Dracula is probably the most recognizable fictional character in the world. Its success is not due to Bram Stocker’s novel but thanks to its adaptation in the cinema.Today Nosferatus (1922) is considered a masterpiece of expresionist cinema. However people are lucky because it survived. Stocker’s widow took legal action against this unauthorized version of Dracula and all the copies had to be destroyed. The Nosferatus’ plot changes the basic story of Stoker’s one. The Dracula character, Orlok, doesn’t create new vampires, he just kills peope. The action takes place in Germany and it omits Arthur Holmwood and Quincey Morry. Orlok is not killed by being staked; he is killed by sunlight. Dracula may have preferred the dark but he could appear in sunlight without problems.
In 1979 Werner Herzog remade Nosferatus in his own image. The film is in colour but it is almost silent.
The theme of Nosferatus was played again in 1992 by another new movie Shadow of the Vampire (2000). Unfortunately, the film doesn’t live up to expectations.
The number of the vampires has risen a lot in recent years, for instance, there are some aspects of classic Dracula in the Darh Vader (Star Wars), or even in Harry Potter novels, when the star changes into his face totally white and red eyes, and so on.
In brief, Dracula is a great fountain of macabre stories in the cinema. Some experts say that the most films, in any time, are based on him. Personally, I have only watched a pair of these films and although I haven’t liked them a lot (at all, I would say), I feel attract by that basic story and its influence in the cinema.
Scarlett
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