The Vampire Film Book Now Available

Sept. 21, 2011 - PRLog -- The Vampire Film
From Nosferatu to True Blood
Fourth Edition—Updated and Expanded
By Alain Silver and James Ursini

Vampire movies are now the most popular type of horror film—those plodding zombies just can’t keep up. Limelight Editions is proud to release a completely revised and updated edition of The Vampire Film ($29.99, Limelight Editions), the most extensive and insightful book on the vampire genre, now doubled in length and completely redesigned with 800 color photos. Previous editions have entranced film students, seized the hearts of mortal fans, and given vampires something meaty to sink their teeth into as they pass the millennia (though they would never admit it).

The new edition explores the surge in vampire media since the millennium, including films like Underworld, Van Helsing, I Am Legend, and Let the Right One In and television series like Buffy, Moonlight, True Blood, and The Vampire Diaries. Many current portrayals explore tragedy as much as terror—as Tennyson’s Tithonus put it, “Cruel immortality consumes.” And with modern digital effects, today’s filmmakers no longer need to rely on rubber bats and plastic fangs to depict the bloodthirsty undead. This book takes a look at all the visions and re-envisions of these creatures of the night, from the monsters of The Last Man on Earth to a tortured and kick-ass Blade.
   The book is structured thematically, incorporating vampire films of all eras into chapters on vampire lore, male vampires, female vampires, Dracula, and more. Although all vampire movies get a mention, the authors pay particular attention to little-known titles with unique or groundbreaking approaches to the genre. This, in addition to a 700+ entry filmography, makes this book the most complete of its kind. The Vampire Film has withstood the tests of time and its rivals and, like the great vampire lords, only grows stronger.

ALAIN SILVER (Los Angeles) wrote The Samurai Film, a dozen other books with James Ursini or Elizabeth Ward, including Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles, and co-edited six readers on film noir, horror and gangster films. His articles have appeared in Film Comment, Movie, Wide Angle, anthologies on The Philosophy of Film Noir and Akira Kurosawa, and the on-line magazines Images and Senses of Cinema. He has produced a score of independent feature films and 40 soundtrack albums. His commentaries may be heard and seen on numerous DVDs discussing the classic period of noir, Raymond Chandler, and the gangster film.

JAMES URSINI (Los Angeles) co-wrote The Noir Style, L.A. Noir, More Things than Are Dreamt Of, and director studies of David Lean, Robert Aldrich, and Roger Corman with Alain Silver. His other books include Modern Amazons, Cinema of Obsession, Femme Fatale and monographs on Bogart, Dietrich, Elizabeth Taylor, Mae West, and De Niro for the Taschen Icon series. He has been a producer on features and documentaries, and lectured on filmmaking at UCLA and at other colleges in the Los Angeles area.

Sept. 2011          $29.99          ISBN: 978-0-87910-395-8          Paperback          488 pages      800 color photos
Limelight Editions, an imprint of Hal Leonard