It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
Old gothic horror stories such as Dracula are pretty much "corner of the eye" when it comes to horror: no big effects but a mere presence. "You don't see the devil but his work".
https://screenrant.com/dracula-love-tale-movie-development-christoph-waltz-cast/
Demeter could have benefited from this.
The entire project was stillborn. Expanding a small fraction of the novel into a full movie is one thing; doing nothing else than boo! effects and "something lurking in the shadows" doesn't work anymore. It was a disappointing film. May have been less so if it had been made 35 years ago.
Yes! Precisely. And if the project's coffin is then opened up again decades later, it should aspire to something more. The budget was there, and the talent certainly too. But a mere haunted house story on a boat feels a tad underwhelming for a modern Dracula film.
That's something else: too often in adaptations Dracula is reduced to a glorified slasher. In the novel, he wants to invade the world. In movies, he wants to... find true love? Kill teenagers? I mean seriously, that's all they can come up with?
The most laughable attempt at "updating" Dracula was probably the character of "Drake" in Blade: Trinity. :)) Dominic Purcell was awful in the role, and the role itself was terrible to begin with. Oh boy.
I still think the BBC did a bang up job at making terrible updates of Dracula. And they apparently want a sequel for the last one!
Demeter more or less proves my point. Yes, they wanted to return to (a specific section of) the novel. But, by the same token, they were still applying the cheapest thrills and tricks in the bag to tell their story. I honestly think that you need a company like A24 and a director like Robert Eggers to have the balls for a more literary approach.
For the record: I don't mind the more cartoonish Dracula all that much. I don't see it as Stoker's creation, but as a bastardization of it that has, often in a financially successful way, found a life of its own in comic books, films and cartoons. I can handle the more campy, romanticised or exploitative stuff. But, I am curious about a more faithful adaptation too, and that's been sorely lacking in Dracula's cinematic resume so far.
I'd rather start by a faithful adaptation of the novel.
I'm glad I have it on DVD, then. And yes, I think it's a really good adaptation.
It's a flawed one, but one of the best. If they had kept the three suitors and cast Christopher Lee (or someone more menacing than Jourdan) as Dracula, it might have been borderline perfect. But I'll always say that the naturalistic approach they took, with minimalist fx and real locations was the right way. It makes it scarier too. Best Jonathan Harker and best Mina, by a wide margin.
My reaction: oh hell no! It's a ripoff of Coppola's Dracula.
No, that's not even in the story. Dan Curtis put the idea of a vampire's reincarnated wife into Dark Shadows and then transferred it to his 1974 version of Dracula. Had enough of this tripe now, tbh - I'm tempted to just boycott any more versions of Dracula that include it.
Yes that's so bloody frustrating. Coppola wasn't even original in 1992, but then he just aped every Dracula content he could put his hands on. Besson is just another dirty old man "adapting" Dracula the way his horny teenager self would have wanted.
😁😁😁 That's one way to phrase it, @Ludovico. 😉
I'm looking forward to NOSFERATU. Right now, that's a Dracula (sort of) adaptation I'm very excited about. Another Besson film is momentarily hardly on my mind.
Well that's pretty much it isn't it?
On a side note, there was more eroticism mixed with menace in the 1977 BBC Dracula than in Coppola's ridiculous vanity project.
None of this was necessarily new to Dracula adaptations, but that's fine. I think the truth is Dracula, like many influential horror/Gothic tales, can and should be reinterpreted. It's not just a case of adapting the book faithfully (we all know the broad story), and part of the interest in a new Dracula adaptation is seeing what they run with that'll chime with audiences today. Many aren't great, but we're spoilt for choice. Anyway, Coppola's film has its merits - the art direction and cinematography are superb, I think Oldman, Hopkins, and Tom Waits as Reinfield are great (the latter's a very underrated actor and a personal favourite musical artist of mine). Reeves' performance is a bit... well, ropey, but it kinda works that Harker in this one is a stiff doormat of a character. It's an odd, somewhat quirky Dracula adaptation, but I wouldn't begrudge it.
By the way, this new one from Besson doesn't look particularly good to me, I do agree. Really looking forward to Nosferatu (Eggers is such an atmospheric Horror director I think he'll bring something very interesting to it).