Watched half of Bram Stoker’s Dracula this morning. In some ways this is the best version, but in the ways it’s not, it’s really really not. Coppola gets the atmosphere, tone, and visuals very right. Dracula in his castle, smashing Jonathan’s shaving mirror, crawling down the walls like a lizard, so great. It also keeps all the relationships and major events of the book (so far) intact, which neither 1931 nor 1958 do. But while no one would deny that there’s a sexual aspect to Dracula, this one takes it to extremes, from the fanfic of Dracula’s romantic backstory to going far beyond the book in Jonathan’s encounter with the three succubi and Lucy’s first encounter with Dracula (who here is some kind of bloodsucking werewolf?!). Even Mina starts to be drawn to Dracula, in guise as a Prince, before hearing that Jonathan is alive. This runs so entirely counter to Mina’s purpose in the book. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a ‘90s Hollywood movie wouldn’t understand or value virtue. I will say I do really like the addition of seeing Vlad Dracul explicitly renounce God, which does support the themes of Dracula as an inversion of Christianity. Also the idea that Renfield had been an earlier envoy to Dracula and went mad as a result works quite well (this is in the 1931 version as well in a slightly different form).