The three-part miniseries “Dracula” was released on Netflix in the United States and BBC One in the United Kingdom on Jan. 4. Brimming with British humor, each episode — directed by Johnny Campbell, Paul McGuigan and Damon Thomas, respectively — runs about 90 minutes and gives Martin Scorcese’s 210-minute “The Irishman” a run for its money.
The series begins with Jonathan Harker (John Heffernan), a lawyer and real estate appraiser, as he travels to Count Dracula’s (Claes Bang) home country of Transylvania to coordinate a land purchase in faraway England. Harker grows weaker and sicker while Dracula mysteriously regains his youth and strength.
Agatha Van Helsing (Dolly Wells), a nun with interests beyond her vows, with Harker’s wife Nina (Morfydd Clark) in disguise, interviews the changed Harker. When questioned about why she is interested, Sister Agatha tells Harker that, though she’s never found God, she’s continued to be a nun because “like many women I’m trapped in a loveless marriage, maintaining appearances for the sake of having a roof over my head.” During this conversation, we slowly find that not only does Dracula depend on blood for nourishment, he can instantly gain the knowledge, experiences and language of his victims.
Fast-forward and Dracula is traveling to England by sea amidst an unusually large and diverse crowd. With passengers going missing one-by-one, it becomes apparent that Dracula is responsible for this. Those that are left plot to stop him from reaching the shore.
The passengers succeed in their plot, but Dracula manages to seal himself on the sea floor in a coffin filled with his native soil and is awoken after 123 years by deep-sea divers on the order of Dr. Zoe Van Helsing (also Dolly Wells), a direct descendant of Agatha. Once held without consent in a medical-type facility, a lawyer frees him but in the end, both Zoe and Dracula drink Van Helsin’s blood, poisoned by cancer.
An obvious tangent from Stoker’s original 1897 novel, the television miniseries pokes fun at all of the traditional vampire “rules” through humor-brimming interviews between Dracula and Van Helsing’s. These rules include not entering a “claimed space” without permission, going out into direct sunlight, drinking dead blood and setting yourself on fire among others.
Netflix’s Dracula is not dissimilar from Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 tale- and aesthetic-bending reimagination of the classic tale “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” The miniseries harkens back to the original plot in some instances — characters names for example —but presents itself as fresh and exciting.
