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Date:         Tue, 21 Jul 1992 10:04:12 EDT
From:         "Orlanda Thompson --- Rm M1310 Bldg. 100 --- Ext. 3005"
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Subject:      In refence to Anita question about Dracula,
              sorry I had to go through the masses; but,
              it would accept anitas' e-mail address.  Orlanda
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From:	AITGW::"QUINN%GONZAGA.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU" 26-JUN-1992 14:56:40.74
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Subj:	Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula

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From: QUINN%GONZAGA.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU
Subject:      Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula
To: Multiple recipients of list VAMPYRES
 <VAMPYRES%GUVM.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU>

Dear Creatures:

I am passing on to you the following article from the Vancouver
Sun about Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula.  It delves a little
more deeply than most movie reviews into the symbols of
vampirism.  I hope you find it interesting.

According to a few other sources, a test sreening of the film
recently induced some viewers to vomit, literally, so they are
back to the drawing board, cutting out some of the more explicit
gore, and adding some scenes to make the story line less
confusing.  Release is scheduled for "November."

Best wishes,

     The Godless One

     "Look for me in the shadows, for I shall be lurking there --
      I shall come to thee as one who enters in a dream . . ."



            *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *


                Copyright 1992 Pacific Press Ltd.
                        The Vancouver Sun

               April 27, 1992, Monday, 1* EDITION

SECTION: FEATURES; Pg. C1

LENGTH: 1427 words

HEADLINE: Betting on Blood: Tough times are fertile ground for
vampires - so count on Holywood for a gothic movie comeback:
Horor: Vampire flicks fresh blood for Hollywood

BYLINE: PAT BROESKE; NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

BODY: ORROR.  BLOOD LUST.  Eroticism.  The promise of eternal
life.  Welcome to the dark, alluring world of the vampire.

Since the 1930s, when a caped Bela Lugosi swooped on to screens,
declaring, "I am Count Dracula.  I bid you welcome," that world
has been a familiar movie backdrop.

But vampires - a veritable staple of the horror genre - have
historically materialized in B-movies and, more recently,
direct-to-video quickies.  Now the genre is getting a shot of
fresh blood with some high-profile projects from major studios.
Consider Columbia Pictures' $ 40-million US version of Bram
Stoker's Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

Coppola's film, which stars Gary Oldman as the bloodthirsty
count, Winona Ryder as his hoped-for eternal love and Anthony
Hopkins as his nemesis, is but one of more than a dozen vampire
movies in production or active development.

While it is being touted as the first faithful screen adaptation
of Stoker's enduring 1897 Gothic novel, the others are
distinguished by transfusions of everything from hip-hop music to
campy humor and contemporary erotica.

"The whole idea is to bring something to the genre that has never
been done before," says the producer, Bernie Brillstein, who is
currently developing Nightland, about a policeman turned vampire.

Get ready, then, for vampires in Las Vegas, a neck-biting femme
fatale, vampires doomed by love, vampires stalked by a valley
girl, time-travelling vampires, a vampire involved in a tryst
with a stripper and the angst-ridden vampires of Anne Rice's
sprawling novel, Interview With the Vampire.

Hollywood's infatuation with the legendary bloodsucker owes much
to the publishing world and its vampire cottage industry.  It's
an industry due largely to the Stoker novel, which has never been
out of print, and to Rice's best-selling trilogy, which began
with the 1976 publication of Interview With the Vampire and has
come to be known as The Vampire Chronicles.

Stoker is the subject of a forthcoming biography by Barbara
Belford; Rice's Tale of the Body Thief, her fourth meditation on
life, death and the vampires among us, will be out in the fall.

Since Rice's first such novel, vampires have shown up in
increasing numbers of paperbacks, many laced with equal portions
of sex and scares.  There have been non-fiction studies, too,
including the recent Vampires, Werewolves and Demons:
20th-century Reports in the Psychiatric Literature by Richard
Noll; and Bloodlust: Conversations with Real Vampires by Carol
Page.  And not to be overlooked are vampire fiction for children,
vampire comics and vampire graphic novels.

Of course, vampires also haunt television, where they have
surfaced in everything from animated series to soap operas like
Dark Shadows, which originally ran from 1966 to 1971 on ABC and
was briefly resuscitated last year on NBC.

Why all this interest in a nocturnal fictional figure who feeds
on the blood of innocent victims?

One Draculanian authority sees a link to the current mood of
society.

"In times of social upheaval, the vampire asserts itself," says
David Skal, author of Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of
Dracula From Novel to Stage to Screen.  With a nod to 1931, the
year Lugosi's Dracula was released, and to today's recessionary
times, Skal notes, "There are a lot of parallels between then and
now."

The mix of sex and violence may also have a lot to do with the
appeal of the vampire.  No other monster acts as both attacker
and seducer.  But along with danger, the vampire evokes pathos.
As the most romantically tragic of the monsters (and the only one
who looks human), the creature is easy to identify with, and its
victims are easy to relate to.  Vampirism is about the shedding
of sexual repression and learning to welcome the night.

Donald Reed, who wears a vampire cape when he conducts the annual
meetings of the Count Dracula Society, which he founded and has
presided over for 32 years, believes the lure has to do with "the
quest for the numinous - otherworldly experiences." Adds Reed:
"We all would love to live forever."

Leonard Wolf, author of the 1975 book The Annotated Dracula (to
be reprinted next year as The Essential Dracula), maintains
vampire themes are as compelling as those of Arthurian legend.
"There's the struggle between Christianity and Satan.  And a
psycho-sexual allegorical context we never can shake," says Wolf,
himself a native of Transylvania (now part of Romania), Dracula's
homeland.

Of all the characters of the supernatural world, none is as
boldly erotic as the vampire, who virtually takes command of
victims.  "Dominance and submission come together," explains
Rice.

The director John Landis, currently in postproduction on Innocent
Blood, about a female vampire, says: "It doesn't matter if they
bite men or women.  The victims almost always swoon."

It could also be argued that modern vampires generate a
heightened sense of danger - since vampirism involves the
exchange of blood.  To date, film-makers have not focused on the
AIDS issue.  But that doesn't mean they haven't considered it.

Jim Hart, screenwriter of Bram Stoker's Dracula, says the topic
came up in meetings.  "Since ours is a period piece, we didn't
have to deal with it."

A melancholy figure doomed to do evil deeds so he can live for
all eternity, the vampire evokes sympathy - even empathy.  "He's
a metaphor for the outsider in all of us," Rice says.

Vampires headed for the screen live on terrain ranging from
19th-century Transylvania to modern-day Los Angeles and the San
Fernando Valley.  Among them:

     * Innocent Blood. Here, a vampire with a conscience - she
     only kills bad guys - finds herself teamed with an
     undercover cop to get a mobster. Anne Parillaud heads a cast
     that includes Anthony LaPaglia, Robert Loggia and the
     comedian Don Rickles. The film, for release in the fall,
     mixes horror, comedy and romance.

     * Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui,
     this project is at the end of filming in Los Angeles for
     20th Century Fox. To be released in July, it is about a
     valley girl who is taken aback when she learns her true
     destiny. Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland, Luke (Beverly
     Hills 90210) Perry and Rutger Hauer star.

     * Reluctant Vampire. As the title character, the rock
     musician Adam Ant tries to please the woman he loves by
     reforming and becoming a yuppie.

     * To Sleep With a Vampire. With B-movie king Roger Corman as
     its executive producer, this film is about a vampire who
     coerces a stripper into an affair so he can carry out a
     "body switch" and experience sunlight.

     The film is expected in the fall. Corman plans to shoot a
     second vampire movie next month in Bulgaria and Romania
     called Dracula Rising, which deals with a medical researcher
     who time-travels to 19th-century Transylvania.

     * Red Sleep. A group of mostly black musicians makes a
     startling discovery during a trip to Las Vegas. The film
     will include comedy, horror, music and the black experience.
     "It's going to be the hip-hop vampire movie."

It has taken 95 years for a faithful adaptation of the novel
Dracula to go before the cameras. According to Hart, the writer
of Bram Stoker's Dracula, which is scheduled to be released in
November, "The book's eroticism has been hinted at, but never
really shown."

Hart began work on the project in 1977 after reading The
Annotated Dracula by Wolf (with whom he once teamed for a Dracula
script). "Until I read Leonard's book, I, like everyone else, had
thought of Dracula movies as cheap exploitation fare."

Surprised by the depth of the Dracula story and the complexities
of the title character (a man who is in defiance of God), Hart
shopped his scripts off and on over the years. The turning point
came when the script was read by Winona Ryder, who in turn showed
it to Coppola.

Coppola declined to be interviewed for this article. But Chuck
Mulvehill, a producer of Dracula, says Coppola became involved
for both artistic and practical reasons.

Filmed on sound stages over 14 weeks, Coppola's movie will have
special effects that are not enhanced by computers or camera
trickery but will instead utilize trap doors, mirrors, fog
machines and other gimmicks of yesteryear.

"The emphasis will be on the story," explains Mulvehill.

The emphasis also promises to be on sensuality - and sexuality.
As Hart notes, "Dracula can make people commit sexual acts beyond
their own imaginations - and well beyond what society would
permit."

It will also be the first film to explore Dracula's origins.

GRAPHIC: DAVID MacLEAN/ unfurled roll of film, vampire in woods,
woman reading book in foreground
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