Ten great movies to resurrect the myth of Dracula

Vampires, bloodsuckers, incubi, succubi,

and

And above them, Dracula and Nosferatu.

Or, in the world of cinema, Nosferatu, which for that was the first to reach the screen (thanks to the film by FW Murnau, in 1922) and later, Dracula.

The first was born to break the copyright held by Florence Stoker, the widow of Bram Stoker, the writer who amassed various occult legends and stories related to Vlad Draculea or Vlad the son of the devil, also known as Vlad Tepes the impaler (the Story did not skimp on wild nicknames for the Transylvanian nobleman), and that in 1897 he wrote a novel,

in which the prince of vampires barely appears in 10% of its pages.

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'Nosferatu', a century of vampires and occultism

may

not be a narrative literary delicacy, but it has influenced, and in what way, the world audiovisual.

More than a hundred productions are based on the character.

There have been Bollywood versions of the best

—in 1972 the saga began with

—, Andy Warhol also played filming his

with an exacerbated Udo Kier) and another great one like Dario Argento lo He faced it in 3D in 2012.

Pakistani, Turkish, Mexican

have existed in the cinema ... The 21st century has even multiplied the versions.

Even Chiquito de la Calzada embodied his own Transylvanian lord in

And Jesús Franco also tried it with Christopher Lee in 1970: it was a disaster, but from that production a superb documentary was born,

(1971), by Pere Portabella.

Now comes

a comedy about the servant who accompanies Dracula on his eternal journey in search of fresh blood.

If Dracula is embodied by Nicolas Cage (his histrionics of him fits like a glove with the character of the count), the servant is given life by Nicholas Hoult, who will also be in the next version of

led by Robert Eggers.

1)

The first and still in 2023 the most fascinating of the films with Dracula-Nosferatu (in the mundane incarnation of him, Count Orlok).

Murnau's film has turned a century and maintains his mystery, his astute construction of environments, his reflection on identity and the individual... and because Max Schreck's characterization still makes hair stand on end.

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Nosferatu movie trailer

2)

Francis Ford Coppola embodied a canonical revision of Stoker's creature at the beginning of the 1990s.

There's Transylvania, a boat trip to London, wonderful Victorian imagery, a prodigious soundtrack by Wojciech Kilar, and a Gary Oldman in his prime.

In this adaptation of Renfield, singer Tom Waits, who feeds on flies, puts his face on.

3)

The cape, the black hairstyle held in place with hair gel, the sensual game... Many of the characteristic elements of the

filmmakers were born in this film by Tod Browning, who found his perfect Dracula in a Romanian actor born in the Aust-Hungarian Empire, Bela Lugosi.

Lugosi also knew what they were up to: he had been giving life to the mythical vampire on Broadway for four years with his very marked English, and for that reason he accepted a lower salary than his co-stars.

When he died, the interpreter was buried with a black cape... but not his character's: that was auctioned off by his son in 2011. As films were not dubbed at that time, in the same settings where the film was shot during the day by Browning, at night the Spanish version was filmed, directed by George Melford: Dracula played by Carlos Villarías from Córdoba does not have so much substance, even though the legend speaks of an anthological performance.

4)

series creators

Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat (big fans of BBC's 1977 Dracula) embarked on this three-episode Netflix version just before the pandemic.

The Danish Claes Bang

embroiders it: as a detail in each chapter, his characterization refers to previous film

, and the castle at the beginning is the same one where the

1922

5)

From 1958 to 1976, Christopher Lee played Dracula nine times (cameos aside).

The English production company Hammer, specializing in gothic horror films, joined Lee (who a year earlier had given life to Frankenstein's monster) with director Terence Fisher, and both created a wonderful Dracula, which has marked the imagination of several generations. of spectators: tall, elegant, sinister and ruthless.

6)

At the end of the seventies, Werner Herzog gave a twist to the classic of German expressionism.

A crazy challenge.

However, he had a superb Klaus Kinski.

Though the actor-director pair hated each other for decades (“Even the rats were better on this set than Klaus,” Herzog said), this Nosferatu is a tangible demonstration of Kinski's proverbial ability to create anthology villains.

Curiously, in one of Lee's films, the one from 1970, Kinski played Renfield.

7)

Frank Langella played Dracula on film and stage.

His vampire is based on the underline of his blue blood: first and foremost he is a nobleman, a man full of charm, gentle, with only two problems: he is immortal and needs human blood to survive.

8)

It is one of the least known adaptations and, on the other hand, one of the most interesting.

In 1977 the BBC broadcast (there is a 155-minute version, another in three episodes and a third in two) its own vision of Stoker's novel —quite faithful— with Frenchman Louis Jourdan playing a sexy, mesmerizing, captivating count, master of the "undead".

It is the series that influenced the creators of Netflix in 2020.

9)

When everything seemed counted, the Canadian Guy Maddin creates this ballet version, in black and white, silent, and respectful of gothic terror with Zhang Wei-Qiang as Dracula, and, behind, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet.

Recorded for television, after winning the Sitges festival and receiving all kinds of praise from critics, it ended up being released in theaters.

10)

Before Leslie Nielsen and Chiquito laughed at Dracula, George Hamilton (who imitates Bela Lugosi with his accent) starred in this black comedy in which the Romanian nobleman travels to New York during the disco era after his love affair.

In 1979 there were five

in theaters, but this was the big blockbuster.