How do you explain our collective fascination with vampires? Well, in spite of the terrible curse that they must endure, these undead bloodsuckers have some attributes to which almost anyone can relate - and sometimes envy. Vampires live forever, but are mostly hated (or at least misunderstood). They are usually sophisticated and seductive, but must prey on the living to survive. With Halloween right around the corner, we at RT thought it was high time to pay tribute to those legions of the undead that have won the critics' approval, from Dracula to Twilight.

Not all vampire movies follow the same conventions -- you don't see Twilight's Edward Cullen turning into a bat. However, we've laid down a set of ground rules for our list. Each film included here has at least 20 reviews, and they're ranked utilizing a weighted formula that takes Tomatometer ranking, number of reviews, and year of release into account. That means some films (like Carl Theodor Dreyer's classic Vampyr) seem to be ranked lower then the Tomatometer would indicate. And although some selections included here (like I Am Legend) may seem to stretch the criteria, they still maintain the classic trappings of vampire lore, from blood-drinking to a distaste for sunny days. So put away your mirrors, fix yourself a garlic-free meal, and settle in for our list of the 25 best-reviewed vampire movies of all time!

• Each critic from our discrete list gets one vote, all weighted equally.
• Reviews without ratings are not counted toward the results.
• Because reviews are continually added, manually and otherwise, we have a cutoff
  date at which new reviews are not counted. The current cut off date is 10/27/2009.
• We use a weighted formula to account for variation in the number of reviews
  per movie per year. The winners are determined by the rankings,
  designated as the "adjusted score," after applying said formula:

  t + ((r-a) ÷ a) if number of reviews > average number of reviews for
  corresponding year.
  t * (r ÷ a) if number of reviews < average number of reviews for
  corresponding year
  t if number of reviews = average number of reviews for
  corresponding year
  with "r" representing the number of rated reviews, "t" the
  Tomatometer score, and "a" the average number of reviews
  per movie for corresponding year