Dracula Blogged

Dracula versus Tom Delay

From Wonkette, the strangest use of Dracula in a political context this season.

(thanks, Jesse Walker)

Whitby photo

Elizabeth Miller sends this image of Whitby:

Say more, friend Elizabeth?

Leiter-wagon

Since we've wondered about leiter-wagons, which are mentioned very early in the novel, Elizabeth Miller was kind enough to send this image along:

Credit: Clive Leatherdale, The Origins of Dracula.

Dracula climbing image

As Elizabeth Miller mentioned in comments, here is the image of that great scene with Dracula climbing down the castle wall, from the cover of the first paperback (abridged) edition (1901) of the novel:

(thank you, Elizabeth!)

New Dracula movie connected to Stoker estate?

Various sources are reporting a new Dracula movie project, with a link to Bram Stoker's estate.  I haven't been able to verify this further, but would venture a correction: "The Un-Dead" wasn't Stoker's subtitle, but draft title for the novel itself.

Unfortunately, Variety pegs Jan de Bont as the director.  Since he helmed the vile, wretched, horrendously awful 1999 "remake" of The Haunting, I expect only bad things.  (Go see the Robert Wise film (1963) instead, and read Shirley Jackson's novel (1959))

(thanks to Steven Kaye)

Into Borgo Pass

The Borgo Pass, through which Jonathan Harker describes passing, in a photo from Elizabeth Miller:

Transylvania today

Where does this novel take place?  For starters, Jonathan Harker is now in Transylvania.
Behold modern Romania:

(CIA Factbook)

Dracula cartoon for the week

Antrageous celebrates the return of Dracula with some more cartooning:

Dracula on YouTube

A quick datapoint on the persistence of Dracula: a search on the term "Dracula" at the very popular Web video site Youtube yields 152 hits, as of this morning.  The returned videos vary enormously in quality (and copyright infringement!).

75 years ago

This year is the 75th since the release of the most influential Dracula film.  1931 saw Tod Browning's Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi.  That's also 75 years since the release of the concurrently produced "Spanish Dracula."

(via the WikiMonster)