Today it’s hard to imagine a vampire without fangs. The undead have appeared in western folklore since at least the 18th century, yet most historians agree it was not until Bram Stoker’s classic 1897 novel Dracula that fangs became widely associated with vampires in the popular imagination—and even in Bela Lugosi’s landmark 1931 portrayal, Dracula didn’t have fangs.
While fangs began to appear on the big screen in the 1950s in Turkish and Mexican productions of Dracula, true vampire buffs say it was the 1958 British Hammer Films version, starring a sexy Christopher Lee in the title role, that popularized fangs in movies.
Fake fangs made their way to the public thanks to Halloween.
Brian Cronin, a longtime entertainment journalist, notes that the 1964 vampire mask marketed by Ben Cooper Inc., then one of the largest U.S. manufacturers of Halloween costumes, did not have fangs; by 1978 it did. In the intervening 14 years, Lee appeared in 12 vampire films—and thereafter Halloween was a veritable festival of fake chompers.
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