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Before Dracula<\/h2>\n
The vampires of European folklore, documented since at least the 18th century, were mostly bloated corpses rising from the grave. Teeth were not their main feature.<\/p>\n
The change came with popular literature. Between 1845 and 1847, Varney the Vampire<\/em>, attributed to James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest, was published in London in cheap weekly instalments. It contains one of the first descriptions of a vampire biting with sharp teeth: “With a plunge he seizes her neck in his fang-like teeth.” Varney also leaves two small wounds on his victims’ necks, an image that would become classic.<\/p>\n In 1897 the Irish writer Bram Stoker published Dracula<\/em>. In the second chapter, the solicitor Jonathan Harker describes the Count on meeting him: a mouth “fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth” that protruded over remarkably red lips.<\/p>\n Later, as Lucy Westenra begins to change, Dr Seward notes a detail any dentist would recognise: the canine teeth looked longer and sharper than the rest. According to most historians cited by Smithsonian<\/em>, it was this novel that permanently linked vampires with fangs.<\/p>\n Even so, for decades the fangs stayed on the page. Smithsonian<\/em> points to a practical reason: on stage, before microphones, actors had to speak clearly, and false teeth distort pronunciation. Lugosi’s Dracula came straight from a stage play.<\/p>\n Silent cinema did experiment. In Nosferatu<\/em> (1922), Max Schreck’s Count Orlok has repulsive teeth, but his long teeth are at the front, more like a rat’s than a wolf’s.<\/p>\n The first known film to show Dracula with fangs was neither American nor British. It was Drakula \u0130stanbul’da<\/em> (Dracula in Istanbul), shot in Turkey in 1953 and directed by Mehmet Muhtar, with At\u0131f Kaptan as the Count. It was based on a 1928 Turkish novel that was largely an adaptation of Stoker’s.<\/p>\n In 1957 the Mexican film El vampiro<\/em>, starring Germ\u00e1n Robles, also presented a fanged vampire. But the company that made fangs universal was Britain’s Hammer: in 1958 it released Dracula<\/em>, with Christopher Lee. The fangs were designed by make-up artist Phil Leakey. According to Hammer itself, one version included a small reservoir of fake blood that Lee was meant to operate by pressing his tongue against his palate. Leakey later admitted that when Lee tried it, he nearly choked.<\/p>\n Lee played the Count in several more films. By the late 1970s even children’s vampire masks came with fangs.<\/p>\n Documented:<\/strong><\/p>\n Still debated:<\/strong><\/p>\n The teeth that cinema sharpened are the canines, and in the human mouth they play an important role. They have the longest roots of any tooth, and when the jaw moves sideways they often guide the movement and protect the other teeth from rubbing. That is why, when someone clenches or grinds, the tips of the canines are among the first to wear down. We explain it in Bruxism: why you clench or grind your teeth<\/a>.<\/p>\n And if you wonder how real vampires bite, the answer lies not in the canines but in the incisors: we tell that story in Real vampires don’t use their teeth the way you imagine<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe Count’s mouth<\/h2>\n
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The theatre problem<\/h2>\n
The twist: the first fangs came from Istanbul<\/h2>\n
What is known and what is still debated<\/h2>\n
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Real fangs<\/h2>\n
Sources<\/h2>\n
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