DRACULA PART I: THE LITERARY LEGEND — From Bram Stoker’s Novel to Modern Vampire Canon DRACULA PART II: THE VAMPIRE TAKES THE STAGE — Count Dracula in Theatrical History If literature gave Dracula immortality, cinema gave him form. Over more than a century of filmmaking, Count Dracula has become one of the most frequently portrayed […]
Based on reporting by Stanley Stepanic for The Conversation (via Citizen Tribune) For more than a century, Count Dracula has refused to stay in his coffin — and according to a recent essay by Stanley Stepanic of the University of Virginia, that’s largely because he keeps evolving along with us. Once depicted as a revolting […]
In 1973, Dan Curtis (1927-2006), the creator of Dark Shadows, traveled to England and Yugoslavia to direct his acclaimed version of Dracula, based on Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel. The film, sometimes known as Bram Stoker’s Dracula or Dan Curtis’ Dracula, aired on CBS-TV on Friday February 8, 1974, after the fifth episode of Dirty Sally […]
When Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) first stepped out of his coffin on Dark Shadows in 1967, viewers were introduced to a different kind of vampire. More than a predator, Barnabas was a tragic figure, forever haunted by the memory of Josette Du Pres, the 18th-century woman he once loved and inadvertently doomed. His longing for […]
Before leather-clad Daywalkers and teenage Slayers wielded stakes and sarcasm, there was a vampire hunter who fought with holy water, ancient knowledge and an unshakable moral compass. His name was Abraham Van Helsing, and for more than a century he has stood as the archetypal vampire slayer—part scientist, part mystic and relentless adversary of the […]
For Luc Besson, making a Dracula film was never about embracing horror. In fact, he openly admits he isn’t a fan of the genre at all. What pulled him toward the story — and ultimately into directing his 20th feature — was something far more personal and, in his mind, far more tragic: love stretched […]
After haunting the pages of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, Count Dracula didn’t stay locked in literature for long. By the early 20th century, he had found a new home: the stage. Theater was where Dracula’s image solidified—from the lurking, caped aristocrat to the hypnotic figure clad in evening wear. These stage portrayals not only brought […]
More than a century after his arrival in the pages of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the Count has never stayed buried. He rises again and again, reinterpreted, reimagined, and rewritten for new readers and new eras. While Dracula has become a cinematic icon and a Halloween fixture, his roots are deeply literary—and it is in literature […]
With Dracula: A Love Tale, French auteur Luc Besson turns his distinctive cinematic lens on Bram Stoker’s legendary vampire, delivering a romantic horror epic that blends operatic visual style with the enduring ache of lost love. Set for a July 30, 2025 release in France, the film stars Caleb Landry Jones as the titular Count, […]
Carmilla, or Countess Mircalla Karnstein, is one of the most influential and enduring sympathetic vampires in all of fiction. First published in serialized form in The Dark Blue magazine in 1871–72, J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s novella precedes Bram Stoker’s Dracula by more than two decades. Yet its legacy continues to echo through literature, film, television […]