If someone asked you to name a Latine actor who has played a vampire in a movie, chances are you’ll go straight to Robert Rodriguez’s 1996 horror-action flick From Dusk Till Dawn. There are plenty of Latine bloodsuckers in the movie, including Salma Hayek, Danny Trejo, Cheech Marin, Tito Larriva, and Ernest Garcia. But can you think of any other vampire flicks?
The vampire mythology can be traced all the way back to the Mayan and Aztec civilizations, so it’s surprising that there aren’t more Latine actors who have sunk their teeth into vampire roles over the years. There have been admittedly a handful of Latine vampires that have attempted to fill this void, but did you know there are more Latine vampires (including Pedro Pascal) out there than the cast of From Dusk Till Dawn?
1
Pedro Pascal as Max Phillips in 'Bloodsucking Bastards'
The 2015 comedy stars actor Pedro Pascal as Max Phillips, a sales manager at a company who is secretly turning all his co-workers into vampires. Max doesn’t turn into a vampire himself until the final showdown, but a fanged Pascal makes for one very scary movie monster, especially when the blade of a paper cutter is whacked into his forehead.
2
Cori Gonzalez-Macuer as Nick in 'What We Do in the Shadows'
The 2014 mockumentary co-directed by actor Jemaine Clement and Oscar-winning screenwriter Taika Waititi follows a group of vampire roommates in New Zealand as they bar hop and try to find people to kill. Nick, played by actor Cori Gonzalez-Macuer, is bitten one evening by one of the roommates. He transforms into a vampire and is later accepted into the group. Nick, however, can’t stop bragging to everyone that he is a vampire.
3
Leonor Varela as Nyssa Damaskinos in 'Blade 2'
The action-horror sequel directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro features actress Leonor Varela in the role of Nyssa Damaskinos, a natural-born vampire and the daughter of a vampire overlord who wants to create a superior race of bloodsuckers, so his legacy will live on. Nyssa and Blade end up joining forces to fight off a group of infectious vampires known as “Reapers.” Blade saves Nyssa by allowing her to drink his blood, but she later becomes dust in the wind.
4
Federico Luppi as Jesús Gris in 'Cronos'
The 1993 horror film, also directed (and written) by Guillermo del Toro, tells the story of a mysterious object that falls into the hands of an antique dealer named Jesús Gris. When the object injects him with a solution, Jesús, who is played by actor Federico Luppi, starts looking younger and develops a taste for blood. In one scene, he follows a man with a nosebleed into the bathroom and ends up licking some of his blood off the floor.
5
Lorena Velázquez as Zorina in 'Santo vs. the Vampire Women'
Actress Lorena Velázquez plays Zorina, Queen of the Vampires, in the 1962 action-horror movie Santo vs. Las Mujeres Vampiro. El Santo was a Mexican luchador who starred in a series of films in the 1960s and 1970s like Santo vs. the Zombies and Santo vs. Frankenstein’s Daughter. In this movie, Santo is matched up against a group of female vampires who are awakened from their crypt after being asleep for 200 years.
6
Talisa Soto as Vampirella in 'Vampirella'
Actress Talisa Soto, who is married to actor Benjamin Bratt, starred in this straight-to-video superhero movie in 1996 based on a comic book of the same name. Soto played the title character, a young woman from a vampire society located on a distant planet who travels to Earth to seek revenge against a vampire who killed her father. Earlier this year, Dynamite Entertainment announced they were going to reboot the franchise.