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With over two hundred screen adaptations to his name, Count Dracula ranks second only to Sherlock Holmes in his cinematic popularity. Consequently, the practice of resurrecting the character has become an increasingly difficult one to pull off over the last hundred or so years, as countless writers have struggled to put their own unique spin on his legend. Many have tried to condense the story, to boil him down into his most appealing traits and reinterpret everything around them. Most have failed.
BBC’s Dracula is the rare exception to the rule, defying the odds to craft a creepy, intelligent and intricately gorgeous new vessel for the legend. The creators, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, rose to fame with their contemporary reimagining of Sherlock Holmes back in 2010, achieving universal acclaim for downplaying the mysteries and instead delving deeper into the personal lives of Holmes and Watson. They pull the same trick here in their reimagining of Dracula (Claes Bang), whose story generally unfolds in much the same way as in Bram Stoker’s original text, but with the addition of some difficult questions that even he struggles to answer. Why does Dracula fear sunlight, why does he hide from mirrors and why must he seduce his victims before he destroys them? These are the questions which interest Dracula, and over its three 90 minute instalments it resolves to answer them in the most gory and mesmerisingly beautiful fashion imaginable.
The story begins in Hungary, where a ghoulish man riddled with blisters and desensitised to the pain of a fly burrowing its way deep into his eye is interrogated by two nuns; one silent, the other ecstatic. The latter is Sister Agatha Van Helsing (Dolly Wells), a Gothic anti-hero who shines unflinchingly against the increasingly nightmarish world around her, driven by a sense of giddy curiosity so obsessive as to border on unhinged. Her faith in God has begun to falter, and she believes that it is not by defeating her demonic opponent but by uncovering his darkest secrets that she can attain spiritual clarity. Agatha’s interest in Dracula is an inherently selfish one, and the story demonstrates this by depicting her progress in understanding her foe as being in direct proportion to the growing piles of bodies surrounding their encounters. This is not a traditional story about the clash between good and evil, rather it focuses its attention on a morally uncertain heroine who seems closer in attitude to the titular monster than to humanity.
The series unfolds in the form of a three-part dialogue between Dracula and Agatha which takes them across the globe, with a huge cast of expendable civilians standing between them at each junction. These bit players are the perfect argument in favour of each episode’s 90 minute runtime, as their thoughtful and engaging characterisations make the prospect of their untimely deaths almost unbearable. Standouts include Jonathan Harker (John Heffernan), the aforementioned zombie disfigured by Dracula and befriended by Agatha, Dr Sharma (Sacha Dhawan), a scientist with a sensitive heart born from a history of trauma, and Lucy Westenra (Lydia West), a naive young woman who unknowingly becomes the apple of Dracula’s eye. Fans of the novel will of course note that many of these characters were originally Stoker’s inventions, however Moffat and Gatiss write each of them with a sense of autonomy which elevates them above the stock victims of the source material. These are far more than mere lambs for the slaughter.
Each episode of Dracula is set in a different location drawn from the original story in order to effectively chart the vampire’s journey in three neat blocks, chronicling his departure from Transylvania, his voyage across the ocean aboard the Demeter and ultimately his arrival in the comparatively futuristic ‘New World’ of England. These locations are gorgeously designed by the show’s remarkable production design team, particularly in the case of the episode set on the Demeter, for which an entire ship was built from the ground up to allow for maximum camera mobility. The three directors tasked with breathing life into these masterfully constructed worlds, Jonny Campbell, Damon Thomas and Paul McGuigan, do so by effortlessly imbuing every last tight corner and shadowed hallway with a palpable sense of nail-biting tension and dread.
I do not expect Dracula to satisfy everyone. Like Sherlock, it delights in experimenting with the source material to degrees that will certainly alienate some of its viewers, with one particular choice in the third episode sticking out as particularly likely to spawn controversy. It is these final few minutes that I suspect will be the source of much debate in the coming months, though I personally don’t believe that this ending, however you may feel about it, does anything to nullify the brilliance of the show’s first four hours.
Dracula will be remembered for its efforts to dissect the legend of its title character with a delectable blend of sharp wit, ambitious storytelling and visual artistry that is among the very best in television, before concluding with a shocking twist that digs deeper into the roots of one of the greatest monster stories of all time than any other adaptation, leaving us with a truly unforgettable final image that must be seen to be believed.
