Theater

Dracula (1924): Dracula the novel owes much of it’s success to “Dracula” the play. First staged in 1924, the many liberties the playwrights took with the original story (such as combining the characters of Mina and Lucy while jettisoning many of the rest) have since become canonized by subsequent adaptations that followed the play’s storyline rather than that of the original book. Furthermore, Béla Lugosi’s portrayal of Dracula would forever define how the Count was thought of in popular culture.

Film

Nosferatu, a Symphony of Terror (1922): In the first cinematic adaptation of the novel, “Dracula” appears in neither the title nor the film. Because the studio was unable to secure the right’s to Stoker’s work, director F.W. Murnau instead called vampires (and the film itself) “nosferatu”, and the lead antagonist “Count Orlok”. When the Bram Stoker’s estate sued for copyright infringement, the court ordered all prints of the motion picture destroyed. The film had become so widely circulated by that point, though, that its eradication was impossible, and copy are now widely available.

You can even watch the entire movie on Youtube.

Dracula (1931): The Universal Pictures version of Dracula is what most people think of when they hear the name. Based on the 1924 theatrical production (complete with modified storyline), Universal drummed up interest in the film by publicizing (and probably staging) several “fainting spells” that afflicted terrorized audience members. The film’s success led to a decade of Universal horror movies, including Frankenstein, The Mummy, and The Wolf Man.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992): Although Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of the novel restored much of the original story (Mina and Lucy were portrayed as separate characters, for instance), the eroticism of the original was much more explicit, and the screenwriter played loose with Dracula origin (and end). Still, the film was generally well received, and was something of a box office sensation, starring, as it did, the then wildly popular Winona Rider as Mina.

Television

Count Dracula (1977): This adaptation of the novel by the BBC had fairly abysmal special effects (even for the time), but is considered to be one of the truest to the original story.

In 2006, the BBC made yet a second adaptation of the work:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In the season 5 premier of the popular dramedy serial, creator Joss Whedon pit his blond heroine against tall, dark and gruesome himself. Many worried about the clash of styles–the gothic villain dropped into a campy adventure–but as always, Whedon proved himself equal to the task.

Literature

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2002): To say anything about this graphic novel would be to give away too much. Suffice to say, if you are enjoying Dracula (or the era in which it is set), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1 would make a fine follow-up. You may even see someone you know.

Games

Fury of Dracula (2006: As a boardgame enthusiast, I would be remiss not to mention perhaps my favorite adaptation of all, Fury of Dracula. One player assumes the role of the count, skulking around Europe and trying to avoid detection; the other four players become Mina Harker, Van Helsing, Doctor Seward, and Lord Godalmling, trying to stop the fiend in his tracks. Based on the novel (not the films), the game is remarkably faithful to the original plotline, and makes for a tense evening. You can read my full review of the game here.

Objectively, though, I recognize why Stoker felt it necessarily to dwell on Lucy’s longest goodbye. When read literally the events induce more eye-rolling than sympathy, but, when considered metaphorically, they neatly showcases what it is about Dracula (and vampires in general) that makes him so repellent.

I don’t mean the killing. I mean, yes, killing is obviously qualifies as Very Bad, but we don’t need vampires for that–we’ve got zombies mindlessly assailing all who come within their reach, and werewolves chowing down on friend and family every 28 days. What vampires bring to the table (so to speak) is something more insidious. Take, for instance, the fact that Lucy wasn’t so much killed as converted. That vampirism can be passed from person to person taps into our primal fears of contagion.

But I don’t think that fear–fear of death, or assault, or disease–can alone account for the revulsion that vampires inspire. I believe that anger also plays a key role. Because, as the ravaging of Lucy demonstrates, vampires are just killers, they are thieves and cheaters.

I mean “cheater” here in the evolutionary psychology sense, one who takes from the community without contributing. Like all parasites, vampires are unable to “live” without siphoning off the energy of others. This is true of all animals, of course–if you’re unable to photosynthesis, you’re eating something else. But vampires don’t kill their victims outright, they feed from time and time, dropping in for a snack whenever the mood strikes. They don’t prey on humans so much as farm them.

And in the case of dear Lucy, Dracula found himself at an all-you-can-eat-buffet, as her lovelorn beaus helpfully refilled his plate every time he licked it clean. Imagine the anger they would have felt if they’d known that their efforts were going not to recuperate their friend, but instead only to fatten their enemy.⁶

In a funny way, the Lucy chapters struck me as a extended allegory of the current Wall Street bailout, as every day taxpayers are asked to roll up their sleeves and give blood, and every night their contributions are handed over to disreputable individuals, many of whom probably also live in castles. Think of the visceral rage many (perhaps yourself) have felt at the thought of CEOs getting huge bonuses after hardworking Everyman are asked to chip in.⁷

Stoker craftily exploits this instinctive anger we feel at those getting rich off the sweat (or blood) of others. And there is another dimension as well. In his foreword, Ian Holt said:

For women, Dracula represents the ultimate alpha-male. Wealth, power, will and strength define him. He exists on a higher plane than human men, appealing to the Darwinian “survival of the fittest” mentality.

I now understand what Mr. Holt meant by this. But I think that this is only half the equation–Dracula represents the ultimate alpha-male to men as well, and the effect is anything but “appealing”. Instead, it taps into that primal fear of all suitors: that after giving all to a woman they love they will be nonetheless jilted when a more powerful primate strolls onto the scene, someone who sweeps her away despite having done nothing to earn her affections.⁸ Good guys finish last, woozy from blood loss and reeking of garlic.

Vampires are not just beasts to be feared, but enemies to be hated. This is what makes Stoker’s character more malevolent than a straightforward killer could ever be. And it is why Dracula is more than a mere monster–he is a villain in the truest sense of the word.

Still, you don’t have to go far into the novel before the religious allegories begin to make themselves apparent. Take this passage, from Chapter 2:

“You may go anywhere you wish in the castle, [says Dracula] except where the doors are locked, where of course you will not wish to go. There is reason that all things are as they are, and did you see with my eyes and know with my knowledge, you would perhaps better understand.”

Now where have I heard such admonishments before?

And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.

Despite the threat, Adam wasn’t killed when he sampled the goods-instead he got evicted from the garden. Hawker, on the other hand, received the exact opposite punishment. Far from giving our timid solicitor the boot, the Count lit the “No Vacancy” sign and sealed all exits.

In both cases it is knowledge that is disallowed, of Good and Evil in Eden and of Just Plain Evil and Castle Dracula. And once they acquire that knowledge, they instantly come to regret it. This is a fairly common occurrence in horror literature: the protagonist discovers That Which Man Was Not Meant to Know (usually after being told repeatedly not to go a-lookin’), and is thereafter tormented by the horrible things to which he is now privy. Worst still is his realization that he cannot share his findings with others, even those he loves, lest they become haunted by the same terrible knowledge.

Horror is often given the short-shrift by the literati, but many of the ideas explored in the genre are among the most profound. This particular motif–the burden of knowledge that cannot be shared–is central to any number of novels filed away it your local bookstore’s “Literature” section. If Harker’s discovery had been more along the lines of “oh god I am forty-seven and haven’t achieved my life goals” rather than “uhhh the dude who served me dinner is crawling down the castle wall”, maybe Dracula would receive a bit more respect.

Although I will concede that Harker’s dilemma is a bit more straightforward than your typical treatise on existentialism. The obstacle he must surmount in communicating with those he loves is not the unfathomable chasm between the self and The Other, but rather the fact that he is sealed in a castle thousands of miles from home, with his mail routinely read and nary a cell-phone tower in sight.

And Harker is not the only victim. Bram does to us, the readers of the novel, what Dracula does to Harker: reveals the evil afoot, but prevents us from telling anyone. Through the use of dated journal entires we know not only what is happening in Castle Dracula, but when these terrible events occurs. And when Stoker abruptly changes the location to London and the date to early May, all that unfolds is tainted by our knowledge of the events to come. We too find ourselves wishing to warn Mina, but find ourselves in an even worst position than Harker to do so.

This is Stoker putting into practice something Alfred Hitchcock called “The Bomb Theory”:

We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let’s suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, “Boom!” There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o’clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: “You shouldn’t be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!”

I don’t know much about Victorian fin-de-siecle literature, but I’m guessing Dracula wasn’t then only horror novel to be written. But already, a third of the way in, it’s clear why it has been canonized as a classic of the genre. Stoker understood that while surprise may startle, suspense of the show-the-the-bomb variety has the potential to evoke true, stomach-churning dread.

And so far, Dracula has been absolutely dreadful. For a horror novel, there is no higher praise.