such liberties

Rating: Null/10 (8 July 2004)

Where oh where do the liberties come in making this a love story? Bram Stoker's novel is a diary account of the main characters. The count is only a secondary character who has set the wheels of motion in action. This is the story of Johnathan Harker and his love Mina. Van helsing is portrayed in the movie as an eccentric by Anthonty Hopkins. What bumpkin. Van helsing was a man of honour and integrity as all the well devised characters are in the novel. They are all three dimensional except for the count who is really inconsequential to this soap-opera story. Gary Oldman, an excellent actor, totally overplays the count to the point of misrepresentation. Dracula is a novel of Victorian manners more attuned to a Jane Austen story rather than anything Hollywood or Hammer has ever come close to. The true horror of Dracula is it's misinterpretation for over 100 years than any re-imagining that has ever occurred. Read the novel and discover the real human story contained within, rather than the crap fed to you by Hollywood.