AHEM. *clears throat*

*bursts into clutching pumpkin spice lattes and 1000 deformed gourds*

HAPPY OCTOBER, AKA THE 31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN. 

Look, a tiny pumpkin. Does your heart not swell with joy?

To properly kick off the season, today Sara is sharing a revised and updated list of some of our favorite vampire media for you to enjoy this month.

Though we know and love classics like Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire, and the exquisite Marceline from Adventure Time, for this collection, she’s picked some of her favorite lesser-known stories. So break out your velvet and lace, grab a cup of tea (or a glass of very red wine), and prepare for some truly excellent vampire tales! Want artsy vampires? Classic vampires? Western vampires? Vampires in space? WE GOT YOU.

Over to Sara for the 2025 list!

Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) directed by Jim Jarmusch – This dreamy movie is a delight for the senses. The music, the clothes, and the settings are both lush and edgy. Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston play a devoted vampire couple with a decidedly fae twist, and I am here for every second of it. (In fact, Brittany and I are so obsessed with this one that we made a whole mini-lecture on it, which you can go watch now in our Fairylore Library if you’re a patron!)

Sinners (2025) directed by Ryan Coogler – I had to watch this one with two friends who helpfully told me when to cover my eyes, but IT WAS WORTH IT. This film is straight-up horror, which is really not my thing in general, and content warnings for, like, everything. But it is GORGEOUS. It’s shot absolutely beautifully, the use of color is stunning and eye-catching, and the costumes are perfection. A++ music. Thoughtful race and gender storytelling and commentary, and the vampires are legitimately terrifying. I was genuinely blown away. 

Woman, Eating (2022) by Claire Kohda – Probably the most “literary” pick on this list. Lydia is a British, Japanese and Malaysian vampire who is trying to figure out 1) how to survive, 2) how to be an artist, and 3) how to belong in the human world, with varying degrees of success. An exploration of art and many different kinds of hunger.

Sunshine (2003) by Robin McKinley – A strange, experimental, and weirdly charming novel that retells Beauty and the Beast with the help of vampires, magic, and lots of baking. The protagonist, Rae, is a grumpy baker with a magical affinity for sunlight and a reluctant partnership with a vampire. This is probably my favorite novel of all time, and it always makes me want to eat cinnamon rolls.

The Real History of Dracula (2023) by Sara Cleto and Brittany Warman – Hi, did you know we made a whole streaming series for The Great Courses about vampires, Dracula, and adaptations? Have you ever wondered about the folkloric roots of vampire stories or what changed when vampires migrated into literature and visual media? We have, oh, just a few thoughts. You can stream all ten episodes with a free trial right here. 

Nosferatu (1922) directed by F.W. Murnau – Many people are familiar with the classic 1931 film Dracula, but Nosferatu is its older, weirder cousin. Also an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic 1897 novel, Nosferatu is an unauthorized retelling – thus Count Dracula becomes Count Orlok, and the other characters and place names morph a little, too. A silent German expressionist film, it is a far cry from contemporary horror, but it has many genuinely creepy moments. (We did a little bonus discussion of this film for The Great Courses too, which you can also watch with the free trial here!)

Sabella, or The Blood Stone (1980) by Tanith Lee – Vampires… In… SPAAACCCEEE! No seriously. This is a story about a vampire living on Mars. It’s Gothic AF and completely bizarre. We love this weird, pulpy, macabre little book.

Magic Bites (Kate Daniels #1) (2007) by Ilona Andrews – Urban fantasy vibes. The main character is competent, sword-wielding, and smart-mouthed, and the series boasts an impressive lack of love triangles (a plot device that I positively loathe but is epidemic in this post-Twilight world!) The vampires of this series are much closer to the vampires of folklore – animalistic, leech-like, and deeply unsexy.

Carmilla (1872) by Sheridan Le Fanu – This early vampire novella is a Gothic masterpiece. The friendship/ tension/ romance/ horror going on between the innocent young Laura and the ancient, seductive Carmilla is compelling and creepy. (As a bonus, check out the version “edited” by Carmen Maria Machado, which contains fictional footnotes that are an absolute delight!)

Carmilla (webseries) (2014-2016) created by Jordan Hall, Steph Ouaknine, and Jay Bennett – The Carmilla webseries is a contemporary adaptation of Le Fanu’s novella, and it is one of the most bingeable things I have ever seen. Set on a college campus, the series recasts Laura as a plucky freshman with journalistic ambitions and Carmilla as a reluctant and jaded minion of ancient evil. Many hijinks and much romance ensue.

“Krishna Blue” (2014) by Shveta Thakrar – This intoxicating short story by Shveta Thakrar (featured in the Kaleidoscope anthology) recasts vampirism as a thirst for color as well as life. Vibrant and intensely visual, the story explores fraught family relationships and the (sometimes competing) desires to belong, to create, and to consume before descending into horror. It’s an incredibly creative take on the vampire story, and it will make you surprisingly hungry.

“The Girl with the Hungry Eyes” (1949) by Fritz Leiber – Though this short story was published in 1949, it still feels incredibly modern and timely. A story about beauty, gazes, and hunger, it pushes the limits of what vampirism can mean and offers a chilling critique of capitalism.

Penny Dreadful (2014-2016) created by John Logan – The costumes. The sets. The perfect, perfect expressions on the actors’ faces. Penny Dreadful is one of the gorier items on this list, but it’s also one of the most lush. While one of the major plotlines of Season 1 involves a quest to retrieve Mina (originally from Stoker’s Dracula) from the clutches of the vampires, this Gothic mash-up also features Dorian Gray, Victor Frankenstein and his Creature(s), an American shapeshifter, and more.

“The Vampyre” (1816) by John Polidori – This short story is largely responsible for our cultural perception of vampires. Before Polidori, vampires were…super gross. In folklore, they were often swollen and bloated, closer to the animal than the urbane. Polidori based his vampire on his employer, the dashing poet Lord Byron, and his aristocratic and, well, Byronic antihero became the model on which future vampire tales were based.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown (2013) by Holly Black – Though she’s most famous for her Modern Faerie novels, Holly Black’s lone vampire novel is phenomenal. Her imagining of Coldtown – a quarantined part of the city in which vampires and the desperate people who seek them out live in squalor and splendor – is creatively and vividly rendered. Her vampires are sexy, scary, and surprisingly adept with social media. It’s a delightful romp with a perfect ending.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) directed by Ana Lily Amirpour – An Iranian-American vampire Western, this movie is a fabulous reimagining of what a vampire story can be. Wildly creative and unapologetically feminist, it is by turns creepy, funny, romantic, and disturbing. I could barely make it through the film the first time because I was worried something was going to happen to the pet cat, but I am relieved to report that THE CAT IS FINE. So enjoy the show!

What We Do in the Shadows (2019-24) directed by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi – Ok, the  What We Do in the Shadows tv show (inspired by the 2014 movie of the same name) is hardly obscure, but I had to give it a quick shout out, because it’s hilarious. If you haven’t seen this horror-comedy-mockumentary yet, it follows the hijinks of “traditional” vampires Nandor, Laszlo, and Nadja, energy vampire Colin Robinson, and familiar/ vampire hunter Guillermo who live together in a giant creepy house on Staten Island. They’re theoretically taking over the “New World,” but they’ve barely got one block covered. 

WHEW. Ok, this should keep you busy at least through the first week of October, yes? Enjoy!

_{Disclosure: We are affiliates of Bookshop.org and may earn a commission if you click through any of our book links and make a purchase. Thank you for supporting independent bookshops!}