Dracula Untold

Dracula Untold (2014)

Looking at Dracula in a New Light

 After watching Dracula Untold, your views on Dracula might just switch. Directed by Gary shore and released in 2014, this film tells gives you a look into Dracula’s origin story. Without ruining it for those who might want to see it (I suggest watching it), this film shares many things with Bram Stoker’s novel, but one thing they do not have in common is how the audience views Dracula. Turned into a semi-vampire by another vampire, Vlad (played by Luke Evans) uses his super-human skills to defeat those who are trying to take from him and his people. Confined to three days, if he doesn’t drink blood within them, he will go back to his normal self. To save his son (yes, son) he drinks the blood of his wife Mirena. The ending of the film has some of the best parts, with a vampire army and a modern spin at the very end as well. 

While throughout the film there was many pieces that stuck out as familiar, having it be an origin film meant more information into the life of Dracula that we never knew. Keeping with Dracula and having him in Transylvania, it also kept the small ideas about the Turks but instead went deeper into this. While in the novel we never truly knew how Dracula came to be, in this film adaption you see him being turned by an older vampire to save his people. The film had similar characters to those in the book as well; a character named Shklegim (played by Zach McGowan) embodies Renfield and his ideas as Dracula being his master. His wife Mirena (Played by Sarah Gadon) eventually takes on the name Mina as she is reincarnated. When it came to the differences, there wasn’t too many; beginning with Dracula having a son, or having it show Dracula surpass everything that would essentially happen in the 1800s and moving right to the modern world seemed to be the biggest ones. The film itself made you look at Dracula in a different light. He was no longer this monster as the novel portrays him, instead a loving father who would do anything for his son. 

Luke Evans as Vlad

When thinking about the ideas of gender in this film, Dracula himself is portrayed as this strong, young man. The ideas of gender fluidity don’t come out as much as the novel, but gender itself plays a huge role as you see Dracula taking those stereotypical ideas of men being the all powerful. You see how the movie helps to romanticize Dracula giving the audience this strong handsome male character to feel for. Looked at as someone who can kill a thousand men before he was even a vampire, the film adaptation shows Dracula single-handedly saving his people. The ideas that come with a mother and daughter relationship come into play during the film as well, as Dracula getting his people to feed on him so that he can turn them as well. The theme of gender throughout the film relied heavily on Dracula, but you also saw his "sensitive" side as well when with his family, something that with stereotyping a male you wouldn't expect to see.