Dracula in popular culture

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The character of Count Dracula from the 1897 novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, has remained popular over the years, and many films have used the Count as a villain, while others have named him in their titles, such as Dracula's Daughter, Brides of Dracula, and Zoltan, Hound of Dracula. The number of films that include a reference to Dracula may reach as high as 649, according to the Internet Movie Database. Dracula has enjoyed enormous popularity since its publication and has spawned an extraordinary vampire subculture in the second half of the 20th century. More than 200 films have been made that feature Count Dracula, a number second only to Sherlock Holmes, (and several hundred more that have vampires as their subject). More than 1,000 novels have been written about Dracula or vampires along with a plethora of cartoons, comics, and television programs. At the center of this subculture is the place myth of Transylvania, which has become almost synonymous with vampires.

Most tellings of the Dracula story include not only the count but the rest of the "cast": Jonathan and Mina Harker, Van Helsing, and Renfield. (Notably, the novel roles of characters Jonathan Harker and Renfield are more than occasionally reversed or combined, as are the roles of Mina and Lucy. Quincey Morris is usually omitted entirely, as is Arthur Holmwood.)

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[edit] Films

[edit] Early adaptations

One of the first film adaptations of Stoker's story caused Stoker's estate to sue for copyright infringement. In 1922, silent film director F. W. Murnau made a horror film called Nosferatu: eine Symphonie des Grauens ("Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror"), which took the story of Dracula and set it in Transylvania and Germany. In the story, Dracula's role was changed to that of Count Orlok, one of the most hideous versions of the vampire ever to be created for a movie, played by Max Schreck (whose name literally means 'fright'). (Previously, Murnau had similarly made an unauthorized version of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde called Der Januskopf, starring Conrad Veidt in the dual role.)

The Stoker estate won its lawsuit, and all existing prints of Nosferatu were ordered destroyed. However, a number of pirated copies of the movie survived to the present era, where they entered the public domain. Nosferatu was also remade 1979 by Werner Herzog.

In 1924, with the permission of the Stoker estate, the story was adapted for the stage by Hamilton Deane, in an English touring production starring Deane himself as Van Helsing. In 1927, the play, as substantially revised by John L. Balderston, opened on Broadway in a production starring Bela Lugosi (Hungarian-born actor) and Edward Van Sloan as the count and Van Helsing, respectively. (See Dracula (play).)

The 1931 film version of Dracula starred Bela Lugosi and was directed by Tod Browning. It is one of the most famous versions of the story and is commonly considered a horror classic. In 2000, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. It is an adaptation of the 1927 play, and Van Sloan also transferred his role to the big screen. The films had music only during the opening and closing credits. In 1999, Philip Glass was commissioned to compose a musical score to accompany the film. The current DVD release allows access to this music.

At the same time as the 1931 Lugosi film, a Spanish language version was filmed for release in Mexico. It was filmed at night, using the same sets as the Tod Browning production with a different cast and crew, a common practice in the early days of sound films. George Melford was the director, and it starred Carlos Villarías as the count, Eduardo Arozamena as Van Helsing and Lupita Tovar as Eva.

Because of America's movie industry censorship policies, Melford's Dracula contains scenes that could not be included in the final cut of the more familiar English version. There is considerable debate among fans over which film is better. Fans of Melford's version say the acting of the Spanish version is crisper and the pace is much quicker -- and there are not any hammy close-ups of the Count. It is also included on the Universal Legacy DVD.

During the 1930s and 1940s, the Universal Studios horror films made Dracula a household name by starring him as a villain in a number of movies, including several where he met other monsters (the most famous being the comedy Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, in which Lugosi played Dracula on film for only the second and final time.)

One 1944 oddity from Columbia Pictures that is worthy of mention is The Return of the Vampire, in which rescue workers revive a previously staked vampire during the London Blitz. Bela Lugosi plays the undead Armand Tesla, who is Dracula in all but name.

[edit] Universal Studios productions of Dracula

The Universal Studios films in which Dracula (or a relative) appeared (and the actor portraying the character) were:

  1. Dracula (1931 - Bela Lugosi. (A second version was filmed simultaneously in Spanish, with Carlos Villarias as Dracula)
  2. Dracula's Daughter (1936 - Gloria Holden)
  3. Son of Dracula (1943 - Lon Chaney, Jr.)
  4. House of Frankenstein (1944 - John Carradine)
  5. House of Dracula (1945 - Carradine)
  6. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948 - Lugosi)
  7. Dracula (1979 - Frank Langella)
  8. Van Helsing (2004 - Richard Roxburgh)

In 1938, Orson Welles and John Houseman chose Dracula to be the inaugural episode of the new radio show featuring their Broadway production company, The Mercury Theatre on the Air. The adaptation was faithful to the book, although condensed to fit in the show's hour-long format. Welles was the voice of both Dracula and Arthur Seward. The music was composed by Bernard Herrmann.

[edit] Hammer Films productions of Dracula

1958, Hammer Films produced Dracula, a newer, more Gothic version of the story, starring Christopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. It is widely considered to be one of the best versions of the story to be adapted to film, and in 2004 was named by the magazine Total Film as the 30th greatest British film of all time. Although it takes many liberties with the novel's plot, the creepy atmosphere and charismatic performances of Lee and Cushing make it memorable. It was released in the United States as Horror of Dracula to avoid confusion with the earlier Lugosi version. This was followed by a long series of Dracula films, usually featuring Lee as Dracula.

The Hammer films in which Dracula (or a relative) appeared (and the actor portraying the character) were:

  1. Dracula (1958) - Christopher Lee. Released in the US as Horror of Dracula
  2. The Brides of Dracula (1960 - David Peel as Dracula disciple Baron Meinster)
  3. Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966 - Lee)
  4. Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968 - Lee)
  5. Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969 - Lee)
  6. Scars of Dracula (1970 - Lee)
  7. Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972 - Lee)
  8. The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973 - Lee). Released in the US as Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride
  9. The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires (1974 - John Forbes-Robertson). Variously released as The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula and Dracula and the Seven Golden Vampires

Though Dracula is pronounced as dead in The Brides of Dracula he is resurrected for Dracula: Prince of Darkness, before being killed off again. This formula is followed in each succeding film apart from the last: The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires.

Christopher Lee, the British actor who played in the Hammer Dracula films, reminisced in a 1999 interview for NPR.[1]

[edit] Other productions 1953 – 1979

Drakula İstanbul'da (1953) was a Turkish made production starring balding Atif Kaptan as the count. It was the first sound film to depict Dracula with fangs.

The Blood of Dracula (1957) was producer Herman Cohen's attempt to cash in on his previous success with I Was a Teenage Werewolf. The film was basically "I was a Teenage Dracula," with the same story of a wayward teenager (Sandra Harrison) being transformed into a legendary fiend by an ill-willed adult (Louise Lewis). Herbert L. Strock directed.

The Return of Dracula (1958) brought the Count to modern day America. Matinee idol Francis Lederer played Dracula, who flees vampire hunters in Transylvania to take up residence in small-town America in the guise of an artist he had previously murdered. The Count begins to feed on the local populace and create more vampires before he is tracked to his lair in an abandoned mine and destroyed. Paul Landres directed from a screenplay by Pat Fielder. The film is also known, for some reason, as The Fantastic Disappearing Man. It has been shown on television under the title The Curse of Dracula.

Billy the Kid Vs. Dracula (1966) saw the Count in America's old west, facing off with a pre-outlaw years Billy the Kid. John Carradine returned to the role of the Dracula under the direction of William Beaudine.

The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) was directed by Roman Polanski and introduced him to Sharon Tate. This was a parody of Hammer's films, and featured Ferdy Mayne as the Dracula-like Count Krolock.

Thames Television's (UK) anthology series Mystery and Imagination ran an episode based on the book in 1968. It featured Denholm Elliott as Dracula.

Blood of Dracula's Castle (1969) was a low-budget entry from director Al Adamson. Alex D'Arcy and Paula Raymond play Count and Countess Dracula,who have taken up residence in a castle in America under the aliases of Count and Countess Townsend. Too genteel to stalk their prey by night, these fiends are content to sip their blood from cocktail glasses prepared by their faithful butler George (John Carradine). In the end, they meet their doom in the rays of the morning sun.

Jonathan (1969) was an arty take on the legend from Germany. Jonathan (played by Juergen Jung) infiltrates the castle of the undead Count (who is never actually named in the film) played by Paul Albert Krumm. The whole thing is a partially successful allegory on the dangers of fascism by director/writer Hans Geissendoerfer.

Count Dracula (1970), directed by Jesus Franco starring Christopher Lee as Dracula. In spite of its star, Franco's film is not a part of the Hammer series, and was shot on a small budget. Regarded by many as a poor film, it never-the-less claims to be closer to the spirit of the book than other versions. Lee is made up to look like the description of the Count from Stoker's novel, and he does seem to grow younger as the story progresses, but the film otherwise takes some huge liberties with the plot. The international cast includes Herbert Lom as Van Helsing and Klaus Kinski as Renfield.

Jess Franco followed this with Vampyros Lesbos in 1970, in which Soledad Miranda plays Nadina, a descendant of the Dracula family.

1970 saw Al Adamson return with Dracula vs. Frankenstein, a grade Z budget film with Zandor Vorkov as the Count terrorizing a California boardwalk community with Frankenstein's monster in tow. Screen legends J. Carroll Naish and Lon Chaney Jr. appeared, and Famous Monsters of Filmland editor Forrest J. Ackerman cameoed as an unlucky victim.

In 1972, Paul Naschy starred in Dracula's Great Love, directed by Javier Aguirre for the Spanish production company Janus Films. This movie predated Francis Ford Coppola's vision of Dracula as a romantic figure by 20 years. 1972 also saw the release of Blacula, a low-budget blaxploitation horror film about an African prince vampirized by Count Dracula himself (who is portrayed by Charles Macaulay in a brief opening prologue).

In 1973, a major television movie version starring Jack Palance was produced by Dan Curtis, best known for producing the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows from a script by sci-fi favorite Richard Matheson. Filmed in Yugoslavia and England, it was a relatively faithful to the novel, though it tried to paint Dracula as a tragic, rather than evil, character in search of his lost love. It also drew the connection between Dracula and the historical figure of Vlad the Impaler, which was a popular notion at the time (see above). In these respects, it, too, is a close fore-runner of Coppola's later film.

In 1974, Andy Warhol presented an outrageously campy Dracula (also known as Blood for Dracula), directed by Paul Morrissey and starring cult icons Udo Kier (as the Count) and Joe Dallesandro.

Dracula Père et Fils ("Dracula Father and Son"), a French comedy again starring Christopher Lee as Dracula, here having trouble convincing his son to take up the family mantle of vampirism. (In interviews, Lee has claimed that his character was not called Dracula during filming, and that the producers only decided to make it a Dracula film after the fact.)

1977 saw a solid BBC version entitled Count Dracula. It was made for television and starred Louis Jourdan as the Count and Frank Finlay as Van Helsing. It was directed by Philip Saville. This version is one of the more faithful adaptations of the book. It includes all of the main characters (only blending together Arthur and Quincey) and has scenes of Jonathan recording events in his diary and Dr. Seward speaking into his dictaphone.

1977 also saw a revival of the 1927 Broadway version. The atmospheric sets and costumes were designed by Edward Gorey. The Count was portrayed by Frank Langella, who, like Lugosi before him, would go on to perform the role on the big screen. The same Gorey sets and costumes were used for a U.S. touring version of the play starring Jeremy Brett. The Deane-Balderston lines were altered somewhat and played for a more comedic effect.

In 1978, an independent film company produced the horror thriller Zoltan, Hound of Dracula starring Michael Pataki as the mild-mannered family psychiatrist destined to encounter the resurrected hound of Dracula.

1979 saw three film versions released. In the first Frank Langella starred opposite Laurence Olivier as a sexually charged version of the Count in the big budget Dracula. Based on the 1977 broadway play, it was directed by John Badham and featured a score by John Williams. That year also saw the release of Love at First Bite, a romantic comedy spoof set in contemporary New York City starring George Hamilton as the count. The third film is the previously mentioned Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht starring Klaus Kinski and directed by Werner Herzog. Additionally, a television movie was released on the Disney Channel, The Halloween That Almost Wasn't.

[edit] Dracula movies 1980 – 1999

In the 80s, Dracula appeared as the leader of the monsters in The Monster Squad, and was one of the monsters featured in Waxwork.

In 1992, Francis Ford Coppola produced and directed a new version of the film, called Bram Stoker's Dracula starring Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, and Anthony Hopkins. Coppola's story includes a backstory telling how Dracula (who is the historical Vlad Ţepeş in this version) became a vampire, as well as a subplot in which Mina Harker was revealed to be the reincarnation of Dracula's greatest love. This story is not part of Stoker's original. The soundtrack includes 'Love Song for a Vampire', sung by Annie Lennox.

In 1995, Mel Brooks did a comedic parody, Dracula: Dead and Loving It, which parodied all of the standard Dracula themes, but especially noteworthy was the scene where Dracula's reflection was noticeably absent in a mirror as he danced at a ball, to the horror of those watching. A scene where Van Helsing has Harker pound a stake into a sleeping Lucy's chest with a seemingly impossible amount of blood spraying back on himself asks the question: just where does all the blood go? Mel Brooks played Van Helsing as an aged Professor. Dracula was played by Leslie Nielsen.

[edit] Dracula adaptations 2000 – present

Patrick Lussier took a stab at the legend with his modern day Dracula 2000, promoted as Wes Craven Presents Dracula 2000. Wes Craven was an executive producer. It was released in the UK as Dracula 2001. To discover how to destroy Dracula, Van Helsing (portrayed by Christopher Plummer) keeps himself alive with injections of Dracula's blood. When thieves steal the vampire and crash near New Orleans, Van Helsing and his ward Simon, must track down the vampire and save Van Helsing's daughter Mary who shares his blood. The film also gives Dracula (played by Gerard Butler) a new identity as Judas Iscariot, forbidden by God to die following his betrayal of Christ and intent on corrupting the innocent and finding Mary, whose nightmares he has haunted for years.

In 2001, Dracula, the Musical, composed by Frank Wildhorn, premiered in California. It went on to Broadway in 2004 to play 157 performances.

In 2002, Canadian cult film director Guy Maddin released his screen adaptation of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's version of the count's tale, a ballet set to the music of Gustav Mahler and titled Dracula, Pages From a Virgin's Diary. Mainly greyscale until Dracula is cut and bleeds gold coloured coins.

In 2002, Dracula, an Italian telemovie of Dracula set in modern times. Dracula was played by Patrick Bergin. In the US, it was released on VHS and DVD as Dracula's Curse.

In 2002, director Jesus Franco made a movie in titled, The Killer Barbys vs. Dracula starring the real life band, The Killer Barbies who's new song woke Dracula from his eternal slumber.

Mina Harker appeared as a capable leader and investigator of unusual phenomena in the comic book The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. In the 2003 film adaptation, the character was revised into a vampiric superheroine, played by Peta Wilson.

Van Helsing is a film based on the vampire-hunter Van Helsing from the book, played by Hugh Jackman, only reinvented as an immortal action hero assigned by the Vatican to hunt monsters. Richard Roxburgh portrays Dracula in this reinvigoration of the 1930s and 1940s Universal Horror monsters which also featured new versions of the Frankenstein Monster, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Wolf Man. In this movie, Dracula is some kind of super vampire, impervious to the normal methods of killing a vampire. The only way he could die was through a werewolf bite.

A character named Drake serves as the primary antagonist in Blade: Trinity, in which a group of vampires summon him in order to finally defeat Blade. It is stated directly that Drake is in fact Dracula but this is only one of many names he has gone by throughout the centuries. Dominic Purcell portrays Drake.

2005 saw the premiere of Dracula's most recent stage incarnation, an adaptation by playwright P. Shane Mitchell. By the end of 2005, the opera Dracula, by the Colombian composer Héctor Fabio Torres Cardona, opened in Manizales, Colombia.

Also in 2005 WB released the direct to DVD animated film The Batman vs. Dracula. It is a continuation of The Batman cartoon series in which The Dark Knight faces the Prince of Darkness.

Lust for Dracula, a softcore lesbian pornographic semi-parodical film with an all-female cast, was also released in 2005 with actress Darian Crane as Count Dracula. Dracula and Jonathan Harker were apparently male characters, albeit played by women.

A French Canadian musical production (Dracula - Entre l'amour et la mort[3]) opened in Montreal in January 2006, starring Bruno Pelletier.

On December 28, 2006, a made-for-TV film adaptation of Dracula was aired on BBC One. The film starred Marc Warren as Dracula, David Suchet as Van Helsing, Dan Stevens as Lord Holmwood and Sophia Myles as Lucy.[2]

Producer/director Jan De Bont's Blue Tulip Productions and Atchity Entertainment are in pre-production on The Un-Dead, a direct sequel to Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. The script by Ian Holt is the first sequel to Dracula officially approved by the Stoker estate. It is to be directed by Ernest Dickerson, and will star Javier Bardem as Dracula, John Hurt as Abraham Van Helsing, and Monica Bellucci as Lucy Westenra. The film's plot picks up 25 years after the events of Stoker’s novel and incorporates all the characters who lived through those events, along with Inspector Cotford, whom the author excised from his original manuscript.

And there was "Dracula Spectacula", a slightly spoof-esque musical written by John Gardiner.

[edit] Popular culture

[edit] Novels

Like Frankenstein, Dracula has inspired many literary tributes or parodies, including Stephen King's Salem's Lot, Kim Newman's Anno Dracula, Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian, Fred Saberhagen's The Dracula Tape, Wendy Swanscombe's erotic parody Vamp, Dan Simmons's Children of the Night, and Robin Spriggs's The Dracula Poems: A Poetic Encounter with the Lord of Vampires. Loren D. Estleman's novel The Case of the Sanguinary Count pits Dracula against that equally venerable Victorian-era character Sherlock Holmes, as does Fred Saberhagen's The Holmes-Dracula File. In Jim Butcher's novel Grave Peril, Dracula is mentioned (under the name "Drakul") by the character Harry Dresden as being "still in eastern Europe when we last checked". Freda Warrington's Dracula the Undead is a sequel to Dracula. Caitlín R. Kiernan's short fiction has drawn upon Dracula a number of times — most notably in "Emptiness Spoke Eloquent" (which follows the lonely life of Mina Harker after the vampire's death), "The Drowned Geologist", and "Stoker's Mistess." Curiously enough, in few of the film versions of does the Count wear a moustache or a beard, as opposed to the character in the book. There is also a great deal of emphasis in the films on his alliance with bats, while in the book he is allied more closely with wolves.

In the book series Vampire Hunter D which takes place ten thousand years in the future, D's adversary Count Magnus discovers that D is the son of Dracula, the Ancient Ancestor. D also nearly states this during a psychological attack in the second volume, Raiser of Gales.

[edit] Dance

A ballet based of Dracula was created by choreographer David Nixon and has become popular at Halloween among many companies in the US and England.

[edit] Comics

Dracula has been a recurring character in many comic books, most notably, the Marvel comic version of Dracula featured in Tomb of Dracula written primarily by Marv Wolfman (following two issues each by Gerry Conway, Archie Goodwin and Gardner Fox) and drawn by Gene Colan for Marvel Comics in the 1970s (Prior to that Dell Comics had produced a superhero [4] version of Dracula). In 2003, Dracula was re-invented as the globe-trotting "Osama Bin Laden of vampires" in the Image Comics series Sword of Dracula. More recently, in 2005, Dracula was sent back in time by Lucifer to face off against King Arthur in the Silent Devil Productions series Dracula vs. King Arthur. In the graphic novel, Dracula creates a vampire army to take on the The Knights of the Round Table.

Dracula was featured as a starring character in the 2006 X-Men crossover X-Men: Apocalypse vs. Dracula .

Mina Harker is a member of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a pastiche comic book, and film featuring numerous Victorian characters.(Her portrayal in the film of the same name is markedly different from the character in the comic. The comic version of Mina seems to be, largely, an ordinary human, while her film counterpart is a vampire herself. How this is meant to be reconciled with Mina being freed from Dracula at the end of Stoker's novel is unclear.)

One popular Elseworlds book by DC Comics is Batman and Dracula: Red Rain, which features the caped crusader fighting Dracula, who has come to Gotham City. An animated movie called The Batman vs. Dracula pitting the two characters against one another aired on Cartoon Network and has been released on DVD.

Dracula is a main villain in the webcomic, Clan of the Cats, since 2004.

[edit] Games

Vlad Teppes is one of the more mysterious elder vampires in Vampire: The Masquerade. An Autarkis of the Tzimisce Clan, he has been present at many of the major events in the World of Darkness, serving the Camarilla, Sabbat and Inconnu at various times throughout his existence. In Vampire: the Requiem, Dracula is the historical Vlad Tepes and a legendary figure among vampires. His clan is not known, as he, and his followers, claim that he was cursed by God himself for his atrocities. The Ordo Dracul claims that they follow his teachings about overcoming the curse of vampirism. The games draw much from the novel Dracula and vampire myths in general.

In Warhammer Fantasy Battles there is a long dynasty of titled vampires in the Empire who rose up against the mortal Emperor and started the Undead wars. The von Carstein Trilogy (Inheritance, Dominion and Retribution) as novelised by Steven Savile fictionalises the lives of the most infamous these Vampires, Vlad Von Carstein and his gets, Konrad and Mannfred. Vlad himself draws on Dracula stereotype.

In Dracula's Riddle, an online riddle game, Dracula is the evil Count who has put a curse on the world, slowly turning it into his dark realm. As he is vanquished in the first game, his curse lives on to possess his slayer who serves as the evil power in the sequel, Dracula's Riddle 2.

[edit] Video games

In most videogames of the Castlevania series (known as "Akumajo Dracula" (Demon Castle Dracula) in Japan), Count Vlad Tepes Dracula, as he is known in the series, is the ultimate source of evil that the protagonists must confront, after adventuring through Dracula's castle. The other aspect in relations to the Count is his son, Adrian Farenheights Tepes, commonly known as "Alucard", who has dedicated his life to ensure the survival of the human race and the preventing of his father's tyranny. It is often said by both fans and Konami that the Castlevania timeline is meant to exist in the same universe as the Bram Stoker novel. This is evidenced in Castlevania:Bloodlines, as one of the protagonists is a relative of Quincy Morris. Aside from Alucard, Dracula's major enemies come from the Belmont clan, which includes the Belmont, Graves, Morris, and Schneider families.

In The first Castlevania game in 1986 Dracula turns into a large bat-like creature, in 1992 he does this again, in Bram Stoker's Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola. These may have inspired the forms he takes in Van Helsing, Blade: Trinity, and many of the later Castlevania games.

Now-defunct software company CRL produced a series of games in the 1980s featuring classic horror classics including Dracula. These were the first game titles in the UK to receive BBFC certification (they were rated "15"), normally reserved for films and videos. There were two adventure games, Dracula: Resurrection and The Last Sanctuary. Both took place after the novels end and continued Jon and Mina's fight against the Count.

In The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The Count of Skingrad is a vampire not unlike Transylvania's Count, Dracula.

In Namco's Vampire Night, The Count of Auguste is a vampire, a reference to Count Dracula.

[edit] Anime and manga

In the manga and anime series Hellsing, the vampire Alucard (note: Dracula spelled backwards) is actually Dracula himself, having been magically bound into servitude to the Hellsing family rather than being destroyed outright. He hunts and kills other vampires, armed with two specially-made pistols that are too heavy to be effectively carried by humans. In later chapters of Hellsing, Alucard, dressed in armor, summons an army of the undead. Some members of this army are holding flags, recognized by Enrico Maxwell as those from Wallachia, and with later admittance from Alucard himself, it is confirmed that he is Vlad Tepes. (Note that Vlad Dracula the Impaler is believed to be the inspiration of Bram Stoker's character Dracula, and, in Hellsing, seem to be considered the same person.)

In an anime and manga series, Shaman King a man named Boris Tepes Dracula is a descendant of Vlad Tepes Dracula the Impaler, revealing all of history and joining forces with Hao Asakura to get revenge on Humanity, he is ultimately defeated by Ryu.

In an anime and manga series D.Gray-Man, there's man names Arystar Krory. He has a vampire like powers and lives in big castle. All villagers fear him, because he started to attack villagers. But the villagers that he have attacked, are not humans. They are Akumas that Millennium Earl created.

Dracula also appears in the manga series Vampire Hunter D. In this adaptation, Dracula is seen as a vampire god-king who deals out both life and death. Dracula does not appear in the Vampire Hunter D anime adaptations, however he is referenced. The main protaginist of the series, referred to simply as "D", is a vampire hunter who slays creatures of the night for a bounty. It is implied that D is the offspring of Dracula and a human woman.

In the Digimon series there is a digimon called Dracmon who is a little vampiric imp who goes around causing mischief going as far as to do things without fear of danger. He then digvolves into a digimon called Sangloupmon who is a vampiric wolf (a possible reference to Dracula taking a wolf's shape at one point). Then he next becomes Matadormon who is a vampiric matador (bull fighter). His fully evolved form is Grandracmon whose name comes from Gran which is short for Grand and Drac short for Dracula. He is designed after a demonic version of Dracula.

[edit] Television

  • Dracula appeared in the commercials for Energizer in 1993. He emerges from his casket to get the battery off the Energizer Bunny only to be locked out of his castle when the wind blows the front door close. When he gets his spare key, the sun comes up and Dracula is vanquished.
  • Dracula has also appeared as a villain in the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in an episode called "Buffy vs. Dracula". Dracula admits to Buffy Summers that he is intrigued and charmed by her legacy as she is of him. He also clarifies the origin of her powers, regardless of his attempt to lure her to evil. Buffy, having "seen his movies", waits after first killing him, noting that he "always comes back". He reappears in the canon post-finale comics Tales of the Vampires: Antique, and later the Season Eight story "Wolves at the Gate" (both written by Drew Goddard.) Outside the canon, Dracula appears in Spike vs. Dracula, which reveals that Dracula has connections to the gypsy clan that cursed Angel with a soul. As established by his appearance in "Buffy vs. Dracula", he is an acquaintance of Anya Jenkins, and Spike claims he is a sell-out of the vampire world, fond of magic and Hollywood. The vampire popularised by Bram Stoker in the Dracula novel is also used as a basis for the ideas in the show, primarily the methods in which vampires are killed.
  • Dracula-influenced episodes of the TV series Doctor Who include The Claws of Axos (originally entitled The Vampire from Space), The Stones of Blood (featuring vampiric alien stone creatures) State of Decay (alien and mutated-human vampires), Dragonfire (another Dracula-like alien), The Curse of Fenric ('haemovores') and "Smith and Jones" (a 'plasmavore' — and also a character called Mr Stoker), and the Count himself appeared (alongside Frankenstein's Monster) in The Chase in the form of a malfunctioning android in a futuristic theme park exhibit. He also appeared, played by James Purefoy, in the Big Finish audio adventure Son of the Dragon released in September 2007.
  • The enormous house in the Nickelodeon game show Finders Keepers occasionally featured a room entitled "Dracula's Den", which was constructed to resemble a room in a castle with windows with boards nailed across them (presumably to keep out the sunlight), cobwebs, bats, and a Gothic-style chair and roll-top desk. The room also featured a full-sized coffin, in which a cast or crew member usually hid dressed as a mummy or as Dracula himself.
  • The cartonn series Aqua Teen Hunger Force features a reoccuring television program called asssited-living Dracula particularly favoured by Master Shake.
  • In the television series The Munsters, the character of "Grandpa" Sam Dracula, a vampire, clearly identifies himself as being the Count Dracula at one point. Though assuming he is Dracula, he has found a way to sustain himself without blood and is no longer vulnerable to sunlight. He is portrayed as a friendlier mad scientist-type. He still retains his abilities to turn into a wolf or a bat. Instead of the quasi-Eastern European accent usually associated with Dracula, Grandpa Munster speaks with a Brooklyn accent.
  • In 2006, a successful UK children's comedy, Young Dracula, started on CBBC, featuring Dracula and his two young children trying to live discreetly in rural Wales.
  • At the end of the holiday TV special The Halloween That Almost Wasn't, Count Dracula (Judd Hirsch) gets into a disco suit similar to Tony Manero from Saturday Night Fever after the witch (Mariette Hartley) transformed into a realistic person resembling Stephanie Mangano from the 1977 disco film of the same name.
  • In several episodes of the TV show Scrubs, the main character J.D. makes references to a movie he is writing called Dr. Acula, the story of a "vampire doctor."
  • IN the show Grim adventures of Billy and Mandy Dracula lives in a retirement home and really gets angry when he is referred to being "old".
  • Dracula appeared in the self titled 1990 syndicated series Dracula: The Series. The series lasted only 21 episodes and featured the adventures of Gustav Van Helsing and family versus vampire/business tycoon Alexander Lucard.
  • Count Dracula made two appearances in the live-action superhero show Superboy.

[edit] Cartoons

Dracula has even been adapted for children's literature and entertainment, serving as the basis for several vampire cartoon characters over the years, although in the interest of creating child-friendly characters, the vampiric nature of the character is often understated or not referenced at all.

[edit] Others

The General Mills cereal mascot Count Chocula is a vampire who craves Count Chocula cereal rather than blood. His title of count is an allusion to that of Count Dracula's.

The association of the book with the Yorkshire fishing village of Whitby has led to the staging of the twice-yearly Whitby Gothic Weekend, an event that sees the town visited by Goths from all over Britain and occasionally from other parts of the world.

Mad Magazine has published countless spoofs of Dracula. In one, appearing in the Mad Summer Special 1983, on the inside front cover, a cartoon sequence drawn by Sergio Aragonés shows Dracula attacking a hippie who has taken LSD; Drac staggers away, seeing colorful hallucinations including blood, bats and such.

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ [1]
  2. ^ [2] A page on the BBC official website about their film adaptation of Dracula

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Dracula
Characters of Dracula
Film Adaptations of Dracula
Nosferatu (1922) · Dracula (1931) · Dracula (1931 Spanish Version) · Dracula (1958) · Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968) · Count Dracula (1970) · Dracula (1973) · Count Dracula (1977) (1977) · Dracula (1979) · Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) · Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) · Dracula (2002) · Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary (2002) · Dracula (2006)
Other films featuring Dracula
Stage Adaptations of Dracula
Dracula (1924)  · Count Dracula (1972)  · Dracula, a Musical Nightmare (1974)  · Dracula (1980)  · Dracula: the Musical? (1982)  · Dracula (1995)  · Dracula (1996)  · Dracula (2000)  · Dracula, the Musical (2004)
Parodies of Dracula
Dracula in video games