If You’re Excited For Sinners, You Should Watch These 8 Period Piece Vampire Movies First

Writer/director Ryan Coogler’s horror movie, Sinners, presents a new vampire story from a unique perspective. Taking place in the American South during the Jim Crow era, the 2025 movie Sinners shows two outlaw brothers, both played by Michael B. Jordan, who return to their hometown, hoping for a fresh start, only to find themselves fighting off a horde of bloodsucking vampires.

Given the story, A-list actors, and creativity on display so far in its trailers, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is unsurprisingly one of the most highly anticipated movies of 2025. Sinners certainly presents a distinctive tale as a vampire film in the old Deep South, making for a fresh horror film from the director of Black Panther. However, there are many similar period horror films that can curb audiences’ appetites as they wait to see Sinners in theaters.

8

Van Helsing (2004)

An Action-Packed Monster Movie About The Titular Vampire Hunter

Close

Directed by Stephen Sommers, who masterminded Brendan Fraser’s The Mummy movies, this 2004 film shows Hugh Jackman as Gabriel Van Helsing, who is tasked with traveling to Transylvania to kill Dracula and defend humanity from his wrath. Van Helsing takes Universal’s classic monster movies and mashes them all together in a thrilling, superhero-style blockbuster revolving around the legendary beast hunter. The movie’s campy tone and dated VFX may be off-putting to some. However, this film still shines as an over-the-top horror-action adventure that features unique interpretations of iconic characters like Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, and Van Helsing himself.

7

Salem’s Lot (2024)

The Latest Adaptation Of Stephen King’s Beloved Vampire Novel

Close

Based on the novel by Stephen King, Salem’s Lot follows a writer who returns to his hometown just as an ancient vampire and his human familiar move into an abandoned house and start turning people into undead bloodsuckers. Since King’s original novel was written in the 1970s, this modern adaptation by director Gary Dauberman stays true to the source material by setting the story in that time period. While both Sinners and Salem’s Lot have different settings, the skeletons of both stories are very similar, with the latter creating a frightening and immersive Gothic nightmare that consumes small-town America.

6

Interview With The Vampire (1994)

The Story Of A Vampire’s Eternal Life Through History

Close

Based on the novel by Anne Rice, this classic horror film by director Neil Jordan depicts the life of Brad Pitt’s Louis de Pointe du Lac as a vampire over the centuries. The story goes from Louis’s beginnings as a human plantation owner in 18th-century Louisiana to raising a young girl who was also turned into a vampire. While it isn’t an action-packed horror blockbuster like Sinners, Interview with the Vampire stands out as a dark and tragic odyssey through history as Louis travels the world, burdened by the curse of immortality.

5

Byzantium (2012)

A Family Of Vampires Attempt To Make A New Life For Themselves

Close

Another film from Neil Jordan, Byzantium depicts two vampires, a mother and her daughter, on the run from an ancient cabal of vampires as they hide out at the titular seaside resort. Like Interview with the Vampire, this movie presents the struggles of a vampire family as they spend centuries trying to survive in a harsh, unforgiving world.

Michael B Jordan with a tommy gun in Sinners

Related

Do you think Michael B. Jordan’s Sinners will be the vampire movie we have been waiting for?

It has been a while since horror fans have gotten an unforgettable, fun, and entertaining vampire movie. I am not counting Nosferatu, which is an incredible film, but falls more on the serious and dramatic side. Michael B. Jordan’s Sinners looks to be a good time and a fun watch. He knows exactly what he is doing when it comes to producing movies of high quality that are entertaining on many fronts. While Sinners does seem to be dramatic, the trailer showcases a bit of humor, meaning it will have some comedic moments. After the Salem’s Lot remake last year, I am ready for a really good vampire movie, and I think this will be it.

Posts

The film also parallels Sinners by presenting a family of two trying to start a new life while facing off against an order of the undead. However, Byzantium has stood out for its exploration of womanhood as its female leads experience terror and oppression in a patriarchal society over hundreds of years.

4

The Last Voyage Of The Demeter (2023)

A Vampire Horror Film On The High Seas

Close

Another Bram Stoker adaptation, The Last Voyage of the Demeter follows the crew of the titular ship as they fight off the dreaded Count Dracula after he stows away with them. At first glance, this movie seems more comparable to Alien than Sinners thanks to its story and visuals. But like the latter movie, The Last Voyage of the Demeter takes its characters and traps them in a claustrophobic setting as a ravenous vampire picks them off one by one. It also takes an oft-overlooked part of Dracula‘s story and expands it into a haunted house movie set at sea.

3

Shadow Of The Vampire (2000)

A Metafiction Horror About The Making Of A Cinema Classic

Close

Long before he faced Count Orlok in 2024’s Nosferatu, Willem Dafoe played the vampire himself in director E. Elias Merhige’s overlooked indie gem. This meta-horror fantasy depicts the making of the original Nosferatu in 1920s Germany. However, it puts a unique spin on this real-world production by having Orlok actor Max Schreck be an actual vampire posing as a method actor. Shadow of the Vampire thus carries the distinct status as a Nosferatu remake and a fictional biopic. It’s also a clever commentary about the lengths one will go to in the pursuit of creating art in the film industry.

2

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

A Classic Horror Film From A Legendary Director

Close

As the title implies, this film from director Francis Ford Coppola is a faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic vampire novel. Since this is a Coppola movie, Bram Stoker’s Dracula naturally presents a stunning and ambitious vision of horror that remains the closest embodiment of Stoker’s work yet. As the film crosses oceans of time to tell Dracula’s tale of love and loss, it immerses its viewers with a harrowing and epic dark fantasy. With an all-star cast, stunning visuals, and high production values, this Victorian-era horror film still holds up as one of the best vampire movies ever made.

1

Nosferatu (2024)

A Magnificent Retelling Of The World’s First Vampire Film

Close

Set during the early 1800s, 2024’s Nosferatu centers around a clairvoyant woman and her husband as they become tormented by a sinister vampire who moves to their town and spreads a killer plague in his obsessive pursuit of the former. Just like with Sinners, Nosferatu has been a part of the modern resurgence of vampire movies with a genuinely terrifying vision of Count Orlok.

Michael B Jordan with a Tommy Gun from Sinners with George Clooney in From Dusk til Dawn

Related

Michael B. Jordan’s New Vampire Movie Looks Like A Stealth Remake Of A Quentin Tarantino Cult Classic

Michael B. Jordan’s new movie Sinners will see a bootlegger battle vampires, and the genre hybrid is reminiscent of a Quentin Tarantino cult film.

Posts

The way that director Robert Eggers merges death and desire in this film re-invokes the true horror of the vampire and makes it relevant, despite it being set in a bygone era. Overall, with his remake, Eggers takes a classic silent film and transforms it into a beautiful but deeply unsettling masterpiece.

Sinners (2025) - Poster

Like

Follow

Followed

Sinners

R

Horror

Release Date

April 18, 2025

Runtime

138 Minutes

Director

Ryan Coogler

Writers

Ryan Coogler

Cast

See All

  • Headshot Of Michael B. Jordan

    Michael B. Jordan

    Smoke / Stack

  • Headshot OF Hailee Steinfeld

    Hailee Steinfeld

    Mary

  • Cast Placeholder Image

    Jack O’Connell

    Remmick

  • Headshot Of Wunmi Mosaku

    Wunmi Mosaku

    Annie

Two brothers return to their hometown in the Jim Crow-era South seeking a fresh start, only to find that an even greater evil, including the Ku Klux Klan, has taken root. Michael B. Jordan stars as twins in this vampire thriller directed by Ryan Coogler, blending supernatural horror with historical tension.

Main Genre

Horror

Powered by

Expand
Collapse