Vampires have been popular and iconic across multiple genres of cinema since the earliest days of the medium. One of the most famous early examples, F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu, was inspired by the classic novel Dracula, despite the heavy changes for copyright purposes. Dracula is a beloved character, but he's having a particularly good year when it comes to his big-screen portrayal.
Dracula, like a lot of beloved characters, is currently the proud property of the public domain. This means that absolutely any person in absolutely every medium can introduce Count Dracula into their story. Try it at home today. Write a romantic comedy, a grounded period drama, or a fast-paced action blockbuster and give Dracula a brief cameo, he's totally available with no legal consequences. Just because anyone can use Dracula, doesn't mean anyone wants to.
Dracula Movies in 2023
Dracula has a starring role in two big horror films this year. The first, Renfield, has already hit the big screen. It's a fun snarky comedy that stars Nicholas Hoult as the titular Robert Montague Renfield. Though he's not present in every adaptation, Renfield is Dracula's faithful servant, until a sudden change of heart causes him to rebel against his dark master. The film frames this decision as the eventual result of a series of group meetings about dealing with abuse. It lands a bunch of fun jokes about abusive work culture, builds to a decent confrontation, and packs in so much comedic blood and gore that the Mortal Kombat movies should be taking notes. However, it's most notable for its big casting choice. The film finally put Nicolas Cage in the role of Dracula, and it's as spectacular as that idea would imply. Fans of the actor and the monster have wanted to see the two together for years, and it's worth the price of admission on its own.
The second big Dracula movie of 2023 is booked for August, but it's one of the strongest pitches for a vampire movie in a long time. The Last Voyage of the Demeter is an adaptation of the seventh chapter of Bram Stoker's original novel. That chapter, subtitled "The Captain's Log," doesn't usually make it into on-screen versions of the story because it doesn't have too much impact on the plot. It's a perfect horror short story, buried right in the middle of this classic novel. The story depicts the eponymous Russian merchant ship that has been hired to transport a bunch of unmarked crates to London. Sure enough one of those boxes happens to contain Dracula, allowing the vampire to pick off the unsuspecting crew one by one. Andre Øvredal steps up to direct this solid adaptation which looks like a take on Alien with space swapped out for the sea and Dracula in the place of the Xenomorph.
Universal Monsters are Finally Coming Back
Dracula had very few appearances on the big screen over the past decade. The Hotel Transylvania franchise gave the world a cartoon take on the character, and Castlevania delivered perhaps the best portrayal in years, but he's rarely in live-action. To lay the blame at the feet of a single feature film, it's all Dracula Untold's fault. Universal has been trying to bring its iconic monster-focused cinematic universe back for a very long time, and they've failed outright over and over again. Untold made money, bringing in over $210 million on a sparse $70 million budget. Conventional box office wisdom recommends doubling the budget to factor in the cost of marketing, suggesting a $70 million profit. That's nothing to sneeze at, but it's not franchise-launching money. Perhaps worse, the film was savaged by critics, most of whom saw it as a risk-averse waste of time. Looking back now, there's a weird amount of confluence between Dracula Untold, Renfield, and The Last Voyage of the Demeter that suggests some key lessons have been learned.
Dracula Untold reintroduced some of Vlad the Impaler's historical facts into the Dracula mythos. It turned Dracula into a superhero who sacrificed his humanity to defeat the all-consuming imperial threat that loomed large over his people. Renfield and Last Voyage also play with the old details of the story, digging up aspects that aren't often covered by other adaptations and making them the focus of the piece. The difference is in presentation. Renfield definitely has some superhero elements, but it's a comedy first, a horror film second, and a superhero film as a distant third. Last Voyage is a straight-up supernatural horror movie, a claustrophobic nightmare on the high seas. The lesson that Universal is finally learning is that these movies need to sequester themselves into unique genres. Trying to fit Untold and the far inferior 2017 film The Mummy into the superhero movie cookie cutter killed them both.
Dracula has a long past in the world of cinema, but his future suddenly looks brighter than ever. Universal has found the secret to making satisfying Dracula content, but it was always fairly obvious. Dracula belongs in horror films, but as long as the appropriate amount of blood is present, the children of the night will make their music.