Count Dracula 3D is an upcoming American-British gothic romance horror film based on the Bram Stoker novel Dracula, although it also borrows from other film versions. The film stars Javier Bardem as the titular vampire, with Hugh Dancy as Johnathan Harker, Eva Green as Mina Seward and Max Von Sydow as Abraham Van Helsing among others. It is part of the Universal 3D Relaunch.
Plot
In 1462, the Order of the Dragon meet to discuss Vlad Tepes, one of their own, who has become a disgrace to the organization. They concoct a plan to kill him, and coerce his love interest Elisabeta into helping them, kidnapping her sister and theatening to kill her if she doesn't. Unknown to Elisabeta, they kill her sister anyway and plan to kill Elisabeta so as to keep the conspiracy quiet.
The Order has Elisabeta fake her death in an apparent suicide, driving Vlad into a rage. He desecrates his chapel and renounces God, swearing that when he dies he will rise again. He is then stabbed by the conspirators, but before he dies, Vlad plunges his sword into a cross and blood comes gushing out. Vlad drinks some of it, then succumbs to his wound and dies.
Vlad is placed in a sealed coffin, which is locked away in a secret room beneath his castle. While Elisabeta pays her final respects, the Order seals the room, trapping her inside and leaving her to die in captivity. Vlad unexpectedly awakes, now an immortal vampire, and he kills Elisabeta by draining her of her blood. When he sees what he has done, Vlad is horrified, and this slowly eats away at him, eventually turning him completely evil.
In 1897, solicitor Johnathan Harker travels to Transylvania to meet with Vlad, now going by the name Dracula, over a real estate matter. Dracula wishes to lease Carfax Abbey in England, and Johnathan oversees the paperwork. After they are done, Dracula sends his undead brides to attack Johnathan; they rape him, but he escapes before they can kill him. Johnathan returns to England, at first surpressing the memory, but suffers a mental breakdown. He is brought to Dr Jack Seward's sanitarium, where he is looked after by Seward's daughter Mina. Over the course of his stay, Johnathan and Mina fall in love. He also meets Milo Renfield, a fellow patient who is competely insane and eats insects. Renfield claims to have had previous encounter with the legendary Count.
The day Johnathan is released, Mina's friend Lucy Westenra is proposed to by Lord Arthur Holmwood. Quincey Morris, an American, had also been planning to propose and is left hurt, but he falsely toasts their nuptials. Jonathan, Mina, Lucy, Arthur and Quincey decide to go the theater in celebration.
Meanwhile, a Russian ship called the Demeter is found seemingly abandoned in the harbour. Upon closer inspection, the body of the captain, tied to the wheel, is discovered, and it appears that the rest of the crew were murdered. Unknown to the police securing the ship, the ship was used to transport Dracula to England, and he slinks away into the crowd. He encounters a prostitute, who he kills in a back alley. He then slips into the theater.
Inside, Dracula meets the celebratory party and recognizes Johnathan, but he is only vaguely familiar with Dracula and is unable to place where he met him. Dracula uses this to his advantage and tricks Johnathan into introducing him to the rest of the group. Dracula is taken aback when he meets Mina, who resembles Elisabeta. After they leave the theater, the group invite Dracula back to Arthur's residence, and he accepts. There, he meets Dr Seward, who has arrived to congratulate the happy couple. Lucy is fascinated by the Count, making both Arthur and Quincey somewhat jealous.
That night, Lucy is trying to read in her bed when a bat flits by her open window. She goes over and closes it, then gets back into her bed. Suddenly, Dracula appears outside the window; she opens it and lets him in. Dracula seduces her and they have sex in her bed, after which he bites her. The following morning, Arthur and Mina arrive and find Lucy struggling for air. They watch helplessly as she dies, leaving Arthur heartbroken.
The night after Lucy's funeral, Quincey sneaks into the cemetery and tearfully confesses to her grave that he loved her. He then encounters a mysterious man sneaking around. The man has been previously seen watching the group at the theater, and then at the funeral. Quincey confronts him and he identifies himself as Abraham Van Helsing, a doctor who thinks that Count Dracula is actually a vampire, and he killed Lucy. Quincey brings Van Helsing to Arthur and they discuss the idea, but Arthur thinks it preposterous.
Meanwhile, Dracula begins to stalk Mina and spending a lot of time with her. Johnathan has to leave England to go on another business trip, allowing Dracula to move in. One night, he enters Mina's room the same way he died Lucy's and seduces her. Afterward he bites but does not kill her.
Van Helsing visits the sanitarium and questions Renfield, eventually asking him if Dracula is a vampire. Renfield freaks out and begs Seward to remove Van Helsing as he may entice the Count to come after him. Van Helsing's fears have already been confirmed however, and he is now certain that Dracula is a vampire.
There are reports of children being approached by a ghostly woman dressed in a blood stained white dress. Their description of said dress is identical to the one Lucy was buried in. When children start disappearing, Van Helsing fears that Lucy has risen from the grave as a vampire. He again confronts Arthur and Quincey, and finally forces Arthur to accept the truth. He informs them that Lucy must be put to rest for good, and feels it only right that the men who loved her should be the ones to do it, revealing to Arthur Quincey's true feelings for Lucy.
The duo head out to the cemetery in the early hours of the morning, where they dig Lucy up with instructions from Van Helsing to drive a stake through her heart. After the open the coffin, they find her body fully preserved. She suddenly opens her eyes and rises from the grave. Although Arthur is holding the stake, he is unable to bring him to kill Lucy and she savagely attacks him, eventually impaling him with the stake. She turns to Quincey, telling her that she heard everything he said. She tries to trick him into coming willingly with her, but Quincey tells that the woman he loved is dead. Lucy then mocks him, but before she can attack him, the sun begins to rise, so she must return to her coffin. Quincey uses a torch to set the coffin alight, bidding Lucy a tearful farewell as she burns to death.
When Johnathan returns to England, he finds Mina very distant, more interested in Dracula. He meets Van Helsing, who decides to set a trap for Dracula. Johnathan agrees to help and the two men trick Dracula into looking into a mirror, where he casts no reflection, a classic vampire trope. Dracula flies into a rage and smashes the mirror, but then apologizes for his behaviour and leaves. Later that night, Van Helsing is attacked by Mina, but he fights her off. Meanwhile, Dracula visits Renfield in the sanitarium, where in spite of his pleas of mercy, he kills him and makes it look like he hanged himself. When Van Helsing finds out, he knows it is Dracula's work. Dracula returns to Carfax Abbey, where he finds Mina waiting for him. He shows her that he has recreated the hidden room where he was originally imprisoned, and they make love in it.
Van Hesling gathers Johnathan, Quincey and Seward and tells them that they must destroy Dracula. The group then find that Mina is missing and Van Helsing theorizes that Mina is the reincarnation of Elisabeta. The men arm themselves and set off for Carfax Abbey. They are descened upon by Dracula's brides, who rip Seward apart and bite Quincey. Van Helsing kills two of the brides, and Quincey kills the last one by stabbing through himself with the stake. Quincey then dies with Van Helsing and Johnathan by his side.
The surviving duo descend into the basement and find the secret room, where they uncover Dracula's coffin. They open in and Johnathan is horrified to find Mina sleeping within. Van Helsing hands him a stake with which to finish her, but Johnathan refuses. Dracula sneaks up on them and attacks Van Helsing, while Mina rises up and comes after Johnathan. Van Helsing pulls out a cross, burning it into Dracula's face, but Dracula fatally wounds him with it. He tosses the stake to Johnathan and tells him to kill Mina, but he still won't do it.
Instead, he gives an impassioned speech about how deeply he loves her. At first, he appears to have failed, enticing Dracula to laugh and mock him and then order Mina to kill him. Mina grabs the stake from him, but then spins around and plunges it into Dracula's chest, pinning him to an overturned table. Johnathan rips a curtain down from a window, and sunlight floods into the room. Dracula screams in pain and horror, then bursts into flames. Johnathan embraces Mina, who has been released from Dracula's grip, and they then comfort Van Helsing in his final moments. They then walk out of Carfax Abbey, watching the sun come up. Johnathan proposes to Mina, and she happily accepts. As they kiss, a lone bat flits up out of the building and flies away.
Cast
Javier Bardem - Count Dracula
Hugh Dancy - Johnathan Harker
Eva Green - Mina Seward
Max Von Sydow - Abraham Van Helsing
Martin Freeman - Quincey Morris
Jude Law - Arthur Holmwood
Alfred Molina - Jack Seward
Carey Mulligan - Lucy Westenra
Tom Hiddleston - Renfield
Genesis Rodriguez, Olivia Wilde and Scarlett Johansson - Brides of Dracula
Main Differences from the Novel
There are a number of differences between the film and the novel on which it is based. These include:
- There is a new intro which shows how Dracula came to be. This film confirms him to be Vlad Tepes, the historical character on which Dracula himself was based. This idea is borrowed from the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola film, but a different origin is used.
- Mina Seward was called Mina Murray in the novel and was of no relation to Jack Seward. This is taken from the 1931 version starring Bela Lugosi.
- Throughout the novel, Mina and Johnathan are engaged to be married. They are merely in love in the film, and he only proposes at the end of the film.
- In the novel, Johnathan is held captive by Dracula, who eventually bites him. Once their business meeting is complete in the film, he sends his brides to kill Johnathan.
- In the novel, Renfield is referred to as R.M. Renfield. His name is only given as Milo in the 1979 John Badham directed Dracula.
- In the novel, three of the main characters pine for Lucy; Seward, Arthur and Quincey. They all propose, and she accepts Arthur, but the men all remain good friends. In the film, Seward is not interested in Lucy, and Quincey doesn't get a chance to propose before Arthur does. Quincey is also jealous of Arthur and later Dracula, but doesn't let it show to those around him.
- The scene where Dracula murders the prostitute is absent from the novel. The scene is lifted from the 1931 film, but the girl he killed there wasn't a prostitute.
- Van Helsing arrives to examine Lucy's body in the novel. He appears in the film after hearing of Johnathan's breakdown, and only suspects Dracula of being a vampire.
- In both versions, Van Helsing instruct those who loved Lucy on how to kill her. however, those involved obviously change; Seward is absent in the film.
- Arthur Holmwood does not die in the novel.
- Lucy is killed when Seward, Arthur and Quincey stake her heart, cut her head off and fill it with garlic. In the film she retreats back into grave to hide from the sun, and Quincey torches her coffin. This is the same way Harker and Quincey killed Dracula in the 1970 film Count Dracula.
- Mina does not attack Van Helsing in the novel.
- When Dracula kills Renfield, he does not make the death look like suicide in the novel.
- Jack Seward does not die in the novel.
- Quincey Morris dies when he is slashed by gypsies loyal to Dracula in the novel. He is bitten by one of the brides in the film, and then saves himself from becoming one of the undead by running himself through with a stake.
- Abraham Van Helsing does not die in the novel.
- In the novel it is implied that Mina broke free of the Count's grip due to his demise. It is Johnathan's speech that frees her in the film.
- When Dracula dies in the novel, it is a result of the mortally wounded Quincey stabbing him in the heart with a bowie knife and Johnathan slashing his throat with kukri. In the film, Mina stakes him and Johnathan exposes him to sunlight, causing him to burst into flames.
- In the novel, there is an epilogue where it is told what became of the surviving characters. Johnathan and Mina have a son named after the five men who destroyed Dracula, though he is usually called Quincey Harker. This is omitted from the film, which ends on Johnathan proposing to Mina.