A remake of a classic that kind of bites
There is likely no better horror writing than the first few chapters of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”. Jonathan Harker’s imprisonment within the Transylvanian castle is harrowing in a way that isn’t seen in most horror novels. Despite being released in 1897, the book remains extraordinary and accessible.
I’ve always wanted to teach the novel, to spend weeks dissecting each scene, examining the themes, and studying the history. Of course, vampire stories aren’t considered high quality literature by the people that drive curriculum and parents would likely see the sexual imagery within the novel and retreat to their fainting couches.
Still, there are few novels in Western literature than have been so influential, particularly when it comes to film adaptations. From Nosferateu to Twilight to Blade, Dracula provided the world with its favorite monster, one that can continually be reinterpreted. Does the world need another Dracula adaptation? I can’t see any reason why not.
Netflix has quietly released a new mini-series that tells the story in broad strokes, from the minds of Sherlock writers Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. The Dracula series starts off strong because it adapts the best material from the novel, and then loses some of its appetite by the third episode, making strange choices which ultimately hurt the narrative. Still, it earns enough goodwill with the first two episodes to make it worth the watch.
Like most Dracula adaptations, the mini-series plays with the characters and the situations while maintaining the feel of the original. It starts, of course, with Jonathan Harker (Jonathan Heffernan). Harker is the outsider that ventures into the Carpathian Mountains to aid a mysterious nobleman that wishes to emigrate to England.
This is Count Dracula (Claes Bang), the aristocratic vampire who has plagued Bavaria for centuries. However, this story is framed by Harker’s recounting of events to a pair of interested nuns in a convent in Budapest. He is questioned by skeptic Sister Agatha (Dolly Wells), who has knowledge of vampires but hopes to understand them from a scientific perspective.
There’s a lot of this type of inquiry within the series—an attempt to understand the undead in a clinical sense. Vampires in this series aren’t merely turned by other vampires. It seems that occasionally, the dead simply do not die. Instead, a person may become trapped in their coffins, fully conscious, but rotting and trapped.
Count Dracula was one of these but managed not to be feral and beastly, making him the successful, charming, and eternal creature we all know. For his part, Jonathan Harker does not escape the castle unscathed as in the books. He is changed, very much for the worse.
The second and third episodes focus on other aspects of the story, Dracula’s travel to England on board the ship Demeter and his eventual arrival to his destination.
The Demeter was never fleshed out in the novel. It was described in a newspaper clipping as a plague ship that arrived in port accompanied by a horrible fog with the captain lashed to the wheel, not another soul in sight.
The absence of details in the novel allows Moffat and Gattis license to explore, creating their own story which plays as a detective story with characters disappearing one by one. The third episode is the greatest departure from the series, where the series abandons much of what it created in the first two episodes in order to give it the characteristic Sherlock-style twist. It doesn’t work, really.
But, as I mentioned, the series does well enough with the first two that it warrants watching. Performances are great across the board, the send ups of traditional vampire tropes are entertaining, and the series treats its monster as a genuine threat, a soulless killer without remorse or humanity.
It really is the characterization of Dracula that sells the series. The audience doesn’t need to see him as troubled, as sympathetic, or lonely. This vampire is evil. Every person who interacts with him is in mortal danger. He kills without hesitation and is constantly hungry. It’s refreshing.
Had the series maintained this throughout, it might have been one of the best Dracula adaptations around. Much like Dracula does with his victims, the series shows the audience what might have been, then drains the life out of the story.