Dracula Review: Halloween Horror Extravaganza

He is known by many names: the Count, strigoia, un-dead, vampire, Dracula. He’s the legendary monster who’s stayed in pop culture for over 100 years and has shaped the face of vampire fiction ever since. Even if the writer hasn’t read Dracula, their work is almost certainly influenced by Bram Stoker.

This was the first time I read Dracula. I’d set out to read it this October. Then I ended up doing the Halloween Horror Extravaganza, an event where I’m reviewing horror fiction from film, books, and video games. Coincidences are something that happen in this book, so it’s perfect. This is my first book review outside of an English class, so we’ll see how this goes.

This will not be as jovial as my Sleepy Hollow Review. This book has a much darker tone and is filled with dread, pain, loss, and emotional torment. I was quite impressed with how human the characters felt. They had real reactions to the things happening. Quite regularly, someone collapses into tears and has an emotional breakdown from all the stress of the horrors they’re plagued with.

Meeting Count Dracula

We begin by reading Jonathan Harker’s journal. The entire book is written through letters, notes, and telegrams the characters write themselves. This is an older literary device where we’re reading the writings of characters within the story. It creates a nice meta thing where we’re interacting with their own text. I quite like it and think it’s a shame that we don’t really see it done anymore. 

Jonathan is a lawyer traveling to Transylvania to finalize a land deal in London. The enigmatic Count Dracula has plans to make a new home in the world’s hub.

As he makes his way across the countryside to Castle Dracula, we meet several kindly peasants who warn Jonathan of the danger he’s in. He travels to Castle Dracula on the night of St. George’s Day, the day when magic and otherworldly creatures have the strongest influence over this world. It is when the veils are most thin. This is much like Wicca’s view of All Hallow’s Eve (Halloween). The villagers and other peasants give Jonathan crucifixes and sign the cross with their hands at his passage. They seem too afraid to say why they’re so fearful though, and he takes it as strange superstition. Even so, he’s quite uneasy.

The count sends his own carriage for Jonathan’s final stretch. As he rides to the castle, they’re almost attacked by a huge pack of wolves in the dead of night. The carriage driver (who we discover later to be Dracula himself, in disguise), an almost supernaturally strong man with a harrowing presence, wards the wolves off with a few waves of his arms.

The Castle itself is old and all but abandoned. Jonathan, at first, finds the Count to be friendly and kind. He’s a learned old man with white hair and a white mustache who’s studied at least dozens of books on England. He knows it’s laws, maps, customs, language, etc. 

It’s all too good to be true, for soon enough, Jonathan finds himself trapped inside the castle. There are no servants. All of his meals have been prepared by Dracula himself. He and Jonathan are alone in this remote mountainscape.

Not quite alone, that is. One night, Jonathan is beset by three stunning women, one almost bites his neck as he suffers from severe exhaustion (something vampires can do is force people to sleep) until the Count fends them off.

Jon is forced to write letters to his family and friends, saying when he’ll be leaving. The count gives Jonathan his death date, a mere month from now. Then he’ll be given to those brides. 

That whole time, Jon is trapped in the castle and tries to escape but all the doors are locked. 

One thing Dracula seems to do at night is crawl out of a window and down the face of the cliff beside the castle. He climbs down like a lizard on hands and feet, head toward the precipice. 

Jon slips into the locked room twice through the same window to see what’s happening. The Count has 50 coffins and sleeps in one of them. On the day he is to die, before the sunset when the Count and his wives seem to rise and act, Jon climbs further down the cliff than ever before. His last words in his journal are to his darling fiancé Mina, pleading that she get his notebook if he were to die.

To England

Next, we find ourselves in two separate points of view. Mina Murray, (Jonathan Harker’s fiancé), and Lucy Westenra. The two have been best friends since childhood. This is a huge change from the previous chapters with Jonathan because there is no hint at the supernatural. It’s a quiet life in England and they talk about their love lives to one another through the exchanging of letters. Mina is in London and Lucy is in the small coastal town of Whitby.

We’re introduced to three other characters through Lucy. She received three proposals in quick succession. Dr. John Seward is the director of a lunatic asylum in London. Quincey Morris is a rich American who fits the American stereotype of the time quite well (gallant, noble, ruggedly charming). And Arthur Holmwood (later Lord Godalming once his father dies), a British aristocrat from whom she accepts the proposal.

The odd thing about the situation is how gallant the three men are. Lucy must turn down two of them, the Dr. and Morris. Neither is angered. They are saddened, yes, but both want her to have what her heart yearns for. They accept her denial with exquisite grace and both wish to remain her friends. They are the truest definition of gentlemen.

It was at this time that I thought, “this was so obviously written by a man.” Because Lucy fauns over them. She praises them and claims that women do not deserve men like that. But then, we get to know Mina better and I learned something far different. Bram Stoker was very progressive for his day. I was actually impressed. This was the late 1800s and a female character has a lot to do and say. Yes, some may still find it regressive these days but we must remember when this was written. For the day, this is extremely progressive. Stoker’s female characters feel like people. Some male authors seem to struggle with that even today.

Mina travels to Whitby to visit Lucy. They enjoy going for walks, something that will prove a deathly mistake.

A huge storm rolls into Whitby a few days later. The skies were clear and then shrouded in black clouds, as if out of nowhere. The swells and troughs of the ocean are catastrophic. The wind rushes by. The whole town is on lockdown as thunder shakes the sky. All the while, a schooner glides through. Everyone watching is certain it will crash at any moment. It makes it to shore, slamming into the sand, and a huge hound leaps off deck and sprints out of sight from the on-lookers. 

Once aboard, the first responders find the captain’s corpse lashed to the wheel, bound there by his own doing. A note in a bottle reveals that, one by one, the ship’s crew was killed. Until only the captain and the evil specter remained. The captain wasn’t sure if he was mad or seeing truth when he wrote the letter. But he claimed that he would not go down easily.

It can be surmised, knowing this horror, what that dog really was. 

Lucy begins having episodes of sleep-walking, something she used to do as a child but hasn’t in years. Mina shares a room with her in Lucy’s mother’s house. Mina locks the door at night and that seems to keep Lucy inside.

One night, Mina awakens and Lucy is nowhere to be found. To her horror, Mina finds out that Lucy has left the house in her unconscious state. Mina rushes out to where they often walk and finds Lucy sitting on their favorite bench. Though it is dark and difficult to discern through the blackness, Mina swears she sees something standing over Lucy. It’s glowing red eyes haunt her. By the time Mina makes it to Lucy, through bends in the trail so that she can’t see Lucy the whole time, whatever the phantom was is gone.

Lucy seems to have caught something, for she is becoming fatigued, weak, and pale. Mina finds two small puncture wounds on Lucy’s neck. She feels terrible that she must have stabbed her when pinning a coat over Lucy the night she went out in nothing but her bed clothes. 

Mina brings Dr. Seward over for a checkup. Although Seward is a psychiatrist, he also knows a great deal about common medicine. He can’t determine what those puncture marks are either. Something is clearly off with Lucy. There isn’t any physical reason why she should be so pale and exhausted. He sends for his old teacher, the Polish Professor Van Helsing.

Jonathan has been missing for over a month at this point with no word at all. Mina has been horribly worried. She receives a message that he ended up in a hospital in Budapest with a brain fever. Mina makes way to travel there at once, leaving Lucy in the care of Dr. Seward and the soon to arrive Dr. Van Helsing. 

Lucy’s Fate

Van Helsing is an old gentleman and extremely educated. If anyone can find the problem, it’s him. Van Helsing is concerned and, he too, cannot find anything physically wrong. It’s as though she’s low on blood but not anemic. But if that were the case, where did it all go? There should be pools of blood in Lucy’s bed if she were simply bleeding. But not a drop can be found.

The next several chapters are spent describing how Van Helsing attempts to save the poor woman. He gives Lucy garlic. He puts it at the windows, around her neck, and prays for her. Lucy’s mother, unknowing of the importance, removes the garlic while Lucy sleeps one night and opens the window for some fresh air. 

The next day, Lucy is all but dead. So pale and weak that it’s all the two doctors can do to keep her alive. She ends up having four blood transfusions. One from Dr. Seward, One from Arthur Holmwood (her fiancé who’s been taking care of his dying father), Van Helsing, and Quincy Morris.

With each transfusion, Lucy seems strong again. Like she’s still alive. But with each time she’s drained and nearly killed, it takes more time and more blood to revive her. She’s slowly dying, with or without the blood.

These chapters are agonizing. We know exactly what’s happening but none of the characters, save Van Helsing, have any idea. We read through Seward’s journal as the woman he loves is constantly bombarded with pain and suffering while he has no idea why. 

Finally, things seem to be going well. Lucy is feeling well again and she trusts the doctor’s treatments of keeping the garlic close by. One night while the men are away, a wolf which escaped from the zoo, smashes it’s head through Lucy’s window. This wolf is under the influence of Dracula. The terror is so strong that Lucy’s mother (who already had a weak heart and expected to die any day) has a heart attack and dies. 

Lucy sends the servant girls to have a glass of wine to calm their nerves after walking in to see their lady dead. Lucy tries to recover from the loss of her mother. The girls are all passed out in the dining room because someone spiked the wine with a sedative. Lucy is alone in the house, afraid to get help in-case the wolf were to return. She writes a potential farewell and prays for help to come.

The next morning, Van Helsing and Dr. Seward find the servants asleep and both Lucy and her mother dead. I almost teared up here. After so much, she’s gone. It was a good quarter of the book that was spent on this section of trying and failing to save Lucy. She was such a sweet and gentle soul. She deserves nothing but the best in life. So, of course, she was the perfect target for the vicious Count Dracula.

During much of this time, Dr. Seward was also dealing with a lunatic in his asylum named Renfield. He’s a strange and deranged man who believes he can achieve a higher level of existence by consuming lower lifeforms. He harvests flies and spiders, then proceeds to eat them, believing he’s infusing himself with their power. Dr. Seward believes this lunatic is the perfect sort to become a murderer. Of course, someone who believes things like this would be the perfect follower of a particular vampire. 

Back to Lucy, everyone is distraught. Mina was still away with Jonathan while all of this happened.

Van Helsing is worried about something. The audience knows what, but Seward as our point of view character and writer of the letters we’re reading, has no idea.

Van Helsing makes Seward promise to keep an open mind. That there is still more that must be done and that time is of the essence. Children have been attacked recently and they’ve shown back up with the same two small punctures on their necks. Van Helsing beats around the bush and makes Seward very frustrated until he finally says what he believes. The marks are not from the same creature, but from Lucy herself.

Seward and Van Helsing go out at night to Lucy’s tomb, twice. The first time, her body is missing from the coffin. The second, she’s there once more. This time, she’s even more beautiful than when she died and it’s been several days. 

Seward accepts the claim that she is un-dead and that something must be done. That is, until the next morning when his senses return to him. He was so caught up with it all that he lost his sense of sanity. There must be some natural phenomenon going on. Perhaps Van Helsing is going mad?

Soon after, Van Helsing summons all three of Lucy’s closest friends. The three men who proposed at the beginning of the book. Dr. Seward, the American Quincey Morris, and her actual fiancé, Arthur Holmwood who is now Lord Godalming since his father died around the exact same time that Lucy did.

I can’t imagine the pain Lord Godalming was going through. The love of his life dies of some unknown illness only a few days apart from his father. 

That’s what this whole book is like. It’s not the kind of horror we get enough of, especially in film horror. More often than not, we simply don’t care about the protagonists. They’re shallow and uninteresting. These characters feel like people dealing with a horrible and alien situation. Lucy’s death is so much more powerful than many deaths in horror. Rather than have ten deaths, we spend page after page prolonging the inevitable with one victim. A victim who’s nothing but a gentle and loving soul. Now, she’s worse than dead. 

The three men are spoken to by Van Helsing as he gathers the men’s trust. He ensures that each agree to trust him before he says what he must do next. Van Helsing must cut off Lucy’s head and plunge a stake into her heart. Lord Godalming is flabbergasted and outraged at this request. The poor girl is already dead! What kind of sick game is it to desecrate her corpse like that? Though Van Helsing seems a noble soul, he goes too far!

Though they are all extremely skeptical, they agree to go to Lucy’s tomb that very night. They find no body. There has to be… oh God what is that?

They see Lucy herself, more beautiful than ever, holding a small child with blood dripping over her chin. They narrowly escape her wrath as she flees into her crypt. They wait a while for her to go rest inside the coffin. Lord Godalming himself does the horrible deed to free Lucy’s soul from the mind-shattering torment and eternal damnation. With the deed done, the four men all agree that the task is not complete until the fiend who did this to such a sweet and caring person must be destroyed.

It was around here when I realized just how good this book really was. Each character is distinct and has their own motivations. Dr. Van Helsing is such a powerful presence in this book. The love for Lucy the three men have is heartbreaking. Even with their proposals denied, Dr. Seward and Quincy Morris don’t have any distaste for Lord Godalming. The men bond over their love for her and their thirst for retribution. I wish more men could act like that. You can really tell that Bram Stoker had a high opinion for chivalry.

I had no idea the book was like this. I’m not sure what my preconceptions were but they weren’t what the book actually is.  I see why it’s still so popular to this day, over 100 years after its publication. Even if the author never reads it, their vampire story is absolutely continuing the legacy of Dracula. Plus, it’s just a damn good story so far. Let’s see if it stays that way.

Hunting for Dracula

We meet up with Mina and Jonathan after their stay in Budapest as he recovered from his brain fever. Since his ordeal, he’s extremely fragile and unsure of himself. During the stay, they got married. Jonathan gave Mina the journal he wrote while in Castle Dracula (the very text we read during that part of the book.) He’s haunted by terrors that Mina (the writer we see through) can’t grasp. She promises to only read the text if the time requires it. They both hope that day never comes.

One day while on a walk, Jonathan freezes in place and stares at a tall man, clad all in black, with a black mustache. It’s the Count and he’s lost his elderly appearance. His reaction was so strong that Mina decides it’s best that she read the journal. She’s horrified. Whether it be true or his delusions, Jonathan suffered greatly.

Van Helsing reaches out to Mina to ask some questions about Lucy’s early-stages of illness. He knows it’s a vampire but has no idea who. It just so happens that Mina would love to help, has Jonathan to worry about, and that all of the events are connected. 

This is about as close to a complaint as I can get in this book. There are a few things that seem almost too convenient to be true. Of course, the finance of the man Dracula imprisoned just-so-happens to be the best friend of the woman Dracula just killed. But, the setup allows for the “coincidence” to not feel out of place. It’s a bit iffy but overall works. 

Mina accepts what’s happening with grace and ease. It’s almost not a struggle for her as it was an ordeal to get the men to accept the truth. 

Though Jonathan has been fragile and weak, learning that the events actually happened strengthen him to being his old self again. He hadn’t even known if it was real or some nightmarish hallucination. His resolve and strength of will is noted by everyone else in the party. 

Now we have our group of six. Van Helsing as the de facto leader since he’s the oldest and the only one who knows anything about vampires. The three men who loved Lucy above all else, Dr. Seward, Lord Godalming, and Quincy Morris. Mina, the childhood best friend of Lucy and lover of Jonathan, who himself was held a prisoner by Dracula for over a month. 

The band of vampire hunters is assembled. Now it’s time to slay this monster. This happens right around the half-way point of the book. The first half was introducing Dracula and following Lucy’s slow murder. The second has our group knowing what’s going on. It started out as a pseudo mystery, at least for the characters. And now it’s a hunt to the death.

Through all the journal entries and notes sent by the characters, they gather a timeline of events. I love how they utilize the text of the novel as research material. It’s an interesting meta thing going on and we don’t see that enough in modern literature, as I’ve already mentioned. Both Dracula and Frankenstein are written this way. I think Bram Stoker utilized it in a more creative way. Mina reads through all of what they have and constructs everything we’ve seen. Now the hunting party knows everything we do.

Through Jonathan’s letters, it turns out the Count’s new estate is right next to Dr. Seward’s insane asylum. The very place the party has been meeting. It’s a little too convenient (more-so even than Mina and Lucy’s relationship) but it plays out well for the story telling. And the Asylum is in an old, abandoned part of town. Dracula wants a place that’s somewhat remote and very old. It makes sense in its own way.

The crew leave Mina in the asylum, because that’s where she’s been staying since Dr. Seward lives on the premises and has a whole floor of the building to himself.

In Dracula’s new manor, they find thick layers of dust, many rats, and only a handful of the 50 coffins Dracula brought with him on his journey to London. 

There’s one small problem, Renfield is in the asylum. Dracula has already been speaking to Renfield. Mina is in the same building and Dracula opts to leave the intruders alone as they search his home. Instead of interfering, he goes after the one who’s alone and gets Renfield to give him permission to enter the building.

I’m surprised neither Mina herself nor Johnathan realize what’s happening to her for so long. They’ve read what happened to Lucy. They know they’re hunting the fiend who’s home is just across the wall. Mina’s pale, tired and sickly. Why not immediately assume the Count? All they’d have to do is check her neck for the two punctures. If she was clean, it’s something else. I’d be paranoid as hell that he’d be coming after me once I started this fight. He’s a supernatural being. He’s probably watching you from your window. But it takes them several days to realize. In fact, they find out too late.

One night, Renfield ends up disfigured. Through a surprisingly lucid conversation as he dies, Renfield explains that he let Dracula in and that he’s inside the building now. Van Helsing and the others rush up to Mina’s room to find the count holding Mina to his chest, forcing her to drink his blood. Jonathan is unconscious thanks to the influence of Dracula. Vampires have the ability to make people sleepy and do things in their sleep, as we saw with Lucy.

The men fight off the fiend but it is too late for Mina. She’s infected by the same evil corruption that ended Lucy. Now there is a ticking clock. Sooner or later, she too will become an un-dead nightwalker who thirsts for the blood of the living.

While Mina rests in her fatigue, the men go off to track down the other places where the Count has stored his coffins. He can only rest inside a place which has once holy ground inside it. The manor next to the asylum had a decrepit steeple in the back to meet that very purpose.

They track down a house on Piccadilly and break in. The hunters find piles of papers, indicating other properties Dracula has purchased throughout the city. They encounter the Count there and they nearly kill him. But he escapes through a window and taunts them. This happened in broad daylight. That’s right, Dracula can walk around in the day.

One thing that’s different about the vampires is how the sun affects them. Rather than burning away into ash like so many vampires do today, Dracula is weakened in a different way. He’s bound to the form he takes before the sunrise. At night, he can become mist and slip through small cracks. He can transform into a bat and fly away. He is not bound by physical laws and he can control his surroundings. He can hypnotize people and control animals. During the daylight hours, if he chose his human form, he would have to stay in that form until sundown. If he chooses his bat, the same thing. I find it interesting that I haven’t seen any other vampire fiction utilize that particular weakness. Most vampires can’t turn into mist at all and are permanently in a human or bat form already. I wonder where the burning in sunlight came from because it doesn’t originate in Dracula.

Funny enough I read this part, playing out on October third, on that very day. I saw the Count attack Mina, saw the hunters track Dracula to the house on Piccadilly and almost get him, and then lose the trail. I read all of it on the “anniversary” of those events.

Returning to Transylvania

Dracula has fled England with the single remaining coffin at his disposal. The hunters are more determined than ever to track him down and put an end to this walking demon.

I teared up as Mina had Jonathan read her the last rights. The whole group was present as she accepted whatever may come. She is ready to die if she must and she makes each of the men promise to kill her if the time comes when she is a danger to them or anyone else. 

The fortitude of this woman. The sheer willpower. I haven’t mentioned it until now but all of the men have massive respect for her. Van Helsing in particular is very fond. She has “man brain in woman’s body,” as he says on several occasions. Though it’s not something we’d ever say today, that was a serious compliment back when this was written. She’s extremely intelligent and has been the one keeping track of the paperwork. Without her, the entire fiasco would probably have never worked. 

Yes, Mina becomes the damsel who must be rescued. But she’s also the toughest out of them all. She’s been damned with an eternity of slavery to Count Dracula. Rather than shutting down and crying in a heap on the floor, she woman’s up, says to kill her if she turns, and joins the men on the hunt for the bastard who did it.

With an unknown amount of time left before Mina turns, the hunters track Dracula to Transylvania. Van Helsing and Mina go ahead to the Castle where he stakes Dracula’s three wives and performs a sacred ritual, rendering the castle uninhabitable for the evil Dracula.

The other four hunt down the Count. Two on a boat, following the Count’s trail. And two on horseback to head them off.

It all comes to a final crescendo. Mina is all but transformed. The sun is almost setting, allowing the Count to use all of his supernatural abilities. And Seward, Jonathan, Lord Godalming, and Morris all ride horses into a pincer attack on the gypsy caravan bringing Dracula’s coffin to his castle. 

Jonathan and Morris sprint to the coffin in the last seconds before sunset, fighting through the armed caravan. They pry the lid off the coffin, slit Dracula’s throat and plunge a knife in his heart right as the last rays of sunlight shine. The count shudders and crumbles into dust. 

In the fight against the gypsies, the American, Quincey Morris, is stabbed in the side and ends up bleeding to death. His final words are in happiness that Mina is safe and purified from the evil curse.

The epilogue takes place seven years later, written by Jonathan. His and Mina’s son is named Quincey in honor of their fallen comrade. This was the second time I teared up. The surviving hunters are still all close. Jonathan and Mina still struggle to accept that what happened was real.

Final Thoughts

So that’s it, Dracula. The most famous vampire novel of all time. To be honest, I loved it. I’m almost sad that I loved it as much as I did because I didn’t find anything to make fun of. Yes, Lucy’s and Mina’s relationship was a bit convenient. Yes, having one of Dracula’s homes right next to the base of operations was even more-so. But those two things are my biggest problems and they aren’t bad enough to ruin the book. They don’t even ruin themselves. Sometimes conveniences aren’t a bad thing. Coincidences happen in real life all the time. Utilizing them in stories (to a degree, of course, too much is always bad) can work.

I’ve read older stuff. I’ve taken English classes and read classics. Few stand out in my mind as good. Few stand the test of time in my eyes where I understand why people are still talking about it. Dracula is one that cuts through the test of time like a sword. I see why it’s affected vampire literature as much as it has. 

It created a genre of horror just as much as H.P. Lovecraft created cosmic horror. I’m almost 22 and have read Dracula for the first time. I expect to do it many times. I did not expect to like it as much as I did. I’m happy that I made the decision to read it for this Halloween Horror Extravaganza. It was the basis for so much of modern horror. 

I love vampires and this book is where our modern vision of them came from. 

There isn’t much more I can say. I could do this like my Sleepy Hollow review and give you a play-by-play and take up 100 pages of my text document, but that would be a waste of time. In all honesty, your time would be better spent just reading the book. It’s fantastic and I recommend it to all horror fans and fans of a good story. 

Bram Stoker achieved something few authors have the honor of completing, a work that stands the test of time. Here I am, 123 years after Dracula’s publication, talking about it. And not in some English class to a bunch of literature nerds. But to a public who knows of the book. I can look at this story and say with all honesty that vampire fiction would not be what it is today without this masterpiece of 19th century horror.

Even if you’ve never read Dracula, you’ve heard of the character and probably have seen him in a movie or ten. Even if you know nothing of the life of Bram Stoker, you’ve probably heard his name and that he wrote Dracula. 

That is the writer’s ultimate achievement. As an aspiring author, I hope to one day create a work that withstands the test of time as works like Dracula have. To have my name or the name of my work be spoken of in popular culture 100 years from now. To have adaptations still happening, even if they stray far and wide from the source material. I have no delusions of that passing but that is the ultimate hope. I can’t speak for all writers but that is, in my mind, the ultimate achievement. Not to hit the New York Times best seller list (although that would certainly be a humbling experience). Not to win a Hugo award (though such an honor would be remembered for a lifetime). No, the truest and highest achievement an author can attain is to be remembered for centuries. That is the pinnacle of a work of fiction. Bram Stoker achieved that with his masterwork of Dracula.