Dracula has prepared a chicken meal and excuses himself that he has already dined. Harker points out a family resemblance in a painting and Dracula talks of his family honour and the struggle against the Turks. Harker giggles and Dracula threatens his ignorance with a large sword and punctuates his family pride.
Harker apologises and the Count relaxes. More shadow play as the Count seals the agreement for the purchase of Carfax Abbey. Harker notices hair on the Count’s palms. Dracula spots the portrait of Mina as the shadow of his arm reaches for it, knocking over an ornate paperweight. When Harker announces that he is to be married, the shadow seems to take him by the throat.
The Count confesses to his own marriage with a deep sadness. Back to business, he tells Harker to write a letter home saying that he will stay in Transylvania for a month. Dracula leaves, followed by his shadow that fades the scene to black.
A voiceover from Mina tells us that it is the 30th May. She is staying at Hillingham with her rich friend, Lucy Westenra. They giggle and discuss drawings found in The Arabian Nights showing sexual intercourse. Mina is perplexed over Jonathon's ideas about their marriage: that he is too poor to marry her. Lucy asks her if he measures up. Guests arrive and we are introduced to Quincey P. Morris, Dr Jack Seward and Lord Arthur Holmwood.
Lucy flirts unashamedly with all three as Mina looks on. Dracula's shadow descends over the proceedings and we see the Count himself watching through a closet door, switching scenes as Dr Seward talks of his confusion over the case of the inmate, Thomas Renfield.
He visits the lunatic and finds him feeding on maggots and flies. A sparrow whisks past and Renfield begs for a kitten. He makes a grab for Seward and begins raving about a Master coming who has promised him eternal life. Pulled off by a guard, he returns to his gruesome meal.
At the castle, Harker is shaving as a hand reaches out to touch him. Harker turns and there is no one there, but the door opens and the Count enters. Harker has cut himself. Noticing the shaving mirror, Dracula shies away as the glass breaks. As Harker puzzles over this, the Count takes his razor and licks the blood from the blade.
He begins to shave Harker and explains the dangers of falling asleep in the wrong place in the Castle. He sees the crucifix around Harkers neck and becomes angry, warning him of putting faith in
'Trinkets of deceit'.
Harker mentions weird sights that he has already seen as the wolves begin to howl outside to the Count's joy:
"Aah, the children of the night. What sweet music they make".
Dracula, followed by his shadow, exits as the door closes behind them.
Opening a window, Harker sees the Count slithering along the wall like a giant lizard. Taking a candle, he begins to explore the castle. Rats move upside down on beams and disconnected shadows seem to be everywhere. All around is a feeling of loneliness and oppression. Noises of wind and eerie laughter punctuate the silence.
Harker opens a door and sees a large chest with the crest of Dracula. He opens it and finds a bottle. The liquid inside pours out defying gravity. Mina calls his name. He follows the voice to a large curtain. It rises unbidden to reveal a dusty boudoir.
On the floor is a large bed covered in dust. He lays on the bed to the command of the voice. Footsteps form in the dust on the carpet. Sheets fill out as bodies swell beneath them. A woman emerges between Harker's legs. A second woman beside him. A third, with snakes in her hair, seems to simply appear.
A tigerish purring over the soundtrack as one of the women notices the crucifix and, with a glare, melts it down to nothing. Jonathon lays back as the three women begin to seduce him. A lengthy seduction follows as the women lick and stroke his body. One girl bears fangs as she unbuttons his trousers.
In the ceiling mirror, Harker is alone, writhing in ecstasy. The girl bites down as her comrades follow suit. Dracula enters in a cloud of smoke throwing one girl at the wall. She adheres to the wall and scampers backwards.
The remaining girls move away from Harker, seemingly joined at the hip. Dracula berates them in a Hungarian tongue. The girls gather round the Count and he produces a small child. Harker snaps as the Count glares at him and bursts into maniacal laughter.
Mina opens a letter received from Jonathon but is dissatisfied as to its contents. At the castle, Jonathon watches gypsies filling boxes with earth from the bowels of the cellar. Dracula, in gold shift, rises upright from one of the coffins.
Back at Hillingham, Lucy confesses that Arthur Holmwood loves her and has agreed to marry her. Mina is still fraught over Jonathon's letter.
Rain begins and, as the clouds fill, we see Dracula staring down at the girls who playfully run around the garden maze. A voiceover from Van Helsing reads the log of the Demeter. Another shot of the girls at play with soft lesbian overtones as the Count watches and laughs with them.
At the London zoo, a wolf slips through its bars and escapes.
Dracula, aboard the ship, changes into a wolf man and attacks one of the crew sending large splashes of blood into a sail. He growls. Renfield begins raving in his cell as more lunatics have the hose turned on them.
Seward euphorically injects morphine while thinking of Lucy.
A fast track camera and we see the Count as the wolf man. Lucy begins to sleepwalk with Mina in pursuit. Following her friend to the sound of devil-chanting music, she enters the maze. She sees Lucy being ravaged by the wolf man. The Count notices Mina and disappears. Lucy, now alone on the stone bench, is helped by Mina. From behind a stone monument, the Count, still in wolf man form, howls at the moon.
Renfield watches the next day as the Count's boxes are loaded into Carfax, raving all the while that he is here to do the Master's bidding.
Three newspaper headlines appear on screen:
WOLF ESCAPES FROM ZOO - STORM AT SEA - MYSTERY SCHOONER
in quick succession.
A crier announces the Cinematograph as a speeded up film takes us into the heart of a London crowd. Dracula walks through the crowd and spots Mina. At his whispered command, she spots him. He buys a newspaper, the only thing that reflects in the store window opposite. A contrived stumble and he begins to try to introduce himself to Mina. On his third attempt, Mina mentions her husband and the Count promises to bother her no more. Mina demurs and leads him toward the nearest museum.
Dr Seward visits Lucy who is being fitted for her wedding dress. She confesses to a change in her senses; to vivid nightmares and staring eyes. Seward gives her an inoculation and kisses her. She falls asleep but her breathing is irregular.
Quincey and Arthur appear as Seward confesses that he is confounded and has telegraphed his old college professor, Abraham Van Helsing. Holmwood agrees that no expense should be spared. The camera pans in on strange marks on Lucy's neck that dissolve into the eyes of a wolf.
At the Cinematograph, Dracula commends the miracles of modern science, suddenly turning to Lucy and moving her to a dark place out of sight of peeping eyes. The escaped wolf is reflected in a mirror as Dracula begins to talk to Mina in a low, strange tongue. As she becomes drowsy, his eyes turn red and fangs begin to sprout, but he stops short of biting her. The wolf has begun to scare the patrons but a command from the Count stops it in its tracks. He strokes the beast and calls Mina over to do the same.
By the light of the moon, Dracula's coach drops Mina off at Hillingham as a telegram announces that Seward is in desperate need for Van Helsing to come at once. The Professor is in the middle of giving a lecture concerning venereal diseases, primarily syphilis, when the telegram arrives.
At Dracula's Castle, we see Harker, half-naked and in a daze, surrounded by the three women. The quick-tracking camera moves again forward as we come upon the corpse of a crow. Van Helsing arrives at Hillingham and is greeted by Seward. Inside, Lucy writhes on the bed as Dracula hypnotises her through the window. His shadow moves into the room wilting a vase of flowers. Outside, the men discuss Lucy's illness, the anemia and blood loss.
Lucy screams. As the m
en enter her room, the shadow flees. Van Helsing inspects the girl and finding the marks on her neck orders a transfusion. Holmwood appears and Van Helsing commands that he give the blood. Later we are told Lucy has had the blood of two strong men and is still very ill.
Van Helsing questions them about the blood loss. Where did it go? To the men's astonishment, he disappears. He appears from behind a stone statue and continues his questions. Dracula is seen in his box filled with earth up to his neck as Van Helsing describes him as a beast, a monster.
Mina has dinner with the Count. Over a glass of absinthe, they talk about the Count's home in the Carpathian Mountains. Mina talks as if she has firsthand knowledge. Surprised at this, the Count turns his thoughts to his dead wife, Elisabeta. Both begin to weep.
As the two become friendly, we see Jonathon climbing down the Castle wall and slipping to land in the water of the moat. Dracula and Mina dance in a room loaded with candles.
Jonathon scrabbles onto a bank.
A voiceover letter from Sister Agatha mentions that Jonathon is well and that Mina should join and marry him. With letter in hand, Mina visits Lucy and meets Van Helsing who dances with her and cryptically informs her that there is light in dark and that she is one of the lights. On her deathbed, Lucy says that Mina should go at once to Jonathon and marry him, handing Mina a ring as a present. Lucy begins to act violently. She calms a little and begins to entice Quincey Morris. As she is about to sink her fangs into his neck, Van Helsing drags him away. He looks at the marks on her throat and declares that she is Nosferatu.
Van Helsing opens a bound ledger bearing the word 'Vampyre' and reads of the exploits of Vlad Tepesh Dracula. Dracula himself is crying in his candle-filled room as Mina is on board ship to meet Harker, throwing the evidence of their meetings over the side. The Count, face partly transformed, orders up winds in his frustration.
Van Helsing begins to rave that Dracula is the foe he has pursued all his life and mentions to the men, Holmwood, Seward and Quincey, that Lucy is now the Devil's concubine. The fast-track camera pans again as a rose flower wilts under its influence. A gravedigger is attacked and his blood tells us that he has been murdered. Holmwood sleeps by Lucy's bedside as Quincey holds watch outside the house with a carbine rifle.
Lucy wakes. Mina and Jonathon walk down the aisle. Lucy grins deviously. Quincey is watched by the subjective camera. Dracula is outside Lucy's window. Another shot of Mina's wedding as Dracula condemns Lucy to a living death.
Mina drinks the wine. Holmwood is flung from his seat. The Count transforms into the wolf and smashes through Lucy's bedroom window. Mina and Jonathon kiss. Lucy struggles with the ravening wolf. Blood shoots from everywhere across the room.
The music builds to a crescendo as Lucy screams.
Mourners stand around a glass coffin containing Lucy in her wedding dress. Van Helsing asks Seward to obtain some post-mortem knives to cut off Lucy's head and remove her heart. Seward ignores him.
Jonathon and Mina return to London as Jonathon spies the Count, now considerably younger. Mina, in voiceover, wonders as to the whereabouts of her Prince. Meanwhile the hunters enter Lucy's tomb. Opening the great stone sarcophagus, they find Lucy missing. Holmwood pulls a gun on the Professor as we hear the wail of a small child. Lucy enters the tomb carrying an infant.
The men hide. Candles flare as she passes them. She sees Arthur and begins to entice him as Van Helsing beats her back with prayer and a crucifix. She enters the coffin and then, unexpectedly, rises again, vomiting blood at Van Helsing before collapsing into a death sleep. Arthur is given a large metal spike to stake the creature while Van Helsing reads the exorcism. Holmwood screams as he beats on the spike. Lucy is decapitated. Dracula is seen scrabbling in the dirt in his casket.
Van Helsing dines with Mina and Jonathon and nonchalantly tells them how Lucy died. Harker confesses that Dracula is the vampire and that he sleeps at Carfax Abbey. All the men converge on the abbey carrying burning torches. Seward takes Mina to his quarters at the asylum. En route, they are stopped by Renfield who warns Mina that the Count is coming for her. He begs to be released. Seward leaves Mina to join the others.
At Carfax, the men find the boxes as the camera pans to the ceiling where we see Dracula hanging from the rafters in bat form to the sound of drumbeats on the soundtrack. The tracking camera shows him flying out of Carfax and, as a green, luminescent mist, entering Renfield's cell. He kills the madman by repeatedly throwing him into the bars of the cell.
Van Helsing reads from the book of exorcism as the three men break the boxes. In Seward's bedroom, Mina rests as the green mist floats in and disappears under the bedclothes. The Count begins a lengthy seduction. He confesses that he is the vampire and Lucy begins thumping his chest and raving about Lucy's death. Meanwhile, Van Helsing has inaugurated the burning of the boxes at Carfax.
Mina admits to wanting the Count and to be like him. He bites her and then slits open his chest for her to drink. He stops her from taking his blood, but she goes ahead and drinks deep, surprising the Count who welcomes the euphoria.
The peace is shattered as Dracula senses a new threat. The men burst in and see Mina alone on the bed. Dracula as a man-bat comes into view as Van Helsing wields his crucifix. Dracula stamps his foot and causes it to burst into flame. Taking holy water in the face and two shots from Holmwood in the chest, the vampire staggers back into the darkness.
As the lights come up, his shape has dissolved into hundreds of rats that scrabble out of the room. As the scene fades, Mina pronounces that she is unclean. Talking with Van Helsing, she agrees to hypnosis and senses Dracula on board a ship. Through intercut scenes and many geographical descriptions, the heroes follow Dracula's passage back to his home.
We next come upon Mina and Van Helsing driving a horse and cart through snow in the hills of Transylvania, the men below on horseback galloping wildly against the rays of the setting sun. At a campfire, Mina is hypnotised from afar by the three brides of Dracula and begins to seduce Van Helsing. He pulls away just before she bites and burns her forehead with a wafer. He then draws a circle of fire to keep the witches at bay. Angry, the brides take down a horse in silhouette.
By the light of day, Van Helsing enters the Count's castle-crypt and beheads the three vampire women. He flings the heads into a wide abyss and screams Dracul's name. Gypsies nearby carry the Count's coffin on a cart as he sends out hypnotic suggestions from inside the casket to Mina.
Morris, Holmwood and Seward follow the cart and begin a running gunfight with the gypsies. Mina, perched on a high rock, orders the winds to rise. Clouds roll by, superimposed with the blue flame. Quincey is stabbed in the back as
Dracula breaks free of his coffin. Harker shears through his throat with the large kukri knife while Quincey follows this up by ramming his own knife into the Count's chest.
Dracula staggers towards his Castle and Harker stops the men from giving chase as Mina follows. Quincey expires. Inside the Castle, Dracula laments that his God has forsaken him. Mina kisses him as a light bathes his face and he transforms into the youthful Dracula. He asks Mina to give him peace and she drives Quincey's knife deeper.
Dracula dies.
She kisses the corpse and then, removing the knife from his chest, cuts off his head.
As she gazes at the ceiling, we are drawn to the painting of Dracula and Elisabeta.
Review
Francis Ford Coppola and James V Hart promised the ultimate Dracula film, a story that would integrate everything that one could remember about Bram Stoker's novel. In this respect, like many filmmakers before them, they failed. To list the differences between the novel and this film would probably require a whole book to itself. Hart, as he had done with his earlier film, Hook (1991), had totally misread the source novel, and then added his own unique twist, turning a rip-roaring adventure yarn into a long and drawn out love story across the centuries.
Add to that the method-acting tics of Gary Oldman as the Count, a
nd the raving line deliveries of Anthony Hopkins and Tom Waits, with a dash of the worst impersonation of an English Gentleman from Keanu Reeves on record.
Throw in random borrowings from previous - and better - Dracula outings, and you still don't get an idea of the type of film that you are dealing with.
The Romance of Dracula; a personal Journey of the Count on celluloid Page 16
