The Many Faces of Dracula

Henry Irving

A star of the theatre in Victorian London, Henry Irving never played Dracula, but it is said that his stage manager, a certain Bram Stoker, was inspired by him for the character of the immortal Count. Notice a certain resemblance to Christopher Lee?


Dracula (Unabridged Classics)




Bela Lugosi
Dracula, 1931

Lugosi wasn't the first on-screen vampire, but his evening garb, cloak and well-groomed hair gave birth to an icon. Just take a look at the amount of caped vampires you see around on Halloween.

Dracula (Universal Studios Classic Monster Collection)




Max Schreck
Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, 1922

Count Orlok is a far cry from the gorgeous vampires of our days, but his rodent teeth, bald head, pointy ears and long claws are unforgettable. And to think this amazing silent film nearly didn't make it to our day because of the law suit between Florence Stoker and the production house! Lucky for us that not all the prints were destroyed.

Nosferatu (The Ultimate Two-Disc Edition)

Christopher Lee

Hammer Horror Dracula, 1960s & 1970s

Christopher Lee is one of THE faces of Dracula of the 20th Century. The low budget Hammer Series flaunted lavish scenery and buxom beauties, and their Dracula series is now a cult, having made Mr Lee as strong a Dracula icon as Bela Lugosi.

Draculas: 4 Film Favorites - Horror of Dracula / Dracula Has Risen from the Grave / Taste the Blood of Dracula / Dracula A.D. 1972 (2DVD)

Frank Langella

Dracula, 1979

Frank Langella starred as one of the 3 Draculas of 1979 in John Badham's Dracula. The film was a disappointment at the box office, but, according to Wikipedia, it became quite popular for a time in the home video market.

Dracula

Klaus Kinski

Nosferatu, Phantom der Nacht, 1979

The second of the 1979 Dracula movies, Werner Herzog's Nosferatu takes us back to the bald head and rodent teeth in this remake of Murnau's 1922 Nosferatu. This time, since the novel's copyright had expired, Herzog could use the original names of the characters, something that Murnau had been unable to do.

Nosferatu: The Vampyre/Phantom Der Nacht (2 Disc Set)

George Hamilton

Love at First Bite, 1979

The third Dracula of 1979, directed by Stan Dragoti, is a comic horror character who is forced to abandon his castle in Romania and discover the wonders of New York (and its blood banks). At his side, his faithful bug-eating servant Renfield. Tagline: "Your favorite pain in the neck is about to bite your funny bone!"  What more can you say?


Love at First Bite


Gary Oldman
Bram Stoker's Dracula, 1992

Gary Oldman in Francis Ford Coppola's amazing Oscar-winning adaptation has become the face of our fin de siecle Count. Coppola's lavish sets and costumes and eye for detail make this one of the all-time Dracula favourites. One of the most romantic vampire movies of our time.


Bram Stoker's Dracula (Collector's Edition)




Leslie Nielsen
Dracula: Dead and Loving It, 1995

Leslie Nielsen and Mel Brooks (director and Van Helsing) - a recipe for spoof. What more can I say, except that this is a version Stoker never dreamed of. Watch out for the Coppola Dracula hairdo, the British bosom and closing windows. 

Dracula - Dead and Loving It





Rudolf Martin
Buffy vs Dracula, Ep. 1, Season 5, 1997

So he might not be the most famous actor to play Dracula, but he did play the role in Buffy in a campy episode. The Slayer cannot escape the Count's bite and even Xander becomes his slave. At the end, of course, Buffy slays the Count, but as we all know, he always comes back.


Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 5


Count Duckula
1988

He's green and he's a duck, but, hey, he has his own castle on a lonely mountain top in Transylvania, his own poultry servants and he's famous. And he's not that bad when you consider he isn't after blood but tomato ketchup. 


Count Duckula - The Complete First Season


Count von Count, aka The Count
Sesame Street

Another not-so-serious version of Dracula, modeled on Bela Lugosi. A Count is very good at teaching children mathematical concepts, such as ... counting. With his many bats, his cat and his Countmobile, this is one Count you can count on. 


Sesame Street: 40 Years of Sunny Days

Why I Hate the Comte Saint-Germain!!! No offence, Chelsea!

Of all the vampires around, the gory ones, the disgusting ones, the purely evil ones, the helpless and the messed up, no-one irritates me more than Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's suave and superior Comte Saint-Germain.
And the reason?  In a nutshell: he's too perfectly perfect and superior! Philanthropist, feminist, learned, wise, well-mannered ... he's cleaner than the proverbial pin!
Not that any of these qualities are unwelcome in any character, yet when every other man in the Saint-Germain stories is either a satanist, a rapist or downright stupid, Saint-Germain's goody-goody attitude and his know-it-all-ness just rub me the wrong way.
There is no doubt that the Comte has left his mark on the vampire genre, but it is not as if the novels themselves were works of high literature. They read more like audacious and uncensored versions of a Barbara Cartland novel than anything else. With all the high quality vampire literature around, I can't see why some people still make a fuss about Saint-Germain. Give me mad, bad and dangerous to know Lestat, Dracula, or Zillah any time!

Lost Souls

If you love Anne Rice, you’ll love this!

Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite is one of those modern haunting and unforgettable vampire tales with haunting and unforgettable tragic characters that stay with you long after you’ve finished reading the book.

Poppy Z. Brite has become a cult writer among aficionados of the vampire genre. Two of her main characters, Ghost and Steve, were actually taken from her short stories, while others are featured in another novel, Drawing Blood, which, however, is not a sequel to Lost Souls.  Lost Souls is actually an expanded version of her short story ‘The Seed of Lost Souls’.

Lost Souls opens in New Orleans, a favourite setting among vampire story authors (see Fevre Dream and Anne Rice’s novels, among others). Three nomadic vampires arrive at Christian’s Bar where one of them, Zillah, impregnates a teenage girl. What follows is the story of their son, Nothing, who is adopted by ‘normal’ parents, and his search for a family and a sense of belonging.

Lost Souls? is the name of a band located in the typical American place in the middle of nowhere, Missing Mile. The members of the band are the tormented, messed up rocker Steve and his best friend Ghost, a seer and witch’s grandson, whose music lures Nothing to the small town. The story is about the adolescent search for identity and the existentialist and nihilist theme of the book is implied in the names of the characters, Nothing and Ghost. Youth are the children of the night, whether they are human or vampire, mortal or ancient.

In many ways, therefore, Brite’s novel is a song of Innocence and Experience, of Innocence lost as Nothing finds his family of vampires and is drawn into an incestuous relationship with his cruel and selfish father, Zillah. It is a compelling read that will have you turning pages and falling in love with the characters, with its sense of decadence and magic, savagery and poetry.

Main Characters 

(in order of appearance)

Jessy: Nothing’s teenage mother who dies giving birth to him (it’s gorier than it sounds)

Christian: the New Orleans barman who is also a very lonely vampire, hundreds of years old

Zillah: Cruel, narcissistic vampire, leader of the gang, father of Nothing and later his lover

Molochai: One of Zillah’s followers

Twig: the second of Zillah’s followers

Nothing: the protagonist of the story, in search of family and identity. He eats his friend.

Steve: musician, human, totally messed up, in love with Ann but has a funny way of manifesting his feelings for her

Ghost: a seer, witch’s grandson, totally weird but utterly lovable and wise. He can read people’s feelings

Ann: another messed up character, in love with Steve, hopping from one guy to another in search of love and finally gets her happy ending (Not!)

Wallace Creech: Jessy’s dad and Nothing’s granddad, a crusader against evil and vampires who manages to poison everyone with his cancerous blood

Title: Lost Souls

Author: Poppy Z. Brite

Published: 1993

Rating: 18+

Author's website: www.poppyzbrite.com