Halloween Special: Top Ten Portrayals of Dracula

Since the early days of man, there have been legends of beings that dwell within the shadows, of inhuman revenants that hunt in the night and ravenously feed upon the blood of the living. These beings are known as Nosferatu, vampires. The legend of the vampire has taken many forms over the centuries and still continues to this day. However, in 1897, an Irish author by the name of Bram Stoker made the most significant contribution to the vampire myth by creating a being that would not only be forever associated with the legend of the Nosferatu, but also be widely regarded as their lord and master. Then, Stoker gave his unholy creation a name: Dracula.

Loosely based upon 15th century Romanian prince, Vlad III The Impaler, Count Dracula is widely regarded as one of the most classic monsters in all of literature. As I’ve alluded to in the past, I absolutely love the character of Count Dracula. As of my writing this article, I am presently in the midst of reading Dracula by Bram Stoker, one of my favorite books, for the fifth time. However, the tale of Dracula has evolved beyond the pages of Stoker’s book and has been retold and reimagined in countless films, television shows and other forms of media. Today, we’re paying tribute to those who have portrayed the count in these adaptations. This is the Top Ten Portrayals of Dracula.

10. John Carradine: Billy the Kid vs. Dracula & Others

Don't be afraid, my child. From the moment I saw your picture, I wanted you, I chose you for my mate.

Carradine has actually played the count on many occasions, but the film I’m going to spotlight here is actually one of the more obscure ones. If you’ve never seen Billy the Kid vs. Dracula… well… don’t. It’s bad. I’m talking Birdemic bad. The film quality is garbage, the day-for-night shots make it impossible to see anything clearly, and the actor they got to play Billy the Kid plays the notorious outlaw more like Roy Rogers if he had the charisma of a wooden post. Really, the only thing about this movie that’s remotely memorable is Carradine himself. There’s this great intensity to Carradine’s performance as Dracula that makes him come across as genuinely creepy when he tries to seduce Billy’s would-be fiancée. The man gives the same sort of performance that he would if he were in a serious Dracula film. With his gaunt face and eyes that will flash in your nightmares, Carradine makes for a fine Dracula and certainly a better one than such a film deserves. It just goes to show you that even a terrible film can have a superb Dracula.

9. Mark Gatiss: Dracula (Big Finish)

True, I know nothing of Gods, but I can assure you there are Devils, for I, Count Dracula am their lord and master

If you’re unfamiliar with the audio production company Big Finish, then you are seriously missing out. The company is mostly known for doing full cast Doctor Who Audio Dramas, but they also expand to other genres every now and again. Recently, Big Finish released a superb audio drama adaptation of Dracula with Mark Gatiss in the title role. Mark Gatiss is primarily known as a writer for Doctor Who and Sherlock in addition to playing Sherlock’s brother, Mycroft Holmes. Needless to say, Gatiss brings that same gravitas to the role of Dracula, even if just with his voice. I’m aware that voice acting is a different sort of performance than that of a live-action role, but this list is intended to pay homage to all who have portrayed the count, not just the live action performers, and that includes our friend Mr. Gatiss. Every word that comes out of his mouth sends chills down your spine, just you imagine would be the case if you were to actually come face to face with the count himself. In short, Gatiss was the perfect choice for Big Finish to play their Dracula.

8. Christopher Lee: The Horror of Dracula & Others

I am Dracula. And I welcome you to my house. I must apologize for not being here to greet you personally, but I trust that you have found everything you needed?

From Saruman the White in Lord of the Rings to Count Dooku in Star Wars, the late great Christopher Lee played many a great villain throughout his historic film career and perhaps the greatest among them is the great Count Dracula. In any of his roles, Christopher Lee always has a commanding presence and nowhere is that more apparent than when he plays the Count. Every time he enters the scene, he immediately takes charge. Like Carradine, there’s this incredible intensity to Lee’s performance, which, when combined with Lee’s signature well-spoken baritone (which is no less fantastic even despite the fact that Lee actually has very few spoken lines in the film), makes for a damn near perfect Dracula. However, when this Dracula goes full-blown vampire on his enemies, it’s nothing short of terrifying. Just look at the image above. Take in Lee’s intense eyes that are as red as the blood dripping from his lips and tell me you’ll be able to sleep well tonight. Lee is celebrated as one of the all-time great Dracula’s and yet, there we still have seven more to go.

7. Dominic Purcell: Blade Trinity

There is no heaven. No God, no angels. The only thing in your future is nothingness.

Long before he was playing Heat Wave, the lovably insane Pyromaniac on DC’s The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow, Purcell actually did some work over on the Marvel side of the fence. As we’ve discussed in our X-Men ’92 reviews way back when, Dracula has actually been a mainstay of the Marvel Universe for a number of years, having gone toe-to-toe with the likes of Spider-Man, Deadpool, The X-Men and of course, Blade. Blade Trinity is often criticized by fans and I can certainly see why. I mean, hell, this is a film that has Ryan Reynolds fighting a vampiric Triple H and his mutated Pomeranian. However, personally, I enjoy the film for what it is and that is due largely in part to Purcell’s Dracula. In this version, we learn that Bram Stoker’s book was only a small part of a much larger and darker legend. The real Dracula (known as Drake in this version) dates back to ancient Mesopotamia where he began his millennia long legacy of blood and slaughter until vanishing from the world, disillusioned with what his people have become. In modern day, he is awakened by a cabal of vampires in order to enact their own sinister plans.

What I love about Purcell’s Dracula is that he is probably the most atypical Dracula on this list. He’s far removed from the aristocratic and well-dressed individual you’d see played by John Carradine or Christopher Lee. Instead, this Dracula is a proud warrior and behaves in a manner befitting of that. I particular like the respect he seems to have for Blade despite them being in opposition to one another. One of my favorite scenes in the entire film is where he walks into a Hot Topic-esque store that sells vampire merchandise and slaughters the clerks for insulting his culture. A proud warrior as well as an inhuman monster, Purcell may be a different type of Dracula, but he is nonetheless one of the best.

6. Peter Stormare: The Batman vs. Dracula

You have no concept of the harm of which I am capable... if only because I really hate to waste a life, when it can be spent in servitude to me.

The good thing about Dracula being in the public domain is that the story can be used by just about anyone. As such, both Marvel and DC are permitted to have their own interpretations of the character. And who better for DC to pit against Dracula than one who feels just as at home in the shadows of the night as the Count himself, Batman.

Peter Stormare has played many great roles over the years, one of my favorites being the unhinged psychiatrist, Dr. Allan Hill in the recent video game, Until Dawn. But in this made for TV special, he gives a superb performance as Dracula.

After his initial defeat at the hands of Dr. Abraham Van Hellsing, Dracula’s corpse was moved from Transylvania to Gotham where it was hoped he’d remain hidden. However, when the villainous Penguin accidentally stumbles upon the Count’s tomb when searching for hidden treasure, he inadvertently awakens the dark prince and sets him loose on the unsuspecting Gotham City. Before long, Gotham citizens begin to go missing, witnesses claiming to have seen only the shadow of a great bat, leading the city to believe Batman to be the culprit. In truth, Dracula has turned the captured citizens, including The Joker who manages to be even more terrifying than the Count himself, into his army of the undead.

Stormare’s voice work brings to life a seriously underrated incarnation of Dracula. What really makes this film work is the rivalry between Dracula and Batman, with the Count believing Batman a worthy successor to his dark legacy, but no longer needed now that he has returned. He constantly taunts his opponent, trying to make Bruce believe that the two are the same. In an enemy like the Count, perhaps even the Batman has met his match.

5. Christian Camargo: Penny Dreadful

Give me your flesh. Give me your blood. Be my bride. And then all light will end and the world will live in darkness. The very air will be pestilence to mankind. And then our brethren, the Night Creatures, will emerge and feed. Such is our power, such is our kingdom, such is my kiss.

If you haven’t seen or even heard of the television series, Penny Dreadful, then you are tragically missing out. I like to think of this show as the story the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie tried and failed to be. The show brings together some of the most memorable characters of gothic literature, including Dr. Frankenstein, The Wolf-Man, Dr. Jekyll and many others. In the show’s third and final season, I, as a fan, was wondering what they would do to top the previous two, both of which were phenomenal in their own right. At the end of the season three premier, a voice in the darkness was heard coveting the soul of the series' main character, Vanessa Ives, a powerful witch whose soul is a prize for many dark forces, including the devil himself. As the episode faded to black, the mysterious voice introduced itself as Dracula. As you can imagine, that revelation was followed by your humble host marking out like a sixteen-year-old girl who just happened upon Taylor Swift at their local Starbucks.

Fair warning by the way, if you’re presently watching or plan to watch Penny Dreadful, there will be some spoilers here.

Initially, Dracula appears as a young Zoologist named Alexander Sweet who takes a particular interest in Vanessa. Vanessa reciprocates his advances, but as time goes on, more and more of Dracula’s true nature is revealed as he finally seduces Vanessa to his side and uses her to blanket the world in darkness. The power of seduction is a common trope of Dracula, but I feel that it is in Camargo’s Count that that is used best. He is not some over-the-top and grandiose aristocrat in his advances but rather a down to earth and friendly sort. He seems like the kind of guy you would believe a person could genuinely fall for. He’s charming, he’s intelligent, he’s fun to talk to and he knows how to get in your head and become exactly the sort of man you wish him to be.

As great as Carmago is, I do want to give a special mention to Rory Kinnear who plays the Penny Dreadful equivalent of the Frankenstein monster. During a hypnotic fever dream, Dracula appears in Vanessa’s head in the form of Kinnear’s character, and his performance is nothing short of perfect. He never says his name throughout the episode, but as soon as he shows up, you instantly know who he is, and so terrifying is his very presence that even Lucifer himself cowers in fear upon his arrival.

Penny Dreadful is a phenomenal show and I highly recommend it to all of you, especially because of its most excellent Dracula.

4. Bela Lugosi: Dracula (1931) & Others

You are too late. My blood now flows through her veins. She will live through the centuries to come, as I have lived.

I would be insane not to include the legendary Bela Lugosi on this list. While there had been other film adaptations of Stoker’s novel prior the 1931 classic, it was Lugosi’s performance that put the story on the map. So iconic and intertwined were Lugosi and his most famous role that the chilling visage that you see above is often times the first image that leaps to mind whenever the word “Dracula” is uttered. And that is not without good reason as Lugosi was truly a fine choice to bring the count into the mainstream.

I recently re-watched the original 1931 Dracula in preparation for this article and was surprised at how well it holds up even after almost ninety years, and naturally, much of that is due to Lugosi. His intense stairs are enough to send shivers down your spine, but there’s so much more to this Dracula than that. I like the way this film builds the rivalry between the Count and Professor Van Hellsing, my favorite scene in the film being the one in which they taunt each other while seemingly at a stalemate in terms of being able to defeat one another. However, my favorite facet of Lugosi’s performance and one I did not notice the first time I watched the movie many years ago is how Bela plays the human aspect of Dracula. Yes, the count’s power is great and terrible, but it is not to be outdone by his wit and cunning. There’s a great sense that even if the Count were but a mere mortal, he would still be a serious and deadly threat. Lugosi is unquestionably the most iconic Dracula of all time and I’m sure there are many reading this who are accusing me of blasphemy for placing him at only number four. I respect that opinion, but this is still my list, and I believe there are still three greater Dracula’s to come.

3. Robert Carlyle: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Series

I was like you once, but your God showed me another path. That's why the power of your God cannot destroy me, because I am his chosen one.

I love the Castlevania series of video games. Not only do they contain some of the most fun and challenging platforming as well the most memorable boss battles, but they are also a love letter to gothic horror and its fans. As a member of the Belmont Clan, a family sworn to protect the world from the evil of Dracula, you must fight your way through Dracula’s nightmarish castle and slay the count. However, it won’t be easy as Dracula has all manner of monsters at his command, from classic horror monsters like Frankenstein and the Wolf-Man to creatures of Greek mythology like Medusa and Cerberus. Even the Grim Reaper himself is but Dracula’s humble servant.

In 2010, Konami released a new game in the series called Lords of Shadow, an alternate retelling of the events of the series that casts Count Dracula as the main character. In this version, Dracula is given a more sympathetic backstory and we learn that he was actually once a member of the Belmont clan, but was manipulated by Satan and the Necromancer Lord, Zobek, and ultimately corrupted until Gabriel Belmont became the very monster his family would one day swear to destroy.

For those of you who have been following my website since I was doing Once Upon a Time reviews, you’ll recognize Robert Carlyle as the man who plays the devious Rumplestiltskin. While Carlyle doesn’t exactly bring the same kind of over-the-top glee to the role of Dracula, he more than makes up for it by perfectly capturing both the human and monstrous sides of the Count as well as the internal conflict between the two. While his performance as Gabriel in the first game is nothing short of superb, I personally prefer Lords of Shadow 2, which depicts the count as a tired shadow of his former self that has mostly been forgotten by the world at large. As the story progresses, we see Dracula struggling to cling to his humanity as he quests for the thing he desires more than anything, his true death. Something I’ve always loved about the Castlevania series is how they try to make Dracula’s castle feel like an entity unto itself. The Lords of Shadow series takes this a step further by showing that the castle does indeed have a sort of consciousness that manifests itself as the inner Dracula, the force that tethers the Count to his immortality and his inhumanity.

The Dracula of Castlevania, regardless of which Continuity you’re discussing, is a great character and an evil that can never truly be vanquished. No matter how many times the Count meets his end at the hands of the Belmonts or one of the various other vampire hunters in the series, the evils of mankind always summon him back to the mortal realm, for what is a man, but a miserable pile of secrets.

2. Crispin Freeman: Hellsing & Hellsing: Ultimate

I get it, there's absolutely no reasoning with you people. Which means that I have to keep killing until there are none of you left. Didn't your masters learn anything from the last time I decimated them?"

Known as Alucard in the series, this incarnation of Dracula is one bad dude. Dressed in an outfit which I can only describe as “Vash the Stampede meets Carmen Sandiego” and wielding a pair of specially made large caliber handguns in addition to his own virtually limitless supernatural powers, there is virtually nothing that can truly hope to stand against this monster.

While the exact details are never elaborated upon, some time after his defeat during the events of Bram Stoker’s novel, Alucard became a servant of the Hellsing family and for centuries aided them in their crusade against vampires and other threats, both supernatural and otherwise. Years later, he is the primary weapon of the Hellsing organization, loyal to the current head of the family, Integra Hellsing.

Make no mistake, Alucard may be the protagonist of the series, but he is in no way, shape or form a “good guy.” In fact, I would be hard pressed to call anyone in this show a clear-cut good guy. There are only bad guys, worse guys and Nazis, lots of Nazis. Something I love about Alucard is how he taunts Integra for ordering him to horrible things in the name of the greater good, asking her if it felt good to give the order to kill. Oddly enough, Alucard seems to have a sort of admiration for humanity, to the point where, even though he lives to face an opponent that’s strong enough to finally bring his immortal life to an end, he will not accept it unless it is at the hands of a human.

Crispin Freeman’s voice work is perfect for a being like Alucard. He has the ability to switch from calm and chilling to manic excitement at the drop of a hat. I love how he gives Alucard so much enthusiasm at the prospect of combat and bloodshed as well as the emotion he puts into his condescending taunts of his weaker enemies.

Like with our number five spot, I again must give special mention to another who has played this role, that being Curtis Arnott of Team Four Star, better known to his fans as Takhata101, who plays Alucard in the internet parody series Hellsing Abridged. In that series, Takahata plays the character to great humorous effect as, by TFS’s own description, Archer with Godlike powers. So great is Takahata's performance, that I actually game dangerously close to giving him his own spot on the list.

However, regardless of weather you prefer Freeman’s dark and chilling tone or Takahata’s more comedic interpretation, you cannot deny that the character of Alucard is cemented in history as one of the greatest versions of Dracula ever conceived… but not the greatest. Remember, we still have one more to go.

1. Gary Oldman: Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Then, I give you life eternal. Everlasting love. The power of the storm. And the beasts of the earth. Walk with me to be my loving wife, forever.

I love this movie. I love everything about this movie. Not only would I consider it my favorite Dracula film or even favorite vampire film by a long shot, but I also count it among my favorite movies of all time, period. It is, in the humble opinion of this writer, a cinematic masterpiece. While it contains several great performances by heavy hitters such as Anthony Hopkins, Winona Ryder and Cary Elwes, the true heart of the film is Gary Oldman as Dracula.

From Sirious Black in the Harry Potter films to commissioner Gordon in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, Oldman has played no shortage of iconic characters over the course of his career, but in my opinion, this is his greatest performance to date. Regardless of whether he’s playing the withered old Dracula or the young and seductive Dracula, Oldman owns every second that he appears on screen.

While the film remains by and large a faithful adaptation to Stoker’s novel, Francis Ford Coppola did still manage to put his own spin on things in order to make the film feel unique, and again much of that has to do with Dracula. Oldman runs the full spectrum of emotions in this movie, from sympathetic flashes of his former humanity, to the monstrousness of true evil. At no point do you forget that the count is a monster, but there are some scenes shown that allow you to sympathize with him. There’s a brilliant scene in which he is about to turn Mina Harker, but hesitates because his love for her is genuine and part of him does not wish to sentence her to the same torment he has endured over the course of his immortal life.

However, I think my favorite aspect of the film is how the Count feels like constant presence in the film. Even if he himself is not in the scene, there’s always a feeling that his shadow is looming and his red eyes are always fixed upon our other characters, Mina Harker in particular.

Simply put, I feel that this is the perfect Dracula movie, and it stands to reason that the perfect Dracula movie would have the perfect Dracula. More than any other incarnation of the count on and off this list, Gary Oldman perfectly personifies all of the aspects of the character Bram Stoker created, both sympathetic and monstrous. And for that, I can do no less than award his Dracula the title of greatest of all time.

And thus, this list draws to a close. Thank you all for indulging this humble writers love of a classic gothic horror character. I’ve been planning this one for a while and a great deal of work went into it. But don’t worry, we still have a few days left in October, and there’s still one more Halloween article left to write. After all, no Halloween celebration is complete without a trip through… The Twilight Zone.