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Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 10, No. 42 |
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Most of the original players return to continue the tale
of TheColumnists.com
With vampires the new rage among teens, the "Twilight" series of novels becoming blockbuster movies and such popular TV series as "True Blood" and "The Vampire Diaries," also based on hit book series, it was a foregone conclusion that the original vampire superstar would want to get in on the money-making trend.
That, of course, would be Count Dracula, who first attracted our attention when English author Bram Stoker published "Dracula" in 1897. The book was not an instant success, but became a steady seller after the book was dramatized on the stage, then finally began its long run as a Hollywood movie property with Universal's 1931 "Dracula" starring Bela Lugosi, who had played the role on stage.
Stoker died in 1912 and never saw his colorful novel become a real success. Although some sources erroneously claim that the subsequent book by Stoker called "Dracula's Guest" was a sequel, it really wasn't. It was a collection of stories by Stoker and the title tale was simply a chapter from the original "Dracula" that had been trimmed out by the publisher.
There is no evidence that Stoker ever planned a sequel to "Dracula," which had ended with the blood-sucking count apparently dying with a stake through his heart after being pursued from London back to his native Transylvania by vampire hunter Van Helsing.
But now there is an "official" sequel to "Dracula" called "Dracula The Un-Dead" (Dutton, $26.95), written by Dacre Stoker, great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker, and his collaborator, writer Ian Holt.
This big, handsome book of 424 pages may have been motivated by mercenary desires, but it's been getting pretty good reviews and for a good reason: It's a pretty rousing read that brings back most of the "Dracula" characters who were still living at the end of the original novel--and, not suprisingly, even a few who were supposed to be dead and buried.
The book is set in 1912, which permits the authors to make Bram Stoker himself a key character in the story, along with a number of real-life figures of that period, including actors John Barrymore and Charlie Chaplin, producer-director Hamilton Deane, who first put "Dracula" on the London stage, and Raymond Huntley, the police detective in charge of the Jack the Ripper series of London murders.
A new series of grotesque killings in London and Paris cause some of the "survivors" of the original novel to fear that Dracula wasn't destroyed by Van Helsing and his helpers, but may be back, seeking revenge on those who tried to hound him to death. A period of 25 years has elapsed and we find many of the "survivors" in unpleasant circumstances.
Jack Seward's asylum has fallen to ruin and he has become a morphine addict. Jonathan Harker is a drunk and his marriage to wife Mina is hanging on by a thread. Their son, Quincey, is estranged from them and, rather than pursue his studies at the Sorbonne in France, has decided to become an actor, associating himself with the famous Romanian actor Basarab, and is trying to help Hamilton Deane and Bram Stoker put "Dracula" on the London stage with Basarab in the title role. Stalwart Arthur Holmwood, still mourning the death of his beloved Lucy at the hands of Dracula, has remarried and withdrawn into London society under his new name, Lord Goldalming.
Van Helsing is now a very old and ill man, living alone in obscurity, considered crazy by many, but still determined to make sure Dracula dies again if he has somehow risen to renew his evil ambitions.
But what we soon discover is that most of the murderous events now taking place are NOT the work of Dracula, but rather the successor to Dracula, the Queen of the vampires, Countess Elizabeth Bathory--who hates Dracula with a passion, knows he has returned to life and has vowed to track him down and destroy him so he cannot stand in her way to rule the world of darkness.
The authors' decision to resurrect Bathory and make her the deadly rival of Dracula was a brilliant one. If the Dracula character truly was inspired by the real-life historical figure known as Vlad the Impaler, it makes a lot of sense to reach back to the same epoch in history to find his arch-nemesis.
I first heard of Bathory as a high school kid reading one of the weird pop anthropology books by William Seabrook. Her story so fascinated me that I wrote a piece about her in my college years that I called "Vampire Queen of Sex" and it became the first story I ever sold to a national magazine. Later a publisher contacted me and wanted me to expand the story into a 55,000 word novel. I turned him down because he wanted to pay me only $250. Still, I got a few more bucks out of Bathory when a paperback book reprinted my story in an anthology called "Untamed Women."
Bathory finally reached the movie screen in 1972 in the British horror film "Countess Dracula," although the film didn't suggest any relationship between Bathory and Dracula, who wasn't even portrayed in the movie.
The real-life wife of Hungary's so-called "black hero," Ferenc Nadasdy, Bathory was a notorious lesbian who used her power as a Hungarian noblewoman to bring hundreds of young girls to her castle, where she had sex with them, slaughtered them and bathed in their blood. She supposedly died after being imprisoned in solitary confinement, She seemed a very likely character to be re-imagined as a vampire who still might be alive in 1912, lusting for vengeance against "Prince" Dracula, who supposedly spurned her love and betrayed her.
Under the direction of Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt, Bathory becomes a really terrifying menace, so bloodthirsty that she makes Dracula seem like an iconic folk hero whose destiny is to stop her from wreaking havoc on English and French society.
One can imagine the movie that might come from this book. It certainly has some major set pieces--such as the "impaling" of a leading character on a tall pole in London's Piccadilly Circus; the collision of two horse-drawn carriages; the attack of a demon on a London underground subway train, and, of course, the final showdown battle between Dracula and Bathory at Carfax Abbey.
The writing of "Dracula The Un-Dead," which, by the way, was what Bram Stoker wanted to call the original book, must have been lots of fun for Stoker and Holt because it's loaded with in-jokes that only the vampire-aware reader will pick up on. For instance, they have named a number of supporting characters after actors who have played Dracula in the movies, among them Christopher Lee, Frank Langella and Louis Jourdan. There's also a character named "Price" as a homage to Vincent Price. Inspector Cotford is a character Bram Stoker mentioned in his notes, but who never made it into the original novel. He appears here as a detective whose career has been ruined by his inability to catch Jack the Ripper when he almost had him in his grasp.
If I have a criticism, it's that perhaps too much effort was made to tie in with real-life events. Some of the efforts even meant the authors had to rearrange the time sequence of some events in the original story. And a gratuitous inclusion of the sailing of the Titanic in 1912 seems way too obvious an attempt to set up a future sequel to this sequel.
But I found "Dracula The Un-Dead" to be surprisingly exciting and readable. I think most sequels to famous novels of the past are a bad idea, but this one strikes me as one that worked.
©2009 by Ron Miller. The book cover illustration is courtesy of Dutton. This column first posted Nov. 23, 2009. The Dracula image is from IMST'S Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted Nov. 23, 2009.
Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He more recently
was the television columnist for MYSTERY SCENE magazine.
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