Dracula The Un-Dead [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

Being a fan of the original, I was very excited to hear of this book's release. It even Looked like the old gothic horror story, and to have been written by a Stoker! Wow, it seemed too good to be true; and as I soon found out...it is exactly that. The story, though well told, resembles not at all to it's predecessor. Instead of battling a vicious Dracula as the original portrayed, the sequel actually goes back and re-writes the details of the original. What do I mean by this? For one, in the original Dracula forced Mina, against her will, to drink his blood. This was done solely out of revenge, to get back at her and the rest of the hunters for trying to kill him. This account was replaced in the sequel with a story that told of Mina's affair with Dracula, and her undying love for him that still haunted her 25 years later. Really? This story seems like more of a sequel to Coppala's film: Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Not to mention that in a flashback sequence, the entire story of Dracula's death is retold in a completely different way than the way the original tells of it. The entire story pays no homage to the original classic, and flat out contradicts the account that the original tells. It makes me wonder if the two authors actually read the original at all. As far as I am concerned, this book has no place beside of Stoker's classic. I have never seen an author go back and re-write the details of the original story in order to provide a basis for the poor story of the sequel.

A few years ago, the spoof metal band Bad News recorded a cover of Bohemian Rhapsody. It was a sort of sub-Spinal Tap comedy effort and the point of the joke was to be deliberately awful, and it reached a gruesome crescendo with the guitar solo - so wincingly bad that connoisseurs instantly recognised it as the product of an exceptionally talented guitarist: no ordinary strummer could mangle something quite that badly. And, surprise, surprise, the Bad News recording was overseen by none other than Queen's Brian May.

The reason I mention it is because I can't think of any other sensible explanation for the publication of this grim little book - the Brian May in this case being not Bram, but his great grand-nephew - yes, quite - Dacre. Perhaps the Stoker literary genius is, like its creation, immortal, and lives on in the frame of his diluted bloodline. Unlikely, and it would only make sense if said great grand-nephew - apparently a onetime Canadian modern pentathlete, latterly of Aiken, South Carolina - were also possessed of an unholy, un-American sense of irony, and minded to dreadfully mock his more famous Irish ancestor the way Brian May mocked his own guitar solo.

As I say, unlikely.

Mr Stoker, junior, has co-opted (or more likely, been co-opted *by*) a self-described "well-known Dracula Historian" called Ian Holt. Despite his publisher's claims to the contrary, Mr Holt's renown seems largely to have escaped Google, unless he is the same Ian Holt who scripted Dr. Chopper, a 2005 straight-to-video release whose IMDB plot summary is: "Five young friends head out to the country for a weekend at the family cabin and run afoul of a group of motorcycle riding madwomen led by the sadistic, knife-wielding plastic surgeon Dr. Fielding."

Having read Dracula: The Undead, I have a sneaking suspicion it just might be the same Ian Holt.

Now if the sound of Dr. Chopper makes your heart sink, then look away now, for that is, at best, the level of wit and sophistication you will find in "Dracula: The Undead". This is a toweringly awful book: a veritable tour de force of witless, guileless, inanity - so bad that, perversely, it is entertaining in manner of an Ed Wood movie; I found myself boxing on, propelled by the simple disbelief that anyone gormless enough to write this mush had the commercial acumen, tenacity and perseverance to bring it to market. Somehow, I spent money on this thing, after all, even if it was only £4.

It's also outrageously cynical: I dare say Dacre Stoker was well rewarded for lending his family's name and imprimatur to this project, but in no other respect does this novel even faintly resemble the fictional universe, style, world-view, sophistication, or literary outlook of Bram Stoker's original. This book lacks even a smidgen of feel or sympathy for the original, or even the genre from which it comes, however hackneyed that may now be. I'm giving Dacre Stoker the benefit of the doubt that he didn't *really* contribute to this novel (Bram certainly didn't: the suggestion that Undead's storyline was somehow crafted out of notes left by Bram Stoker is disingenuous in the extreme), but even if he did, consider how interested you'd be in "MacBeth II" written by a distant descendent, now resident in Aiken, Carolina, of William Shakespeare.

As it happens, I had re-read Bram's Stoker's Dracula a fortnight ago, so it was fresh in my mind. While it's a little flabby in places, in the main Dracula is beautifully staged and elegantly written with some devastatingly good passages, and manages its horror through unease: being epistolatory, the novel unfolds through contemporaneous records of protagonists who didn't know what is going on: there is therefore a creeping, implied, dread. The horror, and submerged sexuality, is almost all implied, and mostly metaphorical. Scarcely a drop of blood is shed in Bram Stoker's novel.

Would that any of this were true of Dracula: The Undead. Fat chance. Lesbian sadomasochistic murder - I'm not kidding - commences on page 14, and after a hiatus of leaden plot exposition (and shameless revision) for the benefit of those who might have forgotten what happened in the original Dracula, this sequel settles into a lumpen, tepid bloodbath of gore, impalation, amputation, disembowelling, eye-put-outing, flesh-charring, and so on (quickly it becomes a blur) thereafter. I'm not being prudish or squeamish here - there are books which I've found so repellent I couldn't go on (Justine, for example), and this wasn't one of them - my objection is simply that this is poor literature: dull, monotonous, unimaginative, derivative and devoid of narrative interest or significant characterisation. It pales in comparison with the Gothic beauty and psychological horror of Stoker's original. While professing undying love and scholastic commitment, it is transparently clear that neither author has the remotest conception of what is so good about Bram Stoker's novel.

It's also clumsily written and miserably sub-edited. Arch-villain Countess Bathory appears to be able to move instantly between London and Paris (and between Highgate and Hampstead cemeteries, though I think that may just be poor sub-editing) and at one point is given a superhero-like power of flight, which she uses to instantly fly from Paris to London, whereupon she boards a horse-drawn carriage and heads, in a hurry, for Whitby in Yorkshire (being just as far from London (as the vampire flies) as Paris!) When she gets there the great vamp-on-vamp showdown (!) is conducted via - and how I wish I were making this up - a sword fight. Honestly. And best not talk about the "Darth Vader" moment. Yes, you read that right.

I could go on. You sense the authors very definitely had a screenplay in mind, with plenty of CGI, wire work and Underworld-style visuals - a big budget follow up to Dr. Chopper, perhaps. Heaven help us if that's the case - though you have to wonder whether it's not publisher's hype - or wishful thinking - to shift some copies of this horrid book.

In the mean time, I leave the final word - out of context, I grant you - to the authors themselves:

"If there were to be any truth to Stoker's novel it would have to be where no sunlight could ever reach".

You can stick this, in other words, where the sun don't shine.

Olly Buxton

Out of all classic literary characters, the one that inspires the most sequels, adaptations, reimaginings and general bastardizations is Count Dracula.

And while most of the sequels focusing on the legendary count are bad, "Dracula the Un-Dead" is in a class of putrid wretchedness all its own. You would think that the great-nephew of a classic author would try to produce a suitable sequel that reflected some of the original's glory, but Dacre Stoker -- with the help of screenwriter Ian Holt -- seems more interested in raining contempt and mockery down on the original "Dracula."

Twenty-five years after the events of "Dracula," Quincey Harker is an aspiring young actor who is taken under the wing of the Romanian actor Basarab (you get three guesses who this is, and the first two don't count). Unfortunately, around this time John Seward is brutally killed while trying to kill the depraved vampire Elizabeth Bathory -- and other people who once fought Dracula also start dying at the same time. And during all this, Jack the Ripper shows signs of reappearing, which Inspector Cotswold thinks may be connected to Van Helsing.

Upon learning of his mother's past -- how she slept with Dracula and is still obsessed with him -- Quincey vows to take revenge on the vampire for his attacks on the Harker family. But it turns out that all the remaining survivors of that group are... pathetically decrepit in their own particular ways. Bathory is planning to take her ultimate revenge on Dracula... or the people who tried to kill him. I'm not quite sure. Anyway, Quincey Harker may be the only thing that can save the world... and since he's a blithering idiot, God help the world.

If I had to say that "Dracula The Un-Dead" was a sequel to anything, it wouldn't be Bram Stoker's classic novel. There's pretty much not a trace of it in this novel. Instead, Dacre Stoker's sequel resembles the wretchedly bastardized Francis Ford Coppola movie -- Dracula's a good guy (thus rendering the whole original novel POINTLESS), he and Mina are soulmates, and there's lots of flashy sex'n'violence (down to Mina being raped by Bathory). It's pretty clear from reading this that Stoker detests the original novel.

Nor does the writing make up for the book's lack of respect -- there are a couple messy side-plots about Bram Stoker trying to get a "Dracula" play going, and Inspector Cotswold's hunt for Jack the Ripper. Either could have been easily cut, and it might have made the story less long-winded. While Stoker and Holt do manage a decent worksmanlike writing style, they linger too long on Bathory's sexual antics (including lesbian incest and S&M murder) and throw in some ham-handed "twists" that are visible miles away (two words: "Star Wars"). And the dialogue? It's a joke ("Didn't your mistress warn you? I'm Dracula's adulterous whore!").

Perhaps the worst sign of Stoker's disgust for his great-uncle's work is what he does to the band of beloved characters -- Seward is a pathetic morphine addict, Harker an embittered alcoholic who visits prostitutes, Holmwood is a selfish coward, Van Helsing a crazy old traitor, and Mina has become a demi-vampire nympho who lost her virginity to Dracula (don't ask me how) and is obsessed with her "dark prince." Quincey seems more like a whiny teenager (complete with "I'll show you!") than a grown man.

Stoker even spits on his great-uncle by portraying the original Stoker as a feeble desperate old coot, whose classic novel is "lies" and "a fanciful mockery of the truth." The "truth," of course, is supposedly what Stoker himself writes, and it seems entirely conjured for a big flashy blockbuster.

As for Dracula, he's basically reduced to a pallid supporting role in his own story, and given a goopy romantic "love" for Mina. In other words, he has none of the deliciously exalted evil and cruelty that makes him so alluring. Instead, Stoker lavishes attention on the lesbian sadist Bathory, who for some reason wants to kill Dracula because he's he's a "champion of God." Or maybe he dumped her. Her motivations really don't make much sense.

Most people write sequels to books that they love, but Dacre Stoker wrote "Dracula the Un-Dead" as a sequel to a book that he seems to hate. It's a long, boring literary rape of a beloved classic, and a pretty dull book besides.