One of the stranger dreams I have is to write a book/do a travel vlog series documenting vampire-related cultural tourism around the world. Many of these sites relate to Bram Stoker’s Dracula (from Poenari Castle, home of Vlad the Impaler, to Whitby, where Dracula first landed on English soil), while others are tied to the folklore of the vampire and … Read More
Dracula, Riddled Vampires & Baby Eating
If you’ve been watching NBC’s interesting if inconsistent adaptation of Dracula, loosely based on the novel (and I do mean loosely in the strongest possible way), you will have once again seen an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s oft-imitated classic that turns the relationship between the Count and Mina Murray into one of romance. It’s a favoured trope amongst those who reimagine the tale, although it would be preferable for further adaptations to make the story as gloriously queer as NBC have, because, among other reasons, there’s an evident appeal to the idea of a soulless villain who is redeemed by love.
That doesn’t happen in the book, of course. The overriding metaphor of vampirism as a stand-in for rape and disease does leave the mood a little less romantic.