The Batman vs. Dracula
dir. Michael Goguen (Warner Bros., 2005)
Beyond the outrageous title lurks a half-decent concept (Batman imagery as an offshoot of the vampire legend), undone by some truly indigestible dialogue and Bruce Wayne’s ludicrously troll-like physique. This is dark Batman done in a cartoon fashion, which doesn’t quite work.
Dracula
(NBC, 2013-2014)
Victorian London comes to life in a Dracula re-imagining full of dark intrigue, rising nemesis and rather too much gore; also high production values and an unimpeachable cast (though some viewers may find Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ huskiness a bit much to take).
Fabulous Monsters: Dracula, Alice, Superman, and Other Literary Friends
by Alberto Manguel; ill. Alberto Manguel (Yale University Press, 2019)
A series of non-fiction vignettes, each of which takes a literary figure as its starting point. Manguel is widely read and lets his intellect wander, musing about this and that and not very much. His insights are engaging enough in small doses.
Dracula Untold
dir. Gary Shore (2014)
Though by no means as bad as the trailer would suggest, this attempt to turn Dracula into a brooding action hero (presumably for use in a modern-day sequel) is disingenuous at best. Students of Tinseltown relativity may delight in space-time’s incorrigible duplicity.
Dracula the Un-Dead
by Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt (HarperCollins, 2009)
Even if there were some merit in two first-time novelists having repudiated Bram Stoker’s original so as to reassert by proxy his control over Dracula lore, this ‘official’ sequel’s horrific, penny dreadful prose situates it a long way from classic gothic literature.
Stoker’s Manuscript
by Royce Prouty (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2013)
A grounded, convincing first-person narrative with authentic vampiric element (sorely missed in recent years) and Romania at last given her literary and historical due. Prouty’s debut novel could hardly be more Stoker-ish if Bram himself were undead and moving with the times.