Dracula Free Movies
Ophelia Gurin
I have added as many links as I could so that you can either watch the films online on Amazon Prime Video or if they are available as Blu-Ray or DVD. Of course, some of these are unavailable in all areas and may require subscriptions to other streaming services other than Amazon Prime.
So what do you think? How many of these Dracula movies have you seen? Do you have any others to add to the list? Let us know in the comments section and please consider joining our Facebook page, Scary Movies at the Fort. Each October we host the 31 Nights of Horror. Check us out.
On every corner of the internet, you find fans bemoaning the lack of originality within the movie business. Everything, it seems, is either a sequel, a reboot, a reimagining, or an adaptation. Listen, I get it, but there is one character that remains interesting, engaging, and, more often than not, downright terrifying no matter how many times his story is brought to screens. That character is none other than the dark prince himself, Count Dracula.
57 years after Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, another pioneering German director took on the dark prince in what is, essentially, a remake of the previous film on our list. Though it follows many of the same story beats of its predecessor, this version of Nosferatu leans heavily into the existential anguish and inherent loneliness that would come with immortality. It also features an extremely unsettling performance from infamous Herzog collaborator Klaus Klinski, who injects a level of menace and eccentricity into the character. This version of our favorite vampire may not jump off the page, but its languorous tone will worm its way into your subconscious.
This 1974 Dracula adaptation comes from Paul Morrissey, an artist closely associated with Andy Warhol and his famed Factory of experimental creatives. This may lend the film a more arthouse bent but there remains a healthy dose of violence and plenty of moments of bloody perversion. Morrissey also displays a fair amount of sympathy for his Dracula, whom he seems to look at more as a hopeless, and at times pathetic, addict than a truly evil harbinger of death. German actor Udo Kier is excellent as the titular character, marking the first of many times he would appear in vampire-related fare, including Dracula 3000, BloodRayne, and Blade.
As this list illustrates, Dracula is lodged in the public consciousness perhaps as much as any character in the history of popular fiction. The original text may have been written by a fairly anonymous Irish secretary at the close of the 19th century, but the character he created has traveled the world many times over, inspiring countless stories and more than a few nightmares. For this entry on our list, we travel to Japan for Vampire Hunter D, an anime film based on the series of novels of the same name by Hideyuki Kikuchi. This story, set in 12,090 AD is quite different from most of the movies on our list. It takes the origin mythos of Dracula and injects a healthy portion of science fiction. The result is a fantastical adventure tale that displays just how influential Stoker and his character have become.
This is, without a doubt, the most prestigious rendition of Count Dracula on our list, a genuinely star-studded film by one of the most important directors of the twentieth century. The idea that Francis Ford Coppola, the man behind movies like Apocalypse Now and The Godfather trilogy, wanted to try his hand at a Dracula movie brought a new level of excitement to the vampire genre. This was only multiplied when it was announced that Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, and Keanu Reeves would be set to star, with none other than Gary Oldman playing the titular role.
Which one(s) can be considered to be the most faithful adaptation ? Ideally something clearly recognisable as being "the film of the book", rather than a "reimagining" of the tale, or just another generic vampire movie.
The answer to this is Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula. Yes, it exaggerates a relationship between Dracula and Mina and makes up a story for how Dracula became a vampire (which the novel never explains and hints that Dracula, himself, doesn't know how it happened). It also is a bit eccentric with the costumes and leaves out the full bat transformation but other than these issues it is the most accurate to the novel.
Some people would say the Louis Jourdan made for TV BBC mini-series Count Dracula from 1976 is the most faithful but really it's only the most dry and academic version. And it does stray from the book. It combines the Quincey Morris and Lord Holmwood characters, it makes Mina and Lucy sisters. It does not have the count de-age. The count in the movie is also very dispassionate and bored to the point where he gives very little reaction to anything when the character is supposed to be prone to emotion, particularly anger.
In fact I can tell you which edition of Coppola's movie to get. For picture quality you want the one with the grey case. It has no special features but it's the best picture quality. The collector's edition has the best special features (including deleted scenes) but darker / grainier picture quality.
Isn't Coppola's movie, Bram Stoker's Dracula, pretty accurate? Haven't read the book in ages, and I seem to remember some differences (the movie's portrayal of Dracula renouncing Christianity, and his romantic attachment to Mina come to mind), but overall I think it was the most faithful rendition of the novel.
Coppola's version is most accurate by virtue of its use of the settings. I'm not a huge fan of this version and I'm a huge fan of the Dracula genre, collector of Dracula movies and have read the book so many times I have lost count (pun intended!) Not that fussed about Oldman's Dracula, I thought it was simply too outthere and his reference to Vlad was not good. Hopkin's Van Helsing was ok as was Ryder's Mina and the less said about Canoe 'I know where the b***d sleeps' Reeves, the better! However, Ewles, Campbell and Frost as Holmwood, Morris and Westenra were accurately and superbly portrayed. Also, the end scenes where they attack the gypsies was simply outstanding and straight out of the book. Even Tom Waits was an excellent Renfield.
My all time favourite is one that is probably the least faithful (c0onsidering what they did with the characters) but its epicness and score, together with its cast make it an absolute joy and thats the 1979 Langella version with the Williams score with Trevor Eve,Kate Nelligan, sexy Jan Francis and the late great Donald Pleasence as Seward but even the legendary Olivier's version of Van Helsing was not a patch on the quintessential Prof Van Helsing - Sir (should have been imo) Peter Cushing.
Every other movie I have seen has skipped the massacre aboard the Russian vessel, The Demeter entirely. While it may not be too relevant to the main story, it was amazingly creepy and scary in the original novel. The connection between Tepes and Dracula was hinted for a moment in the book when Van Helsing was laying out the plan to destroy the count, and I am able to forgive the introduction in Coppola's movie. I also liked the fact that he made the movie with almost no digital effects, but rather with old camera tricks.
The 1977 BBC version of Count Dracula is without a doubt the very best version filmed so far. Many Dracula fans may say that the hammer version of the story is better. But for me this is the one. I first viewed it when it was broadcast in 1977 in two parts and I have seen it many time's since. I didn't know it back then, not having read the book as I was only 6 years old ,but it was and still is the most faithful version of the story. Most of the actors look like the have stepped from the pages of the Bram Stoker novel with the possible exception of Louis Jordan's Count, who is suave and elegant until his blood lust is aroused. This is also the first version to show some of the more horrifying moments from the novel, such as the brides and the baby. Plus many of the actual locations that appear in the novel are actually used. There are a few minor draw backs in the BBC version but they are mainly to do with the budget restraints. For example some scenes' are filmed in video and some in film giving it an uneven feel and some of the special optical effects are very dated. But if your like me you can forgive these. To finish off all I can say is that I wish Frances ford Coppola had watched this version before he started filming his rather disjointed , overblown 1992 version. The 1977 BBC version of Count Dracula is a master class in how to bring slow burning Victorian terror to the screen.
To tell you none of the movies do. In the book Dracula doesn't fall in love with Mina, he has no love interest at all. All the Dracula films have stray from the book. Until some director does it how it was written in the book, none of them do.
Some say the Coppola version is the most faithful, but I have to disagree and go with the '77 BBC version. It's just a straight forward dramatization of the book. Yes Coppola's version includes more of the main characters and generally follows the plot, but it's reinterpreted to focus on a Dracula-Mina love story that's not derived from the book at all, and Dracula is made into a somewhat sympathetic anti-hero. In my opinion the changes in the BBC version (leaving out the de-aging, Mina and Lucy as sisters, "Quincy P. Holmwood") are minor compared to that.
I will give Coppala's version credit for at least keeping the characters straight. And I'll concede that they did include many horrifying scenes that Stoker the theatre manager would have loved. So I suppose it is the most accurate interpretation. But Keanu Reeves was so lame that he ruined the movie for me. Frankly they haven't made an accurate interpretation yet. Each producer feels compelled to sex it up one way or the other. The tone of the novel - the understated sense of gathering doom - has never quite been captured. Nor has Mary Shelley's Frankenstein ever been faithfully rendered. The eloquence and the florid Victorian language is traded for cartoonish monsters. I have nothing against a good monster movie but I long for a good Dracula or Frankenstein where the monsters are metaphors and we are exposed to a culture very different from our own.
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