Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat have had very interesting
careers. They both worked on Doctor Who. Gatiss was one of the founders of The
League of Gentlemen (which, if you have not seen, you must see). Together they
created Jeckyll. Together they created Sherlock. Now they have tackled Dracula.
It seems like they very much enjoy
taking Victorian era stories and creating a new twist on them. Maybe they can do Bleak House next.
Dracula has been brought to the screen a lot of times. The most
notable versions are of course Tod Browning’s Dracula starring Bele Lugosi and
Francis Coppola’s version starring Gary Oldman. Basically any version of this
tale will be measured against those two iconic films.
Here’s your obligatory spoiler warning.
The new version helmed by Moffat and Gatiss (available on
Netflix) is a limited series, which is effectively three movies, each about
ninety minutes long. The first part
deals with Johnathan Harker in Dracula’s castle. The second is the voyage of
the Demeter. The third is Dracula in London.
If you’ve seen other work by this team, you might expect the
story to be transported to the present day. The first tow episode could surprise
you, as they are set in the era of the novel. The third section jumps ahead to
the present day, though.
This version presents all the bel0oved characters we know
from earlier iterations of the tale (Harker, Mina, Lucy, Van Helsing, etc) but updates
and alters them in ways that are interesting. Van Helsing here is a nun
questioning her faith. She is played by
Dolly Wells, who is a real standout in a cast that is overall quite
strong.
Dracula is played by Claes Bang, who looks aristocratic and
like someone pulled from the old world.
He isn’t a mirror image of Lugosi, but you could believe that they are
related. Bang brings a depth and a humor
to a role that can be dire and dreary in the wrong hands.
Gatiss and Moffat have chosen to treat the Dracula myth as a
buffet, picking and choosing the items they want to keep and passing over the
rest. They also find a clever way to explain the vampire’s weaknesses that I
had not expected.
This is a fun, if ultimately unnecessary, retelling of the
classic story. It’s a fine way to spend
a Saturday afternoon.
-Nathan Tyree
Comments
Post a Comment