The 31 Days of Horror, Day Fifteen- 2 Modern Day Vamp classics!

Movie/TV Vampires these days seem to be watered down, whiny, Emo pansies, don't they? Moping around over girls, spending hours in the mirror getting their hair right, mean mugging and doing their best to look like anything other than an angry Abercrombie model. Twilight, Vampire Diaries, True Blood; they're nothing more than soap opera's for disillusioned girls who want to find a boyfriend.

It's a sad state of affairs for bloodsuckers, these days.

Not all hope is lost though. There have been some good vampire flicks in the past 10 years, and tonight we watched two of them.

30 Days of Night is one of our favorite movies of the Aughts. It's dark and bloody, and is based on some really great source material that translated to the screen fairly well, so it was right up our collective alleys. Some people call the ending cheesy, with Josh Hartnett basically "Hulking out" to save the day, but come on, it's a vampire flick. There's not much realism in the story to begin with.

Like this is realistic?

The idea of an isolated town that is cut off from the rest of humanity and has to live in complete darkness for a month is just creepy. Add vampires to the mix and you have one hell of a compelling book/comic/movie idea on your hands.

Along with Let the Right One In and Stake Land, 30 Days of Night is definitely one of the best vampire flicks of this century. For the record, saying "this century" feels really odd to us, but we're already 12 years in to a new millennium, so we'd better get used to saying it.It's still weird though.

She does not want to take her eternal dirt-nap.

Daybreakers was one that we never expected to like very much, but were happily surprised when we ended up loving it.

Turning the "Post-Apocalyptic" mythos on its head, Daybreakers shows us a world in which vampires rule society, and humans are in hiding to avoid becoming food. With the supply of humans running low, and vampires starting to get really hungry, they fervently look for a viable blood substitute to ensure their survival, and instead end up finding a cure...

He doesn't want a cure, he wants to eat.

Ethan Hawke was pretty good in this as the sympathetic vampire trying to save the human race, and Willem Dafoe with a crossbow can't possibly be a bad thing, and so we found ourselves really getting into this movie. We loved the world building aspect of the script, and thought it made for an interesting set of dynamics.

It's also pretty damned bloody too. Like, crazy bloody in parts.

"Not a bad thing? I'm Willem Motherfuking Dafoe; I am always an awesome thing!"

Both of these movies look great in Blu-ray, BTW, and that just makes us enjoy them all the more, especially since they cost us only $4.99 each at Best Buy this week.