Bram Stoker's Dracula was theatrically released in the United States on November 13, 1992. It received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for Coppola's direction, the production values, and Oldman's performance,[7][8] although Reeves' performance was very heavily criticized.[9][10][11] The film opened at the top of the box office, grossing $215.9 million against its $40 million budget, and was nominated in four categories at the65th Academy Awards, winningBest Costume Design forEiko Ishioka,Best Sound Editing, andBest Makeup, while also being nominated forBest Art Direction.
In 1462,Vlad Dracula returns from a victory inhis campaign against theOttoman Empire to find his beloved wife Elisabeta has committedsuicide after his enemies falsely reported his death. A priest of theRomanian Orthodox Church tells him that his wife's soul is damned toHell for committing suicide. Enraged, Vlad desecrates the chapel and renouncesGod, declaring he will rise from the grave to avenge Elisabeta with all the powers of darkness. He then drives his sword into the chapel's stone cross and drinks the blood that pours from it, becoming avampire.
In 1897,solicitorJonathan Harker takes theTransylvanianCount Dracula as a client from his colleagueR. M. Renfield, who has gone insane and is now an inmate in Dr.Jack Seward's asylum. Jonathan travels to Dracula's castle in Transylvania to arrange Dracula's real estate acquisitions inLondon. There, he meets Dracula, who finds a picture of his fiancéeMina Murray and believes she is the reincarnation of Elisabeta. Dracula leaves Jonathan to be fed upon byhis brides, while he sails to England with Transylvanian soil, taking up residence at Carfax Abbey, which he recently purchased.
In London, Dracula hypnotically seduces and bites Mina's best friendLucy Westenra, with whom Mina is staying while Jonathan is in Transylvania. Lucy's deteriorating health and behavioral changes prompt former suitorsQuincey Morris and Dr. Seward, along with her fiancéArthur Holmwood to summon Dr.Abraham Van Helsing, Seward's mentor, who recognizes Lucy as being the victim of a vampire. Dracula, appearing young and handsome during daylight, meets and charms Mina. Mina develops feelings for Dracula, accompanying him on several outings. When Mina receives word from Jonathan — who has escaped the castle and recovered at a convent—she travels to Romania to marry him. A heartbroken Dracula transforms Lucy into a vampire. Van Helsing, Holmwood, Seward, and Morris kill the undead Lucy the following night.
After he and Mina return to London, Jonathan and Van Helsing lead the others to Carfax Abbey, where they destroy the Count's boxes of soil. Dracula enters the asylum and kills Renfield for warning Mina of his presence. He visits Mina, who is staying in Seward's quarters, and confesses that he murdered Lucy and has been terrorizing Mina's friends. Though furious at first, Mina admits that she still loves him and remembers Elisabeta's previous life; at her insistence, Dracula begins transforming her into a vampire. The hunters burst into the bedroom, and Dracula claims Mina as his bride before escaping. As Mina changes, Van Helsing hypnotizes her and learns via her connection with Dracula that he is sailing home in his last remaining box. The hunters depart forVarna to intercept him, but Dracula reads Mina's mind and evades them. The hunters split up; Van Helsing and Mina travel to the Borgo Pass and the castle, while the others try to stop thegypsies transporting Dracula.
At night, Van Helsing and Mina are approached by Dracula's brides. Mina succumbs to their chanting and attempts to seduce Van Helsing. Before Mina can feed on his blood, Van Helsing places acommunion wafer on her forehead, leaving a mark that slows her transformation. He surrounds them with a ring of fire to protect them from the brides, then kills the brides the following morning. Dracula's carriage arrives at the castle, pursued by the hunters. A fight between the hunters and Romani ensues. Morris is fatally stabbed in the back and Dracula bursts from his coffin at sunset. Jonathan slits his throat with akukri knife while Morris stabs him in the heart with his knife. Van Helsing and Jonathan allow Mina to retreat with the Count while Morris dies in the arms of Seward, comforted by his friends.
In the chapel where he renounced God, Dracula lies dying. He and Mina share a kiss as the candles adorning the chapel light up and the cross repairs itself. Dracula reverts to his younger self and asks Mina to give him peace. Mina thrusts the knife through his heart and as he dies, the mark on her forehead disappears, freeing her from his curse. She then decapitates him and gazes up at a fresco of Vlad and Elisabeta ascending to heaven together, finally reunited.
In Stoker's original novel, the Count is described through various terms of otherness. His foreign image and customs are translated into the monstrous "Other", leading to an identity for the reader between the foreign and the monstrous. Dracula as a foreign "Other" is set as the marked term. The characters of Jonathan Harker and Mina Murray in the novel represent theBritish Empire, which provides the unmarked, or normal, perspective inDracula.[13] According to Deborah S. Wilson, "Dracula, produced at the apogee of Britain's Empire, projects anxious themes of invasion and colonization upon a foreign culture, embodied in Count Dracula himself. As the feudal lord of a mysterious Balkan country, Dracula himself is described in consistently orientalist terms, terms that stress his racial alterity in all but purely negative terms".[14] Coppola's film reflects the change in attitude toward the racial Other that occurs over roughly a century by the 1990s, as in the film the general story and plot remain the same with certain important details changed to reflect the difference in racial understanding: the emotional connection between Mina Murray and Dracula in the film stretches beyond the racial boundaries and allowing a genuineinterracial relationship to occur.[15] According to John Allen Stevenson, the threat of the racial "Other" was "the real horror of Dracula, for he is the ultimate social adulterer, whose purpose is nothing if it is not to turn good Englishwomen...like Mina away from their own kind and customs".[16] Meanwhile, in the film the interracial relationship between vampire (Dracula) and human (Mina) becomes permissible, culminating in the union of the human and the Other.[17]
Coppola's film makes a direct connection between Dracula's vampiric origin andoccultism/satanism. In the opening scene of the film, after learning that his wife committed suicide and is denied salvation, Dracula denies God and makes a deal with the dark forces. This is symbolically verified with Dracula plunging his sword into thecrucifix, which immediately starts to bleed excessive amounts of blood that Dracula drinks as a sign of "bloodpact" withthe Devil.[18]
Upon release,The New York Times'Frank Rich suggested that the film drew upon the prevalent fear ofHIV/AIDS in the 1990s, a disease transmissible via contact/transfer of blood. Coppola, according to Rich, gives to the viewers a movie that both frightens and arouses them by playing off their unchecked fear of the spread of AIDS as an invasion of the national bloodstream.[19]
Van Helsing comments to his medical students that civilization and "syphilization" advanced together; this is viewed as much as a commentary on Coppola's times—during the spread of HIV/AIDS—as it was on Stoker's (who may have died of syphilis, as speculated in some biographies of Stoker).[20]
Winona Ryder initially broughtJames V. Hart's screenplay to the attention ofFrancis Ford Coppola.[21] The director had agreed to meet with her so the two could clear the air after her late withdrawal fromThe Godfather Part III caused production delays on that film and led her to believe Coppola disliked her.[22] According to Ryder: "I never really thought he would read it. He was so consumed withGodfather III. As I was leaving, I said, 'If you have a chance, read this script.' He glanced down at it politely, but when he saw the word Dracula, his eyes lit up. It was one of his favorite stories from camp."[23] Ryder also explained that "what attracted me to the script is the fact that it's a very emotional love story, which is not really what you think of when you think about Dracula. Mina, like many women in the late 1800s, has a lot of repressed sexuality. Everything about women in that era, the way those corsets forced them to move, was indicative of repression. To express passion was freakish".[23] Coppola was also attracted to the sensual elements of the screenplay and said that he wanted portions of the picture to resemble an "erotic dream".[24] To prepare forBram Stoker's Dracula, as the movie would be called, Coppola screenedCitizen Kane,Ivan the Terrible, andChimes at Midnight.[25] In the months leading up to its release, Hollywood insiders who had seen the movie felt Coppola's film was too odd, violent, and strange to succeed at the box office, and dubbed it "Bonfire of the Vampires" after the notorious 1990box-office bombThe Bonfire of the Vanities.[24][26]
Gary Oldman has stated that he never consideredCount Dracula to be a "bucket list" role for him. Regarding the main reason he agreed to the role: "It was an opportunity to work with Coppola, who I consider one of the great American directors. That was enough, really. It was my first big American movie, made on a big set with lots of costumes. For a young actor, that was a tremendous experience."[27] Another reason why Oldman wanted to play Dracula was because he wanted to say: "I've crossed oceans of time to find you" and to him it was worth playing the role just to say that line.[28]
Christian Slater was offered the role of Jonathan Harker, but he turned it down; a decision he later regretted.[29] As for castingKeanu Reeves in the role, Coppola said of his casting choice: "We tried to get some kind ofmatinée idol for the part of Jonathan, because it isn't such a great part. If we all were to go to the airport [...] Keanu is the one that the girls would just besiege."[24] Coppola has stated that Reeves worked harder on his accent than most people realized: "He tried so hard. That was the problem, actually—he wanted to do it perfectly and in trying to do it perfectly it came off as stilted. I tried to get him to just relax with it and not do it so fastidiously. So maybe I wasn't as critical of him, but that's because I like him personally so much. To this day he's a prince in my eyes."[30]
Dracula's armor on display at Coppola's winery in California
Coppola chose to invest a significant amount of the budget in costumes in order to showcase the actors, whom he considered the "jewels" of the feature.[22][24] The film itself was built on the stylistic premise that the costumes were of greater importance to the film's execution than the sets. Due to this, designerEiko Ishioka was given immense freedom to design not only Dracula's clothes but also his personae. Ishioka decided that Dracula would be "male and female, old and young, ugly and handsome, animal and human."[31]
Coppola had a team of artists—veteran production artistMentor Huebner,[32] futureDreamWorks Animation veteranPeter Ramsey,[33] and futureHellboy creatorMike Mignola[34]—storyboard the entire film in advance to carefully illustrate each planned shot. This process created around a thousand images.[22] He turned the drawings into a choppy animated film—ananimatic—with added music, and spliced in scenes from the French version ofBeauty and the Beast thatJean Cocteau directed in 1946 along with paintings byGustav Klimt and other symbolist artists.[22] He showed the animated film to his designers to give them an idea of the mood and theme he was aiming for. Coppola also asked the set costume designers to simply bring him designs which were "weird"."'Weird' became a code word for 'Let's not do formula'", he later recalled."'Give me something that either comes from the research or that comes from your own nightmares.' I gave them paintings, and I gave them drawings, and I talked to them about how I thought the imagery could work."[22]
The film's hair and makeup designer,Michèle Burke, recalls: "Francis didn't want the typical Dracula that had already been done in Hollywood. He wanted something different; a new Dracula without the widow's peak, cape, or pale-white skin." Burke says she used her Catholic upbringing and angelic imagery for design inspiration, as well as the 19th-century attire created by costume designer Eiko Ishioka.[35]
Because Dracula's scenes did not start filming until very late into the production, Oldman had plenty of downtime to come up with additional ideas for his character. According to Coppola, "He'd [Oldman] get together with the makeup designerGreg Cannom and, before I knew it, we were going to have not just one monster but five monsters in the film."[31] For Oldman, the makeup required for the role was taxing: for the elderly Dracula, he spent nearly seven hours in the makeup chair, then after ten hours on the set, spent another hour-and-a-half having it removed.[36]
Due to delays and cost overruns on some of Coppola's previous projects such asApocalypse Now andOne from the Heart, Coppola was determined to completeBram Stoker's Dracula on time and on budget. To accomplish this, he filmed on sound stages to avoid potential troubles caused by inclement weather.[22][24]
While preparing to play Dracula, Oldman took lessons with a singing teacher in order to drive his voice one octave lower.[31] Coppola brought his principal actors to his seventeen-hundred-acre Napa Valley winery and estate for improvisations and exercises. The actors read the novel aloud, went through the script, and sat down for communal dinners. The idea was to break down barriers and establish relationships that would translate to the film. The summer-camp atmosphere extended to all the principal actors except Oldman. The director instructed Elwes, Campbell, and Grant to go horseback-riding and hot-air ballooning together, getting to know each other and their characters better, and sent Ryder and Frost off to do things together, while Oldman was kept isolated from the cast;[37] this extended to living arrangements throughout filming, with all the vampire hunters living on one property and Oldman living on another. The rest of the cast met Oldman for the first time on set during rehearsals, after which they would not see him again until filming.[38]
Coppola brought in acting coach Greta Seacat to coach Frost and Ryder for their erotic scenes, as he felt uncomfortable discussing sexuality with the young actresses.[22] However, he did ask Oldman to speak seductively off camera to Frost while they were filming a scene in which she writhed alone in her bed in ecstasy.[39] She later classified the things Oldman said to her as "very unrepeatable".[39][22][40] Winona Ryder found the intensity of Oldman's acting style too much at times; the two fell out early in the filming process and had difficulty working together from then on. Coppola stated, "they got along and then one day they didn't—absolutely didn't get along. None of us were privy to what had happened."[39] Ryder has referred to the "trauma" of the experience and said that she "felt there was a danger" while working with Oldman.[41] However, she has also referred to her friction with Oldman as "teen drama", stating, "He [Gary] was going through a divorce, and I think I can say this because he's pretty open about it, but he's been sober for a long time now, and he's raised three kids, and he's a dream. He's a good friend of mine now".[42]
In 2020, Ryder also stated that Reeves and Hopkins once refused Coppola's direction to verbally abuse her to make her cry during a scene that required an emotional reaction.[43][44][45] However, Coppola denied this and described the situation as him instructing Oldman—in character—to whisper improvised words both to her and other actors on set to scare them. Ryder agreed with Coppola, and a spokesperson for Ryder stated that "He asked the actors in character to say horrible things to Winona as a technique to help her cry for the scene. Although that technique didn't work for her, she loves and respects him and considers it a great privilege to have worked with him."[46]
Coppola was insistent that he did not want to use any kind of contemporary special effects techniques such ascomputer-generated imagery when making the movie, instead wishing to use antiquated effects techniques from the early history of cinema, which he felt would be more appropriate given that the film's period setting coincides with theorigin of film. He initially hired a standard visual effects team, but when they told him that the things he wanted to achieve were impossible without using modern digital technology, Coppola disagreed and fired them, replacing them with his sonRoman Coppola. As a result, all of the visual effects seen in the film were achieved without the use ofoptical or computer-generated effects, instead usingon-set andin-camera methods. For example, any sequences that would have typically required the use ofcompositing were instead achieved by eitherrear projection with actors placed in front of a screen with an image projected behind them, or throughmultiple exposure by shooting a background slate then rewinding the film through the camera and shooting the foreground slate on the same piece of film, all the while usingmatting techniques to ensure that only the desired areas of film were exposed.Forced perspectives were often employed to combineminiature effects ormatte paintings with full-sized elements, or create distorted views of reality, such as holding the camera upside down or at odd angles to create the effect of objects defying the laws of physics.[47] When filming Dracula'sPOV, Roman took individual images with his camera in an erratic way, sometimes only a few random frames per second, and then sudden bursts of several frames per second. For Lucy's movements, she did her performance backwards, and the film then processed in reverse.[48]
OnRotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 69% based on 124 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Overblown in the best sense of the word, Francis Ford Coppola's vision of Bram Stoker'sDracula rescues the character from decades of campy interpretations—and features some terrific performances to boot."[49]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 57 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[50] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.[51]
Vincent Canby described the film as having been created with the "enthusiasm of a precocious film student who has magically acquired a master's command of his craft."[52]Richard Corliss said, "Coppola brings the old spook story alive [...] Everyone knows that Dracula has a heart; Coppola knows that it is more than an organ to drive a stake into. To the director, the count is arestless spirit who has been condemned for too many years to interment in cruddy movies. This luscious film restores the creature's nobility and gives him peace."[53] Alan Jones inRadio Times said, "Eerie, romantic and operatic, this exquisitely mounted revamp of the undead legend is a supreme artistic achievement [...] as the tired count who has overdosed on immortality, Gary Oldman's towering performance holds centre stage and burns itself into the memory."[54]
Roger Ebert awarded the film 3 out of 4 stars, writing, "I enjoyed the movie simply for the way it looked and felt. Production designersDante Ferretti and Thomas Sanders have outdone themselves. The cinematographer,Michael Ballhaus, gets into the spirit so completely he always seems to light with shadows." Ebert did, however, voice criticisms over the film's "narrative confusions and dead ends".[55]Jonathan Rosenbaum said the film suffered from a "somewhat dispersed and overcrowded story line" but that it "remains fascinating and often affecting thanks to all its visual and conceptual energy."[56]Kenneth Turan of theLos Angeles Times called the film "not particularly scary, not very sexy and dramatically over the top", criticizing the tone and several of the casting decisions.[57]Tom Hibbert ofEmpire was unimpressed. Awarding the film 2 out of 5 stars, he said, "Has a film ever promised so much yet delivered so little? [...] all we're left with is an overly long bloated adaptation, instead of what might have been a gothic masterpiece."[58]Geoffrey O'Brien ofThe New York Review of Books also had reservations: "[T]he romantic make-over ofDracula registers as little more than a marketing device designed to exploit the attractiveness of the movie's youthful cast [...] [it] rolls on a patina of the 'feel-good' uplift endemic in recent Hollywood movies."[59]
Empire's Tom Hibbert criticized Keanu Reeves's casting[58] and was not the only critic to consider the resultant performance to be weak. In a career retrospective compiled byEntertainment Weekly, Reeves was described as having been "out of his depth" and "frequently blasted off the screen by Gary Oldman".[60]Total Film writer Nathan Ditum included Reeves in his 2010 countdown of "The 29 Worst Movie Miscastings", describing him as "a dreary, milky nothing [...] a black hole of sex and drama".[61] Josh Winning, also ofTotal Film, said that Reeves's work spoiled the movie. He mentioned it in a 2011 list of the "50 Performances That Ruined Movies", and wrote: "You can visibly see Keanu attempting not to end every one of his lines with 'dude'. The result? A performance that looks like the young actor's perpetually constipated. Painful for all parties."[62] A feature byAskMen, called "Acting Miscasts That Ruined Movies", expressed a similar sentiment: "It's one thing to cast Keanu Reeves as an esteemed British lawyer, but it's quite another to ask him to act alongside Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins. The twoOscar nominees ran circles around the poorCanuck, exposing his lack of range, shoddy accent and abysmal instincts for all to see."[63]
Reeves's attempt at London vernacular has been cited as one of the worst accents, if not the worst, in the history of recorded film.[64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71]Virgin Media journalist Limara Salt, in listing the "Top 10 worst movie accents", wrote: "Keanu Reeves is consistently terrible at delivering any accent apart from Californian surfer dude but it's his English effort inDracula that tops the lot. Overly posh and entirely ridiculous, Reeves's performance is as painful as it is hilarious."[69] Salt said that Winona Ryder is "equally rubbish",[69] an opinion echoed by Glen Levy inTime.[68] In his "Top 10 Worst Fake British Accents", he said that both actors "come up short in the accent (and, some might argue, acting) department", and that their London dialect made for "a literal horror show".[68] Conversely, Marc Savlov, writing forThe Austin Chronicle, opined that Ryder was more impressive than Reeves and suited the role: "Ryder, seemingly the perfect choice for Dracula's obscure object of desire, Mina Harker, is better by far than Reeves".[72]
Bram Stoker's Dracula opened atnumber one at the US box office with a November record of $30,521,679, beatingBack to the Future Part II.[73][74][75] This record was quickly surpassed byHome Alone 2: Lost in New York.[76] The film dropped off in subsequent weeks, losing 50.8% of its audience after its first weekend in release[77] and exiting the top five after three weeks. It became a box-office hit, grossing $82,522,790 in the United States and Canada, becoming the 15th-highest-grossing film of the year.[78] The film set an opening weekend record in the United Kingdom of $4 million, beating the record set byBatman Returns.[79][80] It also held the record for having the biggest opening weekend for an18 certificate film until 1997 whenAlien Resurrection surpassed it.[81] Internationally, the film grossed another $133,339,902 for a total worldwide gross of $215,862,692,[82] making it the ninth-highest-grossing film of the year worldwide.[83]
As of 2023, adjusted for inflation,Bram Stoker's Dracula's box office is $473.5 million, making it one of the highest-grossing vampire movies of all time.[84]
In 2018, the soundtrack had a 3-CD set Limited Edition re-release: Disc One and Two of this re-issue presented the premiere of Kilar's "composed score", his music as originally written for the film. Disc Two also featured a bounty of alternate bonus cues from this material. Disc Three showcases the original 1992 album assembly, remastered, with additional bonus tracks.[92]
In 1993, the film received both a standardVHS release and a limited edition VHS release, the latter being a box set in the shape of a coffin. The limited edition release contained the film on VHS, which included a behind-the-scenesdocumentary, and the originalDraculanovel by Bram Stoker inpaperback. Grey,gothic statue heads (as seen on the original film poster) adorned the front cover of the book against a gray stone background. That same year, theCriterion Collection released a special editionLaserDisc of the film.[citation needed]
Dracula was first released toDVD in 1999[93] and again as aSuperbit DVD in 2001.[94] The DVD included several extra features: filmographies, the original theatrical trailer, a documentary (Dracula: The Man, The Myth, The Legend), costume designs and DVD trailers. The Superbit version did not contain any extra features.[95]
A two-disc Collector's Edition DVD[96] andBlu-ray[97] was released in 2007. Special features include an introduction andaudio commentary by director Francis Ford Coppola,deleted and extended scenes, teaser and full-lengthtrailers, and the documentaries "The Blood Is the Life: The Making ofDracula", "The Costumes Are the Sets: The Design of Eiko Ishioka", "In Camera: The Naïve Visual Effects ofDracula", and "Method and Madness: VisualizingDracula".
A 4K release was put out in 2017, sourced from a new scan of the original negatives.[citation needed]
In 2021,Funko Pop vinyl figures from the film were announced for release: Van Helsing and three different versions of Dracula (in his old form, his young form in gray suit and top hat, and as Vlad Tepes in red armor).[105] Thus, the film became the third live-action adaptation of Dracula that got Funko POPs (previous ones were Nosferatu, based onthe 1922 film,[106] and Dracula, based onthe 1931 film).[107]
The film had a considerable effect on popular culture and vampire representation in media. Costume design byEiko Ishioka created a new image for the Count and for the first time freed him from the black cape and evening wear the character had become associated with sinceBela Lugosi'sportrayal in 1931.[108] The film was also a landmark in vampire horror as it is the onlyDracula adaptation to win Oscars.[109]
The film is seen as a game changer by many critics, which established a tone and style that redefined cinematic vampires. It created a host of new vampire filmtropes, like retractable fangs, vampires turning into literal bat-men, and asteampunk aesthetic.[110]Bram Stoker's Dracula is significant in the way thatThe Exorcist andThe Shining were significant, in showing that a horror story can be worthy of an A-list cast and production values, and that a truly imaginative filmmaker can take even a story as hoary as Dracula and give it a new luster.[110]
Coppola's film began a cycle of prestige monster movies with big stars and name directors, as well as high production values and lavish costumes:Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) directed byKenneth Branagh and starringRobert De Niro as Frankenstein's Monster,Wolf (1994) directed byMike Nichols and starringJack Nicholson as a werewolf, andMary Reilly (1996) directed byStephen Frears and starringJohn Malkovich as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde andJulia Roberts as a maid who develops a crush on the mad doctor and his crooked other self.[111][112] Coppola's film also influenced the next major vampire movie/literary adaptation: in 1994Interview with the Vampire directed byNeil Jordan was released starringTom Cruise asLestat de Lioncourt,Brad Pitt asLouis andKirsten Dunst as Claudia. According to Jordan: "Up to that point, Francis Ford Coppola withBram Stoker's Dracula, he introduced opulence and theatricality. Normally, before that one, I always thought of vampire movies as cheap, cobbled together, brilliant use of minimal resources. Francis made it this epic, didn't he? So when I was given the opportunity to makeInterview with the Vampire, I thought, 'Oh, it would be really great to expand on that epic sense of darkness and to give these characters huge, kind of romantic destinies and longings and feelings.'"[113]
The film was included inEntertainment Weekly's "5 best vampire movies",[114]Esquire's "20 Best Vampire Movies"[115] and "Sexiest Horror Movies Ever Made",[116]IndieWire's "The 100 Best Horror Movies of All Time"[117] and "The 12 Best Vampire Movies Ever Made".[118] Oldman's Dracula featured inForbes's list of "Hollywood's Most Powerful Vampires",[119] as well asThe Guardian's "10 best screen vampires".[120] He also was ranked as best version of Dracula byScreen Rant.[121] In honor ofSyfy's 25th anniversary in 2017, the channel compiled "25 greatest" lists celebrating the last 25 years of all science fiction, fantasy, and horror: Oldman's Dracula was included in "The 25 Greatest Movie Performances from the Last 25 years".[122]
The Action-Adventure gothic horror video game seriesCastlevania (Castlevania first released in 1986 with itsfirst video game, 6 years before the movie), resembles the film in several parts. In the gameLament of Innocence (2003)—the origins of the series' premise—Mathias Cronqvist, the man who would be Dracula after the death of his wife, Elisabetha, sought vengeance against God for her death and turned into a vampire, betrayingLeon Belmont in the process and igniting the centuries-old war between the Belmonts and Count Dracula.[123] In the gameSymphony of the Night (1997) [the plot of the game chronologically takes places much later than inLament of Innocence in 1797] appeared another character, Lisa, second wife of Dracula and mother of his son Alucard. Lisa is killed in the year 1475, accused of being a witch. This kickstarts the events ofCastlevania III: Dracula's Curse, released in 1989, a year later. She was killed and her death sent Dracula into rage and bloody revenge against humanity. Lisa is the spitting image of Elisabetha Cronqvist, her name is also the short form of the name Elisabetha.[124]
Japanese manga and anime seriesHellsing resembles the film: the backstory of Alucard (Count Dracula turned vampire slayer in the Hellsing's Universe) in manga includes him sailing to England in search of his love reborn and also makes the direct connection in anime between Alucard (Count Dracula) and Vlad the Impaler.[128][129]
InAnno Dracula, an alternative history novel series byKim Newman, where Count Dracula won and spread vampirism across the world—inDracula Cha Cha Cha, Count Dracula's first wife is mentioned as "Elisabeta of Transylvania";[130] the name was taken from this film version (Vlad the Impaler's first wife's name is unknown historically).[131]
Vampires: The World of the Undead (original title:Sang pour sang, le réveil des vampires, 1993), a nonfiction book by French vampire myth specialistJean Marigny, is a reaction to Coppola'sDracula, published byÉditions Gallimard.[132] After the film, media coverage around vampires was in full swing, and Gallimard, for their "Découvertes" collection, was looking for an author to write a book about vampires. After a few weeks of intensive work, the book came out in 1993 to match the release of the film in France.[133]
The score forThe Wolfman (2010) has similarity toWojciech Kilar’s 1992 score for the film. In interviewsDanny Elfman admitted that he was inspired by the Kilar’s music, and was attempting to recapture the sense of romantic classicism and lush horror thatFrancis Ford Coppola ’s film contained.[134]
What We Do in the Shadows (2014) heavily references this film.Jemaine Clement based his performance as Vladislav onGary Oldman's portrayal.[135][136][137]What We Do in the Shadows (2019) has a vampire character Baron Afanas (played byDoug Jones), who is also partly inspired by Oldman's Dracula.[138] The TV series also has a plotline where vampire Nadja meets a reincarnation of her past lover and says she crossed oceans of time to be with him.[139]
Mexican film directorGuillermo del Toro had props from this film as part of hisAt Home With Monsters public exhibition, including the red Dracula helmet from the prologue of the film. The exhibition toured US and Canada.[140][141]
Jessica Chastain said that she incorporated some inspiration from her younger days into her acting (and wardrobe) as Lucille Sharpe in gothic romance filmCrimson Peak (2015): "My friend and I usedDracula as our reference—the one with Gary Oldman; we were Winona Ryder andSadie Frost, she wore black lipstick and I wore a black-red lip color, like dried blood almost."[142]
Stranger Things season two episode "Chapter Two: Trick or Treat, Freak" (2017) has a scene where Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) celebrates Halloween with her boyfriend Bob Newby (Sean Astin) dressed as Dracula; the couple share a dance together as an homage to the film.[143][144]
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) directed byTim Burton introduced the similar character dynamics for the characters of Betelgeuse, Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) and Delores (Monica Bellucci) to the dynamics Oldman's Dracula, Ryder's Mina and Bellucci's bride had in the movie. Much like inBram Stoker's Dracula, Ryder's Lydia is the mortal woman whom the horror movie's supernatural and deceased villain Betelgeuse is obsessed with, and even keeps her photo as a token of his obsession. Likewise, both Bellucci's undead soul-sucker Betelgeuse's ex-wife Delores and Dracula's vampire bride are already the dead wife/bride of the main villain, with the villain not caring about her, but caring about the human woman. At the end of the movie Lydia (seemingly) even takes her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) on a trip to Dracula's Castle in Romania, where Astrid takes a liking to a Dracula-performer-employee called "Vlad".[146][147]
^"1993 Hugo Awards". World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon). July 26, 2007.Archived from the original on August 15, 2009. RetrievedAugust 29, 2023.
^Greene, Christian Blauvelt, Kate Erbland, Eric Kohn, Anne Thompson, David Ehrlich, Jamie Righetti, Michael Nordine, Chris O'Falt, Tambay Obenson, Steve; Blauvelt, Christian; Erbland, Kate; Kohn, Eric; Thompson, Anne; Ehrlich, David; Righetti, Jamie; Nordine, Michael; O'Falt, Chris; Obenson, Tambay; Greene, Steve (October 9, 2019)."The 100 Greatest Horror Movies of All-Time".Archived from the original on June 3, 2020. RetrievedMay 16, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Blauvelt, Ryan Lattanzio, Jude Dry, Eric Kohn, Chris O'Falt, Zack Sharf, Tambay Obenson, Christian; Lattanzio, Ryan; Dry, Jude; Kohn, Eric; O'Falt, Chris; Sharf, Zack; Obenson, Tambay; Blauvelt, Christian (October 11, 2019)."The 12 Best Vampire Movies Ever Made".Archived from the original on October 12, 2019. RetrievedOctober 12, 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Hache-Bissette, Françoise (2002)."Découvertes Gallimard ou la culture encyclopédique à la française : Une encyclopédie en quatre cent quinze volumes".Histoire des industries culturelles en France, XIXe–XXe siècles : actes du colloque en Sorbonne, décembre 2001 (in French). Paris: Association pour le développement de l'histoire économique. pp. 111–124.ISBN9782912912152.Archived from the original on August 16, 2019. RetrievedNovember 24, 2020.[...] une grande réactivité par rapport à l'actualité, par exemple : [...]Sang pour sang, le réveil des vampires (nº 161) pour la sortie du filmDracula de Coppola en 1992 [...]
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