The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Count Dracula is the most famous of all Vampires. Dracula was the creation of Bram Stoker in the eponymous novel Dracula (1897), which laid down to essence of what we regard as vampire lore. Dracula lived in Transylvania and journeyed to Victorian England where he proceeded to prey upon women, drinking their blood and rendering proper Victorian maidens as wanton and seductive.
The first screen incarnation of Dracula was in the Turkish Drakula (1921), the one that caught attention in the unauthorised German adaptation Nosferatu (1922) where he was depicted as a crepuscular, rat-like being called Count Orlock.
The most famous Dracula was Bela Lugosi in Universal’s Dracula (1931) which created the iconic figure of Dracula with dinner-suit, cape and thick East European accent. This version of Dracula is the one that has stuck in the audience’s imagination and been much copied and parodied despite hundreds of other screen interpretations of the character since.
Christopher Lee also became Dracula in the long-running series from Hammer Films beginning with Dracula/The Horror of Dracula (1958), bringing out a far more savage and animalistic portrayal. There have been numerous other adaptations of the Stoker novel since with hundreds of actors filling the role.
That is not to mention the vast number of sequels, modernisations, parodies, comedies, animated versions, children’s tellings, erotic/pornographic interpretations and works that transplant Dracula to everywhere from a Western setting to on board a spaceship, plus various of Dracula’s sons and daughters.
Stoker borrowed the name of Dracula from a title (meaning Son of the Dragon) that was given to the historic Wallachian tyrant Vlad Tepes, aka Vlad the Impaler. There have been a number of works that tie the fictional and historic Dracula together as the same person.
Part and parcel with Dracula comes his nemesis Professor Van Helsing, a Monster Hunter who comes outfitted with a body of occult knowledge. Van Helsing has been a popular character in screen incarnations and we have seen various sons, daughters and descendants of, modernisations and comedy interpretations of the character, even several Dracula-less entries where Van Helsing was the standalone hero.
The most well remembered of Abbott and Costello’s films. Universal had shuffled their Famous Monsters through several team-ups and here decided to play them for outright laughs. Undeniably likeable
Tony Watt strikes again with another of wilfully bad, agonisingly unwatchable films. All the bad acting, plotlessly rambling scenes and random exploitation movie homages that one expects of a Tony Watt film
Companion piece to Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, a duo of horror films sold with Andy Warhol’s name for some reason. Dracula is revamped with a good deal of sex and gore but not uninterestingly so.
A film spinoff from the animated The Batman tv series, this offers a great title match but proves a disappointment. Moreover, it has to twist comic-book canon to make the plot work
This has a reputation as a bad movie classic. The attention grabbing novelty mash-up transforms the Western outlaw into a hero to combat Dracula (a hammy John Carradine)
A hit among the Blaxploitation fad of the 1970s, this has the novelty of casting a vampire film with African-American actor William Marshall. A whole series of Blaxploitation takes on horror themes followed.
Third of the Blade films with Wesley Snipes. As director, series screenwriter David S. Goyer emulates the same exhilarating, kinetic moves that Guillermo Del Toro infused the second film with, while the script zings with his wryly cynical dialogue
One of the films from Z-budget director Al Adamson, who should be a rival for Edward D. Wood Jr in the bad movies stakes. This resurrects Count Dracula in the present-day, living in a castle in the California desert
This comes with the interestingly original idea of having the real-life outlaws Bonnie and Clyde come up against Count Dracula. The main thing against the film is a low budget
Francis Ford Coppola remakes and reinvents Dracula, transforming the text of Bram Stoker’s book into a sensual, visually ravishing film with lush production values that make you gasp in excitement
Possibly the worst Dracula film ever made. Dracula is cast as what looks like a beefy bouncer for a Goth nightclub. Bram Stoker is written as the central character seemingly without anyone having read a single detail about his biography
An adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that comes with the oddity of featuring no Dracula. This is quite faithful to the book and the period setting looks not to bad on a low budget
Christopher Lee was inveigled to play the title role in what was advertised as an adaptation of the book as Bram Stoker wrote it. While this was somewhat true, such ambitions befell the cheapness of exploitation director Jess Franco
The most faithful version of Dracula to date. A BBC mini-series that adapts the book as a no-nonsense costume drama and even shoots in the mentioned locations, giving the impression of the story taking place as Bram Stoker visualised it
A copy of the Hammer Dracula films starring Spanish horror legend Paul Naschy. Naschy makes an okay but mundane Dracula, while the film never seems much more than lots of running around an abandoned asylum and softcore tumblings
Not another of Hammer’s Dracula films despite the title. This still builds on the brand name but is instead their loose adaptation of the story of the infamous blood-bathing Elizabeth Bathory.
Donald F. Glut is famous as a genre historian and novelist. Here he directs an erotic vampire film. Despite the title, Count Dracula doesn’t feature much but we get Paul Naschy in one of his few English language films
UK’s Amicus Films had a reasonable hit with their horror anthology Dr Terror’s House of Horrors. Director/producer David L. Hewitt jumped in with a copy with a soundalike title produced on a poverty row budget
The second of two video-released sequels to Dracula 2000, this takes place with more of an action emphasis and features vampire hunters tracking Dracula across rebel-torn future Europe
The classic adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel that made Bela Lugosi into a horror icon and created the image of the vampire in dinner-suit and with East European accent. For all its stature, it is a dull and talky film and Lugosi is overwrought
The legendary Spanish-language version of Dracula that was shot on the same sets as the classic Bela Lugosi version. Although it ultimately stands too much in the shadow of the Lugosi film, it is the better of the two films
The point where the legend of Hammer Films and the careers of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing began. A vivid colour remake of the Bram Stoker book that put a stake through the heart of the staid Universal horrors and created a new English horror industry
Lushly produced, big-budget adaptation of Bram Stoker starring Frank Langella that places much more of a romantic emphasis on the story than any other version. Here is the beginning of the darkly romantic vampire film
An interesting attempt to bring Dracula into the modern day – the film that Dracula A.D. 1972 should have been. An unknown Gerard Butler makes a captivatingly magnetic Dracula
BBC costume drama version of the Bram Stoker novel, which offers the most radical take on the story of any version made to date, substantially wrenching around many of the familiar characters
Interestingly odd attempt to update and relocate Dracula to present-day Hollywood. This has promise despite a low-budget but eventually flounders amid a non-linear story and an entirely confused ending
Hard to describe what an utter disappointment Dario Argento’s take on the oft-filmed Bram Stoker work is. Argento seems to have entirely lost the mojo and visual flair that made him a cult name. Thomas Kretschmann makes for the screen’s mellowest Dracula
BBC mini-series retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that deconstructs and widely expands on sections of the book to create something relentlessly modernistic, sometimes in ways that take you aback
There is undeniable interest to the idea of Dracula in the future but all we get is a standard Alien copy with Dracula on a spaceship. The acting and dialogue frequently enters into the absurd
Luc Besson makes a return with an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The surprise about this is that he fairly much uncreditedly remakes Francis Ford Coppola’s version of the story
For their seventh Dracula films, Hammer introduced Dracula to the present-day. The result was a wild mishmash where Christopher Lee plays second fiddle to Hammer’s belated attempts to jump aboard the Swinging 60s youth scene
Not an adaptation of Bram Stoker but an anime based on the Marvel comic-book Tomb of Dracula (the same title that gave birth to Blade)
Mel Brooks had a huge hit with Young Frankenstein, an affectionate spoof of the Universal Frankenstein films. Two decades on he returns to do the same for the Dracula film but with far more scattershot results.
The inevitable adult version of Count Dracula. Beyond the obvious, this is halfway watchable, having a sense of humour and even a story, which plays out as a straight version of Love at First Bite
Almost certainly this is the one Christopher Lee Dracula film you will never have heard about. This was a French comedy made not long after Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, spoofing the Dracula film
The fourth of Hammer’s Dracula films. There is a certain amount of silliness to the plot but new director Freddie Francis is on fine form. As is Christopher Lee even if he is not given much to do.
The first of two sequels to Dracula 2000. This is based around the idea of trying to scientifically examine a vampire’s body, sort of a vampire film by way of CSI
Pakistani film that is a blatant copy of Hammer’s The Horror of Dracula, often directly ripping off scenes. Not without some modest effect and it is fascinating to see the familiar story translated into different cultural terms
Guy Maddin’s reinterpretation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula as a ballet and silent movie is an extraordinarily creative work while remaining far more faithful to the original story than many other film versions do
The third of Hammer’s Dracula films. Christopher Lee returns to the role but is given no dialogue. Nevertheless, Terence Fisher delivers some vivid directorial set-pieces that make this one of the better sequels in the series
One of several Dracula vs Frankenstein crossover films that came out in the early 1970s. This version comes from cult exploitation director Jesus Franco but squanders the opportunities of a great title match
A medium-budget Dracula film that draws much on its cinematic predecessors and comes filled with Underworld-like brooding Gothic poses. Plus the oddity of a blonde Dracula
This may possibly be the worst Dracula film ever made. A nudie film that has been dubbed over with excruciatingly unfunny one-liners that makes it sound more like a rifftrack film
The Asylum conduct their own version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and this becomes one of the most radical screen adaptations of the story to date, swapping genders of characters
A documentary that traces what inspired Bram Stoker to write Dracula and tells the story of the real Dracula, Vlad Tepes. Perhaps overly detailed at times but undeniably fascinating
TV movie version of Bram Stoker’s book that was released to theatres in some places. Richard Matheson’s script brings back many aspects of the book that are dropped by other productions but the film suffers the fatal miscasting of Jack Palance in the title role
This conducts the interesting idea of updating Bram Stoker’s book to the present day with Patrick Bergin as Dracula. Ultimately, this suffers from low tv movie horizons
Dracula gets an origin story in what was touted as the flagship for Universal’s Famous Monsters shared universe. Alas, Vlad the Impaler, one of the great tyrants of history, gets rewritten as an honourable warrior and decent family man
This was one several different films with the same title that came out around the same time. This painful effort comes from Spanish horror star Paul Naschy who plays his signature role of the wolfman Waldemar Daninksy
One of the great title matches of all-time and a surprise that Universal never thought to do it. In the hands of Z-budget director Al Adamson it is a wasted opportunity nd Zandor Vorkov the worst screen Dracula ever
The first of the sequels to Universal’s Dracula this time without Bela Lugosi. A much better film in every way. creating a fine sense of atmosphere. Arguably the first lesbian vampire film.
Christopher Coppola is worlds apart in talent from his uncle Francis. Here he directs a weak vampire film with Sylvia Kristel in the title role and transformation effects that look datedly cheesy today
One of the series of softcore Emmanuelle films based on an erotic memoir, which had led to some seventy films so far. Here the originally true-life character of Emmanuelle encounters Count Dracula
A forgotten effort made during the 1960s/70s resurgence of the vampire film. One of the first films to depict Dracula in the present-day. The answer to the title question is that he is now running a nightclub in L.A.
A variant on the much more charming Mad Monster Party?, an animated film featuring cute cuddly versions of the Famous Monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, wolfman etc) with Adam Sandler voicing Dracula
I had little enthusiasm for this, I tend to like my classic monsters serious rather than defanged – these Hotel Transylvania films are so watered down, Dracula doesn’t even get to drink blood
I’m not a fan of the Hotel Transylvania films and their reduction of the Famous Monsters to slapstick yocks. This is exactly the same as the preceding films, no better, no worse and with only minute plotting difference
Minus Adam Sandler this time, the Hotel Transylvania series trots out a fourth entry. Here, in some search for novelty on what has gone before, the monsters are turned back into humans
The third of Universal’s monster bashes, a successor to the previous House of Frankenstein. These Universal crossovers felt contrived in their reasons to bring the monsters together but this works better than the others
The second of Universal’s team-ups of their in-house monsters and superior to the first of these, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. Despite some imaginative moments, the script has a stitched-together improbability
A documentary that explores Bram Stoker and the creation of Dracula, Transylvania and Vlad the Impaler. Narrated by Christopher Lee, who we see playing both Dracula and Vlad the Impaler
Hong Kong cinema of the 1970s was dominated by kung fu films but by the end of the decade the search for novelty resulted in some bizarre crosshatches such as this bizarre effort in which a kung fu practitioner against a sorcerer who raises ghosts and even Count Dracula to fight
One of a spate of recent films that adapt characters or sections from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, this concerns the doomed ship voyage aboard which Dracula travels to England
The last of Hammer’s Dracula films, a co-production with Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers, which shows Hammer trying to jump aboard the kung fu fad of the era. Christopher Lee has departed and peter Cushing’s Van Helsing is the only holdover. Not one of Hammer’s more inspired offerings
Genial and very likeable spoof of Dracula and the vampire film that succeeds where many others have failed and is very funny. George Hamilton steps into the role of Dracula with debonair, mocking charm
Very strange softcore vampire film that conducts an all-girl retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Absolutely delightful stop-motion animated homage to the Universal Famous Monsters, which places tongue perfectly in cheek
Produced not long after the success of Young Frankenstein, this was a Belgian-made parody of the vampire film that falls into excruciating slapstick. Louise Fletcher is absurdly miscast as Countess Dracula
Richard Elfman film about chic vampires who have become an elite living in Hollywood. Despite promise and some interesting ideas, this is ruined by an atrociously overacting cast
The Asylum conduct a monster bash – a crossover between the Famous Monsters – and actually do a modest and quite enjoyable job
Rather charming effort where the Famous Monsters – Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster, the Wolf Man, The Mummy, The Creature – are revived and pitted against a group of kids. The film has a great deal of affection for the originals and the encounters are delightful
Beautifully moody black-and-white vampire film from Michael Almereyda. A modernised reworking of Dracula’s Daughter
The first screen adaptation of Dracula and one of the most amazing of all vampire films, a German Expressionist fairytale that exists in haunted netherworld through which stalks the crepuscular figure of Max Schreck
Robert Eggers of The Witch fame conducts a remake of the classic silent Nosferatu that comes drenched in mood and period detail
Werner Herzog conducts a remake of the silent German classic with Klaus Kinski as Dracula. A very different film to the original but quite unique in Herzog’s individualistic way
Tony Watt, who gets my nomination as the world’s worst filmmaker, does the laughtrack trick of taking a film – in this case, the original Nosferatu – and running his usual inane sound effects and excruciating bad acting over the top
Twilight fairly much killed the vampire film. This is the first of two big-budget offerings of 2023 that aims to turn that around
One of the first contemporary Dracula films. Compared to Christopher Lee’s first appearance as Dracula the same year, this is dull, plodding and without atmosphere where Dracula looks like no more than a door-to-door salesman
The eight of Hammer’s Dracula, the second-to-last they would make and the last featuring Christopher Lee. This follows on from the previous film Dracula A.D. 1972 in featuring Dracula in the present day and at least does more with the idea than that film did
The sixth of the Hammer Dracula films and generally regarded as the low point of the series. It feels as though nobody involved seemed to be making an effort anymore.
Z-budget filmmaker Mark Polonia makes another of his numerous entries into the gonzo killer shark film. This is a companion piece to his Sharkenstein – yes, a work about a vampire shark!
To Die For was a forgettable effort, most notably as one of the first films to feature the darkly romantic vampire. This sequel recasts the part with the impossibly handsome Michael Praed and is a far more successful assemblage of the elements
The third of Universal’s Dracula films in which Dracula travels to Louisiana in search of a wife. A flabby Lon Chaney Jr makes a poor replacement for Bela Lugosi, while the script seems improbably stitched together – despite the title, the film features Dracula, not his son
Bizarre musical monster bash with singer Harry Nilsson as Dracula’s son and Ringo Starr as Merlin. A film that seems to have no real clue what it is doing beyond friends having a good time. Nilsson makes surely the screen’s least threatening Dracula, while this is the worst film from the usually great Freddie Francis
This film’s pitch line – Casanova meets Dracula – had me in the door in an instant, yet the film is a maddeningly dull one – slow, plotless with talky scenes that drag on for minutes at a time. The film has no interest in depicting Casanova the famous lover, while he and Dracula never even talk together
This has been construed as a modern-day vampire western with tongue planted in cheek. From Anthony Hickox who made a series of OTT horror films during this period
Occasionally amusing comedy where a group of fans set out to rescue the heroine’s unrequited crush from a house of vampires
The fifth of Hammer’s Dracula films and by general consensus the last worthwhile entry. New director Peter Sasdy brings something fresh and creates an interesting plot that digs beneath the veneer of Victorian hypocrisy
An obscure Canadian film that ambitiously attempts to conduct an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula on a low-budget. This introduces some elements of the story that other versions ignore, cuts some and expands other. Not uninteresting but the budget eventually gets in the way
One of the first of the modern wave of darkly romantic vampire films that became the in-thing in the 1990s. This is occasionally effective but was eclipsed by later entries
Freddie Francis was one of the finest stylists of the Anglo-horror cycle. Here he makes a comedy spoofing the vampire film that comes out feeling like Benny Hill routines running around a big castle
Another film in the cult of Jess Franco. Jumping aboard the early 1970s fad for lesbian vampire films, Franco offers up a sofctore take on the story of Dracula but cast with women.
Stephen Sommers conducts a big-budget rehash of a 1940s Universal monster bash. A film so overloaded with CGI bombast and general overkill it becomes utterly absurd.
Romanian-made film about the real-life historical tyrant Vlad Tepes who loaned his name to Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Film based on the historic tyrant that gave the world the name Dracula, this ends up being too sympathetic and loses credibility when it tries to tie in vampire mythology
aka Dracula’s Dog. Most people who hear the title think this is a joke but this is a real film and one that takes a ridiculous premise – the idea of Dracula’s dog – surprisingly seriously