Seriously, this movie is nowhere near as creepy as Bram Stoker's original masterpiece. Lugosi's Dracula is practically laughable.
Take my hand, I'll lead you to salvation
Take my love, for love is everlasting
The so called experts on both the Frankenstein and Dracula DVD's say that in both cases, the studios were adapting the popular STAGE PLAYS based on the books.
Thus its BOOK > Stage Play > Numerous changes to Stage Play > Screenplay > Screenplay revisions > Films
In the case of Dracula, its TOO MUCH like a stage play whereas FRANKENSTEIN really takes you into that world!
They copied it actually. That is why it feels like a play and in those times violence wasn't tolerated. Evil couldn't prevail and the audience was easily scared.
The Spanish version would give them heart attacks.
This movie was not based on Stoker’s novel, but on a stage play derived from the novel. Ford Coppela’s shameful Bram Stoker’s Dracula has many more of the events from the novel, and then added the complete bullshit reincarnated love affair between Mina and the count which flew out of Ford Coppela’s hindquarters. What a travesty. I despise that film.
shareFord Coppela’s shameful Bram Stoker’s Dracula has many more of the events from the novel, and then added the complete bullshit reincarnated love affair between Mina and the count which flew out of Ford Coppela’s hindquarters. What a travesty. I despise that film.
Fair enough; but it is NOT Bram Stoker’s Dracula, nor does it jibe with occult tradition. A vampire is a demon inhabiting a human corpse, NOT the continuation of the dead human. It has no connection at all with the dead human. It cannot procreate; neither, love. It CANNOT move about when the Sun is ascendant. This myth is a vanity of many, many alleged vampire stories, which find true folklore, well, INCONVIENT. I don’t care how cloudy the day is, how dark the cellar is, a vamp CANNOT MOVE when the Sun is above the earth. This crud about “The vampire can move about in the daylight, but in much weakened condition” is narrative claptrap. He can’t move, and he will BURST INTO FLAMES AND DIE in sunlight. Sheesh! Science fact: you can get skin cancer from being out and about on many cloudy days, because UV rays penetrate clouds. So too, vampires. Coppola directed the movie. He signed off on the script.I hold him, and the project’s collective ignoreance, responsible.
sharebut it is NOT Bram Stoker’s Dracula
I just watched this for the first time and yeah, it's a bit dated by today's standards. Although, I haven't read the novel, so I can't really judge it in that regards.
I do think Dracula '79 is way better than this. Sure, it's basically a remake of it but it just has better effects, atmosphere, feel and whatnot. For goodness' sake, that dumb looking bat in this one almost made me want to turn it off. However, I'm sure this was quite shocking to audiences in 1931. But for a 2020 audience, its quite laughable. I know this is based on the play and yeah, it has a very broadway feel to it, it just didn't work on the silver screen in my opinion.
All those overly exaggerated yet very dry scenes were tough to sit through, it's almost as if they wanted this to be an exact duplicate of the play but without the understanding that plays are so much different than movies. Bela Lugosi was a decent Dracula though. If I liked anything about the movie, it was him.
I say the 3 best Dracula/Vampire films are -
Dracula '79
Interview With The Vampire
Bram Stoker's Dracula
In fact, I'd almost have to say Nosferatu and it's remake with sound are both better than this and that was a silent film. Have not seen Horror Of Dracula yet but it's on my list of films to watch, looks pretty good judging by the trailer. There's a few others I enjoy watching like Fright Night, Blade and Lost Boys but I don't consider them to be "real" vampire films.
I feel for the fans of the novel though. After all these years, we still don't have a good adaptation of it. It's surprising no one has done it yet.
I don’t care how cloudy the day is, how dark the cellar is, a vamp CANNOT MOVE when the Sun is above the earth.
While it is nothing like the novel; it is not as disappointing as "Bram Stoker's Dracular" (1992) if you read the novel. At least in Lugosi's version Dracula is an actual monster (as he is supposed to be) and not some quasi-sympathetic sappy creeper romantic with a semi-reincarnation of his dead (by suicide) lover in life that he only was cursed by god for cursing her suicide. What a piece of crap that film was; and I love Gary Oldman.
Shame too because the first act of the 1992 version was very solid but as soon as Dracula reaches London things go off the rails so fast it made my head spin.
I sorta made my peace awhile ago with not being able to find a top-quality, accurate (to the novel) Dracula film. Every version seems to mess with something, the relationships, the events, etc., and often not even in an understandable way. I get condensing characters or events, but sometimes the changes make no sense.
Ah, Bram Stoker's Dracula... it keeps shooting itself in the foot. Gary Oldman's performance is AMAZING! Oh, but...here comes Keanu Reeves (performance bad, accent worse!) The set design is brilliant! Oh...Winona Ryder (who I don't think is *bad*, she's just...okay and feels too contemporary).
And, yeah, the plot is chugging along and it's dark and twisted (they eat the baby!) but then we get the 19th century Gothic romance novel bits in the middle and...ugh. The misplacement of "We have become God's madmen" to completely change the meaning...ugh.
Then the novel's plot and themes are constantly there to undercut the messages Coppola is trying to shove down everybody's throats: "He's not really a monster, they love each other!" "Didn't they eat a baby?" "Oh...right..."
But, all that said, I think the look and feel of the movie almost carry it alone. Combined with Oldman's and Hopkins' performances (and Tom Waits, and most of the supporting cast), and it averages out to a pretty good film, I think. I usually just go get more snacks and refresh my beverage during the "let's go to the movies" scenes. If you cut those out, it would have been a lot closer to a masterwork (but for Reeves...)
I think the Angry Video Game Nerd did a Dracula competition for the most accurate one (not "best", just "accurate").
Lugosi's performance in this one is great, though!
You ever see Spanish Dracula?
Very good analysis. The production quality of BS Dracula was definitely top notch; and the actual direction and camera work are great. Oldman and Hopkins are great (as they always are). I was not even that bothered by Reeves and Ryder's poor acting. What bothered me was this portion that you point out:
"19th century Gothic romance novel bits in the middle and...ugh. The misplacement of "We have become God's madmen" to completely change the meaning...ugh.
Then the novel's plot and themes are constantly there to undercut the messages Coppola is trying to shove down everybody's throats: "He's not really a monster, they love each other!" "Didn't they eat a baby?" "Oh...right..."
This I felt completely undermines the theme of the novel; Dracula is supposed to be evil and the theme is the pure love of Harker and Mina overcoming that evil. Love defeats evil. In Coppola's take it twist this to be the evil one is the one with 'pure' love. so wrong, it undermines what evil is even supposed to be. I find this far more offensive to the novel than making large plot changes.
I never did see the Spanish Dracula; when I read about it, it sounded just a little too much like the Lugosi one and I felt it was unnecessary to watch because of that.
"BS Dracula" - hah! I hope that was intended as a dig, because it was quite witty!
I agree with you, too; Reeves and Ryder are far more excusable next to the plot. I think that's always the way. Story and characters are more valuable to the film experience than any one actor (though acting quality is a factor), and here the mid-bits are rough. Because of the plot changes there, they torpedo the themes.
Maybe he'd watched Nosferatu and was really moved (as was I) by Ellen (Mina)'s sacrifice at the end of that and he wanted that Mina-Dracula head-on. But he bungled it.
My feeling is he definitely was doing the postmodern revision thing, influenced by Interview with the Vampire (a brilliant "egg" that hatched so much drek like Twilight), and tried to "reverse" the monster thing. There's a vogue thing, too, where super-hip people reject all that was Victorian, chucking babies out with bathwater (presumably to the Brides), and so Coppola likely felt he had to undercut the puritanism by jacking up the sex and rejecting Mina and Harker's relationship for the "sexy" vampire.
Blah, blah, blah; I ramble: he missed the point.
To me, the real crime is sticking so doggedly to the novel throughout much of the film and then trying to graft on this other stuff. If he used Dracula as a jumping off point and moved the parts around more to get this twisted romance, to criticise Victorian morals, etc., he could have made a brilliant film - either horror or satire or both - but he blows his own foot off by trying to have his cake and eat it, too.
Spanish Dracula's worth a watch, in my opinion. It is really similar to Lugosi's, but they do a really good job, and they got to use the sets from the Lugosi one, but they filmed at night which actually helps the atmosphere.
lol to be honest It wasn't at first but after I typed it i chuckled and left it. :)
I agree, I think it was postmodern revisionism influence; I feel this was more of a dishonest retelling of the tale than any other dracula film (outside maybe Dracula 2000 which was even worse then this 'BS' version). It has been the trend of Hollywood films to undermine Puritanism and Victorian christian values; like there is this rejection of the roots of our culture; this film is just another example of the deconstruction of art from the past. Actually films such as this are some of the first examples of it being an overt deconstruction rather than a covert one.
That is a good point; maybe not calling it "Bram Stoker's" and not trying to follow the book so closely while at the same time so incorrectly; maybe there would be something more to salvage. Personally anytime they do cheesy Twilight like Vampire sexy love type stuff I get annoyed real fast. Vampires are monstrous creatures; they are not supposed to be redeemable.
I will have to get around to giving it a watch someday.
Love it; I love those happy accidents.
Yeah, they do not like those Christian values... Well, sorta. They hate outright saying "this is good", but then they make The Matrix and a MAJOR component of that movie is the parallels to Christianity, it's just a "below-the-surface" philosophical thread. I mean, Robocop, Superman, The Matrix... But then in BS Dracula (it sticking; that's its name now), they hate the idea of backing up the "boring" relationship of Mina and Jonathan and try to undercut it for shipping Mina with The Count.
I think there's a lot to salvage in the film. I haven't watched it in awhile, but I do wonder what would happen if I watched it and just skipped over the middle part. Would it flow just fine? If I had any editing skills, I'd get a digital copy and do a slice job on it and see what I could come up with. Like The Phantom Edit that that one guy did awhile ago.
Yeah, give Spanish Drac' a try.
Do you have a top vampire/Dracula film? It's weird, but I'm not sure they've topped Murnau's Nosferatu...
Yes exactly; there are arguments that say it is very difficult to successfully 'remake' the narrative structure. often times trying to make 'bad the new good' just comes off as pretentious,a pathetic attempt at being edgy. trying to make something 'deeper' than an old fashioned love triumph over evil, they try to make it the evil and the love are the same. What they are missing is it is not the idea of love triumphing over evil that is 'old fashioned' it is about how they execute that idea. What is wrong with the actual Bram Stoker's Dracula; the fact that the Count is basically in the embodiment of the devil and it takes the pure love of Harker and Mina to overcome that pure evil? The novel is a great story; there was no need to try to make it 'edgy, sexy vampire' nonsense.
I agree, the film wouldn't take that much to salvage. Get rid of the 'romance' between Mina and the count; make it more of an attempted seduction on his part and she chooses love over seduction, also get rid of the ridiculous reincarnation BS. calling it BS Dracula (Glad that is sticking lol)is an insult to Bram Stoker when you through in reincarnation drivel. Also the end would have to be totally reworked. it pisses me off so much that the film suggest Vlad and his dead wife reunite in heaven.
Hmm, favorite vampire film. that is tough; I have a special place in my heart for the classics (including Christopher Lee's Horrors of Dracula). I also liked Shadow of the Vampire with William Dafoe and Daybreakers was pretty good. I am fond of the first Underworld movie (I like Bill Nye's Viktor). Oh and I love Dracula Dead and Loving it (Mel Brookes Film).
Nail on the head, sir. Mina could even be tempted by the seduction, but ultimately rejects him for Jonathan and love.
I think the title was as much about copyrights as anything - a way to make the film title trademark-able or something like that.
Shadow of the Vampire is great; DaFoe is great in it. I liked the first two Underworld films. I didn't see the prequel one, but every sequel after that has been disappointing schlock.
Dracula: Dead and Loving It was funny, yeah.
Yeah, I think with what is there if they reworked it a bit to frame it that way it would work nicely; but they would still have to completely rework the ending.
That is interesting; I wonder what the background information is on how and why they ended up being able and choosing to go with "Bram Stoker's" in the title; I think it should have been called "Francis Ford Cappola's Dracula" given how much he deviated from the source material.
I liked the first underworld movie; didn't love the 2nd; but I did like the prequel, mostly because of Bill Nighy (spelled his name wrong the first time). I really was captivated by the performance and character of Viktor.
Don't go dissing Interview With The Vampire, that movie is killer! haha...
Interview is definitely my favorite vampire flick for now.
But I think I'm going to have to read the novel in order to really understand why some people hate these vampire films so much for not sticking to the book. It sounds like BS Dracula almost pulled it off but still fell wildly short of the mark. I did like it, even though I don't consider it a great movie, it has a few moments of brilliance. I'd still have to say it's better than Dracula '31.
Keanu Reeves is pretty bad in BS, but then again, he's bad in everything. The guy is just not a very good actor. I did like Ryder though, she has a history of being a little nutty in real life so I thought she fit this role pretty good. And of course Oldman was very good. Ohh well... it was almost a great movie. haha...
I liked Keanu Reeves in Speed. I will admit he wasn't good in BS Dracula.
shareDefinitely not! Heaven forbid I knock Interview with the Vampire! It's not Anne Rice's fault that a million copycats took her psychological and emotional investigation of a classic monster and turned it into "Vampires are pretty..." Rice's work was deep and disturbing, but portrayed the vampires as predatory. They were understandable, sometimes relatable, and emotionally/psychologically complex, but they were still monsters. They still murdered people and did heinous things. Beautiful? Yes, but it was alien and often disturbing. These were things that were different than humans. So, yeah, Rice's work is great, and the film is masterfully-realised.
What I meant to point out is that a bunch of soppy-headed people read Rice or saw the film and then translated it as "vampires are romantic", and wound up making Twilight and trying to shoehorn in a romance plot into BS Dracula.
I do recommend the book. It's creepy, well-written, and a benchmark of horror with good reason. I don't dislike movies for straying in and of itself. BS Dracula just couldn't pick a lane. It's REALLY accurate some times and others times it goes wildly veering off and undercuts its own themes and ideas. I still do like the movie overall, though, it's just flawed. Others, like Lugosi's version, follow the novel more or less, but change character relationships for almost no reason. It's not "bad", just an odd choice.
Reeves got better as the years went on, and it does depend on what he's in. People stuffed him into period pieces, though, like this, and he's really, really miscast in those. He's fine as stoic action heroes. He's good in The Matrix. He's good as John Wick. I kinda like him as Constantine (but, like you with Dracula, I haven't read the comics so I don't know what I'm missing). He's not a very good actor, though.
As for Ryder, I don't mind her in BS Dracula, but I feel like if Reeves wasn't there as a bad actor lightning rod, I might suddenly see a bunch of flaws in her performance.
Ace, thanks for the tip. I think I will read it sometime in the near future. Although I fear it will cause me to hate most vampire flicks in general. lol..
We shall see...
And yeah, Reeves is not bad in The Matrix I'll give him that much but I will always like the one moment in film history that Al Pacino captures his acting style, or lack thereof, perfectly in The Devil's Advocate. Have you seen it? There is one scene in this film, in which Pacino imitates Keanu Reeves' character perfectly and displays for us all his drab style of acting. Have you seen the movie? It's a horror film and a pretty good one too. Ohhh yeah, that scene is on youtube...
Fast forward or rewind to about the 1:44 mark.
So funny!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=106&v=b5RAgn-ZP3E&feature=emb_logo
Anyhow... I agree that Vamps should not be hopeless romantics but I think it stems from the eroticism in being bitten by one of them in films like Dracula '79 and Love At First Bite which is a vampire comedy. The romantic Dracula crap took off from there. Although like I said, Dracula '79 is still a favorite of mine.
I haven't seen Devil's Advocate yet, but I would like to! I'm a big Pacino fan. He's great.
Vampires can have a certain allure or eroticism, but...well, maybe it's just Twilight. Maybe for me it's just poorly written stuff. Heck, if you show me a teenage vampire rom-com and it's well-written and put together, maybe I'd dig it. But it's gotta be constructed just so.
I haven't seen Dracula '79, either, but a quick search on Wikipedia shows that Ebert gave it 3.5 stars, and that guy knew a couple of things about movies... Langella's a great actor, too...I'll check it out.
I would not say that Reeves is a bad actor; but he definetly has limited range. He has to be cast into roles that suite his voice and demeanor. Casting him in period pieces (especially London period pieces) he just cannot do.
He is great as John Wick; I liked him in some of the comedies he has done, he is good in the Matrix films
After he did Bill And Ted's EA he should have just stuck with comedies. It was painfully obvious that would be pretty much all he could do. However, he is surprisingly good in action films. Who would have guessed it?
shareYeah, action and comedies are about the limit of his range. He is great in those; but he just does not do 'dramatic' roles very well. Although he does work well in roles where he is playing rebotic or emotionless characters. The Day the Earth Stood Still remake was bad but not because of him; he actual fit the role of Klaatu well enough. He is certainly limited but not bad.
Actors that I would say are legitimately bad are like Jai Courtney, Sam Worthington, Channing Tatum, or Ashton kutcher. You know the type that are bad no matter what they are doing.
who Cares Horror Of Dracula is better Than Coppola's
shareI don’t think this is a great film by any stretch. It has plenty of atmosphere, and Lugosi is iconic and deserves his place in film history for this role, but I prefer Christopher Lee’s Dracula.
And yes, of course the novel is better by far.
This wasn’t based on Stroker’s novel. It was based on a stage play.
shareI prefer the Coppola version
shareNo surprise. You’ve never had any taste. Not for nothing, but, if you understood vampire lore, which you don’t, a vampire is a corpse inhabited by a demon. It has no memories of the life of the corpse.
shareI don’t seem to remember giving you permission to be a prick
shareI think that does vary from lore to lore. There's a lot of wiggle room in the folklore and mythology of the vampire, it changes a lot, and some of the fun is the variance.
Underworld creates a fun biological angle, Stoker's Dracula is closer to the legends, and other sources have their own ideas (including curses).
From what I've read, the original folklore indicates the "undead", which implies that the corpse is reanimated and could be interpreted as maintaining the memories of the body.
Coppola's version, to me, was a mixed bag. I love a lot of it (Oldman and Hopkins, the art design, Tom Waits!, and most of the stuff that sticks to the books) and hate other bits (Drac and Mina go to the movies, Keanu Reeves...)
I wanted to love that version but there are too many things I dislike about it, starting with Dracula. Oldman is a fine actor but completely wrong for Dracula. I guess they wanted to go a completely different way from the Lugosi version, one more akin to Bob Dylan. I prefer the Lugosi version. I also didn't like the odd portrayal of Van Helsing. Or the complete miscasting of Harker. Or the odd casting of Mina. I appreciated the inclusion of the American cowboy and there is no doubt it is a lavish film. But the negatives outweigh the positives. I much prefer the 1931 film overall.
shareWhen I first read it I “woke up” from a nightmare in which I was paralysed in bed with Dracula staring at me with the searing red eyes and my mother was in the rocking chair that was actually in the room and she was paralysed by Dracula too! It was one of my scariest dreams ever!
I also had a nightmare about how Dracula scaled along the battlement wall like a lizard.
If compared to the book I’d go with the book for the impact it had on me but I still love the movie.
Two things that stuck with me over the years that weren’t in the movie are the treatment the author gave to how the men protecting Mina from Dracula by forcing her to be passive actually put her in harms way and figuratively drained her life blood by oppressing her intelligence, talents, and will. Also, the fury with which Dracula describes how the Eastern Europeans were forced to push back the Turks through the centuries to preserve Christianity was very memorable to me and it explained a lot of the symbolism of the story.