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"I don t drink...wine."- The Dracula Thread

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  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 14,830
    Venutius wrote: »
    Ludovico wrote: »
    Looks great. When it comes to horror, less is more: you don't need gory images, just the terrified look on someone's face staring at inhumanly long nails. Unheimlich.
    Indeed. There was a really disappointing film about the 1970s Pontefract 'Black Monk' haunting in West Yorkshire that was made a few years back. It was saddled with the usual modern jump scares, etc, but one of the deleted scenes involved a camera being left filming in the empty house and then them watching the footage later. You didn't see what had been recorded, just the mother's quiet but increasingly disturbed reaction to watching it. That was far more unsettling than all the cheap tropes that made it into the finished film.

    Old gothic horror stories such as Dracula are pretty much "corner of the eye" when it comes to horror: no big effects but a mere presence. "You don't see the devil but his work".
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 14,830
    Here's another Dracula project. Another "romantic" take. Big mistake:
    https://screenrant.com/dracula-love-tale-movie-development-christoph-waltz-cast/
  • delfloriadelfloria
    Posts: 1,707
    Ludovico wrote: »
    Venutius wrote: »
    Ludovico wrote: »
    Looks great. When it comes to horror, less is more: you don't need gory images, just the terrified look on someone's face staring at inhumanly long nails. Unheimlich.
    Indeed. There was a really disappointing film about the 1970s Pontefract 'Black Monk' haunting in West Yorkshire that was made a few years back. It was saddled with the usual modern jump scares, etc, but one of the deleted scenes involved a camera being left filming in the empty house and then them watching the footage later. You didn't see what had been recorded, just the mother's quiet but increasingly disturbed reaction to watching it. That was far more unsettling than all the cheap tropes that made it into the finished film.

    Old gothic horror stories such as Dracula are pretty much "corner of the eye" when it comes to horror: no big effects but a mere presence. "You don't see the devil but his work".

    Demeter could have benefited from this.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited February 23 Posts: 2,928
    Absolutely. In the book, Stoker builds it slowly, with a crew member missing and the sailors downcast and anxious. ‘They would not say more than there was something aboard.’ One sailor sees a ‘tall, thin man, who was not like any of the crew’ go along the deck and disappear, but an inspection of the ship finds no one. More sailors disappear and the fear and panic increases. ‘At midnight I went to relieve the man at the wheel and when I got to it found no one there…we seem to be drifting to some terrible doom.’ Eventually, only the captain and the Romanian mate are left. ‘On the watch last night I saw It, like a man, tall and thin, and ghastly pale. It was in the bows, and looking out…It is here…in the hold, perhaps in one of those boxes.’ The rising tension, dread, paranoia and fear is right there. Jump scares and monsters not needed.
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 14,830
    Way too many horror movies and Dracula adaptations work on jump scares. No subtlety, no slow built. Everything's in your face.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited February 23 Posts: 2,928
    Absolutely. That rising dread is what unsettles you and stays in the back of your mind. It's in far too short supply - and in The Last Voyage of the Demeter, it needn't have been. That's what's disappointing.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,547
    Venutius wrote: »
    Absolutely. That rising dread is what unsettles you and stays in the back of your mind. It's in far too short supply - and in The Last Voyage of the Demeter, it needn't have been. That's what's disappointing.

    The entire project was stillborn. Expanding a small fraction of the novel into a full movie is one thing; doing nothing else than boo! effects and "something lurking in the shadows" doesn't work anymore. It was a disappointing film. May have been less so if it had been made 35 years ago.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    Posts: 2,928
    Which, if the rumours are true about the script having been doing the rounds in the '90s, it probably should have been, eh! :))
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,547
    Venutius wrote: »
    Which, if the rumours are true about the script having been doing the rounds in the '90s, it probably should have been, eh! :))

    Yes! Precisely. And if the project's coffin is then opened up again decades later, it should aspire to something more. The budget was there, and the talent certainly too. But a mere haunted house story on a boat feels a tad underwhelming for a modern Dracula film.
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 14,830
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    Venutius wrote: »
    Which, if the rumours are true about the script having been doing the rounds in the '90s, it probably should have been, eh! :))

    Yes! Precisely. And if the project's coffin is then opened up again decades later, it should aspire to something more. The budget was there, and the talent certainly too. But a mere haunted house story on a boat feels a tad underwhelming for a modern Dracula film.

    That's something else: too often in adaptations Dracula is reduced to a glorified slasher. In the novel, he wants to invade the world. In movies, he wants to... find true love? Kill teenagers? I mean seriously, that's all they can come up with?
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,547
    Ludovico wrote: »
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    Venutius wrote: »
    Which, if the rumours are true about the script having been doing the rounds in the '90s, it probably should have been, eh! :))

    Yes! Precisely. And if the project's coffin is then opened up again decades later, it should aspire to something more. The budget was there, and the talent certainly too. But a mere haunted house story on a boat feels a tad underwhelming for a modern Dracula film.

    That's something else: too often in adaptations Dracula is reduced to a glorified slasher. In the novel, he wants to invade the world. In movies, he wants to... find true love? Kill teenagers? I mean seriously, that's all they can come up with?

    The most laughable attempt at "updating" Dracula was probably the character of "Drake" in Blade: Trinity. :)) Dominic Purcell was awful in the role, and the role itself was terrible to begin with. Oh boy.
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 14,830
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    Ludovico wrote: »
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    Venutius wrote: »
    Which, if the rumours are true about the script having been doing the rounds in the '90s, it probably should have been, eh! :))

    Yes! Precisely. And if the project's coffin is then opened up again decades later, it should aspire to something more. The budget was there, and the talent certainly too. But a mere haunted house story on a boat feels a tad underwhelming for a modern Dracula film.

    That's something else: too often in adaptations Dracula is reduced to a glorified slasher. In the novel, he wants to invade the world. In movies, he wants to... find true love? Kill teenagers? I mean seriously, that's all they can come up with?

    The most laughable attempt at "updating" Dracula was probably the character of "Drake" in Blade: Trinity. :)) Dominic Purcell was awful in the role, and the role itself was terrible to begin with. Oh boy.

    I still think the BBC did a bang up job at making terrible updates of Dracula. And they apparently want a sequel for the last one!
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,547
    The problem is that Dracula became a popular character through plays and early movies. People lost track of the literary roots of the character while being exposed to a distilled version of the adventurous vampire with the bloody teeth and handsome, Lugosian complexion. Stoker's Dracula was replaced by a less complicated, more accessible (some would say vulgar) horror icon, immediately recognisable and usually very bankable. It's no surprise that the entertainment industry prefers the version that involves fewer commercial risks.

    Demeter more or less proves my point. Yes, they wanted to return to (a specific section of) the novel. But, by the same token, they were still applying the cheapest thrills and tricks in the bag to tell their story. I honestly think that you need a company like A24 and a director like Robert Eggers to have the balls for a more literary approach.

    For the record: I don't mind the more cartoonish Dracula all that much. I don't see it as Stoker's creation, but as a bastardization of it that has, often in a financially successful way, found a life of its own in comic books, films and cartoons. I can handle the more campy, romanticised or exploitative stuff. But, I am curious about a more faithful adaptation too, and that's been sorely lacking in Dracula's cinematic resume so far.
  • delfloriadelfloria
    Posts: 1,707
    Long for a TV adaptation of the Anno Dracula novels.
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 14,830
    delfloria wrote: »
    Long for a TV adaptation of the Anno Dracula novels.

    I'd rather start by a faithful adaptation of the novel.
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 14,830
    Article about the 1977 BBC adaptation: https://movieweb.com/most-book-faithful-dracula-movie-hardest-to-find/
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,547
    Ludovico wrote: »
    Article about the 1977 BBC adaptation: https://movieweb.com/most-book-faithful-dracula-movie-hardest-to-find/

    I'm glad I have it on DVD, then. And yes, I think it's a really good adaptation.
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 14,830
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    Ludovico wrote: »
    Article about the 1977 BBC adaptation: https://movieweb.com/most-book-faithful-dracula-movie-hardest-to-find/

    I'm glad I have it on DVD, then. And yes, I think it's a really good adaptation.

    It's a flawed one, but one of the best. If they had kept the three suitors and cast Christopher Lee (or someone more menacing than Jourdan) as Dracula, it might have been borderline perfect. But I'll always say that the naturalistic approach they took, with minimalist fx and real locations was the right way. It makes it scarier too. Best Jonathan Harker and best Mina, by a wide margin.
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