Vampire List

It seems that Entertainment magazine has a feature about the recent success of the vampire genre. On the whole, I thought it was fairly boring coverage (I read it at the gym I swear!), but the list of the top twenty made for interesting reading. There's is from most important to least.

1. Lestat, Interview With the Vampire
2. Christopher Lee’s Dracula
3. Bela Lugosi’s Dracula
4. Edward Cullen, Twilight
5. Bill and Eric, True Blood
6. Asa Vajda, 1960’s Black Sunday
7. Angel
8. Mr. Barlow, Salem’s Lot
9. Schuyler Van Alen, Melissa de la Cruz’s Blue Bloods series
10. Gary Oldman’s Dracula
11. Klaus Kinski’s Dracula
12. Zoey Redbird, P.C. and Kristin Cast’s House of Night series
13. Jean-Claude, Laurel K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series
14. David, 1987’s The Lost Boys
15. Miriam Blaylock and Sarah Roberts, 1983’s The Hunger
16. Blade, the Blade trilogy
17. Eli, 2008’s Let the Right One In
18. Countess Bathory, 1971’s Daughters of Darkness
19. Selene, the Underworld trilogy
20. Caleb and Mae, 1987’s Near Dark

Now I must confess that I am not familiar with all of these characters (hey, I'm not totally obessed!), but a few of them are favorites of mine. I certainly prefer the sexy vampires to the horrific ones. For what it's worth, here are ten of my favorite vampire characters in no particular order:

1. Lestat (of Rice's Interview fame)
2. Edward Cullen (of Meyer's Twilight)
3. Bill Compton (of Harris' Southern Vampire series)
4. Angel (of Buffy fame)
5. Spike (also of Buffy fame, but deserving his own number)
6. Dracula (how could you not include him?)
7. Nicholas Knight (of Forever Night)
8. Barnabas Collins (of Dark Shadows)
9. Nosferatu (because you have to give a nod to the pioneers)
10. Lord Ruthven (of Polidori's The Vampyre --- if only because it was the origin of the sophisticated vampire)