Who Is The most Definitive Dracula? / Universal Dracula Speed-Art
Dracula is one of the earliest characters to appear on the silver screen, but who is the definitive version of the character? Let’s go through the many versions of Dracula!
1. Max Schreck’s Nosferatu
The first notable version of Dracula to appear on screen is, of course, Nosferatu. He's a stark departure from the typical more regal display of the Count and comes across as almost animalistic in his portrayal and somewhat ghost-like and haunting. While this is the first version to introduce sunlight killing vampires, this take on Dracula would prove to be less influential but more influential on other Vampires, such as Salem's Lot or even the mutants in I Am Legend.
2. Bela Lugosi’s Dracula
That leads us to Universal's Dracula, a role made iconic by the late Bela Lugosi, and while there would be many sequels to this film, Bela himself would only appear in the first and the final film, about 20 years apart. Nonetheless, when people think of the look of Dracula, Bela Lugosi is probably the image that comes to mind, even though he’s not the most menacing and terrifying Dracula out there.
3. Christopher Lee’s Hammer’s Dracula
But, where Universal's portrayal lacked menace, Hammer's Horror of Dracula, portrayal by Christopher Lee was intimidating, and it introduced the idea of the seductive vampire. Lee's Dracula would also be the first notable Dracula to show his fangs, something that every Dracula since has shown without hesitation. And while he may not be the first Dracula that comes to someone's mind, he would portray the Count more than any other actor, returning to play the role in most of the Hammer films, as well as taking on the role in two other films outside of the series.
4. John Carradine’s Billy the Kid Versus Dracula
After the precedent was set by Lugosi and Lee, Dracula became a character that every studio wanted to build off of, such as Billy the Kid Versus Dracula, a weird B-Movie that probably only about 2% of my watching audience had even heard of and less than that had seen it. But I included it to show how Dracula could be in popular films from each decade. The Western reached its saturation point in the 60's and studios wanted to retool and add new ideas, so why not add Dracula?
5. William Marshall’s Mamuwalde/Blacula
The same can be said about Blacula. While the actual Counts appearance is pretty lackluster, Blacula is about as iconic as a blaxploitation character has ever been and helped kick off a boom in the early to mid-seventies of monster and horror characters being mixed into the blaxploitation genre. Unfortunately, the sequel was rushed into development and ran out of money part way through filming, so the ending to Scream Blacula Scream left much to be desired, and the character sadly never recovered.
6. Frank Langella’s Dracula
So that leads me to a movie I didn't include but was so close to making the cut. Frank Langella's 1979 Dracula further expands the sensual take on the vampire that Hammer films defined in the 60's. He matches the groovy 70s style, shows a lot more chest, and has a rather quaffed hairdo. Although, he seems to lack the menace much like the Lugosi take on the character. But the movie is worth watching both for Langella's performance and Donald Pleasence's role in the film, best known for playing Dr. Loomis in the Halloween series. But I feel this Dracula doesn't spend enough time differentiating itself from its predecessors to really be in the running.
7. Gary Oldman’s Bram Stocker’s Dracula
Now the 80's was a pretty dry period for Dracula. His most notable portrayal was in The Monster Squad, which based his look largely on the Universal outfit and gave him the more menacing feel of Hammer's Dracula. But this dry spell leads into probably the most interesting take on the Count in 1992's Bram Stoker's Dracula, played by Gary Oldman. It gives the Count his most interesting variety of costumes to date and further solidifies the Count’s origins with that of Vlad the Impaler. This film gives him a huge variety of skills, but largely lives and dies on how much you believe in the romance plot with Winona Ryder, which is done well but does drag a little in the final hour of the film. This version would also be parodied in films like Dracula: Dead and Loving It, as well as the amazing Simpson's Halloween Special with Mr. Burns, Treehouse of Horror IV. And I think the opening scene in this film would sort of lead into the more action-oriented take on the character that followed into the 90s and 2000s.
So classic Horror characters stopped being financial hits, but Hollywood still had all these properties with name value, so all of a sudden, Dracula, The Mummy, and Frankenstein were shoehorned into Action films. This worked out pretty well for The Mummy in the Brendan Fraser films, but Frankenstein and Dracula maybe weren't as lucky. A more action-oriented Dracula would appear in Van Helsing, Blade 3, and Dracula Untold, and while they all have their own distinct flavours, I feel most of them fail to live up to the character itself.
The Van Helsing Dracula acts almost like a Rockstar and feels overly arrogant. Blade 3 seems like a far too modern take on the character. I mean…he names himself Drake. And Dracula Untold, while an interesting and noble take on the character, does spend quite a bit of time meandering and trying to make him a little too sympathetic, although some of the action scenes are pretty good.
That Modern takes on Dracula seem to be either playing off archetypes created in the 1930's to 1960's, or veer so far left that he becomes almost unrecognizable from the source material. Of course, there are other versions I'm not quite familiar with, like Hellsing, Castlevania, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dracula 2000, and the Hotel Transylvania movies, which I've seen the first one but not the sequels. I do think all the variations of Dracula wouldn’t exist without Lugosi and Lee.
So the question really becomes, which Dracula do you prefer? Lugosi's more regal and noble take on the character or Lee's more fierce and female desirable take? For me, I feel like Lee's character hits more of the marks and that’s what Dracula would become known for. While Lugosi defined the look of the character, Lee cemented it and embodied the role like no other person before him and influenced many of the modern takes of the character. So I go with Christoper Lee, but that's just my opinion. What’s your definitive version of Dracula? I'd love to know, so feel free to leave a comment on the video with your thoughts!