I've been watching some Dracula movies and have been considering which film or film series did the best job of portraying Dracula. There's several ways to judge this: faithfulness to the book, creative interpretation, acting skills, cool look, mugging, etc. After going over it I've decided that the Hammer Dracula series with Christopher Lee as Dracula is the best because he looked cool, was great at making Dracula faces, and had an eerie, menacing voice, but best of all, he showed a lot of interesting growth in the character as he changed over the course of the series, responding to the events in each film.

In the "The Horror of Dracula" he was a lot like the Dracula of the book and of the traditional movie interpretation, minus the tragic romance stuff, which I never liked anyway, until his monstrous nature is revealed and he drops all pretense of humanity as a snarling, hissing predator. "Dracula Prince of Darkness" shows how after being killed and resurrected for the first time he continues on this way with even more savagery. "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave" shows Dracula evolving from being just a blood craving beast with a special taste for beautiful women to a vindictive tyrant and a petty asshole, going to extraordinary lengths to punish those who have offended or impeded him. In "Taste the Blood of Dracula" and "Scars of Dracula" he becomes something like a Freddy/Jason movie monster serial killer, systematically hunting people down just to kill them, and becoming more petty and cruel and obsessed with obedience and revenge. "Scars of Dracula" also shows him trying to return to the "normalcy" of his life before being killed and resurrected many times of luring in guests with a show of humanity to feed on them in his secluded castle. In "Dracula 1972 A.D." he once again wants to return to his traditional ways but has become so focused on vengeance that he compromises his own efforts by revealing himself in the densely populated center of modern London. I think in "The Satanic Rites of Dracula" that the subtext was that Dracula realized that the conditions of the modern world made it impossible for him to recreate his previous style of life and that his obsession with getting revenge against humanity for killing and resurrecting him so many times (and possibly the derangement that comes along with that) led him to formulating his super villain-like plan to exterminate humanity. Those things and his growing obsession with punishing Van Helsing led to his plan having a lot of holes and not working out, as well as his ignoble final death.

This is my interpretation and I think it's pretty cool. This series has been criticized for not doing anything with the character of Dracula, notably by Lee, but I think those criticisms are not true at all and don't take into consideration the character arc as it is portrayed over the course of the entire series. I can't think of any other film version of the Dracula story that had this many interesting or original developments for Dracula, thus, I say it's the best. Other than Dracula himself, the series also had a lot of cool sets and interesting side characters. I also enjoyed the theme of the power of good to triumph over evil, with Dracula being repelled and defeated by symbols of good, rather than making out vampirism to be a disease to be treated or vampires as normal beasts to be vanquished purely by strength of arms.

What say you?

[EDIT]
<Morrigan> Can I come in and snarkily say the book is better?
<John_Sunlight> No morri
<John_Sunlight> the thread specifically states that it's about film versions of dracula
<Morrigan> nofunallowed.gif

The only Dracula film I've seen is Dracula 2000, where [Do people even care about this movie enough to warrant spoilers? I guess I'll do it anyway.]



That said, I had no idea the Lee Dracula mythos were so elaborate. I'll have to give those a viewing sometime.

The one with Bela Lugosi.

Christopher Lee all the way; Bela Lugosi a close second.

Personally I like all of them (Lugosi, Lee, Frank Langella, Gary Oldman), they were all different and great in their own way, but my favourite is Lugosi.

That's a splendid interpretation of the Hammer dracula films. They're my favourite as well, although I still haven't seen Dracula AD. I can see why Lee was disappointed with the role; of course the more animalistic he became the less lines they gave him to say, and I think he may have been a stickler for keeping literary characters as true to type as possible. I don't mind Hammer taking liberties with the Dracula mythos because their writers were well versed in the gothic tradition and knew what they were doing. The Frankenstein movies are even better at this.

The only other Draculas I've seen are the Kapola one (ok, I guess, a bit melodramatic from what I remember) and the 1931 film with Bela. The latter is a classic, obviously, but I wouldn't really count it as a favourite film and I guess I enjoy the Hammer films a good deal more. To tell the truth I'm not even that fond of the book, though I would certainly recommend that everyone read it.

I have no problem with a silent, animalistic Dracula. After all, if you remember in Stoker's novel Dracula doesn't really talk at all once he arrives in England (although he is rather chatty when he's in his native land). I guess, overall, Max Shreck's still scares me the most, but I love Lee's Dracula, too.

I've seen Nosferatu, the 1931 Dracula with Lugosi, Horror of Dracula with Lee and the 1990s one with Gary Oldman. I'll get it out of the way first, I hate the 90s one and think it's an awful movie. Oldman hams it up and looks retarded while doing so. Lame.

The others are all good, with Nosferatu being my favorite easily - even though it's probably the loosest adaptation of the book I've seen. The Lugosi and Lee performances, while enjoyable, didn't really inspire the same kind of darkness and majesty as Nosferatu did. Both the 1931 movie and Horror of Dracula just came off as too upbeat in tone, with the Dracula character following suit, for me to really find them effective. Though I did enjoy both well enough; they were entertaining flicks. But I wouldn't really say I was spellbound by the character in either one. Bit too hammy.

I do kind of want to see more of the Hammer Dracula films now, after reading through John's analysis, sounds more interesting than I originally thought.

Gary Oldman was a terrific Dracula. It was Keanu Reeves that brought the film down, though I still thought it was wonderfully made. It nailed that gothic atmosphere.
I love all the Draculas mentioned for different reasons. Nosferatu and Lee would probably be tied for best, followed by Lugosi and Oldman.

Klaus Kinski by far. I love the 1979 remake of Nosferatu so much I have an original lobby card framed on the wall.

The new series on NBC (Dracula) is really fucking good. Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays good ol Vlad (who is now an alternative energy entrepreneur), but his intentions in the show are quite interesting. Mostly involves him wanting to destroy the Order of the Dragon (I guess that universe's Illuminati). So far, it's a very slick show, and has some of the super-romantic elements of the Dracula film in the early 90's with Gary Oldman.

George Hamilton in Love At First Bite haha (and the dude who plays Renfield is awesome aswell)

but seriously Christopher Lee all the way

To be honest, I prefer Gary Oldman, though Christopher Lee and Bela Lugosi would be close second and third.

I can accept Dominic Purcell's portrayal on Blade 3 simply because he's based on the Marvel comic books version.

I'll go with Klaus Kinski's Nosferatu. The movie is a total masterpiece, the ending is just otherwordly. Besides, Kinski's fucked up mind made the film so much special.