Cinematic Vampires

Bram Stoker's Dracula came out in 1992, a screen adaptation of the popular Bram Stoker novel about Dracula. While the movie included a love story that was not a part of the book, the majority of the plot does bear a strong resemblance to Stoker's work.

At first, we are given the premise of the love story. A knight goes out to battle against the Turks and leaves his wife Elizabetha behind. She is mistakenly informed he is killed and kills herself. The knight curses the God he fought for, the God who allowed her to die, and he becomes a vampire.

We are then wisked forward into London and are introduced to Renfield (Tom Waite) first, the original real estate broker who met Dracula and was driven crazy by him. Renfield resides in the Carfax asylum, a patient of Dr. Jack Seward, played by Richard Grant (of Warlock fame). Dr. Jack is a morphine addict in love with Lucy Westenra (Sadie Frost). Next comes Mina Murray (Winona Ryder) and her fiance Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves). Harker is sent to Transylvania as Renfield's replacement. It is then that we get our first glimpse of Dracula, played by Gary Oldman.

Above, we see the first evolution of Dracula. He is first seen as a somewhat eerie-looking, but fairly harmless old man. We begin to see things change, when he licks Harker's blood from a razor and then finally reveals himself as a vampire in his old-man guise. This is mostly after he spies a picture of Mina in Harker's things and realizes that Mina is Elizabetha, and he wants her. He imprisons Harker in the castle and sails off to London to meet his destiny.

In his second guise, a wolfman, Dracula preys on Lucy first, effecting her turn into a vampire while she tries to court Dr. Jack, Lord Arthur Holmwood (Cary Elwes) and Quincy Adams, a Texan. Mina runs into a newly young Prince Vlad and begins to be wooed by him. Dracula wants to love her, win her back, but has a hard time with his new lot in life.

Then, we meet Professor VanHelsing, played by Anthony Hopkins. As Mina falls under Dracula's spell and Harker fights his way home, Arthur, Jack and Quincy team up with VanHelsing to "cure" Lucy and track down the demon vampire. But, Dracula takes on his fourth guise, a bat, and escapes.

The chase is on, taking the men and Mina back to Transylvania to kill the demon and save Mina from her curse.

I know that a lot of people didn't like this movie, but I loved it. Anthony Hopkins played a great, almost crazy character. Gary Oldman was simply superb as the vampire. I thought the love story was very unique and put a softer slant on all the violence.

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