So uh, good god, Bram Stoker’s Dracula was a bit difficult for me to follow. Firstly because it’s paced like its following the story of a very slow epidemic but boy oh boy do things heat up. But going the second time around, I ascertained the nature of the novel and followed it more clearly. On this post I want to comment more on the nature of adaptations because were it not for the success of Stoker’s Dracula I don’t think we’d see vampires in media as often as we do. I did a bit of research on vampires in folklore and media during and preceding Stoker’s age to get a better picture of what he had to work with and I wasn’t surprised with what I saw. Vampires in his age were first and foremost an unholy being what with eating children and the inability to enter hallowed ground, and also for whatever the reason physically attractive. Afterwards, people saw what they wanted in vampires. Some like Nosferatu saw just the unholy monster, others saw a sort of person that was thrust into a complicated situation which made them people eaters even though they didn’t want to be but still want to live. Compared to Dracula, there are a few pieces of media that do something interesting with the concept. The first being Shiki, an anime series which follows the same slow burn in its log first act and then explodes with action in the second and third acts. But everything in Shiki from how vampires look, how people are described when they turn into vampires, to how people eventually deal with vampires just feels like the original Dracula while also making vampires sympathetic. It’s a show I’d recommend to anyone who enjoys a good, complex character based story.
Comments
Post a Comment