Having already re-envisioned Sherlock Holmes into a sexy young dude who spends more time in his imagination house than he does actually solving mysteries, Sherlock creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss are teaming up with the BBC and Netflix for Dracula—another re-envisioning of an old literary character. Unlike Sherlock, though, their Dracula will actually be set in the old Dracula days (specifically 1897), and it will be restrained to three, 90-minute installments instead of running for so many seasons that even the main cast gets sick of it.
Now, we even know who will be playing the eponymous blood-sucker himself, with Entertainment Weekly reporting that Claes Bang from The Girl In The Spider’s Web and The Square will be playing Dracula in the miniseries. In a statement, Bang had all sorts of positing things to say about the project, including that he’s “so excited” to “dig in to this iconic and super-interesting character.” He also gives a little glimpse of what the show’s characterization of ol’ fang-face will be, saying, “Yes he’s evil, but there’s also so much more to him, he’s charismatic, intelligent, witty, and sexy.”
Ya hear that world? Finally, a Dracula that’s going to be sexy.
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Bram Stoker’s book was a thinly veiled anti-immigrant screed tapping into Western Europeans’ fears of swarthy Eastern Europeans bringing in weird STDs.~sigh~Why can’t we ever get a Dracula like that?
Bram Stoker’s book was a thinly veiled anti-immigrant screed tapping into Western Europeans’ fears of swarthy Eastern Europeans bringing in weird STDs.And Murnau’s Nosferatu was its ridiculously anti-Semitic bastard child
Huh. And I thought it was about the evils of repressed Victorian sexuality.
We had a saying back in the old AV Club.It can be two things.
Well, he isn’t swarthy or an immigrant, but we have a stinky, nasty one sitting in the Oval Office.Or did you just make a joke that went over my head?
[shrug] The book Dracula was an allegory about “undesirable” immigrants in Europe.
Hahahaha
Nah, fuck that, I’m done with Moffatt and Gatiss.Their fanboying fan-fic “Sherlock” turned from ground-breaking and thrilling to character-destroying and insulting. I’m not interested in falling in love with their initial good ideas only to see them turn into 10 year old boys again, setting their blocks on fire just to prove that they own them.
Finally, a Dracula that’s going to be sexy.My ex would like to disagree with you…
I thought Dracula was always supposed to be sexy. I thought that was the whole metaphor about him “consuming” another person, having to be invited in, preferring white-clothed virginal women, etc.
I haven’t read Stoker in years, but my recollection is that while Dracula’s activities have undeniably sexual aspects, he’s not supposed to be sexy – i.e., women fall under his sway because of his supernatural manipulation, not his mundane capacity for seduction. I haven’t seen Murnau’s Nosferatu, but the images suggest the vampire is supposed to be grotesque. I think the mainstreaming of a Dracula Who Can Get It starts with the movies starring Christopher Lee, probably.
Dracula Who Can Get It Clearly this should be “Dracula Who Fucks”
difficult to believe now, but Bela gave yer great-granny some serious hots. Seems he was the late 30’s epitome of all that.
Silly of me to forget ol’ Bela.
Legosi basically invented sexual charisma.
20’s and early 30’s. Bela was Hungarian and therefore ‘exotic’. He was almost 50 by the time the Dracula film was made.
I could kinda see it, tbh. He was 6’1, average in the face at worst, and his only role that most of us are familiar with is Dracula, where they made
him up to look paler and more corpse-y.
Hollywood leading men were, and are, frequently much older than their female co-stars or the targeted female audience, and it was especially notable back then. Audrey Hepburn was 25 in Sabrina to Bogart’s 54, and most of her movies had pretty serious age-gaps, mainly in the 15-20 year range. Cary Grant didn’t get a big role until his mid-30s, and is 45-55 in a lot of his well-known romantic movies. Leading men didn’t really get young until they started seriously casting for guys who were super fit, and even then, they tend to cast guys in their mid-30s with women in their mid-20s.
I was about to say… back in the day, he got his fair share…
Stoker’s take on Dracula’s sexuality is that it’s a perversion of everything a good Victorian Gentleman thought sex should be: wholesome, family oriented (that is, creating a family with your spouse,) consecrated by a church ceremony, etc. It’s not an accident that the first victim on England’s shores is Lucy Westenra, the Light of the West. She’s the symbol of young, healthy, ready-to-wed incipient motherhood; she’s fecundity, a fertility goddess in a bustle. Dracula takes great pleasure in ruining her for her “rightful” destiny”: he doesn’t kill or change her outright but toys with almost all the main male characters in the book by spinning out her doom, false dawn after false dawn of hope. His version of sex, of life, is that of a field strewn with salt out of pure spite.
Stoker’s Dracula isn’t classically sexy, but he definitely passes for human, unlike Nosferatu. The only really non-human feature about his is that his teeth and ears seem unusually pointed. Other than that, he’s just an extremely pale older man, tall, thin, and strangely energetic for someone of his apparent age, with a Hungarian or north-Romanian look about him. In all honesty, Stoker seems to have seen a few paintings of Vlad the Impaler and just guessed what he might look like if he was old. As an aside, he has a “long heavy mustache” in the book, and this seems to have been left out of every movie since then. Gary Oldman’s isn’t awful, but it’s not exactly impressive either.
Lee’s Dracula is surprisingly close to the book, albeit obviously non-Slavic. It’s funny to me that after Bela Lugosi, we’ve only ever cast UK actors as Dracula; people would feel weird if he wasn’t, but it’s about as accurate as making King Arthur a Texan. Ironically, Luke Evans looks the most like any of the pictures of the young Vlad the Impaler that we have out of any of the actors who’ve ever played the character, and he’s Welsh.
It started earlier than that. Lugosi got proposals in the mail all the time. As soon as they dropped the pointed ears, foul breath and hairy palms it didn’t take much for audiences to find Dracula sexy.
No judgements, but I believe the literary Dracula has palms coated in a fine hair. Just saying.
It’s 2018, so we don’t want milquetoast sexy vampires. We now like cool-girl vampires who watch football and eat nachos with us who really is just one of the guys.
We now like cool-girl vampires who watch football and eat nachos with us who really is just one of the guys. Replacing the dream girl’s now-standard “I read comics! I’m kind of a nerd.” with “Yeah, I suck blood. I’m kind of a vamp.”
Yeah. What was that cool-girl show about Satan called? I just Googled: Lucifer. on Hulu. That got tired real quick.
Lucifer is actually great and I will argue this with ANYONE!But really, that’s actually an excellent show.
I can’t remember which season it was, but I just lost interest when Mom showed up and then all the plotting to get into heaven. I loved the show before that. I’ll never forget his encounter with the therapist when he said, “Oh yeah, we will be going to Pound Town.” haha :O !
I hated the Mom thing at first but she grows on you and the season after that is EXCELLENT
Nope. He was creepy and smelled like death. Harker described how everytime he was near him he felt so uncomfortable he almost felt ill.
The point of Dracula was to show that he was obsolete. Tough he was powerful and evil, the modern world was leaving him behind, rotting away in a dilapidated castle. He was defeated because the band of heroes got to his castle first because they took the train.
Exactly, he was rotting corpse on borrowed time.
So if someone were to update the story for modern times, they’d get there first ‘cause they took an Uber?
Yeah, but you can say the same about Keith Richards, and women still throw themselves at that guy.
Dracula must have a really sick guitar solo.
To be fair Keith Richards is also definitely a vampire.
No, you’re thinking of Frankenstein’s monster.
Dracula was really more of a rapist than sexy.
That’s certainly what the Hammer Films gave us. All that sexual anxiety! Swooosh.
the old Dracula daysYou mean Vampire Times?
He was a magnificent asshole in The Square! Good for him.
Articles about this Dracula series always mention that Moffat+Gatiss have done this “re-envisioning of an old literary character” shtick before with Sherlock, but pass right over that Sherlock followed the formula they did a few years earlier with Jekyll. It’s been years now, but I seem to recall Jekyll not being half bad.
I genuinely loved Jekyll. I often give it a rewatch in fall, because it has that fall feeling to me. I didn’t get around to it this year, sadly, but I might do it over the holiday break from work.
I mentioned the same thing here when AVClub first announced their adaptation. Looks like the AVClub still hasn’t gotten round to seeing it…
Dracula is not sexy nor witty! He was a stinky antisocial demon who could barely hold a conversation with Jonathan Harker without making him feel sick. Man, I guess we still have Nosferatu as a somewhat truer representation of Dracula (Even if physically he wasn’t as demon-like in the book)
Man, I guess we still have Nosferatu as a somewhat truer representation of DraculaThey’re all made up stories. There have been far more stories about Dracula as a suave & seductive monster than a lizardy stinker, so I’m not sure what “truer” could mean at this point.
From the source novel, I would like to see that kind of evil, stinky, parasitic monster.
Check out cable news for footage of Ted Cruz. Done and done.
Let’s not get too literal! I have children in the house!
I’ve seen (and smelled) my share of chronic alcoholics who don’t bathe. I fail to see the attraction.
But will it have all those sexy train schedules?
Trains are cool though. 😛
You ferroequinologaphile.
That’s my xvideos account!
Look for the lovingly shot, slow motion scene of the train going through a tunnel.
Oh God yes.
The pursuit back to Dracula’s Transylvanian castle at the end of the book read
like the most boring travelogue from an anorak-wearing trainspotter from the
midlands. This, and ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ shows the British Victorians’
obsession with timetables. No wonder Coppola decided to blast through it and condense
it into a nice, exciting horsey ride.
ok, he does look a bit like Ray Reardon…
Not a bad looking dude, and a decent actor which is all I really require… but sexy? No. He’s the physical embodiment of flan.
I think it has something to do with the fact that he has vague resemblance to Christopher Lee.
He’s a flanpire!
“and it will be restrained to three, 90-minute installments instead of running for so many seasons that even the main cast gets sick of it.”It’s sometimes difficult to imagine a series that could last for 13 whole episodes! How do the Brits do it???
I just hope they make the bold artistic decision to replace all instances of the word “vampires” with the word “draculas.”
You know in the novel Steve Dracula was the evil scientist, Dracula’s Monster was the vampire
You mean ‘Dracula’s monster was the dracula?” Hmm. Noted.
And the plural is monsters Dracula.
I would enjoy a movie that has Kirk and Dr. Spock fight draculas on the Star Trek Enterprise.
It’s 2018 people! Is it too much to ask to see a couple of Blackulas on screen?
I don’t really follow Moffat’s work much, what’s this refer to?
Nothing other than me thinking it would be funny.
Disappointed, I thought you were making a Community reference. I’m considering taking back my star.
Whoah. I don’t have Hulu money.
“Are you a dracula? You’re dressed like a dracula…”
“Yes he’s evil, but there’s also so much more to him, he’s charismatic, intelligent, witty, and sexy.”
And definitely NOT exactly like the Dracula from Penny Dreadful, the too-short-lived show whose corpse is still cooling in the corner and that we’re choosing to ignore as we move forward with Sherlock Dracula.
I can’t wait for this to be really engaging and interesting for two seasons and then immediately switch to being cruel and contemptful of the audience to make us feel bad for caring in the first place.
There was a VERY sexy Dracula in the 1977 BBC adaptation starring Louis Jourdan. Made me go quite funny …..
You and me both. Pretty much ushered me into puberty. Absolutely ushered me into over fifteen years studying vampire myths.
‘round the same era – Frank Langella in Dracula made precocious and nigh-pubescent me swoon for days.
Stoker’s original take on Dracula was that he was sexy all right, but it’s the MEN in the story that find him a turn on in the main. The women are either his vampire brides (which he abandons in the castle after he takes off for London,) whom he’s clearly sick of and vice versa, and Lucy and Mina, who are his two current rape victims. They are totally destroyed by him (Lucy) or in peril of not only their lives but their souls (Mina,) and being forced, dominated and ruined by a person who has absolutely no feelings towards you at all beyond a whim to hurt the nearest warm body around doesn’t get them going.The men in the story, while rightfully horrified by Dracula’s brutality, also admire him. They may not be crazy enough, a la Renfield, to worship him outright, but what is Dracula if not a count, a warrior, a dominating force that takes everything it wants? Men love this idea. Women, not so much.
What has Dracula done to deserve the Gatiss/Moffat treatment?
How quickly do you think this series will descend from promising to absolutely insufferable?I reckon about 23 minutes.
There was a vogue of vampires when AIDS hit public awareness. Vampires are about transgressive sex leading to death. Sexiness and rot go together in the pit of the stomach. It’s always possible to read blood as code for semen in any horror, but it’s nigh compulsory for vampires. That’s why Harker finding Mina sucking Dracula’s blood in their own bedroom is horrifying. That’s why Harker deciding to join Mina in death if they failed was like being cuckolded. That’s why Lucy Westenra attacking children is horrifying. I see no reason whatsoever to think Moffat and Gatiss capable of negotiating this terrain. Dracula itself was more about syphilis. Coppola’s movie actually made Anthony Hopkins rant about syphilis (Fear of the working class is zombies.)
And Mothman is about the dangerous double-edged sword that is electric lighting.
“vogue of vampires.” Is that like a gaggle of geese or a flock of seagulls? jk 🙂
*Reviews notes* Okay, so what you’re saying is, when Dracula sucks people’s blood… he’s really giving them metaphorical blowjobs?
I’m saying when Mina sucks Dracula’s blood she’s giving him a blowjob. You can explain why almost all “victims” of vampires make an O-face when they’re blood is being sucked.
And I was making a joke by taking your analogy to an absurd place. But I do also think it’s rather simplistic and obnoxiously male-centric to say blood is code for semen in most horror, and it doesn’t make sense for this particular story when Dracula sucks women’s blood. Plus, as others have also mentioned here, in addition to themes of sex and sexuality, there’s a lot of xenophobia mixed in.(While we’re at it, zombies symbolize much more than fear of the working class: general social unrest/unease, fear of nuclear destruction, corporate drone culture, consumerism, whatever else you think is destroying society, or a device to examine the strength of ordered society/personal morality/family…)
You are of course entitled to your wrong opinions, as there is no way I can make them smarter. Blood=semen means women whose blood is being sucked are enjoying sex. Why a woman enjoying sex is the stuff of horror I leave you to guess. Hint, it goes along with the mystery of why the vast majority of vampire victims are depicted in the throes of passion. I think it is you who wants to deny the fear of female sexuality/infidelity manifest (not even buried!)in the vampire metaphor who is being obnoxiously male-centric. Reactionaries do love to conjure up an absurd twist to hoist their foes on their own petard, if only in their imaginations. You would have done better to try to recast vampirism as addiction. The thing there is, not one movie or novel that went that direction has successfully engaged the audience the way the sexually transgressive vampires do. Compare the audiences for True Blood and Being Human, for instance. We know which really struck a chord.(While we’re at it, you’re also wrong about zombies. Nobody, nobody thinks George Romero really got it right, really dug down into the roots of terror when he put zombies in a mall, and Night of the Living Dead was just rough draft, promising but not the real thing.)
Me: “Well, Moffat/Gatiss screwed up Sherlockso ick unless maybe they finally stop doing the “Mina is Dracula’s reincarnated wife bullshi”Description: Yes he’s evil, but there’s also so much more to him, he’s charismatic, intelligent, witty, and sexy.Me: Uggggh no thank you.
You know, I see the potential for a modernised Dracula. He hires social meda guru John Harker to get his personal brand trending with the idea that by going “viral” (heh) he lays the groundwork to move from Transylvania to America with his mesmerim powers amplified a hundredfold. It doesn’t matter that he stinks and looks like death, he’s a hashtag!Give me a call, Hollywood! I’ll need $150 million and a cement mixer full of cocaine.
I think the most reasonable way to make Dracula relevant for contemporary audiences would be – and it almost sickens me to say this – to do it as a modern found footage story, capturing something of the epistolary style of the novel.
What’s up with all these English Draculas though? The whole point of the original was that proper Victorian folks were deathly terrified that those darn Slavs with their stupid sexy mustaches were going to come over and take all the women.
He’s danish…
Honestly, that’s on me for not doing the research, but I can’t edit the post now.
Still though, where’s my Slavic vampires at?
Part of me is sick of Dracula adaptations and Moffatt & Gatiss’ work in general, so I want to avoid it. Then another part of me remembers how much I loved Jekyll and how good they were at adapting a horror classic once. Maybe keeping it to 270 minutes will keep it closer to the quality of Jekyll than the bloat and missteps of Sherlock. Whatever happens, it can’t be worse than the Mark Warren Dracula that so cruelly wasted David Suchet as Van Helsing.
Hey! That’s my accountant!
My mom is always saying that Ted Cruz looks like Dracula. Good casting on that point.
The casting of their Dracula is irrelevant; all that Moffat and Gatiss need to put their unique stamp on this show is a really loud, jarringly cute musical score that flows over all the dialogue and every dramatic beat like twice-vomited mollases.
#HireMurrayGold
No offense to Mr. Bang (*gigglesnort*) but his face seems a bit more, um, “lived in” than we’re used to seeing in our sexy Dracula shows.
Racking my brains over where I’d seen him before- He was Claudio on The Bridge (the original version).
Hello Santa Claus, Please help these people realize a Dracula TV show is a bad idea so they stop. Thank you and regards, SQ
Given that I just saw The Girl in the Spider’s Web three days ago, and have zero recollection of this guy from either that film or The Square, I’m not convinced he has the charisma to pull off Dracula.
Yo Claes, I’m really happy for you, imma let you finish but Gary Oldman has the sexiest Dracula of all time.
Considering what Moffat did with ‘Jeckll,’ this COULD be terrifying.Or maybe not – hard to predict what he’ll turn out.
Why does everyone on here hate Sherlock so much?