THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT: BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, CANDYMAN
For as long as we've been around on the planet, there have probably been stories designed to scare us. Sometimes, it's simply as a cautionary tale ("If you don't do your homework, the boogie man will come get you"). Other times, it's designed as catharsis - getting scared to forget about the everyday troubles. Still others intend to reach your imagination. Then there are the legends that have passed on from generation to generation. Vampires, probably the oldest of these legends, get the straight gothic treatment in Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, and the comic treatment in Fran Rubel Kuzui's BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, while Bernard Rose's CANDYMAN deals with an urban legend of a monster. All of them work with varying degrees of effectiveness.
Stoker's novel in 1897 was the only one of his that became successful, but along with Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," it has been the most popular of horror novels. Unlike the Frankenstein monster, which deals with the limits of science, vampires tap into the mystical (after all, it presupposes that humans become vampires when they drink blood). Stoker's novel has been filmed many times before, the most famous being F.W. Murnau's NOSFERATU (1922), and Tod Browning's 1931 version. Now Coppola and writer James V. Hart come along with their version, claiming to be the most faithful. While in some senses that's true, mostly it cobbles together a number of things. Despite the smorsgabord approach, and some other flaws, this brings to mind Coppola's APOCALYPSE NOW; an folly, to be sure, but an epic and brave one.
Coppola and Hart start off with the legend of Vlad the Impaler (Gary Oldman). A soldier in the Crusades, Vlad fought tirelessly, and bloodily, for the church. In the film, he's also in love with Elisabeta (Winona Ryder), who also loves him. He then goes off to fight in a battle, and leads the Church to victory, but when he comes home, it's to discover that Elisabeta, who was misled by Vlad's enemies that he was killed, has jumped to her death. Because she killed herself, the church claims she's not fit to enter heaven, and in despair over her death and rage at the church, Vlad stabs the cross, which then bleeds. It's that type of movie.
Four centuries later, we then pick up the familiar story. Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) comes to Transylvania to close a land deal with Count Dracula (Oldman). Of course, when he gets there, he finds Dracula to be quite menacing, and more than a little interested in Harker's fiancee Mina (Ryder), a schoolteacher. Dracula then traps Harker and arranges to go to England. By night, he seduces Mina's friend Lucy (Sadie Frost), turning her into a vampire, much to the chagrin of Dr. Jack Seward (Richard E. Grant), one of three men wooing her (the others being Lord Holmwood (Cary Elwes) and Quincey Morris (Bill Campbell)), so he calls on his mentor, vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins) to help. Meanwhile, Dracula also tries to court Mina, whom he recognizes as being reincarnated as his lost love, and Mina is torn between Jonathan and her strange desire for Dracula.
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