Celebrating Horror’s Past: Through Blood Tinted Glasses Article - The Endurance of Dracula
Read the series Introduction / Read the Dracula (1931) Review
This will absolutely not be the last time we discuss Dracula, but as he is such a presence across any kind of vampire media, it seems like a perfect place to start.
Welcome to Through Blood Tinted Glasses, a series of reviews and articles that came out the idea I had to watch every English language vampire film made, that I could get my hands on, and with some exceptions, which will be touched on when we get to them. By focusing on English language, I know I am missing some truly great stuff, but I really did need some way to narrow it all down.
For each film, I will write a review and an article/essay, with the review to appear first on DHR, the article/essay to follow on Substack initially, and on the website a few days later. I am calling it an article/essay as it has been a long, long time since I have written an essay, so I’m kind of being a bit easy on myself! And feel free to leave comments and feedback (but please, do be kind!). And if you have counterpoints or feel inspired, you can also send guest reviews and features to us for the website.
So, Dracula. Bram Stoker’s novel was published in 1897, told through letters, diaries and articles. It is, truly, a fascinating read, and has engaged readers and scholars alike since publication. In 2015, Dracula was named the most portrayed literary character by the Guinness Book of World Records, and he’s appeared on screens for over a hundred years at this point. Even prior to screen, Dracula was on stage, and there are numerous books that feature him as a character or are based off the novel itself. Nosferatu (1922) portrays ‘Count Orlok’ as a monstrous creature, similar to the book’s description, but Browning’s 1931 Dracula gives us the elegant gentleman figure that has become so entwined with Dracula’s mythos. This is the version that’s inspired almost every other, including the 1992 film Bram Stoker’s Dracula to Hotel Transylvania’s more family man, comedic character.
There are various changes in Browning’s version of Dracula, with Jonathan Harker pushed to the sidelines, characters dropped or their roles completely changed, and Renfield more prominent. These changes aren’t overly impactful on Dracula as a whole, but the portrayal by Béla Lugosi stands out as an early, iconic version of the character. Since then, vampires have been portrayed as antagonists, protagonists, love interests and more, and the variety persists even within Dracula himself.
But what is it about the character that draws us so much to him? Or vampires as a whole. Whether it’s loose reimaginings like Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot, or the character featuring as a major antagonist in Gwendolyn Kiste’s Reluctant Immortals, Dracula remains compelling. Like most of horror’s monstrous creatures, vampires usually represent something. They’re predators, mirrors to humanity, the allure of death, a stand-in for disease or corruption. The original Dracula from Stoker’s novel is a foreigner; in A Vampire in the Mirror: The Sexuality of Dracula, John Allen Stevenson positions Dracula as an outsider who the men must rescue their women from. Carol A. Senf explores the role of women in the article "Dracula": Stoker's Response to the New Woman, in which she notes “Stoker seems to ally himself and his heroine with a more traditional kind of woman”. It’s hard to ignore the treatment of Lucy vs Mina, where Lucy has three different men interested in her, and Mina is engaged to Jonathan. Neither are, however, protected from the ‘outside influence’, but Mina is shown to be smart and capable, and survives where Lucy doesn’t.
These aspects are stripped down in Browning’s film – we don’t see any love interests for Lucy, and Mina is the daughter of Dr Seward, with no appearance from Morris and Arthur. We lose the fight for Lucy’s life (and, arguably, her soul), with the focus instead shifted more fully to Mina.
So, Dracula – does he endure because he’s an aspect of the patriarchy societies can’t seem to let go of? This fear of the ‘outsider’, taking resources – including women – away from the dominant society, from the men who see women as ‘theirs’. This representation, of course, isn’t always there, and where it is it can also be flipped, with Mina and Lucy able to take a more active role and rescue themselves, rather than relying on the men. Browning’s Dracula is more than just an outsider, however. He’s polite, a gentleman, and certainty seems to sway Mina and Lucy prior to supernatural intervention. He offers them something they can’t seem to get from the men around them.
And this is another fascinating aspect to Dracula, and vampires as a whole. Lucy dies, yes, but she lives on, becoming the ‘Bloofer Lady’ who attacks children near her tomb. If she had lived, the free-spirited Lucy would be married and have children, facing all the risks that come with that and likely confined to the home as a wife and mother. In death, she is able to reproduce safely (for her – not for the children involved), and still be admired. Does Lucy go after children because it is easier, because they are more vulnerable, or is she drawn to the children in a way that reveals a flaw in Stoker’s writing – women will, inevitably, end up as mothers?
Interestingly, the vampires in the novel and Browning’s film become single-minded, almost like addicts, seeking out only their next ‘hit’, the next source of blood. In Lugosi’s Dracula, we don’t see someone enthralled with either Lucy or Mina because he is drawn to them as people, we see him move from Lucy to Mina simply because he’s already had his ‘fill’. He doesn’t care for Lucy, doesn’t protect his fledgling or educate her in how to be a vampire, as we see in later vampires. His ‘wives’ wait back at his castle, and even his ‘corruption’ of Renfield is little more than a means to an end. Dracula uses these people, drawing them to him then discarding them as soon as he can.
Yet, he’s charming. He comes across as gentlemanly, offering an alternative life to the ones Mina and Lucy are expected to follow. I think, at its core, it’s the versatility of the vampire – and of Dracula himself – that explains why we are still semi-obsessed with vampires, all these years later. The modern pop culture image we have of the vampire is a combination of folklore, Stoker’s writing and later portrayals of his book on screen, with contributions from later authors all combining to result in the sexy, seductive vampire we’re more used to today.
And though that seductive vampire started in Stoker’s book, it’s Lugosi’s portrayal in Browning’s film that really contributed to that side of it, giving audiences the strong visuals that carry through today. Dracula may have initially been written as a representative of outside threats (arguably, specifically against women) but throughout the 128 years since the book was published, he’s gone through so many portrayals and transformations, he takes on a new meaning with almost every iteration.
By Elle Turpitt
Twitter: @elleturpitt
Bluesky: @elleturpitt.bsky.social
