DRACULA (2006)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical,sociological*

Given that Bram Stoker's original novel depends on an ensemble of characters writing letters about the menace common to their lives, I think it's foolish to complain that cinematic adaptations of DRACULA ought to stick close to the book. Indeed, two of the best regarded adaptations, the 1931 Universal movie and the 1958 Hammer film, take huge liberties with Stoker's extremely complicated prose narrative. Thus I won't complain about this telefilm adaptation purely because it changes the original story, but only if I think the changes proved counter productive.

The 2006 DRACULA was produced by the English company Granada TV, while both director Bill Eagles and writer Stewart Harcourt seem to have been very basic journeymen talents from their IMDB profiles. Thus, most of their choices seem predicated on simplifying the story to fit an hour-and-a-half format.

In the novel, Lucy Westenra is pursued by three suitors, while Lucy's friend Mina waits for her fiancee Jonathan Harker to return from Transylvania. Harker learns the true nature of his client Count Dracula and escapes the count's castle, and eventually assembles Mina's three suitors and their guide Van Helsing against the vampire's threat to England and to both Lucy and Mina. 

Harcourt, not unlike Jimmy Sangster working on HORROR OF DRACULA, sought to simplify. Harker does not escape Dracula in Transylvania but is killed by the vampire, and the Count, rejuvenated by the Englishman's blood, shows up in England, not exactly looking like Harker but much more in a Don Juan mold than the appearance of Rejuveniated Drac in the novel. Harcourt dumps one of the novel's three suitors and starts the story with Mina accepting the suit of Lord Arthur Holmwood and rejecting that of Doctor John Seward (who has no connection to any asylum or any patient named Renfield). Seward, who's sometimes written out of DRACULA adaptations, then assumes the role of central hero. The most chimerical change, though, is that Holmwood becomes a subsidiary villain. 

Harcourt's Holmwood has been victimized by a sexually transmitted malady long before Dracula arrives on English shores. I don't know if the screenwriter was influenced by learned academic essays correlating the real disease of syphilis and the imaginary plague of vampirism. Yet Harcourt seems to want to indict English gentry for complicity with the vampire invasion, just as many of the Hammer films go out of their way to critique the nobility. Holmwood contracts the disease in utero, thanks to his father transmitting the infection to his mother, and the young man agonizes that he cannot enjoy his nuptials with Mina without passing on the disease. But in another original concoction, the desperate lord conspires with a local occult society, which in turn uses Holmwood's money and influence to bring Count Dracula to English shores, with the idea that the vampire count can cancel out the nobleman's disease with his special blood. In effect, then, England's invasion by "the other" is also an invasion by its own corrupt ruling class. It's a novel notion, though I don't think Harcourt used it to foster any deep sociological observations.

Once in England, Dracula reneges on his deal, failing to cure Holmwood and killing all of his occultist allies. His only concern is to seduce both Mina and Lucy, and as in most versions Lucy is quickly converted to undead status, forcing Holmwood to stake her. Seward finds Van Helsing, formerly a captive of the occult society, but he doesn't contribute much to the proceedings. Dracula doesn't manage to vampirize Mina even partly as in the novel, and despite a few scenes in which she seems almost ready to replace the late Harker with Don Juan Drac, she too has very little to do. Seward, Van Helsing and Holmwood team up and manage to destroy the count, though Holmwood pays for his actions with his life. Then the survivors attempt to pick up the remains of their lives, while a coda shows that for no damn good reason the king-vampire yet lives despite having been well and truly staked.

DRACULA 2006 isn't precisely boring, though it's only sporadically engaging. There are no exemplary action scenes and only one erotic scene between Marc Warren's vamp and Sophia Myles' Lucy. David Suchet, the one "name" performer, contributes a wild-eyed, completely forgettable Van Helsing. The movie as a whole is not precisely forgettable, and it's a slight improvement at least on a few of the lesser Hammer films about the vampire count. But I can't imagine anyone ranking it among a best twenty Stoker-adaptations.