Female vampires once ruled the world. Now they are overlooked for glittering guys with big hair. It's time to point out why the female of the species should be the center of attention.
It's pretty hard to believe that in the years I've been doing this blog I have never once ranked a top ten list of any type. Part of the reason is that there are so many of them out there from the peak of the "Twilight" era. Most of them list "all time" but only list vamps of the past decade or two which is pretty annoying for someone like me who's seen so many films in this genre. Others just go with the cliche's (the better your film the higher you are on their list). While I do plan on doing a full all inclusive list one day I figured the best time to start my first one would be a list that seemingly no one else has ever done before so what better way to say goodbye to the USA's month of black history than to single out the one group that many don't even know exist (yes, I've gotten many legitimate responses asking if there are any) The sexy black female vampire.
Now my criteria is pretty simple and every girl has to rank high in both to make it. The first criteria is hotness of the actress. The second criteria is the sexiness of the vampire character itself. It is not enough for a hot actress to put on fangs and call it a day. For example by this criteria Kate Beckinsale as Selene in Underworld probably doesn't make a top 10 sexy vampiresses of all times list as the character is purposely not trying to be sexy in that series (She would probably crack the top 10 if the list was just on vampire actresses though).
And without any further adieu lets start with #10.
This was the one position that I had the most trouble figuring out. Mostly because there were two women in this film that could have easily taken the spot. Literally its the above scene in which she gets a mouth full of cross when she attempts to give a priest a blowjob (specifically what she's wearing) that gave her the nod over Playboy Playmate Serria Tawan (very top pick of blog).
A nameless vamp but she has the significance of being the first black vampire to appear in a Dracula film and he picked a good one. That would make her like the "Jackie Robinson" of Dracula's brides.
Gabby started out as a good girl. She was adopted by a nice catholic hispanic family (hence the last name "Garza"), had a great job as a nurse and a fiance who was head over heels in love with her. That is until she met Calib the vampire. After that she hit on anything with two legs if it meant sinking her teeth into their neck.
She wasn't always black and we don't know much about her before she was but what we do know is she is the precursor to the "Girls Gone Wild" party chick when she is awakened in her new ethnicity.
While in many cases she comes off pretty bossy you can't ignore that she gets very sexual when it comes to blood drinking. She turns a prostitute because she thought the girl was hot, bites a girl because guys were calling her a lesbian, kills a monk by biting him in his private sector and we finish it all off with her in her leather cheerleader/dominatrix gear. She's pretty close to being a vampire dream girl.
The way Season 5 of the HBO vampire series started out she probably wouldn't have cracked a top 15. The way it ended (and the way the previews of Season 6 ellude to) she is easily top 5 as she's now a hot lesbian vampire stripper. Soon enough her screen time will consist of mostly vampire lesbian sex.
Lillith is the sexy stripper turned female plaything of busty blonde vampire Diana in the low budget 2004 "B" movie. Similar to Shelly Rio's Vegas Vampires character her only job was to look hot. The thing that puts her this high on the list is the fact that she does it mostly in lingerie and her boss is a hot lesbian vampire.
Was she real or a figment of his warped imagination is the question this 1988 film asked. Rachel had a tendency to show up in the middle of the night for the sole purpose of raping and draining Nicolas Cage till he went nuts (or maybe he was nuts first). She was really jealous but looking the way she did most guys wouldn't give her much of a reason to show her jealous side.
Vanessa is better known as Blades milfy mom. The first time we see her we aren't that sure who the hot black girl in her PJ's rubbing all over Deacon Frost is but all becomes clear (quite literally) during the Blade torture scene when mom comes to visit. Even though she's talking to her son she's very seductive. Sadly she doesn't make it passed that scene but she definitely made a lasting impression.
and the #1 hottest black female vampire of all time is.........
She is probably easily one of the top 5 female vampires of all time of any ethnicity so it is a no brainer to put her at #1 in this list. Her voice, the way she walked and her domineering personality just scream sexy (also it didn't hurt that she was constantly half naked either). On top of that, one look into her bright green vampiric eyes and hypnosis or not, running doesn't seem like the best option. Let's face it, she was so hot that she turned a gay vampire straight and we all know Lestat was really, really gay.
First I want to apologize because if you've seen these films you know that "the brides of Blacula" technically don't exist. At least not in the manner as it does in the Dracula franchise. With that being said, in the United States February is black history month so I've been doing my part by including films with black vampiresses for a majority of the month. With two days left I'm going for broke with my contributions to teach a little black history (centered around sexy vampiresses of course) each day.
Today's entry as you can see revolves around the 1970's blaxploitation franchise "Blacula". First a little background. "Blaxploitation" is the nickname given to the film genre from 1970 to 1979 which revolved mainly around black main characters. Basically in the 70's people in the US got so tired of seeing the same "type" of people in films that film makers made a killing just by putting ethnic characters as the stars of their films (not just with blaxploitation as Kung Fu films also rose in popularity at this time as well). Even the James Bond franchise had a blaxploitation flavored film with 1973's "Live and Let Die" (which marked the debut of Roger Moore). It was so successful that the Blaxploitation era basically ended because black characters became so popular that main stream film and television almost required them in most scripts by the 1980's destroying the need for a separate genre (though directors like Spike Lee, John Singleton and Tyler Perry have done their part to keep the "urban" film genre alive).
Blacula (which obviously comes from a mash-up of Black and Dracula) would be the first blaxploitation horror film and is incorrectly credited as the first horror film of any type to feature a black vampire (The actual first film to feature a black vampire would be Jacqueline Sieger in the Jean Rollins film "Rape of the Vampire" which came out in 1968, a full 4 years before the first Blackula film). The title, along with some of the more infamous low budget craptacular blaxploitation horror movies which followed this franchise turns a lot of younger audiences away from it as you automatically think of one of those bad movies you'd see on Mystery Science Theater 3000 where you would have a jive talkin pimp-like Dracula running around some place like Harlem slapping people (a caricature actually used in the 90's cartoon "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy"). That's why so many people are surprised if they do give it a chance and they find that it's the very opposite.
Blacula is the story of an African prince named Mamuwalde who is attacked, turned and imprisoned in a coffin by Count Dracula. Two centuries later he is released from his coffin prison where he spends the movie lusting after a girl named Luva (Vonetta McGee) who looks exactly like the wife he had prior to his imprisonment (making her his Mina) and the rest of the time is him trying and failing miserably at holding back his blood lust. That latter making the film a true vampire horror film as unlike many others, bloodlust trumps better judgement every time thus making vampirism somewhat like the werewolf curse where all is fair game when the wolf takes over (not to mention he gets VERY hairy when he is in vampire mode to help with the scare factor).
My one problem with the franchise came down to the makeup used for the creatures of the film. There was so much the undead were almost blue. They in some cases were whiter then some of the actual white people in the movie after they died which wasn't flattering.
The above female wasn't bad looking at all when she was alive but as a vampire she looked HORRIBLE and that goes for all of them. Weird makeup, crazy hair the whole nine yards.
This problem gets slightly fixed in the followup film, 1973's Scream, Blacula Scream. Mamuwalde is brought back to life via a voodoo ritual in order to do a voodoo priests dirty work but it ends up being turned around and the priest as well as anyone else who crosses his past get turned into a vampire. In other words Mamuwalde pretty much becomes Count Yorga at this point creating an army of undead vamp women (and a couple guys) with bad makeup and frizzy hair.
To make it even more memorable the film also pretty much lifts the casket scene from "Brides of Dracula" where we have an undead Gloria (Janee Michelle) pleading with a freaked out Lisa to join her as one of Mamuwalde's brides.
This gets stopped by Mamuwalde just after the groping but right before the biting. Sadly preventing us from seeing a vampire Pam Grier!
If you don't understand how horrible the idea of not having a vampire Pam Grier in her prime is, I've provided a picture of what she looked like back then below.
Now here's the thing, what do you do when the first films were great but technology and skill could make it so much better. A REMAKE! They've remade Shaft so why couldn't someone write a retelling of the Blacula story (under a better name of course)? Who wouldn't want to see top black actresses like Halle Berry, Beyonce Knowles or Vanessa Williams fanging out under Mamuwalde's spell and no I don't count Vampire in Brooklyn (though it was pretty obvious that's what they were going for).
So if you've been reading my blog over the years one of the things you might notice is that one of the most popular ones I've done was running down the list of hot female vamps on the now cancelled daytime soap opera "Port Charles". If you haven't read it you can check it out HERE. Basically I gush about how awesome the show was and how it never should have been cancelled because it was way ahead of it's time etc etc...
Here we are in 2013 and things in the quiet little town of Port Charles seemed to be getting strange again. You see Port Charles is the town in which the daytime soap General Hospital takes place. On the show "Port Charles" everyone was pretty much a vampire or some sort of creature by the shows final episode but in the part of town the series "General Hospital" (and for that matter it's spin-off "Night Shift") took place everything was fine. Here was another strange thing regarding this. Many of the "Port Charles" actors who played vampires in the original series moved on to different shows with many eventually ending up on....you guessed it "General Hospital" but as different characters. So how is it possible that you can have so many people in the same city, look EXACTLY the same but be two totally different people?
Joshua Temple (Port Charles-2003) & Duke Lavery (General Hospital-2013)
Livvie Loche (Port Charles-2003) & Sam McCall (General Hospital-2013)
and last but not least Caleb Morely (Port Charles-2003) & John McBain (General Hospital-2013)
Seems a bit odd even by Soap Opera standards. Here's the real kicker. See the dates above? It's the 10 year anniversary of "Port Charles" final episode.
So here's what's happening right now on General Hospital. Lucy Coe played by Lynn Herring has returned to Port Charles. The last time we seen her she was a vampire slayer in training on the show "Port Charles" and she runs into good old John McBain. As you can see above Mr. McBain looks a lot like evil vamp Caleb Morely (who had a tendency to change aliases every once in awhile on "Port Charles"), John also just happened to be having a nice meal with Sam who looks a lot like vampire Livvie as well (what a coincidence) so what does she do? She stabs the guy!
So we all know they're not the same people, it's been a decade and no one has heard the term vampire since the other show got cancelled so we just call her a nut and lock her up, the end right? WRONG! As it turns out CALEB IS AROUND and he's been busy. As we see in the below clip where another alum of Port Charles "Allison" (who's mom was the Vampire "Elizabeth") is murdered by him.
So after years of hoping it looks to be official....PORT CHARLES IS BACK and it should be only a matter of time before Kelly Monaco dons the fangs once again!!!!
First and foremost, if she looks familiar then you might be a fan of the Fox series "American Idol". "Princess X" competed there under her given name Inessa Lee (Season 10). Second I've got to say that I love the trend of former Idol contestants doing vampire related music video's as they try to branch out since a couple of others have done so as well.
In this case there really is no real purpose for it but you won't find me complaining. If a beautiful woman wants to sport a pair of fangs for no reason, I say go for it.
The song itself is a remake of the 1970's tune "Ring My Bell" by Anita Ward. The video pretty much consists of her dancing in an all white background singing the song with male backup dancers covered in white powder. Sprinkled in with these scenes is our vamp X seducing some guy.
By the end of the video she sprouts fangs and bites the guy. As a result he then becomes covered in white as well.
The Gist: After an experiment to bring Count Dracula's wife back to life goes wrong and turns her black, Dracula travels to London in an effort to "cure" her.
Clarification: Basically Count Dracula had turned his home into a tourist attraction where people could stay the night in a vampire themed castle. There he would drug them and drain them of their blood and bottle it while they slept hoping to find a rare blood type that would cure his wife "Vampira" of a blood disease that resulted in her having to be frozen to prevent her death. One evening a group of Playboy Playmates stay at the castle and one of them happened to have the magic blood type to cure Vampira. That blood ends up getting mixed with the blood of one of the black playmates resulting in "Vampira" being cured and brought back to life but now as a black woman.
This film is a British attempt at capitalizing on the Blaxploitation craze which had taken over the US film industry in the 1970s. The running joke of the film revolves around how much Vampira loves being a black woman in the 1970's and how ridiculously uncomfortable Count Dracula is about being married to a black woman. Dracula spends the entire movie trying to keep Vampira from being seen in public with her "condition" but Vampira takes to the 1970's party lifestyle so well the last thing she wants to do is stay cooped up inside.
Selling Point: The movie is funny and you FINALLY get to see Linda Hayden with fangs no thanks to Hammer!
Female Vampire Factor: We have two in this film...
Linda Hayden (Helga)
As I have stated in the past, the fact that she wasn't turned in "Taste the Blood of Dracula" irked me to no end. This film makes that snub a little less painful even if her time as a bloodsucker was only temporary. Helga was a student who was working part time at Dracula's castle as Dracula's sexy vampire bride during the tourist attraction. One day she shows up and tells Dracula's servant (who plays Dracula during the attraction) that she's turning in her resignation because she's tired of spending the day in a coffin. He then tricks her into going to the wine cellar with him but actually locks her up in a cell. Dracula is then asked to bite her in order to keep her there long enough for her to work the attraction for the playmates coming in but he ends up drinking too much and turns her into a full vampire (top scene). Dracula ends up having to host the dinner himself as the now vampire Helga tries to bite every neck she goes near (bottom scene). Sadly after the dinner Drac has her destroyed with a crossbow.
Teresa Graves (Vampira)
It's never said when exactly Vampira was turned but by the way she acts I highly doubt it was that long before she went under which according to the movie was 50 years prior to the present day of the time which would put it around 1924. She is obviously much younger than Dracula and she is definitely in 1920's attire when we first see her and begins to listen to 20's style flapper music when she wakes up. This is in complete contrast to Dracula who seems stuck in stereotypical Dracula ways. With her overly positive response to changing races it also eludes to the fact that she was definitely brought up in a much more open minded time period than that of Vlad the Impaler. Anyway it doesn't take her long to blend end to the 70's London vibe and by the end of the movie we find that she's bi-sexual as well. Honestly don't see the problem here Drac.
I'm a huge fan of this film and an even bigger fan of the late Teresa Graves portrayal of Vampira. The one complaint I have is that even with her name being the title of the film it wasn't really about her but Dracula and his problem with her. In the US they fix the issue by naming it "Old Dracula" but I just believe the movie would have been much more entertaining had it been about the sexy black vampire going crazy and feeding on everyone in the London party scene (which seemed to be what the character wanted to do). Either way there is still enough of her for the film to get a Vampire Beauty Rating of 4 out of 5.
The Gist: After hundreds of years hiding, vampires have decided that it is time to begin feeding on humans again and it is up to Dr. Abraham Van Helsing to stop them.
Clarification: Basically a long time ago, Van Helsing killed Dracula after Dracula turned his wife. The rest of the vampires freaked and went into hiding. After centuries they're very week from only feeding off of animals and scraps and the last descendant of Dracula, a vampire named Sebastion after some convincing from the much more devious and worthy of leadership Arianna decides that humans are fair game and that they weren't afraid of Van Helsing anymore (though he too is immortal and works as a medical physician "coincidentally" in the city Sebastian is held up at).
Selling Point: Vampiress Arianna!
Female Vampire Factor: A great deal of the female vampire action comes in the way of 3 random vampire females who are seen throughout the different feeding and fighting montages in the film.
They are in no particular order.
Short haired vamp in short skirt (credited "Josie" played by Kristina Proulx)
Long haired goth vamp
and blonde vamp that if you blink you don't even actually know exists in the movie.
In all honesty only two vampires in the entire movie can be considered main characters otherwise. Thankfully one of them is a hot female.
Denise Boutte (Arianna)
She is all over this film to the point that she is truly the star of the whole thing. Arianna is a true vampire in every sense of the word in that she has never been much for backing down to humans. Much of this probably has to do with the fact that she fought alongside Dracula when he was killed. Also she is the acting leader of the vampires keeping the brood together while Sebastion was busy sulking and wasting away and even trying to keep him in line when instead of making smart decisions as a leader he, as she so eloquently put it "was thinking with his dick". To those 1980's kids out there, basically that means she was "Starscream" to Sebastions "Megatron". (Spoiler alert) With all these traits its no surprise when it comes out in the movies end that she, not Sebastion was the last great vampire in the Dracula blood line which made it all the sweeter when she lived to fight another day. Oh yeah...and did I mention she was kind of a lesbian?
So the verdict....the acting was bad in this film, made even worse by WAY too much dialogue. None the less it's one of the few vamp films in which one of the lead vamps was a hot female who was not a pushover and not only wasn't she stake fodder but didn't die at all by the time the film ends. So sexy dominant black vampire girl in slutty outfit combined with minor vamps who get enough screen time for them to be memorable (accept for the blond as I mentioned) means this film gets a Vampire Beauty Rating of 4 out of 5.
