Coolest of the Cool: 10 Stylish Horror Movies That Shock and Invite Envy

Tony Scott's modern vampire film, which stars Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie, and Susan Sarandon, is just dripping with fashionable evil. Amazingly, it was Scott's feature debut, but it makes even the cruelty of vampires and their undying lust for blood entrancing. While the movie was not well received at the time, over time, the virtues of all that atmosphere have made it a revered classic vampire film. It is the eroticism and cold beauty of the film that draw you in.

Nicolas Winding Refn's Neo-Giallo tale of monsters in the fashion industry, The Neon Demon, stuns with its gorgeousness and vile behavior. Are there monsters in it? Only of the human variety, and they are flawed human beings filled with lust and envy who destroy anyone who could topple them from their position. There's blood cannibalism, the symbolic swallowing of someone's youth and power, among other taboo subjects. It stars Elle Fanning, Karl Glusman, Jena Malone, Bella Heathcote, Christina Hendricks, and Keanu Reeves. Read more: The Best New Horror Movies We Can't Wait To Watch This Fall.

Panos Cosmatos's Mandy is a different kind of cool. No one is wearing Chanel. The attire is jeans and t-shirts in the Shadow Mountains in the 1980s. What is so stylish about the film is the cinematography filmed in anamorphic Panavision, the psychedelic visuals, and the otherworldly soundtrack by Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson. Then there are the Black Skulls. They are some of the most evil and groovy bikers from Hell. Nicolas Cage and Andrea Riseborough are the effortlessly hip lovers who won't bend to the dictates of the cult leader Jerimiah Sand even at the cost of their lives and love.

Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark has the powerhouse performance of Bill Paxton as one of the most charmingly evil vampires in horror history. You see him in the bar, wearing jeans, black sunglasses, and covered with blood, and you can't look away. That's pure cool, and that's just one of the characters. The film also stars Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Lance Henriksen, and Jenette Goldstein. It's the cool of the 50s if James Dean had ever vamped out while on the dusty roads of America's lonely Southwest. Read more: Watch This Exclusive El Vampiro Clip From The Upcoming Satanic Hispanics.

Did Jim Jarmusch create another pair of vampire lovers that could rival Tony Scott's Miriam and John Blaylock? He sure did by casting Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston as the new vampire lovers, Adam and Eve. This immortal pair live apart, and the film's plot brings them back together to wear fashionable clothes, go to clubs, play music, and drink blood. All while looking better than 95% of the people on the planet and wearing sunglasses at night. These vamps would be glamorous trendsetters in any era, and that's the timelessness of the vampire in a nutshell.

You could pick more than one of David Cronenberg's films for this list and still do well. Crash would be another possibility, but it's not purely horror. Videodrome has a powerful and provocative sensuality that gushes forth from the frame. The stars, Debbie Harry and James Woods have great chemistry, and the elements of desire that are entangled in the narrative make the film even more enticing. How can you get cooler than that? Read more: My Animal's Jacqueline Castel And Jae Matthews On Werewolves, Loud Music, And Pumping Iron.

Adam Wingard's The Guest is not just an exercise in style but a retrofitting of 80s and John Carpenter-type cool into a neon Halloween aesthetic. It has star-making performances by Dan Stevens, channeling a Steve McQueen dispassionate calm as a super soldier, and Maika Monroe, who has become a powerful force in genre films like Chloe Okuno's Watcher. It also has that crucial component of sexiness. The film rates high on the coolness meter, and just watching Stevens exit a steamy shower in a towel is a real moment.

Stephen Norrington's vampire action film starring Wesley Snipes as Blade is underappreciated as a stylish horror film. All of the film's hipness is deployed with such a graceful elegance that it is easy to overlook. But the movie was brilliantly cast, and the stellar opening sequence is one of horror's most incredible opening sequences. It packs a lot of exposition into one intense scene that turns into something the viewer wasn't expecting. Blade is all leather and guns and is a great fighter. Fight sequences in horror don't get the props they should either, and Blade has several stunning fight scenes and oodles of elegant set-pieces with vamps living it up.

Mario Bava created the brightly colored Giallo style with Blood and Black Lace. It has everything that the sub-genre, and a few others, would become known for. Beautiful women in danger, a mysterious killer wearing a mask and a black trench coat, killer murder set pieces, and an erotic dance with death, Blood, and Black Lace has it all. You can see the influence of Bava's work all over horror, especially in Neo-Giallos, slasher films, and meta-horror films. It is a foundational film in the horror genre. It stars Eva Bartok and Cameron Mitchell.

Are we back to vampires again? Yes, we are back to vampires again. Why are so many of the films on this list about vampires? Are vampires the most fabulous monsters? It's possible. Frances Ford Coppola's film Bram Stoker's Dracula is one of the most stylish horror movies in history and manages to perform that feat of style while making a period film. Coppola wasn't interested in the traditional vampire style, especially what had been done before in Dracula films, and that shows in the movie on the screen. Japanese designer Eiko Ishioka created iconic costumes, and Coppola told his make-up and hair designers to bring their "weird" ideas. To make a film that stands head and shoulders over other films in the genre, you have to take risks, and that's why Bram Stoker's Dracula is so gorgeous and brilliant.