#dracula 1979

[theroseinthedarkness]

Dracula (1979), dir. John Badham

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Kate Nelligan and Frank Langella - Dracula (1979)

[fanofspooky]

Scream King - Sylvestor McCoy

Requested by Anonymous

[nosferatu-roberteggers]

“Yet I cannot be sated without you.”

NOSFERATU: PHANTOM DER NACHT (1979) dir. Werner Herzog

NOSFERATU (2024) dir. Robert Eggers

[unhinged-soapbox]

ong it annoys me too that this wattpad ass romance plot between Dracula and Mina is the standard now ever since 1992. Dracula the Musical, NBC Dracula, Dracula Untold, The Northern Ballet, The Polish Ballet, Dracula: A Love Stronger than Death, novels, comics... It's like finding that every adaptation of the Lord of the Rings is now about the forbidden Love between Sauron and Galadriel versus the zealot Gandalf and the stuffy Fellowship. Oh and yes of course Lucy always gets punished for being Sexy. The nbc show even spells it out and the Moffat one punished her for being a 'vain' and sexually forward Black woman. Anyway yea Besson explode challenge

I did see Dracula the Musical in LA a couple weeks ago and it was FABULOUS but the Mina/Dracula plot line hit in the second act and it broke me a little bit. That said it did seem like the director and cast were familiar with the novel because they did everything they could to keep the spirit of the novel there (including making some decisions that did not follow the original musical whatsoever) like making it clear that both Lucy and Mina were incredibly in love with and dedicated to Arther and Jonathan respectively, the sexual pull and hypnosis of Dracula was simply too intriguing (felt like Phantom of the Opera "I am intriguedby you and your darkness but ultimately I love another and the decisions you're making are a dealbreaker for me." Though in this case it was too late for Lucy to change her mind and very nearly too late for Mina). Every other Mina decision was straight from the book. Also notable that Lucy accepted her death willingly, indicating that the vampirism was not really Lucy. An added prologue also indicated that Dracula himself wouldn't have chosen vampirism, making his expressed envy of Jonathan and his humanity much more motivated. A puppet also shamed the audience just before intermission for "being okay with stabbing slutty girls in the chest" which felt like a dig at "punishing" Lucy for being "slutty". It all felt very tongue-in-cheek about the content vs the source material.

The decision to do it as a steampunk rock opera with aerialists also definitely helped. I'm positive had I seen any other production, I would have been livid. But this one got a narrow pass simply because it was clear that there was a love and understanding of the original source material despite the changes the musical script made.

Coppola's film definitely did irreparable damage to any and all future Dracula adaptations and Mina and Dracula characterizations because it was incredibly popular. Though the trope kind of really kicked off with the 1979 film with Frank Langella which gave "Mina" (called Lucy because the director liked the name Lucy more) and Dracula a "star-crossed lovers" storyline (I dedicated 30 minutes of my upcoming video essay to simply crashing out about that film). However it can go even further back with Lugosi's and Lee's Draculas expressing explicit intent to make Mina their newest vampire bride/minion (an intent that is implied in the book as well, though out of a desire for possession and control and not attraction). Neither of these Draculas seem particularly attracted to Mina or Lucy, they just want dominion over England and the best way to do that is by having as many vampire followers as possible. Somewhere along the way the villainistic desire for power got reduced to romantic and sexual desire period. My hunch is that it is probably connected to the popularity of bodice rippers that emerged in the 70s, which presented the fantasy of being taken and ravished by some "wicked" morally corrupt warlord/pirate/vampire etc which allows the woman to still maintain her "virtue" in a way (a whole other thing I won't get into right now). Dracula already has the themes of vampirism being connected to sexuality, so it wasn't difficult for directors to shoehorn this in to appeal to the female audience. And it kinda just stuck and we've been dealing with the consequences in Dracula and other media ever since. Not sure how much weight that hunch actually holds but it's currently the only theory I have.

[walkawayinsin]

Every Dracula movie after 1979:

"Ahhh Minaaa-ah I've crossed oceans of time to find ye"

[moliathh]

Dracula//Helsing

[hays-code-evader]

Bram Stoker spinning in his grave every time someone adapts his anxiety-riddled anti-sex novel into a movie about a Byronic blood-drinking Romanian bad boy.