What Was The First Vampire Movie Ever Made?This Vampire Fun Fact May Surprise YouWhen asking the question, ‘what was the first vampire movie ever made?’ Many people come up with the same logical, albiet mistaken, answer. The answer most commonly answered is Nosferatu. However, this is incorrect.
The first known writing of Vampires, as far as we know, was John Polidori’s 1819 story, The Vampyre. Many films started popping up in the 1980’s depicting Polidori’s story but that certainly doesn’t make them the first vampire film ever made.
There are actually 22 vampire films noted that took there place in the film world prior to Nosferatu in 1922.
Although several of these films have little or no information available outside of the film name, director, film company and or year made, you’ll find a list here starting with the oldest first.
1909’s ‘Vampire of the Coast’ is the first accredited vampire movie followed shortly after with 1910’s ‘The Vampire Trail.’
Three years later in 1913, a Kalem film directed by Robert Vignola, ‘The Vampire’ came into being. The film was shot at the production company in Cliffside, New Jersey and contained a ‘vampire dance’ in the film.
 Also, in 1913, we were given ‘In The Grip Of The Vampire’ followed by five more films in 1914 including; ‘Vampires of the Night’ Greene's Feature Photo Plays, ‘The Vampire's Trail, another directed by Robert Vignola, ‘Vampires of Warsaw’, ‘The Vampire's Tower, an Ambrosia film, followed by ‘Saved From the Vampire.’
In actuality, ‘Vampires of the Night’ wasn’t about vampires at all nor was it a horror film. The title simply was the name of the outlaw gang depicted in the film.
1915 brought us another five films including ‘The Devil's Daughter’, ‘A Fool There Was’ which included Theda Bara as predatory "Vamp", ‘The Vampire's Clutch’, a Knight film, ‘Was She A Vampire?’ produced by Universal film and ‘Kiss of the Vampire.’
In 1916 ‘Mr. Vampire’, ‘A Night of Horror’, a German film directed by Arthur Robison, ‘A Vampire Out of Work’, a Vitagraph film, and then ‘A Village Vampire.’
‘The Beloved Vampire’ appeared in 1917 followed by Metro Films ‘The Vampire’ in 1920, ‘Drakula’ in 1921 and ‘The Blond Vampire’ in 1922.
All of this leading up to the most commonly mistaken first vampire movie ever made, 1922’s Nosferatu.
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In reality though, many believe that the first vampire movie ever made dates back even further than that. You'll see why they may be right!
