Posted on 6/5/2007 8:39 AM
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DRACULA - In Films
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
- 1922, Max Schreck played a similar character named "Count Orlok" in the first novel adaptation named "Nosferatu".
- 1931, Bela Lugosi plays Dracula in "Dracula". He only reprised this role in "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein".
- 1931, Carlos Villarías plays Dracula in the Spanish version of the film.
- 1944 and 1945, John Carradine plays Dracula in both "House of Frankenstein" and "House of Dracula".
- 1958, Christopher Lee as Dracula in the film "Horror of Dracula". Lee reprised this role another 10 times.
- 1966, John Carradine again plays Dracula in "Billy the Kid vs. Dracula".
- 1973, Jack Palance had the lead in Dracula, a made-for-TV movie directed by Dan Curtis.
- 1977, the BBC produced "Count Dracula" with Louis Jourdan in the titular role.
- 1979, Frank Langella as the Count in "Dracula".
- 1979, Klaus Kinski plays Count Dracula in the film "Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht", the remake of the 1922 film.
- 1979, George Hamilton as Count Vladimir Dracula in "Love at First Bite".
- 1992, Dracula is played by Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker's "Dracula".
- 1995, Leslie Nielsen plays the Count in the comedy "Dracula: Dead and Loving It", which spoofed various Dracula films.
- 2000, Gerard Butler plays Dracula in "Dracula 2000", where Dracula's origins take on a more religious explanation.
- 2004, Richard Roxburgh plays Count Dracula in the critically panned "Van Helsing", starring Hugh Jackman as Gabriel Van Helsing.
- 2006 Marc Warren plays the title character in the newest television adaptation of "Dracula".
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| Posted on 6/5/2007 8:53 AM
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Response to: Mihai GXXXXXXXX
Dracula (1931 film)
Dracula is a 1931 horror film produced by Universal Pictures Co. Inc. and based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker.
The first official "Dracula" film was directed by Tod Browning, with a screenplay based on the stage play by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston. The title role was played by Bela Lugosi. Also starring in the film were David Manners as Jonathan Harker, Helen Chandler as Mina Murray/Harker and Dwight Frye as Renfield.
Bram Stoker's novel had already been filmed (without permission) as "Nosferatu" in 1922 by expressionist German film maker F.W. Murnau, but enthusiatic young Hollywood producer Carl Laemmle Jr too saw the box office potential in Stoker's gothic chiller. Unlike the German counterpart, this would be a fully authorized version (since Murnau's film had fallen under the wrath of Stoker's widow, who had tried to destroy all prints of "Nosferatu") and it would also be a spectacle to rival the lavish "Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "The Phantom of the Opera", and, like those films, Laemmle insisted it must star Lon Chaney (despite him being under contract at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). Tod Browning was then approached to direct this new Universal epic (Browning, incidentally, had already directed Chaney as a (fake) vampire in the lost 1927 silent movie “London after Midnight”), however, a number of factors would limit Laemmle's plans: Firstly, Chaney himself (who had been diagnosed with throat cancer in 1928) had sadly succumbed to his terminal illness. Furthermore, studio financial difficulties, coupled with the onset of the Great Depression, caused a drastic reduction in the budget, forcing Laemmle to look at a cheaper alternative (this meant several grand scenes that closely followed the Stoker storyline had to be abandoned).
Already a huge hit on Broadway, the tried and tested Deane/Balderston Dracula play would become the blueprint and the production gained momentum. However, the question of who would play the Count remained. This would fall to the (then) current broadway Dracula, Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi, but not without controversy. Originally Laemmle had stated he was not at all interested in Lugosi, in spite of the warm reviews his stage portrayal had received, and instead sought to hire other actors, including Ian Keith. Against the tide of Studio opinion Lugosi lobbied hard and ultimately won the executives over, thanks in part to him accepting a salary far less than his co-stars.
The eerie speech pattern of Lugosi's "Dracula" was said to have resulted from the fact that Lugosi did not speak English, and therefore had to learn and speak his lines phonetically. This is a bit of an urban legend. While it is true that Lugosi did not speak English at the time of his first English-language play in 1919, and he had learned his lines to that play in this manner. By the time of his filming this role, Lugosi spoke English as well as he ever would.
To many film lovers and critics alike, Lugosi's portrayal is widely regarded as the definitive Dracula. Lugosi had a powerful presence and authority onscreen. The slow, deliberate pacing of his performance ("I... bid you... welcome!" -- "I never drink... wine !") gave his Dracula the air of a walking, talking corpse, which terrified 1930s movie audiences. He was just as compelling with no dialogue, and the many closeups of Lugosi's face in icy silence jumped off the screen. Lugosi's speech pattern would be imitated countless times by other Dracula portrayers, most often in an exaggerated or comical way. However, Dracula would ultimately become a role which would prove to be both a blessing and a curse. Despite his earlier stage successes in a variety of roles, from the moment Lugosi donned the cape on screen, it would forever see him typecast as the count.
According to numerous accounts, the production is alleged to have been a mostly disorganized affair, with the usually meticulous Tod Browning leaving legendary cinematographer Karl Freund to take over during much of the shoot. Moreover the despondent Browning would simply tear out pages from the script which he felt were redundant, such was his seeming contempt for the screenplay. It is possible however, given that Browning had originally intended Dracula as collaboration between him and Lon Chaney, his apparent lack of interest on set was more down to losing his friend and original leading man, rather than any actual aversion to the subject matter.
When the film finally premiered on Valentine's Day 1931, newspapers reported that members of the audiences fainted in shock at the horror onscreen. This publicity, shrewdly orchestrated by the film studio, helped ensure people came to see the film, if for no other reason than curiosity. "Dracula" was a big gamble for a major Hollywood studio to undertake. In spite of the literary credentials of the source material, it was uncertain if an American audience was prepared for a serious full length supernatural chiller. Though America had been exposed to other chillers before, such as "The Cat and the Canary" this was a horror story with no comic relief or trick ending that down played the supernatural.
Nervous executives breathed a collective sigh of relief when "Dracula" proved to be a huge box office sensation, and later that year Universal would release "Frankenstein" to even greater acclaim. Universal in particular would become the forefront of early horror cinema, with a canon of films including, "The Mummy", "The Invisible Man", "Bride of Frankenstein", and "The Wolf Man".
Today, “Dracula” is widely regarded as a classic of the era and of its genre and has been selected for preservation by the National Film Registry.
Plot summary
At Walpurgis Night, after a harrowing ride through the Carpathian mountains in eastern Europe, Renfield enters castle Dracula to finalize the transferral of Carfax Abbey in London to Count Dracula, who is in actuality a vampire. Renfield is drugged by the eerily hypnotic count, and turned into one of his thralls, protecting him during his sea voyage to London. After sucking the blood and turning the young Lucy Weston into a vampire, Dracula turns his attention to her friend Mina Seward, daughter of Dr. Jack Seward who then calls in a specialist, Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, to diagnose the sudden deterioration of Mina's health. Van Helsing, realizing that Dracula is indeed a vampire, tries to prepare Mina's fiance, John Harker, and Dr. Seward for what is to come and the measures that will have to be taken to prevent Mina from becoming one of the undead.
Deviations from the novel
This list is not exhaustive, but intended to convey a sense of the differences between the film and the novel:
- The setting is shifted to circa 1930.
- Renfield goes to Transylvania and is victimized. He is found, insane, aboard the Demeter.
- Dracula does not "youthen".
- The characters of Arthur Holmwood and Quincey Morris are omitted.
- Dr. Seward is Mina's father, not Lucy's suitor.
- Dracula does not have multiple coffins.
- Dracula must sleep by day.
- Dracula is killed by Van Helsing, with a wooden stake.
Sequels
Five years after the release of the film, Universal released "Dracula's Daughter", a direct sequel that starts immediately after the end of the first film. A second sequel, "Son of Dracula", starring Lon Chaney, Jr. followed in 1943. Despite his apparent death in the 1931 film, the Count returned to life in three more Universal films of the mid-1940s: 1944's "House of Frankenstein", 1945's "House of Dracula" and 1948's "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein". While Lugosi had played a vampire in two other movies during the 1930s and 40's, it was only in this final film that he played Count Dracula onscreen for the second (and last) time.
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| Posted on 6/5/2007 9:02 AM
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Response to: Mihai GXXXXXXXX
House of Frankenstein (1944 film)
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
"House of Frankenstein" was an American horror film produced in 1944 by Universal Studios as part of its ongoing series of monster films. It is the second of four "multi-monster" films produced by the studio in the waning years of the Universal Monsters series. (The first was 1943's “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man”, and the last two would be 1945's House of Dracula and 1948's "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein").
The film focuses on the exploits of the evil Dr. Niemann (played by Boris Karloff) as he revives not only the Frankenstein Monster (played for the first of three occasions by Glenn Strange), but also Count Dracula (now played by John Carradine; this is the original character's first Universal Studios appearance alive since the first Dracula as it was never specifically confirmed in-story that the character in “Son of Dracula” is the vampire son of the Count or the actual Count somehow revived as suggested in the Lon Chaney, Jr. film), and “The Wolf Man” (Lon Chaney Jr.). Reportedly the characters of “The Mummy”, “The Mad Ghoul” and Paula Dupree, the "Ape Woman from Captive Wild Woman" (1942 film) and Vincent Price as Geoffrey Radcliffe from "The Invisible Man Returns" were also to have appeared, but the idea was dropped.
In later years, the idea of featuring multiple classic monsters in one film was revived for the 1987 film "The Monster Squad", the television mini-series "House of Frankenstein" 1997 based on this 1944 film, and in 2004, the big-budget film "Van Helsing" also revisited the idea using these same primary characters (“Dracula”, “The Wolfman” and “Frankenstein's Monster”) featured in "House of Frankenstein". There was also a comedic stage show entitled "House of Frankenstein" which involved famous movie monsters such as the Count, Talbot, and the "Phantom of the Opera" coming to Victor Frankenstein's mansion to be cured of their respective ills.
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| Posted on 6/5/2007 9:12 AM
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Response to: Mihai GXXXXXXXX
House of Dracula (1945 film)
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
"House of Dracula" was an American horror film released by Universal Studios in 1945.
Plot summary
The film was in essence a sequel to the previous entry in the Universal Monsters series, "House of Frankenstein", insofar as it continued the theme of combining Universal's three most popular monsters: Frankenstein's monster (played by Glenn Strange), Count Dracula (John Carradine) and The Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.). In fact it is only through the specific mentioning of the evil Dr. Niemann (played by Boris Karloff) from "House of Frankenstein" that this film can be considered a direct sequel as most of the character's destructions in that earlier film should have ended them.
The main plot is that both Dracula and Larry Talbot are both seeking a cure from their respective monster afflictions from Dr. Edelmann (Onslow Stevens).
Dracula actually appears in a more-or-less self-contained vignette early in the film when he appears to be searching for a cure for his vampirism. Somehow Dracula survived his destruction by sunlight exposure from the previous film "House of Frankenstein" and initially seeks to be cured of his vampirism at the hands of the doctor as he seems apparently tired of his monster nature. But after re-meeting the doctor's beautiful assistant who he knew in his alias of "Baron Lotos", Dracula's monsterous nature reasserts itself and infects Edelmann through a blood transfusion of his vampire blood, which turns Edelmann into a Jekyll and Hyde like creature. Though Edelmann succeeds in destroying Dracula, Edelmann realizes that he is slowly degrading into a murderous monster himself.
Lawrence Talbot soon arrives at Edelmann's castle, seeking a cure for the curse that turns him into a werewolf (Talbot's return from death having been maintained from his particular invulnerability to silver weapons which was used to explain his first reappearance as shown in "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man") as Larry Talbot was bludgeoned to death by his father using a silver topped cane in the original "The Wolf Man". The Frankenstein Monster plays a minor role in this film, only being found during Talbot's attempt at suicide by drowning in the ocean late in the film. The Monster does not actually going into action until almost the climactic finish, which results in Talbot finally being cured of his affliction and falling in love with Edelmann's attractive assistant (Martha O'Driscoll) and killing the Hyde like version of Edelmann. The Frankenstein Monster once again burned to death in yet another fire destruction of the castle he is in.
Also appearing in the film is Jane Adams, whose character, Nina, is a hunchback and was thus billed as one of the monsters in the film. In fact, her character is portrayed sympathetically and the use of an attractive actress to play an otherwise misshapen individual is notable for the time. It is jarring, however, to see her character's search for a cure go unfulfilled at the film's end.
"House of Dracula" is generally considered the finale of the classic Universal Monsters series, as they are mostly intact with their prior storylines as established to this point. These characters would appear again a few years later in the successful spoof "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein". The Abbott and Costello film is usually considered to be an alterate reality to the primary Universal Monster film reality where not only does Lugosi reassume his Dracula role from John Carridine in Lugosi's last formal on-screen appearance in the role, but Larry Talbot was never cured of his werewolf curse as done in this film and is now a monster hunter seeking to destroy both "Dracula" and the "Frankenstein Monster" which conflicts with Talbot's prior history where he befriended the creature in his attempt for a cure as shown in "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man". Although Glenn Strange appears as The Monster in most of the film, during the finale, footage of Chaney as "The Monster" from "The Ghost of Frankenstein" and Boris Karloff from "Bride of Frankenstein" was recycled.
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| Posted on 6/5/2007 9:32 AM
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Response to: Mihai GXXXXXXXX
Dracula (1958 film)
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
"Dracula" is a 1958 British horror film, and the first of a series of Hammer Horror films inspired by the Bram Stoker novel Dracula. It was directed by Terence Fisher, and stars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. In the United States, the film was retitled “Horror of Dracula” to avoid confusion, and to avoid international copyright infringement, with the Tod Browning-directed “Dracula” (1931) starring Bela Lugosi as the Count.
Production began at Bray Studios on the 17 November 1957 with an investment of £81,000. It is remembered for its pioneering combination of fantasy, romance and sexuality, and its unprecedented gore.
Plot summary
Jonathan Harker arrives at the Count's castle posing as a librarian. He is startled inside the castle by a young woman begging his aid and claiming she is a prisoner. The woman looks horrified at the sight of Dracula on the stairs and runs out. Dracula then greets Jonathan and guides him to his room where he locks him in. Jonathan starts to write in his diary and his true intentions are revealed — he is here to kill Dracula.
The woman begs Jonathan to help the next evening and clutches at him. She leans against him as if crying but then bites his neck. Dracula arrives and yanks her off and fights with her. The pair depart and Jonathan is worried he might become a vampire. Jonathan descends to the coffin room where he finds Dracula and the woman in their coffins for sunrise. Armed with a stake he impales the female first. Dracula awakes at her screams. When Jonathan turns to Dracula's coffin it is empty and Dracula is waiting by the door for him.
The story truly begins after this when Dr. Van Helsing arrives looking for his friend Jonathan. He is horrified when he discovers Jonathan lying in a coffin as a vampire. Staking his friend, he leaves to deliver the horrifying news in person to Jonathan's fiancée Lucy, her brother Arthur Holmwood and his wife Mina Holmwood.
Arthur is quick to dismiss Dr. Van Helsing but soon seeks his aid when Lucy falls ill. It's soon revealed that Dracula wishes, in an act of revenge, to replace the woman Jonathan took from him with Lucy.
Lucy becomes a vampire and tries to lure a young niece to her but the girl is saved by Dr. Van Helsing and Arthur. Dr. Van Helsing suggests using Lucy as a means to find Dracula but Arthur refuses and so Dr. Van Helsing stakes Lucy in her coffin.
Dr. Van Helsing and Arthur hear of a coffin recently arriving from Dracula's home and try to track it resorting to bribes. They finally arrive where the coffin should be but it appears to have vanished. They return home to find Mina in a strange state.
Determined to find the coffin they plan to leave again but not before Arthur begs Mina to take a cross. Mina is very reluctant and when Arthur presses it into her hand she screams, jumps up and faints. A cross-shaped burn mark is found on her hand.
Dr. Van Helsing soon discovers Dracula's coffin in the basement and places a cross inside it. Dracula locks him in the basement and takes Mina whilst Arthur frees Dr. Van Helsing. A chase then begins as Dracula rushes to return home before sunrise. He attempts to bury Mina in the soil and finds Dr. Van Helsing and Arthur close behind and dashes into his home.
Inside Dr. Van Helsing and Dracula battle it out, Dracula almost strangling Dr. Van Helsing. Dr. Van Helsing fakes a faint and escapes from Dracula's clutches. He tears open the curtain to let in the sunlight and, forming a cross of candlesticks, he forces Dracula into it.
Dracula crumbles into nothingness, as Van Helsing watches in horror. Mina regains her humanity, the cross-shaped scar fading from her hand as Dracula turns to ash and leaves only a ring behind.
Deviations from the novel
- Dracula has only one Bride and she is destroyed by Jonathan Harker, not Van Helsing. She ages upon her true "death".
- Dracula does not "youthen".
- Harker is a librarian/Vampire Hunter rather than a solicitor. He also becomes a vampire.
- The wreck of the Demeter is omitted, as are the characters of Renfield and Quincey Morris as well as any mention of Carfax Abbey or an insane asylum.
- Arthur is no longer a nobleman. Mina is his wife and Lucy is his sister.
- Dracula does not have multiple coffins. Nor can he shapeshift.
- Dracula is destroyed by sunlight.
Sequels
It was followed by seven sequels beginning with "The Brides of Dracula" in 1960. Peter Cushing returned as Professor Van Helsing, and David Peel played Baron Meinster, a descendent of Dracula and replacement for Christopher Lee. Lee returned as Dracula for the rest of the sequels, with the exception of "The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires", a.k.a. "The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula" (1973):
- Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966)
- Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968)
- Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969)
- Scars of Dracula (1970)
- Dracula AD 1972 (1972)
- The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)
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| Posted on 6/5/2007 9:36 AM
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Response to: Mihai GXXXXXXXX
Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (1966 film)
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
"Billy the Kid vs. Dracula' is a low-budget horror/western film directed by William Beaudine. It was released as a part of a set, along with "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter".
Plot summary
Dracula travels to the American West, intent on making a beautiful ranch owner his next victim. Her fiance, outlaw Billy the Kid, finds out about it and rushes to save her.
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| Posted on 6/5/2007 9:42 AM
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Response to: Mihai GXXXXXXXX
Dracula (1973)
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
"Dracula" is a television adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula written by Richard Matheson and directed by Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis.
Plot summary
Natives in Transylvania seem afraid when they learn solicitor Jonathon Harker going to Castle Dracula.
Johnathan shows up, and finds the Count abrupt and impatient to get things done. He reacts very strongly to a photograph of Harker's fiancee Mina and her best friend Lucy. After Dracula leaves the Castle, the Brides attack Harker...
The Demeter runs aground carrying only Dracula and the dead captain lashed to the wheel.
Soon after, Lucy begins to fall ill. Her fiancee, Arthur Holmwood, is perplexed and calls in Dr. Van Helsing. The doctor begins to recognize what might be happening, especially after Lucy walks out of her home at Hillingham and is found, drained, under a tree the next morning. Dracula, meanwhile, has flashbacks about a time when he was alive, when a woman he evidently loved lay dead in her bed and men had to restrain Dracula in his rage.
Lucy's mother is in the room with Mina when Dracula comes calling the last time, a wolf shattering the window. Lucy soon rises from the dead, and comes to the window of Arthur's home, begging to be let in. Arthur does so, delighted and amazed that she's alive. This very nearly gets him bitten, but Van Helsing interrupts with a cross. They go to Lucy's grave and drive a wooden stake into her heart. When Dracula comes to the tomb later, and beckons to her, he goes berserk upon finding that she's truly dead.
Mina tells Van Helsing about the news story about the Demeter & boxes of earth, and about Jonathan going to meet Dracula to sell him a house. From these clues, Van Helsing and Holmwood go about finding all but one of Dracula's "boxes of earth" (containing his native soil, in which a vampire must rest). But back at the hotel, the vampire hunters discover Dracula is there, out for revenge. He has bitten Mina, and before their eyes forces her to drink blood from a self-inflicted gash in his chest. All that they love, all that is theirs, he will take.
The tracking of Dracula back to his home commences with Van Helsing hypnotizing Mina. Via the bond of blood, she sees through Dracula's eyes and discovers where he is headed.
At the Castle, Jonathan -- now a vampire -- attacks Arthur and Van Helsing. But in the struggle, he falls into a pit of wooden spikes. Staked.
The final confrontation with Dracula what looks like a grand ballroom. The cross wielded by the two men is something Dracula doesn't seem to want to look upon. Dracula gets the better of them, ridding them of their crosses. But one of them manages to pull down curtains from the windows, so sunlight pours in. Dracula is weakened, finally going dormant long enough for Van Helsing to pierce his heart with a long spear.
They leave him there. Before the portrait of a living warrior Dracula, with Lucy's lookalike in the background, a text scrolls across the screen, about a warlord lived in the area of Hungary known as Transylvania, and how it was said he had found a way to conquer death -- a legend no one has ever disproven.
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| Posted on 6/5/2007 9:48 AM
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Response to: Mihai GXXXXXXXX
Count Dracula (1977)
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
"Count Dracula" (1977) was a television adaptation of the famous novel by Bram Stoker. It was remarkably faithful to the original book. Louis Jourdan played the title role.
Plot summary
Lucy Westenra spies on her sister Mina saying farewell to the latter's fiancee, Jonathan Harker. He is leaving on a business trip to Transylvania. The scene then shifts to the Borgo Pass where Harker is left alone by the local driver. He flatly refuses to wait for Harker and tosses his luggage out before driving away. Soon, another carriage approaches, from Castle Dracula (presumably) but the coachman does not speak. After reaching the ruined castle, Harker emerges and the coach drives away. Then Dracula himself opens the door for him, uttering the famous line "Welcome to my house. Enter freely and of your own will".
Harker, a solicitor, is there is expedite Count Dracula's purchase of several properties in England, including Carfax Abbey. The Count is urbane and gracious, but also vaguely sinister. He insists Harker stay for a month to tutor him on the finer points of English. As time goes by, Harker witnesses increasingly bizarre events. The Count -- who has fangs and long fingernails -- casts no reflection in the mirror. Twice Harker spots the Count crawling down the outside wall of the castle, seemingly defying gravity. Finally, he violates the Count's rules and goes to sleep in the library, where three beautiful women appear and seem to entrance him -- until interrupted by Dracula himself, who gives the three a baby, which they devour. Harker explores and finds the Count asleep in a coffin, then tries to kill him with a shovel (which has no effect).
In England, Mina and Lucy go to the seaside town of Whitby and befriend an old sailor who tells them stories. One day, the three of them are atop a hill as a storm approaches, and the sailor notes a ship is in the storm, en route.
This ship is the Demeter, which goes aground. The sailor is found dead the next morning, at the very spot where he'd last seen Mina and Lucy.
Dr. John Seward, owner of a local asylum, is friendly with the Westenra family as well as Quincey Holmwood, an American diplomat who has become engaged to Lucy. Among Seward's patients is the madman Renfield who is somehow aware of Dracula's arrival, and worships (yet fears) him. Then, one night, Lucy goes sleepwalking into the local graveyard. Mina follows and briefly spots Dracula holding Lucy in his arms. From that night on, Lucy begins to change. She grows pale and weak, but rallies after sunset. She begins to sport tiny fangs. While everyone worries over her, she welcomes Dracula to her bedroom where he drinks her blood.
Seward finally call on his friend Abraham Van Helsing for help with Lucy's strange illness. He almost immediately recognizes the signs and protects the girl's bedroom with garlic. Meanwhile, Mina receives word that Jonathan has turned up in a convent in Transylvania, weak and delirious (having escaped from the castle). She goes to be with, and marry him. While she is gone, a final attack happens at the Westenra home as a wolf crashes through Lucy's bedroom window. The shock kills her mother (who has a weak heart). When found, Lucy is sprawled across the bed, pale and nearly dead.
As she fades, her manner shifts from herself to a kind of wild voluptuousness. When she finally dies, Van Helsing notices the wounds on her throat have vanished--and that she no longer casts a reflection.
Mina returns, deeply saddened at the loss of her family. Van Helsing takes Seward to Lucy's grave near dawn. They find a child nearby, dazed and talking about the "Bloofer lady" (i.e. "beautiful lady") and with tell-tale fang marks on his throat.
Van Helsing insists Seward and Quincey accompany him to Lucy's grave, where they see her approach -- blood on her lips and gown. She speaks lovingly to Quincey, who nearly succumbs but flees when Van Helsing shows her a cross. In the tomb, Van Helsing explains what must be done and Quincey drives a wooden stake into Lucy's heart. Later, the professor fills her mouth with garlic and cuts off her head.
Harker, Van Helsing, Seward and Quincey all go to Carfax Abbey to sterilize the boxes of his native earth Dracula has had shipped there. They don't realize that now Dracula is visiting Mina and has bitten her. But Renfield does realize, and seeks to warn her and Seward. In revenge Dracula kills him, but before he dies Renfield manages to warn the men -- who rush to Mina's bedroom, only to find her drinking blood from Dracula's chest. Dracula himself vanishes as they enter. Mina becomes hysterical, especially after Van Helsing touches her forehead with a piece of Holy Wafer and it sears her flesh. From that moment on, until Dracula's demise, she carries the scar as well as slightly noticeable fangs.
As they continue to find Dracula's boxes, rendering them useless to him with crosses and the Host, they realize he must flee back to his castle. They follow. Eventually, Van Helsing and Mina go directly overland to the Castle while the others follow Dracula's coffin, transported by Gypsies. In the Transylvanian wilderness, Dracula's brides approach the pair, but Van Helsing draws a circle around them, filling it with pieces of Holy Wafer. The Brides cannot pass, although they call to Mina to join them, naming her "Sister." The next morning, Van Helsing goes into the Castle, driving wooden stakes in each of the Brides' hearts (and Mina, sleeping, evidently feels the blows).
Finally, there is a chase. Harker, Seward and Quincey are chasing the carriage that carries Dracula's coffin. In the process, they must fight Gypsies loyal to Dracula. At one point, Harker is saved when Mina shoots a threatening Gypsy with a rifle. With hardly a moment to spare, the pursuers reach the coffin and pull off its cover. Inside, Dracula smiles noticing that it is almost sunset. But they drive a long wooden stake into the vampire's heart, and his body erupts into a mini-sandstorm. All that is left are his clothes and ashes.
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| Posted on 6/5/2007 9:58 AM
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Response to: Mihai GXXXXXXXX
Dracula (1979 film)
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
"Dracula" is a 1979 horror/romance film starring Frank Langella as Count Dracula. The film was directed by John Badham and the cinematography was by Gilbert Taylor. The original music score is composed by John Williams. The film's tagline is: "Throughout history, he has filled the hearts of men with pure terror, and the hearts of women with pure desire".
The film also starred Sir Laurence Olivier as Professor Abraham Van Helsing, Donald Pleasence as Dr. Jack Seward, Kate Nelligan as Lucy Seward, Trevor Eve as Jonathan Harker, Tony Haygarth as Milo Renfield, and Jan Francis as Mina Van Helsing. It won the 1979 Saturn Award for Best Horror Film.
Like Universal's earlier 1931 version starring Bela Lugosi, the screenplay for this adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula is based on the stage adaptation by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston, which ran on Broadway and also starred Langella in a Tony Award-nominated performance. Notable for its Edwardian setting, and strikingly designed by Edward Gorey, the play ran for over 900 performances between October 1977 and January 1980.
Plot summary
Set in Whitby, England (circa 1920's) Count Dracula arrives via the Demeter one stormy night. A sickly Mina Van Helsing, who is visiting her friend Lucy Seward, discovers Dracula's body after his ship has run aground. Praised by the Count as his "Saviour", he then visits Mina and her friends at the household of Lucy's father, Dr. Jack Seward (whose clifftop mansion also serves as the local asylum). At dinner, he proves to be a charming guest and leaves a strong impression on the hosts, Lucy especially. Less charmed by this handsome Romanian count is Jonathan Harker, Lucy's fiance.
Later that night, while Lucy and Jonathan are having a secret rendezvous, Dracula reveals his true nature as he descends upon Mina to drink her blood. The following morning, Lucy finds Mina awake in bed struggling for breath. Powerless, she watches her friend die right in front of her.
At a loss for the cause of death, Dr. Seward calls for Mina's father, Professor Abraham Van Helsing. Van Helsing soon begins to suspect what might have killed his daughter: a vampire. Moreover, Van Helsing now begins to worry about what fate his seemingly dead daughter may now have since her encounter with the murderous vampire. Seward and Van Helsing investigate their suspicions, to discover a makeshift tunnel within Mina's coffin (clawed by hand) which leads to the local mines. It is there, within the dark caverns, they encounter the ghastly form of an undead Mina, and it is up to a distraught Van Helsing to destroy what remains of his own daughter.
Lucy meanwhile has been summoned to Carfax Abbey, Dracula's new home, and soon she reveals herself to be in love with this foreign prince and openly offers herself to him as his bride. After a surreal "Wedding Night" sequence, Lucy, like Mina before her, is now infected by Dracula's blood. However, the two doctors manage to give Lucy a blood transfusion to help prevent her vampirism, but nothing can stop the inevitable now.
Now aided by Jonathan, the elderly doctors realise that the only way to defeat Dracula (and save Lucy) is by destroying him. They manage to locate his coffin within the grounds of Carfax Abbey, but the vampire is waiting for them (despite it being daylight Dracula is still a very powerful adversary to his enemies). Dracula escapes their feeble attempt to kill him and bursts into the asylum not only to kill Renfield for his betrayal, but to free a captive Lucy, and to take her to his home, Transylvania.
In a race against time, Harker and Van Helsing just manage to get onboard a ship carrying the vampire cargo bound for Transylvania. Below decks, Harker and Van Helsing find the Count's coffin; upon opening it they see Lucy sleeping beside her new "husband", Dracula. Again they try to destroy him, but the Count awakens and once more fights with his assassins. In the struggle, Van Helsing is fatally wounded by Dracula as he is impaled by the stake intended for the vampire. As the enraged Count now turns his attention to Harker, the dying doctor uses his remaining strength to throw a hook (attached to a rope, from the ship's rigging), into Dracula's back. Harker seizes his only chance and hoists the Count's body up through the cargo hold and into the sunlight above. Dracula then suffers a slow and painful death as the solar rays burn his body to ashes.
Lucy, now apparently herself once more, reaches out to Harker for support, but is coldly rejected by her one time suitor. It is at that moment that she looks up to see Dracula's cape flying away in the wind, where she smiles enigmatically, hopeful that her true love is not quite so dead after all.
Deviations from the novel
This list is not exhaustive, but intended to convey a sense of the differences between the film and the novel:
- The setting is shifted to circa 1920.
- The entire storyline about what happens in Transylvania is omitted (as, consequently, are the “Brides of Dracula”).
- Renfield is a laborer who goes to work at Carfax Abbey, encounters Dracula and goes insane.
- Dracula does not "youthen".
- Mina is Van Helsing's daughter, and becomes a vampire instead of Lucy.
- Van Helsing kills the undead Mina.
- Lucy wants to be a lawyer, and has a sexual relationship with Harker before marriage.
- The characters of Arthur Holmwood and Quincey Morris are omitted.
- Dr. Seward is Lucy's father, not her suitor.
- Dracula does not have multiple coffins.
- Dracula apparently kills Van Helsing, (although whether Van Helsing lives or dies is not shown)
- Harker kills Dracula on board ship, by forcing him into the sunlight.
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| Posted on 6/5/2007 10:10 AM
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Response to: Mihai GXXXXXXXX
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1977)
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
"Nosferatu the Vampyre" (German: "Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht", English translation: "Nosferatu: Phantom of the Night") is a 1979 West German horror film, set primarily in 19th Century Wismar, Germany and Transylvania, Romania. Written and directed by Werner Herzog, Nosferatu the Vampyre stars Klaus Kinski as Count Dracula, Isabelle Adjani as Lucy Harker and Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Harker. The film also features French artist-writer Roland Topor as Renfield. Although the production is technically an adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, the film was actually conceived as a stylistic remake of the 1922 German Dracula adaptation, "Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens".
Herzog's production of "Nosferatu the Vampyre" was warmly received by critics and filmgoers alike, enjoying a comfortable degree of commercial success. The film also marks the second of five legendary collaborations between director Werner Herzog and actor Klaus Kinski, immediately followed by 1979's "Woyzeck".
An almost completely unrelated sequel, "Nosferatu in Venice", was released in 1988 by director Augusto Caminito, with only Klaus Kinski returning to reprise his loosely connected role.
"Nosferatu the Vampyre" was co-produced by Werner Herzog Filmproduktion, Gaumont and ZDF. As was common for German films during the 1970s, "Nosferatu the Vampyre" was filmed on a minimal budget, and with a crew of just 16 people. Herzog could not film in Bremen, where the original Murnau film was shot, so he relocated production to Delft, the Netherlands.[1] Parts of the film were shot in nearby Schiedam, after Delft authorities refused to allow Herzog to release 11,000 rats for a scene in the film. Dracula's home is represented by locations in the Czech Republic.
At the request of distributor 20th Century Fox, Herzog produced two versions of the movie simultaneously, to appeal to western audiences. Scenes with dialogue were filmed twice, in German and in English, meaning that the actor's own voices (as opposed to dubbed dialogue by voice actors) could be included in the English version of the film. However, many consider the performances in the German language version to be superior,[5] as Kinski and Ganz could act more confidently in their native language.
Music for the film was performed by the German group Popol Vuh, who have collaborated with Herzog on numerous projects.
Plot summary
Jonathan Harker (Bruno Ganz) is an estate agent in Wismar, Germany. His boss, Renfield (Roland Topor), informs him that a nobleman named Count Dracula wishes to buy a property in Wismar, and assigns Harker to visit the count and complete the lucrative deal. Leaving his young wife, Lucy (Isabelle Adjani) behind in Wismar, Harker travels for four weeks to Transylvania, Romania, to the castle of Count Dracula. He brings with him the deeds and documents needed to sell the house to the Count.
On his journey, Jonathan stops a village, where locals warn him of the castle's 'evil', pleading for him to stay clear of the accursed castle, providing him with details of vampirism. But Harker ignores the villagers' pleas as wild superstition, and continues his journey unassisted. Harker arrives at Dracula's castle, where he meets the Count (Klaus Kinski). The mysterious nobleman is a strange, ancient, almost rodent-like man, with large ears, pale skin, sharp teeth and long fingernails.
However, Dracula is very accommodating, and offers Jonathan his full hospitality.
The lonely Count is enchanted by a small portrait of Jonathan's wife, Lucy, and immediately agrees to purchase the Wismar property, especially with the knowledge that he and Lucy would become neighbours. As Jonathan's visit progresses, he is haunted at night by a number of dream-like encounters with the vampiric Count. Simultaneously, in Wismar, Lucy is tormented by night terrors, plagued by images of impending doom. Additionally, Renfield is committed to an asylum after biting a cow, apparently having lapsed into a psychosis.
To Harker's horror, he finds the Count asleep in a coffin, confirming for him that Dracula is indeed a vampire. At night, Dracula leaves for Wismar, taking with him a number of coffins, filled with the cursed earth that he needs for his vampiric rest. Harker finds that he is locked in the castle, and attempts to escape from the through a window with a makeshift rope. The rope, fashioned from bedsheets, is not long enough, and Jonathan falls, severely injuring himself. He awakes in a hosptial, raving about 'black coffins' to doctors, who then assume that the sickness is affecting his mind.
Meanwhile, Dracula and his coffins travel to Wismar by boat. The crew systematically die or disappear at the hand of the vampire, but with the belief that they are afflicted with plague. The ghost ship arrives at Wismar with its mysterious cargo, where doctors - including Van Helsing (Walter Ladengast) - investigate the strange fate of the ship. They discover a log that mentions their perceived affliction with plague. In turn, Wismar is flooded with rats from the ship. Dracula arrives in Wismar with his coffins, and death spreads rapidly throughout the town.
When Jonathan is finally transported home, he is desperately ill, and does not appear to recognise his wife, Lucy. Lucy later has an encounter with the lonely Count Dracula. Weary and unable to die, he demands some of the love that she gave so freely to Jonathan. Much to Dracula's dismay, she refuses, and he leaves her room with disgust.
Now aware that something other than plague is responsible for the death that has beset her once-peaceful town, Lucy desparately tries to convince the town people, but they are skeptical and uninterested. She finds that she can vanquish Dracula's evil by distracting him at dawn, but at the expense of her own life. She lures the Count to her bedroom, where he proceeds to drink her blood.
In accordance with the mythology, Lucy's beauty and purity distract Dracula from the call of the cockrel, and he is killed by the first light of the day. Van Helsing arrives to discover Lucy, dead but victorious. He then finishes the Count off with a stake through the heart. In a final, chilling twist, Jonathan Harker awakes from his sickness, a vampire. He is last seen travelling away on horseback, enigmatically stating that he has much to do.
Deviations from the novel
This list is not exhaustive, but intended to convey a sense of the differences between the film and the novel:
- The setting is shifted to circa 1838 Wismar.
- Mina Harker becomes Lucy Harker.
- The characters of Arthur Holmwood and Quincey Morris are omitted.
- Renfield is Harker's employer.
- Dracula brings with him the plague and ravages the city.
- Dracula makes Jonathan Harker a vampire.
- Dracula does not shapeshift.
- Much is made of a kind of psychic connection between Lucy and Harker/Dracula.
- Dracula must sleep by day.
- Dracula is killed by Lucy; she lures him to feed upon her until sunrise, which is fatal to him.
- Van Helsing is arrested at the end, for having driven a stake through (the already deceased) Dracula's heart.
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| Posted on 6/5/2007 10:15 AM
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Response to: Mihai GXXXXXXXX
Love At First Bite (1977)
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
"Love At First Bite" is a 1979 comedy horror film directed by Stan Dragoti and written by Robert Kaufman, using characters originally created by Bram Stoker. It stars George Hamilton, Susan Saint James, Richard Benjamin and Arte Johnson. The original music score was composed by Charles Bernstein. The film's tagline is: "Your favorite pain in the neck is about to bite your funny bone !"
Plot summary
The infamous vampire Count Dracula is expelled from his castle by the Communist government of Romania, which plans to convert the structure into an athletics training facility. The world-weary Count travels to New York City with his bug-eating assistant Renfield and establishes himself in a hotel, but only after a mix-up at the airport causes his coffin to be accidentally sent to be the centerpiece in a funeral at a black church in Harlem.
While Dracula learns that America contains such wonders as blood banks, he also proceeds to suffer the general ego-crushing that comes from modern life in the Big Apple as he romantically pursues flaky fashion model Cindy Sondheim, whom he has long believed to be the current reincarnation of his true love. Dracula is ineptly pursued in turn by Sondheim's psychiatrist and long-suffering quasi-boyfriend Jeffery Rosenberg, who is the grandson of Dracula's old nemesis Abraham Van Helsing. (Rosenberg changed his name to something Jewish "for professional reasons", to the point of wearing a Star of David, which proves to be ineffective at driving off vampires).
Rosenberg tries numerous unsuccessful methods to destroy Dracula, including shooting him with silver bullets and burning his coffin. His increasingly erratic actions eventually cause him to locked up as a maniac, but as mysterious cases of blood-bank robberies and vampiric attacks begin to spread, a NYPD Lieutenant named Ferguson starts to believe Rosenberg and gets him released.
In the end, as a major blackout hits the city, Dracula flees via taxi cab back to the airport with Cindy, pursued by Rosenberg and Ferguson. On the tarmac, Cindy pays off her (enormous) bill to Rosenburg and willingly becomes Dracula's vampire bride. As bats, they fly off to Rio de Janeiro together, leaving Dracula's cape with Rosenberg. Rosenberg hopes the cape will help him on the dating scene, while Furgeson plans to use it to make a favorable impression on his wife on his wedding anniversary; the two of them depart the runway arm in arm.
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| Posted on 6/5/2007 10:26 AM
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Response to: Mihai GXXXXXXXX
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
"Bram Stoker's Dracula" is a 1992 horror/romance film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. It stars Gary Oldman, Keanu Reeves, Anthony Hopkins and Winona Ryder. The score was composed by Wojciech Kilar and featured Annie Lennox. It was the 9th highest grossing film worldwide in 1992, making $215,862,692. It was the 15th highest grossing film in the U.S making $82,522,790. The film also won three Academy Awards in 1992.
Plot summary
The film begins with a prologue, telling how Vlad III the Impaler defeated an "overwhelming" Turkish force invading his homeland in 1462 (see the Night Attack); but returned home to find his beloved wife Elisabeta dead. Having heard false reports of Vlad's death, she leapt from Dracula Castle. Dracula considered himself to be defending Christianity, so when told that her soul is damned as a suicide, Dracula in a rage desecrates a chapel and renounces God, declaring he will rise from the grave to avenge her death with all the powers of darkness. The icons in the church cry blood and the candles drip it instead of wax, covering the floor around her corpse.
Four centuries later...
Jonathan Harker (Reeves), assistant real estate agent, travels to the mountains of Transylvania to arrange the transfer of Carfax Abbey in London, Count Dracula's (Oldman) newest real estate acquisition. Harker was sent because the previous agent, Renfield (Waits) had returned from Transylvania insane. The castle itself is a bizarre, unnatural place where shadows move by themselves and sometimes things (like drops of perfume) fall up. When the ancient-seeming count sees a picture of Harker's fiancée Wilhelmina "Mina" Murray (Ryder), he tells Harker to write to her, telling her that Harker will remain in Transylvania for one month.
Dracula imprisoned Harker, where he was enticed by Dracula's insatiable, beautiful, and bloodthirsty Brides. They systematically took his blood - never enough to kill him — but to keep him in a weakened state to prevent him from escaping the castle.
While Harker was being held prisoner, the count books passage on the ship Demeter to London. His purpose was not only to move into Carfax Abbey, but to meet Mina, who Dracula believes is the reincarnation of his wife.
When the Demeter arrives in London, the entire crew is dead. Since Dracula is in a box of his native earth and assumed to be cargo, he is delivered safely to the Abbey. Renfield becomes his servant and Lucy Westenra (Mina's best friend) his victim when she sleepwalks the night the Demeter arrives. Dracula ravishes her and drinks her blood. Dracula – now young and handsome again – gradually meets and charms Mina, but refuses to bite her. He also takes her dancing and when she drinks absinthe seems to begin remembering her past life.
Dracula's nocturnal feedings from Lucy (Sadie Frost) have caused noticeable changes in her behavior and obvious deteriorating health. The three men who courted for her hand Quincey Morris (Campbell), Dr. John Seward (Grant) and Arthur Holmwood (Elwes) grow increasingly worried. Seward (whose asylum includes among its inmates Renfield) summons his old friend Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (Hopkins). Van Helsing performs a blood transfusion with Arthur (Lucy's fiancee) then the other two men as donors. But he recognizes also that Lucy is the victim of a vampire.
Harker escapes from Castle Dracula and makes his way to a convent from which he sends word to Mina. She leaves to join and marry him, leaving a note for her "Prince" (as Dracula had introduced himself) that she must never see him again. Grief-stricken and enraged, Dracula breaks into the Westenra house and kills Lucy, cursing her to be as he is.
But by now Van Helsing has learned precisely what is happening. He brings Arthur, Seward and Quincey to the family crypt where they see Lucy return to her tomb. She has fangs and a bloody mouth and seems to have been feeding off a small child. Horrified, Arthur drives a stake through her heart.
When Harker (now with gray hair from his ordeal) returns with Mina, he is recruited to hunt down Dracula. He joins Van Helsing, Seward, Quincey and Arthur in going to Carfax Abbey to consecrate the boxes of soil there, making it impossible for Dracula to use them. But the Count sees them. Taking the form of a green mist, he goes to Seward's asylum and kills Renfield for his betrayal, then enters the bedchamber where Mina sleeps. At first barely awake she eagerly welcomes him, but he insists upon telling her the truth – he is dead, a hunted creature, the one who murdered her friend Lucy. But despite her rage at this, Mina still loves him. She begs to become like him, to be with him. He at first tries to resist, but she insists. When the group of Vampire Hunters burst into the bedroom, they find Mina drinking Dracula's blood from his chest. Assuming the form of a bat-like demon, Dracula faces off against them. He insists he was betrayed by God. Then, proclaiming "She is my Bride !" he retreats into the shadows and transforms again into a horde of rats that flee out the window.
Mina begins to change the same way Lucy had. Van Helsing hypnotizes her and learns via the connection between her and Dracula that the latter is returning to his home by ship. The five Hunters plan on trying to reach the port of Varna before him via train. But Dracula reads Mina's mind and gives them the slip. Finally, they split up. Van Helsing and Mina go directly to the Borgo Pass and the Castle, while the others try to stop the Gypsies transporting Dracula.
At night, encamped before the castle, Mina begins to change as the Brides hover nearby. Mina attempts to seduce Van Helsing and almost succeeds. She bares fangs, trying to bite him but he reacts by touching her forehead with a piece of Holy Wafer. This sears her flesh and snaps her out of it. The Brides try to attack, but cannot get too close because of Van Helsing's cross. Instead, they devour the horses. Next morning, a weary Van Helsing enters the castle, finds the Brides and beheads them.
When the chase between the Hunters and the Gypsies carrying Dracula nears the Castle, Mina finds she doesn't need binoculars to see things far away. Dracula, sensing her presence, tells her what to do. Speaking Romanian, she summons a kind of blue flame from the earth around the castle (first seen when Harker arrived) which rises to the clouds and causes winds. This impedes the Hunters, but they press on. As the fight rages, racing against sunset, the carriage carrying Dracula pulls into the courtyard.
The sun sets soon after the last Gypsy dies. Dracula bursts out of his box as Harker cuts open his throat. Almost at the same moment, a mortally wounded Quincey drives his bowie knife into Dracula's chest. The vampire staggers, but Mina fends off the men with a rifle. She asks her husband "When my time comes, will you do the same to me ?" He says "No," and allows her to follow Dracula into the castle. Quincey dies.
Inside, in the very chapel where he renounced God, Dracula lies wounded. He is aged again, and his face contorted to that of a demon. But Mina tries to pull the knife from his heart, and calls him "My love", kissing him. At the moment, the candles in the chapel light on their own. The desecrations Dracula committed on the altar repair. Dracula himself becomes young and his face that of a human being. He says to her "Give me peace", and she drives the knife all the way through his heart. Dracula dies. Mina pulls out the knife and beheads him, then with tearful eyes looks up.
The dome above her shows a fresco of Vlad and his wife ascending to heaven together.
Deviations from the novel
This list is not exhaustive, but intended to convey a sense of the differences between the film and the novel:
- Dracula is explicitly identified with Vlad Ţepeş ("The Impaler") and given a specific backstory as to how he came to be a vampire. (In the novel, it is implied that he was transformed at the Scholomance).
- Renfield is Harker's predecessor in going to Transylvania, whence he returned insane.
- Dracula has no reflection, but he does cast a shadow in the movie, which seems to have some physical weight and often moves about on its own.
- Dracula and his brides speak Romanian to each other rather than English.
- When Mina follows a sleepwalking Lucy, she finds her actually having intercourse with Dracula as he feeds upon her. In the novel, Mina just follows Lucy during her sleepwalking without any intercourse between Lucy and Dracula taking place.
- Mina, represented as the reincarnation of Dracula's first wife, falls in love with him, and prevents the others from killing him in the end. She herself delivers the killing blow, at his request.
- Dracula kills Lucy at least partially out of revenge for Mina having left him to marry Harker.
- The characters of Mrs. Westenra and Lord Godalming (Arthur's father) are omitted in the film, and Mr. Hawkins (Jonathan's boss and father figure) is never seen again after an early appearance in the movie.
- In the novel, Lucy describes Dr. Seward as "one of the most resolute men I ever saw, and yet the most calm". The movie shows a quite nervous man, who shouts at Renfield, his patient.
Despite these alterations, the movie is considered by many as one of the most faithful cinematic adaptations of the story.
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| Posted on 6/5/2007 10:35 AM
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Response to: Mihai GXXXXXXXX
Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995)
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
"Dracula: Dead And Loving It" is a 1995 movie directed by Mel Brooks. It is a parody of Dracula by Bram Stoker, and of some of the movies the novel inspired. The film's visual style and production values are particularly evocative of the Hammer Horror films. Among the many movies spoofed are the classic Dracula (1931), starring Bela Lugosi, and Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (1992).
This is Brooks' most recent directorial effort.
Plot summary
Solicitor Thomas Renfield (MacNicol) travels all the way from London to Transylvania to meet an important client. His destination is a place called "Castle Dracula". As he nears the end of his journey, the sun sets, and the stagecoach driver refuses to take him any further. Kindly villagers plead with him to turn back. Saying "You don't understand; I'm expected!" Renfield continues on foot.
Renfield arrives safely and meets Count Dracula (Nielsen), a charming but rather strange man who is, of course, a vampire. Dracula signs papers finalizing the purchase of Carfax Abbey in England, and Renfield retires for the night. He wakes when two Brides of Dracula come gliding seductively in. They are about to finish him off when the Count appears and orders them out of the room. He then casts a hypnotic spell on the suggestible Renfield, making him his slave.
Dracula and Renfield soon embark for England. During the voyage, Dracula dines upon the ship's crew, starting with the second mate, eventually killing everyone by the time he reaches England. He goes ashore, leaving Renfield behind. When Renfield (by this time raving mad in the style of Dwight Frye) is discovered alone on the ship, he is confined to a lunatic asylum.
Meanwhile, Dracula visits an opera house, where he introduces himself to his new neighbors: Doctor Seward (Korman), owner of the asylum where Renfield is being held, and a believer in enemas as a sovereign remedy for mental illness; Seward's assistant, Jonathan Harker (Weber); Seward's nubile daughter Mina (Yasbeck), engaged to Harker for the past five years; and Seward's ward, the equally nubile Lucy (Anthony). Dracula flirts with Lucy and, later that night, enters her bedroom and feeds on her blood.
The next day, Mina discovers Lucy still in bed late in the morning, looking strangely pale. Seward, puzzled by the odd puncture marks on her throat, calls in an expert on obscure diseases, Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (Brooks). Van Helsing informs the skeptical Dr. Seward that Lucy has been attacked by a vampire. After some hesitation, Seward and Harker allow garlic to be placed in Lucy's bedroom to repel the vampire. Dracula releases Renfield from the asylum, and orders him to get rid of the garlic. Renfield, however, can't resist first lifing the covers of Lucy's bed and taking a peek. Lucy screams, and Seward and Harker rush in and recapture Renfield. Dracula then uses mind control to make Lucy leave her room, and kills her in the garden.
Van Helsing meets Dracula and begins to suspect him of being the local vampire; he also becomes embroiled in a last-word competition with the Count. Lucy, now a vampire herself, rises from her crypt, drains the blood from her guard, and tries to attack Harker. Van Helsing rushes in just in time and chases her back to her coffin with a crucifix. Jonathan drives a stake into Lucy's heart, causing an improbable amount of blood to gush out ("She just ate!" explains Van Helsing, standing well back, having done this kind of thing before).
Dracula's next victim is Mina, but he has bigger plans for her; he wants her to be his undead bride through all eternity. He spirits her away to Carfax Abbey, where they dance, and he sucks her blood. Mina does not loathe the Count, as she does in Stoker's novel; in fact, she seems to enjoy his attentions. The following morning, she is unusually frisky, and tries to seduce the prudish Jonathan. Van Helsing becomes suspicious at this strange behavior. Noticing a scarf around Mina's neck, he removes it, revealing two puncture marks.
Van Helsing devises a plan to reveal Count Dracula's secret identity. He invites the Count to a ball, and places a huge mirror, covered with a curtain, on one of the walls. Dracula arrives, and dances the Csárdás with Mina. Suddenly, the curtain over the mirror is dropped, and guests are stunned to see Mina's reflection seemingly dancing by itself. Dracula grabs Mina and escapes out a window. Renfield, also at the ball, impulsively shouts after him "Master! Master !. . .I mean, Mister ! Mister !" He is immediately locked up again, while Van Helsing, Seward, and Harker search for Dracula.
Van Helsing deduces that Renfield is Dracula's slave, and so might know where he keeps his coffin. He lets him out of his cell, and the three men secretly follow him to Dracula's lair. Once discovered, the Count locks himself in a room to finish making Mina his bride. His pursuers break down the door, and they fight. Van Helsing, noticing sunlight creeping into the room, starts opening the blinds. As his body begins to burn, Dracula transforms himself into a bat and flies up into the darkness of the attic ceiling.
Renfield flings open a trapdoor and shouts "This way, Master !", flooding the room with light and reducing his master to ashes. Mina, sweet and innocent once more, leaves with Jonathan; Renfield mourns Dracula for a moment, then becomes Seward's slave; and Van Helsing shouts "Pushta !" at the pile of vampire-ashes, thinking he's finally getting the last word (at the end of the credits, however, Dracula retorts).
Deviations from the novel
This list is not exhaustive, but intended to convey a sense of the differences between the film and the novel:
- Dracula has only two Brides.
- Renfield goes to Transylvania and is hypnotized rather than bitten. He is found, insane, aboard the Demeter.
- Dracula does not "youthen".
- The characters of Arthur Holmwood and Quincey Morris are omitted.
- Dr. Seward is Mina's father, not Lucy's suitor. Lucy is his ward.
- Van Helsing has killed vampires before.
- Harker kills Lucy after she's rises as one of the Undead.
- Dracula does not have multiple coffins. He can only change into a weird little manlike bat, not a wolf.
- Dracula must sleep by day (and has "day-mares").
- Dracula is accidentally killed by Renfield, who exposes him to the sun, and thus survives the story.
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| Posted on 6/5/2007 10:40 AM
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Response to: Mihai GXXXXXXXX
Dracula 2000 (2000)
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
"Dracula 2000" (also known as "Dracula 2001" in some countries) is a horror movie which attempts to transfer the story of Dracula into the setting of a modern teen horror film. With a cast of pop culture stars, including possibly the youngest actor to portray Dracula in a major motion picture, the film was profitable. The film's only real distinguishing feature from other vampire movies is a unique story for Dracula's origins. The film was produced by Dimension Films and Neo Art & Logic. Veteran horror film director Wes Craven was executive producer and his long time editor, Patrick Lussier, directed the film. Joel Soisson is credited with the screenplay, with the story by Soisson and Lussier. However, the film went through numerous uncredited rewrites by Scott Derrickson & Paul Harris Boardman and Ehren Krueger.
Plot summary
The film opens in present-day London, with a group of thieves infiltrating the antique shop Carfax Abbey. Penetrating into its innermost vault they expect to find a fortune in treasure. Instead they encounter a sealed coffin. Upon attempting to move the coffin, some of the treasure-hunting party are gruesomely killed by the vault's security system, leading the survivors to believe the coffin is the treasure they have come for. It is no surprise when the coffin is later revealed to contain the dormant body of Count Dracula. We learn that Carfax Abbey (also the name of Dracula's London residence in Bram Stoker's original novel) is owned and operated by Dracula's nemesis, Abraham Van Helsing, who, after trapping and subduing Dracula a century before, has been keeping himself alive with injections of the vampire's blood filtered through leeches until he can find a way to destroy Dracula forever.
While flying the coffin back to the United States one of the thieves manage to open the coffin, releasing Dracula. The count proceeds to feast on the blood of the thieves, one of whom happen to be flying the airplane, causing them to crash in the swamps of Louisiana. Surviving the crash, he heads to New Orleans, Louisiana, where Van Helsing's estranged daughter Mary and her best friend Lucy live. Meanwhile Van Helsing and his assistant Simon head to the U.S. to recapture Dracula.
The one significant twist this film brings to the Dracula legend is its explanation of his origin. In this film, Dracula is portrayed as being in fact Judas Iscariot, cursed to walk the earth as an immortal for his betrayal of Jesus being rejected from admission to both Heaven and Hell. This explains some of the vampire's best-known weaknesses quite neatly, primarily Christian iconography and silver, as Judas was paid in silver for handing Christ over to the Roman authorities. Although Bram Stoker makes no reference to a vulnerability to silver in his novel, it is a part of some examples of European vampire folklore.
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| Posted on 6/5/2007 10:48 AM
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Response to: Mihai GXXXXXXXX
Van Helsing (film)(2004)
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
"Van Helsing" is a 2004 American action/horror film about vampire hunter Gabriel Van Helsing, written and directed by Stephen Sommers. The film stars Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale.
Based on a version of the character of Abraham Van Helsing from Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, the film also incorporates characters from other works such as the film “The Wolf Man” into the narrative, and draws particularly on literary classics of the gothic horror canon such as Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein".
Plot summary
PROLOGUE: Transylvania, the late 19th century: Dr. Frankenstein works for Count Dracula to resurrect the dead, and creates Frankenstein's monster. When the doctor learns Dracula's purpose for the creation, he reneges; but his assistant Igor betrays him. The Count murders him but the monster manages to escape but is buried under burning rubble.
A year later, Gabriel Van Helsing, a hunter of the Dark with no memory of his own past, is seen battling Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. After defeating the monster, he is summoned to the Vatican by the Order, a secret society that fights supernatural evil. He must assist the last of the Valerious clan to kill Dracula to protect a covenant their ancestor made with God centuries before that unless the vampire is destroyed, his family would never enter Heaven. He's given a parchment scrap with Latin writing, and a seal bearing the same symbol as the ring on his right hand, left to the Order by the same Valerious ancestor. The Order suggests that the similarity between the seal and ring might be a link to his identity. Their resident 'tech guy' Friar Carl is sent along.
Meanwhile in Transylvania, Princess Anna and her brother Velkan Valerious hunt werewolves, but Velkan is bitten and lost. Van Helsing and Friar Carl arrive, and the suspicious villagers and Anna confront them. Dracula's brides Verona, Marishka, and Aleera, arrive and attack in daylight, specifically targeting Van Helsing and Anna. Van Helsing slays Marishka, and as the first to kill a vampire in over a century, Anna accepts him.
At far-off Dracula's castle the Count feels Marishka's death and awakens. He comforts his remaining brides and announces he'll seek a new one. He orders Igor to Frankenstein's castle to continue the experiments.
Anna and Van Helsing argue about her hunting alone, and he knocks her out with a strange gas to prevent this. Later at night, she wakes up to find out a werewolf is in her house: Velkan, who tries to warn her about Dracula in a moment of half-transformation. Van Helsing arrives but Velkan flees. He pursues but Anna stops him, and tells him about rumors of a cure for lycanthropy in Dracula's possession. He agrees to help her find the cure. At Frankenstein's castle they discover Velkan is a captive catalyst in Dracula's experiments in which Dracula plans to use him to bring his stillborn children to life.
Van Helsing and Anna can't stop the experiment, and Dracula's massive brood comes alive and flocks with their mothers to the village for their first feeding. Anna pursues Velkan while Van Helsing's attacks fail to hurt the Count, who smiles in recognition and unnerves him by revealing intimate knowledge of his life. Dracula offers to restore Van Helsing's memory, but Van Helsing follows Anna. She conquers the Dwergie (the Count's supernatural servants) but fails to free Velkan before the final stroke of midnight when he becomes a werewolf permanently, and completely controlled by Dracula. Velkan's blood is not stable enough for Dracula's children, who self-destruct. Dracula orders Velkan to kill the two hunters. Near the windmill ruins, Anna chides Van Helsing for his conventional, ineffective vampire-killing methods. They settle their differences but suddenly fall into an underground cavern and are unconscious until morning.
Back at the manor, Friar Carl finds a magic painting that shows two knights engaged in combat under the full moon. They throw down their armor and arms and transform into a werewolf and an anthropomorphic bat, before engaging in combat again.
Beneath the ruins, Anna and Van Helsing awake to discover Frankenstein's Monster. Anna wants to kill it but Van Helsing refuses because he senses that the creature is not evil. Meanwhile, Velkan sees them and leaves to tell the Count of his discovery. Van Helsing convinces Anna to bring the monster to Rome for safekeeping, and they leave with Carl.
En route to Italy, Dracula's remaining brides and Velkan attack. Van Helsing kills Verona, but in the melee Van Helsing fatally wounds the Wolf Man. Next morning Anna discovers the now-human, dying Velkan. She rails against Van Helsing for her brother's death but discovers that Velkan bit him, giving him the werewolf curse. Anna is then blindsided by Aleera and kidnapped.
Arriving later that day in Budapest, Van Helsing and his party are met by Aleera, who relays an offer from Dracula: the monster for Anna. They set the exchange at a local All Hallow's Eve masquerade ball.
That night Dracula dances with a bewitched Anna, compelled by his whim. Dracula boasts she will be his newest bride. Van Helsing and Friar Carl rescue her, however the Count reveals that not only have his fellow undead already reacquired the monster for him, but that the palace is his summer home, and all the masked guests are his coven. Faced with an entire building full of bloodsuckers, Anna, Van Helsing, and Carl flee, but Carl detonates a flash bang grenade that destroys the vampire coven. The Dwergie and Igor escape with the monster by boat. Van Helsing and his companions try to pick up the trail at Frankenstein's castle, but discover Dracula and his entourage gone along with the lab, probably to Dracula's castle whose location unknown.
At the manor, the three review everything they know about Dracula. Originally, the son of Anna's ancestor was killed by the 'Left Hand of God'. Anna's ancestor sealed Dracula away in a realm accessed by a one-way door. Dracula escaped by making a deal with the Devil for his undead status, plus wings for himself and his kind. The location of this door was lost, although Anna's father had been studying a wall mural of a map for clues. Van Helsing intuits that the mural is the door. Carl notices the map's torn edge. Van Helsing tries the parchment scrap left to the Order by Anna's ancestor; the piece fits, and the mural becomes a mirror. The trio step through into the cold and snow of Dracula's prison realm.
At Dracula's castle they corner Igor, and the captive servant confirms that Dracula has the lycanthropy cure. Suspicious why Dracula would possess such a cure given his use of werewolves as minions for centuries, Van Helsing threatens Igor for answers. Carl, however, guesses that as shown by the painting, only the bite of a werewolf can kill Dracula and since the Count can't assert full control over the creatures until they fully succumb to the curse, he needs some way of protecting himself from new-forming werewolves. Van Helsing decides to pursue Dracula and free the monster to thwart the experiment, while Carl and Anna take Igor to find the cure. If Anna and Carl are too late to administer the antidote to him before the final stroke of midnight, Anna must escape, while Carl must stake him in the heart with silver. Igor and Carl walk off and Anna is about to follow them when Van Helsing grabs her and says, "If you're late, run like hell". She nods and is starts to leave, but he grabs her again and whispers, "Don't be late". With that, she, in turn, grabs him and kisses him passionately before following the others.
Van Helsing reaches the monster but it is too late to stop the experiment and Dracula's children are brought to life. Carl and Anna find the cure syringe within a prison-cell vault, but Igor traps them, and Aleera attacks. Anna wounds Aleera but Carl escapes with the syringe. Carl rushes the cure to Van Helsing but is impeded by vicious weather and Igor, who harasses him with an enormous electric taser-like staff. Van Helsing tries to set the monster free but is stopped by Dracula. The monster is then struck by a bolt of lighting and his shackles break. The monster hangs on to a cable which wraps around the bridge upon which Igor was chasing Carl and the cable sends Igor flying who plummets to his death. Carl swings the monster loose and he comes crashing into Aleera who was about to bite Anna. Frankenstein's monster then battles Aleera while Anna escapes. Anna then pulls out a gatling gun and Carl throws her the syringe but she is knocked off the rope by Aleera. Anna then manages to stab Aleera in the heart with a stake and then heads to give the cure to Van Helsing.
Meanwhile, Van Helsing decides that the Count must die before his children gain in strength. At the first stroke of midnight, the curse consumes him, shocking then delighting Dracula as he becomes a werewolf. Dracula reveals that Van Helsing was the one who murdered him when he was human and the ring on Van Helsing's finger was also originally his. Dracula again appeals to Van Helsing's desire to know himself, offering to restore his memories but Van Helsing refuses. He shifts back into a werewolf and bites Dracula, killing him and his children once and for all. Anna arrives and runs at him with the cure syringe but Van Helsing attacks her. Carl follows shortly after and charges at the beast with the stake, but Van Helsing grabs Carl and changes back to normal which shows that Anna's injection attempt was successful. Unfortunately, the werewolf attack killed her and the now un-cursed Van Helsing mourns her death.
As the monster leaves on a make-shift raft the next day, Van Helsing and Carl pay their last respects to Anna on her funeral pyre. She looks beautiful dressed in a black silk gown. They are by the ocean, as Anna had never been to the sea and wanted to see it so badly. He leans in and lights the hay on which she lays on fire. As Carl prays and reads verses from the Bible, Van Helsing feels her presence and looks at the sky to see her spirit smiling down at him as a tear runs down her cheek. He smiles when he sees her and her father and brother finally finding peace. Comforted by the fact that he saved her and nine generations of her family, Van Helsing and Carl ride into the sunset back to Rome.
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