Since it hardly covers “The Origin and Evolution of The Vampire Movie” as its subtitle would imply, it would probably be more accurate to call this original doc from Starz “Hollywood’s New Breed of Vampires.” Then there would be no problems involving viewer expectations as to the scope and depth of writer-director Barry Gray’s ambitions here. That’s because Bloodsucking Cinema does an admirable job of covering the greatest vampire hits of the past generation or so, especially when it comes to their technical aspects (the late Stan Winston and the formidable Greg Nicotero are both heard from at length). Although officially unrated, Bloodsucking Cinema is definitely R-rated in content, with considerable gore and nudity, a factor that also tends to favor the “edgy/hip” feel of the proceedings over any cineaste/film buff leanings they may have.

Indeed, although Gray’s coverage of the material is often quite thoughtful, that material itself will be terribly familiar to most horror fans and perhaps even irrelevant to hardcore undead enthusiasts looking for something new this fall. Overall the lineup of participants is medium-impressive, with the high points being some insightful commentary from John Carpenter and Marv Wolfman. Where the talking heads fail is when they speak rather too far afield from their own experiences and influences (Joel Schumacher on vampirism as a metaphor for oral sex?); instead, a couple of anthropologists or even psychoanalysts would have been nice to hear from. Harry Knowles of Ain’t it Cool News consistently makes great connections within the genre, and I would have welcomed a few more folks with his level of knowledge—rather than, say, actors such as Stuart Townsend holding forth on their own theories.

So by now you can probably see where I’m coming from, and where I’m going…

Namely, where are acknowledged milestones such as Dreyer’s Vampyr (1932, often sited as one of the top horror films of all time) or Near Dark (1987)? Where are cross-cultural or multi-cultural interpretations, a designation that might include anything from Chinese hopping vampires to Blacula (1972)? Or where are the fascinating, often iconoclastic, one-offs that I’d love to see appraised in a historical context—stuff like Ganja & Hess (1973), Martin (1977), Herzog’s Nosferatu (1979), Vampire’s Kiss (1989), The Addiction (1995) or Shadow of the Vampire (2000)? Or major genre-benders such as the films based on Richard Matheson’s vampire novel I Am Legend? Or titles that are notable purely for aesthetic reasons, such as Roman Polanski’s Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) or Guy Maddin’s Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary (2002)? And bear in mind that I hardly have expertise in this area—which is one of the reasons I was looking forward to this doc: a real scholar/film historian/diehard fan could probably rattle off many other more pertinent examples.

Of course I hardly expect a doc with a relatively short running time to include all, or even most of the above suggestions, but certainly one or two would have been appreciated. If by the “evolution” of an archetype or a subgenre we mean more than “commercially successful titles that influenced other commercially successful titles,” then fewer mainstream, guaranteed-to-be-shelved-at-your-local-Blockbuster works need to be covered. I’m not sure to what extent permissioning issues, the research budget, or marketing concerns affected the decision to include or exclude certain titles, but it seems that Gray would have been fully capable of tackling a wider range of work. As evidence of this, one of the more interesting segments involves Cheech Marin (of From Dusk Till Dawn, 1996) discussing Mexican vampire films, but this is altogether too fleeting a moment and the only visuals we’re given are lobby cards and posters. We do see some clips from the Spanish language Dracula shot at the same time as the Lugosi film, but otherwise non-English language fare is largely absent.

Instead, we have three stopping points to cover seven or eight decades of film history: Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922), Browning’s Dracula (1931), and then the Hammer/Christopher Lee Dracula cycle. Putting aside the fact that these all pretty much concern the same character—as if no other vampires existed on the silver screen—it still would have been interesting to note some of the lesser-known variations on this theme. For example, the Browning/Lugosi Mark of the Vampire (1935) would have been neat to consider side-by-side with Martin and Vampire’s Kiss, perhaps developing the idea of a wannabe-vampire tradition. Also, and I know I’m in danger of pulverizing a dead horse here, but in the last half-century does it really make sense to consider the evolution and popularity of movie vampires without considering the influence of television depictions as well? Needless to say, fans of mega-popular series such as Dark Shadows and Buffy should look elsewhere.