes or a soundtrack of terrible, bloated, fatuous bands, Wook Park’s film promises more debate and boundary pushing than usual and truly could be a real contender as an instant classic in forwarding the modern vampire film.

Being a massive horror fan and a massive horror fan with a true belief that the genre can be both entertaining and as thought provoking as any other I think it’s very important that the Chan Wook Park’s and the Tomas Alfredson’s of the world get seen as much as, say the Eli Roth’s and the Rob Zombies of the world.

Don’t get me wrong…. although I do not think that Nosferatu, Vampire’s Kiss, Rabid, Valerie’s Week of Wonder’s, Cronos, The Addiction or even Katherine Bigelow’s awesome Near Dark will ever widely be seen by the audience who are salivating as we speak over the New Moon trailer, I am glad that The Twilight films are keeping vamps in the spotlight for better or for worse. I only hope that the vampire genre continues to grow and that the oldest genre of story telling remains something vital, true and powerful to all ages, even those of us who can see past cool hair, endless franchises, a six pack and a bunch of ill fated horny teens.