DRACULA: Vampire Books, Movies, & TV series inspired by the classic

[ConnieAnnKirk]

Back in the 1960s there was a TV show called Dark Shadows.  It was an odd kind of show--something like a soap opera starring vampires, if you can believe it.  Now, there are the Twilight books and movies and a new TV series called True Blood.  In between, there were the Anne Rice novels and much, much more.

Use this thread to discuss the books, movies, and TV series that you've encountered that were "inspired," even in the smallest way, by Bram Stoker's DRACULA. 

EnJOY!

[dulcinea3]

I absolutely loved Dark Shadows!  In the beginning, though, there were no vampires.  It was meant to be a kind of gothic story of an orphan who becomes a governess and then goes to work for this very rich family.  The ratings were not so high, and then they brought in a vampire, Barnabas Collins, and things took off from there.  During the course of the series, they did many storylines based on many classic horror themes - werewolves, Frankenstein, The Turn of the Screw, H.P. Lovecraft, etc.  They were well into the series by the time I started watching (at that time, Quentin was a zombie), but when I got cable, the Sci Fi Channel was showing the entire series, which I taped each day and watched when I got home, and finally got to see the whole thing.  I credit the series with my interest in oracles - they used Tarot and I Ching.

[DCGuy]

I remember Dark Shadows when it was on ABC TV when I was young.  I never was that much into the series, but it was a big departure from the regular soap opera fare in the daytime.  The very haunting musical score of the series is one that I will never forget.  The series did develop a cult like following from the viewers.

I also saw a repeat of Once Bitten which starred Jim Carrey and Lauren Hutton which is a comedy about a female vampire.

[marciliogq]

I don't know much information about this program. I've heard of it and read something about it in a book but never saw it. Here in Brazil we had two soap operas certainly inspired in Bram Stoker so they had a character called Vlad. The two soap operas were comedies: Vamp and O beijo do Vampiro (The vampire's kiss). They were a success here and children wore plastic false teeth in the street or black cover imitating vampires. I really enjoyed it when I was a child LOL. There was another humour program which had a character called The Brazilian Vampire and it was too much funny.

About films I remember Interview with a vampire based on Anne Rice's novel and the funny (now! LOL) Fright Night.

[Ryan_G]

I agree that Dark Shadows was a great show though the remake starring Ben Cross was only so-so.  The two greatest TV shows starring vampires however were Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Angel.  Between the writing and the acting you really couldn't ask for anything more.

Kindred: The Embraced was a fabulous show based off of the role playing game  Vampire: The Masquerade.  I loved the show despite the ok acting and sometimes poor writing.  There was also the short lived TV show based of the Blade movies, Blade: House of Cauthon.  Tanya Huff's books were also made into a good show called Blood Ties.  Forever Knight was a great show about a vampire cop.  Last year's show Moonlight was a little too similar to Forevor Knight for it to be that interesting to me.  Then there is True Blood, HBOs adaptation of a popular series of books.  The Lair is a rather campy, badly acted show on the gay network Here!.  But you can't forget Dracula: The Series a syndicated TV show on for a few years in the easrly 90s.  It was ok but never really drew me in.

[Ryan_G]

Almost all vampire movies have some deliniation from Dracula.  Even the most off the wall movies tend to pay homage in some way to the grand-daddy of them all.  Some of my favorite movies are.

Innocent Blood 

Vamp    (Grace Jones is Fantastic)

Lost Boys - Special Edition 

Fright Night 

Forsaken 

Blade   (Opening sequence in the meat packing plant is probably my favorite scene in any vampire movie)

Hunger   (Catherine Deneuve is at her sexiest best)

Vampire Hunter D   (First anime movie I truly loved)

Here is a link to a one website's Top 70 Vampire Movies of All Time

Here is Movie Crunches list of The 15 Best Vampire Movies  (don't agree with a lot of this list, the movies I do like are too low on the list for me)

Video Hound probably has the best Top Ten Vampire Movies of the Modern Era list.  Let the Right One In is a movie that I have been wanting to watch and just haven't had the time yet.

[TiggerBear]

This is a paste from another post of mine, stories are listed by year published.

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Vampires

The Vampire a tale - John Polidori

Loving Lady Death - Theophile Gautier

The family of the Vourdalak - Alexis Tolstoy

Varney the Vampire the feast of blood - James Malcolm Rymer

Carmilla - J. Sheridan Le Fanu

Blood and Roses - Roger Vadim (avoid the early American publishing it's been edited)

Wake not the Dead - sorry author's name lost in time

The fate of Madame Cabanel - Eliza Lynn Linton (not a person fave but..)

A true story of a vampire - Count Eric Stenbock

   I'd look for the whole colection by the Count - Studies of Death

Good Lady Ducayne - Mary Elizabeth Braddon

A Mystery of the Campagna - Anne Crawford

Dracula - Bram Stoker

Dracula's Guest - also Mr. Stoker

Luella Miller - Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman

The vampire maid - Hume Nisbet

Count Magnus - M.R. James

The tomb of Sarah - F.G. Loring

The singular death of Morton - Algernon Blackwood

The Transfer - also Mr. Blackwood

For the blood is life - F. Marion Crawford

The room in the tower - E.F. Benson

Vampires - Albin Grau (yes the guy who coauthored the movie Nosferatu)

Bewitched - Edith Wharton

London after Midnight - Marie Coolidge-Rask

"when she was fed" Bela Lugosi's real life vampire romance - Gladys Hall

The Dark Castle - Marion Brandon

Revelations in Black - Carl Jacobi

I, the Vampire - Henry Kuttner

The bat is my Brother - Robert Bloch

The girl with the hungry eyes - Fritz Lieber Jr.

I am Legend - Richard Matheson

The Vampire Tapestry - Suzy McKee Charnas

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Dracula wasn't the start, more like the middle. "True" tales of Vampire hunters, "facts", and death tolls were well the tabloid versions of books and travel logs prior.

[JohnP51]

If you think you've read them all........I ran across this one when we visited my brother and his wife over the Memorial Day holiday. I didn't have a chance to finish it up there so I bought my own copy to read. It is an excellent read and a new spin on the Vlad Ţepeş /Dracula genre.

The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova.

[ConnieAnnKirk]

dulci, DC, and all--

When you think of that Dark Shadows show now, it's really so *weird* to think of its format--it really was like a soap opera, shown in the afternoons.

With all this new wave of interest in vampires, does anyone think that kind of format would work again?

[Ryan_G]

Wasn't Passions in a way trying to recapture the whole combination of supernatural and soap oper style writing?  Now personally I think they failed miserably at it and towards the end they just wrote what would be the most shocking.

As far as vampires go Port Charles, the spin off from General Hospital, jumped right in and had months and months of a pure vampire storyline.  Once again, I'm not sure how well they were able to pull it off though.  I only watched a few of those episodes and wasn't too impressed.

Now wether or not it could work today, I think it all depends.  The writing and plot would have to be unique and well thought out.

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ConnieK wrote:

dulci, DC, and all--

When you think of that Dark Shadows show now, it's really so *weird* to think of its format--it really was like a soap opera, shown in the afternoons.

With all this new wave of interest in vampires, does anyone think that kind of format would work again?

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[Ryan_G]

One of the most origional takes on the origonal Dracula idea.  I loved this book and try to reread it as much as time (a rather large TBR) allows.

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JohnP51 wrote:

If you think you've read them all........I ran across this one when we visited my brother and his wife over the Memorial Day holiday. I didn't have a chance to finish it up there so I bought my own copy to read. It is an excellent read and a new spin on the Vlad Ţepeş /Dracula genre.

The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova.

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[JohnP51]

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ConnieK wrote:

dulci, DC, and all--

When you think of that Dark Shadows show now, it's really so *weird* to think of its format--it really was like a soap opera, shown in the afternoons.

With all this new wave of interest in vampires, does anyone think that kind of format would work again?

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My sister was hooked on Dark Shadows but I never got into it. I do remember it being a soap opera but with a twist.

As for whether the format would work again, I'm not sure it ever stopped working. It seems to me that there's a new movie or book out every year or so with yet another spin on the vampire tale. Twilight, a vampire romance novel, being the latest. I haven't read it but I was in B&N a few months ago and noticed there were lots of women buying it.

I happened to remember another vampire movie not many people are aware of. Remember Nosferatu, starring Max Schreck? It was released in 1922 and if you have not seen it, you should. It is an excellent film.

[dulcinea3]

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ConnieK wrote:

dulci, DC, and all--

When you think of that Dark Shadows show now, it's really so *weird* to think of its format--it really was like a soap opera, shown in the afternoons.

With all this new wave of interest in vampires, does anyone think that kind of format would work again?

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Yes, it was meant to be a soap opera.  Because of its popularity, another 'supernatural' soap opera appeared, Strange Paradise.  It was on a different channel than Dark Shadows, and a half hour earlier (I think that today all the soap operas might be an hour long, but then some of them were a half hour).  Strange Paradise dealt with voodoo and possession.  The main character, who lived on an island, had preserved his wife's body in the hope that she could be brought back to life and cured.  He invited an assortment of people with various skills to visit, and then wouldn't let them leave the island until they helped him.  He had an evil ancestor who would come out of a portrait and posess him.  His servants practised voodoo.  It wasn't as good as Dark Shadows, and didn't last very long, but I enjoyed it while it lasted.

I suppose one of the reasons Dark Shadows achieved such popularity was that it was on at 4 in the afternoon, so a lot of kids and teenagers could see it.  I'm not sure that any soaps air at that hour these days.  For a show that airs at a time when mostly housewives and retirees can see it, I don't know if such a show would be so successful.  On the other hand, more and more retirees are Baby Boomers, who liked things like that when they were young!

[dulcinea3]

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JohnP51 wrote:

I happened to remember another vampire movie not many people are aware of. Remember Nosferatu, starring Max Schreck? It was released in 1922 and if you have not seen it, you should. It is an excellent film.

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I have seen it a number of times.  I know it's supposed to be really scary, but I have to admit that I and others have tended to find it rather amusing.  I was about twelve when I first saw it at a friend's birthday party, and we all laughed because we thought that he was so funny-looking.  Many years later, I remember my friends and I laughing at certain points, as when the woman clasps at her bosom in fear.  But it is certainly a classic!

[ReadingPatti]

I have never read Dracula, but I have started a books that has Dracula in it. It is the Historian by Elizabeth Kosvota. It is good. It has some mystery to it. I was not sure where to put this message as there is no club just for horror. I hardly ever read any horror but this books intrigued me.

It is very well written. She seems to have done some nice research for the book.

I will let you know how it turns out.

Pat

[Penelope-Marst…]

Let the Right One in is both a very good book and a very good movie about a young vampire girl in Sweden and her relationship with her caretaker and a young boy who lives next door, with a few subplots mixed in. It's really an interesting story. The book is quite well-written and the movie is absolutely gorgeously made, with just the right amount of gore.

[ConnieAnnKirk]

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Penelope-Marston wrote:

Let the Right One in is both a very good book and a very good movie about a young vampire girl in Sweden and her relationship with her caretaker and a young boy who lives next door, with a few subplots mixed in. It's really an interesting story. The book is quite well-written and the movie is absolutely gorgeously made, with just the right amount of gore.

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Welcome, Penelope!