Vampires (3 page)

So, please join me as we head into the land of fairytales and goblins as beautiful maidens cower back from wild-eyed fanged monsters that cringe from the power of the crucifix wielded by fanatical villagers. The sun sets quickly on the Hammer Lot and the vampires rise.

Have fun.

Dracula

“My Master, the Count”

-Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897)

Dracula
was written in 1897 by Irish author Bram Stoker (1847-1912). The book introduced the world to the greatest character in fantasy fiction. Count Dracula is a centuries old vampire who lives in the land of Transylvania in an old ruined castle. A young solicitor helps him move to London to satiate his blood lust in Victorian England when he has drained his own country dry. The Count has many quirks to his personality. He is a charming host and excellent conversationalist who recounts past heroisms as if he were fighting the campaigns himself. He sleeps all day in a coffin and has three brides hidden in his cellars. At night, he is seen scaling his castle wall like a lizard and can change into a bat, a mist or a large black dog. Playing extensive mind games with his captives, he preys on their women and turns them into vampires over a period of three days. The novel also introduces us to the group of vampire killers; Jonathon Harker, Quincey P Morris, Arthur Holmwood and Dr John Seward. In a secretarial role is Mina Murray Harker and the group are kept in order by Professor Abraham Van Helsing. In a book that runs far longer than it really needs to, Dracula is hunted ruthlessly by the hunters as he attacks their women and worms his way into Victorian society. Finally, when his coffins are destroyed by Van Helsing, he scarpers back to Transylvania and is destroyed by Jonathon Harker and Quincey Morris, not with a wooden stake, but with a large Kukri knife and an even larger bowie knife!

Still being published and read extensively today,
Dracula
only did fair business in the author’s lifetime and. Like many great ideas, was capitalized on after his death. In 1924, the first recognized appearance of
Dracula
was in the stage play written by Hamilton Deane and starred Raymond Huntley as the Count. In 1927, John Balderston revised and Americanized Deane’s play to amazing success on Broadway which led to the first official film production by Universal pictures starring Bela Lugosi. Although the Count has no reflection, this hasn’t stopped his image from appearing in possibly five hundred films in various guises over the last one hundred and fifteen years. On my own personal count, I chalked up nineteen official appearances of the dark seducer on screens large and small. The final major adaptation still being
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
directed by Francis Ford Coppola with Gary Oldman as the Count.

The movies aside, he has continued to fire our imaginations through novels, comic strips, video games, cuddly toys and even breakfast cereal and children’s candy bars. In 2008, Bram Stoker’s great-grandnephew, Dac
re Stoker partnered with screenwriter Ian Holt to write the first official sequel to
Dracula. Dracula, the Undead
turns him into something of a good guy fighting an even greater peril than him, Countess Elizabeth Bathory, the Blood Countess.

Dracula (Horror of Dracula; 1958)

Peter Cushing as
Doctor Van Helsing
, Michael Gough as
Arthur Holmwood,
Melissa Stribling as
Mina
, Carol Marsh as
Lucy
, John Van Eysson as
Jonathon Harker
, Christopher Lee as
Count Dracula
, Valerie Gaunt as
the girl
and Miles Malleson as
J. Marx
. Screenplay based on the novel
Dracula
by Bram Stoker; Jimmy Sangster. Director: Terence Fisher.

Synopsis

Jonathon Harker arrives at Castle Dracula and is hired to work as The Count’s librarian. This is a cover as Harker is, in fact, a vampire hunter. Count Dracula has been holding his land in a grip of terror for the past five hundred years. When the Count leaves the castle on his nightly excursions to the village, Harker is approached by a strange woman, who mentions that she is being held as a prisoner at the castle. She bites Harker in the throat as the Count returns. A fight ensues as Harker is knocked unconscious. When he awakes, he finds Dracula and the girl gone. Spotting the vampire’s marks on his throat, he ventures below to the castle’s crypt. There he sees the Count and his bride laid out in their coffins sleeping the sleep of the undead. He stakes the girl who withers into an old crone. But Dracula is gone. As the sun sets, the vampire appears for a final confrontation. At the local inn, a gentleman arrives and asks the locals if they have news of the whereabouts of his friend, Jonathon Harker. He announces himself as Dr Van Helsing, and he has come to save the people from the evil of the vampire. The innkeeper denies all knowledge of Harker, but a serving girl hands Van Helsing Harker’s journal which was found hidden in a nearby tree. The doctor makes his way to the castle and finds the corpse of his comrade lying in Dracula’s coffin. A photograph of Harker’s fiancée is missing. Later, Van Helsing visits the Holmwoods. Arthur, Mina and Lucy to inform them of his colleagues untimely death, but is rebuked by Arthur who finds the whole thing suspicious. When Lucy is visited and turned into a vampire by Dracula, Arthur and Van Helsing join forces to destroy the vampire once and for all. Lucy is tracked to her coffin by Van Helsing and staked. Later, as Mina slowly succumbs to the vampire’s bite, Van Helsing tracks him to his Carpathian hideout and, after a frenzied battle, destroys him in the rays of the morning sun.

Review

The fifth take on the Dracula story and the fourth official adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel is the first colour version and still the film by which many
Dracula
movies are measured. The plot sticks fairly close to its original source material and begins, like many more in the Hammer series; with a grim, voiceover narrative. In this case spoken by John Van Eysson:

“The diary of Jonathon Harker. 3
rd
May 1885. At last my long journey is drawing to its close. What my eventual end will be I cannot foresee. But whatever may happen, I can rest secure that I have done all in my power to achieve success. The last lap of my journey from the village of Klausenburg proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated, due to the reluctance of the coach driver on his part to take me all the way. However, as there were no other transport available, I was forced to travel the last few kilometers on foot before arriving at Castle Dracula. The castle appeared innocuous in the warm afternoon sun but for one thing; there were no birds singing. As I crossed the wooden bridge and entered the gateway, it suddenly became much colder. Due, no doubt, to the icy waters of the mountain torrent I had just crossed. However, I deemed myself lucky to secure this post and did not intend to falter in my purpose.”

On entering the castle, Harker is immediately accosted by a young girl asking him for help to escape from the master of the house, claiming that he keeps her prisoner behind these stone walls. When Harker presses the matter, the girl refuses to explain her accusations and,
just as suddenly as she had appeared, she runs from the room as if obeying a silent command. It is then that Harker spots a silhouette figure at the top of the stairs. The figure glides down the steps to meet him as the audience braces itself for the horror to come. But it never happens. Instead, we become acquainted with a very crisp and charming aristocrat that negates the previous incarnations of Count Dracula on film and lays foundations for the images that were to follow for the next three decades. Harker introduces himself to his host, but fails to mention the paranoiac nymph that runs around in the castle. Dracula shows the librarian to his rooms explaining that all his servants are away due to a family bereavement and that he must see to Harker’s comfort himself. For reasons unknown, he locks Harker in his bedroom for good measure after explaining that Harker must look upon the house as his own. This first sequence, punctuated with Harker’s meandering prose, has captured the ambiguous essence of Stoker and leaves us with a vague sense of unease. Sangster’s dialogue leads us to the next scene that rips out the carpet from beneath our feet.

”At last I have met Count Dracula. He accepts me as a man who has agreed to work among his books as I intended. It only remains for me now to await the daylight hours, when, with God’s help, I will forever end this man’s reign of terror!”

In juxtapose splendor, Sangster and Fisher imbue the next few scenes with the lightning fast action that would typify Hammer’s approach to its monsters. When Frankenstein’s creature opened his eyes in 1957, his first instinct was to strangle the Baron. When the vampire woman makes her moves on Harker for the second time, we see the horror of Dracula. Eyes blazing red and fangs dripping blood, he attacks the pair with a blind, sadistic fury that was unheard of in a movie in 1958. The girl also has fangs prominently displayed and bites Harker in the throat after winning his trust. Hammer has thrown away the guessing games in previous vampire movies, giving their audience what they haven’t come to expect. The film delivers blood, sex and death, just as advertised on the posters. Harker is knocked unconscious as Dracula scoops up his bride and carries her off. When the librarian awakes, he still feels compelled to write of his adventures in his diary:

“I have become a victim of Dracula and the woman in his power. It may be that I am doomed to be one of them. If that is so, I pray that whoever finds my body, will possess the knowledge to do what is necessary to release my soul’”

Harker exits his room through the window, hiding his diary in a nearby tree.

“I have lost a day. Soon it will be dark. While my senses are still my own, I must do what I set out to do. I must find the resting place of Dracula and there end his existence forever.”

The next sequence brings more horror as Harker performs a graphic staking on the young girl as she is laid out in her coffin, bloated with his blood. As the stake hits home, he witnesses her turning into an old crone but fails to see the Count’s eyes spring open. As the sun sets, a twisted leer crosses the demon’s face. The monster rises and traps Harker in the darkness of his cellars.

Jimmy Sangster’s screenplay had originally envisaged Dr Van Helsing as a doddery old Dutchman in the Bram Stoker mold. Peter Cushing confessed however that accents were not his strong point and was applauded in his decision to play the part, more or less, as himself. It was a master stroke. Entering the film midway, this charming authoritarian becomes the ultimate avenger in the war against the undead. He follows in Harker’s footsteps to Castle Dracula and discovers his colleague cursed with the bite of the vampire. Dracula has flown the coop, but has left clues to his next victims, as he has stolen a picture of Harker’s fiancée from its frame before disappearing into the night. Van Helsing follows with his sharpened stakes and cloves of garlic. He records his findings, adding Hammer’s economical additions of destroying the vampire, in his phonograph:

“Research on vampires. Certain basic facts established. One: Light. The vampire allergic to light. Never ventures forth in the daytime. Sunlight fatal. Repeat: fatal. Would destroy them. Two: Garlic. Vampires repelled by the odour of garlic. Memo: check final arrangements with Harker before he leaves for Klausenburg. Three: The Crucifix. Symbolizing the power of Good over Evil. The power of the crucifix in these cases is twofold. It protects the normal human being, but reveals the vampire or victim of this vile contagion when in advanced stages. Established that victims consciously detest being dominated by vampirism, but are unable to relinquish the practice. Similar to addiction to drugs. Ultimately, death results from loss of blood. But, unlike normal death, no peace manifests itself, for they enter into the fearful state of the undead. Since the death of Jonathon Harker, Count Dracula, the propagator of this unspeakable evil, has disappeared. He must be found and destroyed

In fact, so focused is this champion that we do not for one second think that he may be the crazy one. All the talk and proof of vampires are through the eyes of these so-called vampire killers. Van Helsing has sacrificed Jonathon Harker to a grisly death at the hands of this mysterious Count Dracula. So mysterious in fact, that Jimmy Sangster writes no viable history for this creature, except to state that he is believed to be five hundred years old. A crippling move on the part of Hammer, as it would eventually have the Count becoming no more than a midnight bogeyman. The doctor follows his colleague to the village of Klausenburg where he feeds the paranoia of the locals. His qualifications are looked on with suspicion but never questioned. He is well financed and claims to be involved with the greatest minds in Europe in tracking down his vampires. It must here be pointed out that at no time – in this, or any other movie in the franchise – do we see anyone else running to the doctor’s aid. On a personal level the doctor has no outstanding social skill and receives nothing but chides and mistrust from the people he professes to help. His bedside manner is endearing and cultivated, but he still loses his clients to this horrible disease. He is a misunderstood loner in the same mold as his nemesis, and seemingly as mysterious. He natters away into his phonograph punctuating the evil of Dracula, if not to the masses, then at least to himself. When he finally corners the demon in its own fortress, there are no reasons to plug up the action with machismo and false bravado that is rampant in further adaptations of the story. Both exist in a do-or-die situation where no quarter is asked and none given and the battle becomes the most intimate in the vampire’s cinematic career. When Van Helsing traps Dracula under a flash of sunlight, the Count withers away to bone and dust, leaving us with the perpetual question:
What does Van Helsing do now?
He has made Dracula his life’s work. Now it is over. Does he retire, or take a holiday? Peter Cushing would play quite a few variants on the image of Van Helsing in Hammer’s sixteen year run that will be discussed later. His doctor here would be carried over to the next movie,
The Brides of Dracula (1960)
that would permanently typify him as the one and only Van Helsing. Vampire slayer
par excellence!