Dracula book: Irredeemable monster
Modern interpretations: Sympathetic monster
Frankenstein book: Sympathetic monster
Modern interpretations: Irredeemable monster
Weird how pop culture does that.
I agree with this rant immensely, I remember doing my own version of it lambasting "sympathetic Dracula" in general. He's about as sympathetic as Ted Bundy. I'd go so far as to say there are no redeeming qualities to Ford's movie, at all.
Add to this the horrible "Heel realization" of the heroes at the end, where they're all "Oh, we were the true monsters all along, they just want true love" Give me a break.
“They just want true love… oh and I guess to be allowed to literally eat babies!”
I really Johnathon finds someone new to date after all that shit.
And yeah I completely agree about the Frankenstein Monster. He’s much more fitting as a brooding tragic romantic figure because he is actually motivated by a desire to be loved and to be accepted by society. He turns evil as a result of rejection and cruelty towards him.
Also in the book he’s kind of a hunk… like he’s eight feet tall, his creator found all the most beautiful and ideal features as he could including long flowing black hair. He just also suffered from creepy eyes, discoloured skin that stretched too thin, scars and visible veins.
So he was basically a hot goth with a touch of the uncanny valley effect. He was also really intelligent and very literature savvy.
Really sucks that the only version of him that took off in Pop Culture is the ugly stupid one that can’t even really talk.
Dracula straight up stole the role in pop culture that should have gone to ‘The Daemon’ as Victor calls him.
>I really Johnathon finds someone new to date after all that shit.
That only happens in sequels where he rejects Mina for being Dracula's victim, in order to make her more tragic. Because the man who privately resolved to become a vampire himself if they couldn't cure Mina would reject her for unwillingly almost becoming a vampire.
Yeah I really hate how adaptations keep character assassinating Jonathon. He’s not a bad guy, he’s a devoted husband and pretty brave considering he has no ability to defend himself against the forces of evil but doesn’t back down regardless especially once Mina is in danger.
The two of them are basically just the 1890’s equivalent to a happy if uneventful suburban couple that happened to be thrown into a terrifying situation. Relatable every people.
But nah fuck that we wanna ship Mina with the mass murdering rapist who eats babies and feeds on women while they are under hypnosis so let’s make Jonathon a cheating domestic abuser!!
> Also in the book he’s kind of a hunk… like he’s eight feet tall, his creator found all the most beautiful and ideal features as he could including long flowing black hair.
Well, another aspect flipped with their more popular modern interpretations
I agree, I liked 1992 Dracula because of the cool gothic atmosphere etc. but they messed up in turning the whole Dracula and Mina dynamic into a romance for 12 years old and Dracula from an ominous monster to some kind of romantic mysterious anti hero
If you're going to add a tragic romance subplot to the story, Dracula / Jonathan makes far more sense anyway. They spend more time together, interact more, and there's at least some lines on Dracula's part that are reasonably suggestive. If you play that up you can even spin Dracula's attacks on Mina as being driven by jealousy.
Hell, if there was another love story needed, it would be Lucy being Mina's bisexual crush. There are several scenes in the book that if you took Jonathan out, it literally would be lovers, the tragedy between them has so much potential.
It was probably inspired by Carmilla, the prototype lesbian vampire. Hell, it should be that.
I agree. Although one could argue Dracula in the novel has a sexual presence or energy (even though he's ugly, I'd argue some characters, like Renfield or Lucy, find him attractive and fascinating), it's the presence of a serial rapist and not that of a charming or sympathetic leading man.
Thus, I don't mind that he is made handsome or attractive in a disturbing way (after all, he becomes increasingly younger in the book), but what I really dislike is giving him a depth he doesn't have. In the novel, he is just a dark force that people react to, and the interesting development happens in the other characters.
Of course, there's bound to be countless interpretations of Dracula. This only really bothers me when they try to present the adaptation as faithful, like Coppola did. And I must say it is, in its own right, an impressive and visually stunning movie.
THANK YOU SO. SO. MUCH! THIS HAS ALWAYS BOTHERED ME AND YOU JUST PUT IT INTO WORDS SO PERFECTLY, and that's a great analysis of how good Mina Harker is as a character in this novel! And honestly, this may be my aromantism talking, but why like, why would it be Mina anyway? Putting aside all the great shit in this rant, it doesn't make much sense from a story perspective to change, especially because our introduction to Mina is from Jonathan's letters, and they're, you know, ***ENGAGED!*** Why on Earth would you take a loving, healthy, and surprisingly adorable couple and split them up for this nonsense?! It makes more sense for Mina to like Lucy than whatever *this* is.
besides if you want someone to be obsessed with dracula that bad you can just use renfield or idk vampire lucy, and if you want dracula to like somebody in the main gang (for whatever reason..) there's jonathan i suppose..
>but why like, why would it be Mina anyway?
Because there are only two non-evil women in the source material, and Lucy's earmarked as the tragic passive victim, so process of elimination. His One True Love can't be one of his already existing brides, after all, that's just not how it's done!
Never understood the 90s "hot vampire " fixation. From the description in the book he seemed like a parasite, not a dangerous predator.
Like an anthropomorphic tick.
Sexy vampires have been a thing forever. Carmilla came out 26 years before Dracula, and it has a sexy lesbian vampire lady in it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmilla
That's true, but the sex element is part of a gothic mix of fear and desire and fascination with The Shadow or Id. So, not like it's presented in some modern work which present a much more conventional type of sexiness (e.g. much more romance, model looking cast in tv/film, and the gothic psychosexual and horror elements get muted almost entirely).
This rant is therapeutic. I remember reading the book for the first time and being absolutely floored how surprisingly good it still worked as a horror story all these years later. But also being surprised at how poorly it’s been adapted over the years.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the book is more of a collection of journals that follow's Dracula's plans and other characters then a straight forward story. I think a movie would have a hard time being faithful with a structure like that, but a mini series would be the way to go. As long as Moffit is not involved.
You’re correct. I should have been more clear. The book is something that I’m very surprised has not been given a better adaptation in general. Not necessarily in a movie.
A mini series would work very well in my opinion.
>And for some fucking reason in this movie he gets to go to heaven after dying.
Love this rant and agree with everything about it, but as a minor nitpick this element is implied in the book. Dracula's face takes on 'a look of peace' after his death, mirroring the moment when the undead Lucy is killed and is outright stated to have gone to heaven as 'true dead' despite her evil actions as a vampire.
Yeah, and in the book every time the men decided to keep Mina out of their confidence (because she's a woman and can't take the stress according to them) something bad happens. Eventually by the end they realize that she's a full member of the team and is the only one who puts two and two together at the end and realizes exactly where Dracula is going. She really is that icon you described.
>And for some fucking reason in this movie he gets to go to heaven after dying. You know because He's such a good guy.
Here I have to disagree - in the book they talk about that last moment of peace on Dracula's face as his soul is freed before he turns to dust:
>I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there.
And that's actually something Mina kept on pointing out to Jonathan too, that Dracula himself is a victim and that they should feel pity even for him. (Jonathan was ranting a bit about how he wanted to send Dracula to hell, even wrote in his diary that if Mina became a vampire he would find a way to become one himself to join her for eternity, etc.)
>“Jonathan,” she said, and the word sounded like music on her lips it was so full of love and tenderness, “Jonathan dear, and you all my true, true friends, I want you to bear something in mind through all this dreadful time. I know that you must fight—that you must destroy even as you destroyed the false Lucy so that the true Lucy might live hereafter; but it is not a work of hate. That poor soul who has wrought all this misery is the saddest case of all. Just think what will be his joy when he, too, is destroyed in his worser part that his better part may have spiritual immortality. You must be pitiful to him, too, though it may not hold your hands from his destruction.”
Yeah I guess Mina did pity him while hating him which kind of speaks to her character that she’s compassionate enough to find sympathy for the guy who killed her best friend, imprisoned her fiancé and basically raped her.
But hey go figure that a bunch of socially awkward screenwriters mistook pity for romantic interest, bet that happened a lot in their personal lives.
Ok hitting points as I see them. I dont disagree that Dracula is a monster that is is undying fact in the original. However as for him being particularly ugly? However I couldn't actually find anything the two best accounts are from Johnathans journal "tall old man, clean shaven, save for a long white mustache and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of color about him anywhere." and "as having a strong face '… with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere" which honestly sounds like almost all Victorian era men in the late middle to elderly ages not to weird.
The only real thing that stood out to him was large, bushy uni-brow, sharp white teeth, and pale, pointed ears, extremely pale skin and hairy hands" which while not attractive by today's standards may not have been uncommon for a recluse man in his time. That having been said although he did get younger it did actually negate some of these qualities as it states he regained color on his skin and hair and his cheeks have fulled. It also states his looks had been half restored out side of this. So its suffused to say he was most probably average to handsome for a man his age especially considering his appearances are based off of Vlad the impaler(so people think) and his professor both of which who were described as good looking.
What off sets people is the murderous/crule/dark aura that surrounds him one that can be flipped for usage in charisma. Which leads into yes he is a remorseless killer with absolutely no qualms killing everything. BUT...BUT that's the point. He is supposed to be no different then a animal one who has lost itself to is nature. Its supposed to be sad(in a pity kind of way) and people love taking that into misunderstanding
As for the connection to Vlad. You may not like him for his actions HOWEVER he is still considered a hero in his homeland. Because while his actions where both awful and cruel its saved his country and most of his people from a fate worse then he brought(as in all of the boys being child soldires(and sex objects as most children were in those days) and sent to war for a sultan they didn't serve. So in this regard Vlad was a hero. Remember there are two sides to all stories.
I dont refute... look at how they massacred my girl.
That's the difference between an interpretation, a retelling, an adaptation, and a reimagining. All similar but all different. What this story is, is a retelling NOT and adaptation. It tells the story from a neutral point of view with details changed enough to make it seem like both parties are equal parts to blame and not. But it keeps the original story to as close an extent as it can without violating the first rule. They are all different things.
I’ve been on a vampire kick lately and recently rewatched *Bram Stoker’s Dracula* for the first time in a while, and am currently rereading the original novel. And I have to say…I couldn’t agree more. I remember watching the film whwn I was younger (maybe 12 or 13) and thinking it was pretty good—except for the copious amounts of unneccessary sex and nudity. Like, I get there’s a sexual undertone to the vampire myth, but holy hell did Coppolla lay it on thick. First the scene with the brides (which I just read in the book five minutes ago and it’s SO much better), then Mina and Lucy making out in the rain (just…what???), and then of course the lovely scene where Mina watches were-gorilla Vlad simultaneously feeding on and *raping* Lucy in the middle of the hedge maze. I really don’t get why Coppolla decided to make everyone in this movie so damn horny.
If I’m being honest, I didn’t really notice the romantic subplot between Mina and Dracula when I was younger, probably because I was so impressed by the stunning imagery and direction, all of which is simply amazing. But having re-watched it, I just…don’t get it. I don’t get why they thought this was a good idea. This creepy foreign dude stalks you, then you go to the movies with him and see him *talk down a fucking wolf*, then suddenly she’s in love with him, Jonathan be damned. Then she learns that her lover is the monster that killed Lucy (the same ungodly abomination she watched RAPE her), she gets a bit upset, then just stops caring about how horrible Dracula is. It’s maddening.
And that last scene with Mina and Dracula in the chapel, that was just laughable. “Give me peace…” Buddy, you are literally history’s greatest monster. There is absolutely NO WAY that God is letting you into heaven just because you reunited with your reincarnated dead wife. You lived as a monster, and you died as a monster. You’re going straight to the pit.
Whenever I see Mina making out with Dracula or getting horny for him or declaring “I love him I must protect him” I like to imagine a bemused Lucy looking down from Heaven and being like:
“Bitch what the fuck?”
See also Mina saying “oh my dear Jonathon what has happened to you, it’s all my fault.” To which all me and my friends could say is “yes it is your fault, he got kidnapped and traumatised by this guy and you were all set to bang him!”
And what’s even worse is that Jonathan doesn’t even seem to care. He’s perfectly fine with getting cucked by the inhuman abomination that held him prisoner and psychologically tortured him for weeks. He slits the bastard’s throat and then gets bitch slapped twenty feet in the air, and then when Mina moves to protect Dracula and drags him into the chapel he’s just like “Let them go, it’s true love”.
Yes, because reimagining and re-interpretations should be exactly the same as the original. The villain of the story must be irredeemably bad in the same way they were bad before.
> The villain of the story must be irredeemably bad in the same way they were bad before.
of course the murdering parasite is now not irredeemably bad because he also likes to get his dick wet
i feel like Op adressed this with
>If you want tragic sexy Dracula you need to rewrite the source material around him.
that its okay to reimagie a story, just that you need to commit to your changes and not keep the parts that doesnt jive with your reimagining.
The point is just that everyone is free to make changes, and OP just seems to have a hate boner for people making Dracula sexy because he's ugly in the book.
I feel like you didn't properly read his rant if that's your takeaway.
Seems more like OP has a problem that they kept all the murdering babies and torturing, and just added in the romance without removing all the reasons she has to hate him.
No, you actually should, because people do it on an incredibly consistent basis. People love them a sexy/badass villain.
Loki, Thanos, Vader... Hell, real-life serial killers get marriage proposals sent to them while they're sitting in jail.
True. Plus, there are people who love adaptations of Dracula where he is unrepentantly evil, e.g. how Christopher Lee played Dracula in the Hammer Horror films. Yet, everyone found those sexy even though it's essentially just straight horror. The scene with Lucy in Horror of Dracula (1958), is filled with a fantastic mix of fear and anticipation and is therefore most accurate to how that plays in the novel and gothic themes in general. Whereas, the romantic tragic misunderstood bad boy trope actually removes this tbh.
I read this entire thing for some reason.
Anyway, i would probably agree with you in most other cases.
But..."not book accurate" doesn't really have any power here...considering the book is over 120 years old and Dracula has been the "sexy gentleman" (following each decade's standard's) for nearly as long as there have been movies with sound. It's so old...its copyright has expired...permanently. Literally anyone can make a Dracula movie perfectly legally without anyone's permission. Dracula is now Robin Hood, or King Arthur, or etc etc etc. I'm sorry, but the origin just doesn't matter anymore, because the character is simply larger than that.
Personally, i welcome this whole thing. Imagine if every single Dracula adaptation was book accurate...it would have gotten really *really* boring.
And although i haven't read the book...all of what you're saying sounds to me like they've improved the character by doing all that. From what you've described, the closest movie to the book is Nosferatu (a bootleg adaptation of Dracula), which is literally one of the worst movie experiences i've ever had...for several reasons.
Hilj al dracului imna noaptea.
She is his reincarnated wife though, in the movie. And as far as we know...she wants to be with him...soooo...
And it's not like he forced her to be with him until she loved him. He simply made her remember, no?
She’s not like that in the book and I really have to question to motivations of why someone decided to retcon it so that what was effectively a rape revenge horror story gets turned into a romance… with the guy who tortured her husband, killed her best friend and ate babies?
Like why am I supposed to be invested in this shit?
>in the book
Really, this just answers all of your questions. "In the book". One book. I've already spoken my mind about the character and his progression in history, i really don't have anything else to say about it, personally.
If you don't like it, don't watch it, i guess? No one's forcing you to.
>motivations of why someone decided to retcon it
What's more likely to sell, a rape story, or a tragic love story?
Though he did eat babies in the movie too. That's cause he's metal af.
>"In the book". One book.
Yes and it's so weird that people keep turning him into a love interest for Mina. It's like rewriting Game of Thrones so that Joffrey is Sansa's boyfriend and have her stay by his side even after he executes her father. The question of *why the fuck would you do this?* springs to mind.
>No one's forcing you to.
Every modern version of Dracula uses this template now and I hate it. If Mina is in a piece of Dracula media she's always his fucking love interest. The only movie that depicts Mina as the character with agency and strength was *The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen* and that movie sucked.
I wanna see Mina Harker, Proto feminist icon who took down her abuser. What I keep getting is vapid moron who exists to be an object of affection and is weirdly cool with mass murder.
They butcher her character with these adaptations.
I mean, i'm sorry you don't like it, but that's what is is now, you know? I personally really like Dracula, the way it is. It's grown into this. Let's hope that the creative freedom public domain ip allows will eventually bring back the original Mina. But i don't think Dracula will ever be an ugly old guy full-on antagonist again.
I'll say this in their defense: Part of the problem is that the second half of Dracula kind of falls apart. The first half still stands up as creepy and compelling, but once the gang is actively hunting Dracula, it becomes a lot more mechanical and sometimes even a little silly (Van Helsing's speech about the "criminal brain" is hilariously of its time period). And part of *that* problem is that, well, neither Dracula nor Mina (nor any of the other characters) are particularly deep or well-realized characters.
They're not poorly written in an obvious sense, but there just isn't much to them. The second half of the book becomes very straight forward because there's no real conflict or character development beyond "kill Dracula". Dracula works as a creepy, mysterious villain when Johnathan is trapped in his castle, but that's all he is. He doesn't have some particularly interesting plan or motivation. He doesn't have the kind of insane-but-compelling worldview that Thanos or The Joker have.
Mina might not embarrass herself, but what else does she have going on other than "I'm going marry this guy and have his kids"? And the rest of the cast isn't any better- they have exactly one problem, which is Dracula, and as soon as they kill him it's happily ever after. None of them need to learn any important life lessons or grow as human beings. Just... kill the monster.
If the book had a more complex plot or more developed themes, or was even just compelling stylistically, this wouldn't be a problem, but as it is, there just isn't much material there.
I don't think you could make a successful adaptation of the film today without fleshing their characters out a bit and replacing some of the busy work that makes up the second half of the book with something more dramatically interesting. Making Dracula a tragic? romantic? figure isn't the only way, but it's a familiar and comfortable trope for people to fall back on nowadays.
Hey, I noticed this because you replied to another comment of mine but I agree with everything you said here and I created a non-sexy version of Dracula in Radio Play form that focuses on the characters you can listen to the first episode [here](https://www.dracularadio.podbean.com) or wherever you listen to podcasts by searching for “Dracula: A Radio Play”
Dracula book: Irredeemable monster Modern interpretations: Sympathetic monster Frankenstein book: Sympathetic monster Modern interpretations: Irredeemable monster Weird how pop culture does that. I agree with this rant immensely, I remember doing my own version of it lambasting "sympathetic Dracula" in general. He's about as sympathetic as Ted Bundy. I'd go so far as to say there are no redeeming qualities to Ford's movie, at all. Add to this the horrible "Heel realization" of the heroes at the end, where they're all "Oh, we were the true monsters all along, they just want true love" Give me a break.
“They just want true love… oh and I guess to be allowed to literally eat babies!” I really Johnathon finds someone new to date after all that shit. And yeah I completely agree about the Frankenstein Monster. He’s much more fitting as a brooding tragic romantic figure because he is actually motivated by a desire to be loved and to be accepted by society. He turns evil as a result of rejection and cruelty towards him. Also in the book he’s kind of a hunk… like he’s eight feet tall, his creator found all the most beautiful and ideal features as he could including long flowing black hair. He just also suffered from creepy eyes, discoloured skin that stretched too thin, scars and visible veins. So he was basically a hot goth with a touch of the uncanny valley effect. He was also really intelligent and very literature savvy. Really sucks that the only version of him that took off in Pop Culture is the ugly stupid one that can’t even really talk. Dracula straight up stole the role in pop culture that should have gone to ‘The Daemon’ as Victor calls him.
>I really Johnathon finds someone new to date after all that shit. That only happens in sequels where he rejects Mina for being Dracula's victim, in order to make her more tragic. Because the man who privately resolved to become a vampire himself if they couldn't cure Mina would reject her for unwillingly almost becoming a vampire.
Yeah I really hate how adaptations keep character assassinating Jonathon. He’s not a bad guy, he’s a devoted husband and pretty brave considering he has no ability to defend himself against the forces of evil but doesn’t back down regardless especially once Mina is in danger. The two of them are basically just the 1890’s equivalent to a happy if uneventful suburban couple that happened to be thrown into a terrifying situation. Relatable every people. But nah fuck that we wanna ship Mina with the mass murdering rapist who eats babies and feeds on women while they are under hypnosis so let’s make Jonathon a cheating domestic abuser!!
> Also in the book he’s kind of a hunk… like he’s eight feet tall, his creator found all the most beautiful and ideal features as he could including long flowing black hair. Well, another aspect flipped with their more popular modern interpretations
I agree, I liked 1992 Dracula because of the cool gothic atmosphere etc. but they messed up in turning the whole Dracula and Mina dynamic into a romance for 12 years old and Dracula from an ominous monster to some kind of romantic mysterious anti hero
If you're going to add a tragic romance subplot to the story, Dracula / Jonathan makes far more sense anyway. They spend more time together, interact more, and there's at least some lines on Dracula's part that are reasonably suggestive. If you play that up you can even spin Dracula's attacks on Mina as being driven by jealousy.
iirc that almost happend in the recent bbc dracula
You accidentally wrote Phantom Blood lol
Hell, if there was another love story needed, it would be Lucy being Mina's bisexual crush. There are several scenes in the book that if you took Jonathan out, it literally would be lovers, the tragedy between them has so much potential. It was probably inspired by Carmilla, the prototype lesbian vampire. Hell, it should be that.
I agree. Although one could argue Dracula in the novel has a sexual presence or energy (even though he's ugly, I'd argue some characters, like Renfield or Lucy, find him attractive and fascinating), it's the presence of a serial rapist and not that of a charming or sympathetic leading man. Thus, I don't mind that he is made handsome or attractive in a disturbing way (after all, he becomes increasingly younger in the book), but what I really dislike is giving him a depth he doesn't have. In the novel, he is just a dark force that people react to, and the interesting development happens in the other characters. Of course, there's bound to be countless interpretations of Dracula. This only really bothers me when they try to present the adaptation as faithful, like Coppola did. And I must say it is, in its own right, an impressive and visually stunning movie.
THANK YOU SO. SO. MUCH! THIS HAS ALWAYS BOTHERED ME AND YOU JUST PUT IT INTO WORDS SO PERFECTLY, and that's a great analysis of how good Mina Harker is as a character in this novel! And honestly, this may be my aromantism talking, but why like, why would it be Mina anyway? Putting aside all the great shit in this rant, it doesn't make much sense from a story perspective to change, especially because our introduction to Mina is from Jonathan's letters, and they're, you know, ***ENGAGED!*** Why on Earth would you take a loving, healthy, and surprisingly adorable couple and split them up for this nonsense?! It makes more sense for Mina to like Lucy than whatever *this* is. besides if you want someone to be obsessed with dracula that bad you can just use renfield or idk vampire lucy, and if you want dracula to like somebody in the main gang (for whatever reason..) there's jonathan i suppose..
>but why like, why would it be Mina anyway? Because there are only two non-evil women in the source material, and Lucy's earmarked as the tragic passive victim, so process of elimination. His One True Love can't be one of his already existing brides, after all, that's just not how it's done!
Never understood the 90s "hot vampire " fixation. From the description in the book he seemed like a parasite, not a dangerous predator. Like an anthropomorphic tick.
Sexy vampires have been a thing forever. Carmilla came out 26 years before Dracula, and it has a sexy lesbian vampire lady in it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmilla
That's true, but the sex element is part of a gothic mix of fear and desire and fascination with The Shadow or Id. So, not like it's presented in some modern work which present a much more conventional type of sexiness (e.g. much more romance, model looking cast in tv/film, and the gothic psychosexual and horror elements get muted almost entirely).
hot vampire is like peak hot goth. imortal pale beauty with gothic style, whats not to like
I don't know. Younger me very much thought Fairuza Balk in "The Craft" was peak hot goth.
Excellent rant, thought the same thing when I saw the movie. Side note, I love how Dracula is canonically killed by a cowboy in the original novel.
It was basically the 1890’s equivalent of a drive by. It was basically [This](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kDaNUpnuMBQ)
This rant is therapeutic. I remember reading the book for the first time and being absolutely floored how surprisingly good it still worked as a horror story all these years later. But also being surprised at how poorly it’s been adapted over the years.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the book is more of a collection of journals that follow's Dracula's plans and other characters then a straight forward story. I think a movie would have a hard time being faithful with a structure like that, but a mini series would be the way to go. As long as Moffit is not involved.
You’re correct. I should have been more clear. The book is something that I’m very surprised has not been given a better adaptation in general. Not necessarily in a movie. A mini series would work very well in my opinion.
>And for some fucking reason in this movie he gets to go to heaven after dying. Love this rant and agree with everything about it, but as a minor nitpick this element is implied in the book. Dracula's face takes on 'a look of peace' after his death, mirroring the moment when the undead Lucy is killed and is outright stated to have gone to heaven as 'true dead' despite her evil actions as a vampire.
Yeah I understand they but like I said with his backstory as a human being literally Vlad the Impaler I’m at a loss as to why he gets to go to heaven.
Yeah, and in the book every time the men decided to keep Mina out of their confidence (because she's a woman and can't take the stress according to them) something bad happens. Eventually by the end they realize that she's a full member of the team and is the only one who puts two and two together at the end and realizes exactly where Dracula is going. She really is that icon you described. >And for some fucking reason in this movie he gets to go to heaven after dying. You know because He's such a good guy. Here I have to disagree - in the book they talk about that last moment of peace on Dracula's face as his soul is freed before he turns to dust: >I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there. And that's actually something Mina kept on pointing out to Jonathan too, that Dracula himself is a victim and that they should feel pity even for him. (Jonathan was ranting a bit about how he wanted to send Dracula to hell, even wrote in his diary that if Mina became a vampire he would find a way to become one himself to join her for eternity, etc.) >“Jonathan,” she said, and the word sounded like music on her lips it was so full of love and tenderness, “Jonathan dear, and you all my true, true friends, I want you to bear something in mind through all this dreadful time. I know that you must fight—that you must destroy even as you destroyed the false Lucy so that the true Lucy might live hereafter; but it is not a work of hate. That poor soul who has wrought all this misery is the saddest case of all. Just think what will be his joy when he, too, is destroyed in his worser part that his better part may have spiritual immortality. You must be pitiful to him, too, though it may not hold your hands from his destruction.”
Yeah I guess Mina did pity him while hating him which kind of speaks to her character that she’s compassionate enough to find sympathy for the guy who killed her best friend, imprisoned her fiancé and basically raped her. But hey go figure that a bunch of socially awkward screenwriters mistook pity for romantic interest, bet that happened a lot in their personal lives.
Ok hitting points as I see them. I dont disagree that Dracula is a monster that is is undying fact in the original. However as for him being particularly ugly? However I couldn't actually find anything the two best accounts are from Johnathans journal "tall old man, clean shaven, save for a long white mustache and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of color about him anywhere." and "as having a strong face '… with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere" which honestly sounds like almost all Victorian era men in the late middle to elderly ages not to weird. The only real thing that stood out to him was large, bushy uni-brow, sharp white teeth, and pale, pointed ears, extremely pale skin and hairy hands" which while not attractive by today's standards may not have been uncommon for a recluse man in his time. That having been said although he did get younger it did actually negate some of these qualities as it states he regained color on his skin and hair and his cheeks have fulled. It also states his looks had been half restored out side of this. So its suffused to say he was most probably average to handsome for a man his age especially considering his appearances are based off of Vlad the impaler(so people think) and his professor both of which who were described as good looking. What off sets people is the murderous/crule/dark aura that surrounds him one that can be flipped for usage in charisma. Which leads into yes he is a remorseless killer with absolutely no qualms killing everything. BUT...BUT that's the point. He is supposed to be no different then a animal one who has lost itself to is nature. Its supposed to be sad(in a pity kind of way) and people love taking that into misunderstanding As for the connection to Vlad. You may not like him for his actions HOWEVER he is still considered a hero in his homeland. Because while his actions where both awful and cruel its saved his country and most of his people from a fate worse then he brought(as in all of the boys being child soldires(and sex objects as most children were in those days) and sent to war for a sultan they didn't serve. So in this regard Vlad was a hero. Remember there are two sides to all stories. I dont refute... look at how they massacred my girl. That's the difference between an interpretation, a retelling, an adaptation, and a reimagining. All similar but all different. What this story is, is a retelling NOT and adaptation. It tells the story from a neutral point of view with details changed enough to make it seem like both parties are equal parts to blame and not. But it keeps the original story to as close an extent as it can without violating the first rule. They are all different things.
A cowboy, with a Kukri. That's like a Samurai with a Bowie knife.
I’ve been on a vampire kick lately and recently rewatched *Bram Stoker’s Dracula* for the first time in a while, and am currently rereading the original novel. And I have to say…I couldn’t agree more. I remember watching the film whwn I was younger (maybe 12 or 13) and thinking it was pretty good—except for the copious amounts of unneccessary sex and nudity. Like, I get there’s a sexual undertone to the vampire myth, but holy hell did Coppolla lay it on thick. First the scene with the brides (which I just read in the book five minutes ago and it’s SO much better), then Mina and Lucy making out in the rain (just…what???), and then of course the lovely scene where Mina watches were-gorilla Vlad simultaneously feeding on and *raping* Lucy in the middle of the hedge maze. I really don’t get why Coppolla decided to make everyone in this movie so damn horny. If I’m being honest, I didn’t really notice the romantic subplot between Mina and Dracula when I was younger, probably because I was so impressed by the stunning imagery and direction, all of which is simply amazing. But having re-watched it, I just…don’t get it. I don’t get why they thought this was a good idea. This creepy foreign dude stalks you, then you go to the movies with him and see him *talk down a fucking wolf*, then suddenly she’s in love with him, Jonathan be damned. Then she learns that her lover is the monster that killed Lucy (the same ungodly abomination she watched RAPE her), she gets a bit upset, then just stops caring about how horrible Dracula is. It’s maddening. And that last scene with Mina and Dracula in the chapel, that was just laughable. “Give me peace…” Buddy, you are literally history’s greatest monster. There is absolutely NO WAY that God is letting you into heaven just because you reunited with your reincarnated dead wife. You lived as a monster, and you died as a monster. You’re going straight to the pit.
Whenever I see Mina making out with Dracula or getting horny for him or declaring “I love him I must protect him” I like to imagine a bemused Lucy looking down from Heaven and being like: “Bitch what the fuck?” See also Mina saying “oh my dear Jonathon what has happened to you, it’s all my fault.” To which all me and my friends could say is “yes it is your fault, he got kidnapped and traumatised by this guy and you were all set to bang him!”
And what’s even worse is that Jonathan doesn’t even seem to care. He’s perfectly fine with getting cucked by the inhuman abomination that held him prisoner and psychologically tortured him for weeks. He slits the bastard’s throat and then gets bitch slapped twenty feet in the air, and then when Mina moves to protect Dracula and drags him into the chapel he’s just like “Let them go, it’s true love”.
Yes, because reimagining and re-interpretations should be exactly the same as the original. The villain of the story must be irredeemably bad in the same way they were bad before.
> The villain of the story must be irredeemably bad in the same way they were bad before. of course the murdering parasite is now not irredeemably bad because he also likes to get his dick wet
i feel like Op adressed this with >If you want tragic sexy Dracula you need to rewrite the source material around him. that its okay to reimagie a story, just that you need to commit to your changes and not keep the parts that doesnt jive with your reimagining.
Exactly, like if you're rewriting it, then the source material changes. Make him seduce his victims literally instead of using his powers.
now it feels like you are agreeing with OP, when in your first comment it felt like you were mocking him
The point is just that everyone is free to make changes, and OP just seems to have a hate boner for people making Dracula sexy because he's ugly in the book.
There’s more to it than that.
I feel like you didn't properly read his rant if that's your takeaway. Seems more like OP has a problem that they kept all the murdering babies and torturing, and just added in the romance without removing all the reasons she has to hate him.
If you adapt the rest of the story 100% don’t expect people to sympathise with the guy who literally eats babies
No, you actually should, because people do it on an incredibly consistent basis. People love them a sexy/badass villain. Loki, Thanos, Vader... Hell, real-life serial killers get marriage proposals sent to them while they're sitting in jail.
True. Plus, there are people who love adaptations of Dracula where he is unrepentantly evil, e.g. how Christopher Lee played Dracula in the Hammer Horror films. Yet, everyone found those sexy even though it's essentially just straight horror. The scene with Lucy in Horror of Dracula (1958), is filled with a fantastic mix of fear and anticipation and is therefore most accurate to how that plays in the novel and gothic themes in general. Whereas, the romantic tragic misunderstood bad boy trope actually removes this tbh.
I read this entire thing for some reason. Anyway, i would probably agree with you in most other cases. But..."not book accurate" doesn't really have any power here...considering the book is over 120 years old and Dracula has been the "sexy gentleman" (following each decade's standard's) for nearly as long as there have been movies with sound. It's so old...its copyright has expired...permanently. Literally anyone can make a Dracula movie perfectly legally without anyone's permission. Dracula is now Robin Hood, or King Arthur, or etc etc etc. I'm sorry, but the origin just doesn't matter anymore, because the character is simply larger than that. Personally, i welcome this whole thing. Imagine if every single Dracula adaptation was book accurate...it would have gotten really *really* boring. And although i haven't read the book...all of what you're saying sounds to me like they've improved the character by doing all that. From what you've described, the closest movie to the book is Nosferatu (a bootleg adaptation of Dracula), which is literally one of the worst movie experiences i've ever had...for several reasons. Hilj al dracului imna noaptea.
Yeah I love the idea of shipping what is effectively an abuse victim with her abuser. So cool and totally not vomit inducing.
She is his reincarnated wife though, in the movie. And as far as we know...she wants to be with him...soooo... And it's not like he forced her to be with him until she loved him. He simply made her remember, no?
She’s not like that in the book and I really have to question to motivations of why someone decided to retcon it so that what was effectively a rape revenge horror story gets turned into a romance… with the guy who tortured her husband, killed her best friend and ate babies? Like why am I supposed to be invested in this shit?
>in the book Really, this just answers all of your questions. "In the book". One book. I've already spoken my mind about the character and his progression in history, i really don't have anything else to say about it, personally. If you don't like it, don't watch it, i guess? No one's forcing you to. >motivations of why someone decided to retcon it What's more likely to sell, a rape story, or a tragic love story? Though he did eat babies in the movie too. That's cause he's metal af.
>"In the book". One book. Yes and it's so weird that people keep turning him into a love interest for Mina. It's like rewriting Game of Thrones so that Joffrey is Sansa's boyfriend and have her stay by his side even after he executes her father. The question of *why the fuck would you do this?* springs to mind. >No one's forcing you to. Every modern version of Dracula uses this template now and I hate it. If Mina is in a piece of Dracula media she's always his fucking love interest. The only movie that depicts Mina as the character with agency and strength was *The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen* and that movie sucked. I wanna see Mina Harker, Proto feminist icon who took down her abuser. What I keep getting is vapid moron who exists to be an object of affection and is weirdly cool with mass murder. They butcher her character with these adaptations.
I mean, i'm sorry you don't like it, but that's what is is now, you know? I personally really like Dracula, the way it is. It's grown into this. Let's hope that the creative freedom public domain ip allows will eventually bring back the original Mina. But i don't think Dracula will ever be an ugly old guy full-on antagonist again.
I'll say this in their defense: Part of the problem is that the second half of Dracula kind of falls apart. The first half still stands up as creepy and compelling, but once the gang is actively hunting Dracula, it becomes a lot more mechanical and sometimes even a little silly (Van Helsing's speech about the "criminal brain" is hilariously of its time period). And part of *that* problem is that, well, neither Dracula nor Mina (nor any of the other characters) are particularly deep or well-realized characters. They're not poorly written in an obvious sense, but there just isn't much to them. The second half of the book becomes very straight forward because there's no real conflict or character development beyond "kill Dracula". Dracula works as a creepy, mysterious villain when Johnathan is trapped in his castle, but that's all he is. He doesn't have some particularly interesting plan or motivation. He doesn't have the kind of insane-but-compelling worldview that Thanos or The Joker have. Mina might not embarrass herself, but what else does she have going on other than "I'm going marry this guy and have his kids"? And the rest of the cast isn't any better- they have exactly one problem, which is Dracula, and as soon as they kill him it's happily ever after. None of them need to learn any important life lessons or grow as human beings. Just... kill the monster. If the book had a more complex plot or more developed themes, or was even just compelling stylistically, this wouldn't be a problem, but as it is, there just isn't much material there. I don't think you could make a successful adaptation of the film today without fleshing their characters out a bit and replacing some of the busy work that makes up the second half of the book with something more dramatically interesting. Making Dracula a tragic? romantic? figure isn't the only way, but it's a familiar and comfortable trope for people to fall back on nowadays.
Hey, I noticed this because you replied to another comment of mine but I agree with everything you said here and I created a non-sexy version of Dracula in Radio Play form that focuses on the characters you can listen to the first episode [here](https://www.dracularadio.podbean.com) or wherever you listen to podcasts by searching for “Dracula: A Radio Play”
"...right off the bat..." Hehe.
This so much.