WELCOME TO VAMPIRE MONTH!

All of our podcasts episodes are going to be vampire related, starting with the big one: DRACULA

By 1897 the vampire had already infiltrated the collective consciousness. Varney, Carmilla and Polidori’s Lord Ruthven had already prepped Victorian audiences in the UK for Count Dracula’s surprisingly bureaucratic invasion. Bram Stoker’s creation has mutated and evolved with popular culture, adapting to exploit our fears and vices. The sexuality and otherness of the original novel have been contorted and manipulated, spawning not only stand-alone vampire novels but also whole series of vampire fiction with a sustained, almost cult-like following.

 

Which Version?

Brent watched Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula released in 1992.  Morgan read the original 1897 Dracula by Bram Stoker.

Dracula is an epistolary novel which uses letters and other documentation to piece together the narrative. The documents have been assembled primarily by Mina Harker because none of the other characters seems to be capable of organised thought. In fact, they tell her she has “a man’s brain”… ewww.

The book was written as a mystery because the 19th-century audience did not know what the count is. So as a modern reader you are like “noooo Jonathan! Run away! But he has no idea”. It’s like a slasher film in which you can see the killer but the characters can’t. .. except it goes on for chapters. Really until Van Helsing shows up. 

Last time we recorded one of our proper book movie comparison episodes like this one (which come out on the 13th of every month) you watched a movie with Colin Firth who I have a bit of a fangirl situation going on about… This time you’ve got Tom Waits as Renfield.  

Renfield attracts flies to his room, then feeds them to spiders, who he feeds to sparrows… then asks for a kitten… Dr Jack Seward does not let him have one, so, despairing, he eats the sparrows whole.

For more listen to the episode!