Rise from your grave! Why we can't get enough of vampires

They're the feral beasts of folklore, the delicious bad-boy action heroes, the sly aristocrats and the sparkling, lovelorn Romeos.

So why do we keep coming back to the campy bloodsuckers with garlic, wooden stakes and dusty books hidden in the reserved section of spooky magic shops?

"Dracula is the most iconic villain in all of western culture. He's an intriguing character and a sophisticated monster," Norwegian horror director Andre Ovredal told ACM.

Horror, sex, longing, mortality, murder, cunning, bloodlust and eternal love - it's all there.

"The story has a constantly appealing set of elements that audiences, and particularly storytellers, are passionate about exploring," he said.

Ancient vampire folklore surged into the cultural bloodstream in the 19^th century with John Polidori's 1819 fiction The Vampyre and Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula.

Now the immortal monsters are everywhere and they're carrying modern comedies including What We Do in the Shadows with Taika Waititi and Day Shift starring Jamie Foxx.

And they're getting big-budget funding - Morbius with Jared Leto and Renfield starring Nicolas Cage were produced for around $100 million each.

Unfortunately, Renfield returned only $40 million at the box office but Morbius made more than $250 million.

The true resting place of a vampire is the horror genre and Mr Ovredal's 2023 film Last Voyage of Demeter promises to explore Dracula's darkest side.

"My dream is that this is the scariest Dracula movie ever made - not just thrilling but existentially horrific," he said.

"I wanted it to really be about the crew, the people, what they go through and the unseen enemy they face alone on the ocean."

Dracula is like the shark in Jaws - the unknown evil lurking nearby, he said.

Mr Ovredal said the best depiction of a vampire in fiction, the "pinnacle", is Count Orlok in the classic 1922 silent film Nosferatu.

But Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 movie Bram Stoker's Dracula with Gary Oldman is a close second, he said.

Vampire enthusiast Daniel Barca has loved bloodsuckers since he was a kid browsing titles in the video store with his brothers. He said they're the "ultimate monster".

"If I could have any superpower it would be the powers of a vampire, mind-control, speed, strength and, of course, sex appeal," he said.

Mr Barca could be confused for a gentleman vampire himself - working as a sommelier in one of Flinders Lane's most elegant restaurants serving blood-coloured wines to tantalised Melburnians by night.

He bears the mark of the familiar, a vampire's human servant, tattooed on the back on his neck as a nod to 1998 film Blade.

"I'm always trying to prove myself, to progress - like a familiar," he said.

Action hero Blade is Marvel's half-human-half-vampire "day-walker" that spawned a comic book series, film trilogy and TV show.

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"He has all the strength of a vampire and none of their weaknesses," he said.

"The Blade character is a great example of how much vampires have changed in culture over the past few hundred years," he said.

Blade is a far cry from Nosferatu's Count Orlok haunting the castles of Transylvania, this vampire carries a shotgun loaded with silver bullets, a samurai sword, signature tiny shades and a long, leather jacket.

But Mr Barca said it was Chris Sarandon as a drawling sex-symbol in 1985 movie Fright Night that truly sparked his love of vampires.

"He's an update on the classic suave vampire who could slip into suburban America and seduce your mum and your girlfriend," he said.

"He acted like a perfect neighbour even when he's on a killing spree."

The movie was a revamp (pun intended) of the gentleman bloodsucker wearing the latest fashions and blending in with any crowd, he said.

Two years later Kiefer Sutherland injected some wrong-side-of-the-tracks California cool when he played David in 1987 movie The Lost Boys.

"The Lost Boys vampires were a gang of motorbike-riding vampires who acted like regular teens and really just wanted to be accepted," Mr Barca said.

"These guys showed how much fun you could have with vampire powers and a gang of your best friends."

The Lost Boys introduced the rampaging vampire that the horror genre has embraced with a rock'n'roll aesthetic and a bad attitude .

"Movies like Queen of the Damned, From Dawn till Dusk and Near Dark have taken that further," he said.

Mr Barca would like to see vampires return to their scary roots.

"I don't love the soft, sparkling vegetarian Edward Cullen - I'd like to see vampires get their fangs back," he said.

"But at the end of the day, they can do it all, there's a vamp for every mood," Mr Barca said.