Welcome back, ghouls and ghosts, to the third annual installment of SpookyJawn! It’s our horror takeover of MovieJawn, and this year we are wall to wall with monsters!

by Tessa Swehla, Staff Writer

Last year, I wrote an article examining six different portrayals of the most famous vampire, Dracula, in film. As promised, I have returned this SpookyJawn with a second installment examining six more portrayals of the dark prince over his hundred years of gracing the screen.

Last year, I focused on prominent depictions of Dracula, many of which are iconic or were already very well known to me (in my mind, Bela Lugosi still commands the reigning Dracula performance despite how parodied he is in subsequent films and TV) to demonstrate the evolution of the character in film. This year, I focused primarily on performances that were hitherto unknown to me (with the exception of the last two) in order to grow my own personal understanding of the history of the character. Some choices ended up surprising me–who knew that 1979 was apparently the year of Dracula–and some disappointed, but all of them added to my burgeoning encyclopedia of the infamous vampire.

Conde Drácula – Drácula (dir. George Melford, 1931)

With the advent of the “talkies,” Hollywood studios struggled with how to export these new language-bound films to an international audience. While Tod Browning and Karl Freund were making their iconic Dracula with Bela Legosi during the day, George Melford was hard at work making a Spanish-language version of the film at night, using the same sets and equipment.

Carlos Villarías plays Conde Drácula. The film hits essentially the same plot beats as the Browning version–with some notable camera angle changes and extended character sequences. Villarías was clearly given the same character notes and instruction as Lugosi, although in the Blu-Ray box set introduction to the Spanish-language version of the film, Lupita Tovar (who plays Eva, this film’s version of Mina) claims that the two never met or compared notes. Villarías could have, of course, seen Lugosi play the character on stage. He too uses his eyes to replicate a hypnotic gaze and gestures in a slow, seductive manner, using his cape as both a shield and as a web to entrap his hapless victims. It is also interesting that both versions of the 1931 Dracula were played by immigrants to the US, emphasizing the “invasion” aspects of the character present in the original novel.

However, Villarías injects the character with his own unique twist. The whole film actually borrows heavily from the then emerging art form of the radionovela, fifteen minute melodramas that were popular amongst women in South American countries. The influence of the radionovela–which would eventually become the telenovela–is especially apparent in the acting style of the cast, including Villarías. Every plot twist, every new revelation, is met with an exaggerated reaction. Every emotion is telegraphed across the actors’ faces in accordance with a genre with which the white actors would not have been especially familiar. Villarías especially has some fantastic moments of melodrama, especially in the scenes where he is facing down Van Helsing. In these sequences, he and Eduardo Arozamena seem to be competing for who can make the best reaction face, and that competition is only for the good of the film.

Unfortunately, due to the proximity of the film to the Browning Dracula, comparisons between Villarías and Lugosi’s performances are inevitable, causing Villarías to seem like a pale imitation of a classic. This is decidedly not true for any of the other performers, who often outshine their English-speaking counterparts (see especially Pablo Alvarez Rubio who makes an exceptionally empathetic Renfield and has the incredible distinction of outshining Dwight Frye in the same role).

Count Dracula – Love at First Bite (dir. Stan Dragoti, 1979)

In my last article, I mainly focused on more straightforward depictions of Dracula. Any character or franchise that is a hundred years old, however, is going to have numerous parodies (see James Bond, Robin Hood, etc.). So many campy productions of Dracula emerged in the latter half of the 20th century, many of which were directly tied to Lugosi’s performance and the ‘30s Universal monster films. In Love at First Bite, Dracula (George Hamilton) travels to NYC after being evicted from his castle by the Communist government of Romania. There, he finds model Cindy Sondheim (Susan Saint James), who he believes to be the reincarnation of Mina Harker. Trouble ensues when her boyfriend/therapist (it was, after all, the ‘70s) turns out to be the descendant of Van Helsing.

Hamilton is doing his best Lugosi impression, threaded through with a lot of New Yorker humor. Dracula speaks in the accent, wears the stiff, outdated evening wear, and his hand gestures invoke the iconic performance. He is preposterous and self-important, and yet Hamilton plays him with a solemnity and sincerity that makes the situational comedy even funnier. The contrast between his 19th century mannerisms and the ‘70s modernity of NYC provides a lot of this as he is constantly navigating misunderstandings and confusion. While his chemistry with Cindy is lacking, Hamilton does find an excellent scene partner in Richard Benjamin who plays Dr. Jeffery Rosenberg, formerly Van Helsing. Some of the best laughs of the film come from their showdowns, including one particularly funny moment when Jeffery tries to ward him off with a Star of David.

However, these laughs were the only bright part of the film. I found that the initial bit got a little old after the first 30 minutes, and I had no investment in this particular version of the character. The film definitely suffers in comparison to the much funnier Young Frankenstein which came out five years earlier in 1974.

Also, as a warning, there is a lot of racial stereotyping in this film when it comes to Black residents of NYC. The most charitable reading of these stereotypes is that they are so over the top that they are being played as satirical critique, but since the creators of the film are not Black, they don’t really read as more than cruel jokes.

Count Dracula – Dracula (dir. John Badham, 1979)

A humorous little aside: I actually selected Love at First Bite, this film, and the next one before learning that they were all released in 1979. Apparently, 1979 was the year of Dracula in film.

I honestly went into this Dracula thinking it would be a campy ‘70s production, especially since the existence of a parody like Love at First Bite proves that straight-up adaptations of the 1931 film(s) or the novel were beginning to feel tired. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised by the genuinely creative gothic atmosphere and the special effects, some of which are so simple and yet completely unexpected, especially for a film made before Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 version.

Like the Draculas (Draculae?) before him, this one (Frank Langella) is charismatic, dramatic, and charming, often clad in the evening wear that clashes with the decaying ruins of Carfax Abbey and the insanity of Renfield in the Seward asylum (the role that the asylum plays in Dracula is a topic on which I could write an entirely different article). Langella also plays the character as less stilted and foreign than Lugosi’s Dracula, having him integrate into British society almost instantaneously. The first time we see him fully as the character, he sweeps into Dr. Seward’s house, throwing his cloak at a servant and instantly engaging with Lucy and Mina. He laughs and flirts easily, but Langella’s true brilliance is his ability to infuse the laughter with a vulnerability. He’s lonely, unable to truly share his need for blood with anyone without needing to resort to violence or trickery. He may be evil, but he wants someone to understand him, and he believes Lucy might be that person.

This film also wants to emphasize Dracula’s supernatural abilities in a way that hadn’t been possible until then. The first scene of the film, which begins with the shipwreck of the Demeter instead of in Transylvania, has Dracula exiting the ship in his wolf form. He telepathically calls nearby Mina to his side so he can feed, dressed in a giant fur coat meant to invoke the wolf, thus showing us a different side of the usually suave Count. In one really effective sequence, he climbs upside-down the side of the Seward house to visit Mina, fingers forcing the masonry to give him purchase. These effects and creature designs infuse the film with the uncanniness it needs in order to feel alive (muhahaha) again.

As with many adaptations, this one transposes Lucy and Mina, making Lucy the love interest of Johathan Harker and Dracula both and Mina the poor first victim. I often wondered why so many adaptations do this until I saw this one: Lucy is the sexy one. In the original novel, she is being courted by three men at once (practically engaged to all of them), and she enjoys the attention. For the 19th century, this makes her a prime candidate for Dracula’s first victim in England as her death is seen as just desserts for her sluttiness (remember Randy’s number one rule of surviving a horror film: never have sex). Mina is the innocent victim who must be saved.

For a ‘70s film, however, women’s sexuality is much less taboo, and the filmmakers do not need to hide the sexual nature of Dracula behind a conveniently placed cape or rely as much on the biting metaphor (although that is certainly still a major part of the character). The film depicts Lucy as a more liberated woman (for the time), openly sleeping with Johnathan and then Dracula. He doesn’t even have to mesmerize her!

Count Dracula – Nosferatu the Vampyre (dir. Werner Herzog, 1979)

I wrote about F.W. Murnau’s 1922 masterpiece Nosferatu in last year’s piece, so it seemed only fitting to watch Herzog’s 1979 remake this year. Herzog was such a fan of the original, believing it to be one of the greatest films ever made in Germany, that he wanted to remake the film with Klaus Kinski in the lead role for years. Learning from the mistakes of Prana, however, he waited until the day that Stoker’s original novel entered public domain to make his version. The film itself follows the plot beats and even the set design of the original closely, with the exception of the use of the actual character names from Stoker’s novel. Set in Transylvania and Wismar instead of Transylvania and Whitby, the film only really updates the scale of the sets and outdoor shots, homaging the original in a way that honors it with only some plot differences (although what differences do exist are fascinating to be sure).

In keeping with this, the Count’s design is very similar to that of the original pointy-eared, long fingered character played by Max Schreck. However, unlike Schreck, who leaned into the pure monstrosity of the character, Kinski is able to convey actual emotional depth behind the prosthetics. Kinski is known for his charisma and intense performances, and while he is not as seductive as Langella, his animation lends the character an ethereal beauty despite the physical ugliness. This Dracula is also tired, suffering from immortality induced ennui. He explains this to Johnathan in one scene where they sit together in his castle, telling him that he has no idea what it is like to repeat the same things day after day forever. But the film doesn’t actually need to tell us this because Kinski infuses his performance–menacing and frightening as it is– with existential weariness. He moves slowly, sighs often, and looks bored out of his mind during moments where many actors would have portrayed the character as gleeful or triumphant. Renfield is more excited about the death and destruction of the town than Dracula is. Viewers might get the impression that he moves from Transylvania to Wismar just because he has nothing better to do rather than as a search for new hunting grounds.

This Count more than any other seems invested in creating a triad relationship with both Johnathan and Lucy. When he first visits Lucy, he asks her to be his ally: “I would share in the love between you and him.” A first read may tell us that the Count is only interested in this because of his envy of Johnathan for his marriage, but, for reasons that I will not spoil, it becomes clear that he is interested in Johnathan too in the final act of the film.

Honestly, bring it on. No one said his Brides had to be all women.

Dracula – Hotel Transylvania (dir. Genndy Tartakovsky, 2012)

Our first animated film! Unlike other films featuring the character, Hotel Transylvania dares to ask the difficult questions, such as “what if Dracula was a loving father?” or “what if he retired from the whole Count business to run a hotel?”

The idea really was brought into focus by comedy writer Tod Durham–who wrote the treatment for the entire franchise before cold pitching to Columbia–and Tartakovsky–a director beloved for his original Star Wars: The Clone Wars animation as well as Samurai Jack and Dexter’s Laboratory. Tartakovsky envisioned this film as a way to push the boundaries of what had been done physically with Dracula because of the constraints of live-action storytelling. Because it was marketed for children, he saw an opportunity to make the animation fun and exaggerated.

Because of the comedic nature of the film, it may at first appear to be another Lugosi parody: after all, Dracula (Adam Sandler) is wearing the iconic evening wear and a cape with an exaggerated collar. However, while this film does playfully poke a little fun at its predecessors, it is genuinely invested in Dracula as a character, exploring how the various facets of his personality might evolve or change in the face of new challenges, like parenting or hospitality management.

Sandler brings his comedy persona to the character, of course. This Dracula is manic and reactive, but these qualities are married with the original character’s dominance and charisma. The film also loves playing with classic vampire tropes: for example, in several versions of vampire folklore, vampires are fastidious and detail oriented, so Dracula becomes a controlling micromanager involved at every level of his hotel. He is constantly moving, using his supernatural abilities to make the service as perfect as possible for his monstrous guests.

The other side of his personality comes out with his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez). As the film progresses, we learn that Mavis is the child of Dracula and his wife Martha (yes, my friend who was watching with me made the Batman v. Superman joke), but that an angry mob murdered Martha shortly after Mavis’ birth. (This storyline incidentally is also the inciting incident for Netflix’s Castlevania, in which Dracula vows to wreak revenge on the entire world for the murder of his wife). Because of this, Dracula has become overprotective and controlling. He tries to manipulate Mavis–a classic Dracula trait–into staying at the hotel with him instead of traveling the world like she desires. Sandler’s voice-acting work has layers here: he is able to somehow combine the over the top antics with the fierce protectiveness of a creature of the night with the shadows of grief and trauma without the character losing cohesion.

One of my favorite jokes of the movie definitely involves the moments when we get to see the monster inside Dracula. He may be a rather neurotic hotel manager, but he can and will destroy you if you cross him.

Walter De Ville aka Dracula – The Invitation (dir. Jessica M. Thompson, 2022)

Discussing this character as Dracula is kind of a spoiler for the film, but it’s such a good entry that I couldn’t leave it off the list. I am a staunch champion of 2022’s The Invitation, a film that has a 29% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I’ve written before in an article on Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) that no one really knows how to market Gothic romances anymore. It’s an old late 18th and early 19th century genre to which Stoker’s original novel owes much. Equal parts horror, melodrama, romance (sometimes bordering on erotica), and fairy tale, the Gothic romance was born from the emerging middle class’s anxieties about the old aristocratic order. Forbidding atmospheres, mysterious ruined settings, Byronic heroes (or anti-heroes), and distressed heroines are all staples in the Gothic romance, which often invokes the supernatural.And above all: the Gothic romance is about vibes only. But if you go into a Gothic romance thinking it is a horror film, like many audience members for The Invitation or for 2016’s Crimson Peak, you will be disappointed.

The Invitation is about Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel), a young Black woman who discovers a British line of her family after submitting a DNA kit. She is invited to a family wedding to meet her long-lost relatives, only to discover that extremely suspect and sinister things are happening in the old mansion.

I’ve already given you one spoiler for this film, but just in case, here is another. I’m about to talk about things that only become clear in the second act.

Evie discovers that her love interest Walter (Thomas Doherty), the owner of the mansion, is, in fact, Dracula and that he needs her as the last of her bloodline to become his third Bride. This is the first Dracula story on film (that I’m aware of) where a Bride is not only more than erotic scenery, she is actually the POV character. This aspect allows us to see a much different view of Dracula than we have previously due to the inherent different positionality of a Bride versus a seduction of an English white woman. Even Evie’s name invokes Eva, the 1931 Spanish-language version of Mina, implying that this story is being told from a non-English perspective.

Doherty’s Walter is charming and sensitive and vulnerable–perfectly calculated to ensnare Evie in his web–but his Dracula is cruel and vicious and violent. Doherty balances these two sides of the character well: he is attracted to Evie and can be sensual and charismatic even when he is feeding from a maid’s leg right next to Evie’s drugged body. This Dracula can be Walter when he needs to be–with a flirty smirk and excellent eye-seduction technique–but at any given moment, he becomes Dracula, snarling about his superiority and telling Evie that “someone like her” should be grateful for his attention.

This variation on the Dracula tale works for me precisely because it is a return to the old use of the character as a monstrous metaphor for the aristocratic class while simultaneously updating it for contemporary explorations of class and race. I actually discovered this film because of Black Twitter: when the initial trailer was released, many Black women scholars and authors expressed their interest in the film. They recognized that the story was a Gothic one, and that they were finally seeing themselves in a storyline that has been around for, well, over a hundred years.

This year’s crop of Dracula performances had its highs and lows, but I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. It was a further reminder that although vampires might not exist (right?), that the dark prince is, in fact, immortal, if only by virtue of his films.