The Romance of Dracula; a personal Journey of the Count on celluloid

by Butler, Charles E.

  A take on the landing of the Demeter, a plethora of vampires (led by Omar Epps), and some routine action sequences are designed to satisfy the popcorn crowd. Adding Wes Craven’s name to the production gives the movie a small eminence amongst modern renderings of the tale.

  Christopher Plummer had played the original Van Helsing in Nosferatu, Vampire in Venice (1988) and Gerard Butler, memorable as the mute, wild-haired and bare-chested Count, would go on to portray The Phantom in the film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s dark stage romance, The Phantom of the Opera (2004).

  Dracula 2000 was successful enough to spawn two sequels direct to video/DVD with different Counts: Dracula II: Ascension (2003) with Stephen Billington and Dracula III: Legacy (2005), starring Rutger Hauer. Hauer had played the vampire, Lothos, in the film version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) and Kurt Barlow in Mikael Salomon‘s rethink of Salem‘s Lot (2004)

  More ridiculous territory is explored in Darrell James Roodt’s Dracula 3000 (2004). This straight to DVD TV production starring Casper Van Dien and Baywatch favourite Erika Eleniak tries to be action-packed, funny and horrific all at once and fails miserably on all counts.

  Unknown Langley Kirkwood gets the prize for the worst taste in clothes as Orlok/Dracula, and is about as scary as Count Chocula! The premise of the movie is promising, borrowing more than a little from The Thing (1982) and Alien (1979), the Demeter is found floating in space and is picked up by a salvage team led by Captain Abraham Van Helsing (Van Dien).

  Stalwart Udo Kier is on hand relating the Ships videolog as the doomed Captain Varna, the look on his face seems to be registering thoughts of grabbing his cheque and fleeing after the filming is over! The most interesting aspect of the film is that Eleniak’s robot used to be a PleasureBot in another life.

  When Tony Lister’s obligatory black mercenary throws her over his shoulders at the end of the movie to possibly indulge in some way out cyber sex, we are left to imagine these pleasures, as we are most of the horrors that happen in the movie. The climax-pun intended-has the remaining crew members crash the ship into the twin Suns of Halbron to give Chocula an interstellar suntan.

  Erika Eleniak had been seen in the fun-filled wink, Bordello of Blood (1996), based on the Tales From the Crypt comic book. Dracula 3000 is a terrible film that, unsurprisingly, did very well on the DVD market in 2005!

  But we finish this romance by reverting back to the cinematic vampire that started the ball rolling. From its opening credits to the final fade, Shadow of the Vampire (2000) is a compulsively enjoyable watch. E. Elias Merhige directs a film that involves further speculation as to who, or what, took the role of the most repellent vampire in the history of the cinema. John Malkovitch is the obsessed director who brokers a deal with the vampire, Max Schreck.

  In Murnau's drive to make the ultimate vampire movie, he withholds information and builds backdrops on unspecified locations to the consternation of his crew. He placates his leading lady with the prophetic assurance that this is the only role that she will be remembered for, when the stomping Diva moans about missing various theatrical tours. He is also prone to injecting laudanum into his animals to obtain the necessary performance and doesn't see any life beyond his camera lens.

  Chameleon actor Willem Dafoe (in a role specifically written for him) is Schreck in this parallel universe. A member of the Rheinhardt school who is chasing a different ghost and enjoys the pampering of make up. A student of Stanislavski, he agrees to appear in Friedrich Murnau's new film, Nosferatu, as the bloodsucker, Count Orlock. His fee is the leading lady, Greta Schroeder, played by Catherine McCormack. In the meantime he is being handed sweeteners by Murnau that includes a bottle of blood and various wildlife.

  Too old to actually turn anyone, Schreck still insists on trying for one shot at the jugular as he begins to feast on the film crew.

  The rest of the cast include Udo Kier as the set designer Albin Grau and Cary Elwes as the flamboyant cameraman Fritz Wagner, the most intriguing cast member being transvestite comedian Eddie Izzard as the unusually well informed, Gustav Von Wangenheiem.

  All the cast play well off each other. Murnau is regularly referred to as "Herr Doctor," and the white coats of the crew tend to give a clinical feel to the proceedings, possibly predominantly based in the studies of psychiatry. But, like all the best versions of Stoker's original tale, it is Willem Dafoe's turn as the repellently impotent vampire, Max Schreck, who steals the limelight.

  In this age of homage and genre obsession, Shadow stands alone, as it turns these two lucrative standby mediums on their heads and, like the film it sends up, can be described as a modern classic.

  A departing kiss

  It is hard to imagine another big screen version of Dracula hitting the heights of its predecessors in these days of the DVD, multi-channel, digital TV and i-pod streaming.

  DVD seems to be making a last grab at its audience by re-releasing the horror films that gave prominence to video in the early 1980s. Uncut versions of The Evil Dead and The Exorcist are on offer to our more discernible children. Lucio Fulci and Abel Ferrara's blood and thunder offerings are visibly baulked at by ten year olds who are more clued-up than their parents and decide to purchase the more frightening outputs of Gangsta rap.

  For this author, it was a pleasant surprise to find The Brides of Dracula released on DVD. On viewing it again, I find that it is still the best treatment of the story.

  At the time of writing, it is fair to say that vampires have been given their best PR in Joss Whedon's series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the big screen versions of Blade and Underworld during the last ten years. Stephen King's Salem's Lot has resurfaced in a version that incorporates an overtly literate script and scenes that the earlier adaptation missed.

  Richard Matheson's novel, I Am Legend, has been remade with Will Smith reluctantly battling CGI vampires and a tiresome end of the world premise. Dracula himself had a cameo in the final Blade film, Blade: Trinity (2004). As played by muscle bound Dominic Purcell he was reinvented as an age-old God of the Aztecs. The Internet promises the Count’s return in several new movies over the next few months but none of them are adaptations of the novel.

  Maybe the Count has seen the last light of day? Although, like previous reviewers, I don't want to prophesise his demise so easily, only to have him rise up again in another adaptation touted, by a frenzied media-machine, as the most faithful re-telling of the story.

  For the moment, we can just give a graceful bow to all those actors, writers and directors who have kept the image alive with their valiant creative efforts although I predict that we will still be discussing Count Dracula's longevity another one-hundred years from now.

  Wherever Bram Stoker is, I bet that he looks on with amazement at the furore that his yellow-jacketed pot boiler has created since its publication way back in 1897.

  As a life-long fan, I tip my hat to him in thanks.

  Afterword

  And so we come to the end.

  I have to admit to enjoying every minute of this journey from its inception through to the credits sequence on Dracula's Curse (2002), the final film viewed for this book.

  I didn't watch them chronologically, but Murnau's Nosferatu was the first that I saw. Maybe there will be small inconsistencies in the narrative because of this. I have checked and found none, but there is always someone who is more astute. If you find one, I apologise.

  All research was mainly carried out through watching the films themselves and then scanning the credits for names of the smaller, but prominent cast members, who I thought deserved a mention.

  I did rely on some aspects of the Internet to gain background on stars where necessary, but this was very minor and used if the review warranted it, to find an actor’s previous work. All mentions of vampire movies are my own recollections as was the explanation concerning the video boom in the 1980s.

  I would like to thank my nieces, Amy and Carly Hughes for giving one of the many rough drafts their un
divided attention whilst the work was in progress. My nephew, Lee Broadbent, for the loan of his scanner and to my brother, Robert, for leaving his laptop and his invaluable mini PC in my far from capable hands.

  In fact, all the family and some close friends, in one form or another, need thanks for just listening to my ravings and aiding and abetting my more outlandish suppositions. Probably in some cases, apologies are in order, as I've ventured on my selfish path to get the thing finished like a miniature Ivan the Terrible!

  Special thank you should go to David Maguire who proof-read the final draft and gave me immeasurable feedback, literally chapter-by-chapter, on his own time out of his love for the character. Thanks, David.

  Further mentions should be given to Editor/author, Mr Joseph O’Donnell of the online Hollywood magazine The Eerie Digest for liking my original illustrations and allowing me a regular spot as guest author in his magazine. Muchos Gracias my friend. I would also like to extend thanks to Vampire Professor, Bertena Varney and her tireless promotion of The Romance of Dracula in her Book Blog Tour and The Lexington Examiner and the lovely people I met who gave the kindle book some amazing reviews. In no particular order, Francesca Miller - for helping me start the online ball rolling - Marsha A Moore, Tami Jackson, Nora Chipley Barteau, Tami Jayne, Chastity Bush, Donna Anderson, Elizabeth Loraine, Bitten Twice, Denise Verrico, Audrey A' Cladh, Amy Mah. Jason Henderson, Michael Yates, Abraham Schneider (intrepid vampire bibliophile), Park & Barb Lien-Cooper and David Newell.

  Finally, my sister, Tricia, for offering support both moral and financially and becoming just as depressed as me at each rejection slip, and over-remonstrating when offers of publication seemed to be just around the corner; only to be metaphorically held up against a wall by the throat, when self-publishing agents turned into over-bearing and money grabbing vanity-press vampires themselves!

  It is a slim volume, but it has been a real labour of love, that, despite utilising all hours working on it, never became real labour. Just like the Count, I have had to shun a lot of sunlight to bring the present book to you, watching through the day and typing by night. Living like a vampire as the sun has been rising and I have retired to bed on more than one occasion.

  Tonight, I hope I can close the coffin lid for good. Until next time. The Count has a lot of relatives and friends. Allies and pretenders to his throne as King of the Undead. They all have films that need to be watched and histories to relate.

  There are literally, Vampires Everywhere!

  Why - listen. Is that a scratching at the window? Is that the bark of a dog? Or the howl of ..a wolf?

  Sleep well and make sure that all your windows and doors are locked.

  Until next time,

  Good night.

  Charles E. Butler 2008,

  Notes

  As a first time author, the road to publication has been a long and laborious process and since completing the first draft of this work in October 2008, there have been many developments in the Vampire Genre.

  No sooner had I put my final full stop to the Afterward, than the movie-going public were thrown into mixed feelings as the first instalment of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight hit the cinema starring Robert Pattinson. Forgettable entries include The Lesbian Vampire Killers (2009) and more recently the Count has been thrown into battle with the mid-west killers, Bonnie and Clyde VS Dracula (2008).

  2010 brought the tragic deaths of horror stars Ingrid Pitt, Michael Gough, Leslie Nielson, Corey Haim & David Carradine and Hammer film director Roy Ward Baker.

  John Avjide Lindquist’s magisterial vampire novel, Let The Right One In has been filmed twice. The remake, Let Me In, presided over by the new Hammer Studios. American homegrown vampire movies, The Monster Squad and Fright Night have succumbed to the remake treatment.

  Tim Burton has started shooting his long awaited big screen rethink of the classic sixties Soap Opera Dark Shadows with Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins, The collective phenomenon’s of TV’s TrueBlood, Being Human and Vampire Diaries exploded onto the small screen.

  Even Stoker’s Dracula is to be revived as Dario Argento and Rutger Hauer began shooting Dracula 3D in April 2011, which promises to take the plot strand of Dracula’s great love for Mina Harker to even further lengths!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Charles E Butler was born and raised in the Yorkshire town of Leeds in the UK. He is a writer, actor and artist of independent comic books. He quickly developed a taste for the fantastic through comicbooks and the movies. His own short films under his Su asti banner are submitted to festivals and have been viewed as far afield as New Orleans. He has written vampire essays for various sites on the Internet and his special tribute Dracula and Werewolf pages can be found on Facebook.

  The Romance of Dracula is his first book and a sequel, Vampires Everywhere, The Rise of the Movie UnDead is in preparation.