FAQ

They were hypnotized by Dracula

His name is Berserker -- in the book, the zookeeper describes him as a very sweet wolf.

English lawyer Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) is sent to Transylvania to arrange for the purchase of several London properties for Count Dracula (Gary Oldman), not knowing that Dracula is actually a vampire. While there, he is imprisoned and left for dead when Dracula sets sail to England with a photo of Harker's fiancee, Mina Murray (Winona Ryder), whom he believes to be the reincarnation of his lost love Elisabeta. While wooing Mina, Dracula drains the blood of Mina's best friend, Lucy Westenra (Sadie Frost), causing her fiance Lord Arthur Holmwood (Cary Elwes) and his friends—Doctor Jack Seward (Richard E. Grant) and Texan Quincy P. Morris (Billy Campbell)—to arrange for an eccentric metaphysician-philosopher, Professor Abraham Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins), to come from Amsterdam in order to save Lucy and destroy the vampire.

Dracula is based on Bram Stoker's 1897 novel of the same name. The novel was adapted for this movie by American screenwriter James V. Hart. Stoker's novel has provided the basis for numerous movies about Dracula, including (but not limited to) Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922), Dracula (1931), Horror of Dracula (1958), Count Dracula (1977), and Dracula (1979).

Although the movie was advertised as "Bram Stoker's Dracula," it takes more than a few liberties with the book and adds a lot of ideas that are not in the novel at all. Most of the back story involving Dracula's origin was invented for the script, including the idea that Mina is the reincarnation of Dracula's lost love, Elisabeta. None of the romantic scenes between Mina and Dracula appeared in the book either, such as when they meet outside the movie house and when they drink absinthe together. Mina was never intended to be Dracula's love interest; she was madly in love with Jonathan Harker. However, the film does restore certain elements of the novel that are usually left out of Dracula films, such as the idea that the Count can move about in daylight and the chase along the Borgo Pass at the end of the novel. One of the biggest differences between the original novel and this movie is that the movie equates the vampire Dracula with the Wallachian voivode, Vlad Țepeș (Vlad the Impaler) [1431-1476], a connection which is tenuous at best in that Stoker's own writing notes show that the only thing Stoker knew about Țepeș "the Impaler" was his name "Dracula" (meaning "son of the devil "or "son of the dragon"), which Stoker liked enough to use for his fictional character. Until Stoker decided on using the name "Dracula," he originally intended his vampire to be named "Count Wampyr". In addition, Dracula was not at all a sympathetic character. He was the villain, and Mina never drank Dracula's blood willingly. In fact, she resisted with all her might and only yielded when Dracula threatened to kill Jonathan, who was in an unconscious stupor nearby.

As all myths of this nature are confabulations of ideas that accumulate with successive tellings and interpretations, there is of course no "true" version. Dracula crosses the water in several films while in his coffin and flies over water in other films, so at least in the movie, Dracula has no problem with this. The original legend was that witches could not cross water; some tales subsequently extended it to apply to vampires as well.

The idea of vampires being destroyed by sunlight is something that was invented by motion pictures, specifically Nosferatu (1922). It is not part of vampire folklore at all, and Bram Stoker's novel Dracula actually features at least one scene where the Count is seen in daylight hours. Original vampire lore said that vampires only became powerful after sundown; during the day, they would appear as normal people, when at night they would gain the supernatural abilities that were attributed to them. They were required to return to their graves or coffins filled with earth from their burial place, but this did not mean that they couldn't move about during the daylight hours if they had a reason for doing so. This film stays true to the original novel as far as that detail is concerned. However, authors typically will alter traditions and myths for their own craft, e.g. vampires burning in the daylight is a characteristic of authors such as Anne Rice.

The movie version depicts that Dracula, while human, fought the Turkish invaders, not simply as a prince of Wallachia, but rather as more of a true Christian knight. He succeeds, but the exaggerated rumor of his death reaches his beloved Elisabeta, who throws herself to her death from the castle walls. As a suicide, she cannot be buried on consecrated ground, and an outraged Vlad renounces God and is somehow transmorphs into a vampire as a result of his blasphemy. This explanation, however, was added by Francis Ford Coppola and is not part of Stoker's legend. In the novel, Stoker never explicitly explains how Dracula became a vampire. However, he hints at Dracula's bloodthirsty life and also refers briefly to Dracula studying black magic at the Scholomance, a mythical school that taught the "secrets of the Devil". Various versions of vampire folklore hold that people who are violent and bloodthirsty in life, or witches and wizards, become vampires after death.

It is near sundown. The gypsy wagon bearing Dracula in his earthbox approaches the castle. Jonathan, Arthur, Quincey, and Jack are riding hard to catch up. Mina and Van Helsing wait inside the castle courtyard. Mina calls up a blue flame to protect Dracula. As the gypsy wagon enters the courtyard, a gypsy stabs Quincey in the back. Jonathan attempts to open Dracula's earthbox, but the sun has set and Dracula rises. At that very moment, however, Jonathan slits Dracula's neck and Quincey stabs Dracula through the heart with a sword. Mina screams. As Arthur races forward to finish Dracula, Harker stops him. "Let them go," he says, "Our work is finished here; hers is just begun." As Quincey dies, Mina sits with Dracula on the chapel floor inside the castle. She kisses him, and he begs her to give him peace. Then, out of love, she pushes the sword the rest of the way through Dracula's heart. The burn on her forehead disappears, Dracula dies, and Mina releases him by cutting off his head.

Workprints are sometimes quite interesting, because one can see the differences between the unfinished product and the completed movie. Often scenes got cut out for the final version and Dracula is no exception.