Bram Stoker's Dracula

[00:00:04] Speaker A: This Film is Lit, the podcast where we finally settle the score on one simple. Is the book really better than the movie? I'm Brian, and I have a film degree, so I watch the movie but don't read the book. [00:00:15] Speaker B: And I'm Katie. I have an English degree, so I do things the right way and read the book before we watch the movie. [00:00:22] Speaker A: So prepare to be wowed by our expertise and charm as we dissect all of your favorite film adaptations and decide if the silver screen or the written word did it better. So turn it up, settle in, and get ready for spoilers, because this film is lit. Listen to them, the children of the night. What sweet music they make. It's Bram Stoker's Dracula, and this film is lit. Hello, and welcome back to this Film is Lit. March Madness edition. We are talking about Bram Stoker's Dracula, both the film and the book, because that's what the book's called. Well, that's what the film's called. The book is just called Dracula. [00:01:17] Speaker B: The book is Dracula by Bram Stoker. [00:01:19] Speaker A: To be fair, on IMDb, this movie is listed as just Dracula as well, but everybody calls it Bram Stone versus Dracula. I believe that's how it was originally released. [00:01:26] Speaker B: So, I mean, that is what the title card says when you play the movie. So. [00:01:30] Speaker A: So, yes, Bram Stoker's Dracula won our March Madness poll. If you don't know what that is, every March, we have a bracket a la the NCAA tournament, where we have movies of all different adaptations of one novel compete, and then our audience votes, and then one of them wins and we cover it on as our main episode for March. So the this year, Bram Stoker's Dracula one, that poll. And we have so much to talk about. We have every single one of our segments, and Katie has so many notes, and she'll explain why as we get into it. So let's get in. If you have not read or watched Bram Stoker's Dracula, we're gonna give you a little summary in. Let me sum up. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. This is a summary of the film sourced from Wikipedia. In 1462, Vlad Dracula returns from a victory from. From a victory in his campaign against the Ottoman Empire to find his beloved wife Elizabeth has committed suicide. After his enemies falsely reported his death. A priest of the Romanian Orthodox Church tells him that his wife's soul is damned to hell for committing suicide. Enraged, Vlad desecrates the chapel and renounces God, declaring that he will rise from the grave to avenge Elizabeth with all the powers of darkness. He then drives his sword into the chapel stone cross and drinks the blood that pours from it, becoming a vampire. He In 1897, solicitor Jonathan Harker takes the Transylvanian Count Dracula as a client from his colleague RM Renfield, who has gone insane and is now an inmate in Dr. Jack Seward's asylum. Jonathan travels to Dracula's castle in Transylvania to arrange Dracula's real estate acquisitions in London. There he meets Dracula, who finds a picture of his fiance, Mina Murray, and believes that she is the reincarnation of Elizabeth. Dracula leaves Jonathan to be fed upon by his brides while he sails to England with Transylvanian soil. Taking up residence at Carfax Abbey in London, Dracula hypnotically seduces and bites Mina's best friend, Lucy Westenra, with whom Mina is staying while Jonathan is in Transylvania. Lucy's deteriorating health and behavioral changes prompt former suitors quincy Morse and Dr. Seward, along with her fiance, Arthur Holmwood, to summon Dr. Abraham. Van Helsing, Seward's mentor, who recognizes Lucy as being the victim of a vampire. Dracula, appearing young and handsome during daylight, meets and charms Mina. Mina develops feelings for Dracula, accompanying him on several outings. When Mina receives word from Jonathan, who has escaped the castle and recovered at a convent, she travels to Romania to marry him. A heartbroken Dracula transforms Lucy into a vampire. Van Helsing, Holmwood, Seward and Morse kill the undead Lucy. The following night, after he and Mina return to London, Jonathan and Van Helsing lead the others to Carfax Abbey, where they destroy the Count's boxes of soil. Dracula enters the asylum and kills Renfield for warning Mina of his presence. He visits Mina, who is staying in the Seward's quarters, and confesses that he murdered Lucy and has been terrorizing Mina's friends. Though furious at first, Mina admits that she still loves him and remembers Elizabeth's previous life. At her insistence, Dracula begins transforming her into a vampire. The hunters burst into the bedroom and Dracula claims Mina as his bride before escaping. As Mina changes, Van Helsing hypnotizes her and learns via her connection with Dracula that he is sailing home in his last remaining box. The hunters depart for Varna to intercept him, but Dracula reads Mina's mind and evades them. The hunters split up. Van Helsing and Mina travel to the Borgo pass in the castle, while the others try to stop the Romani transporting Dracula. At night, Van Helsing and Mina are approached by Dracula's brides. Mina succumbs to their chanting and attempts to Seduce Van Helsing. Before Mina can feed on his blood, Van Helsing places a communion wafer on her forehead, leaving a mark that slows her transformation. He surrounds them with a ring of fire to protect from the brides, then kills the brides. The following morning, Dracula's carriage arrives at the castle, pursued by the hunters. A fight between the hunters and the Romani ensue. Morris is fatally stabbed in the back and Dracula bursts from his coffin. At sunset, Jonathan slits his throat with a kukri knife while Morse stabs him in the heart. Van Helsing and Jonathan allow Mina to retreat with the Count while Morse dies in the arms of Seward, comforted by his friends in the chapel where he renounces God, Dracula, where he renounced God, Dracula lies dying. He and Mina share a kiss as the candles adorning the chapel light up and the cross repairs itself. Dracula reverts to his younger self and asks Mina to give him peace. Mina thrusts the knife through his heart as he dies and the mark on her forehead disappears, freeing her from his curse. She then decapitates him and gazes up at the fresco of lead and Elizabeth ascending to heaven together, finally reunited. The end. I learned some things from that. Some of that is not at all that elevate, you know, evident in the movie. Some of this is inferences made by whoever wrote the summary, but. But most of it, yeah, pretty, pretty spot on. We do have Guess who so we'll get to. And they're long, so let's get to that. Who are you? No one of consequence I must know. Get used to disappointment. [00:06:24] Speaker B: Within stood a tall old man, clean shaven, save for a long white mustache and clad in black from head to foot without a single speck of color about him anywhere. His face was a strong. A very strong aquiline with high bridge of thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty domed forehead and hair growing scantily around the temples but profusely everywhere. His eyebrows were massive, almost meeting over the nose with bushy hair that seemed to curl of its own profusion. The mouth, as far as I could see it under the heavy mustache, was fixed and rather cruel looking, with peculiar, peculiarly sharp white teeth. These protruded over the lips, whose remarkable readiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale and the tops extremely pointed. The chin was broad and strong and the cheeks firm, though thin. [00:07:29] Speaker A: I'm going to guess this is Dracula based on the description. It doesn't exactly fit him. But he also changes appearance a lot in the movie Dracula appears in. I don't know, I would say at least five different versions of himself in this movie. I can't remember them all, but he's like a different versions of a bat guy. Sometimes he's the white old version. He's the young version. He's also like a slightly different versions of the older version. Sometimes I feel like. So I'm going to say this Dracula, it's way too long to be. I think anybody else that would make any sense. [00:08:06] Speaker B: This is Dracula. [00:08:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Like I said, I'm not sure who else it would be. I'm not sure it like super matches any depiction in the movie. [00:08:16] Speaker B: But he's old. That's. [00:08:20] Speaker A: Or any depiction of Dracula that I've ever really seen, I think would be maybe the bigger thing. I don't know if I've ever seen this Dracula before. [00:08:27] Speaker B: It's just the mustache. Nobody really ever gives him a mustache. [00:08:31] Speaker A: Well, and not a white one, because he has it in the Nosferatu one. [00:08:35] Speaker B: Yes, he does have a mustache in Nosferatu. [00:08:38] Speaker A: Imagine. Because of this and just because mustaches were popular at the time. But it's not white. [00:08:43] Speaker B: No. [00:08:44] Speaker A: In that movie the white hair could work. In this one, because he does have white hair. A lot like having a white mustache. But he doesn't have a white mustache in this. But he could because his hair is all white when we see him early in the movie. [00:08:56] Speaker B: Two things that I really like about this are the implied widow's peak where it says his hair grows scantily at the temples, but profusely everywhere else. [00:09:06] Speaker A: I guess that's what that means. I guess I had. [00:09:08] Speaker B: That's what I took that to. [00:09:09] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Yeah. [00:09:10] Speaker B: And I also like that he has like pointy bat ears. Where was in canon, his ears were pale and the tops extremely pointed. [00:09:19] Speaker A: Oh, there you go. Yeah, he's got bad ears. Amazing. Yeah, that. I don't know who else that could have possibly been. So that one was kind of easy, even though again, didn't really match any of my. My view of what I would imagine Dracula to look like. [00:09:34] Speaker B: Two were dark and had high aquiline noses and great dark, piercing eyes that seemed to be almost red when contrasted with the pale yellow moon. The other was fair, as fair as can be, with great wavy masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires. All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. [00:09:58] Speaker A: It's very easy. Obviously this would be the brides Of Dracula. Cause there were three of them. Yeah, yeah. And they very often are depicted as two of them having dark hair and. [00:10:07] Speaker B: One of them and one blonde. Yeah, so, yeah. A man of medium height, strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad deep chest and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck. The poise of the head strikes one at once as indicative of thought and power. The head is noble, well sized, broad and large behind the ears. The face, clean shaven, shows a hard, square chin. A large resolute, mobile mouth. A good sized nose, rather straight, but with quick, sensitive nostrils that seem to broaden as the big bushy brows come down and the mouth tightens. The forehead is broad and fine, rising at first almost straight and then sloping back above where two bumps or ridges wide apart. Such a forehead that the reddish brown hair cannot possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally back into the sides. Big dark blue eyes are set widely apart and are quick and tender or stern with the man's moods. [00:11:11] Speaker A: Okay, we are hitting a little bit here of like so many details that it makes it hard for my brain to like parse what this person actually looks like. They're almost over described, like for my, the way my brain works. [00:11:24] Speaker B: Well, what's interesting is that we have basically these two characters that are like over described. Right. Because the description of the brides is fairly normal, I feel like. And then we have these other two like super long over described, like every single detail. And then everybody else in the book not described at all. [00:11:44] Speaker A: Huh. It's interesting. So nothing really jumped out to me here necessarily. I, I have a, a clue of who I think this would be. And it really comes down to one detail, maybe two. But really the main thing that made me cue in on like who I thought this was is such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally back into the sides. To me that for whatever reason I was like, that's Van Helsing. So this feels like this is Van Helsing. [00:12:18] Speaker B: To me, that is Van Helsing. I don't know how you deduced that, but well deduced. [00:12:24] Speaker A: I feel like in a lot of depictions of Van Helsing, especially Dr. Van Helsing, not, not the. And even in that he kind of does. He often has a reddish blondish hair and he often. It's often long and back into the like. Yeah, like literally that hairstyle is like the main thing. Again, other than that like him being medium height, strongly built, felt like somebody who can, like, he's not like a warrior, but he can. Like, he's a. He's kind of imposing. Like, relatively imposing. And then also the final line. Big, dark blue eyes set widely apart that are quick and tender or stern with the man's mood. Just that line, to me implied that he's a complicated man, but who's a good guy? But not like the hero of our story necessarily. All right. Well, that was pretty good. Three for three. Look at that. Those. I don't say they were easy. The first two were easy. The second one or the last one? [00:13:18] Speaker B: The last one really could have been any of the men in the book. [00:13:22] Speaker A: Probably. [00:13:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Again, the hair is what got me there. Just. Anyway, something about that. But. All right, I have a lot of questions about this movie, so let's get into them. In. Was that in the book? [00:13:37] Speaker B: Gaston? May I have my book, please? [00:13:39] Speaker A: How can you read this? There's no pictures. [00:13:41] Speaker B: Well, some people use their imagination. [00:13:43] Speaker A: So the film opens up on actually the backstory of Dracula, which I didn't kind of realize we were gonna get. We open up on seeing a younger Dracula in his warlord day or whatever. He count days, I guess. Yeah. [00:13:58] Speaker B: But also kind of a warlord lore lord. Like, he, like, leads an army. [00:14:02] Speaker A: He's a warrior. Yes. But, yeah, he's. He's a. Yeah. And he's leading his army. Specifically, in the opening of the film, we get this backstory that the Muslim hordes are invading. They're encroaching into Christian Europe. And Dracula rouses his army against the encroaching Muslim horde. And I wanted to know if that was Dracula's backstory. Cause I thought that was interesting. [00:14:30] Speaker B: So the short answer is no. There's not really a backstory for Dracula in the book. We obviously know that he's super old. At the beginning of the novel, he talks to Jonathan about his family history in air quotes, to which Jonathan remarks that he speaks of those things, especially battles, as if he had been there himself. And then much later in the book, Van Helsing states about Dracula, as I learned from the researches of my friend Arminius of Budapest, he was in life a most wonderful man, soldier, statesman, and alchemist. And then they also later reference Dracula's once retreating back to his homeland during an ancient battle in Turkey. [00:15:18] Speaker A: Okay, so he was a warrior. [00:15:19] Speaker B: Yeah. So, like, you could say that some of this backstory is inspired by things from the book, but it's definitely not from the book. Whole cloth. To me, it seemed much more inspired by the popular interpretation of Dracula being based on Vlad the Impaler. [00:15:36] Speaker A: Yes. That would be who I assume what. I assume this is mostly referencing because there is in the imagery and vocally later I think Van Helsing or somebody mentions, but we see a bunch of people like impaled on the field of. [00:15:50] Speaker B: Battle after he does in fact impale. [00:15:52] Speaker A: Yeah, we see a bunch of bodies impaled on spikes in the battlefield and all that sort of stuff. And so, yeah, it very much feels like we're doing Vlad the Impaler here is kind of what I assumed. So then we get the kind of inciting incident of this whole movie, honestly, which is that he's returning from this big war. He went to. He went out to fight this big battle and he's returning, but before he able to return the. The enemy, the Muslims send some. Some guys to shoot an arrow with a message on it into the castle where his wife is. Yeah, his castle, I guess. And it lies and says that he died in battle. And so she assumes he's dead and so she kills herself. And I wanted to know if that plot. And this is what kicks everything off and I want to know if that came from the book. [00:16:42] Speaker B: It does not. There's never any mention, at least not that I caught of his having had a wife. I mean, obviously they're the brides of Dracula, but that's not really the same thing. But no, there's not really any mention of him having had a wife at any point. [00:16:59] Speaker A: Like a backstory, like a tragic. Because that's really what this whole movie ends up being about. [00:17:04] Speaker B: Yes. [00:17:04] Speaker A: Is the. [00:17:06] Speaker B: Yeah, the tragedy of. [00:17:08] Speaker A: The tragedy of him losing star crossed lovers. Yes. And then his desperate again. And then him. Which is my next question is does he then denounce God and stab a giant bleeding hole into the cross? And is this what turns him into a vampire because he wants revenge for God kind of abandoning him and letting Elizabeth, his beloved wife, die? Does that come from the book? [00:17:31] Speaker B: No. Again, at least nothing that I caught while reading this behemoth of a book. [00:17:38] Speaker A: For the first time. [00:17:39] Speaker B: Yes, for the first time ever, explains how he became to be a vampire. [00:17:44] Speaker A: Okay. [00:17:45] Speaker B: And I don't mind this explanation because obviously he became a vampire somehow. And if he's supposed to be the great granddaddy vampire, you would assume. You would assume that he wasn't bit. Right. He was not bit by another vampire. So there had to be something that turned him into this. [00:18:05] Speaker A: Sure. Yeah. But that's what I was getting at is that that, that ends up being what this whole movie is about. Kind of is his again, his rejection of God because of. And his. His pact with the devil, which turns him into the vampire. But it's all kicked off by the fact that his beloved wife kills herself, and he. And he kind of can't fathom how a loving God could let that happen. [00:18:31] Speaker B: Well, and more importantly, I think also. Maybe not more importantly, but also in tandem with that, is that. So she's dead. And he's like, well, at least I'll get to join her in heaven. To which the priest is immediately like, actually, oh, that's right, she committed suicide. And that means she goes to hell. And then at that point, he's like, what the fuck? [00:18:54] Speaker A: Yeah, this is dog shit. [00:18:55] Speaker B: Like, maybe not right now, my guy. Maybe not a good thing to say right now. [00:19:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:00] Speaker B: To a guy called the Impaler. [00:19:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. But then. Yeah, because. And then that ultimately becomes the big. How we put a bow on the whole story is that. That the journey he goes on is kind of finding her again in Mina. [00:19:16] Speaker B: Right. [00:19:16] Speaker A: To some extent. And then Mina essentially freeing him of this burden that he has put himself under. It's an interesting. But it's. [00:19:25] Speaker B: Yeah, it's an interesting. I don't think you can look at it too hard. [00:19:31] Speaker A: Oh, no, I agree. Yeah. I'll get to. I have notes about that later. I agree. This definitely. This movie is not a movie that you should necessarily, like, nitpick. [00:19:41] Speaker B: Yeah, it's not meant for that. [00:19:43] Speaker A: Like, it's very clearly a movie. It's a movie meant for you to bathe in it, not to, like, inspect it and, like, I don't know, try to dissect it as a narrative necessarily. [00:19:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:56] Speaker A: At least that's the vibe I got upon our first. [00:19:58] Speaker B: Because I do think. And I don't want to get too. [00:20:01] Speaker A: Ahead of ourselves a little bit, but. [00:20:04] Speaker B: But, yeah, I do think if you. If you squint too hard at the whole explanation for what goes on here. [00:20:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Or even. Or even try too hard to, like, parse a message from it, I think is. [00:20:17] Speaker B: I agree. [00:20:18] Speaker A: It's. It's kind of interesting. And I. We're just getting into it because I don't want to forget about it. But, like, comparing it to something like the Godfather, which is, again, now the two Francis Ford Coppola films I've seen. To me, the Godfather had a very explicit and obvious, like, moral. Like, it's a tragedy, but it's a very obvious tragedy about, like, trying to not fall into the trap of following in your family's kind of. You Know, trying to not. The whole story is about what's his name, Al Pacino's character, trying not to become his father and not just become a gangster and fall into a life of crime. And every decision he makes still leads him down. That because he does have this deep, abiding compassion for his father and all these sort of things. And it just. Ultimately, he cannot escape the cyclical nature of this crime enterprise that his family is and all that sort of stuff. And it's really fascinating watching that tragedy unfold, knowing that that's gonna be the case. This one, I don't know if it has as much of, like, an obvious moral to take away from it or message to take away from it, because there is still there. And there's lots of interesting things that we'll get into, but I don't think it has nearly as neat of a. And I don't think it's trying to have nearly as neat. [00:21:30] Speaker B: No, I don't think it is either. I think that this movie is about, like, aesthetic and vibes and, like, being entertained. [00:21:40] Speaker A: Yes, that's what I got out of it. Again, that's not saying. It's not saying anything. It's just. I don't think that's the main point of what the movie's doing. So then we jump forward and now we're. We. Hundreds of years, I assume. [00:21:53] Speaker B: Yeah, like 400 years. [00:21:54] Speaker A: Maybe they do. But, yeah, we jump forward quite a bit of time now. And we are. We are introduced to Jonathan Harker, played by Keanu Reeves. And it's the classic setup. He's going. He's. He's working as a solicitor and he's gonna go to Transylvania to help Count Dracula. Help with his real estate deal or whatever. Yeah, I don't know exactly what he even needs to do. Whatever. He's. He's some sort of. Yeah, he's working with the bank or whatever in London and he's helping the Count, like, buy property or something. And the. Which I assume is maybe similar to what he's doing there in the book. Right. Like, he's. [00:22:28] Speaker B: Yeah, no, yeah, that is the same thing that he's doing in the book. He's. I looked up solicitor, just to be sure. It is a type of lawyer. So he's basically just helping him, like, with this real estate transaction. [00:22:41] Speaker A: He's doing the paperwork, basically. [00:22:42] Speaker B: Basically, yeah. [00:22:44] Speaker A: So he has. But he has to go out there to, like, get signatures or get whatever. I don't know, do whatever needs to be done. I guess they can't do it through mail. [00:22:51] Speaker B: Apparently it can't be done by mail. I don't know. [00:22:53] Speaker A: I don't know. Whatever. Sure. And like, whatever. It doesn't matter. He has to go out there and do this in person. So he travels out to Transylvania and he meets Count Dracula. And it's really interesting cause I had only seen this seen one other time, which is when we saw Nosferatu 2024, which will be our bonus episode this month. That was the runner up in our. In our March Madness bracket. So we will talk about that on the bonus episode. But that was my only real experience with like the actual Dracula story. Other than little bits and pieces through other random pieces of pop culture. The only version of like Jonathan Harker meeting Dracula I'd seen was that movie, which is very different than this one. [00:23:30] Speaker B: Yes. [00:23:31] Speaker A: Jonathan Harker is immediately just horrified the entire time because the guy. Because in Nosferatu he's like a Clearly a demon. [00:23:39] Speaker B: Yeah. He's like a giant walking corpse who. [00:23:42] Speaker A: Talks like the devil. [00:23:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:45] Speaker A: Whereas in this he's like just a weird guy. Yeah, initially like a really weird guy. And anyway, so I thought that was interesting. But there's some great interactions when they first meet because he doesn't really, like. We don't really know what his whole deal is yet. Or you wouldn't if you didn't know anything about Dracula. And he has some great lines. And one of the lines I wanted to know if it came from the book is that he offers. He gives Jonathan dinner or whatever and Jonathan is like, oh, won't you eat? Or something like that. And Dracula says, I've already dined and I never drink wine. He like puts a big pause before he says wine. And like for us as an audience, they're like, ah, we get it. Like, ah. But I wanted to know that line came from the book because it's a very funny. It felt like it couldn't possibly. Like it's such a modern style of joke, I think. But I don't know. [00:24:42] Speaker B: So you're correct. This line is not from the book. But I also really liked it. Additionally, I also liked. I've heard you are a man of good taste. [00:24:53] Speaker A: Yeah, there's at least those two. Those were the two I noticed he may do another one that I can't recall. [00:24:57] Speaker B: I just. I really like the idea of Dracula, like teasing he ing to himself, making. [00:25:04] Speaker A: His little jokes, making his little like double entendres about eating people, like, to the people he's going to eat. Yeah. It's very Funny. It is, but it. It works fine in the movie. It's. It's a little like, all right. I don't know. Something about it felt a little like, this is doing what. It works. I don't know if the movie works, so I guess it works, but I. I don't know. I thought it made me laugh, but also rolled my eyes, but I didn't really have a major problem. [00:25:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:34] Speaker A: One of the little details we see about Dracula right away, that I thought was super interesting. I didn't know if this was, like, a thing or not and assumed it must be a thing. Although, to be fair, the design of Dracula in this movie, as I said, there's like six designs, and they're wildly different, inspired by all kinds of different things. But one of the details in this first version of Dracula that we meet, or I guess it's not the first, but the older version of Dracula that we meet, when Jonathan shows up at his castle, he has really hairy palms, like, inches of hair growing out of his palms. And we get a shot lingering on it, and I was like, that's okay. Does that come from the book? Is that a detail in the book? [00:26:16] Speaker B: It is. Jonathan notes, quote, strange to say there were hairs in the center of the palm. The nails were long and fine and cut to a sharp point. [00:26:27] Speaker A: That is also. [00:26:28] Speaker B: So. Yeah. So the movie nails that as well. He has little sharp nails. [00:26:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Huh. Okay, that's. And there's no X. No. [00:26:36] Speaker B: There's no explanation or even, like, I. And please bear in mind I am not a Dracula scholar, nor have I read much, if any, like, interpretation, like, scholarly work on this. I felt like part of the reason that Jonathan was able to initially kind of dismiss some of the eccentricities and weird physical characteristics of the Count is because he's nobility. Famously inbred. [00:27:13] Speaker A: Right. Okay. Yeah, that could be. Yeah, that could be part. Or. Yeah, that could be at least why he thought. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I was wondering why. Yeah, that's such a weird, specific little detail. And I wondered if it was related, which I assume probably not, but I don't know, with sexuality being all mixed up with all this stuff. Like, there's the classic, like. Like, wise tale, myth joke. I don't even know what it is. Have you ever heard this? The idea that, like, you used to tell little kids, and I don't even think this is a thing anymore, but I remember hearing this when I was, like, a little kid at some point through, like, a classmate or something. There was. There was. I Think there used to be a thing where people would tell their kids that you would grow hairy palms if you masturbated. Have you ever heard of this idea? Boys specifically? [00:27:59] Speaker B: I have never heard that. Although if it was boys specifically, then maybe that's why I've never heard that. [00:28:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And that would be. And I don't think it was even a thing. Like, I was never told that by anybody. I just remember hearing about. [00:28:12] Speaker B: Your parents would never. [00:28:13] Speaker A: No, obviously not. But I'm just saying. I'm just saying, like, I never heard that said directly. I just feel like I heard. I remember hearing about it at some point. Like, that used to be like. Like a myth that people would like or, like the. The whole thing. Like, if you. You make your face like that, it'll get. Or if you cross your eyes too. [00:28:30] Speaker B: Much, it'll get stuck that way. [00:28:32] Speaker A: That kind of thing. Like. Oh, if you. Yeah. Or if you crack your knuckles too much, it'll, like, mess up your finger, whatever. That kind of, like, little, like, lies that adults would tell kids to try to get them not to do certain things. And I think that was one of those. And I don't know if it has any relation to this at all. [00:28:49] Speaker B: I mean, if, in fact, that was, like, a thing that people said, I would not be. I would not have any issue making that connection here. Yeah. I don't know that. That seems in line with a lot of other stuff going on here. I don't know. [00:29:04] Speaker A: Hopefully I'll see if I can do some Googling. But if not, if anybody out there knows. One, if that thing I'm saying is, like, I swear that's a thing. But two, if it has any relation to this at all, or probably not would be my guess. Honestly, I bet it's just a completely different. But who knows? So then we were introduced to. So he's. He's dealing with Dracula. Jonathan is. We cut back. And Mina and Lucy. Mina is staying with Lucy, who's, like, her best friend or whatever while Jonathan is away. And we get this scene where we're kind of first introduced to Lucy and Mina's, like, hanging out in their parlor or something. And she opens up a copy of 1001 Arabian Nights. [00:29:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:43] Speaker A: And within it there are a bunch of, like, drawings of sex. [00:29:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:46] Speaker A: Of, like, people having sex. Like the classic, like, Eastern drawings of sex positions that you've seen. Normally it's you. People attribute to the commissary, but it shows up in all kinds of different stuff. But it's that kind of thing. And she's like. And then Lucy comes in and they're, like, both looking at him and they're, like, giggling over them. And Lucy is, like, super horned up in this whole movie. Yeah, well, at least initially during, like, the opening part before she starts dying, but. And I wanted to know if that element of Lucy being, like, super. I don't even know the right word for it, but, like, super horny, I guess, all the time. And her and Mina, like, giggling over sex and Mina being very, like, innocent and naive to sex. If all of that element came from the book. [00:30:31] Speaker B: Okay. So yes and no. [00:30:35] Speaker A: Okay. [00:30:37] Speaker B: And I'm gonna. I'm gonna go off script from what I have written here because I also have a little bit more about this later. So none of what we see in the movie, in this scene is from the book. There's no, like, Karma Sutra illustrations. They don't like Teehee over it. [00:30:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:55] Speaker B: There is kind of a dichotomy between Lucy and Mina where Lucy is portrayed as. She's not horned up. Like, she is in the mood, maybe. [00:31:11] Speaker A: More comfortable in her sexuality than Mina is or something like that. [00:31:14] Speaker B: I. I wouldn't even say sexuality. I would say maybe more comfortable in, like, her femininity. [00:31:22] Speaker A: Okay. [00:31:23] Speaker B: A bit. How do we even explain this? Lucy is portrayed as, like, more kind of openly feminine than Mina is and a little bit more, like, interested in, like, boys and, like, love and, like, romance and that kind of stuff. [00:31:49] Speaker A: Okay. [00:31:51] Speaker B: Which, again, this is a Victorian novel. [00:31:55] Speaker A: Right. [00:31:55] Speaker B: So that kind of stuff in the Victorian era equals sexual. Right, Right. But it's not anything like what we see in the movie. [00:32:06] Speaker A: Okay. [00:32:07] Speaker B: Lucy kind of annoyed the fuck out of me in the movie. In the book, she's initially, she's, like, pretty normal. She's maybe a little flirtatious, and then later on, when she starts transforming into a vampire, she does get more bold and seductive. I thought the movie aired and having her be really over the top the whole time, because I thought that it made the changes in her less notable. [00:32:34] Speaker A: Do you think that maybe what they're doing, what they were doing, is that if they're. If. Do you think in the book there was a marked difference between the. It sounds like you do, at least from what you're describing, between Mina's personality and relationship to men and sex and Lucy's personality in relationship to men and sexual. [00:32:51] Speaker B: Yes. [00:32:52] Speaker A: And so I assume what the movie then is doing is translating that in a way that a audience of people in the 1990s might understand by having Lucy be more overtly sexual. [00:33:04] Speaker B: Yes. I think that is what the movie. [00:33:06] Speaker A: Is attempting to contrast that with Mina. [00:33:09] Speaker B: Yes. [00:33:09] Speaker A: Whereas if we had just had the version of Lucy in the book who is still different than Mina, but it's in a much more subtle way that is. Would be obvious to somebody in 1897. 97. But maybe not obvious to somebody in 1994 or whatever. [00:33:23] Speaker B: Right. [00:33:24] Speaker A: Maybe like. [00:33:25] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I do think that that is what is going on here. [00:33:27] Speaker A: Okay, that makes sense at least. Yeah. Yeah. So meanwhile, we cut back to Transylvania and Jonathan is not having a great time. Or having a great time, I guess, depending on. [00:33:40] Speaker B: Depending on how you look at it. [00:33:41] Speaker A: Depending on how you look at it. And he, He. He meets the brides who kind of using their voice, call him into some random room which is nothing but a giant bed apparently in like some tower. And they have him lay down in the bed and then they like rise out of the bedding, the brides do, and start having sex with him. And I wanted to know if any of that came from the book because I thought the way they depicted that room and them rising out of the bed was super cool. [00:34:14] Speaker B: So there is a scene in the book where Jonathan stumbles upon the brides. He's doing a little bit of like unauthorized exploring. [00:34:22] Speaker A: Okay. [00:34:23] Speaker B: Of the castle. And he. He tries this door and it's kind of locked. And he's like, oh, I probably shouldn't go in there because he told me not to go into any locked rooms. But. But then it opens. So he's like, you know, go in this room. So he goes into this room, which is where he encounters the brides and try to seduce him. It's not a sex scene. It's not what we would consider a sex scene. I think in 1897, it was definitely a sex scene, basically. Might as well have been a sex scene because it was pretty sexy. [00:34:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:35:00] Speaker B: I. I also really liked the way that they appeared in the movie. In the book, Jonathan describes them as like appearing and vanishing into thin air. Like he can't tell where they came from and where they went. [00:35:10] Speaker A: It's a similar idea. [00:35:11] Speaker B: So I, And I thought that was like a cool looking, like, spooky and trippy take on that. Like, first one to appear. Like she, like just like. It's like the blankets turn into her. Yeah, it's really interesting. [00:35:24] Speaker A: And there's. There. They. They kind of like rise up through the. Yeah, it's super interesting and weird and trippy. And again, it. Because it's all like practical effects and stuff like that. It's Very weird. Like clearly it was all like a big platform with all this fabric on it and there's like, like platforms lifting them up and stuff like that. Again, I thought it was super trippy and cool and, and, and works for the very. Just because Jonathan is very like. You're meant to get the vibe in this scene that whatever the talking, the weird spirit. Y. I don't know, they've been talking to him from. Yeah, what is the word for that? I don't even know. [00:36:03] Speaker B: It's like a siren song. [00:36:04] Speaker A: Yes. They're almost psychically communicating with him, I guess because he's hearing their voice when he's in a different part of the castle or whatever. And so as he wanders into the room and lays down at the bed, you can tell he's not really. He's kind of entranced, slightly like he's not really doing it of his own accord necessarily. And I thought the way they depicted him coming out of the bed and stuff and being super trippy and weird kind of helps amplify his confusion by kind of visually, their appearance being very kind of visually like confusing and weird and strange just works for that whole scene really well. So they start eating him, but then Dracula shows up and is like, wait, no, no, no, I need him. Don't eat him yet. And they're like, but we're starving. And he's like, don't worry, I got a baby feeds them a baby. And I wanted to know if Dracula feeds his brides a baby in the book. Cause Jonathan freaks out. Obviously. This is where he starts losing his mind. But does Dracula feed his brides a baby? [00:37:03] Speaker B: Yes, he does. It's a little less overt in the book. We don't actually see the baby. Jonathan sees Dracula give them a bag that's like moving. And then he hears a low wail as if of a half smothered child. So he surmises that it's a baby. Although that's not really confirmed until later when one of the like local peasant women comes to the castle courtyard screaming at Dracula to give her baby back. At which point he sets his wolves on her. It's all very horrifying. [00:37:33] Speaker A: Yep, fair enough. Back in London, Mina is still staying with Lucy. But now Dracula has left. I should have set that up in the last scene. After the whole scene with the brides, he's like, I gotta go, have fun, stay here, don't eat him entirely or whatever. And he fucks off to London. Cause he wants to and I missed the scene. He sees a Photo of Mina. Is that. How is that why he goes to. Why does he go to London in the book? [00:38:00] Speaker B: Well, he was already gonna go to London because he wants to be around people. Oh, okay. He wants a lot of people that he can eat. [00:38:09] Speaker A: He wants to be where the people are. [00:38:10] Speaker B: Yes, he does. He's tired of being locked up in his castle in Transylvania. [00:38:15] Speaker A: Okay, so he's the first Disney princess. [00:38:17] Speaker B: Yes. [00:38:18] Speaker A: Okay, so. But it has nothing to do with Mina though. [00:38:23] Speaker B: No. [00:38:23] Speaker A: Oh, interesting. Okay, so in the movie he sees a photo of Mina and we assume that's maybe not the only reason he's going to. [00:38:31] Speaker B: Well, cause he was already planning on going there. [00:38:33] Speaker A: He was already planning. [00:38:33] Speaker B: That's why John was buying. [00:38:34] Speaker A: That's why he's buying the property. Right. [00:38:36] Speaker B: But then I guess Mina is just like extra motivation. [00:38:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So he sees a photo of Mina and is like. That is conveniently they got the same actress to play Mina as was playing my wife earlier in the movie. So I think they might be the same person. So he sees that photo and he's. He's now dead set on finding Mina. So he gets to London and he initially though shows up and he like calls out and draws Lucy out of the house to him in the middle of the night. I guess it's kind of hard to tell what's going on here necessarily, but Lucy like runs out of the house wearing this giant red dress one evening. [00:39:15] Speaker B: And an insane dress. [00:39:17] Speaker A: Yeah. And Mina follows her and is like chasing after. And they have like this big the shining hedge maze in their backyard and Lucy does at their mansion or whatever. And Mina then finally catches up with Lucy only to discover her having sex with a giant demon beast thing, which is Dracula, we find out. But is looks kind of like a bat dog man. [00:39:43] Speaker B: Kind of werewolfish. [00:39:44] Speaker A: Yeah, like a werewolf. Yeah, he does look a lot like a werewolf mix. And he has some bat features at times too. But other times he does is kind of look like a werewolf, which he can turn into a wolf. So. Yes, sure, maybe. Yeah, that kind of tracks. Anyways, does any of that scene come from the book? Because I thought it was very interesting. [00:40:01] Speaker B: So this is much like Lucy herself. An incredibly horned up version of what happens in the book fair. So in the book we've already established that Lucy has a problem with sleepwalking. This is something that she's done throughout her entire life. And while Mina has been staying with her, she's also kind of been trying to make sure that Lucy doesn't like sleepwalk and hurt herself or Go anywhere or whatever. So we've established this. And then one night, Mina wakes up and can't find Lucy. She looks around and she figures out that Lucy. Oh, no. Has gone outside and is wandering the streets of Victorian London in her nightgown. [00:40:44] Speaker A: Not great. [00:40:45] Speaker B: Not great. And she's very worried about Lucy's reputation from this because she's basically outside naked in this day and age. So Mina tracks her down and she ends up tracking her to this, like, bench that the two of them like to visit near the harbor. Okay, so I'm gonna read from the book. When I got almost to the top, I could see the seat and the white figure. That's Lucy, for I was now close enough to distinguish it even through the spells of shadow. There was undoubtedly something long and black bending over the half reclining white figure. I called in fright. Lucy. Lucy. And something raised the head and from where I was, I could see a white face and red gleaming eyes. [00:41:31] Speaker A: Okay, so that's a very similar visual to what we see in the movie, for sure. [00:41:36] Speaker B: Yeah. So Lucy's, like passed out on this bench, basically. And Mina sees what she thinks is like another figure bending over her. [00:41:46] Speaker A: Right. In the movie, it's very explicitly we see both of them and she is not, like passed out. She is actively enjoying whatever is transpiring. And we see the dog, like, it is like, biting her. He does bite her. [00:41:58] Speaker B: Yeah, he does bite her in that scene. [00:42:00] Speaker A: Does he bite her in the scene in the book? [00:42:02] Speaker B: Yes. [00:42:02] Speaker A: Okay. [00:42:04] Speaker B: I did prefer the more subtle approach of the book. [00:42:08] Speaker A: I mean. Yeah, sure, yeah. [00:42:11] Speaker B: A big part of what made the book really work for me was the subtlety where you could understand why the characters are, like, doubting what they see and dismissing it as being like, oh, it was imagination or it was a trick of the light, or I was half asleep, I didn't really see anything there. And I know that the movie kind of tries to smooth that over by having Dracula, like, Jedi mind trick. Mina, you didn't see this, you didn't see anything. But that particular scene just didn't really do anything for me. [00:42:41] Speaker A: I like. I liked the visual of, like the. Her, like, wandering out into the garden and. [00:42:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:48] Speaker A: Kind of being seduced by him or whatever in line with her character in the movie or seduced by his, you know, again, the. [00:42:55] Speaker B: His, like his, like animal magnetism. [00:42:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Anyways, I thought the scene works fine for the movie, but, yeah, it is a little. I could understand what you're saying about the book. Makes a lot of sense in terms of reading it as something where you're not sure what. But because this movie exists 100 years after Dracula was invented, we all know what's going on here. So you don't. The subtlety doesn't really do as much in a movie, or I don't think would do as much in this movie. Whereas the very over the top, again, aesthetic turn of the film, I think, makes for a much more fascinating and enthralling viewing experience than just if we were watching it as, like an actual. If you're watching Dracula for the first time, I don't know if this movie would be the right version of it. But watching a movie about Dracula, knowing what Dracula is, I think the movie works. I don't know. I don't know what I'm trying to say. Point being, I get what you're saying about the book and the subtlety of it. So he has arrived now Dracula has arrived in London. Obviously he was there when he seduced Lucy, but now he meets Mina for the first time, although I technically saw her in the scene before this, but he introduces himself to her for the first time. And when he arrives in London and he goes out during the day, instead of looking like the 180-year-old corpse that he was in Transylvania, he's now just like 30 year old Gary Oldman. [00:44:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:24] Speaker A: And I wanted to know if the Dracula in the book got younger and hotter when he gets to London, if he has a glow up. [00:44:31] Speaker B: Yeah, he does. And I knew that that happened in the movie because I had seen screen caps of Gary Oldman as young Dracula and also in the old age makeup. But I wasn't expecting it to have a basis in the book, actually. So I quote, he gazed at a tall, thin man with a beaky nose and black mustache and pointed beard. His face was not a good face. It was hard and cruel and sensual. And his big white teeth that looked all the whiter because his lips were so red, were pointed like an animal's. Jonathan kept looking after him and said, as if to himself, I believe it is the Count, but he has grown young. [00:45:13] Speaker A: Well, there you go. Is it implied that that's the case during the day in the book? Because in the movie they imply that he only looks like that during the day. That, like, for whatever reason, being out in daylight in London, like, makes him look younger. But then at night he goes back to looking like old Dracula. [00:45:32] Speaker B: I don't think it's ever explicitly connected to how he looks, but there is some discussion in the book that, like, during the daylight hours like, specifically from, like, noon to sunset. I think Van Helsing says that Dracula's powers are, like, considerably weakened. So maybe that could have something to do with it. But I don't think it's ever, like, explicitly connected to how he looks. [00:46:04] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. I don't remember how they say it in the movie, but there is a line. Van Helsing has, like, a voiceover line. [00:46:11] Speaker B: Yeah. That says like, something similar. [00:46:13] Speaker A: Something where he's like. You know, you might think that vampires can't go out during the day, but actually they can. And he says something like, yeah, they're weaker or something. But then also they. I think they pretty explicitly tie his appearance of being younger to being out during the daylight. I could have swore. But during their. So he meets Mina. They kind of start talking. He negs her into going on a date with her. Not really. But, like, he's. She has no interest in him. And he just. Yeah. [00:46:40] Speaker B: And he, like, guilts her about it. [00:46:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Just basically guilts her into to hanging out with him or whatever. And then she is eventually intrigued. [00:46:49] Speaker B: I mean, he has such flowing, luscious locks. [00:46:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And great facial hair, if that's kind of facial hair is your thing. But he. They go out on, like, several dates, quote, unquote kind of things. And one of the things they do is they go to, like, a. I don't even know what it is. [00:47:07] Speaker B: Like a sideshow. Yeah. It looks like a sideshow or like a very early, like, moving picture, like Nickelodeon. [00:47:13] Speaker A: There's, like, movies being played, but there's also little, like, booths with other stuff. [00:47:18] Speaker B: They call it something specific. And I can't remember what it was now. [00:47:22] Speaker A: But while they're at this. A wolf who has escaped from the zoo, which we saw was set up earlier, which I thought was a. Wasn't gonna be this actual wolf, I thought. Cause he said there's a little, like, newspaper boy. Like earlier while they were out on the street, who goes, does wolf escape from the zoo still on the loose or whatever. And I was like, oh, somebody saw. Because this is right after the scene where Dracula rapes. Whatever. Lucy. [00:47:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:53] Speaker A: And bites her. And so I thought it was going to be that somebody saw him as, like, werewolf version and reported a wolf being missing. Would actually. But no, it turns out there was actually just a wolf from the zoo on the loose, which I think is maybe intentionally kind of like playing with what, you know, expectations there. But when the wolf barges into this. [00:48:15] Speaker B: This. [00:48:15] Speaker A: Whatever. This is. This Nickelodeon or whatever. Mina confronts the wolf and is, like, terrified. But Then Dracula gets to show up and be like, no, no, it's all good. I'm a wolf guy and comforts the wolf. And this gets Mina all hot and bothered. Because we all know that women love a man who can comfort, who can savage same. [00:48:37] Speaker B: A savage beast. I mean, obviously not saying that. That wouldn't work on me. [00:48:42] Speaker A: Does that come from the book? [00:48:44] Speaker B: There is a point in the. There is a wolf that has escaped from the London Zoo. We never see Dracula interact with it, nor does he use it to seduce Mina. [00:48:57] Speaker A: Okay. [00:48:58] Speaker B: The idea with the wolf escaping in the book is that Dracula can. But one of his powers is being able to summon a bunch of different creatures of the night to do his bidding. So he summons this wolf from the zoo, because that's where all the wolves are in Victorian England. [00:49:18] Speaker A: I think you could also, to be fair, I think you could interpret in the movie that he potentially was responsible for the wolf both escaping and showing up. [00:49:26] Speaker B: No, I. I do think that that is what we're supposed to do. [00:49:28] Speaker A: I think we're supposed to infer that. That he has kind of set all of this up in order to make himself look good for Mina. But. [00:49:36] Speaker B: And I had a note here to just say this now, although you might have already gleaned this from our previous discussion, but the entire plot point where Dracula falls in love with Mina and wants to seduce from the book. [00:49:50] Speaker A: Oh, I had not gleaned that. And that's. [00:49:53] Speaker B: That is not from the book at all. That's completely made up from other sources. [00:49:59] Speaker A: I guess that then tracks now, going back to the whole part at the beginning, not being, like, the backstory and the. You know. [00:50:05] Speaker B: Yeah, the backstory and like, him seeing her photo. [00:50:08] Speaker A: Yeah. And I guess that then makes sense. I still had assumed that maybe they did. At least he met her in London and fell in love with her or something. I thought maybe that would be the case because that's. To be fair, that's also what I little I know of Nosferatu. Or from having seen Nosferatu, 20, 24, him falling in love with Mina or. Or at least. [00:50:28] Speaker B: Right. Well. And then they literally, like, they have the same thing where he, like, looks at her little portrait that. [00:50:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:34] Speaker B: Chris, Nicholas Holt has. [00:50:36] Speaker A: Yeah. And they have. Well, in that one, it's interesting because they have a history that's a different version of it, which we'll talk about on the bonus episode. But yeah, it's. Huh. Okay. I. I did not expect. [00:50:46] Speaker B: I have so many thoughts about this. [00:50:48] Speaker A: Okay. [00:50:49] Speaker B: Later. [00:50:49] Speaker A: All right. We'll get to It. So Lucy has now been bitten by Dracula and she's becoming ill and that nobody knows what's going on. So they call in Van Helsing because Dr. Seward knows is Van Helsing was his mentor and he knows that Van Helsing is, like, the world's foremost expert on exotic diseases. Disease, yeah. [00:51:08] Speaker B: Van Helsing is basically a genius and is good at everything. Also, incidentally, named after the author. Is he Abraham Van Helsing? [00:51:17] Speaker A: Abraham, Yeah. I never. I always just Van Helsing. So, yeah, a little Mary sue there, a little bit, but yeah, he is. He is. He's a doctor primarily. Whereas if you. If you've consumed a lot of other media about vampires and Dracula, you assume he's just a vampire hunter, like a guy who murders vampires. And that's not wrong, necessarily, but as he does in this movie. But it's not really like, what his deal is. His deal is that. Or at least from this movie and from what I can gather, and from Nosferati 2024, he's a doctor who happens to have studied a lot, kind of like in the same way of something like the Exorcist, and they bring, like, the priest in to do an exorcism. Like, the fact that he's murdering this vampire is kind of just ancillary. He's killing the disease. It just happens to be that in. [00:52:04] Speaker B: This case, the disease is, in fact, a vampire. [00:52:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. But he gets called in, he finds Lucy, and he kind of immediately realizes what's going on with her because he's seen it before and he knows they need to give her a blood transfusion. And I wanted to know if that came from the book because I actually didn't know how early blood transfusions were a thing and if that would even be a thing that they would think of back then or whatever. Anyway, so I want to know if. [00:52:30] Speaker B: That came from the book. Yeah, that is from the book. She actually gets blood transfusions from all of the men except for Jonathan. [00:52:37] Speaker A: In the book, that feels intentional or. [00:52:41] Speaker B: That feels like it means something. Feels like it means something. Yeah. [00:52:44] Speaker A: I don't know what, but it feels like it means something. [00:52:47] Speaker B: So, yeah, blood transfusion, I don't know the history of that either. I kind of got the vibe from the book that this was maybe at the forefront of medical technology at the time, but I could be wrong about that. [00:53:01] Speaker A: It's also. I wonder how. I don't know anything about blood transfusions, but I know, famously, you kind of have to have the same blood type for it to work well. And so odds of all of those dudes having the same blood type seem low. [00:53:11] Speaker B: Seems low now, to be fair, I. [00:53:13] Speaker A: Think it's possible you can again. [00:53:15] Speaker B: I. I mean, it doesn't matter because they were like giving her transfusions and then Dracula is coming and like immediately sucking the blood back out. [00:53:22] Speaker A: Right? [00:53:23] Speaker B: So. [00:53:23] Speaker A: So it doesn't really matter. And yeah, she ends up dying anyway, so who knows how well they were. Would have worked anyway. So, yeah, like, oh, yeah. Meanwhile, back in Transylvania, Jonathan tries to rouse his strength to escape because he's been basically, the brides have been sucking his blood so that he's really weak the whole time, is what they say or what he says in his diary. They've been letting him keep his diary still, which is nice. While he's been a prisoner and they've been sucking his blood and keeping him in a state of near comatoseness. They've been like, you can still journal, though. That's fine. So he's writing down his plan. We're getting the voiceover of his. His journal, essentially. And he says, like, it's. This will be my final attempt to escape because my strength is waning or whatever. But he does manage to escape out of the castle and gets discovered by some nuns in a convent and nurse back to health. And I wanted to know if that came from the book, because I did remember that from the 2024 when a similar thing happens. [00:54:21] Speaker B: Yeah, that does come from the book. The book is kind of vague about how he escapes, but it is implied that he climbs down the wall after watching Dracula do the same, which he. [00:54:30] Speaker A: Did in the movie. He sees Dracul scurry down that wall like a little. Yes, like a rat. [00:54:36] Speaker B: Like a lizard. [00:54:37] Speaker A: Yeah, a lizard. And then he just kind of slides down into like the moat or whatever. [00:54:41] Speaker B: Yeah, so he does that and then he eventually ends up at a convent, which at which point the nuns summon Mina like they do in the movie. [00:54:50] Speaker A: And does she go to Jonathan to marry him? Because she just kind of out of nowhere is like, well, I guess I really should need to go marry him now because all this nonsense went down. So let's go get this taken care of. I will say the movie, I don't think really. It didn't really go into, like, what the motivation there was so much or why she was so motivated to be with Jonathan. Does the book go into that more like why she was so dead set on marrying Jonathan, even though we know at the same time that, like, she. In the movie, at least at the same time, she's also kind of falling for Dracula, but she's simultaneously like, no, I gotta go, go. And I think what the movie's doing there is. We're playing with this kind of weird tension between like. [00:55:30] Speaker B: Like passion and duty. [00:55:31] Speaker A: Yes, passion. And like, yeah, what you're expected to do. Like, she. She's supposed to, like, take the safe choice and marry this solicitor and, like, who's a good man and who she likes. [00:55:40] Speaker B: He's a. He's a good man. He's a steady man. [00:55:44] Speaker A: He'll provide an income, but he's not exciting. And she, you know, he's not. He's not. This. [00:55:49] Speaker B: Yeah. He doesn't get her going. Like. Like the dangerous bad boy does. [00:55:53] Speaker A: Exactly. And there's a little bit of that going. Going. Not a little bit. There's a lot of that going on. Like a whole bunch. That's like, kind of what the whole movie is kind of about, or at least partially what it's about is that dichotomy of her. One which. Which can go problematic places if taken. Problematic places if. If extrapolated out to. I mean, because that is kind of what is at the base of some, like, parts of incel culture and stuff like that is this idea that women secretly actually want this mysterious bad boy who will, you know, they don't care for the guy who's there and is good to them and whatever. Like, there is, like, that undercurrent in this movie. But it doesn't. To me, the movie doesn't feel like it's doing that. I don't know, the movie doesn't feel supportive of that message to me necessarily. Like. Or implying that, like. Oh, yes, actually, this is what, like, secretly women all want. And it's like, you got. You can't trust them or. I don't know. You know what I mean? Like, I didn't feel like the movie was necessarily doing that more so just observing the interesting dichotomy of. Yeah. Of passion versus duty or whatever. And that kind of thing, which I thought was really interesting and worked and was very compelling. All of that being. Does she rush off or all of that to say and ask, does she rush off to Transylvania or Romania to marry Jonathan? Oh, and then does Dracula take out his anger of this by turning loose because of this in the movie? Dracula's like, no. He, like, consents it or something. I can't remember. Something. [00:57:22] Speaker B: He gets a note from her. [00:57:23] Speaker A: That's right. He gets a note from her. She's like, I gotta go marry Jonathan. He like, freaks out. And this is where he like goes and actually turns Lucy into a vampire. Any of that come from the book? [00:57:32] Speaker B: Okay, so Mina and Jonathan do get married after she goes to him at the convent. But like I said, the Dracula Mina love story angle is not from the book. Book. So Dracula does not care about this in the book. [00:57:47] Speaker A: Right. [00:57:48] Speaker B: Lucy does turn into a vampire. And this is something that I'm not sure I fully followed as I was reading. But I think the idea is either that she turns because she dies while she's like in a vampiric trance and isn't herself. [00:58:07] Speaker A: Okay. [00:58:08] Speaker B: Or that she turns because Dracula took so much blood from her that she doesn't have any of her own blood left because it's never mentioned in the book that she also drank his blood, which we find out later is definitely a way to turn someone into a vampire. [00:58:25] Speaker A: Yeah. In the end, when Mina asks him to turn her into a vampire, he slices his chest open and she starts drinking it, which is the modern classic way that that in a lot of vampire stories, how a vampire gets created is that they get their blood drank by a vampire and then they drink the vampire's blood and that does the vampire magic or whatever this. I have to just ask about the specific line. So Lucy then dies. They think there can maybe cure. But after Dracula shows up and drains her the rest of the way, or whatever he does, she's dead the next day. And they put her in a glass coffin briefly, but then they bury her and while they're. They have her in a glass coffin. And Van Helsing shows up and is to talk to Dr. Seward or Arthur. Yeah, I think Dr. Seward, who's there. And they're all kind of sitting around sadly doing the like observing the body or whatever. And Van Helsing shows up and says something about an autopsy. Or he goes like, I need to get my autopsy tools or something like that. And Dr. Seward responds, he goes, an autopsy for Lucy. And Van Helsing responds by saying, oh, no, I just want to cut off her head and take out her heart or something like that. And I wanted to know if that line came from the book, because it cracked me up. [00:59:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it does. The exchange is not word for word, but it's must we make an autopsy? Yes and no. I want to operate, but not what you think. I want to cut off her head and take out her heart. [01:00:00] Speaker A: Yep, there it is. That's it. So then they bury her in the whatchamacall mausoleum. We don't ever see any of that. But then like the next day or the next night or whatever, Van Helsing is like, look, guys, we gotta go take care of this. Because she's a vampire potentially. And so they go to her. Her coffin. It's like again, it's like a giant stone. [01:00:24] Speaker B: Yeah, she's like entombed in a. Yeah, in a mausoleum or whatever. [01:00:28] Speaker A: What is that word for the big stone? I can't remember what that's called. But anyways, because it's not a coffin. It's got another name for the big stone. What is it the Egyptians were buried in? What was. It's not a tomb. I mean, it is a tomb, but that's not. Whatever. We'll just say tomb. Goes to her tomb and they open it up and she's gone. She's not there. Her body is missing. Surprise. She's a vampire. She comes in holding a child that she, I guess, has taken to eat. And they're able to get the child from her. And then they have to kill her. And they do end up killing. They end up somehow. How do they. [01:01:04] Speaker B: Like, Van Helsing, like, forces her into the coffin. With the cross. [01:01:08] Speaker A: That's right. He uses the cross and it like forces her in the coffin. And then while she's laying in the coffin, she kind of like goes to sleep or something. Yeah, because then Arthur has to use his carry Elvis as to drive a railroad tie into her chest or whatever. And they stab her with the railroad and then cut her head off. And it's a giant bloody mess. And I wanted to know if that whole scene came from the book. [01:01:30] Speaker B: Yeah, basically. So I'm gonna read from the book again. The thing in the coffin writhed and a hideous blood curdling screech came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions. The sharp white teeth clamped together till the lips were cut and the mouth was smeared with crimson foam. But Arthur never faltered. He looked like a figure of Thor as his untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the mercy bearing stake whilst the blood from the pierced heart welled and spurted up around it. [01:02:07] Speaker A: There you go. I think the only thing in the movie there that they didn't capture is that Arthur kind of falters. He's not like. I wouldn't say he looked as resolute as Thor driving that spike into her chest. Like he does it, but he didn't. He doesn't seem psyched about it. Okay, So I assume this is seen. I just realized this isn't going to happen to things. So anyways, they. They get to a scene where a lot of stuff happens, and I kind of jump forward quite a bit here. Renfield is in the asylum. They. Dracula has all of his boxes of dirt everywhere. They get to the abbey to destroy all of his dirt boxes. Yeah, they know that's important. I'm not exactly sure why they. [01:02:44] Speaker B: In the movie, it's important because he can only sleep in dirt from his homeland. [01:02:48] Speaker A: I'm aware of that. I don't know how they are aware of. Maybe Van Helsing, I guess, just knows. I guess I don't. I just don't remember how they know that in the movie or know that they needed this. [01:02:58] Speaker B: They know that from Jonathan. [01:03:00] Speaker A: Right. But how does he. I don't remember. I don't remember how. What does he tell them? [01:03:07] Speaker B: He knows about the boxes because he was there when they were being packed up and shipped off. [01:03:12] Speaker A: Right. But does he know what they are? Why they. Like, why they're important? I guess my question is, why do they know they should destroy them and, like, consecrate the dirt? They just know that, I guess. [01:03:23] Speaker B: Like, yeah, Van Helen Sing knows. [01:03:24] Speaker A: Okay. That's what I'm. I. I just wasn't sure why they knew to do that. I couldn't remember in the movie, like, how they knew how to do that. That's all I was saying. Like, it was like, I know why they're doing it, but I don't know if the. In the movie, if they know why they're doing it. But, yeah, I just couldn't remember while this is all happening and they're taking care of that and taking care of Lucy, Dr. Seward puts Mina in, like, his. His house or whatever. He lives, like, above the asylum in, like, a little apartment or something like that. That. And he's like, you'll be safe here. Meanwhile, as you can hear all the screaming from the asylum, which I think is an intentional joke. It sure seems like it. It's not. But while she's hiding there, Dracula shows up, comes into the room as green mist, which is one of the things we know he can do. He can turn into mist. He can turn into wolves, other stuff. [01:04:12] Speaker B: Bats. [01:04:12] Speaker A: Bats, famously. But he shows up as a green mist and pours through the window into the room. And then she confesses that she actually does love him. He, like, tells her, oh, that. He basically tells her that he killed Lucy, or she knows he killed Lucy. And then he confirms that Basically. And she's immediately, initially, like, very pissed off, obviously, because Lucy's her friend. But despite that, she can't fight this infatuation she has with Dracula. For whatever reason, she's just in love with him and she can't really do anything about it. And she basically is like, please turn me into a vampire so I can be with you forever because I just can't live without you. And it's kind of this interesting within this scene. I have a hard time telling how much of that is her actually feeling that way versus Dracula doing Dracula magic on her. You know what I mean? How much of that is actually her genuinely feeling like she loves him versus. [01:05:14] Speaker B: Him having seductive nature enthralled her in. [01:05:18] Speaker A: Some way or whatever. I'm not sure if we know or are really supposed to know, but anyways, she tries to convince him to turn him into a vampire, but he doesn't want to do it. But he will. But he doesn't. [01:05:29] Speaker B: He does. Like, he does. Look, I can't condemn you to that life. And then he's like, I guess I could, actually. [01:05:38] Speaker A: Anyways, does any of that come from the book? [01:05:41] Speaker B: No. Dracula does end up stalking and drinking for Mina and eventually forcing her to also drink his blood. [01:05:50] Speaker A: Okay. [01:05:50] Speaker B: But he does it to punish the group for trying to destroy him. So there's kind of a similar ish scene where they all, like, burst in on him and he's like, with Mina. With Mina and like, forcing her to. Has her face shoved into his chest and is forcing her to drink his blood. Says, whilst they played wits against me, against me, who commanded nations and intrigued them and fought for them hundreds of years before they were born, I was countermining them. And you, their best beloved one, are now to me, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, kin of my kin, my bountiful winepress for a while and later shall be my companion and my helper. You have aided in thwarting me. Now you shall come to my call. [01:06:40] Speaker A: Okay. Do you think. I just had a thought. Do you think what this movie is doing is like a retelling from the perspective of Mina? Do you think this movie is going now? I. Let me preface this by saying this interpretation would probably be ruined by the fact that the book probably does show us all of the interactions between Dracula and Mina. There isn't like. [01:07:08] Speaker B: I mean, there are ones that we don't see because he's. He's. Prior to this scene. He has, like, drank her blood a couple times before that. But the reason we don't know about it is because she was, like, asleep at the time. [01:07:23] Speaker A: I'm wondering if what this movie is doing is implying is trying to actually give agency to Mina in a weird way by being like. So the scene where they all burst. I'm kind of almost interpreting this as potentially like a last duel. Does a version of it. I can't remember. Anyways. Where we get different perspectives on the same story. [01:07:44] Speaker B: Right. [01:07:45] Speaker A: Whatever. That freaking Japanese. [01:07:47] Speaker B: Which is kind of what this book is because it's epistolary. So you get a bunch of different records from different people. [01:07:54] Speaker A: Right. I guess what I was wondering is maybe what they thought, maybe what this movie's doing. So the scene where they all burst in and they see her. The thing that spurred this thought was that you said, oh, they do burst in the Hunters or whatever. And they see him, like, having her drink his blood, but you say he's forcing her. [01:08:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:09] Speaker A: I wonder if the movie is like, actually, we didn't see what all. Ha. You didn't see in the book what all happened leading up to that. And what actually was happening is that Mina was like, I love you and I need you. You know what I mean? Like, I'm wondering if we're doing a thing where it's like, actually, this is the perspective you're getting in the book is. Is. Is like Jonathan and. And Van Helsing and their perspectives of what transpired. And we're not actually getting Mina's account of the story, which is that she was, like, way more into this and involved than maybe we thought. Do you think that makes any sense? [01:08:44] Speaker B: I think we actually do get quite a bit of Mina's perspective in the book. [01:08:51] Speaker A: And that's why that. I didn't know that. So I was like, that could completely undercut that interpretation. Like, it's very possible that the book tells us all of Mina's perspective. [01:08:59] Speaker B: Yeah. She has a huge. A big part of the book is her personal journal as well. But I do think it's possible that whoever wrote the script for this. [01:09:11] Speaker A: Francis Ford Coppola, it's the guy who wrote Hook, whatever his name is. [01:09:16] Speaker B: Another interesting interpretation of classic literature. But I do think it's possible that maybe the person who wrote the script was partly inspired by that idea. [01:09:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, what if. [01:09:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Of like, oh, what if actually Mina was into it? [01:09:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And what if. Because we. Is there any. Cause it's an epistolary novel. Is there any implication of who has compiled said epistolary novels? [01:09:49] Speaker B: Actually, Mina did. [01:09:52] Speaker A: Okay, well, then in that case, that doubly ruins my. [01:09:55] Speaker B: Yeah, kind of. [01:09:56] Speaker A: Because what I was gonna say was, like, okay, so maybe if Jonathan or Van Helsing or whatever was the one who. [01:10:02] Speaker B: No, in the book, like, in canon, Mina is the one who is, like, kind of almost like the detective and, like, takes all of these separate, disparate sources, like letters and diaries and newspaper clippings, and, like, puts them in order. [01:10:20] Speaker A: So it feels safe to say then that the version. Her version of it. Although then I guess you could take the different. Because initially I was gonna be like, okay, so maybe what we're getting is like a censored, edited version of the events from their perspective. Like the guy, like, Van Helsing or whatever's perspective to not make Mina look bad. But if Mina's the one who did it, maybe the idea is that Mina has self censored or self edited this story as presented in the book in order to not have herself be. You know what I mean? I don't know. [01:10:50] Speaker B: No, I think that's interesting. [01:10:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Anyways, I'm. Because I just. The way you described that just really triggered that in my brain. That idea of, like, them bursting into the room and seeing this scene that looks one way or whatever, but then actually, you know, maybe events were different and, like, the. The movie taking that, exploring that perspective of, like, what if the Mina was actually amenable to this pun intended, I guess, and was more, you know, had more agency in this story than we thought, is at least an interesting idea. And compelling, I think. But so essentially, parts of that scene happen in the book, but the framing of it. [01:11:32] Speaker B: Yeah, the framing of it is completely different. [01:11:33] Speaker A: Character dynamics are completely different than the movie. They. Then Dracula escapes. They realize they need to go back to Transylvania. And there's this kind of brief moment in the movie that I thought was funny. It kind of ends up not really mattering all that much, I don't think. But they talk about, well, they got to get back to Transylvania to get to the castle first for whatever reason. I wasn't exactly sure what the goal was. [01:11:57] Speaker B: So this is from the book. [01:11:58] Speaker A: Okay. [01:11:59] Speaker B: Dracula does flee back to Transylvania, and he goes on board a boat, and he's like, in his box. And they work out that the reason he goes on board a boat instead of a train, which is faster, is because he has more control over that situation. Because he can control the wind. Yeah. However, it's gonna take him a lot longer to get there by boat. [01:12:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:12:25] Speaker B: So they're like, oh, if we take the train, we can head him off. [01:12:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Yes, and I. But anyways, so that. So that does come from the book. And that was interesting because I thought that what we were doing there felt like a very specific. There's this interesting thing in the movie that kind of happens where we set up these dichotomies of, like, foreigner versus non foreigner, I guess, in the sense of the British people in this movie. But in the movie does this really interesting thing. And it's kind of why I asked about the backstory with the beginning of the movie that I thought was really compelling, is that by having the movie starts off by setting up Dracula as the defender, the native defending his lands from the invading Muslim hordes or whatever. And then that gets flipped hundreds of years later to the British people then become the natives, quote, unquote, in this story. They're the ones defending themselves from Dracula. [01:13:22] Speaker B: Who has now become invading foreigner, the. [01:13:25] Speaker A: Invading foreigner who shows up into London. And so we get this kind of interesting thing where Dracula goes from being, you know, the vaunted nationalist defending his country to being the invading force. But on top of that. So we play with a lot of those kind of things. But then this was an element of that that I thought was really interesting. That this idea that he also represents these old archaic ways of the world. He is this old nobility from this weird old world country that has all these strange customs and stuff at which the movie alludes to. He's like, you know, our ways are very different than your ways and that sort of thing. And this was another one of those dichotomies. Whereas the Dracula is taking a boat back to Transylvania. And it's gonna take like a month or whatever, but our heroes are like, we just take a train. It'll take like a week or whatever. And I thought we were definitely playing, like, just again, building up more symbolism there of these. Of this. Of these two diametrically opposed forces, of Dracula as this weird foreigner, old world, antiquated thing versus our modern British Empire or whatever. [01:14:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:14:43] Speaker A: Anyways, that was very interesting. I still don't know what they were trying to beat him there for. Like, what their goal was. Like, why do they want to get there? [01:14:49] Speaker B: They want to. They want. They just want to head him off so that they can kill him before he gets, like, back to his home base. Cause it's gonna be a million times harder to kill him once he gets there. [01:15:01] Speaker A: And I thought it was something like that. I just wasn't exactly sure. There's lots of stuff happening in the movie at this point. I'm writing lots of Notes. So I wasn't exactly sure what they had to do. [01:15:10] Speaker B: And the book is definitely playing with all of those different motifs that you described. Like this idea of the foreigner versus the might of the British Empire and the old ways versus the new scientific, modern era. Yeah, obviously everything we're doing. Yeah. And this is. It is a very, very turn of the century book. There was a lot of stuff going on. A time of great change and turmoil in the world right now. And that is reflected within the text of this book. Now, how much of it Bram Stoker was consciously aware of. [01:15:46] Speaker A: Right. And doing versus just telling like a compelling story. [01:15:49] Speaker B: Yes. I don't know. But all of those things are absolutely present in the text of this book. [01:15:55] Speaker A: Yeah. During this attempt to get back, they decide they need to split up for some reason. Again, I can't. The details here at the very end were a little messy on me. On what. Why they were doing all this. But they decide they need to split up a little bit. And so Van Helsing and Mina go off on their own. And then the rest of the guys go try to get the carriage or something and they go to the castle, I think. [01:16:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Van Helsing and Mina are going straight to the castle and the guys are pursuing the wagon that has the box in it. [01:16:25] Speaker A: Do Van Helsing and Lucy, does that happen? And do they get, while they get to the castle, get attacked by the brides? Because that was an interesting scene. A visually stunning scene. Lots of really cool stuff. The movie, whole movie is visually stunning. I have notes about it. We'll talk about. The whole movie's gorgeous. I just in awe the whole time, but. Which I expected, but was still nevertheless impressed by. But during this scene, the thing that made me think of this in particular, I love the fire ring. Like, he draws like the fire ring and then transitions into the sun. And there's just lots of really cool stuff. There's also something else happened in that scene that I can't recall, but lots of really cool stuff. After he defends Van Helsing, fights off the brides, and then apparently just the next morning, they just go to bed and he just sneaks in and cuts all their heads off. Like, no problem. And I'm like, oh, that was easy. And I wanted to know if that came from the book because I feel like they really didn't think through, like, we're gonna come get. No, it's morning. I guess we'll go to bed and just let you kill it. I don't know any of that. Come from the book? [01:17:23] Speaker B: Yes. Although it's not as dramatic as what happens in the movie. The brides do call to Mina, but they won't directly approach Mina and Van Helsing because Van Helsing is armed with fire, as he is in the movie. And also communion wafers. And Mina is also at this time trapped in a circle of crushed up communion wafers, which I found really funny. [01:17:48] Speaker A: That is very funny. But quick question. Is Mina transforming? Like is. Is hastened. [01:17:53] Speaker B: She has been bitten at this point and is like slowly transforming. Yeah. [01:17:57] Speaker A: Okay, so she still gets bitten. It's just like again, in the movie it's implied that this is like a two way relationship where she's like kind of into it. Kind of into it, kind of not whatever. And. But whereas in the book it's just. Dracula is just. She's just another victim that. [01:18:12] Speaker B: Yes, he's. Yeah, she's another victim of him is malice, I suppose. And Van Helsing does go to the castle the next morning and kill the brides. I don't think they're supposed to be very smart, fair enough, I guess, but they're, they're really animalistic, like very much ruled by their base natures. So they kind of just do whatever they want in the moment. [01:18:34] Speaker A: That's fair. It's not that I had a problem with it necessarily. It was just kind of funny because there's just like this big dramatic scene where he's like, I have to like, like again, he draws the big circle and fire on the ground. And then like the sun comes up the next morning and we just see him walk into their bedroom and just cut their. Well, I say bedroom. I think they're in like a mausoleum or whatever and just like cuts their head off while they're sleeping. I'm like, all right, like, what did you guys think was going to happen? I don't know. Like, didn't even seem like he struggled to find them. Like he's just like, oh, there they are. Yeah, yeah, I thought it was very funny. So then we get to the big climax of the movie and the carriage shows up. Apparently Dracula has like, the Romani people that live in the village around him are very loyal to him, I guess. [01:19:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:19:15] Speaker A: And so they, they are willing to help get his. His coffin back to his estate or whatever. So there's this big chase scene where the carriage is like driving up to the castle and needs to get there by sunrise, I guess for reasons related to vampire magic or whatever. I don't know if the movie's ever Explicitly clear on what the deadline kind of thing going on here is. [01:19:36] Speaker B: He'll be more powerful at sun. [01:19:38] Speaker A: I know. [01:19:38] Speaker B: Yeah. His mo. Most. Most powerful. [01:19:42] Speaker A: Yeah. They're just trying to get him before he gets back to his castle at a certain time where he will become more powerful and harder to kill or whatever. And so we get this big carriage chase. And I wanted to know if this came from the book because this felt very much like a movie edition of like our heroes. Like, horse chasing this carriage driven by the. His subjects. Just. It felt like. This feels like a movie thing to me. [01:20:02] Speaker B: Yeah, actually, that's all pretty book accurate. [01:20:04] Speaker A: Wow. [01:20:05] Speaker B: Yeah. That is directly from the book. [01:20:08] Speaker A: Is it all the same guys like. Like Seward and Arthur. [01:20:11] Speaker B: Yeah, Seward, Arthur Helsing and Quincy Morris. [01:20:15] Speaker A: Yeah, Quincy the Rocketeer himself. I was like, who is. I know this guy. And then I realized it was Billy Campbell who plays the Rocketeer, which was a bonus episode if you not listen. We talked about it. Final question for. Was that in the book, the final moments of the film, he pops out of his coffin, they're able to like, slice his neck and stab him in the chest. And so he's dying. Like, he doesn't die. It's not like he seems a more mortal. He seems more mortal in this movie than like traditionally you would imagine Dracula to be. Like. He seems kind of killable by normal means, at least in this instance where he's not fully powered for whatever because of the. How far long he's been away from home or whatever. I don't know, whatever the events that make him less powerful that they're trying to avoid him becoming more. More powerful. He's seemingly able to be killed in this moment by just like stabbing him like a dude, basically. He's still more powerful. He doesn't like. Because they slit his throat and he doesn't. He doesn't immediately die. So he still somewhat, you know, has some. But. But they don't have to like, use a bunch of holy water and like. [01:21:20] Speaker B: Right. [01:21:20] Speaker A: Garlic and wooden stake through his heart or whatever. They just stab him a couple times. And that seems to work. But he is dying now and they're gonna try to like, finish him off, but then Jonathan stops them because Mina is like, no. And she like, gets in front of them and she takes him into the cathedral so that he can die kind of peacefully. And I wanted to know if, like this whole big final scene where Mina, like, comforts him as he's dying and then kisses him and like, her love seemingly breaks this curse that he's been under because it. And this is. This puts the big bow. Bow on the story from the movie. So I assume this is gonna be quite different, but the movie story of. With the whole thing at the beginning with his dead wife. And she comes back now, and in this place where he. For. So where he, you know, denounced God and all that sort of stuff and took the pact with the devil, this woman now, you know, confesses her love to him and kind of brings things full circle. And he refinds the love that he was looking for and had lost. And this brings him to peace, breaks the curse. Mina seems fine now. Like, she's not turning into a vampire anymore. And then she stabs him in the chest and cuts his head off or maybe just cuts his head off and kills him to kind of put him out his misery. And I wanted to know if any of that came from the book. [01:22:46] Speaker B: Not really, no. So when they get into the last box in the book, he doesn't make it all the way to the castle. Okay. And they stop the wagon. He gets pretty close. Cause Mina and Van Helsing are there. [01:23:05] Speaker A: You mean in the movie? [01:23:06] Speaker B: In the book. [01:23:07] Speaker A: In the book, yeah. [01:23:09] Speaker B: So they stop the wagon, and they open the box. And then Jonathan slits his throat at the same time that Quincey Morris stabs him in the heart, at which point Dracula just poofs away into dust. [01:23:22] Speaker A: Okay. [01:23:24] Speaker B: And. And killing him does free Mina from becoming a vampire. Okay, so that part, like the transforming. Yeah. And the communion wafer burn on her forehead. [01:23:32] Speaker A: Oh, so that little detail. [01:23:34] Speaker B: Yes, that does come from the book. [01:23:36] Speaker A: Blesses her with a community. [01:23:38] Speaker B: There were way more communion wafers in this book than I thought there were going to be. Which was also, to go back to your question from a minute ago, another part of the reason that they were trying to, like, hurry and kill him was so that they could keep Mina from, like, fully turning into vampire. [01:23:56] Speaker A: They need to do this quickly so that. Yeah, she. Because she is a ticking clock in that instance. Yeah, that's fair. So. So very, very similar. But obviously the dynamic with Mina is. [01:24:06] Speaker B: Not there, because, again, not present. [01:24:07] Speaker A: We don't have the relationship aspect of it, so. Okay, cool. Those are all my questions for. Was that in the book. But I do have a couple things I need to ask in Lost in Adaptation. [01:24:19] Speaker B: Just show me the way to get out of here, and I'll be on my way. [01:24:24] Speaker A: Yes, yes. [01:24:25] Speaker B: And I want to get unlost as soon as possible. [01:24:28] Speaker A: So I guess this also could have been. Was that in the book, but I need more expanded information. When we first see Dracula's castle, I think when Jonathan arrives, as he's driving through the gate in the front, there's like these blue flames that come up over the road that he seemingly drives through. And he can see them because he turns around and looks back at them. And this is also, if you listen to the prequel, like the only non practical effect in the movie. It still may be in camera. I don't know exactly how they did it, but there was one note I read that said that this one was like a after the fact, not not in camera effect or whatever. Point being, these blue flames come from the book. And what are they? Because it's like a blue wall outside of the castle. [01:25:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:25:15] Speaker A: It's kind of how it's depicted in the movie, but it's hard to tell because again, and it's. We're doing very intentionally, like antiquated effect techniques. So it's kind of even hard to tell what is supposed to be visually transpiring. We just see like these waves of blue flame kind of pop up. What's going on there? [01:25:34] Speaker B: I don't know. So this is. This is something that I think was definitely inspired by something from the book. So when Jonathan is on his way to the castle, initially, at the very beginning, they're journeying there at night. And he says that he keeps seeing these flickering blue lights appear in the forest, at which point the driver would stop and get off the carriage and walk into the forest before returning and then carrying on with their journey. When I was initially reading it, I was like, okay, I guess this is just part of trying to disorient him. Or maybe they have to follow these lights to get to the castle. Because then he like talks about how it felt like they were just going in circles the entire time. And then he later asks Dracula about the blue lights. And Dracula tells Jonathan that there's a local superstition that those lights appear over places where treasure has been concealed. [01:26:34] Speaker A: I think that Nosferatu 2024 uses that. I think there. I remember reading something or something that in the 2024 Nosferatu, we see some of those blue lights, but then we see villagers marking where they were to go try to dig up treasure or something. [01:26:50] Speaker B: I kind of remember that. [01:26:51] Speaker A: So I think that is alluded to in the movie or in the 2024. [01:26:54] Speaker B: I also felt like that it seemed to me like a pretty obvious reference to the folkloric will o'the wisp. [01:27:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:27:03] Speaker B: Although I'm not really sure what we're meant to make of it within the context of this story. [01:27:08] Speaker A: It's particularly interesting in the movie because what you're describing from the book sounds more like, yeah, the classic Will o'the Wisp. Like, oh, there's these fairy lights in the woods that if you follow them, maybe there's something there. Like, I don't know, but, like, don't follow them probably would be a bad idea or whatever. But in the movie. In this movie, there. It's more depicted almost like a flaming force field of like. Like, it almost seems like something that is being done to like, protect the castle. [01:27:32] Speaker B: Yeah, it's kind of what it feels like, really. The only thing that would makes me connect these two things is the blue. [01:27:39] Speaker A: Right. I assume that's what it is. Ref. Like, I assume that's what it's in reference. Reference to. But yeah. Okay, so you don't really. It's interesting because, yeah, in the movie it does almost seem like it's because I. And I can't remember the exact details, but I swear, doesn't somebody cast a spell or something? Like the driver says something or. It almost feels like I remember some detail of like, bringing them the blue flames, like making the blue flames appear like after the carriage went through or I can't remember to where it really felt like some sort of. Of like magical force field barrier. [01:28:11] Speaker B: I don't really know. And to be fair, I do think that there are also some inconsistencies in the book as related to the castle because at the beginning we're told that Jonathan can't even find it on a map. And it's supposed to be. Supposed to be really hard to find. But then at the end, Van Helsing just goes right to it and knows where it is. [01:28:35] Speaker A: Oh, he would, though. I don't know. I was kind of joking. But, like, maybe the idea is that he's. He's done enough research or whatever that he. [01:28:43] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe. [01:28:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Random little detail that this also could be a. Was that in the book? But is. I needed a lot more context on if it is in the book, which is that when we see the asylum, we see all of the. I think guards that work in the asylum have cages over their heads, like square cages around their head heads. And I wanted to know one of that came from the book or. And if two. If not, what the heck that is, like, what's going on there? Because at first I was like, oh, maybe that's the. Some of the inmates. But it's not. [01:29:19] Speaker B: It's like the workers be the workers. [01:29:21] Speaker A: And I was trying to parse, like, what that could possibly. Why that could exist. [01:29:26] Speaker B: So this is not something that's mentioned in the book. I feel like this was 100 for the aesthetic. [01:29:34] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:29:35] Speaker B: And the movie also went really hard on making the asylum super horrifying, which I am to understand that ye olde asylums were. But that wasn't really the impression that I got in the book. I felt like it was more implied that Dr. Seward was, like, really sympathetic and operating at the forefront of modern medicine. It just seemed more like a pretty normal hospital to me. In the book. [01:30:04] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the. In the movie, it's like a dungeon. [01:30:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:30:07] Speaker A: Essentially. [01:30:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:30:08] Speaker A: So. And this is kind of what I was wondering if this is what it was. So it's. A lot of people are just. This is a random forum that I'm reading. So this isn't like, definitive people saying just a design aesthetic choice. Fictional doesn't seem to be a real thing. But the idea behind it could be that the. In main speech being, like, maybe violent or something. [01:30:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:30:32] Speaker A: That they would try to, like, gouge your eyes or attack your face. [01:30:35] Speaker B: Some kind of, like, protection. [01:30:37] Speaker A: Like a helmet, essentially. But. But, like, creepy. [01:30:41] Speaker B: But, like, the aesthetic, like, creepy version. [01:30:44] Speaker A: Of a helmet kind of maybe would be the idea. [01:30:46] Speaker B: It definitely felt more like medieval than Victorian to me. [01:30:52] Speaker A: Yeah. It also made me realize I. And I don't. I assume this is probably a reference to this. There's this terrible movie that I remember watching when I was like, 13 called 13 ghosts. Have you ever seen 13 ghosts? [01:31:03] Speaker B: I have not. I have heard of it. I've never seen it. [01:31:06] Speaker A: There's a movie called 13 Ghosts that is, like, a really bad, like, horror movie from, like, 2004 or something like that. Like. Or 2001 or. I don't know. It came out when I was like, again, I had just gotten turned old enough to, like, see rated R movies or whatever when it came or something. Like, I can't remember. And in that one of the ghosts has a cage on his head. Like this mo. Like the guys in this movie. Like, one of the ghosts has. But I think he's supposed to be an inmate from, like, an asylum as opposed to, like. But anyways, I can't remember. I. I saw that movie once when I was 15 years old. [01:31:40] Speaker B: Yeah. It. It looks more like a medieval torture device to me than anything else. [01:31:46] Speaker A: And that's so many of the decisions in this movie. Again, as we stated earlier, it's not about, like. Okay, but like, why do they like. It's because it. It evokes the right feeling that the scene needs. [01:31:59] Speaker B: It's because it looked sick and it. [01:32:01] Speaker A: Made you go, wow, this place is creepy and gnarly and, like, fucked again. So many of the choices in this movie are aesthetic, and I'm here for it. It's fine. [01:32:12] Speaker B: Those were both of your questions. Oh, okay. But I have some stuff that I stuck under this section. [01:32:20] Speaker A: Oh, yes. [01:32:21] Speaker B: Rather than putting it into one of my sections. [01:32:23] Speaker A: Fair enough. [01:32:24] Speaker B: Okay. So the first thing here that I want to talk about is that the book, as you may expect, does have some racism in it. [01:32:31] Speaker A: No way. [01:32:32] Speaker B: Right. No way. A white guy in 1897 wrote a book with some racism in it. It's actually not as bad as I was worried it would be. So gold star for Bram Stoker, I guess. Not as racist as he could have been. And I don't think that the movie is completely free of that racism, which is why I didn't put it in a different section, but I did want to talk about it. So there's a couple things in the book, aside from just the general like. Like Foreigner versus British guys. [01:33:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:33:09] Speaker B: Whole oeuvre. [01:33:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:33:11] Speaker B: But there's a couple other specific things. The movie drops a scene where the gang goes to try to bribe a solicitor to get information about Dracula's movements while they're chasing him across Romania. And so they go to see this guy, and the text is like, he was Hebrew. At which point I was like, oh, no. And then there was a very unflattering description of that man's nose. That was the most overt racism that I caught. [01:33:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:33:41] Speaker B: There's also the troubling element of where the Romani people are in league with Dracula, which the movie does keep. [01:33:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:33:50] Speaker B: Not European racism if you aren't demonizing the Romani. Am I right? [01:33:54] Speaker A: Fair. [01:33:55] Speaker B: And then the last thing that I want to mention is, I guess more like stereotyping, which is that the majority of the people that we interact with during the parts of the book when we're in Eastern Europe are portrayed as, like, kind of backwater. [01:34:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:34:13] Speaker B: And, like, really, really superstitious. Although I do think you could argue that Stoker actually subverts that by having them be objectively correct in their superstitions. Maybe. [01:34:27] Speaker A: Yeah. I also think the movie kind of subverts the broader. I think one of the big points of the movie is very explicitly subverting the broader Foreigner versus white guy, whatever. You know, or white British, Western, Western protagonists versus the Eastern foreigner or whatever. I Think the movie does kind of intentionally like. And again, I think that is a big subverting, that is a big point of what the movie does. Because one, as I mentioned, the beginning of the movie establishes how fickle that dynamic is and how quickly it can change. Whereas Dracula in the beginning of the movie is right, the, the guy defending his homeland from the invading hordes and then later in the movie he is now the invading force in England. You know what I mean? I think the movie is highlighting the idea that that dynamic is an ever changing and ever in flux dynamic that isn't just as simple as who the foreigner is is very subjective. And then two, the other thing that I think it does is it humanizes Dracula quite a bit. This movie humanizes Dracula a lot. [01:35:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:35:42] Speaker A: And by making Mina's relationship with him him more, giving her more agency in that relationship and by making it a more, more at least of a two way like relationship, I and having his whole arc be motivated by love and his loss of love, again humanizes him in a way that I think somewhat subverts the idea of him as this evil foreign person versus, you know what I mean? Like our protagonists are our protagonists and they are the good guys and Dracula is the bad guy. But I think the movie does really go out of its way to make sure that it's at least not explicitly kind of endorsing this, this us versus them, like dehumanizing of the other, if that makes sense. At least that's kind of what it feels like. I don't know how much of that is intentional versus just my viewing of it and kind of interpretation of it, but that does to me. [01:36:41] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I, I think that's a good interpretation of it. Like you said, I don't know how much of it is an intentional per se. [01:36:48] Speaker A: I have no idea. [01:36:48] Speaker B: But I like, I like that interpretation. [01:36:51] Speaker A: It just really, like I said, I, I, I think because Dracula in this movie gets to be funny, gets which in a lot of interpretations he is whatever, but he gets to be kind of funny. He gets that beginning part where he is almost more of a comical character for like the first, like where he like appears over Jonathan's shoulder and he's like, oh God, like all those moments he's initially presented as less immediately terrifying and more just like this quirky, interesting guy. And then he becomes more and more of a villain and he is very much the villain of the story. But again, I do think the movie ends on the final shot of him and his, the final shot of the movie. Is the painting of him and his wife on the ceiling of the chapel or whatever. And it's not an accident that the final shot or. And the final moments of the movie focus on him and his story and his redemption. Maybe redemption is not the right word, but his. The completion of his narrative arc. [01:37:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:37:52] Speaker A: As opposed to the completion of Jonathan Harker's narrative arc or. You know what I mean? Like, they're just there. Like they're. Their elements in the movie don't really matter all that much. Like Jonathan Harker's not that important to the story. Like, and it's very clear from what we talked about in the prequel that Coppola saw it that way. That like Harker and all these other guys, they're not the interesting part of the story. [01:38:12] Speaker B: No, Dracula is the interesting part of. [01:38:14] Speaker A: The story and they're. And so I think it is very. While there's still maybe some inherent problematic nature in some of the ways that a lot of the stuff is depicted, I think the movie is at least attempting to subvert and subvert like that. That again, that us versus them, that foreigner versus Westerner trope and humanize the other, at least again, to some extent. How successful that is, I don't know. But I thought that's what it was doing. Anyways, I'm done. You got a bunch. Oh my God, you got a bunch more. Go for it. [01:38:51] Speaker B: All right. Alright. Next thing I want to talk about is the long lost love, reincarnation of Dracula's wife love story between Dracula and Mina thing. And we're also going to loop Mina Harker herself into that. So the idea that Mina and Dracula have some kind of attraction, love isn't something that's present in the novel. Novel. However, my understanding is that it is a fairly common element that appears in later retellings, reimaginings. It's something that's permeated into the swirl of pop culture around Dracula to the point that it's generally accepted as canon. [01:39:37] Speaker A: Right. Like I said, that was a surprise to me to find out that that wasn't. [01:39:41] Speaker B: And I want to stress that I don't think this is a bad reinterpretation of the source material. I think there's plenty of textual grounds for it even, like Dracula is seductive. He is sexy. Right. He's like the ultimate hot villain. And further, we know that he has a penchant for collecting beautiful young women as his brides. We know this. So sexual tension between him and Mina, specifically, I wouldn't say is something that's really present in the novel, but I don't think it's all that far out of left field. Like, I truly do not. Now do I think the movie's take, to me was maybe a little less interesting than what's in the novel. I do. But that's mostly because of Mina Harker herself, because she is way cooler in the book. Yeah, she's super smart. She's really sure of herself. I mentioned earlier that she's the one who detectives and puts everything together and figures out. [01:40:50] Speaker A: Right. [01:40:50] Speaker B: She's the one who's the one who compiles everything, puts it all in order, says, here's what's been going on. Here's what we need to do to draw a comparison that you'll be familiar with. She's a lot more like Evie from the Mummy. [01:41:02] Speaker A: Right. [01:41:03] Speaker B: And I think the movie could have done the exact same thing that it did and kept more of Mina's characterization from the book. And that would have been like a truly fascinating reinterpretation to me. [01:41:18] Speaker A: That could have been really cool because I will say that that was one of the main problems I had with the movie is that her motivation felt under explored and kind of nebulous at times. [01:41:29] Speaker B: Yeah, it feels pretty underbaze. [01:41:31] Speaker A: Like, I wasn't entirely sure why she was doing what she was doing, which in the course of the movie wasn't actually that big of an issue because I could kind of always just chalk it up to. To like vampire mat. You know what I mean? In the course of watching the movie and as an experience of watching the film, it didn't bother me that much. But that, like, when you think about it, like, anytime I kind of like, there was a handful of scenes where I'm just like. I'm not like when she. At the scene where she gets him to where they all burst in and she's like drinking his blood and she changed me into a vampire or whatever. I was like, does she really? That just felt like kinds of comes out of nowhere a little bit. [01:42:08] Speaker B: I agree. [01:42:08] Speaker A: And it all felt a little. And again, it wasn't really an issue necessarily because I was like, I'm able to go on this ride. And like. And I was like, he did. He enthralled her and stuff. Whatever, fine. But it does make for a slightly less compelling version, or not even slightly. I would say a significantly less compelling version of Mina than what I could imagine based on what you're describing from the book. [01:42:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Not done yet, though, because I'm going to lob this one right back at the book. Book, which, as I'm sure you can imagine, is absolutely steeped in Victorian attitudes about gender and sex. We're told several times throughout the text that the reason Mina is so great is because she has the head of a man and the heart of a woman. To which I say there's also that dichotomy that I mentioned between her and Lucy. Lucy to be unpacked. Lucy's presented as more traditionally feminine and therefore weaker. She continually succumbs to Dracula's advances to the point that she is fully corrupted. Right. Mina, though she does fall victim to the Count's evil, is able to largely resist his influence up to the very end. So all this to say, while I think the book's characterization of Mina is generally more interesting, I am under no circumstances putting it on a pedestal. And I think that ideally there should be some kind of happy medium where Mina can have those interesting character traits without having to be a paragon of. [01:43:45] Speaker A: Victorian morality in a modern interpretation. [01:43:47] Speaker B: Yes. You're not saying yes in a modern interpretation. [01:43:49] Speaker A: It's very understandable in the book, very. [01:43:50] Speaker B: Understandable why she is the way she is. I say this often on this show, maybe not often enough, that when you read. Read a book, you're not just reading a book, you're also reading a historical text. [01:44:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:44:05] Speaker B: And at some level, you know, we can. We can interpret books lots of different ways, but at some level, especially when something is as old as this book is, you do kind of have to view it through a historical lens and. [01:44:19] Speaker A: Say, okay, as best you can. [01:44:20] Speaker B: Yeah, as best you can. And be able to say, okay, here's what the context of what was being written is. And I don't think that the book is bad for it, but I think moving forward in reimagining the source material, I don't think there's any reason that we can't have Amina, who is smart and who is sure of herself, but who also doesn't have to be this paragon of Victorian purity culture. [01:44:51] Speaker A: You know, who else thought that? Stephen Summers, baby, when he wrote the Mummy, which I have a note about later, but I think he actually. I'm saying that I actually realized. I don't know if Stephen Summers wrote the Mummy or just directed it. Let me check real quick. He did. So, yeah, Stephen Summers. There was also a bunch of other people. Anyways, all right, those are all of our discussions for Lost in Adaptation. It's time now to find out what Katie thought was better in the book. You like to read? [01:45:23] Speaker B: Oh, yes, I love to read. [01:45:26] Speaker A: What do you like to read? [01:45:30] Speaker B: Everything. This is going to sound like an obvious thing to say about a near 500 page novel versus a movie with a runtime of just over two hours, but the book has more. More of everything. And that difference struck me immediately as we were watching Jonathan journey to castle Dracula and then during his stay there, because we spend about the first 75 or so pages with Jonathan. And I do think that the sprawling nature of the book, while admittedly slow at times, is a big part of what makes the creeping dread of it all work really well. We also miss out on just a lot of great little moments. [01:46:13] Speaker A: I'll put this pin in this for the Nosferatu 2024 discussion for the bonus episode. I do think that that movie did a good job with that. From my memory that Jonathan arriving at the. [01:46:26] Speaker B: Yeah, we get way more of that. [01:46:28] Speaker A: And like the building rising dread of him, like, what's going on? And like that. I remember the tension and all of that being way more palpable and unnerving. Whereas the movie plays. This movie plays it a bit more comical. [01:46:43] Speaker B: Yeah, almost comical. Yeah. But there are a lot of really great moments in this part of the book. Here are a few that I particularly liked. When Jonathan is on the coach riding out to meet Dracula's coach. So in the movie they just like drop him off in the middle of the woods and like leave him there. In the book, the driver goes really fast on purpose so that they get there early and then everybody in the carriage tries to be like, oh, no, I guess you'll just have to keep going with us and not go to the castle. Oh, no. The whole first bit of the book is just like wall to wall people doing their damnedest to stop him from going to the castle and him being like, no, I must go to the castle. It's my job. The scene where Dracula surprises Jonathan while he's shaving is from the book. Like where he sneaks up on him and he doesn't have a reflection. But in the book he grabs the mirror and flings it out the window and Jonathan is just standing there like, what do I do? What do I do right now? [01:47:53] Speaker A: That's really funny because, yeah, in the movie it like shatters and appears behind him. It just like breaks. Which is a fun moment too, but actually totally the throwing it out the window. [01:48:04] Speaker B: Yeah, that would have fit really well. I'm surprised they didn't because again, we. [01:48:08] Speaker A: Have those kind of sillier moments in that for in the very beginning of their interactions. [01:48:12] Speaker B: But yeah, there's also a moment where Dracula is talking with Jonathan. They're talking about history and he compares other European royal families of specifically the Habsburgs and the Romanovs to mushroom growths. I don't know if I know. I was like, fucking got him. [01:48:35] Speaker A: Yeah, got em. I would need to know more about that Habsburgs and Romanovs. Why that's sick burn. [01:48:42] Speaker B: Well, I don't, I don't really know about the Romanovs, but that's definitely a sick burn on the Habsburgs because they were famously very ugly. [01:48:49] Speaker A: Oh. [01:48:50] Speaker B: Because they were like so inbred. [01:48:52] Speaker A: Okay, okay. [01:48:53] Speaker B: And then the last thing that I want to say here, there's a point where Jonathan finds the Count asleep in one of his, like, dirt boxes while he's still at the castle and then smacks him on the head with a shovel before making his escape. [01:49:07] Speaker A: That happens in Nosferatu, doesn't it? [01:49:09] Speaker B: Yeah. And then Dracula has shovel scar on his forehead for the rest of the book. [01:49:13] Speaker A: I don't remember if he has the scar, but I do remember that scene from the, from the 2024 movie. So. Yeah. [01:49:19] Speaker B: I also really loved all the detail that we get about the voyage of the Demeter when Dracula's initially coming over to England. It's its whole own chapter where we get like the Captain's Log. And it is deliciously creepy and made me want to watch that movie just to see what they do with it. I did look up the movie and apparently people didn't like, like it, but I do, I do want to watch it. [01:49:42] Speaker A: It's got a 50 on rotten tomatoes, which is not like, it's not good, but it's not like, terrible. That means, like, half of the critics were like, yeah, it's, it's an okay movie. So I'd be, yeah, I'd be down. I, I that the movie, this movie very much glosses over it. [01:49:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And just, yeah, it's like a blink and you miss it scene. But yeah, it's its whole own chapter in the book. And it's really, really good. We get to know all three of the men who are vying for Lucy's attention. More in the book. Book. And I felt like the movie manufactured some friction between the three of them. And to me, that came off as a little cheap. [01:50:20] Speaker A: I didn't really feel like there was all that much. There's a little bit in the beginning. It melts away pretty much immediately. [01:50:24] Speaker B: Yeah. In the book, the three of them are like, already best buddies and they have no issues banding together to try and save and then later avenge the woman that they love. [01:50:34] Speaker A: I don't think they do in the movie either. They. Very quickly, they're all on board and on the same page about helping, you know what I mean? There's some tension very early on, I think, set up. Cause they're all vying for her. They're all vying for her hand or whatever. And so there's a little bit, I think, at least from my memory in the movie, they pretty quickly are all like, once Arthur. She picks Arthur or whatever. They're all pretty much on board with helping her. And I don't know, I didn't feel like there was all that much tension between them. [01:51:01] Speaker B: I kind of felt like there was, but. All right. I also came to unironically love Quincy Morris as I was reading this book. If you had told me that there was a character in Dracula who was a cowboy, I would have been like, you're lying. [01:51:16] Speaker A: I. [01:51:18] Speaker B: There is a character. Character in Dracula who is a cowboy. [01:51:23] Speaker A: That's incredible. [01:51:24] Speaker B: And he reads as if Bram Stoker had based his character on watching old Western movies, which he obviously could not have done. And it kind of delighted me to discover that that character archetype is older than I thought it was. [01:51:39] Speaker A: It's because I imagine he based it on reading books, probably, which is what those movie. Early movie characters are based. You know what I mean? They're extensions of those characters from old serial books and whatever. So. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. I thought he was a lot of fun. And again, I was not expecting the Rocketeer to show up in this movie and to play a cowboy, which was great. [01:52:04] Speaker B: There's a line of Lucy's that I don't think was in the movie, but if not, I think it should have been. There's this moment where she's telling Mina in a letter about how all three of these men have proposed to her and how she. She knew she had to marry Arthur because she loves him, but it really did, like, break her heart to have to turn the other guys down. And then she writes, why can't they let a girl marry three men? Men or as many as want her and save all this trouble. [01:52:36] Speaker A: Based Lucy discovers Polyamory. [01:52:42] Speaker B: Overall, I thought the costumes in this movie were really fun and interesting sometimes period looking, sometimes more like editorial and, like, aesthetic. But I. I really hated that white lace monstrosity. [01:52:55] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [01:52:55] Speaker B: That was supposed to be Lucy's wedding gown. And then they bury her in it. Yeah, I Look, I get it. I understand what we're doing here. I didn't like it. [01:53:05] Speaker A: Yeah. I actually wondered if the 2024 Nosferatu, the part, that one costume she wears, like in the poster or whatever was a reference to that. It has that big lace collar on it, like the. Or maybe. [01:53:17] Speaker B: I'm thinking, I think she's, I think. Are you not thinking of her bonnet? [01:53:21] Speaker A: Oh, I am thinking of the bonnet. It's not a collar. [01:53:23] Speaker B: Because her, her costumes, at least from my understanding, the costumes in Nosferatu were like fairly period accurate. [01:53:30] Speaker A: No, I agree. I'm not saying they weren't period accurate. I'm just saying because I don't know if that lace monstrosity from this movie was not. [01:53:38] Speaker B: I don't think, I don't think it. [01:53:39] Speaker A: Was because they weren't worried about that in this movie. But I'm just saying it wouldn't have surprised me if it was because I don't know that kind of weird shit like that. But no, you're right, it is a bonnet. I was thinking. Yeah. [01:53:51] Speaker B: It's not like a rock. Kind of didn't love the depiction of Van Helsing in the movie. I felt like he came off as kind of harsh, which isn't the case in the book. He's very kind and gentle in the book. And I, I loved his slightly broken English and how he always calls Dr. Seward friend John. Also side note, the idea that Van Helsing and Dracula are like arch enemies and that Van Helsing is a profess vampire hunter. [01:54:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:54:26] Speaker B: Were both invented later by pop culture. Yeah. Neither of those things are in the book. [01:54:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I liked him in the book or in the movie. I thought his performance, I thought it. [01:54:35] Speaker B: Was a good performance. I don't think it's a bad depiction of him. I just preferred what the book was doing. That's fair. [01:54:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it's totally fair. Like I said, I, I thought he had a lot of the. What I imagine he felt very similar to Willem Dafoes, honestly, in, In Got to. Which I'm sure both of those are plays on earlier versions of. [01:54:56] Speaker B: Right. [01:54:56] Speaker A: Van Helsing from other stuff, if I had to guess. I don't know. But, but I, I, I. Because one of the things in this one that, that really cracked me up. We were watching it with subtitles because I was like, after like five minutes, I was like, I'm gonna have to turn subtitles on because I know I'm gonna miss especially like some of the stuff with Dracula with his. [01:55:11] Speaker B: Yeah. With like, accents. [01:55:12] Speaker A: And the accents. And then, like, the echoey booming. Like, I was just like, I'm not gonna understand some of this. So we turn subtitles on, and I just love the. The. Yeah. Every time. [01:55:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:55:22] Speaker A: Van Helsing just constantly says, yeah. And it would just say J. A, a little tiny J at the bottom of the screen all the time. Which I thought was fun. [01:55:28] Speaker B: But there's a moment in the book when Van Helsing and company are trying to protect Lucy when she's, like, ill, and they. So they lock her window so that nothing can get in, and they fill her room up with garlic. And then the next morning, they all come back to the house, and Lucy's mom is like, oh, yeah, she's doing great. It was really stuffy and it smelled bad in her room last night. So I took out all the garlic and I opened the window up. [01:55:56] Speaker A: Oh, that's the classic. Yeah, that's a. That's like a trope. That's a modern trope. Like, the protagonists do something to, like, but don't tell. Like. [01:56:05] Speaker B: Yeah, they didn't. They didn't loop her into the plan. [01:56:08] Speaker A: One person into the plan, and that person just upends the whole plan accidentally, like, with good intentions. Yeah, I don't know. I'm sure that trope has a name, but that's a very classic trope. [01:56:18] Speaker B: There's also a really creepy section in the book from Lucy's point of view, where she's talking about all of the weird, scary things that have been happening around her. And then her mother dies in her arms, and she's just, like, alone in the house with her dead mother being stalked by a vampire. [01:56:36] Speaker A: How does. Why does her mom die? [01:56:38] Speaker B: Like, her mom has been sickly for this whole time. [01:56:41] Speaker A: It's not like a vampire. [01:56:42] Speaker B: No, not a vampire thing. Her mom has been sickly. And then I think they're both, like, in the bedroom and I can't remember. Something happens that, like, scares both of them, and it, like, puts her mom over the edge. The quest to destroy the boxes of dirt I also thought was better in the book. The movie crushes this into the span of, like, five minutes. But the book is a legit, like, detective quest to figure out how many boxes there are are where the boxes are located, how they're going to access them, and how they're going to do it before Dracula figures out what they're up to. And Mina, as I mentioned, is also very instrumental in this quest. [01:57:23] Speaker A: Yeah. In the movie, they're all seemingly at the. [01:57:25] Speaker B: Yeah. They're all like, in the same spot, even though. [01:57:28] Speaker A: Which is apparently right next to the asylum. [01:57:31] Speaker B: That is also book accurate. Yeah. At the end of the book, we learn there's like a seven years later like, note from Jonathan at the very end. And we learn that Jonathan and Mina had a son whom they named after all of their vampire hunting buddies, but they call him Quincy because Quincy died. [01:57:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:57:54] Speaker B: And this. This had me in absolute stitches. That is some Breaking dawn ass right there. [01:58:00] Speaker A: Say some JK Rowling ass right there. [01:58:02] Speaker B: Yes. [01:58:03] Speaker A: Harry Potter, Albus Severus, Hagrid, Rubus, whatever. [01:58:07] Speaker B: The imagining them with. They're like, oh, little Quincy, Arthur Abraham, Jack. [01:58:16] Speaker A: Yeah, it's good to know that that will never not be a thing. [01:58:21] Speaker B: Before I end this section, I also want to give a general shout out to the descriptive language in the book because it was so rich and so evocative and so deliciously creepy. [01:58:32] Speaker A: All right, let's go ahead and find out what Katie thought was better in the book Movie. My life has taught me one lesson, Hugo, and not the one I thought it would. Happy endings only happen in the movies. [01:58:46] Speaker B: I thought that making Renfield, a former lawyer who went mad in Transylvania, makes sense. Seems like this is something that a lot of adaptations do, but that's not the case in the book. He's just a guy. [01:58:59] Speaker A: Oh, really? [01:59:00] Speaker B: Who happens to be. Be crazy and also connected to Dracula. [01:59:05] Speaker A: Connected to Dracula. He's never been to Transylvania. [01:59:08] Speaker B: He's just a guy. [01:59:09] Speaker A: All right. [01:59:10] Speaker B: I liked the moment where Dracula licks the shaving knife and then starts helping Jonathan shave. I thought that was really creepy and upsetting. [01:59:19] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, very creepy. [01:59:23] Speaker B: And I also liked showing them filling up the boxes to, like, ship off. Like, filling the boxes with dirt. I thought that seating that early was really fun. I liked the moment when. When Dracula first sees Mina in London and he has no reflection in the shop window. I thought that was a fun little detail. [01:59:46] Speaker A: Yes. We get lots of. No. Reflectiony. Yeah, like, moments. [01:59:51] Speaker B: Also fun Easter egg. In this movie, when Mina's out in London, she passes a sign for Henry Irving appearing in Hamlet at the Lyceum Theater. Henry Irving was Bram Stoker's best bro. If you'll remember from the prequel, I have Crossed Oceans of Time to find you. Not from the book, but it is a pretty banger line, I have to admit. That would probably work on me. [02:00:18] Speaker A: It is very good. It is very good. [02:00:21] Speaker B: I appreciated that the movie gave Mina and Lucy an actual parting scene before Mina went off to Mary Jonathan at the abbey in Romania. [02:00:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:00:34] Speaker B: I also really liked the glass coffin for Lucy. I thought that was fun. I do think it was a smart decision on the movie's part to just combine both evenings with vampire Lucy. Because in the book, Van Helsing and Jack go one night first and see that she actually is, like, a vampire, and then they come back with Arthur and Quincy the next night. Just shove that all into one night. It's fine. [02:01:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:01:01] Speaker B: Speaking of, I also liked that the movie referred to Dr. Seward as Jack, because in the book, he's mostly John and sometimes Jack. And I feel like the movie wanted to avoid confusion with Jonathan. And I appreciate that call. [02:01:16] Speaker A: Makes sense. [02:01:18] Speaker B: One little thing that annoyed me a little bit in the book is that near the end, the main characters did start to suffer a little from, like, convenient stupidity. Like, Dracula has been secretly feeding off of Mina, and they're all like, wow, Mina has been really tired lately, and she looks paler than usual, but I'm sure nothing's wrong. I'm sure she's fine. And then Mina, like, immediately after a conversation with Van Helsing about how Dracula can turn himself into mist, she, like, looks out her bedroom window and sees mist creeping across the yard and is just like, that's kind of weird. Oh, well. And goes to bed. [02:02:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:02:00] Speaker B: I'm sure that this is a trope I can't think of. [02:02:02] Speaker A: The name of it, though, is it's a classic horror movie trope. [02:02:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Where they all, like, become stupid. I loved that the movie showed Dracula exploding into a bunch of rats. I thought that was great. That was fun. Another little visual moment that I liked was when they were on the train and Quincy was just making a bunch of stakes. [02:02:24] Speaker A: Yes, he's. [02:02:24] Speaker B: Which they don't use, but he's just, like, sitting there carving a stack of wood stakes. And I like the idea in the movie that the reason Mina separates them from them and goes off with Van Helsing is because she's acting as a demon decoy. I thought that made a lot of sense. A reason for her going specifically with Van Helsing in the book isn't, like, really given. [02:02:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:02:48] Speaker B: So I thought that worked well. [02:02:50] Speaker A: Cool. All right, let's go ahead and talk about what the movie nailed. [02:02:58] Speaker B: As I expected, practically perfect in every way. The movie did not completely lose the epistle epistolary element of the book, which I thought was interesting. I was kind of expecting that to not make its way into the movie. [02:03:11] Speaker A: But, yeah, we had voiceovers where they're, like, reading from their journals. We even see pages of superimposed. Sometimes like pages of the journals and letters and stuff. [02:03:21] Speaker B: Random detail. But I'm pretty sure Jonathan does eat a roast chicken upon arriving at the castle. [02:03:27] Speaker A: All right. [02:03:28] Speaker B: And then Dracula almost immediately coerces him into staying for a month. [02:03:33] Speaker A: Like, you'll be staying for a month. And he's like, what? [02:03:35] Speaker B: Yeah. We didn't even really talk about Renfield all that much, But Renfield is in the book. He is at the insane asylum that Jack runs, and he is obsessed with eating bugs and animals to try and absorb their life force. The line, the blood is the life, which we hear repeated several times throughout the movie. Also repeated several times throughout the book. Dracula does crawl down the walls, as Jonathan puts it, in his lizard fashion. [02:04:08] Speaker A: Nice. Yeah, he does. He's. [02:04:10] Speaker B: I. This is. That's another moment of like. If you had told me that in the novel Dracula, Dracula crawls on the walls of the castle, I would have been like, you're lying. [02:04:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:04:22] Speaker B: But he does. [02:04:23] Speaker A: The shot in this movie where we first see it is super cool. Like, his big, long robe and he's like. Jonathan looks out the window and he's like skitters across. [02:04:30] Speaker B: Yeah, he looks like a centipede or something. Jack does summon Van Helsing because of Lucy's mystery illness. Jonathan's hair does go prematurely white. We see that. Yeah. [02:04:46] Speaker A: Yeah. I almost asked about that, but I figured I could tell. Like, it's just like the stress or whatever, being drained or whatever. Whatever. The whole. The whole issue with being trapped in Dracula's castle took a toll. It's like when you're president, you know, like the before, after pictures of, like. [02:05:01] Speaker B: Obama, where it's like a couple lines that are from the book. Van Helsing's these creatures do not die like the bee after the first sting. Mina. I almost feel pity for anything so hunted as this count. And then Renfield actually does try to warn Mina that Dracula is going to come after her and says, I pray to God I may never see your sweet face again. And then Dracula does kill him for trying to warn her. [02:05:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:05:32] Speaker B: Dracula does creep into Mina's room as a mist. Van Helsing. No, I don't think so. I think it's just a normal looking mist. Van Helsing does hypnotize Mina to learn Dracula's whereabouts. We talked about the communion host. And a more general note, while the movie is arguably more overtly horny, the book is also very horny. [02:05:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:06:00] Speaker B: So I think the movie nails that. [02:06:02] Speaker A: The movie nails the general. Well, maybe a little More. [02:06:04] Speaker B: But the general horniness, that's good. [02:06:07] Speaker A: Fair enough. [02:06:09] Speaker B: All right. [02:06:09] Speaker A: We got a handful of odds and ends before we get to the final verdict. My first. I mentioned earlier, but just. I. I knew this movie was going to be gorgeous, but, like, holy. The first shot, I was like, yep, absolutely stunning already. The first shot is like the top of a church, like in like a lightning storm or something, set at this weird angle. But it's. It has that. I think it might. It's either a miniature or it's a model or something. But it just. It has the look. It reminded me of a shot from what was the Rosemary's Baby. During one of her dream sequences. There's some moments where she's, like, dreaming of, I think of a church or something, and it reminded me of the. And I. Probably to the point where it's actually. [02:07:01] Speaker B: I'm sure it's a direct reference that money. [02:07:03] Speaker A: But some. Really. Again, I was like just for moment one, but there were so many cool shots. I loved that. Do you notice the. The. The lightning when they were driving? I think it's when Jonathan is getting taken in the carriage to the cab castle. We get this, like, shot from the side of the carriage and we see lightning behind it. But it's very clearly, like, some lighting on, like a. It's. It's. It's a. It's like light tubes or something, like right behind them. Or, like, you can tell it's not. I don't know. Yeah, because all of the effects are, like, practical. Like, weird. Like, it's like a very. It would be corny if it weren't done so perfectly for what this movie is doing. I don't know. It's. I thought. [02:07:44] Speaker B: Yeah. I thought the. The practical effects, I thought were interesting. It kind gave me the impression of theater. [02:07:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:07:50] Speaker B: Like, the lighting and. [02:07:52] Speaker A: Which is definitely what they're doing because. And again, the whole goal was like. Because this is this classic story that has all of these. It is doing all of the effects in the style of a movie from the 20s, the 30s, the 40s, or whatever. And so, yeah, it has that kind of very specific charm, which were a lot of theater tricks and all that. [02:08:12] Speaker B: Kind of stuff like that. [02:08:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:08:15] Speaker B: I thought that his armor in that backstory sequence was pretty sick. I don't. [02:08:21] Speaker A: Demon armor. [02:08:22] Speaker B: I don't know if it makes any sense, his actual armor. But it's unique. Fits the aesthetic and the vibe. I liked that. It kind of looked like a flayed man. [02:08:31] Speaker A: It's like. It's. It's like if a giant muscle demon didn't have skin. [02:08:35] Speaker B: Yeah, basically is what it looks like. His helmet looks like a. Like a jackal or something. [02:08:40] Speaker A: Yeah, it's super cool. Yeah, I thought it was very cool. Speaking of the carriage ride, another little detail during that that I thought was great is that when he's getting picked up, so he gets dropped off by the first carriage and then he gets picked up by Dracula's driver or whatever. [02:08:55] Speaker B: Which in the book, he thinks that it might actually have been Dracula. [02:08:59] Speaker A: That was my interpretation upon watching. I think I thought it was Dracula because when he invites him into the carriage, they do this great effect where he reaches down and touches his shoulder and then Jonathan just levitates into the carriage. Carriage. But you don't see. It's subtle enough. And there's a lot of effects like that in this movie that I thought were really cool, where there's lots of little subtle things where. Like that moment where he. He floats Jonathan into the carriage. If you weren't paying super close attention, it almost just kind of looks like he climbs up into the carriage, but. But it's very clearly that he's, like, floating up into it. But another moment that Is that similar is that when Jonathan is walking up to the castle carrying his bags, he's, like walking up the steps and he's backlit and you see his shadow, like a giant shadow projected on the wall. But if you look really closely, the shadow does not match the movements that John. It's close. It's very, very close. And then that was the first time I noticed it. But then it becomes a whole thing. And it's every time Dracula shadow is anywhere it is. Is not ma. It does not match him. [02:10:06] Speaker B: Sometimes it's close, sometimes it's close. [02:10:08] Speaker A: But it's never perfect. It's never. It's clearly never his actual shadow, which is super weird and creepy and off putting. And in the movie, I mean, with Dracula's, they eventually go beyond that where, like, his shadow will do something entirely different than he's doing, which is also fine and fun. But the thought. The parts that I thought were really creepy and worked really effectively were where it's just. [02:10:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Where it's just slightly off. [02:10:30] Speaker A: Just slightly off. And you're bright. Crane is like, wait, what's going on there? Which I thought was super, super cool. And. Yeah, because they do it again, like with Dracula, that big, like, wall map behind him. [02:10:41] Speaker B: Yeah. I. I loved the shot of his shadow stretching over the map of London. I assume that's probably a reference to the original nose for. [02:10:49] Speaker A: Yeah, there's lots of shots where the hand with the shadow, which is the classic shot from the original Nosfer. And the 2024 one does it all the time. [02:10:57] Speaker B: Right. [02:10:57] Speaker A: The shadowy, like, hands and stuff. And. Yeah, there are some direct references to that. But yeah, just the moments where, like, I said it, where it's. The shadow is. Is just not quite right. As opposed to just being like its own, like, entity. But it's like it's this. Yeah, but just off a little bit is. That was super cool. [02:11:17] Speaker B: A little moment that I didn't understand in that scene right before, like, right when he picks up the little portrait of Mina, Jonathan says, oh, you found Mina? She was lost. [02:11:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:11:29] Speaker B: And I was like. Like, her picture was lost on the table. [02:11:32] Speaker A: It was literally right there. [02:11:33] Speaker B: What are we talking about? [02:11:34] Speaker A: I heard that line too. I'm like. But it was right. [02:11:36] Speaker B: Yeah, it was right there. I don't know. [02:11:38] Speaker A: It was very strange. Yeah. Yeah. Well, another thing, like I said, there was also some other moments where Dracula would just like, float up to Jonathan. Did you notice those? Where he was clearly, like, being pulled on a skateboard or whatever. And he would just like. [02:11:54] Speaker B: I hope was a skateboard. [02:11:55] Speaker A: Well, it was probably more like dolly track and a dolly, since it's a movie set, but close enough. Yeah. Which basically is a skateboard. So when we're first introduced to Van Helsing, he's, like, teaching a doctor, like a medical class. [02:12:09] Speaker B: He's giving a lecture. [02:12:09] Speaker A: Yeah, one of those classic, like, lecture halls where it's like a. [02:12:13] Speaker B: An operating table. [02:12:14] Speaker A: And yeah, all of the medical students are like, up on bleachers around him in a circle. And I love. He's. He's like, talking about. He's talking about civilization and civilization and comparing how STDs have grown with civilization. Basically. Like, it talks about this stuff, but he. He has a bat there that he's using to illustrate some point or whatever. But he, like, lets the bat bite him because he's talking about, I think, like, vampire bats or so I can't remember. He's talking about a vampire bat and he lets the bat bite him. And then as he's finishing cleaning, the bat bites him and then he puts it back in the cage and then he just sucks on the wound. [02:12:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:12:53] Speaker A: And I'm like, oh, my God, this is no wonder the Black Plague or what? Like, and again, that's way before, but, like, like, this is how we get insane community. Don't suck on a bat bite wound, man. You're a doctor. What are you doing? [02:13:09] Speaker B: I didn't think that the movie did a good enough job making Arthur and Quincy look different. I thought they were too similar looking, especially when they were both wearing hats. Hats. Like, the mustaches and the hats. They needed something else. [02:13:25] Speaker A: If maybe I. Maybe if they weren't actors, I both. I knew very explicitly I would have a harder time with it, but I was like, that's the Rocketeer, and that is Wesley from the Princess Bride. So, like, I had no issue with it. But, like, I get what you're saying. Like, from a distance, I think. [02:13:43] Speaker B: I think Arthur shouldn't have had a mustache. I think that that would have helped. [02:13:46] Speaker A: It's fair enough. I feel like he must. In the. In the movie or in the book? [02:13:50] Speaker B: Because, I mean, he's not described in the book. [02:13:53] Speaker A: So in the 20. In 2024, Nosferatu, he has a must. He looks almost exactly the same. I feel like. Doesn't he? Like the guy who's Lucy's, like, husband? [02:14:02] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, he does have a little mustache. I feel like he looks very similar. [02:14:05] Speaker A: But I could be wrong. I don't remember exactly what he looks like. But speaking of Arthur and Quincy and them specifically. But watching this movie for the first time made me realize, because I had never watched a Dracula, I was like, oh, the mummy 1999 is just Dracula. [02:14:23] Speaker B: It really is. [02:14:24] Speaker A: Yeah, it's kind of Dracula. Like, we even get like. Well, and this is a very specific detail. But this was one of the things that were like, really? Like the part where the green mist comes through her window and she's laying in bed. I was like, oh, that's the scene from the. In the Mummy where they lock her in the bedroom. And then he comes through the keyhole as sand or whatever. And then. But also, it's the whole, hey, you're the reincarnation of my dead. I was like, oh, it's. And so maybe that's the thing. It's not even that the mummy 1999 is Dracula. The mummy 1999 is Bram Stoker's Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola. Because, like. And, like, the group of, like, the four, like, the. @ the cowboy. Even, like, the guy who's, like, the cowboy, like, paralleling with the Americans from the. And. And, like, yeah, the group of the guys are, like, protecting each tv. [02:15:12] Speaker B: Like, I thought about them. I thought about the Mummy the entire time I was reading the book. Yeah, the entire time. [02:15:19] Speaker A: Oh, my God. It's just the Mummy. Like, that's insane. And that's why earlier when you referenced like, oh, if you had made a version of this where Mina was, you know, had more agency and was like Evie from the Mummy, I was like, well, yeah, they did. And it's the mummy 1999. Like, yeah, it's that. Yep, that's what that is. I really liked the. They do this stop motion effect sometimes where it's like a first person view of like Dracula's perspective. Perspective. The, the main instance of it that stuck out to me is when he's attacking. When he breaks in to get Lucy maybe I think to like turn Lucy into a vampire. He like attacks like Quincy and then like a couple other people. But the, the way they shoot it is like this weird stop motiony like, yeah, jump cutty thing. And there's some really cool moments like where he kills like a rat or something. I don't know. There's a handful of really cool moments. I just, I thought the effect of the, that like stop motiony Dracula cam was just super cool. [02:16:20] Speaker B: Unpopular opinion apparently. But Keanu Reeves performance didn't bother me. [02:16:26] Speaker A: Not at all. Literally not. I did not think one iota about it. [02:16:29] Speaker B: Like, I mean his, I guess his accent isn't great, but the like the stiff, stilted nature of it kind of suits his character in this movie, in my opinion. [02:16:42] Speaker A: I thought he was fine. [02:16:43] Speaker B: I thought he was fine. Fine. [02:16:45] Speaker A: I, I was not distracted. Now to be fair, if I were British, I'm sure it would be way more distracting. I'm terrible at accents. [02:16:52] Speaker B: I'm also bad. [02:16:53] Speaker A: So bad it's at like so his accent, while I could tell it wasn't like good. [02:16:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:16:57] Speaker A: Wasn't like a big sticking point for me. And so ignoring. So without that at all. The rest of his performance I thought. [02:17:04] Speaker B: Was like, he's also like barely in the movie. [02:17:07] Speaker A: He's barely in the movie. And I actually like, like, if you can get past the accent. I thought his actual performance was like, good. Like fine. Like does what he needs to do for the role. Like, I, I don't know, like, I thought the exact same thing. I was like, yeah, he's. It's not like amazing. And again, compared to like, like Winona Ryder's doing a lot better work. Gary Oldman's doing a lot better work. Anthony. [02:17:27] Speaker B: Or like his performance isn't amazing, but to me it does. It did not seem to fit like the ire. [02:17:36] Speaker A: No. [02:17:36] Speaker B: With which people seem to approach it. [02:17:38] Speaker A: Not at all. I would agree. In my last note, we kind of touched on this a million times. But I, I Like to put my. My kind of just general feelings on the movie here since I don't have a final verdict to write out. I. I liked it. It was a very fun movie to watch. I really enjoyed it as a movie. But it is very much a vibes movie as we said. It's very much just like an aesthetically cool and fun thing to watch. There's a lot of really interesting thematic stuff going on, but none of it was really super compelling to me. Like in terms of. It was nothing that I like super compelling, connected with and like latched on to and was like oh, this is like speaking to me or anything like that. But it's. And I, I just as a. Watching it as somebody who likes watching who watches who. Who makes short films and commercials and, and does all that kind of stuff. Just watching it from like a filmmaking perspective, it's. I could watch it a hundred more times. It's just fat like the effects and the cinematography and the performances and this. The choice choices. So many little choices that feel like they should feel wrong but then don't. Like there's. There was a handful of moments where. Where there are some very abrupt cuts and edits that felt wrong. Like. Like I. If I were editing I would never edit that way but worked in the movie. I can't. There's a specific example that I'm. I can't place exactly when it happened. But there's this moment where we like very quickly and briefly cut to Dracula like waking up or something. Something that is like a super short cut and it kind of comes out of nowhere, but it felt right. Well, I don't know lots of stuff like that and I just. It's just. And I. I cannot get again stress enough how. How beautiful a lot of the. The. The movie is in terms of specific moments and scenes. Like not throughout the whole thing but like some of the. I guess it's more so the techniques that they used depicting like Dracula's castle specifically and like the weird off putting ness of it. And a lot of. I don't know. There's so many things that I was just like so many details that were like fascinating and, and just enthralling and like it's a good story and a fun story but I'm not sure it's like a great like movie as a plot as. As far as like. [02:19:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I would agree with that. [02:20:01] Speaker A: I don't know if it's like a great masterp in terms of like a narrative film necessarily. [02:20:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:20:08] Speaker A: But I would say it's Probably a masterpiece in terms of like a technical exercise mixed with like a. It's also a masterpiece of like vibes. [02:20:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:20:21] Speaker A: So, which is fine. [02:20:23] Speaker B: Not every movie needs to be everything, so that's fine. Some movies can just be vibes. [02:20:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Before we wrap up, we wanted to remind you you can do us a giant favor by heading over to Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Goodreads, bluesk, any of those places interact. We'd love to hear what you have to say about Bram Stoker's Dracula. We'll talk about that on next week's prequel episode. You can also help us out by heading over to Apple, Podcasts, Spotify. Wherever you listen to our show, drop us a five star rating, write us a nice little review. It's super helpful and we would appreciate that. And you can super support us by heading over to patreon.com thisfilmislit support us there for 2, 5 or 15 bucks a month to get access to different stuff at different levels. At the $5 level. Starting at the $5 level, you get bonus content. Whereas if you wanna hear us talk about the runner up in our March Madness Brat bracket, which was 2024's Nosferatu, talked a little bit about it throughout this episode, but we will talk in depth about it in about a week or so whenever we put that episode out. And that'll be that. This month's bonus episode. So make sure you do that. And speaking of that March Madness bracket, we wanted to thank you all again for everybody who participated in this year's bracket and did all of that voting. Quite a good. Pretty good. [02:21:29] Speaker B: Yeah, we had a pretty, pretty good turnout. [02:21:31] Speaker A: Pretty good turnout. So thank you all and we'll see you back next year for another March Manus bracket. Whatever the heck that one's gonna be. [02:21:38] Speaker B: I couldn't even tell you at this point. [02:21:40] Speaker A: Katie, it's time for the final verdict. [02:21:43] Speaker B: No, sentence passed. Verdict after. That's stupid. I was never going to give this to the movie, to any movie probably. I don't think it would have mattered what won the bracket because I fucking loved this book. I started enthusiastically recommending it to people at about 100 pages in. It had me hook, line and sinker from the get go. And I want to stress that I did enjoy the movie. I think it's really fun. It kind of slots into the action adventure, fantasy, romance genre that we like so much. And to throw it back to what you said a minute ago, it truly is a film that's kind of floating on vibes. And the vibes are fun. I'm equal parts relieved and bummed that I didn't see it as a younger person, because I most definitely would have made it my entire personality in high school. To me, by far, the most interesting thing about this movie is how much more informed it is by everything that came after Dracula and like the cultural perception of Dracula, Dracula than it is by the original novel. The way that our collective imagination has seized this story and run away with it is truly fascinating to me in much the same way that fairy tales are. I kind of want to watch all the movies on the bracket now, except for Mel Brooks. My love is conditional. I'm long out of high school, but hell, maybe I'll go ahead and make this my whole personality. I'm only 120 years late to the party, but. But hey, what does it matter to a story that has so firmly grasped immortality? [02:23:34] Speaker A: Katie, what's next? [02:23:35] Speaker B: Up next, we're doing a switch episode because your girl needs a break and we're going to be talking about into the Wild nonfiction book. [02:23:47] Speaker A: Fictionalized nonfiction, maybe, I don't know. It's based on a true story. I don't know how. I just haven't looked into it to know how fictional versus non fictional it is. [02:23:56] Speaker B: John Craig Krakauer. Yeah, I believe is the author. And then it's a 2007 film. [02:24:01] Speaker A: Yep. So should be interesting. I. We'll talk more about. I don't have anything else to say about it right now. [02:24:08] Speaker B: We'll get to it. [02:24:09] Speaker A: I haven't started it yet, so I. And I, I know a little bit about the story. Like the. What happens? Yeah, like the guy, whatever his name is, the dude that this happened to or that did this. But. But I just know a little bit about the story. I don't know anything about the book or the movie. So interested to check that out in a few weeks time. But in one week's time we're coming back and seeing what you all had to say about Bram Stoker's Dracula. Until that time, guys, gals, non binary pals and everybody else, keep reading books. [02:24:36] Speaker B: Keep watching movies and keep being awesome.