Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Pagan
The New Dracula Is Imaginative But Ultimately Fails

The New Dracula Is Imaginative But Ultimately Fails

Last updated on: January 9, 2020 at 3:00 am by John Beckett

The New Dracula Is Imaginative But Ultimately Fails 2020-01-08T19:53:51-06:00 John Beckett

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Here’s the bottom line on the new Netflix / BBC Dracula miniseries: it tries to do too many things and ends up doing few of them well. If you’re a Dracula completist, or if you’re just looking for something to fill four and a half hours of your time, by all means give it try. It’s not boring, and some parts of it – mainly Sister Agatha – are quite good.

But ultimately it’s unsatisfying, and it falls well short of the standard set by the four major film Draculas: Bela Lugosi in 1931, Christopher Lee in 1958, Frank Langella in 1979, and Gary Oldman in 1992.

Beyond here are spoilers. I think they’re mild spoilers, but read at your own risk.

Image from Netflix

The challenge of a new Dracula

How many Dracula movies are there? Google’s answer is “at least 62.” I haven’t seen them all, but I’ve seen plenty, and I’ve read Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel multiple times. None of the films are entirely faithful to the book – the 1977 BBC version starting Louis Jourdan is generally considered the closest.

Most filmmakers condense the story – the 1931 version by Tod Browning runs only an hour and 15 minutes. The novel doesn’t lend itself to sequels (Dracula dies in the end) but that hasn’t stopped people from either finding imaginative ways to bring the Count back from the dead (as with the many Hammer films from the 1960s and 70s), or simply writing new stories using existing characters and themes. Fan fiction, anyone?

This new version takes a unique approach. It devotes the first two of its three 90-minute episodes to a deep exploration of scenes that Stoker only mentioned in passing. And that started out rather well.

Jonathan Harker in the convent

When Jonathan Harker escapes Dracula’s castle, he takes refuge in a convent. Sister Agatha writes to Mina in England (page 105 in my copy of the book), telling her that Jonathan is safe but very sick. The first episode imagines what happened in the convent.

And it gives Sister Agatha a last name: Van Helsing.

Dolly Wells makes Sister Agatha the best character in the series. She combines some of the eccentricity of Anthony Hopkins’ Van Helsing in the 1992 film with her own take on being a strong woman in a male-dominated society. Sister Agatha is a student of vampirism, not an old professor like Abraham Van Helsing. She’s brought in to interview Harker about his experiences with Dracula and see what she can learn in the process. We follow along as Jonathan tells his story to Sister Agatha.

I’m not sure what’s behind the recent trend for non-linear storytelling. It worked in Atomic Blonde because they clearly labeled when and where everything was taking place. It was a real problem for me in Netflix’s The Witcher, though less so for those who had read the books or played the games.

I’m very familiar with the Dracula story. I was able to keep up with the jumping back and forth, but I still found it annoying.

Danish actor Claes Bang plays Dracula as a supervillain. He’s clearly evil, but he’s so over the top it’s entertaining. You know he has to be stopped, but you don’t want to stop watching him.

I wasn’t thrilled with some of what went on in Dracula’s castle. The Brides were mentioned but only one was briefly shown – where’s Monica Bellucci when you need her? The creatures in crates seemed to be borrowed from The Hunger – why some of Dracula’s victims turned out OK and others didn’t was never explained.

Still, the first episode was new and different, and rather promising.

Claes Bang as Dracula. Image from Netflix

The Voyage of the Demeter

In the book and in most of the movies, Dracula books passage on the sailing ship Demeter to take him and his boxes of Transylvanian soil to England. Little is said about the journey, other than that the ship arrived with all the crew dead.

The second episode begins with a conversation – and a chess game – between Dracula and Sister Agatha. That allows the Count to tell the story of his sea journey… for a while, anyway.

This brings in new characters for both passengers and crew, characters not mentioned in the book but that surely would have existed. All of them have their own stories, in addition to the story of what happens when they realize they’re being killed one at a time.

As with the first episode, this was unevenly done but imaginative and entertaining.

Until the final scene of episode 2.

Dracula arrives in England

The 1979 Frank Langella Dracula opens with the arrival of the Demeter in Whitby. By the time this Dracula sets foot on English soil, the new miniseries is two thirds done.

I can’t say much about the third episode without giving away a major plot twist and I don’t want to do that. Instead, I’ll repeat the old cliché that just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.

The imaginativeness of the first two episodes is gone in the third. Many of the scenes are forced, the plot points are implausible, and the whole thing is rushed – despite having more time for this episode than the entire films of 1931 or 1958. I don’t think I would have cared about Lucy, Jack Seward, or Quincey Morris if I hadn’t already known who they were.

The ending is entirely unsatisfying. Sister Agatha figures out what he’s really afraid of and all of sudden sunlight doesn’t hurt him? And then he’s no longer evil and performs a sacrificial act of compassion? It’s completely inconsistent with what the series has shown us about Dracula, and therefore it’s completely unbelievable.

Who is Dracula, anyway?

Bram Stoker wrote Dracula as a monster. Many people believe Dracula was (among other things) a racist warning against Eastern European immigrants.

But then Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee made him attractive. Frank Langella oozed sexiness – I’m straight, but I might make an exception for Langella’s Dracula. Gary Oldman’s Dracula was extremely sympathetic – the subtitle of the movie is “love never dies.”

It would be unfair to blame the inconsistency of this Dracula on Claes Bang. That fault lies with writers Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat. They made him a supervillain, and supervillains can’t be redeemed. They have to be defeated, preferably in the most melodramatic way possible – like Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing turning a windmill to form a giant cross and kill Baron Meinster with its shadow in Brides of Dracula.

Since 1992 I’ve been waiting for the fifth Great Dracula. Dracula 2000 started out promising, but the big reveal (Dracula is really Judas Iscariot) ruined it for me. Dracula Untold (2014) used the historical Dracula to create a plausible backstory for the vampire, but failed to make a viable connection to the Stoker storyline. Other Draculas of the past 28 years have been mostly forgettable.

I had high hopes for the Netflix / BBC version, but alas, it was not to be. The concept was intriguing, the effects and other budget-related items were good enough, and the acting was excellent.

But the writing killed it.

Previous Post

January 7, 2020

Yes, Pessimists Can Do Magic!

Next Post

January 12, 2020 The Morrigan Demands Persistence Not Perfection

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Books Community CUUPS Druidry Foundations and Context Gods and Goddesses Magic Myth Nature Ritual Spiritual Practice Theology Travel Uncategorized Videos

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which king of Babylon saw the handwriting on the wall?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Cyrus Belshazzar Darius Nebuchadnezzar