DRACULA REVIEW: The new show is here to suck life into your dull, cold evenings…

How to tell the tale of the most famous vampire in history?

It is a tantalizing question, indeed!

Dracula is perhaps the most widely known horror villain in the world. So surprising people with a new tale will be ultimately difficult. We have wildly portrayed our villain through the golden age of cinema in various disguises. From goofy cartoon characters to Hollywood legends. This generally means any Dracula portrayal should, at the very least, have a clear idea of what it wants to be, even if it isn’t very different.

Dracula, the new Netflix / BBC series from the creators of Sherlock, tries to be the iconic vampire of all those scary tales but also wants to be the hip new show on the block, as well.

While the new series is similar to the BBC’s Sherlock in structure, with three 90-minute episodes, its ambitions are a little less clear.

It doesn’t set out to be a modern-day take on Dracula at first; instead, it reinterprets Bram Stoker’s original novel across a wider canvas full of glorious detail, but somewhat already treading territory.

It starts in a similar place: Jonathan Harker, the hapless 19th-century real estate appraiser, is sent to Transylvania to mediate Count Dracula’s, played by the terrific, charming, and dangerous (Claes Bang) long-distance purchase of land in England. The Count purposely slows the deal down so that Harker is forced to stay and become his unwitting prey, and Dracula slowly becomes stronger as Harker wastes away.

Then the poor man realizes he’s doomed and tries to escape from the top of the castle’s tower.

Thereafter, Dracula quickly begins to deviate from its source material.

Jonathan Harker’s, played by (John Heffernan) fate ends up very different from the one in the novel, the vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing is now a nun named Agatha Van Helsing, played by (Dolly Wells). And she is quite the best nun of all time, and not just because she has no time at all for God. “Like many women my age I am trapped in a loveless marriage, maintaining appearances for the sake of a roof over my head,” she says briskly.

And the rules of vampire fiction that Stoker’s novel established are slowly picked at.

There’s an introduction to Harker’s fiancee, Lucy Westenra, for sure, but not nearly enough of her story to exist in this mini-series, that is, until the very last episode.

Despite its changes, the show follows a lot of the same beats: Dracula is successful in his bid to travel to London, feeding on a boat full of boutique human blood.

The biggest twist is that getting to London takes him over a hundred years, thanks to a detour that traps Dracula at the bottom of the ocean, setting up a final episode that takes place entirely in the present day.

The story while reveling in its absurdity, clever without being too clever, and strewn with comic and dramatic flourishes that give you the feeling that this is not just a treat but a tribute – to the author, and the audience watching at home.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

BBC One’s new series Dracula is a pure and joyous BELTER. It’s in three parts of 90 glorious minutes each, adapted by the wonderfully, talented, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. And it is basically Sherlock but about Dracula. The show is a bloodstained love letter to a classic, delicately scented with the faintest hint of hammy-gothic.

If fangs are your thing? And they should be! Then this blood-sucking show is for you!

4/5 STARS