Dracula's Legacy (From the old blog)
Bram Stoker left a legacy, Dracula. His vampire character through cinema and constant publication has become the king of the vampires. Every vampyric creature since his novel owes a debt to the count.
The image of vampire and the word Dracula walk hand in hand. If you show a picture of any vampire, be it Count Yorga, Count Chocula, the Count from Sesame Street, Lestat, and people will say “Dracula”. The dark brooding image of Bela Legosi’s character has permanently made Dracula an archetype.
From a writer’s perspective this can be a good thing. It is a ready made character just add blood. (For the love of everything don’t add water.) The problem comes from it’s too easy. There are vampires everywhere. They brood and look sexy and of course drinks blood. They have become so common writing a traditional vampire story is like driving a stake into your own productivity.
In an introduction to Salem’s Lot, Stephen King wrote that he enjoyed both the Dracula-like vampires, but also the Count Orlock-type he saw in comic books. He stated the his mother felt they were both junk. The strange thing is that Count Orlock was a copy of Dracula.
Now, we look at romanticized vampires that sparkle or have other extraordinary issues that are lovely. Dracula was none of that. He was evil and ugly.
He is the king of the vampires, but he is not what people think he is. They see the Bela Legosi version and think that is Dracula. What a problem. It is the curse of Dracula’s legacy, that and the need for more “nontraditional” vampire stories.
Way to go Bram Stoker.
