“Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!”
Although legends of the bloodsucking, darkness-loving
undead have existed since time immemorial everywhere from Ancient Greece to
Mesopotamia, it was Bram Stoker who codified the myth of the vampire in his
classic 1897 novel Dracula. This landmark
piece of Gothic literature catapulted the children of the night into pop
culture superstardom, and with this rise of popularity an interesting thing has
happened: Our vampires have gotten nicer, sexier, and more heroic. It’s hard to
remember that these fictional demons were once the absolute epitome of evil
when one stops to admire the hunkiness of an Edward (Twilight), the
sensitive brooding of an Angel (the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe),
or the silliness of a Leith Evergreen (yes, this is a shameless plug for my own
novel, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Apocalypse, which
is available on Amazon!). The latest adaptation of the big daddy vampire
himself, however, Netflix’s Dracula, effectively
brings the menace back to the legend in a brilliantly acted
four-and-a-half-hour roller coaster ride of playfully subverted expectations.
Developed by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat- names you
might recognize if you are a fan of either Doctor Who or Sherlock- Dracula is a thoroughly British experience in the
sense that it is performed by actors who you might not have heard of, but who
can act circles around ninety percent of Hollywood’s talent. The clear MVP here
is the brilliant Claes Bang, who plays a Count who can, at the drop of a hat, shift
from silently sinister to chewing up the scenery with such gusto that I’m
surprised he had any room in his stomach for blood. It is also British in the
sense that it is very short: just three episodes long with each episode being
an hour-and-a-half.
This format may cause the story to lag a bit at times,
particularly in the third episode, which I must say isn’t nearly as good as the
first two. To talk about the third episode in any detail beyond this would be
dangerous spoiler alert territory, however, as Dracula does
what BBC’s Sherlock does with great delight: starting off with
territory that is familiar to those who know the source material and then
changing it up in increasingly bigger ways until you’re in a completely unfamiliar
place without quite knowing how you got there. As a fan of Stoker’s original
novel, I was thrilled with the ways this series surprised me throughout, even
if the story itself lagged occasionally. Again, this is mostly a third episode
problem, as the first and second episodes are brilliant.
An additional word of caution- Netflix may say that this series is
TV-14, but I can’t see how this is possible. Dracula is not
afraid to get TV-MA gory when it wants to, particularly in the first episode,
which involves, among other horrors, a man wearing the face of another man and
the beheading of a nun. Maybe don’t watch this one with the kids. If you can
stomach it, however, Dracula is a
bloody brilliant time that not only doesn’t suck (again, see my book if you
want even more vampire puns!), but also effectively returns the vampire to its
rightful place: our darkest nightmares.
This review was first published in The Keizertimes on June 5th, 2020. Visit at http://keizertimes.com/
Hindsight: When The Keizertimes published this article, they included a picture of Van Helsing with a caption stating that the character was indeed the legendary vampire hunter. This bothered me, because the identity of the character is actually a big twist in the series. There was no way for the paper to know that without actually watching the series, though, so I forgive them. They don't have time to watch TV... that's why they have me do it.
I'm rather proud of the article itself.... I think it flows well and hits on everything I wanted to talk about. That third episode really does suck.
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